[MD] Distinguishing Levels

[David M]

DMB

So where do you identify/distinguish the signs/cultural-products that 
indicate
the birth if intellect out of myth/religion? -i.e. where they are not 
mythos-religious
artifacts or ideas.

DM


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "david buchanan" <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Sunday, June 04, 2006 7:42 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] Distinguishing Levels


> DM, Arlo, Steve, Gene and all:
>
> dmb quoted Lila, chapter 30:
> "...anthropological studies of contemporary primitive tribes suggest that
> stone age people were probably bound by ritual all day long.  ...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."
>
> DM asked dmb:
> do you not see any intellect involved in the creation of these
> myths/rituals? Where do they come from prior to becoming repeated?
>
> dmb says:
> Intellect involved in the creaton of myths? No, I think Pirsig is saying
> that myth necessarily comes before intellect, that myth is a prerequisite
> for intellect. As I understand it, myth is the parent of intellect in the
> same way that biological organism have to come before social structures.
> This is not to suggest that people living in primitive tribes are devoid 
> of
> intelligence or congnitive functions, its just that myth and reason are
> different kinds or levels of cognitive function, each with their own 
> rules,
> grammer and logic, so to speak. This anthropological quote puts the issue 
> in
> terms of cultural development so that the contemporary tribes serve as a
> window into the sort of culture we all come from.
>
> I was also trying to suggest that the mythos over logos argument in ZAMM 
> is
> revised in Lila. You proabably remember that Arlo quoted the relevant
> passage recently...
>
>>"The term logos, the root word of "logic," refers to the sum total of our
>>rational understanding of the world. Mythos is the sum total of the early
>>historic and prehistoric myths which preceded the logos. The mythos
>>includes not only the Greek myths but the Old Testament, the Vedic Hymns
>>and the early legends of all cultures which have contributed to our 
>>present
>>world understanding. The mythos-over-logos argument states that our
>>rationality is shaped by these legends, that our knowledge today is in
>>relation to these legends as a tree is in relation to the little shrub it
>>once was. One can gain great insights into the complex overall structure 
>>of
>>the tree by studying the much simpler shape of the shrub. There's no
>>difference in kind or even difference in identity, only a difference in
>>size."
>
> The difference between mythos and logos here is just one of size so that 
> the
> latter is just a more mature version of the former. But in Lila this 
> aspect
> has been revised to say that logos is not a grown up version of mythos, 
> but
> rather the child of the mythos, a seperate being if you will. I think the
> revison is a very good idea for lots of reasons, but one of the biggest
> reasons is that it clears up lots of confusion to make them discrete. I
> mean, if we read myth as crude science or bad, wishful history, we're 
> gonna
> fail to see what these myths actually meant and mean. I think this is
> crucial not just for sorting out social and political conflicts, but also
> becasue these myths represent our evolutionary heritage and constitute 
> MOST
> of what we are. Like Gene, I view the intellect as a very young and 
> fragile
> creature. In terms of the scope of human cultural evolution, intellect was
> just born yesterday while the mythos has been evolving for hundreds of
> thousands of years or more.
>
> And its not that we dispose of these mythic things just because of this 
> new
> child. As Steve reminds us, celebrity and wealth, fame and fortune are 
> still
> powerful forces. As Joe Campbell, Carl Jung and many others explain, we 
> all
> live by the myths we inherit and they're basic to the structure of human
> consciousness. I should also point out that language and myth are totally
> intertwined too. Like my favorite coffee mug says, "people create stories
> create people create stories create people" and so on. Pirsig also says
> something like, people don't preform religious rituals BECAUSE they 
> believe
> in God, they believe in God BECAUSE they preform religious rituals.
>
> So, do people invent myths or do myths invent people? Yes, definatley.
>
> dmb
>
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