[MD] MD FW: The intellectual level and rationality

[Paul Turner]

Bo,

>Now I understand. You have a super-SOM overriding all
>metaphysics, thus when I say that DQ is part of the MOQ this
>means to you that the MOQ merely is an idea inside this super-
>somish mind. No wonder we never seem to agree.

Paul:  "Super-somish mind?"  

I accept the definition of metaphysics as a branch of philosophy.  To try to
move this forward, what is the definition of metaphysics that you are using?

>> Pirsig spends most of ZMM and some of LILA (see above) arguing that
>> truth and objectivity are not the same thing.  The section on
>> Poincare in ZMM is an example that springs to mind.  If you don't
>> see that then I haven't the patience to carry on much longer with
>> this.
>
>Watch it Paul, Pirsig does in fact say that truth and objectivity are
>identical from SOM's premises - and goes on: "But if Quality is
>seen as the ultimate reality" which means if MOQ is seen as
>beyond intellect (by now the SO=intellect is plain) a different view
>opens up.

Paul:  Yes, and if you read on into the paragraph you started to quote you
will see that that the different view of intellectual truth is:

"But if Quality or excellence is seen as the ultimate reality then it
becomes possible for more than one set of truths to exist.  Then one doesn't
seek the absolute "Truth."  One seeks instead the highest quality
intellectual explanation of things..."

In the MOQ, truth = "the highest quality intellectual explanation."

>The "many truth" formulation is based on MOQ being all-
>intellectual pattern and is outright dangerous. The fourth level's
>subject/object value must not be tampered with, only limited in
>the capacity of being a static level. I hope that is possible?

Paul:  Gibberish.

>> Paul:  The same thing can be said about the "clash" between DNA and
>> carbon. As I said to Mati off-list a couple of months ago, when it
>> comes to the definition of any level I think there are several
>> aspects to it.  There is the 'mechanism' of the level e.g. DNA.
>> There is generic 'value' of the level e.g. life.  There is the
>> illustrative definition of the level e.g. organisms.
>
>You go to something else when my arguments are unassailable.

Paul:  Unassailable?  You've got to be kidding.  I "go to something else" to
provide a counter-argument to your often misguided objections, something
you've largely given up doing, preferring instead the cosy vacuity of
question-begging self-approbation and the fantasy of being the sole
recipient of hidden authorial intent.

In this case you once again tried to ridicule the idea that symbol
manipulation poses a threat to society so I tried to demonstrate that you've
picked the wrong aspect of the definition of the intellectual level with
respect to characterising the clash of values that occurs between it and the
social level.  Just as DNA makes new biological structures out of inorganic
chemicals, enabling a value of 'life' to flourish and oppose the inorganic
level, logical and mathematical symbol manipulation makes new intellectual
structures out of social language, enabling a value of 'truth' to flourish
and oppose the social level.

>> With respect to this I use the following definitions of the
>> intellectual level:
>
>> -- The mechanism of the intellectual level is the skilled
>> manipulation of abstract symbols within a set of rules of valid
>> inference and justification i.e. rationality.
>
>Your argumentation seem to change as new inputs arrive, even if
>followed by the qualification that they are no Papal Bull.

Paul:  With respect to my argumentation changing, that's what is supposed to
happen in an ongoing debate to progress somewhere, or at least I thought so.
See above.  

With respect to "new inputs," since the letter in 2003 there are none on
this issue.  The argument and its various formulations are entirely my
ongoing development.  
 
>>as -- The generic value of the intellectual level is truth.
>
>Yes, in the the "objective truth vs subjective opinion" sense.

Paul:  No, that is but one formulation of intellectual truth, albeit a major
one.  Pragmatism offers at least one major western mainstream alternative to
this, yet you wield your ignorance as if it were a virtue. 

>Pre-
>intellect people surely knew the difference between truth and lies,
>but when intellect emerged it took truth to mean own value. 

Paul:  Here we agree.

>> -- The illustrative definition of the intellectual level is such
>> things as philosophy, mathematics, theology, metaphysics, the
>> sciences.
>
>The patterns you mention are surely intellect's, also metaphysics
>in the Aristotelian sense, but not in the Quality sense.

Paul:  As above, define metaphysics.

>> Paul:  The evolutionary relationship you are looking for is between
>> intellect and DQ.
>
>It definitely is, but as Pirsig just has informed you there is only the
>DQ/SQ configuration so it follows that the struggle is between
>intellect and the MOQ. 

Paul:  It doesn't follow because the MOQ, being static, is not = DQ. 
 
>Paul:
>> Because you think the MOQ contains DQ you have a problem.  Pirsig
>> used this analogy not so long ago and I think it serves to highlight
>> our differences:
>
>As said, the DQ/SQ configuration is all of the MOQ.

Paul:  The MOQ is a static pattern so how can it contain DQ?

>Paul:
>> You think of the MOQ as the paper which contains within it the
>> static diagram, right?  I think of the MOQ as the static diagram
>> which "can't contain the paper it is written on" i.e. DQ.
>
>No, I don't think of paper, "representation" is an intellectual
>fixation, there is no end to it so I just see that DQ/SQ is the
>Quality Reality.

Paul:  DQ/SQ is the Quality reality but the MOQ and reality are not
equivalent.

>> Paul:  Nevertheless, you are criticizing Pirsig's formulation of the
>> MOQ and are suggesting a replacement.  There's nothing wrong with
>> that but you can't seem to admit it, preferring, instead, to claim
>> that you are simply saying what Pirsig really wanted to say.
>
>Yes I have criticized the intellectual level -  it follows that the
>standard way of "containing" SOM is equally faulty

Paul:  No it doesn't follow from your criticism.
  
A dictionary definition of 'matter':  

"Something that has mass and exists as a solid, liquid, gas, or plasma."

If a carbon compound, such as graphite, has mass and exists as a solid it
may be described as matter, in accordance with the definition above, without
contention,

and

If mind/matter exists inextricably and exclusively at the intellectual
level,

Then carbon compounds, being matter, exist inextricably and exclusively at
the intellectual level. 

So, without intellect there is no carbon.  Without carbon there is no DNA.
Without DNA there are no organisms.  Without organisms there is no society.
Without society there is no language.  Without language there is no
intellect.  Wait, do you see a problem here???

 , and it looks
>as I've been proven right, in the letter of 23 Sep. 2003 Pirsig
>admits that the initial take of the 4th level has created problems,
>but hedges it by saying that "any definition you give is more likely
>to  complicate ...etc." but goes on to add more confusion by the
>said "symbols manipulation".

Paul:  Bo, you know as well as I do that Pirsig has rejected your claims
time and time again and in the very letter which you claim proves you right.
Need I quote the rejection again?
 
>I could go on, about the (involuntarily or not) admission that the
>Greeks represent the intellectual level - which makes it SOM -

Paul:  There is no such admission.  That the Greeks started the intellectual
level in the west does not mean that it is forever SOM.  As I've argued
before, and as I've recently said in another post a couple of days ago, any
argument based on this 'fact' is fallacious until you can prove that SOM is
the ubiquitous and enabling structure - the 'DNA' - of the intellectual
level.  I offer Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika as a direct violation of
the putative ubiquity of SOM in intellectual patterns.  Which brings us
to...

>the Oriental issue ...etc, but enough for now.

Paul:  "The Oriental issue....etc" !! 

That's like a superluminal physicist concluding a discussion by saying "The
speed of light issue....etc, but enough for now." 

Regards

Paul