[MD] The Quality/MOQ dichotomy.

[Ham Priday]

Bo --

Excuse me, but I have some comments on your 2/13 post to Marsha.


Marsha wrote:.
> I do not consider "concept" to be language only.  Intellect may be
> language only, but I'm not sure.  In my experience, concept may be
> bits and pieces of all sorts of mental stuff.

You explain:
> Look, it was the intellectual level that made language into
> "concepts". People of ancient times (social level) prattled, sang
> and wrote books (from Pirsig's letter to Paul Turner)
>
>    "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."
>
> ... but had no idea of language as something only having
> subjective relevance, this because they knew no subject/object
> distinction Only with the 4th. level did language get the said quality
> as "bits and pieces of all sorts of mental stuff". Try to climb up
> from intellect's (SOM's) perch to MOQ's meta-level.

As you must know, I take exception to your view that concepts (i.e., 
intellectual apprehension) are dependent on language.  Surely our 
pre-lingual ancestors observing the sun rising every morning and setting 
every night, or the repetitive passing of the seasons, apprehended these 
phenomena as cycling events.  They must also have learned that placing a 
fish over a fire changed its texture so as to make it more edible.  These 
are simple concepts, no doubt, but understanding and applying them did not 
require the use of language.  Nor did the cave paintings and engravings 
depicting animals and human figures rendered by Palaeolithic man as early as 
10,000 BC.  (Were it not for the likes of Marsha, we would forget that art 
is a non-lingual conception.)

> In the same letter Pirsig offered a new definition of intellect:
>
>    "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."
>
> This should (regarding language) have been
>
> "Intellect" can be defined as the realization that language is a
> subjective representations of an objective reality."

With respect to both you and Pirsig, these are woefully inadequate 
definitions of "intellect".  "Manipulable signs" are only the symbols of 
concepts, like plus and minus marks, words or musicial notations.  They may 
represent concepts, or suggest intellectual activity, but they do not define 
the intellectual faculty itself.  Moreover, such symbols are but meaningless 
scratchings to observers who lack the intellect to interpret them.

I also take issue with your assertion: "Intellect can be defined as the 
realization that language is a
subjective representation."  Intellect is the ability to make sense of 
knowledge.  The "realization" is not that language represents a sensible 
concept; it is the subjective (proprietary) awareness of the concept.
You consistently slight the "power of knowing" in your analysis of 
intellect, as if to suggest that the Knower doesn't exist.  Intellect is not 
some extra-human realm of knowledge.  It's the realization of the INDIVIDUAL 
SELF.  To deny the reality of the subject is a perversion of experiential 
reality and, in my opinion, does a disservice to epistemology and 
philosophical understanding.

Words, symbols, and language are representations.  Intellect is what makes 
experience comprehensible to the subject so that concepts can be represented 
symbolically.

Thanks for your time.

-- Ham