[MD] Knowledge as MOQ's intellect

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi Steve

In my slow response to posts in this thread I haven't yet got out of 
the 10 December. Anyway at the said date you wrote:

> Hi Bo,
> You said to DM:

> > ... do you agree with my analysis of the said passage
> > from LILA, that it (by many twists and turns) shows that SOM is the
> > intellectual level? All of it, every last bit?
 
> Similarly in Lila's Child you said, "A while back, we spoke about the 
> emergence of intellect and I said that in a way Subject/Object
> Metaphysics  could be seen as identical to the intellectual level of
> the MOQ!"
 
There are possibly one million more places I've said this. 

> As I'm sure you are aware, Pirsig responded to your equating the 
> intellectual level with SOM in Lila's Child: "43. This seems too
> restrictive. It seems to exclude non-subject- object constructions
> such as symbolic logic, higher mathematics, and computer languages
> from  the intellectual level and give them no home. 

And as many times have I commented this. First "symbolic logic" 
what exactly is that apart from normal logic? The like of 2+2=4? 
If so I think pre-4th. level people were aware of this fact. If Pirsig 
by this - and "higher mathematics" - means algebra or arithmetic 
(using letters instead of numbers) I think social age people also 
mastered this skill. And what is computer language other than .... 
just another language. 

What IS intellect, however, are the theorems and proofs that the 
Greek thinkers began constructing to show why these 
relationships were TRUE and objectively valid. The Babylonians 
and Egyptians used the relationship between the legs and 
hypotenuse in a right-angled triangles, but never knew or cared 
why it worked,  with Pythagoras and Archimedes however ...  

All Pirsigs examples may be non-subject/object - that's correct -  
but then they are not intellectual patterns unless - and Pirsig 
notoriously falls prey to this - "intellect" is used in the most trite 
"logical thinking" sense.       

> Also the term “quality” as used in the  MOQ would be excluded from the
> intellectual level. 

Yes, this is correct and rightfully so. If Quality - the MOQ in other 
words - were an intellectual pattern it would violate his own 
container logic.  

> In fact the MOQ, which gives  intellectual meaning to the term quality,
> would also have to be excluded from the intellectual level. 

Here the MOQ has  become something different from Quality, as 
if Quality is the "objective" reality and the MOQ (just) some 
"subjective" theory. Exactly the fault he pointed out in his 
dialogue with the other teachers in ZAMM. 

> If we just say the intellect is the manipulation of language-derived
> symbols for experience these problems of excessive exclusion do not
> seem to occur." 

This is the very same "logical thinking" definition that stretches 
back to long before the 4th. level ..  by the logic of the MOQ. The 
correct intellectual definition is the realization of there being a 
S/O schism between symbols and the what they symbolize - the 
former subjective the latter objective The "objective" may not be 
concrete but another abstract  as in case of the  2+2=4, but that 
does not matter. Abstract/concrete is BTW another S/O     

> How do you respond to his critique?

I despair by Pirsig having written the "analyzed" passage in LILA 
where the true nature of the 4th level is revealed goes on to 
contradict it again and again. In the letter to Paul he ended in a 
despairing note about the "symbol manipulation" definition just 
being "bull". That really touched me, in addition he has said that if 
the SOL interpretation "has value it will percolate to the top" so 
he is no longer negative.   

Bo