[MD] The Oriental intellect(ual) level

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi Khoo 

On 11 Nov. you wrote:

> Excuse me my intervention at this point - but arent we going
> MOQ-centric about the whole thing. The whole universe and the whole
> damn thing is not just about the MOQ and how the various levels
> explain its workings !

A bit late this, but I am hampered by my slow ways and some 
more pressing posts, I always react to the "old" MOQ people's 
posts. But now they have withdrawn to their caves ;-)    

> Bo I dare say you have latched on to the centricity of the MOQ in the
> absence of dynamic appreciation and try try as much as you do to
> explain everything else in its terms. The Upanishads were a time on to
> themselves, so were the Mayans and the aboriginals of Australia.  What
> irks me is the attempt to place a classification of intellectualism on
> a whole philosophy ! Arrogance ?  I dare think so.

I have definitely latched on to the MOQ and I see our purpose as 
that of examining everything in its light. All great systems change 
the past by fitting it into a new mold. The said Mayans and 
Aborigines are Social level cultures in a MOQ view, that's no 
derogative term, but the intellectual is a still higher and the MOQ 
the highest possible. If this isn't one's premises what's the idea of 
staying around? One may discuss aspects of it and ... you know 
like I have been banging on for years about the faulty definition of 
the 4th level, but the basic MOQ is sound ... in my opinion.   

> As far as causality, who are we to say that Greek philosophy is traced
> from Indian Philosophy or vice versa. If your worldview is static and
> that time is a straight line then maybe. But picture this - that
> pockets of enlightened consciousness emerge across time and space
> inter-related and inter -causal all at the same time, neither one
> instance responsible for the other - but happening at the same time
> and not happening at all.

I have no idea what inter-related and inter-causal means but the 
human drift, and that goes for all whether Inuit or Aborigine, is to 
find generalities - a system - in the welter of bewildering data that 
confront us and the bigger (more general) the system the better. 
In the enormous MOQ system all pre-intellect (social) era 
systems (the various myths) were once "times (systems) on to 
themselves". With the arrival of the intellectual level these 
became intellectual subsystems (study objects for anthropologists 
and other -logies) Now intellect has become a subsystem of the 
MOQ.   

> From the Eastern/Oriental worldview, Western/Greek philosophy is only
> one variant of a worldview localised by time and space, not to be
> pinned down to a sub-section of a sub-section as Aristotle was wont to
> do. It could be called by any other name - and it would not make an
> iota of a difference. 

Yes, that's exactly what the MOQ claims. The Western/Greek 
philosophy - SOM - is only one static sub-section of the overall 
MOQ system (at least in my "book")  and by this shift of 
perspective the MOQ becomes some variant of the Eastern 
Tradition. Then when Pirsig says:     

    * The argument that Oriental cultures would not be 
    classified as intellectual is avoided by pointing out that 
    the Oriental cultures developed an intellectual level 
    independently of the Greeks during the Upanishadic 
    period of India at about 1000 to 600 B.C. (These dates 
    may be off.) The argument that the MOQ is not an 
    intellectual formulation but some kind of other level is not 
    clear to me. There is nothing in the MOQ that I know of 
    that leads to this conclusion.  

My reasoning is as follows: If the Oriental (I'm not sure whether 
this is Hindu or Buddhism or combined) developed "an 
intellectual level" (why not THE level?) and this was the 
Upanishads, then was this a philosophy that can be compared to 
the Greeks' search for objectivity - for TRUTH?. Why not assist 
me in this and tell what the said period means in a MOQ context?    

> But you western oriented gentlemen (wogs) all - by these I dont mean
> race nor religion - but by philosophical underpinning - the urge to
> divide and classify - is just too strong is it not ?

As said I don't think anyone can avoid classifying and dividing 
(systematizing).    


Bo