[MD] Letter to Bodvar Skutvik From Robert M Pirsig, September 15, 2000

[Heather Perella]

    All's I got from this is Bo says he's "objective", "justified", and the whole world is dumb except for him:  "...why this point evades you (all)  is a mystery. But some day there must arrive a thinker..." and so, because Bo says so, we're supposed to believe him.  
    Instead of ho-humming how he's right maybe Bo could actually make a valid arguement, but Bo, you really can't make a valid argument in the face of what is truly a remarkable argument that Ron has put forth.  Outstanding Ron!  You've made these points before, but not with such step by step clarity!

good,
SA

--- On Tue, 8/26/08, skutvik at online.no <skutvik at online.no> wrote:

> From: skutvik at online.no <skutvik at online.no>
> Subject: Re: [MD] Letter to Bodvar Skutvik From Robert M Pirsig, September 15, 2000
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Date: Tuesday, August 26, 2008, 10:14 PM
> All MOQists
> 
> 26 Aug. Ron delivered a critique of my SOL essay 
> 
> > Ron: I have reproduced Bodivars only known rational
> appeal to how SOL
> > functions in a hope to resolve the misunderstanding
> and difference of
> > SOL and MoQ. My own statements and quotes from Robert
> Pirsig are
> > inserted. 
> 
> I take the liberty to edit it, no one takes the trouble to
> read through 
> reams of text to arrive at the first point which is this
> 
> The SOL:
> The Romantic/Classic split was left for the Dynamic/Static
> one in LILA
> but "intellectual quality" remains as a static
> level and ought to be
> the VALUE of the S/O divide, but Pirsig had found a new way
> of
> disposing of the S/O, namely the said "standard
> procedure" that says
> that the two lower levels are "objective" and the
> two upper are
> "subjective" 
> 
>     Lila's Child (LC) annotation # 4 
>     My earlier view when I was concentrating on the
> confusion 
>     of subject/object thinking, was to get rid of them
> entirely to 
>     help clarify things. Later I began to see it's not
> necessary 
>     to get rid of them because the MOQ can encase them 
>     neatly within its structure. The upper two levels being
> 
>     subjective and the lower two objective.  
> 
> SOL:
> I agree with the necessity of retaining "S/O
> thinking" and also that
> the MOQ can encase it, but not with his method of doing so.
> It has
> caused much confusion dubious statements, for instance
> (Lila's Child".
> Page 529)
> 
>             LC:
>     In the MOQ, all organisms are objective. They exist in
> the 
>     material world. All societies are subjective. They
> exist in 
>     the mental world. Again, the distinction is very sharp.
> For 
>     example, the president of the United States is a social
> 
>     pattern. No objective scientific instrument can
> distinguish a 
>     President of the US from anyone else..  
> 
> SOL:
> Inorganic instruments only detect inorganic value. But more
> serious;
> what has subjective/objective and mental/material to do
> with quality
> patterns? In LILA Pirsig (correctly) shows that inorganic
> value does
> not correspond to substance, thus intellectual value
> doesn't correspond
> to mind. No level corresponds to any of SOM's
> categories. This makes a
> SOM-like split open up between biology and society .... at
> best, more
> likely between Intellect and the rest and nothing is
> gained. It's SOM
> in a quality garb. 
> 
> Ron:
> > This is Bodivars first misunderstanding of Pirsigs
> attempt to explain
> > MoQ levels from an SOM perspective. Notice how he
> immediately compares
> > and contrasts this attempt with the MoQ interpretation
> conflating the
> > two. He does not notice how Pirsig is displaying how
> the two
> > intellectual patterns interpret the same data. 
> 
> Bo now:
> I really admire you for understanding these subtle points,
> but you 
> are wrong if you don't think I "objectively"
> considered all points of 
> views, and had Pirsig said "... from SOM seen all
> biological 
> patterns are objective" but he actually says "In
> the MOQ all 
> organisms are objective..."  so I think I'm
> justified in my criticism of 
> this way of encasing SOM  
> 
> 
> SOL continued: 
> In spite of this Pirsig repeatedly - inadvertently -
> returns to his initial 
> correct insight and presents intellect as the S/O divide
> alone. He 
> says that he saw no need to define intellect, everybody
> know what 
> it means and my dictionary says: "The power of the
> mind to reason 
> contrasted with feeling and instincts".
> "Mind" can be omitted 
> without losing any meaning and because reason is
> objectivity itself 
> and feeling is subjectivity itself .. intellect is the S/O
> distinction. 
> What screws it all up is the notion of a mind doing the 
> intellectualization, while it's intellect that does the
> mind/matter-
> ization.  
> 
> Ron:
> > Bodivar is unaware he is using a culturally SOM
> defined definition of
> > the term "intellect".
> 
> Bo now:
> What is a non-cultural definition of INTELLECT? When I
> (thanks to 
> you) read my SOL essay again I'm struck of its quality:
> This one 
> for instance
> 
>     "What screws it all up is the notion of a mind
> doing the 
>     intellectualization, while it's intellect that does
> the 
>     mind/matter-ization"
> 
> ... is a gem (according to my conceited self) and why this
> point 
> evades you (all)  is a mystery. But some day there must
> arrive a 
> thinker (with the credentials that makes it impossible to
> ignore him) 
> who will take up the challenge.  
> 
> 
> Next instalment coming soon
> 
> Bo
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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