[MD] The 4th. level's two interpretations. Part 2

[Ian Glendinning]

Bo, (and Matt et al) a few points ...

You quote (yet again, for the umpteenth time)
 "For purposes of MOQ precision let's say that the intellectual level
is the same as mind...."("Lila's Child" page 64, annotation:#25)
Yes, we know, Bo, but he says "let's say" ... he's thinking out loud
in a discussion here ... it is hardly definitive of his
thought-through thesis.

Matt had said,
"... deriding the fact that we'll do what is reasonable even when it
isn't any good?"
I know Matt has a thing about Pirsig being "pejorative" about existing
philosoph(olog)ies, hence his "deriding", but this is the crucial
point.
Reasonable vs Good (and what intellect has to do with this) - see later.

And again Bo, you said, this time to Matt - but condemning us all as usual ...
"But like most you seem unable to fathom what the intellectual level
is, namely when the individual's perception became SUBJECTIVE and what
s/he perceived became OBJECTIVE meaning that this distinction is
existence's fundament."

Became. Notice.
OK, I'm OK with that, it's an evolutionary narrative we're talking
about here, and this is simply Pirsig's definition of the intellectual
level arising, not anything fundamental about intellect per se. And
the key point is the (erroneous) reification of the S/O split as
somehow fundamental.

I actually think you are onto something with one point here, but you
miss the difficulties others are raising.
Yes the social level also involve(d/s) patterns of subjects and
objects - all that the step to the SOMist intellectual levels
indicates is the point where the objective half of that split got
taken to be fundamental reality from the subjects perspective. I have
never had any disagreement with you over this interpretation of the
MoQ levels. My problem is that it does not tell us anything useful
about the hierarchical goodness of social and intellectual patterns in
real life - now and in future. If anything it implies this kind of
intellect is always worse than any social pattern - the Platteral
anti-intellectual stance - which is clearly too simplistic, as well as
useless - the "crucial" point above. It doesn't help us say how and
when social (or intellectual) is better than intelectual (or social) -
when is reasonable also good (or not) ?

(I'm less interested than others in debating the eastern/western
mythology of when the Greeks or others before or after, actually
introduced that error - since it is clearly much more complex than
something Plato wrote one day - all ideas evolve, co-creatively, over
time in many minds, individual and collective, intellectual and
cutural - and philosophical - traditions and mythologies. They're in
safe hands with Dave, and Matt et al.)

Regards
Ian

On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 6:34 PM,  <skutvik at online.no> wrote:
> To complete my dispute with Matt of 26 Oct. I'll start with his last
> paragraph.
>
> Matt:
>> I guess the above rhetorical question about (1) is what I've never
>> understood, ...