[MD] The intellectual level

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi Andre

9 Oct. u wrote:

Bodvar before:

> > "I could not agree more, this definition of intellect is clearly not
> > correct MOQ-wisely. Manipulation of symbols is what language is about
> > (plus mathematics, logic ..etc) Nor I understand what "no corresponding
> > particular experience" means, but Pirsig could not bring himself to
> > agree fully with the SOL interpretation (intellect=the subject/object
> > distinction) in this case: symbols/what they symbolize".
 
??:
> This places language fairly and squarely at the social and
> intellectual level.

I did not say this Andre, yet I agree about language as social, the 
"intellectual part (of language) however must be understood properly. 
This from Pirsig to Paul Turner in a letter of 2005 ) for instance. 

    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 (ALSO) 
    SOCIAL ALTHOUGH NOT ALL SOCIAL PATTERNS ARE 
    INTELLECTUAL. (my caps)  

To start with the inorganic-biological all living organisms are composed 
of matter, but not all matter is alive. Likewise all intellectual patterns 
utilize the social pattern language, but what language conveys isn't 
necessarily social.     
  
> Bodvar ( and anyone interested of course) do you want to persue this
> further? I think it is very important as I have a hunch that something
> is not quite right in all this. I do want to get a grasp on this Int
> PoV but demands of work prevent me from devoting the time it deserves
> at the moment.
 
The core problem is that - for some reason - Pirsig shifted from his 
original insight in ZAMM that Quality gives rise to subjects and object 
(the SOM) and in the first proto-moq he explicitly says that 
intellect=SOM, but when LILA arrived the 4th. level had become 
something very vague: more like "mind", namely an idea realm that 
SOM has hijacked and what the MOQ will replace. This leaves the 
STATIC intellectual  level anything but static, it can contain SOM one 
moment and MOQ the next.  

The problem rests with Pirsig's statement about the MOQ an 
intellectual pattern, which is clearly wrong; the intellectual level is a 
MOQ pattern! However, Pirsig is just as ambiguous, LILA contains 
many passages that conveys the (correct) intellect=S/O notion and in 
the said Paul Turner letter he rejects the mind intellect. In addition he 
says that suggesting an intellectual level before the Greeks makes it 
useless and - NB! - "Greeks" in a MOQ context means SOM. Yet, he 
could not bring himself to say so, but launched the impossible "symbol 
manipulation intellect" that has led so many astray.   

> Also can we change it into another thread? Simply: the intellectual
> level?

Complied with ;-)

Bo