[MD] Re Proposed solution to SOL/Intellectual level

[Krimel]

Krimel:
Symbols are the most complex of the three kinds of sign relations. In
symbolic signs, the connection between signifier and signified is entirely
arbitrary. Symbolic signs are socially mediated and depend entirely on
culturally established rules and conventions. Language is indeed a symbolic
system. Speaking IS symbol manipulation. What possible justification could
there be for claiming otherwise?
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[Mary]
Yes, your explanation is correct.  If you Google "symbol manipulation" you
come up with pages and pages of discussion on how this can be implemented
in computer languages.  I had to dig pretty hard to come up with the 3
quotes I posted; but, I do not for a minute think Pirsig is saying that the
Intellectual Level is mere symbolic representation ala computers.  There's
more to it than that. 

[Krimel]
Computers do not manipulate symbols. We manipulate symbols using computers.

[Mary]
"Platt's Principles of the MOQ" (thanks, Platt!  A truly excellent summary!)
which Marsha posted for us all on Saturday (thanks, Marsha!), negates the
idea that the Intellectual Level is nothing more than basic symbol
manipulation.  It can't be since each level evolves from the level below it.
Basic symbol manipulation must have started in the Biological Level.  The
Social Level depends on it, after all.  

[Krimel]
I did not comment of Platt's Principles and don't plan to other than to say
Marsha did you no favor by replicating faulty intellectual patterns. The
intellectual level is not "symbol manipulation." It is patterns of symbol
manipulation. It includes the accumulation of patterns and the tools for
encoding and decoding them. 

As for the evolutionary trajectory of the intellectual level, we are
primates. We come from a long line of social animals. Our social behavior is
an evolutionary biological pattern for reproductive success. Symbol
manipulation is a social form of behavior. The intellectual level emerges
from the fact that for our species the social environment has existed and
played a critical role in our past for so long that we can talk about social
selection in the same way we talk about sexual selection in other species.

[Mary]
I am starting to wonder if Pirsig
meant something more along the lines of the Carl Rove example I found.
Especially after reading the next quote which Andre provided:

[Krimel]
I think you are confusing the purpose and content of the intellectual
patterns Rove uses with the level at which they reside. One can use
intellectual patterns to serve social functions but that does not make them
social patterns any more than the intellectual patterns of Newtonian
mechanics as inorganic patterns because they are about mass and motion.