[MD] Letter to Paul Turner from RMP 09/2003

[MarshaV]

September 23, 2003

Dear Paul Turner

The question you raise about the intellectual level has troubled me 
too. When I answered Dan Glover in Lila's Child, I remember being a 
little annoyed that anyone should ask what the intellectual level 
is-as though he were asking me what I mean by the word, "the." Any 
definition you give is more likely to complicate understanding than 
simplify it. But since then I have seen the question grow because the 
answer I have given is inadequate.

First of all, the line that, "Biologically [Lila's] fine, socially 
she's pretty far down the scale, intellectually she's nowhere. . ." 
did not mean that Lila was lying on the cabin floor unconscious, 
although some interpretations of the intellectual level would make it 
seem so. Like so many words, "intellectual" has different meanings 
that are confused. The first confusion is between the social title, 
"Intellectual," and the intellectual level itself. The statement, 
"Some intellectuals are not intellectual at all," becomes meaningful 
when one recognizes this difference. I think now that the statement 
"intellectually she's nowhere," could have been more exactly put: "As 
an intellectual Lila is nowhere." That would make it clearer that the 
social title was referred to and the dispute about her 
intellectuality would not have arisen.

Another subtler confusion exists between the word, "intellect," that 
can mean thought about anything and the word, "intellectual," where 
abstract thought itself is of primary importance. Thus, though it may 
be assumed that the Egyptians who preceded the Greeks had intellect, 
it can be doubted that theirs was an intellectual culture.

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 social although not all social patterns are 
intellectual. Handshaking, ballroom dancing, raising one's right hand 
to take an oath, tipping one's hat to the ladies, saying "Gesundheit 
!" after a sneeze-there are trillions of social customs that have no 
intellectual component. Intellectuality occurs when these customs as 
well as biological and inorganic patterns are designated with a sign 
that stands for them and these signs are manipulated independently of 
the patterns they stand for. "Intellect" can then be defined very 
loosely as the level of independently manipulable signs. Grammar, 
logic and mathematics can be described as the rules of this sign manipulation.

Just when the evolution of the intellectual level from the social 
level took place in history can only be speculated on. I certainly 
wasn't there when it happened. Julian Jaynes', "The Origin of 
Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind," has impressed 
me, but other speculation seems valid. Solon, the Athenian lawgiver, 
could be the pivotal point. Maybe Solomon. Maybe the early Greek 
philosophers. Who knows? 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.

There has been a tendency to extend the meaning of "social" down into 
the biological with the assertion that, for example, ants are social, 
but I have argued that this extends the meaning to a point where it 
is useless for classification. I said that even atoms can be called 
societies of electrons and protons. And since everything is thus 
social, why even have the word? I think the same happens to the term, 
"intellectual," when one extends it much before the Ancient Greeks.* 
If one extends the term intellectual to include primitive cultures 
just because they are thinking about things, why stop there? How 
about chimpanzees? Don't they think? How about earthworms? Don't they 
make conscious decisions? How about bacteria responding to light and 
darkness? How about chemicals responding to light and darkness? Our 
intellectual level is broadening to a point where it is losing all 
its meaning. You have to cut it off somewhere, and it seems to me the 
greatest meaning can be given to the intellectual level if it is 
confined to the skilled manipulation of abstract symbols that have no 
corresponding particular experience and which behave according to 
rules of their own.

I'm not sure if all of this defines the intellectual level any better 
than before, or if any such definition is useful. It may be that the 
intellectual level cannot describe itself any better than an eye can 
directly see itself, but has to find itself in mirrors of one sort or 
another. In a scientific materialist mirror there is no such thing as 
intellect since it has no mass or energy that can be objectively 
measured. From a philosophic idealist viewpoint there is nothing but 
intellect. From a Zen viewpoint it is a part of the world of everyday 
affairs that one leaves behind upon becoming enlightened and then 
rediscovers from a Buddha's point of view. But for anyone who really 
wants to know what intellect is I think definitions are not the place 
to start. Since definitions are a part of the intellectual level the 
only person who will understand a definition of intellect is a person 
who already is intellectual and thus has the answer before he ever asks.

Perhaps you can pass all this along to the Lila Squad with the caveat 
that this is not a Papal Bull, as some would have it, or just plain 
bull, as others will see it, but merely another opinion on the 
subject that it is hoped will help.

* The argument that Oriental cultures would not be classified as 
intellectual is avoided by pointing out that the Oriental cultures 
developed an intellectual level independently of the Greeks during 
the Upanishadic period of India at about 1000 to 600 B.C. (These 
dates may be off.) The argument that the MOQ is not an intellectual 
formulation but some kind of other level is not clear to me. There is 
nothing in the MOQ that I know of that leads to this conclusion.

Best Regards

Robert M Pirsig <signature>




.
.
The Universe is uncaused, like a net of jewels in which each is a 
reflection of all the others in a fantastic, interrelated harmony without end.
.
.