[MD] Intellect's Symposium

[skutvik at online.no]

Greetings Mary!

24 Jan.  

> You said, "Pirsig's "symbol manipulation" definition of intellect is
> way off." I am so with you on that.  I would like to know what he was
> thinking when he said it.  He seems to fly in the face of his own book!

Without casting myself in some important role I was the one who 
started questioning the 4th. level as presented in LILA and the letter is 
Pirsigs reply to Paul Tuner. OK, this you know. The opening ...   

    The question you raise about the intellectual level has troubled 
    me too. When I answered Dan Glover in Lila's Child, I 
    remember being a little annoyed that anyone should ask what 
    the intellectual level is-as though he were asking me what I 
    mean by the word, "the." 

shows that Pirsig recognizes the confusion he has created - not by the 
term "intellect" in itself which indicates the correct objective-over-
subjective attitude, but his own misuse of it to mean something 
resembling MIND*) . i.e. the mental realm where ideas are created and 
reside according to SOM.    

*) Letting "mind" (=subject) lose inside the metaphysics whose 
purpose is to reject the mind/matter dichotomy (SOM) is disaster. 
While the mind/matter aggregate as MOQ's 4th. level means it is 
domesticated.  

>  Does this represent a change of mind for Mr. Pirsig, or a lack of
> understanding on our part? 

It's enigmatic. The first mystery is that it allegedly is the the post-
hospital Pirsig who wrote about the pre-hospital Phaedrus says that 
there's nothing left of him, nonetheless Pirsig is able to recall 
Phaedrus' ideas - for  instance his proto-moq where SOM is called 
"intellect". So you see Pirsig knew how Phaedrus defined intellect, 
then why - when writing LILA - did he change the intellectual level from 
SOM into something more resembling SOM's "mind"?  It's truly a 
change of mind!!!. 

More enigmas. In the letter he came within a hair's breadth of affirming 
the correct "Intellect=SOM" by saying 

    I think the same happens to the term, "intellectual," when one 
    extends it much before the Ancient Greeks.* If one extends the 
    term intellectual to include primitive cultures just because they 
    are thinking about things, why stop there? How about 
    chimpanzees? Don't they think? How about earthworms? Don't 
    they make conscious decisions? How about bacteria 
    responding  

"Ancient Greeks" means SOM in a MOQ context, ipso facto! At least 
the mind-as-thinking intellect is forcefully rejected here.  But trust 
Pirsig, instead of calling it a day he went on to a new definition    

    Intellectuality occurs when these customs as well as biological 
    and inorganic patterns are designated with a sign that stands 
    for them and these signs are manipulated independently of the 
    patterns they stand for. "Intellect" can then be defined very 
    loosely as the level of independently manipulable signs. 
    Grammar, logic and mathematics can be described as the 
    rules of this sign manipulation  

Where he coins a new noun - "intellectuality" - from the ordinary 
adjective "intellectual". Anyway this is plainly a definition of language 
and/or math. Sign that stands for ... etc are words which follow 
grammar and syntactic  rules. Or in algebra where signs and letter 
represents quantities and follow logical rules.   

> I think we'd have to know what he meant by the word "symbol".  Based on
> our knowledge of the levels, it can't possibly have to do with the
> everyday understanding of "symbols".  Far too elementary.  I would like
> to think he had something very specific in mind.  

I tell you what he had in mind, namely the most platitudinous SOMish  
notion that with the language names were given to everything - which 
is correct enough - but because language has existed  for tens upon 
tens of thousands of years it is not a viable definition of the intellectual 
level.      

> Rhetoric is defined in many ways.  Wikipedia tells us that,
> "rhetorical topics derive from Aristotle's belief that there are
> certain predictable ways in which humans (particularly
> non-specialists) draw conclusions from premises".  A fundamental
> theme of modern rhetorical studies emphasizes the nature of
> persuasive power.  Persuasion is used to generate conclusions, and
> conclusions are the seeds of internalized belief.  Could the "symbol
> manipulation" of scientists be seen as a way of persuading
> non-specialists to focus on the attainable "how" while discounting
> the "why"?

Aristotle's rhetoric may well be what you say, but Aristotle is SOM's 
founding father. Pirsig on the other hand is the founding father of the 
MOQ which makes SOM a subset of its its own (its intellectual level 
IMO) thus a new definition of (what the MOQ calls its 4th. level is 
needed. NOT how SOM sees itself, we know until exhaustion that 
SOM defines the term "intellect" as the power of mind.  

This in-out turn of the metaphysical sock is exceedingly difficult seen 
from SOM and ditto simple once at the MOQ. As said the term 
"intellect" is fine because it indicates the "objective-over-subjective" 
attitude, but our dictionaries are SOM-based and presupposes (as 
above) that this attitude is a result of "the power of mind" thus we don't 
escape mind. But it's an illusion, it's intellect-as-SOM that runs its 
program on our biological computer (intelligence) just like the social 
level ran its program before intellect and made social value look 
inevitable. 

I know I turn you all  nuts but if we think the SOM-MOQ transition is 
something done before breakfast, we are wrong, it's hard work.

>  The most important thing you will ever make is a realization.

This just says it, about time it is done ;-)

Bodvar