[MD] Reading & Comprehension

[skutvik at online.no]

DMB, All:

Bo before
> My jaw hang slack from asking and pointed to "What does the term
> 'intellect' mean" issue. My dictionary says "the power of mind to
> distinguish between reason and emotion". That reason = objectivity
> while emotion = subjectivity  is plain, hence INTELLECT = (the value
> of distinguishing between)  S and O.

dmb says:
> The dictionary is using a common sense distinction between feelings
> and rationald thought 

That's the very point, "intellect" is the value of the distinction between 
Reason and Emotions. For tens of thousands of years humankinds 
"abode" was the social level where (in retrospect) emotions were the 
central value, you can (as Pirsig said) look for reason in the old books 
in the Bible or Homer's "Iliad" without finding "let's cool it and be 
rational ..." it's all rage and fury, love and hate.        

> but the difference between subjective emotions and rational objectivity
> is not the same thing as SOM. Both would be considered mental, after
> all. 

Subjective, emotional, irrational came to be with SOM, they were 
among the many disparaging terms for what Rationality is a liberation 
from. People of old did not know that they were subjective, emotional 
or irrational. The social level had not yet been transcended.  

> By contrast, SOM is the view that there are two kinds of reality, two
> kinds of substance. Objectivity is a way of thinking, but objects are
> the other kind of stuff. They're physical, not mental. 

"Two kinds of substance"? Nonsense! The S/O root sprouted dualisms 
mental/corporeal f.ex. "Objectivity" became a mental attitude while 
"objects" were the corporeal substance. You speak as if the 
subject/object schism existed before SOM, before intellect and 
independent of the MOQ.     

> See, SOM is a position about the structure of reality 

>From SOM's point of view everything is ABOUT something else.  

> but the difference between emotions and the skilled use of abstractions
> is not.

... is not what?  

> In terms of SOM, emotions and thoughts are BOTH subjective.

Yes, SOM is paradox-ridden and what the MOQ is out to set right by 
relegating it the role of its own static intellectual level. On one floor of 
SOM's enormous edifice the "subjective, emotional, just-in-our-minds" 
are pejorative terms that the objetivists (from Plato) uses about what 
constantly deceives us and what the social level (in our lingo) never 
managed to rise above. On another floor the subjectivists (stemming 
from the Sophists) uses the subjective as their premises, as said 
above: Everything is subjective theories ABOUT "the structure of 
reality". Hence my preliminary remark about definitions of intellect       

dmb says:
> I think it's fairly obvious that you're fundamentally confused as to
> the nature of SOM. Also, the Philosophy of Mind is some seriously
> complicated stuff and so it's really quite ridiculous to rely on a
> dictionary definition. I don't think Pirsig reverts back to SOM. You
> see it that way because you've re-defined SOM as something much, much
> bigger than it actually is. For you, SOM includes any distinction
> made, any dualism ever conceived. But actually, SOM is just one
> particular dualism.

This is just smoke-screen. I repeat: It does not matter or help that the 
true meaning of "intellect" is the capability of distinguishing what's 
objective from what's subjective. IT IS SOMETHING SUBJECTIVE. 
That is decided at the SOM's headquarters and even the alleged 
moqists says "Ay, ay Sir".  

Bodvar