[MD] SOLAQI, Kant's TITs, chaos, and the S/I distinction

[Ham Priday]

Greetings, Laramie --

> What I found interesting about "THE SOL." was the idea that the MoQ
> represents another level.  Pirsig didn't seem to approve, but I think
either
> this is true, or you are correct that there is no Intellectual Level
(although
> in a different sense than you imply).  As Skutvik argues, "a higher
> ground is needed to see the outline of something".  This doesn't take
> anything away from Pirsig - indeed, it suggests he basically pioneered
> a new level of human potential!  Superhuman, some might say.

I don't wish to take anything away from Pirsig, either, but it seems to me
that "the higher" ground you (Slutvik?) refer to had been outlined as early
as the end of the 18th century in Kant's theory of Transcendental Idealism.
Of course, Kant did not regard intellect as a "level" but as a conscious
continuum or "synthesis" of intuition and experience, the former being _a
priori_ to objective experience.  Could this not be the "higher ground" of
perceptive insight?  If so, perhaps Pirsig's efforts were not quite as
"pioneering" as you suggest.

Consider this paragraph by Prof. Kelly Ross:

"However, right in the middle of his subsequent argument for why certain
concepts would be necessary and known _a priori_ with respect to experience
(the 'Transcendental Deduction'), Kant realized that 'synthesis' would have
to produce, not just a structure of thought, but the entire structure of
consciousness within which perception also occurs.  Thus he says, 'What is
first given to us is appearance.  When combined with consciousness
[Bewußtsein], it is called perception [Wahrnehmung]' (A 119-120).  It is the
structure of consciousness, through synthesis, that turns 'appearances' into
objects and perceptions, without which they would be nothing.  Consequently
Kant made synthesis a function of imagination rather than thought, as a
bridge between thought and perception, though this creates its own
confusions (it still depends on the forms of thought and is still treated in
the Logic).  This move occurred because Kant hit upon the idea that
synthesis produced the unity that we actually find in 'apperception,' i.e.
in the unity of consciousness -- everything I know, think, see, feel,
remember, etc. belongs to my consciousness in one temporal stream of
experience.  Synthesis therefore brings things into consciousness, making it
possible for us to subsequently recognize that our consciousness exists and
that there are things in it.  Hume had described the result as 'something
betwixt unity and number,' since it is paradoxically one thing and many
things all at the same time."
    --[Immanuel Kant at http://www.friesian.com/kant.htm ]

In somewhat simpler terms, Harvard Professor Ralph Barton Parry relates this
_a priori_ capacity of the intellect to the concept of "categories":

"Kant's greatest work, the 'Critique of Pure Reason' (1789), was an attempt
to correct these extreme views by making the necessary provision for both
sense-perception and reason.  Perception without conception, he said, is
blind; while conception without perception is empty.  Kant's critique was
aimed first at excessive emphasis on sense-perception.  He showed that the
bare sequence of sense-impressions can never yield the connections,
necessities, unities, laws, etc., which are required for science.  The
intellect must supply these itself.  They constitute what Kant called
'categories,' the instruments which the mind must use when it works in that
peculiar way which is called knowing.  But it follows that they are not by
themselves sufficient for knowledge.  They cannot themselves be known in the
ordinary way because they are what one knows with.  And since they are
instruments, it follows that they require some material to work upon; they
cannot spin knowledge out of nothing.  Hence the data of sense are
indispensable also.  In short, to know is to systematize, by the
instrumentalities native to the mind, the content conveyed by the senses.
This is the Kant of the first Critique, the Kant of technical philosophy who
numbers many faithful devotees among the thinkers of to-day."   --[Barton:
Philosophy     IV. Introduction to Kant, www.bartleby.com/60/144.html]

By the way, I trust that your phrase "new level of human potential" is not
an endorsement of Pirsig's idea that Intellect has a "collective source"
beyond the individual.

Happy New Year to you too, Laramie, and best wishes for 2007!
--Ham