[MD] In and out of intellect.

[skutvik at online.no]

Group.

Recently I received a letter from Mati (Palm-Leis) about a dubious 
aspect of my interpretation of the MOQ. I hope Mati won't mind my 
sharing this. 
 
>From one of my posts: 
> > My reply to Andrè said something about the MOQ as a "next step". Even if
> > not a static level it assumes a level-like quality in its effort to free
> > itself from intellect. This resembles intellect's effort to free itself
> > from "society" and yet isn't fully comparable because the MOQ must be
> > understood lest it will just undermine intellect (without relegating it
> > its lawful role as the highest static good).

Mati:
> This is the real catch 22, as you wrote to Marsha, 

> > "You may be a Buddhist and feel all right with such "wisdom" but as
> > Westerns steeped in SOM (what becomes the 4th. level in the MOQ) we
> > demand an objective approach to things  and are - likewise - bound to
> > deem your approach as woolly nonsense."  

Mati:
> We are steeped in SOM it was the practice of reason that freed itself the
> social order of things.  

I interpret the catch to be this: If I equalize SOM's replacing Aretê (in 
ZAMM) with the 4th. level replacing the 3rd. and if it was (as Mati says) 
"the practice of reason" that did the trick and if reason is involved in 
the "MOQ out of intellect" something sounds wrong, I agree this  far 
but ....  

All levels began by a pattern of the parent level acting as the vehicle 
for DQ's flight away from its last confinement. Regrettable Pirsig only 
offers one example, namely the element carbon as the vehicle out of 
the inorganic level.  Then let's go directly to the social-intellectual 
transition and ask what social pattern came to be the social "carbon" 
that built intellect?

To be pedantic one must realize that carbon is inorganic although part 
of all all biological patterns, consequently the social "carbon" will be 
social even if part of all intellectual patterns. This is in accordance with 
Pirsig's in the Paul Turner letter 

    When getting into a definition of the intellectual level much 
    clarity can be gained by recognizing a parallel with the lower 
    levels. Just as every biological pattern is also inorganic, but not 
    all inorganic patterns are biological; and just as every social 
    level is also biological, although not all biological patterns are 
    social; SO EVERY INTELLECTUAL PATTERN IS SOCIAL 
    ALTHOUGH NOT ALL SOCIAL PATTERNS ARE 
    INTELLECTUAL (my caps)

... meaning that all intellectual patterns are made from a social building 
block which will remain social. And as I see it language fills this role, in 
itself it is social yet dynamic enough to be the carrier of intellect's 
patterns. The latter I called REASON in my "expression" list,  
but no such design exists in any of Pirsig's work
 
Mati: 
> But answer this, both SOM and MOQ utilize reason to free itself from
> its former level, given that fact, by what basis does the reason
> clearly delineate MOQ from SOM and does that delineate itself a kin to
> SOM practice of reason?  

Mati's use of reason seems to be INTELLIGENCE (that perhaps was 
the biological "carbon" that built society?) what intellect adapted in its 
turn for its own evolution from the rudimentary start with the Greeks to 
a complexity that spawned the intellectual "building block" for the 
MOQ. What this is I haven't yet fathomed, perhaps the hyper-intellect 
of  Phaedrus? Or his Quality Idea which emerged as an intellectual 
pattern, but "took off on a purpose of its own".  

Oops, did this application of Pirsigs "carbon" model inadvertently 
resolve our quandary? The intellectual "carbon" that built the MOQ is 
the Quality Idea and this is intellectual and will remain intellectual, but 
the  MOQ itself.....?? 

Enough

Bo