[MD] Oneness, Dualism & Intellect

[Squonkriff at aol.com]

Mark,

Mark 03-03-07: Hi Mati,
Again, i feel the same feeling of,  'What's the problem?'
The context you describe above is distressing and i  sympathise with you.
However, symbolic manipulation is the answer:
a.  Social symbols are imitated behavioural patterns. Example: Going to   
church because other people do it.
b. Intellectual symbols do not stand  directly for social or biological or  
inorganic patterns. They are self  referencing and behave according to
rules.

Mati: With all due respect  I see a lot of problems left. (And I like to
think of myself is the guy who  sees the glass half full. :-) Where to start?
MOQ views values, social and  intellect value levels, as "distinct" value
structures which functions are  different from each other.  Now lets take an
example such as art.   We have the earliest caveman drawings in France to
modern day art.  Is  all art a social value based creation or are some an
intellect based creation  as well. How do you tell the difference? You are a
doctoral student who  wishes to analyze the social or intellect values of
paintings.  How  would you go about it?  In your analysis of the data
(paintings), what  are the "rules" of analysis based on and the precepts of
MOQ that you would  use? Would those rules have any inter-rater reliability,
or is it just a  matter of interpretation of the individual that uses it.
 
Mark 04-03-07: Hi Mati,
You introduce the example of Art in order to explore the demarcation  between 
the social and the intellectual.
Fair enough. Here is a response:
1. Your description of 'Art' is inadequate.
2. All human creative activity is art, not merely painting. (That you  assume 
this to be so is supported by your provision of a second example,  
'Literature' which you hold distinct from 'art' as visual  representation.)
3. What describes 'Art' as 'human creative activity' in moq terms?
Answer: The interplay between DQ and four levels of sq patterns.
With respect to visual representation:
4. Visual patterns are inorganic and biological patterns of value +  DQ
5. Representation is both of these (the materials used - in the  case of 
Video installations, the TV and media are inorganic, the artist is  biological...) 
and social and potentially intellectual values + DQ
6. Now an analysis of visual representation may begin.
A. In the case of early French cave paintings: The visual representation is  
a static representation of DQ.
There are no intellectual patterns as the symbols are what they are.
Animal/men creations, etc. are social representations of DQ.
B. Modern art. A high degree of intellectual value is presented in visual  
representation. In the case of books and print media, electronic media visually  
represented on VDU's, etc. intellectual values may dominate.


Ok if Art is too nebulous, then how about literature, architecture,  or lets
look at politics or policy.
 
Mark 04-03-07:
There is nothing nebulous about visual representation. An intellectual  
repertoire married to a social context may be required, but that is a matter of  
sophistication. This reaches its peak in Universities and other academic  
institutions where intellectual values run riot.
I think this 'running riot' is what your term, 'nebulous' is attempting to  
convey, if you will forgive me for placing words in your mouth Mati?
The moq brings a degree of order into this riotous forum.
 
Mati:
We can go on and on.  Now is their any problems
that you might see  from an individual who wishes to use MOQ in the world of
academia?   Remember Pirsig's claim that MOQ is a superior method of
metaphysically of  seeing the world than the current SOM based methologies. I
agree that it is  but preaching "symbolic manipulation" is one thing,
practice is another.  Don't get me wrong I spent 2 years trying to utilize
MOQ as a superior  metaphysical looking glass into the world because of my
belief in the  validity of MOQ. I failed. Maybe I wasn't smart enough, but
that is what  blows me away. MOQ is so simple that even child could be taught
to understand  the world around him in a more clear way, yet knock on the
door of general  academia, and you got your work cut out for you. For arm
chair philosophers  (myself included) it is one thing, dealing with the real
world is entirely  different ball of wax.
 
Mark 04-03-07:
Don't worry, Anthony McWatt failed also.
Perhaps the lesson to learn is to bow to the accepted before advancing  
something better.
And the more one looks the more one may discern that the moq is unoriginal,  
which is a bonus.
However, although the moq is unoriginal, it may be regarded analogously to  
the DNA difference between Humans and the Great Apes: The DNA differential is  
very small, but that small differential makes an incredible  difference.

Mark:
Once the concept of truth is worshiped in its own  right language isn't  
dominated by social arte  privileges  anymore, and so the intellectual level
begins to break free from  the  social level: Abstract symbolic
manipulation.
Structures of all   kinds from music to poetry now have a new dimmension -
new  differentiation's  which begin to replace the old social  
differentiation's
of the Good.

Mati: I would be very careful about the  idea of "worshiping" truth.
Worshiping is a social tradition not an intellect  one. "Abstract symbolic
manipulation" is just that, abstract.  I would  respectfully suggest that by
you definition that basic math calculations  utilize "Abstract symbolic
manipulations" that have nothing to do with the  social values, and yet they
have been around for along long time. Too long,  well before 3000-2000 B.C.
This creates a timing problem for the advent of  intellect that Pirsig has
himself has suggested that the advent occur between  1000 to 600 B.C. Enough
nit picking, but I feel the definition that both you  and Pirsig have
suggested make it near to impossible to advance MOQ beyond be  an interesting
metaphysical approach that has no real inherit value in  society. Again I
note that overall I am a pretty optimistic guy most of the  time. 

Mati
 
Mark 04-03-07:
I fully acknowledge worship to be a social pattern, and i intended for this  
to be understood; intellectual patterns need social sanctioning, and at the 
time  of geometric invention, the beauty of it must have been so dynamic as to 
suggest  divinity, thus worship.
I did not suggest that the intellectual level began with geometry  invention; 
i believe it began very much earlier, but had little social  sanctioning to 
help it along.
By the way, i don't recall Pirsig emphatically stating the intellectual  
level was created at the time you provide, merely that early Greek thought  
provided the social context for intellectual patterns to reach par and then  begin 
to excel the social dominance.
Love,
Mark