[MD] Flying Spagetti Monsters

[Ham Priday]

Hi Laramie --


I appreciate your kind words and support, Laramie, but this note doesn't
help my cause.  You placed quotation marks around my first sentence, as if
to indicate I was quoting Pirsig.  This may confuse some people here.

To put it in context, DMB had accused me of re-introducing SOM as a solution
to a problem Pirsig already resolved by eliminating it!  What I was trying
to do in this paragraph was explain why I think an "externalized Intellect'
was necessary in order to make his non-dual Quality theory credible.

Here is the entire paragraph as originally posted to David:
> Let me be equally sincere with you.  As I see it, Pirsig
> wants to have his cake and eat it too.  He wants to espouse
> a philosophy that is commensurate with postmodern thought.
> So, instead of attacking Objectivism, he rejects the Subject
> of existence and posits Quality (DQ) as the nature of
> (objective) reality.  As the source of reality, Quality must
> subsume all of the properties and attributes that were once
> thought to be innate to man, including his "selfness".  The
> world is "good" and "moral" by its own nature (Quality),
> so man need only "flow with it" in a Buddha-like trance.
> Intellect is not something that man develops, but a level of
> Quality that he must "evolve to".  The goal of this evolutionary
> progress (in existential time) is to move toward "betterness";
> but this is a goal already conceded to Quality, not incumbent
> upon the individual.  The MoQ leaves no role for the individual.
> Whatever connection a human being has to DQ has meaning
> only in the collective sense, and then only if he denies his
> individuality, not to mention his spiritual beliefs or aspirations.

Unfortunately, your evolutionary definition of Intellect strikes me as a
"step backward" in this dialogue.  Not that this was intentional on your
part, but my whole thrust is to discourage any notion that Mind, Intellect,
and Consciousness are external entitites floating around in space like the
brass ring of a carousel for the individual to "grab onto".

[Laramie]:
> In a sense, intellect -is- "a level of Quality" that we evolve to.
> The majority of people on this globe can't cognize "intellect",
> and never are any of us able to cognize it well enough.  To be
> able to stand free of one's particular tribal role, family, national
> identity, etc., and still have a sense of oneself is a relatively rare
> developmental achievement.  However, once intellect has been
> realized, the task, I agree, is to develop it. To continually
> embrace an ever bolder and broader perspective. "DQ"
> evolves through "IQ".

I'm not sure what "cognizing" Intellect implies -- establishing a universal
definition for it?  I usually avoid the term for two reasons: 1) it can be
used in a collectivized sense to connote a "body of knowledge" (i.e.,
Intelligence), which, like a library or data-base, DOES grow over time as
more facts are added.  The Pirsigians play on this ambiguity by denying that
intellection is a proprietary attribute of the individual.  2) Intellect and
Intellectual are often identified with elitism, and their usage tends to be
equated with the "snob appeal" that is a turn-off for many people.

Yes, we evolve to a "level" of intellect, just as we evolve to a "level" of
competence, "level" in this context having nothing especially to do with
Pirsig's Quality breakout, however.  But I suspect Ayn Rand would reach out
of her grave for another cigarette if she knew how anxious Pirsigians are to
disparage individual intellect.

> I totally dig your emphasis on what I call the trans-enlightenment,
> personal evolving Essential Self.

Since you and Micah both seem to think that Randian individualism is
compatible with Pirsig's evolutionary "anti-individualism", perhaps you two
could start up a "Fringe Factor" debate by telling us what they have in
common.  (The ball is in your court.)

Essentially yours,
Ham