[MD] The 4th. level's two interpretations. Part 1

Tue Oct 27 11:25:50 PDT 2009

All MD

26 Oct. Matt Kundert wrote:

Bo had said (to Ian):

> > Can't you understand that there are just two options. 
> > Either MOQ's intellectual level is 
> > 1) = SOM
> > or
> > 2) = what SOM means by "intellect", namely the mental 
> > compartment called "mind" where concepts - ideas - 
> > thoughts .. are formulated and stored.

Matt:
> I want to applaud this formulation as mightily the most concise,
> though it does make more opaque how you can conceive yourself as
> _avoiding_ SOMism, and carrying on something different (say, the MoQ,
> or SOLAQI, or whatever).  (And it makes one wonder why you are so
> emphatic that there are only two options.) 

Hi Matt
I'm glad you find the above options concise. How (1) avoids SOMism 
is because relegated the role of MOQ's intellectual level SOM's 
immense value is secured, while  this role explains its shortcomings 
(paradoxes, "platypuses") because no static level is "closed". If 
intellect is pursued far enough its social roots will show.  

How it "..can carry on  the MOQ  is by the same token. That way it no 
longer is "a loose gun on deck" that  Pirsig's way of encasing SOM is 
(the two lower levels = objects and the two upper=subjects) . I would 
have liked to elaborate, but enough for now.            

> (Side note to Squonk: "what SOM means by 'intellect'" _is_ what the
> MoQ means by spov and ipov.  

This is the said Pirsig's how the MOQ embeds SOM: Spovs (social 
patterns) and ipovs (intellectual patterns are "subjects-subjective) 
while the inorganic and biological levels are "objects-objective". In LILA 
he demonstrates how this resolves the mind/matter "platypus", but it 
becomes too contrived .       

> So technically, in this instance, Bo wasn't wrong in his formulation
> when you reminded us of the latter fact.  I'd also mention that your
> use of the equal sign was ambiguous when alongside Bo's usage.  In (A),
> the "mind" _is_ spov and ipov, but in (B) and (C), you did not mean
> "is," you meant "is _an_." 

I lost my way ;-).

> Bo wants to say, as ambiguously in your (B), that SOM _is_ ipov, but if
> I'm not mistaken you, like most, agree with Pirsig that SOM _is an_
> ipov, rather than the whole kit and caboodle.) 

Yes, the SOL claims that SOM is the 4th. Q-level,  while "orthodoxy" 
claims that SOM is ONE intellectual pattern. 

> If the MoQ's intellectual level is SOM--(1)--then how does that make
> the MoQ revolutionary, rather than just a re-recognition of the fact
> that SOM is the way the world is? 

This I answered (up) above. As the 4th. level SOM's "M" is removed, 
only the value of REASON (the ability to distinguish between what's 
objective from what's subjective) remains. The 4th. level  will stop 
being provider of ultimate metaphysical-philosophical "truths" ... and 
that's pretty revolutionary ...no?    

> Whereas (2) is the interpretation in which we recognize that though
> there are certain phenomena that remain the same (intellectual,
> social, biological, inorganic stuff), the interpretation of these
> phenomena is not set in stone, but optional--we can arrange them
> differently if we like.  Like, say into the MoQ. 

Well, then problem is what "remains the same" regarding the 4th level 
i.e. intellect's static value? You Matt are from when Paul Turner wrote 
to Pirsig about the problematic 4th. level. He at least got a vehement 
rejection of the "mind" or "thinking" definition and than a statement that 
"... it gives little meaning to the speak of any 4th. level before the old 
Greeks thinkers." (=SOM) but then Pirsig obviously felt that this was 
giving SOL the little finger and launched the "manipulation of symbols" 
definition, but as this is language the MOQ water were even more 
mucked. 

Look to the most central Q-tenet of the upper level's purpose to control 
the parent level. Manipulation of symbols can by no stretch of 
imagination be seen as controlling social value (besides the social 
level manipulates symbols galore by language and calculation. No, the 
only things that controls society is intellect =SOM and all the 
intellectual patterns LILA lists are S/O-ish to the core           

> I guess the above rhetorical question about (1) is what I've never
> understood, and might be said to be the primary problem facing such a
> thesis.  Was Pirsig just promoting self-consciousness?  What about all
> that stuff _in_ ZMM deriding the paradigm he was excavating, deriding
> materialism, the S/O Dilemma that SOM produces, deriding dialectic,
> deriding the fact that we'll do what is reasonable even when it isn't
> any good? 

Yes, Pirsg's books carry (1) and (2) in equal amounts, but my claim is 
that that only (1) supports the MOQ. However the MDiscussers 
immediately interprets the term "intellect" to mean (2) If it is the 
English language or ... as told my Oxford Advanced defines "intellect" 
as SOM (by a little nudge)   

end of part 1. 

Bodvar

> I guess because I don't understand how your thesis avoids 
> some of these problems as a point of Pirsigian exegesis, 
> and I don't think I'm alone in this, it isn't clear _how_ we 
> can take the thesis seriously until those problems are 
> cleared up.  Not without, at least, handing in our Pirsigian 
> ID cards.  The distinction between a subject as a 
> consciousness and an object as a piece of the world being 
> percieved is clearly an important distinction in the history 
> of increased articulation of how we are, but that 
> recognition is not SOM.
> 
> At least, it's not clear to anyone else it is.
> 
> Bo said:
> The "Greeks" times have been deemed a fundamental 
> upheaval by  historians, philosophers, writers, thinkers 
> ...etc. but no one had interpreted it like Pirsig's SOM so it 
> has not reached any mythological status. This is the 
> world-shaking revelation of ZAMM and if you see Matt's 
> blog as "debunking" it you are even dumber than he is. 
> You can mean whatever you want about my SOL .... even 
> step on my blue suede shoes ... but ZAMM's on SOM is 
> inviolable.
> 
> Matt:
> This just seems silly.  The notion of "classical Greece," 
> as a time of Enlightenment before the "World" fell into the 
> "Dark Ages," is a very distinguished European myth with 
> a long pedigree.  Even after scholars and intellectuals 
> stopped treating Ancient Greece as the Cradle of All 
> Things Great, all still consider that time a hotbed of 
> cultural change.
> 
> My stupid close reading of ZMM and what Pirsig means by 
> SOM aside (foolish me for engaging in intellectual 
> dialogue), what is weird and strange above is the 
> relationship between ZMM as a piece of intellectual 
> scholarship and the rest of intellectual scholarship--i.e., it 
> creates the impression that you are entirely ignorant of 
> any other intellectual scholarship but Pirsig's.  Which I 
> know is not true, but it is certainly how you appear most 
> of the time.
> 
> Matt
> 
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