[MD] Platt's Individual Level

[Steve Peterson]

Hi Peter,

I just finished the SODV transciption: Pirsig contradicted himself in what
was for me his most striking paragraph: he said 'the world is composed of three things: mind, matter and quality'. A few sentences later he says: 'Quality is not a thing; it is an event'. His contradictory use of the word 'thing'  was probably accidental and I only noticed because I reread the paragraph several times. My point is that language is has it's limits; so if Pirsig said ''For purposes of MOQ precision, let's say that the intellectual level is the same as mind.'  that does not mean that mind is the intellectual level, it still includes the social level.

Steve:
Mind may be a slippery concept. Since Pirsig wanted to make a dynamic/static first cut rather than a subject/object one, I think he wantsto avoid thinking of mind as anything other than patterns of thought.

But as you point out, it is not a good idea to take a single quote out of context and use it as the gospel truth of Pirisig's view on a given topic. If you want to know what Pirsig means by intellect, here are some more quotes about mind and intellect. I'm interested to hear what conclusions you draw from these:


Lila: 
"Within this evolutionary relationship it is possible to see that intellect
has functions that predate science and philosophy.  The intellect's
evolutionary purpose has never been to discover an ultimate meaning of the
universe.  That is a relatively recent fad.  Its historical purpose has
been to help a society find food, detect danger, and defeat enemies.  It
can do this well or poorly, depending on the concepts it invents for this
purpose."

Note 95. "Intellect is simply thinking."

RMP Annotation 25
This is okay. In Lila I never defined the intellectual level of the MOQ, since everyone who is up to reading Lila already knows what “intellectual” means. For purposes of MOQ precision let’s say that the intellectual level is the same as mind. It is the collection and manipulation of symbols, created in the brain, that stand for patterns of experience.

This is from a letter he wrote to Paul Turner, a former member of this forum. I think it is his most recent attempt to clarify what he means by the intelloectual level:

"There has been a tendency to extend the meaning of "social" down into 
the biological with the assertion that, for example, ants are social, 
but I have argued that this extends the meaning to a point where it is 
useless for classification. I said that even atoms can be called 
societies of electrons and protons. And since everything is thus 
social, why even have the word? I think the same happens to the term, 
"intellectual," when one extends it much before the Ancient Greeks.* If 
one extends the term intellectual to include primitive cultures just 
because they are thinking  about things, why stop there? How about 
chimpanzees? Don't they think.? How about earthworms? Don't they make 
conscious decisions? How about bacteria responding to light and 
darkness? How about chemicals responding to light and darkness? Our 
intellectual level is broadening to a point where it is losing all its 
meaning. You have to cut it off somewhere, and it seems to me the 
greatest meaning can be given to the intellectual level if it is 
confined to the skilled manipulation of abstract symbols that have no 
corresponding particular experience and which behave according to rules 
of their own."

RMP Annotation 123
"The word “I” like the word “self” is one of the trickiest words in any metaphysics.
Sometimes it is an object, a human body; sometimes it is a subject, a human mind. I believe there are number of philosophic systems, notably Ayn Rand’s “Objectivism,” that call the “I” or “individual” the central reality. Buddhists say it is an illusion. So do scientists. The MOQ says it is a collection of static patterns capable of apprehending Dynamic Quality. I think that if you identify the “I” with the intellect and nothing else you are taking an unusual position that may need some defending."


Regards,
Steve



 		
---------------------------------
Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. Make PC-to-Phone Calls to the US (and 30+ countries) for 2¢/min or less.