[MD] Food for Thought

[Case]

Dan, Arlo, Anybody,

If the distinction between levels is this unclear and if a single thing can
reside in multiple levels, and sometimes it's this and sometimes that, what
is the point?

It seems few philosophers can resist a foray into the taxonomy of
abstractions but it always a dicey business. Mandelbrot showed that even
classifying space into rigidly define dimensions of length, width and height
is flawed.

Conversely I can think of few systems, situations, events or things that can
not be fruitfully examined by asking what is fixed and what is changing.
What will hold still and what will wiggle? Pirsig's notion of static and
dynamic as the first metaphysical cut from the undefined is a significant
advance over SOM. I would suggest that focusing on levels and mystifying the
dynamic is what keeps the MoQ on the fringe.

Case

-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of Dan Glover
Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2006 5:13 PM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] Food for Thought

Hello everyone

>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.

Hi Arlo
You're welcome. And thank you for answering.

>
>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?

It is customary in Western culture to hold out a hand in greeting. 
Automatically. It is a social pattern that for whatever reason has evolved 
over time. When we discuss shaking hands it is an intellectual pattern and 
it is a social pattern too.

In regards to a "Don't Walk" sign, to the extent a person just follows the 
sign automatically without thinking about it, the sign would seem to be a 
social pattern. When we begin defining the sign and discussing its 
significance the sign is an intellectual pattern and a social pattern too.

Obedience to social patterns is offset by the intellect questioning: why? 
For instance, if you are standing at a light waiting to cross and no traffic

is coming, what do you do if the sign says "Don't Walk"?

>
>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".

It seems there are literally millions of social patterns of value that we 
don't really think about, or intellectualize, and yet we follow the patterns

anyway. Take driving down the road, for example. Here in the US we drive on 
the "right" side of the road, automatically. No one has to even think about 
it. Yet if a person travels to other countries this isn't always true. So a 
person driving in England who is used to driving on the "right" side of the 
road would have to intellectually overcome that social pattern.

>
>[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]
That was my thinking in LILA'S CHILD when I asked Robert Pirsig about apes 
using sign language. His answer was yes.

>
>[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?

Yes. That also seems to be what RMP is saying here too: "Grammar, logic and 
mathematics can be described as the rules of this sign manipulation." Blind 
obedience is purely a social level function in the MOQ while the examination

of the rules would seem to be intellectual patterns of value.

>
>[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.

Well, from what I understand the Pyramids were constructed as tombs. 
Obedience to the dream of an afterlife seemed to drive the building of the 
Pyramids. Perhaps that's what RMP is getting at?

>
>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.

The way I understand things, subject object metaphysics is an intellectual 
pattern of value but the level of the intellect in the MOQ is not subject 
object metaphysics. SOM is an idea. It is not ideas themselves.

Thank you for your comments,

Dan


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