[MD] The intellectual level - once more

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi DMB

You wrote:

> Bo said to Ian and Groupies:

> > ...But why for Goodness' sake not admit that the 4th. level=the S/O
> > distinction instead of uphold this impossible "intellect" that -
> > according to DMB is a vessel that one moment can contain the SOM the
> > next the MOQ? In this "mind"-like intellect the 3rd. level is also an
> > intellectual pattern as the second and first levels too ... and SOM
> > prevails.

> dmb says:
> As I see it, your objection is based on the idea that "mind" or
> "intellect" is equal to the subjective self, a vessel that contains ideas
> or does the symbol manipulating. And it seems you think Pirsig is also
> guilty of slipping back into SOM in his descriptions of the intellect. So
> I guess the task is to try to show you how we can have intellect without
> also having at the same time a subjective cartesian self. 

> For starters, I'd point to the roots of SOM in the grammatical structrure
> of Indo-European languages as Pirsig does. 

SOM emerged as told in ZAMM  - the search for eternal principles 
pointing to a reality beyond/over the myth one, truth vs opinion and 
finally our mind/matter variety. 

> The point of this is to say that SOM is not just ingrained in Western
> languages because of its philosophical developments but also that the
> philosophical developments were shaped by the structure of the language
> from which it emerged. 

The grammatical subject/object is just what bewilders so many in this 
respect, and that goes whether SOM=intellect (like I claim) or just one 
pattern (like you claim). yes, even more so in the latter case 

But all this is irrelevant, MOQ's grievance regarding SOM is the latter's 
claim (using science as a stand-in) of being outside of the moral realm 
- of being OBJECTIVE -  thereby making Quality SUBJECTIVE. 

> The classic cartesianism (I think, therefore I am) reveals this quite
> nicely. Anti-SOMist like Nietzsche, Pirsig will point out that the
> phrase 'I think' is misleading and redundant. As in the case of 'it is
> raining', there is no 'it' over and above the raining itself. There is
> no 'I' that acts as an agent of the thinking, who is separate from the
> thinking itself. This is what Pirsig means when he says that we do not
> HAVE the static patterns of quality, we ARE the patterns. We ARE all
> those conflicting values, including the intellect. 

This is more fudging. The Cogito ergo sum"  was to show that 
Descartes sentence was a result of the French or European culture 
that - around his time had begun to be intellect-dominated and falsely 
believed itself independent of the social settings - a Chinese 
"descartes" would have thought differently.     

> Its not easy to get this idea across because the grammatical structure
> remains the same and the modern West's emphasis on individuality puts
> up some serious resistance too. 

All intellectual patterns that LILA lists are derivatives of the 
OBJECTIVE over SUBJECTIVE (SOM). Democracy, free press, 
freedom of speech, free, free is the 4th. level suppressing  3rd. level. 
In a 3rd. level-steeped culture the judicial  system, the press, the 
military .... THE INDIVIDUAL are all supposed to serve the common 
cause  - the SYSTEM - hence the Muslim world's "Sharia" Law based 
on religion, the chief social pattern.     

> But its just a matter of being able to
> conceive of the capacity for abstract symbol manipulation in the
> absence of the fictional entity that is supposed to somewhere behind
> that action. Getting rid of SOM is a matter of rejecting the subjective
> self, that ridiculous homunculus behind the eyeballs. Fortunately, we
> don't have to throw thinking or intellect our the window with it. 

Ah, the definition of intellect that Pirsig invented in the letter  to Paul 
Turner. In very same letter he came within a hair's breadth of 
confirming the SOL interpretation, but escaped with the new enigma of 
an "Oriental intellect independent of the Greeks". A masterpiece of 
evasion. 

Bo 

I take the liberty to introduce a new thread,  the "pragmatism" does not 
really fit.