[MD] The education of Peter Corteen

[Steve Peterson]

Hi Bo,

Steve:
>> Can you point to where Pirsig says something like this?:
>> "paraphrasing Pirsig: "Intellect is the power of distinguishing
>> between symbols and what is symbolized."

Bo:
> Er ... no, I used "paraphrase" in a too wide sense. He never said
> that. I just wish he would have drawn the conclusion of his own
> reasoning which would have forced on (in the this case) the
> distinction between symbols and  what is symbolized, i.e. the
> S/O. But I'm just dreaming, Pirsig can't do it after having invested
> so much in his system of how MOQ "encases" SOM, the known
> inorg+bio=objects ...etc. and the ensuing explanations of how
> THIS does away with SOM's paradoxes (platypis). I say that the
> SOL interpretation just pertains to the 4th. level, it does, but this
> has wider ramifications among other that of doing away with
> these cumbersome things.
>

Steve:
I don't think the MOQ wants to do away with a distinction between  
symbols and what they symbolize. I think symbols are social or  
intellectual patterns that may represent social, biological,  
inorganic, and intellectual patterns (though I don't think Pirsig  
explicitly locates symbols in the hierarchy).

Manipulations of such symbols are concepts and rationales which are  
intellectual patterns. The collection of all such patterns is the  
intellectual level itself.

Which type of pattern of value do you see symbols as?

Regards,
Steve