[MD] Another parallel

[plattholden at gmail.com]

Hi Bo, John, All:


On 12 Jul 2009 at 17:24, skutvik at online.no wrote:

> Platt & John
> 
> 11 July:
> 
> Platt said and quoted LILA:
> 
> 
> > > Also intellectual values in this case refers to the scientific view of
> > > life  which has a defect in it: no provision for morals. Result:
> 
>     "Sometime after the twenties a secret loneliness, so 
>     penetrating and
>     so encompassing that we  are only beginning to realize the 
>     extent
>     of it, descended upon the land. This scientific, psychiatric
>     isolation and futility had become a far *worse* prison of the 
>     spirit
>     than the old Victorian "virtue" ever was."  (Lila, 22) 
> 
> Platt says " .... intellectual values in this case refers to the scientific   
> view of life  which has a defect in it: no provision for morals...."  I'm 
> not sure if Platt means that only science has a defect or ...?? At least 
> it's the intellectual level itself that has no provision for morals.

Right
 
> In the above quote Pirsig also refers to science, but the point is that 
> the 4th. level IS the OBJECTIVE attitude of which science is most 
> prominent. It says that morals only exists SUBJECTIVELY in our 
> minds and thus irreal (mind a fall-out of matter) The fact that matter 
> can't exist without mind (the platypuses) I leave here, the point is that 
> SOM is no evil force that has invaded intellect, but the very article.       

Right

> John says:
> > I was thinking that a lot of the intensity for the social forces was
> > caused by that jesuitical fervor that society gets when worldview is
> > being overturned.   A feeling like, where do we go now?  There was a
> > lot of hedonism in Victorian society - the men with their cigars and
> > clubs, the ladies shunted to the side.  Strict separation between
> > science and morality because science brought all these wonders and
> > morality restricted our desires but leading in the end to isolation
> > and futility.
> 
> Social value patterns are as many-faceted as intellect's, but one basic 
> feature can be extracted, namely THE COMMON CAUSE and since 
> you mention  Victorian times (England) it's displayed in the slogan 
> "my country right or wrong". Separation of science and morality - in 
> Victorian times - definitely, because "science" already represented the 
> coming intellectual and "morality" the waning social value. But there 
> are cultures today where intellect hasn't got a hold, where social value 
> in many forms rule. Particularly the muslim world where Islam reigns 
> ... unrestricted.      

Right

> > But I notice that almost any discussion of values, when you get down to
> > it, needs clarification, definition and disambiguation just to know
> > what it is you're talking about.  I'm starting to see for myself  that
> > defining quality is like going the speed of light or dividing by zero,
> > conceptually there but not really. 
 
> Yes, it's the forest/tree problem, if one picks that and that tree as the 
> real forest one is soon lost, a grand view is needed. No one need a 
> definition of the inorganic level, it corresponds more or less with what 
> SOM calls "the physical universe". That goes for the biological level 
> too that corresponds to SOM's "life", but with the social level the 
> trouble begins because SOM has no social level only societies and 
> entering beehives and anthills is counterproductive. Also that of USA 
> or any other Western state as "social value" representatives, they are 
> societies totally intellect-dominated. And with intellect the real trouble 
> starts, this level has nothing to do with mind, thinking, intelligence or 
> anything but is the aforementioned OBJECTIVE, scientific mind-set 
> ...SOM in other words.

Right. The intellectual level is the objective, scientific mind-set, i.e., 
SOM. I withdraw my trial balloon defining the intellectual level as 
"symbols about symbols." 
 
Regards,
Platt