[MD] Knowledge as MOQ's intellect

[Steve Peterson]

Hi Platt:


> [Steve]
>> Pirsig said the MOQ is an intellectual pattern and therefore part  
>> of the
>> fourth level and he never described a fifth level.
>
> [Pirsig]
> "Third, there were moral codes that established the supremacy of the
> intellectual order over the social order-democracy, trial by jury,  
> freedom
> of speech, freedom of the press. Finally there's a fourth Dynamic  
> morality
> which isn't a code. He supposed you could call it a "code of Art" or
> something like that, but art is usually thought of as such a frill  
> that
> that title undercuts its importance." (Lila, 13)
>

[Steve]
That quote is from a discussion of conflicts *between* levels and how  
the MOQ puts them in a nice framework to analyze vice, rights, evil,  
good, etc. Pirsig says that "Morality is not a simple set of rules.   
It's a very complex struggle of conflicting patterns of values."  
These codes he's talking about are how our society has come to view  
how these conflicts should be resolved.

[Pirsig]
"What is today conventionally called "morality" covers only one of these
sets of moral codes, the social-biological code.  In a subject-object
metaphysics this single social-biological code is considered to be a  
minor,
"subjective," physically non-existent part of the universe."

[Steve]
His use of moral code is as in "social-biological code" above. It  
isn't a level but a description of the conflict *between* levels.

His "code of Art" that isn't a code also isn't a type of pattern of  
value or level. It is how our culture has come to allow for the  
possibility of dynamic improvement to the extent that it does. For  
example, we have come to be open to a lot of irrationality in visual  
art or how open we are to the next Brujo or the next Jesus.

[Platt]
> As for the necessity of being categorically different than the  
> previous
> level, in what category would you put Beethoven's Fifth Symphony?

[Steve]
I think we are stuck saying that music is intellectual within  
Pirsig's framework. It doesn't feel quite right though.

It is manipulation of symbols (notes) that stand for patterns of  
experience (sounds).

I usually think of intellect as dealing ideas while I don't usually  
think of poetry and music in that way. I think of intellectual  
quality in terms of true and false which don't apply here either.


[Platt]

> Perhaps you're right -- the MOQ is strictly within the intellectual  
> level.
> But I would maintain it's intellect from a new point of view, just as
> Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase" was a new view that helped
> launch modern abstract art.
>

[Steve]
Score!

I think the issue then is whether SOM was ever intellect from a new  
point of view as well in some point in history or as Bo seems to say  
that intellect was always equivalent with SOM.

Steve