[MD] Food for Thought

[Jos Laycock]

"But here again I am pulled right back to Bodvar's SOLAQI"

Good, so go with it then, whats the harm?

The only conflict between this and the rest of the MOQ seems to arise from 
people continually wanting to make "intellect" similar to conciousness, and 
the two are not the same.
If varying species of consciousness are agreed to exist at all levels then 
it makes perfect sense to just describe the one which is aware of a 
distiction between subjects and objects as intellect. (might as well call it 
something)
The one that is aware of a distinction between celebrities/gods and mortals 
we can call culture, and the one that is aware of a distinction between life 
and death we can call biology (animal).  The one that is aware of the 
distinction between attraction and repulsion gets the tag "inorganic" and 
another layer beneath is conscious of "exists" or "doesn't". Beneath that 
there may be no distinction and one-ness is understood.

Sometimes the consiousness that can percieve subjects as distinct from 
objects has a dim awareness that the two are of the same stuff, but since 
"intellect" was only a really convenient label for a particular tranche of 
the evolved scale, it has no real bearing on what that consciousness 
actually IS.

Jos


>From: "ARLO J BENSINGER JR" <ajb102 at psu.edu>
>Reply-To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
>To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
>Subject: Re: [MD] Food for Thought
>Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2006 15:38:16 -0500
>
>[Dan quotes Pirsig's letter to Paul]
>"Intellectuality occurs when these customs as well as biological and 
>inorganic
>patterns are designate with a sign that stands for them and these signs are
>manipulated independently of the patterns they stand for."
>
>[Arlo]
>First, Dan, thanks for taking the trouble to post this. I do admit to 
>ongoing
>confusion about this distinction, and so don't take my comments as any sort 
>of
>statement, they are merely outloud musings.
>
>To the above quote, the trouble is, "handshaking" is itself a "sign" that
>"stands for" something else. Or consider this example, a "Don't Walk" sign 
>on
>your local streetcorner. This is a "sign" (in both senses) that "stands 
>for" an
>activity that is "manipulated independently" of the activity of the 
>activity.
>Does this mean that "Don't Walk" signs are "intellectual patterns"? What if 
>the
>sign actually said in words "Don't Walk", would that make it an 
>intellectual
>pattern?
>
>I think this distinction, then, is largely false. Much "social" activity is 
>as
>mediated by "signs" as intellectual activity. Again, it seems a difference 
>in
>"kind" not in "use".
>
>[The letter to Paul]
>"Intellect" can then be defined very loosely as the level of independently
>manipulable signs. Grammar, logic and mathematics can be described as the 
>rules
>of this sign manipulation." (Robert Pirsig)
>
>[Arlo]
>What language is NOT "independently manipulable signs"? When I say "I saw a
>brown cow" I am manipulating symbols independently of the things they stand
>for. Is that statement an "intellectual pattern"?
>
>[Dan adds his own comments]
>By isolating and examining the term "bless you" we are now acting
>intellectually. ... Intellectually it seems socially better to mimic others
>rather than to establish a particular style of handshake.
>
>[Arlo]
>Here it seems what I could say is that "intellectual patterns" are "signs 
>about
>signs", or the level of "examing signs themselves". That is, we make the 
>"sign"
>the object of scutiny rather than the "meaning" the sign was designed to
>convey. Would that be a fair understanding of your words?
>
>[Dan quotes Pirsig]
>Thus, though it may be assumed that the Egyptians who preceded the Greeks 
>had
>intellect, it can be doubted that theirs was an intellectual culture.
>
>[Arlo]
>That's quite a comment about the people who had the intellect to design and
>built the Pyramids! I think I'd agree to a statement that they did not have 
>"an
>intellectually guided system of governance" (being that they were 
>subservient
>to religion), but to say their "culture" was not intellectual is somewhat
>strange to me.
>
>But here again I am pulled right back to Bodvar's SOLAQI. Pirsig is laying 
>BOTH
>the advent of S/O metaphysics AND the intellectual level at the feet of the
>Greeks. Now tell me how they are not the same, considering their origins 
>are
>identical. Reason, logic, decontextualized and deculturized thought appear 
>to
>be BOTH the source of SOM AND the intellectual level.
>
>
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