[MD] Dawkins quotes RMP on religion.

[Ham Priday]

Hi Bo --


It must be two years now since I started following your posts, and you've 
gotten very good at explaining your theory as an MoQ position.  But any 
comments I could offer concerning your 'Intellect' would be coming from a 
perspective foreign to yours.  I'm sorry to have to say it, but about the 
only thing we agree on is a statement you made long ago that "experience is 
the value of the S/O divide."

Since you've taken it upon yourself to confront me (a "non-levels" 
renegade), it's important to understand that we're not going to agree on 
what Intellect is.  For example, at the end of your 3/22 post you ask:
> Doesn't your dictionary indicate an OBJECTIVE
> "intellect"? not merely a cognitive faculty?

As a matter of fact, it does not.  Webster's New Collegiate defines the 
etymology of Intellect as derived from the Latin 'intellectus', past 
participle of 'intellegere' (to understand -- more at INTELLIGENT). "1.a) 
the power of knowing as distinguished from the power to feel and to will; 
the capacity for knowledge. b) The capacity for rational or intelligent 
thought. esp. when highly developed.  2. a person with great intellectual 
powers."  Note that the only objective definition is a "person", since 
"capacity for" and "power of" are functions of cognition.  Unlike 
"Intelligence" which DOES have a collective meaning -- e.g., "information, 
news," as in "military intelligence" -- Intellect and its predicate 
"intellection", as commonly used, refer only to the cognitive individual.

We might as well begin with this distinction, since my use of intellect and 
intellection follows the standard usage, while yours and Pirsig's does not. 
In other words, for me there is no body or level of knowledge called 
"Intellect".  Intellection is the process of apprehending facts or knowledge 
in a rational, systematic way.  An individual who exhibits intellectual 
proficiency may be called an "intellectual".  And since I don't subscribe to 
notion of Intellect as a level, intellectualizing for me is thinking about 
things which, as you say, is an "SOM role":

> About intellect's role sounded too good to be true at first (you
> know my SOL) and it soon dawned on me that yours is "intellect
> in its SOM role" that of thinking (cognitive awareness) not in
> MOQ's role as (in this case) the  value of the "thoughts/what
> thoughts are about" distinction. This confirms my assertion that
> you don't understand the Q-level point because the Social level
> humankind surely had an individual sense of being and were as
> intelligent as ourselves. ...
>
> This however looks more of the SOL intellect. So I'm not all sure,
> maybe you are a "cupboard moqist" ;-)

Maybe, whatever that is.

[Bo before]:
> Pirsig does not say that experience creates the world, rather that
> Quality creates the world, its first creation the static inorganic
> level, its last the intellectual ditto. Nothing about "us valuating"
> or other "human consciousness creating the world".

Fine.  But if you accept Pirsig's concept of Quality as equivalent to Value, 
then (according to your own assertion) he is saying that Value creates the 
world.

> OK, Ham you have a point here, the said "cutting edge" passage
> goes like this:
>
>    He simply meant that at the cutting edge of time, before
>    an object can be distinguished, there must be a kind of
>    nonintellectual awareness, which he called awareness of
>    Quality.

Is it not the meaning of this passage that "non-intellectual awareness", the 
awareness of Value, is primary to experience?    If that is correct, then 
the awareness of Value (which I call value-sensibility) is the subject's 
connection with the object (otherness) from which intellection objectivizes 
reality.

> but references to ZAMM regarding the final MOQ is a "fine art",
> because Phaedrus started from SOM's premises so there may
> appear intellect=consciousness. I will not say that the above is
> wrong but in a metaphysics that rejects consciousness as the
> starting point, it's not right to speak of "awareness of quality". If
> so we have an "Awareness Metaphysics" and if it is
> dynamic/static-divided with static awareness levels it's a MOQ
> variety. Can it be that your Essentialism is one such?

I'm not interested making a "fine art" of a thesis; I'm interested in what 
concept the thesis is postulating.  You say it's "not right to speak of 
'awareness of quality'."  I agree that "awareness" isn't the proper term for 
this phenomenon.  That's why I call it Sensibility, as distinguished from 
differentiated experience.  I also agree that consciousness cannot be the 
starting point.  Indeed, I maintain the Quality cannot be the starting 
point.  The starting point--primary source--in my metaphysics is Essence.

[Ham before];
> But in no way can I accept your view that gravity didn't exist
> before Newton, that the universe was not relative before Einstein,
> or that man was not intellectual before the Enlightenment.

[Bo]:
> Things have always fallen to the ground and the reason why has
> had many explanations before Newton, so in that sense Newton
> created gravity, that was P of ZAMM's point. And the same goes
> for Relativity and Quantum Physics. Great theories changes our
> reality and a metaphysics (as the greatest possible theory)
> changes it fundamentally. At this point I thought we were on
> common ground.

Theories may change our reality perspective but, unless you take a 
solipsistic view, it is over-simplistic to say they change Reality itself. 
The reality human beings perceive doesn't depend on any particular conscious 
perspective.  Its quantitative attributes, form and dynamics are universally 
perceived.  This is because the essence of reality is not consciousness or 
quality, both of which are reductive, relational contingencies, but an 
absolute and undivided Essence.

I think this is sufficient to "test" your willingness to talk with me, Bo. 
At least, now you can understand where I'm coming from, and why I find it 
impossible to reconfigure my ontology to the MoQ hierarchy.  Incidentally, I 
enjoy discussing philosophy with people who have strongly-held metaphysical 
positions, and I think you're on to something by pointing out that Intellect 
does not belong with "inorganic', "biological", and "social" categories. 
Beyond that, however, we are presently at odds.

Thanks for the thoughtful analysis.

Regards,
Ham