[MD] The Greeks?

[skutvik at online.no]

Mary, All.

On 12 June. wrote:

> When I am talking to anyone it has been demonstrated to me many times
> over the years that there is really only one legitimate goal to
> conversation - to achieve understanding.  It is always a mistake on my
> part to believe I understand the other person too soon.  Every time
> I've done so I'm sooner or later caught out as the fool.

Regarding, Matt he does not want to be understood, he will always 
return with some still subtler scheme. What his take of the MOQ is I 
have yet to know, when I pointed to his SOM essay leading to the SOL 
(intellect = SOM) he hotly denied that, and when he in the beginning of 
your exchange again affirmed it - and I pointed to it - he clammed up 
and then hinted to the "manipulation of symbols as a viable definition. 
At least I believe he did.  
 
> With that in mind, if you ask yourself why some people view the
> Intellectual Level as SOM while others just as clearly view it as
> thinking itself, a few reasons can spring to mind.  All of them had
> their origin in Pirsig's own writings.  That he chose to characterize
> the levels as analogous to the tree of biological evolution is a handy
> device, it works well, but unfortunately can lead to multiple
> interpretations.  I think the controversy over the Intellectual Level
> could as easily be waged over any other level too if you were to
> scratch your surface understanding of the person with whom you
> disagreed.  It's always a matter of asking the right questions. 

Agree about the controversy having its origin in Pirsig's writings, and 
also that all levels may be bones of contention, but it is af this intellect 
quandary colors the understanding of all levels. The social was once a 
hot topic and the intellect=thinking "camp" wanted it to be some 
senseless copying behavior, i.e. in their opinion humankind got imbued 
with mind with the intellectual level. Steve and a Dutchman - Wim 
Nusselder - the perpetrators here.    

> Pirsig didn't make this easy for us.  Why should he, when it was so
> hard for he himself?  To serve up a ready-made metaphysics on a
> platter would have sunk it like a stone in a deep lake.  For his
> metaphysics to thrive, he had few choices.  Without the credentials to
> bring academic legitimacy to bear, a learned dissertation would have
> found no audience, and not falling within the realm of religious
> revelation, he could hardly take the evangelical route.  What remained
> was story-telling.  The Chautauqua he tellingly laments the demise of
> in his first book.

This is the most profound and correct analysis I have encountered. 
The MOQ transcends intellect-as-SOM-as-academy so he could not 
present it on their premises without the bland version like the McWatt 
doctoral thesis kind (where intellect = ideas which is the thinking 
intellect in a different form). MOQ also transcends the Semitic type 
religion and he could not come down a Moses from the Mount.    

> For any story to be compelling, it must have drama and psychological
> tension, but how do you build suspense, drama, and tension into a
> metaphysics?  Read any other philosopher of the last few hundred years
> and you will see just how hard this is.  Who has not fallen asleep
> reading James, for instance?  And it's not just a matter of the
> literary style of eras past that stand in the way.  No other
> philosopher brings the anguish and torment, the self-doubt and
> bodice-ripping agony of their personal quest to the page in anything
> approaching the way Pirsig does.  

This goes for ZAMM, but with its success behind him LILA could have 
been more philosophically clear because here the full-blown MOQ is 
presented. Anyway when treating intellect in its relationship with other 
levels - the social primarily - no other aspect than the somish 
(objective-over-subjective, science and knowledge) was found (no 
wonder) and that book is strewn with this SOL interpretation. However, 
but  when he turns to intellect itself the awkward "intelligence or 
thinking" definition returns and spoils it all. 
 
> This in itself is educational, for in it we see the inner workings of
> his thought process.  He guides us on a journey down the path he took
> to arrive at his conclusions.  This too differs greatly from other
> philosophers, many of whom treat their thought processes as a trade
> secret.  For to admit doubt and pose to the reader the very questions
> they had to have posed to themselves at intermediate points is to
> reveal the very arguments that will one day be used against them.  

Right, the Paul Turner letter's ending "... this is no Papal Bull, perhaps 
just bull.." alternates between infuriating and humbling me. All in all 
Pirsig's insight is unique, it spells an in-out turn of the metaphysical 
sock and as no one can avoid metaphysics  it means a new reality.

> For Pirsig to say that the Intellectual Level is thinking itself when
> this seems to surely fly in the face of all he has said before must
> mean something, and I find it telling that he views his ideas as a
> beginning point of inquiry and not an end.

To say that I agree is too weak, but I've run out of adjectives. 


Bodvar