[MD] Trance state

[Platt Holden]

Hi Steve, 

[Steve]
> I don't have your post with me, but I try to address what I remember about
> it.
> 
> Marsha quoted the whole paragraph which is important because the last
> sentence is key:
> 
> "What had happened since the end of World War I was that the
> intellectual
> level had entered the picture and had taken over everything.  It was
> this
> intellectual level that was screwing everything up.  The question of
> whether promiscuity is moral had been resolved from prehistoric times to
> the end of the Victorian era, but suddenly everything was upended by
> this
> new intellectual supremacy that said sexual promiscuity is neither moral
> nor immoral, it is just amoral human behavior."

Yes. The SOM intellectual level (not pattern) is what Pirsig is talking 
about here -- the level that became "supreme" over the social level, 
upsetting Rigel and causing him to dump on Pirsig.    

> What Pirsig is describing is not intellect itself but rather the SOM
> view of intellect. Specifically it is the intellectual pattern that
> says that intellectual patterns are amoral that is screwing everything
> up. It is Rigel's rather than Pirsig's view of intellect. This becomes
> even more clear as we continue:

When Pirsig says "the intellectual level" I believe him. If he had meant 
"intellectual patterns" he would have said so. Rigel has no view of 
intellect: his view is strictly social level. 

> "That may have been why Rigel was so angry back in Kingston.  He thought
> Lila was immoral because she'd broken up a family and destroyed a man's
> position in the social community-a biological pattern of quality, sex,
> had
> destroyed a social pattern of quality, a family and a job.  What made
> Rigel
> mad was that into this scene come intellectuals like Phædrus who say
> it's
> unintelligent to repress biological drives.  You must decide these
> matters
> on the basis of reason, not on the basis of social codes.
> 
> But if Rigel identified Phædrus with this intellect-vs.-society code and
> the social upheavals it has produced, he certainly picked on the wrong
> person.  The Metaphysics of Quality uproots the intellectual source of
> this
> confusion, the doctrine that says, "Science is not concerned with
> values.
> Science is concerned only with facts."
> 
> In a subject-object metaphysics this platitude is unassailable, but the
> Metaphysics of Quality asks: which values is science unconcerned with?
> Gravitation is an inorganic pattern of values.  Is science unconcerned?
> Truth is an intellectual pattern of values.  Is science unconcerned?"

> Clearly Pirsig is indeed talking about patterns of values when he
> wants to get specific, and he specifically mentions them here. He is
> saying that what we need is for the intellectual pattern that says
> that truth is a species of good to win out over the intellectual
> pattern that says that intellect is amoral. This is ZAMM's pursuit of
> the Ghost of Reason or the root of the problem or the dark side of
> SOM.

Clearly Pirsig is laying the groundwork for his MOQ wherein values are not  
limited to Rigel-like social conventions or science-like amorality, but are 
the whole thing. The MOQ is more than just another intellectual pattern 
because at its root is direct experience prior to intellect. Like Andre, I 
consider the MOQ a higher, aesthetic level presenting a broader 
understanding of reality than the intellectual level.    
 
> Certainly many of our common intellectual patterns such as the one I
> just described are based on SOM assumptions, but that does not mean
> that ALL intellectual patterns are based on SOM assumptions or that
> SOM is what intellect is (the S/O aggregate or whatever Bo says). That
> would simply be a category error. Intellect describes a sort of
> pattern of value recognized as the manupulation of abstract symbols
> that stand for patterns of experience. The intellectual level is the
> collection of all such patterns.

Like I said, unless the intellectual level is SOM, the trance state of    
today's "intellectuals," Pirsig's analysis of our cultural problems 
collapses. Then the MOQ would be a philosophic non-starter.

Best.
Platt