[MD] The Greeks?

[Mary]

Hi Bo,

> Mary, All.
> 
> 6 June you wrote:
> 
  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.  

[Bo replied] 
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.
>
[Mary Replies] 
I do not know and refuse to speculate, since to do so would be to cast
aspersion on a great thinker.  I would prefer to think he saw some flaw in
his formulation that I do not and was attempting to correct it.  I would
love to know what that flaw is so that I could understand the new
formulation too, but as you point out, after a decade of argument, his
apologists don't seem able to explain it either.   

... omitting a bunch here, Bo, as we generally agree.  Nothing I would add.

Then... 
> 
> [Mary Replies from before]
> > 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.
> 
[Mary Replies] 
The perfect metaphor, Bo, "the toughest jail".  I like that very much.

> 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.
>
[Mary Replies] 
Thank you, Bo.  I agree that the word 'idea' is academically sloppy.
Imprecise.  Yet that's exactly what we are talking about, isn't it?  In the
Static Universe, every pattern beyond the Biological is nothing if not
fundamentally an 'idea' - or more specifically a 'belief'.  Actions are
based on sets of 'patterns of belief' be they actions of nation building,
religious formulation, scientific inquiry, or philosophy.
 
Best,
Mary