[MD] Mind-body practice

[skutvik at online.no]

DMB and moqtalk.

(As said I'm at another computer and don't quite remember if I have 
responded to this, if so ..) 

Anyway on the 11th. you said after I had said. 

> > You are so incapable of leaving the intellect=thinking premises that you
> > don't read straight. I actually say (above) "there can't be a non-S/O
> > intellect, and that a non-S/O intellect is the result of the impossible
> > intellect=thinking definition. (the symbol definition is just as
> > impossible, that's merely language)

> dmb says:
> You're not explaining anything, Bo, you're just repeating the assertion.
> In various ways, you insist that there can't be a non-SOM fourth level,
> that nothing else is possible. But that's exactly what I object to. That's
> what makes no sense. To show that a non-SOM way of dividing experience is
> possible, I have repeatedly pointed to examples of exactly that. I'm
> frustrated by your refusal to acknowledge these examples, with the MOQ
> being the one we MOQers know best.

Course there are ways of perceiving experience non-S/O-ish, all levels 
below intellect do so.

DMB ctd.
> In order to maintain your position, you
> have to invent a whole new level of reality and construe Pirsig's thought
> as something other than thought. That why I asked a simple, rhetorical
> question, "What did Pirsig use to conceive and compose the MOQ?" And your
> response... 

How much is it possible to spin on the point that the MOQ is a 
metaphysics and as such a point of view from outside itself? P. of 
ZAMM used his intelligence - at first from SOM's premises -  but slowly 
the logic of the new Quality Idea got hold of it and brought him to the Q 
premises, but P of LILA somehow got "cold feet".   
 
> dmb says:
> I don't understand how the existence of alternative intellectual systems
> can be dismissed as non-applicable. Are we talking about the intellectual
> level or not? 

At least I am talking about MOQ's STATIC intellectual LEVEL, not 
merely "what comes into SOM's mind". Point to some "alternative 
intellectual systems" (meaning non-S/O intellectual patterns I guess)

DMB ctd.
> The point is to replace one set of metaphysical assumptions with an
> alternative, no? Like I said, "The existence of thought systems like
> ..the MOQ and many others are living proof that SOM is not the only way
> to conceptualize reality". 

At times I doubt if you are the DMB of old or some aliens have 
performed "lobotomy" on you. We know that the MOQ has a social 
level and there are lots of "social-value-based" ways of conceptualizing 
reality: the great mythologies, the monotheist religions that replaced 
them, all animist and taboo world-views. Just every conceivable way of 
conceptualize reality (explaining experience) except the OBJECTIVE, 
rational, skeptical  S/O explanation - are social-level conceptualizing. 
The Oriental tradition (called) may be a Quality-like breakthrough long 
before the West.

> dmb says:
> I read your posts but do not understand them. Thinking and logic is not
> intellectual but biological? Sorry Bo, but I think that's hopelessly
> confused and you shouldn't be surprised that people have a hard time
> making sense of it. 

You read without concentration - your mind far ahead on "refuting Bo" 
tracks -  and believe I say something I don't. There were many 
examples of that in the former post.

DMB ctd.
> What about the existence of alternatives? Seriously. How would you explain
> the fact that non-SOM philosophies exist? 

Give me examples of non-S/O philosophies - except semi-, demi- or 
hemi-religious ones.

> I think you have to do some back-breaking mental gymnastics to hold
> that view. You'd have to believe that Pirsig himself is a SOMer rather
> than a MOQer (which you apparently do) and other crazy things like
> that. 

Yes, at time I see Pirsig as letting Phaedrus down. Things like the said 
about social and intellectual patterns existing in the mental realm 
makes me wince. 

DMB ctd.
> As I've said before, I think you really, really NEED to investigate James
> and Dewey. Their work has given me a richer, deeper understanding of the
> MOQ and it would very likely do the same for you. 

I don't deny for one moment that William James was on to a Quality-
like development and that his "aesthetic continuum" may be compared 
to DQ, but neither makes any sense until - in Pirsig's case - the static 
part was added. James stayed in SOM with the "continuum" the 
objective reality that the human mind makes various subjective 
theories about. Pirsig went further but the infamous misconceived 4th 
level made him fall victim to the same trap.  

IMO

Bo


PS
I did not find it in this post, but somewhere (I believe that) you scoffed 
at my assertion that intelligence has biological roots and has been 
employed by the social and intellectual levels in turn. The vocal chords 
are biology but are employed by the social level to convey language's 
messages, thus biology's neural (computational) network was first 
used by the social value level to "think" social thoughts, then from 
these social thoughts intellectual reasoning evolved. OK, if it weren't 
you disregard.  


PPS
Can't you turn off the "rich text" or HTML button, at times your lines go 
out to the right for miles and makes it cumbersome to read your posts 
from the archives - as I sometimes want to do.