[MD] Food for Thought

[david buchanan]

Arlo said way back on Wed, 20 Dec 2006:
It is clear that Pirsig considers some "thought patterns" social, as he 
includes the mythos in (or "as") the social level. And the mythos is NOT 
simply physical interactivity. So I don't think making the case that social 
patterns are physical and intellectual patterns are mental can be supported 
by LILA...

dmb says:
I suppose part of the confusion stems from the way each of the higher levels 
includes the lower ones. You know, all biological organism are also 
physical. All social creatures are also biological and physical. In the same 
way, intellectual patterns are also physical, biological and social. Not 
only do we have electricity flowing through brains as we use words, 
intellectual pattens can be carved in stone, printed on paper, spoken out 
loud and are otherwise manifest in physical reality.

Arlo said:
...Pirsig ...criticizes intellect for being SOM. But in differentiating what 
makes a symbolic pattern "intellectual" or "social", it seems he paints 
himself into a corner where the ONLY distinctions offered are those he 
argues against.

dmb says:
I'm still baffled as to why nobody has yet entertained the central 
distinction, the one I repeatedly offered up. If there some reason to reject 
the notion that social quality is aimed at controlling biological quality 
while intellect is aimed at controlling social quality, then I would very 
much like to know what it is. So far, this point has mostly been ignored and 
it seems to me that it would clear things up quite a lot. Shaking hands, for 
example, seems to be aimed at controlling violence. Its a greeting that 
says, symbolically, I have no club or knife in my hand so don't be afraid. 
It sends all kinds of signals about violent intentions and the lack thereof. 
Don't you think? Later, as firmness of the grip and the confidence of eye 
contact determine the quality of the handshake, the violence inhibiting 
component becomes less conspicuous, but that's only a testiment to the 
effectiveness of the ritual, no?

Arlo said:
Why is "science" an intellectual pattern but "theology" a social pattern, if 
NOT for the very SOMist things (deculturizing and decontextualizing) the MOQ 
argues against? What I think is that Bodvar's SOLAQI has accurately 
describes what Pirsig "wrote", but I don't think its what he "meant".  I'm 
just unsure as how to resolve it.

dmb says:
I don't get you here. In what sense does the MOQ argue against deculturizing 
and decontextualizing? What do you mean by those terms? In what sense are 
these SOMist things? And I really don't understand how anyone can see SOLAQI 
as something that "accurately describes what Pirsig wrote". I mean, if the 
MOQ is a non-SOM intellectual description then the MOQ demonstrates that 
intellect is not equivalent to SOM. If the Eastern languages don't emphasize 
that distinction and their philosophies do not use it as an assumption, then 
we have a huge example of non-SOM intellect. As I understand it, SOM is just 
one of an infinite number of potential worldviews within the intellectual 
level. Yes, it dominates and characterizes the Western intellect, but hey, 
she's just a kid. She's just getting warmed up, just beginning to recognize 
its own independence. I mean, in terms of evolutionary history, the social 
level is a hundred times older than the intellect.

And as far as theology goes, sure its intellectual. Any ism or ology would 
fit the bill. And so it is Hedonism. I think we have to make a distinction 
between form and content. The Hedonist makes an intellectual case for 
biological quality and the theologian makes an intellectual case for social 
level beliefs. I mean, we can even produce intellectual descriptions of 
inorganic reality but physics is intellectual even if its subject "matter" 
is not. Pun intended. I mean, there is a difference between WHAT we are 
talking about and HOW we are talking about it. It seems to me that all the 
levels below intellect can be scrutinized and examined intellectually, but 
they are still distinct from intellect.

There is a piece of conventional wisdom floating around in our postmodern 
world that says, basically, everything is "read", everything is interpreted. 
Recently, when we were looking at Richard Rorty's "Texts and Lumps", the 
philosopher lecturing us pointed out that, according to Rorty, lumps ARE 
texts. He and his friends are fond of saying that reality is text "all the 
way down", that interpretation is bottomless. This point makes sense only in 
a very limited context, I think. The general effect of this slogan is to 
construe absolutely everything as "symbolic". In this view, there is no way 
to say one interpretaiton is any better than the other. Like Pirsig's MOQ, 
this is a rejection of objectivity, but oh what a difference there is 
between Pirsig and the Rortys of this world. Anyway, it seems to me that 
part of the problem around here with grasping the distinction between social 
and intellectual quality is that this is being asserted in a cultural 
context in which all such hierarchies and distinctions have been rejected. 
The discovery that human understanding and meaning is culturally constructed 
has been construed to mean that all human meaning and understanding is... 
well, meaningless and there is no such thing as "real" understanding. This 
is what leads Rorty to conclude that agreement among one's cultural peers is 
all we can ever have. There is no objectivity and so we can only have 
solidarity. There is no such thing as objectivity and so there is no such 
thing as truth. All we can have is agreement, a sort of consensus of our 
delusions. Anyway, I'm guessing that this sort of postmodernism and is very 
hard to square with Pirsig's view. I mean, maybe we have to notice that 
Pirsig disagrees with postmodernism in some ways, that Rorty and friends 
would disagree with Pirsig. Its worth pointing out, I suppose, that Rorty 
looked and James' Radical Empiricism and quickly rejected as worthless 
stuff. Not that this debate centers on Rorty, but he's the most famous 
representative of this view and I just spent some time contrasting his view 
with Dewey, James and Pirsig for a term paper.

dmb

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