[MD] QRE: The 4th. level's two interpretations. Par

[skutvik at online.no]

Hello Steve, Ron, All

9 Nov.:

Ron had said:
> > I suppose what I'm getting at is the idea of the myth of 
> > the"rational" thought, how, in our modern use of terms they
> > co-mingle and conflaguate meaning, making the lines between the
> > ability to think and a system of thought blurred. In other words, to
> > sum up the MoQ stance, that western cultures rational is the flaw in
> > it's reason.

Well put Ron!
Our modern (4th. level's) use of the 'rationality' and 'reason' terms 
blurs the lines between THE ABILITY To the THINK = INTELLIGENCE 
and A SYSTEM OF THOUGHT=INTELLECT. That's exactly what has 
happened. Intellect in its SOM role (before the MOQ made it into a 
static level) hijacked language and Steve now believes that "giving 
reason for one's action" is intellect. The proverbial Stone Age hunter 
surely gave HIS reason for HIS actions, but steeped in the 3rd.level's 
social reality these reasons - based on dreams and fortune telling - 
weren't rational seen from the 4th. level. Social "explanations are still 
anathema to intellect.. 

Steve:
> That's something like the Ghost of Reason that Phaedrus gave a good
> thrashing to. Rational thought is an value-laden as anything else.
> Pirsig showed how irrational it is to think otherwise.

Not just "...something like.." but Phaedrus very crusade against SOM 
(the 4th. level before he exposed it as a mere static level). SOM had 
made the term REASON to mean everything based on scientific 
objectivity and also established its own immune system (psychiatry) 
that threw everyone who protested REASON into insane asylums. 

> But I don't think of "rational" as a particular system of thought.

Yes, you do. You insist on "reason/rationality" indicating the intellectual 
level, but the fact is that the 4th. level has hijacked the biological  
thinking capacity (intelligence) and made it mean "intellect".  I know it 
isn't easy to go from SOM to MOQ, but seen from the latter it looks like 
this: The intellectual level is the S/O distinction and inside it the term 
"intellect" means a subjective consciousness about an objective 
reality.    

> I think of logic that way. I just think of rational as a compliment we
> pay to explanations we think are good.

Sure, from inside the intellect's value system rational (objective) 
explanation look good, and subjective explanations looks bad  That 
elementary Dr Peterson 

> But I know what you mean about "the myth of reason" which takes Reason
> as an essence to be a nonhuman value-free power that can be appealed to
> to settle disputes and that we have a duty to coform to. The MOQ denies
> the existence of such an esence. 

Yes the MOQ "denies" SOM its former "myth of reason" role  by 
making it into its own 4th. level. But intellect's value remains the S/O 
distinction. An intellectual level as a vessel that can be emptied of 
SOM and filled with MOQ is SOM back in force.    

Bodvar