[MD] The Greeks?

[skutvik at online.no]

Mary, All.

6 June you wrote:

Originally to Steve: 
> > > What's left that could expand the Intellectual Level to something
> > > greater than SOM?

Andre butts in:
> > Hi Mary, Steve. Rationality is of course part of the intellectual
> > level and Mr. Pirsig describes this as a traditional, conventional
> > rationality. ZMM is about Phaedrus' quest and his endeavour at
> > arguing for a 'root expansion' of rationality. I think that the
> > MOQ IS this 'root expansion' and since the MOQ is an intellectual
> > pattern of value this expansion is also part of the intellectual
> > level.

Bodvar butts into the butt: 
In ZAMM Rationality (SOM) was the only "static" fall-out and 
consequently P. argues that rationality must be expanded, but with the 
full-fledged MOQ and all its levels things changed fundamentally. Look 
to Mary's below.  

Mary Replies: 
> Each level germinates in the one below then takes off on purposes of
> its own.  It seeks to dominate the patterns valued by the level below.
> These things we know.  In chapter 29 or so of ZMM, Pirsig explains the
> birth of the Intellectual Level as the period when arête was demoted
> from an overarching sense of undefined DQ to a definable set of logical
> rules.  He said this was partly a good thing and partly not.  On one
> hand, had this not happened, the technological revolution later to come
> could not have been, but on the other he saw the deadly isolation and
> malaise the denial of DQ would cause mankind to suffer. I suppose for
> all things there is a price. 

Damn this is GOOD! Why could not Pirsig have begun LILA with such 
a review of ZAMM in the light of the MOQ and we could have saved 
ten plus years of bickering.  

> The only way DQ can be defined is by demoting it.  As the
> fundamental reality of the world, it can never be defined by the
> intellect, only experienced pre-intellectually.  The moment one is
> aware of DQ it ceases to be DQ and becomes SQ.  This, Pirsig sees as
> the fundamental transformation of reality.  DQ -> SQ.

Equally good, just an addition. ZAMM describes Rationality demoting 
Aretê, but the MOQ's static hierarchy begins with the inorganic level 
thus in hindsight the Aretê was social Aretê. Now, before the MOQ, - 
what we know as the social level - emotions seemed the antidote to 
rationality so no wonder Pirsig looked to the the pre- intellect era as a 
"paradise lost". See how the Muslims refuses to take on the intellectual 
values of the West and prefer the warm social emotional reality of 
religion  ... yet are tempted by its wealth.     

> Since DQ is prior to awareness it is easy to deny its existence. But
> if you do that, you have to account for Quality somehow.  Why do we
> instantly recognize that some things are better than others?  The
> answer was that the Quality doesn't have the thing, the thing has the
> Quality.  Once you've said that, the next step is to define what
> Quality is.  Create rules that everyone can agree on. The
> transformation of DQ into SQ is not a split.  It is not a wielding of
> the analytical knife, but a transformation.  

Agree, SQ is Quality too. Static waves in a Dynamic Ocean. 

> The use of the knife comes later.  

Right, the knife is intellect's S/O.

> In the instant you become aware of DQ it is transformed to SQ.  It is
> only SQ the mind can work with, having experiences and assigning
> meaning. It is here the analytical knife is wielded.  If you do not
> believe that all things, including yourself, originate with DQ, you are
> driven to the conclusion that there are only two things in the
> Universe.  You and not-you. You the 'subject' and everything else
> not-you, the 'object'.  You are the center of your own private
> Universe.  Without acknowledgement of DQ this conclusion is
> inescapable.   You become the measure of all things, bestowing the
> attributes of Quality and Value upon all you survey. There is great
> power but also great isolation.  

All this about awareness of Quality ...etc. is ZAMM's on how the super-
intellect Phaedrus argued to free Quality from intellect's clutches. 
Afterwards the MOQ-writing Pirsig ought to have seen the MOQ as an 
intellectual pattern "taking off on a purpose of its own" but chose to 
see it as some abstract idea of a "mindish" intellect. In a metaphysics 
that abolishes the mind/matter as an overarching reality this is poison, 
but "gefundenes fressen" for the .........(deleted)    

> Once you have chosen to wield the analytical knife by dividing SQ
> into subjects and objects your course is set and cannot be altered. 
> All else follows, from the questions you choose to ask to the
> choices you choose to make.  It is the guiding principle of your
> life - so fundamental to your awareness that you are unaware you are
> doing it. It is supremely seductive in the power you seem to
> possess, but profoundly isolating and ultimately dissatisfying,
> because you are not experiencing DQ, you are only bestowing your own
> lesser form of it. It is the malaise of the West about which Pirsig
> spoke.

Amen!!

Mr Broersen I presume. 
> > (This is a view rejected by Bodvar who refuses to acknowledge that
> > the MOQ is an intellectual pattern of value and to argue the
> > nonsense that the MOQ is out of SOM and his own warped
> > understanding then necessitates the MOQ 'emerging' from SOM and
> > heralding a new level).

[Mary Replies] 
> The MoQ is an intellectual idea.  Spawned in the mind of a man as
> steeped in SOM as any; but, as with all that is new, we must ask
> what it values and decide whether that agrees in value with the
> level from which it sprang.  

I would have preferred "...was an intellectual pattern" and dropped 
"mind of a man". It was the the super-intellectual, mind/matter-steeped 
yet fundamentally dissatisfied Phaedrus who found a way out of last 
and super-secure static prison. Many speaks about Intellect as the 
most dynamic, but as Mary so eminently describes it is the toughest 
jail.   

After much ZAMM quotes Andre concludes:
> > So I would suggest Mary that the MOQ is the expansion of the
> > Intellectual Level that is greater than SOM.

and Mary replies: 
> I would suggest that the MoQ is a new idea that would defeat SOM and
> take off on purposes of its own.

The "idea" term irks me a little bit because it invokes mind and it 
requires matter and SOM looms large. Now, our abode is the static 
realm but with the added knowledge of the Quality context and in our 
day-to-day life with intellect the most frequented plane we may speak 
about "in my mind" and "ideas" and "matter" to our hearts delight, but 
right now we are up in the high metaphysical region and MUST be 
extremely choosy. There IS a level-like relationship between Intellect 
and the MOQ because Intellect in its SOM capacity was what the 
MOQ had to overcome. However this post of Mary's was music to my 
ears. Thank you.

Bodvar