[MD] In and out of intellect.

[skutvik at online.no]

Chris, Ron, Andrè, Group.   

5 Dec. 

Ron (?) before?
> This whole notion of 'truth' was undefined and I hope to think at that
> time at least on equal par with Good. I think that is why Pirsig
> compared it to the Tao. It was 'intellect' as Bodvar suggests that
> fucked it all up...later. And then it needed to be retrieved
> intellectualy, which is an impossibility...it is direct experience,
> from the pre-intellectual 'era'. That's why we must kill all
> intellectual patterns to get a glimps of it. 

???????????????

[Chris]
> Even though I don't agree with Bodvar on the point of SOM being
> synonymous with the intellectual level, I do share his view that
> looking at SOM (and for that matter all philosophy and subsequent
> science that developed in the western world) as something that usurped
> and suppressed a Quality Understanding? - is wrong. 

"Beggars can't be chosers" so thanks for these crumbs ;-)  but may I 
ask you (too) for examples of patterns you deem Q-intellectual and not 
S/O-based. And also how you explain Pirsig's in the P.T. letter about 
not convenient to speak about Q-intellect before the Greeks, and - 
finally - the LILA quote about Q-intellect not having transcended Q-
society at Homer's time. All pointing to SOM=Q-Intellect.    

Chris:
> We mustn't nurture some unrealistic view that before SOM people saw
> things undivided and pure - the Quest for Understanding is apparently
> present as far back as we have historical testimony, but what we CAN
> see (at least a MOQist) is that this quest was heavily - if not totally
> - dominated by social level values. 

If undivided and pure means people wandering around in some 
ecstasy I agree, but Pirsig has one definition (of social reality) I find 
useful:

    But if one studies the early books of the Bible or if one studies 
    the sayings of primitive tribes today, the intellectual level is 
    conspicuously absent. The world is ruled by Gods who follow 
    social and biological patterns and nothing else.  

Thus social reality's "quest for understanding" was for understanding 
"the god's". This in the most expanded sense from the animism 
cultures to the complex (Greek influenced) theology of Medieval Ages.      

> Only when Truth can stand by itself, as a Value in it self - is the
> intellectual level realized.

Right, so why disagree with the SOM=Intellect thesis? And what was 
intellect before realized. 

Ron: 
> Excellent statement, while SOM d id not suppress the quality idea, it
> did force Arete into the back seat redefining what social excellence
> meant in the way of realizing truth as a value in itself so much so
> that over time it gradually dominated the scene and saw itself as
> divorced from social norms and establishing?a "gods eye" view that
> objectivism is known for. This does not so much suppress Arete but it
> overshadows it so much that it is often ignored and under valued. 

Right, as said in ZAMM, Plato did not want to "suppress"  Aretê 

    "Plato hadn't tried to destroy areté. He had encapsulated it; 
    made a permanent, fixed Idea out of it; had converted it to a 
    rigid, immobile Immortal Truth. He made areté the Good, the 
    highest form, the highest Idea of all. It was subordinate only to 
    Truth itself, in a synthesis of all that had gone before. 

In a MOQ retrospect Quality's "leading edge" shifted from the social to 
the intellectual level. This may be expressed as forcing social Aretê 
into the back seat or any of your formulations here. 

Now, Truth is SOM's objective part, but this can't stand alone, it  
requires a contrast and early SOM started to spawn dualisms Plato 
deemed Truth=Ideas contrasted to Appearance. With Aristotle it 
became Substance vs Form to end up with our Mind/Matter variety.  

Why you (Ron) keep making a point of disagreeing with me is a 
mystery.  

Andre:
> This makes a lot of sense to me. Thank you both for clarifying this.

Agree.

Bodvar