[MD] Intellect's Symposium

[skutvik at online.no]

Hello Dave 

you wrote :

> You sly old fox. You realize I have been away from this for several years
> and am seriously rusty. Driving back from a nice barbeque ( High 60's
> today unusual even for here) with my daughter and suddenly it struck me.
> Back "in the good old days" when I first joined, knew next to nothing
> about philosophy, ZaMM/Lila, or debate strategies I used to watch you
> constantly frustrate all comers. (and still do) Then it dawned on me what
> I had picked up from watching but totally forgotten. You were always very
> careful about the points you chose to respond to and when answering always
> stayed focused on your message. 

Er ... thanks.

> RMP, a college writing teacher with a "master" degree in rhetoric uses
> three straight forward English language words: intelligence-intellect
> -intellectual and you deny that he is using them properly and/or maintain
> the definitions are either wrong or misguided. Bold moves.

I merely pointed to intelligence and intellect being two different 
expressions that indicate two different abilities, and when Pirsig 
speaks about the intellect of Medieval Man and his IQ in the same 
breath he did not use them properly. 

> You cannot be an intellectual prior to having an intellect.
> You cannot have an intellect prior to having intelligence.
> Having an intellect does not make you an intellectual.
> Some degree of intelligence is required all along the way.

I don't quite catch the connection here (except for the  last line which 
is spot on) intelligence have been around since deep down in the 
biological level. 

> Just like evolution proto-man/the shrew ,much as he may have like to,
> didn't get to skip over the dinosaur era they he had to keep burrowing
> for eons. But my suspicion that this is all a farce was finally was
> confirmed with this reply to Platt. 

The biological evolution a farce, or my "performance" on the MD? 

Bo to Platt
> > In ZAMM he saw Quality (DQ) as the origin of subjects and objects
> > (SOM the only static level at that stage). Then LILA, but here he
> > started with his Quality=Reality obsession as if managing to prove it
> > that would complete his mission. This made the DQ of MOQ something else
> > than QUALITY - an irrelevant static by-product - hence the Quality//MOQ
> > atrocity.

> Your position on the MoQ is you like nothing at all about it. Not DQ/SQ
> split or relationship,

Whoa! My liking of the DQ/SQ is enormous because it IS the MOQ! 
While the Quality/MOQ is a hoax.

> not the arrangement of SQ, 

The arrangement of the static range I have complete confidence in. In 
contrast to the level-obfuscators.

> not the relationship of SQ to subject and objects,

Nonsense, I claim - as Phaedrus of ZAMM did - that subject and 
objects (=SOM) is =  intellect.

> not the tie to radical empiricism, pragmatism, and the list goes on. 
> Of course that is solely your decision and it may be a good one. 

The moment I understand  the revolutionary quality of radical 
empiricism I'll decide.

> And you came to this decision what maybe 10 years ago I'd guess?

It really dawned on me when I read ZAMM the first time (1978)  I 
realized that this mysterious Pirsig had SOM (that I knew as the 
mind/matter dualism) by its throat, but I was so awe-struck that I 
accepted LILA for many years. Around 1998-9 I understood that this 
could not go on, the LILA author had let go of the  throat and grabbed 
SOMs tail by which the MOQ was relentlessly flung around. Hence 
the SOL return to the original MOQ

> In plain English, you could give a shit about the MoQ you're here for
> the debate. Have fun. You won again. 

I like to think I have been this long here for the reason that the MOQ 
(by the SOL interpretation) is unassailable and solves all SOM-
induced paradoxes. When it can't be "shot down" from MOQ's 
premises - except bringing up Pirsig uttering that looks like 
refutations, but merely is his violating the MOQ - we have all sorts of 
reactions from hurt silence, unsubscriptions, exasperation  ... and the 
last resort - psychoanalysis -  I'm an incurable debater. What's you 
fee? (smiley) 

Bodvar