[MD] Food for Thought

[David M]

Hi DMB & Arlo

This is an interesting discussion. There are useful
suggestions here about the distinction but I suggest a danger
too. If we talk about an intellectual level that is abstract and
conceptual and symbolic are we not in danger of just seeing
SOM as the intellectual level (sure I've heard that somewhere
before, was it Bo?) Somehow we must also be able to see the 4th level
in the context of valued-experience, so in some sense as
not abstracted into SOM objectifications. At heart the question here
is how can MOQ re-write the story of the Enlightnement.
How do we keep our intellectual SQ patterns firmly rooted
in the context of our value based experience?

David M

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "david buchanan" <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Monday, December 18, 2006 10:41 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] Food for Thought


> Arlo, Case and all MOQers:
>
> Arlo was "thinking out loud":
> If we take the comment that the intellectual level involves "symbolic
> manipulations" what is left for the social? Human physical interactivity.
> Now this presents a new problem. We must include only interactivity that
> rests on non-communicative, non-semiotic foundations, perhaps instinctual,
> as interactivity that relies on some form of communicative behavior
> (organizing roles, for example) must by definition use symbolic
> manipulations, even if they are physical, gestural, etc. And since Pirsig
> excludes non-human life from the social level, I'd have to ask what
> distinguishes these non-communicative, instinctual human social patterns
> from, say, herd behavior?
>
> dmb says:
> Right, that is a problem. Case has been making a case that language is
> intellectual and I think that you have sketched out some of the reasons 
> why
> that formulation doesn't add up. I can see the logic, but I think that
> language originates in the third level. I guess the difference between
> social and intellectual lies in the level of skill and abstraction 
> employed
> in symbolic manipulation. In defining the intellectual level, didn't 
> Pirsig
> use the words "abstract" and "skilled" with respect to the manipulation of
> symbols? Anyway, I'm going to think out loud too and it looks like you've
> extracted the most relevant quotes for that purpose. I appreciate the
> effort...
>
> Arlo quoted da author:
> "Ancient Greeks such as Socrates and Pythagoras paved the way for the
> fundamental principle behind
> science: that truth stands independently of social opinion." ..."The
> intellectual level of patterns, in the historic process of freeing itself
> from its parent social level, namely the church, has tended to invent a 
> myth
> of independence from the social level for its own benefit. Science and
> reason, this myth goes, come only from the objective world, never from the
> social world. The world of objects imposes itself upon the mind with no
> social mediation whatsoever." ..."Our scientific description of nature is
> always culturally derived."
>
> dmb says:
> There is another quote that fits nicely into this batch. Pirsig says that
> Descartes was almost right. The corrected Cartesian tee-shirt wouldn't 
> just
> say, "I think, therefore I am." Instead it would say, "French culture
> exists, therefore I think, therefore I am." In all these cases, he is not
> only pointing out the difference between social and intellectual levels, 
> but
> the confusion and error that results from misunderstanding how these two
> layers are related to each other.
>
> Arlo typed out loud:
> Pirsig also says, "One can imagine primitive song-rituals and 
> dance-rituals
> associated with certain cosmology stories, myths, which generated the 
> first
> primitive religions. From these the first intellectual truths could have
> been derived. ... Their sequence in history suggests that principles 
> emerge
> from ritual, not the other way around." Here he seems to set the mythos as
> the social level and the logos as the intellectual level.
>
> dmb says:
> This passage is key for me. As I see it, this is a very brief sketch of 
> the
> detailed picture painted in Campbell's "Primitive Mythology", which is the
> first volume of four in the "Masks of God" series. Pirsig's recommendaton 
> of
> Campbell's series might even come from the same page as this passage. In 
> any
> case, please notice how songs, stories, myths and religions are depend on
> the existence of language and precede the first principles. This is the
> stuff that sets the stage for intellect's emergence. This stuff provides 
> the
> conceptual categories which make it possible for things like philosophy to
> then exist. As Pirsig says, the first principles were DERIVED from myth 
> and
> religion.
>
> Arlo cranked up the decibles on his keyboard:
> He makes this exact point when he says, "The logical order of things which
> the philosophers study is derived from the "mythos." The mythos is the
> social culture and the rhetoric which the culture must invent before
> philosophy becomes possible. Most of this old religious talk is nonsense, 
> of
> course, but nonsense or not, it is the parent of our modern scientific 
> talk.
> This "mythos over logos" thesis agreed with the Metaphysics of Quality's
> assertion that intellectual static patterns of quality are built up out of
> social static patterns of quality."
>
> dmb says:
> Before we get to your comments about this I'd just like to point out that
> this represents one of the spots where ZAMM differs from LILA. In the 
> first
> book, the distinction between mythos and logos is compared to the 
> difference
> between a bush and a tree. The latter is just a bigger, older version of 
> the
> former, a difference in size but not in kind. But in Lila, as we see in 
> the
> quote above, we have a child-parent metaphor. Now they are related instead
> of identical. Now we have the one seeking independence from the other in 
> an
> evolutionary struggle instead of the relatively steady maturation process 
> of
> a single being. Naturally, I think we gotta go with the newer book on that
> one.
>
> Arlo wondered out loud:
> But he moves away from this saying, "Elementary static distinctions 
> between
> such entities as "before" and "after" and between "like" and "unlike" grow
> into enormously complex patterns of knowledge that are transmitted from
> generation to generation as the mythos, the culture in which we live." 
> Here
> it is seems, as it is in ZMM, that the "mythos" as a "complex pattern of
> knowledge" suggests it is part of the intellectual level. Or, that the
> social and intellectual levels are both complex patterns of knowledge. 
> Which
> brings us back to what differentiates them?
>
> dmb says:
> Not that I want to add confusion, but the very idea of having a
> philosophical conversation about language or constucting an evolutionary
> narrative about myth makes my head spin like Linda Blair. Not that I want 
> to
> oversimply it either, but I gotta mention this principle of opposition 
> again
> here. Its not quite enough to answer your question here by saying that
> social and intellectual quality can both be counted as knowledge, but they
> are different kinds of knowledge. But if we add the idea that social level
> values are aimed at controlling biology and intellectual level values are
> aimed at controlling the social level, then the meaning is not quite so
> vague. Then we can see how it makes sense to say that the laws against 
> vice
> are social while the Bill of Rights is intellectual even though they are
> both "on the books" and part of the same culture.
>
> Arlo's loud thoughts made my ears bleed:
> Science? This would validate the supposition that "intellectual patterns"
> are those that strive for either deculturized or decontextualized
> descriptions of experience. But again, Pirsig argues against the idea that
> intellectual patterns can be deculturized (as do I), and decontextualized
> applies to the very nature of symbolic mediation.
>
> dmb says:
> I think I see what you're getting at here. The notion that intellect
> involves a higher level of abstraction and requires a more developed skill
> in symbolic manipulations. This doesn't just mean that we can add bigger
> numbers or add them faster, but rather some kind of leap in efficiency. I
> forget where it comes from, but I think its Pirsig who uses the image of a
> boat load of goods compared to a paper invoice that describes the contents
> of that boat load. Or maybe it was a boxcar on rails. Anyway, the idea is
> that abstraction can hold much, much more knowledge because it is in a
> condensed form, so to speak. Imagine a boat load of invoices, you know? 
> And
> then there is something about this capacity that allows for critical 
> thought
> because this increased cognitive capacity allows us to shift things around
> in the imagination, re-arrange the furniture, makes comparisons and
> generally play with the ideas. This is where Socratic inquiry comes in, 
> the
> ability to differ from public opinion, to doubt the existence of the gods,
> to questions the laws, to subject the myths, stories, and religions to
> intellectual scrutiny. In short, to express independence from the parent.
>
> Maybe it would help to think of the intellectual level as if it were a
> rebellious teenager or maybe a young adult who hasn't quite settled down
> yet. He says his parents are stupid and that he wants to be in charge of 
> his
> own life, but judging from the way he acts getting laid and paid is all he
> cares about.
>
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