[MD] neener neener

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi John

18 Nov. you wrote: 

> So, you were suffering in the land of "oops", ZAMM gave you your
> "aha!" and you've been struggling for the "ahhhh" ever since. That song
> has been running through my head since Arlo hummed it and now I can't
> get it out of my brain. 

I've noticed the "oops" issue (Arlo and Platt) but am not sure what it 
means. Tell me!

Bo before:
> > It's the "intelligence-intellect" confusion (the notion that the
> > 4th. level is = intelligence) which is the chief stumbling stone,
> > and it may take an effort to switch from the SOM where the term
> > "intellect" seems chiseled in stone to mean MIND, to the MOQ where
> > its 4th. level IS the MIND/not MIND distinction. This switch is no
> > smooth operation, but a quantum jump.
 
John:
> I think when we speak of levels of patterns, when we say 4th level
> we're not talking about Intellect .....

MOQ's "intellect" is what your dictionary (if I remember correctly) says: 
OBJECTIVITY (that this requires subjectivity as its contrast is plain).  
So does my "Oxford Advanced",  but for some reason most people are 
hell bent on defining it as "mental activity" or as language, meaning the 
inner "talk-show" we all keep going. Both are wrong.  

> .... we're talking about intellectual patterns - philosophies,
> metaphysical systems of understanding reality. 

Correct. "Philosophy" is an effort to think objectively (and avoid 
subjectivity) and the result of this thinking - "metaphysical systems" - 
are supposed to be rational. But by asking the 4th. level of its own 
definition of "intellect" the answer won't be the subject/object 
distinction, but the thinking subject's ability to see the objective 
contexts of its world. From this emerges the conclusion that the 
subject/object divide is existence's fundament, hence SOM.  

Pirsig's stroke of genius was to introduce a still higher point of view 
(where the fundamental divide is DQ/SQ) and from where the former 
S/O divide is reduced from its former glory as ultimate reality  to the 
4th. level of its own static range. Now, in the light of intellect = the S/O 
divide, one will see that MOQ's DQ/SQ divide is no continuation of 
intellect  (an intellectual pattern) but a total and fundamental break.   

> This "intellect" name for the level has confused me at times, but
> realizing that people come and go, but the patterns of thought get
> passed down generationally and thus does intellectual evolution occur,
> helped me to straighten out the misunderstanding. That's why I think
> it's helpful to label the 4th level the metaphysical level, or perhaps
> the Philosophy level.

"Patterns of thought"??!! When the proverbial Stone Ager sat down 
and pondered his existence is was just as much "pattern of thoughts" 
as Dr. McWatt pondering the MOQ. The difference is that ancient 
people had not reached the OBJECTIVE LEVEL, never "thinking" 
..what are these lights in the the sky objectively, there must be a 
natural explanation ...etc.  You, John, suffer as much from the 
intelligence-intellect confusion as the rest of this discussion. 

The 4th. level is indeed (among other definitions) the philosophy level 
but that is a truism because "philosophy" spells the objective approach 
or attitude.

> With SOM being ONE philosophy among many. 

No, because the objective-over-subjective approach IS the intellectual 
level. And it is no "just" (if your objection is that it sounds too limited, 
narrow or feeble) it spells existence's way out of ignorance, 
superstition and bigotry and on to modernism . And moreover, intellect 
(SOM) is the necessary stage that has to be reached before the MOQ 
can be reached, no one can step from the social level on to the MOQ.  

> Now, is the MoQ contained within this level that is formed by the MoQ?
> That gives you the willies, and perhaps there is a way to untangle the
> container/contained issue, but I think that's a do-able process. We
> just need to pursue the proper methods.

Yes, it certainly gives me the willies, because it deeply wrong and 
destroys the MOQ. The container analogy is watertight and 
shockproof. Logic cannot be abolished. 

Bodvar