[MD] Intellect's Symposium

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi Wavedave 
(I liked that, perhaps even Riskybiz Roger will reappear) 

18 Jan. u wrote :

> Let start over. Her is the first instance of "intellect" in ZaMM.

OK Its's morning and I will try with a fresh mind to ponder our 
differences.
 
> > Pg 19: John nods affirmatively and I continue.
> > "My own opinion is that the intellect of modern man isn¹t that
> > superior. IQs aren¹t that much different. Those Indians and medieval
> > men were just as intelligent as we are, but the context in which
> > they thought was completely different. Within that context of
> > thought, ghosts and spirits are quite as real as atoms, particles,
> > photons and quants are to a modern man. In that sense I believe in
> > ghosts. Modern man has his ghosts and spirits too, you know."
> > "What?" "Oh, the laws of physics and of logic<the number system<the
> > principle of algebraic substitution. These are ghosts. We just
> > believe in them so thoroughly they seem real. "They seem real to
> > me," John says. "I don¹t get it," says Chris.
 
> I think we both agree that RMP says "intellect" and "intelligence" are
> two different things. I  agree with that they are. Do you?

Sure I do, that's my very point! 

> You say "intelligence" is biological (a jump ahead based on Lila that
> I'll overlook). I agree.
 
> RMP indicates above that one of the characteristics makes "intellect"
> totally different from "intelligence" is that intellect has something
> to do with "context of thought". In the last post the exchange was
> this.

> > > How intellect differed between modern man and ancient man is their
> > > different "concept(s) of thought". Their "metaphysics" if you will.
> > > What they each though was "real". Ghosts of ancestors were "real"
> > > to Indians prior to European contact. Just like God is "real" to
> > > many people today. As the passionate flaming in the other threads
> > > and wars around the world demonstrate.

> > Yes, yes, we agree, this is MOQ's meta-view of the levels' internal
> > views, but there is no disembodied "intellect" attached to each
> > level.

> No,no,no this is RMP talking 19 pages into ZaMM. There is no MoQ, no
> levels, no meta-view no Lila even thought about. Why harp on this? Two
> reasons.

OK, I stand corrected, but in MOQ's back-light it is the Social -Intellect 
differences this "camp-fire" talk is about. And I like your "metaphysics 
if you will" remark, the levels can be seen as metaphysics and the leap 
to a new level a ditto metaphysical shift.  

> The oblivious, intellect-intellectual-intellectual level are related.
> If we don't agree on a common usage of the root word "intellect" there
> will be no agreement.

I'm not sure what you mean. I hold that intellect is the "objective-over-
subjective" ability, capability ...whatever, and that this power heralded 
the social-intellectual shift. The social level weren't subjective or 
superstitious, these terms are intellect's own pejorative terms for the 
past.  

> The second is evolution. Since it is mentioned once in ZaMM and RMP was
> interested in archeology and anthropology we must assume before and
> during writing ZaMM he had basic understanding of the theory. If you
> agree (as you did above) that Indians had intellects and they evolved
> isolated on the North & South American continents for at least 13,000
> years maybe 30,000 years.  When you say this: 

Where "above" do I agree "that Indians (Native American) had intellect 
in the sense "had entered the intellectual level"? But their intelligence 
surely as just as keen as ours. 

> > that intellect is a relatively recent phenomenon (its emergence
> > identical to the events described in ZAMM as SOM) namely the 4th.
> > level. For chrissake Dave in LILA Pirsig writes (something like
> > this) "..In Homer's time the social level had not yet been
> > transcended" I.e. the intellectual level had not manifested itself,
> > and "Homer's time" is the Aretê era and what transcended it was the
> > intellectual level

> You confuse and tie the intellect, "the power of knowing", with the
> emergence of the intellectual level. Though the intellectual level's
> emerging is dependent on the existence of intellect they emerged
> separately thousands of years apart.

Yes, I certainly do. What else should intellect be tied to except the 
intellectual level? It would be like saying there were biology before the 
biological level or societies before the social level. Admittedly Pirsig 
speaks about the upper level "in the parent level's service", but this 
budding intellect was NOT intellectual LEVEL pattern. However if this 
can reconcile us I accept it.       

> Yes this is the crux: If the power to know how to make a flint tool is
> not knowledge, and we draw the line where you propose there is no
> knowledge in the world until Ancient Greece. And all current cultures
> that cannot draw a direct philosophic line to the Greeks (China for
> one example) have no knowledge now. Except as the borrowed from
> somebody else. Surely you do not believe this silliness.

No I do definitely not lump knowledge of how to make flint tools 
together with scientific knowledge.In LILA the 4th. level is called 
"scientific knowledge"

    Therefore, to the question, 'What is the purpose of all this 
    intellectual knowledge?' the Metaphysics of Quality answers, 
    'The fundamental purpose of knowledge is to Dynamically 
    improve and preserve society.' Knowledge has grown away 
    from this historic purpose and become an end in itself just as 
    society has grown away from its original purpose of preserving 
    physical human beings and become an end in itself, 

See, scientific (objective) knowledge has grown into the intellectual 
LEVEL) like social co-operaton grew into the social LEVEL.  

> Which circles right back around to the meaning of intellect.
> Of all the words here  you fixated on "rational" overlooking "power"
> and "capacity". The individual human intellect is capable of many
> things but just because it has the ability to be rational it doesn't
> mean it always is. Even right here right now.
 
Yes, but again the knowledge of surviving - making fire for instance - 
has nothing to do with scientific knowledge of fire being combustible 
material reacting with oxygen ..etc.  That both employs thinking or 
intelligence goes without saying..

> Intellect is the individual human capacity or power to gather,
> understand, and reason probably first though speech (conversation),
> and then reading that allows them to select the better thoughts, ideas
> from worse. Over time they developed better and better ways to do
> this. ONE, BUT ONLY ONE, of those ways was/is subject/object
> reasoning.

The verb "to reason" is also ambiguous. It simply means to think and 
"making fire" surely includes lots of thinking, as does the study of 
"combustion physics",  but the latter is the OBJECTIVE attitude that 
shies wishful, magical  thinking. What you describe in intelligence  

> So you see from above that I am not and never have been pursuing
> intellect=intelligence. Neither is intellect=intellectual level. The
> intellect is the capacity that emerged deep in the social level and
> grew and prospered though group (social) interaction until many many
> years later the intellectual level finally emerged.

OK, then we agree. Intellect is out of society, that's an important MOQ 
tenet, but regardless it somehow was in opposition to its parent all the 
way and finally the skeptical, objective "prodigy" could not stand the 
suffocating social-emotional, bigotry  (it called) and took off for it's own 
pursuit of pure reason (Kant's "Reinen Vernunft".)    

Think on!

Bodvar 

.