[MD] Intellect and Understanding

[KAYE PALM-LEIS]

Ham,
Ham:
> I don't believe we have corresponded before, and I want to welcome you
> belatedly to this forum.  (I also want to apologize for misspelling your
> surname in my previous post.)

Mati: About every six months or so I feel compelled to share a post or
two and then go back to think some more. Writing posts are personally
an exhausting process. So I am good for a handful. Thanks for the
welcome.

> In responding to Platt's statement about the practical side of philosophy,
> you said:
>
Ham:
> As someone who doesn't regularly view the world in Pirsigian terms, I'm not
> sure I understand how "SOM has allowed this situation [skepticism about
> reality] to become a reality unto itself".

Mati: Phenomenon or cultural pattern might be a more specific phrase
that could been more accurate. However culturally SOM has so steeply
embedded itself it is considered part of the scenery or in my terms
creating a perception that it is undeniably real or reality unto
itself.

Ham:
Personally, I think 'SOM' is misnamed.  Subject/object reality is not
a metaphysical concept.  It's common knowledge -- a mental
(intellectual) precept based on existential
experience.  Pirsig has equated Experience with Reality, so there should be
> no metaphysical hurdle to overcome in accepting it.  To my way of thinking,
> metaphysics is the use of logical reasoning (and intuition) to surmise what
> may be the source (or creator) of existence and how we as human beings
> relate to this source.

Mati: I think I might understand what you are getting to here. I would
beg to differ that S/O reality a basis of a metaphysics. It certainly
is goes back to the time of Aristotle and it is hard for some to
imagine that such a basic of philosophical concept of reality, 2500
years old, is relevant today.  But I think Pirsig in ZMM, does a very
good job of drawing the relevant tether it has created.  By showing us
that this dominant tether can't be wrapped around a concept such as
quality. Your approach of "surmise what be be the source or (or
creator)" was the ghost that Pirisg was chasing.  My guess is that the
(S)ubjective realm has long dominated the source of reasoning, the
falacy is that only holds truth in SOM's kangaroo court.  Again, it is
part of the reason I made the comment as "a reality" unto itself.

Ham:
> I think what you mean is that Intellect _per se_ is not the Subject or the
> S/O duality.  But Bo's self-appointed mission is to "correct" what he
> regards as an error in the MoQ thesis, and he doesn't speak for the typical
> loyalist any more than I do.

Mati: Correction, I do see the basis of intellect as S/O duality.  My
issue with Pirsig's MOQ is that there is coherent failure to define
intellect.  With the most keenest surgery he manages to carve out SOM
for all of us to see.  Then when he creates MOQ the top card of the
intellect level he deals us is a SOM Joker.  My criticism is that
Joker is what is the Achilles heal that doesn't allow MOQ the
credibility and turns it potentially turns it into a house of cards.
My belief is Bo's SOL put intellect into it's rightful place.  However
if there is a better way to define it I am all ears.

Ham:
> Why not use the dictionary definition?  "Intellect: the power of knowing as
> distinguished from the power to feel and to will; the capacity for knowledge
> or rational thought."  If you define it this way, you can see that Intellect
> is only the faculty or capability of dealing with factual information, such
> as by induction or deduction, and coming up with a conclusion.  That hardly
> makes intellect the "being and end-all" of human consciousness, inasmuch as
> a computer can crank out conclusions based on factual inputs.  Clearly, what
> is essential to human experience is Awareness, and that involves "feeling"
> (value-sensibility) as well as "will" (desire or motivation).

Mati:  For starter it is not a definition based on metaphysical. Based
on the dictionary definition (by the way there are many variations on
this definitions) the intellect it describes certainly could have
existed long before the Greeks and could be debated existed in the day
of the caveman.  Pirsig identified a metaphysical pattern that was
different from the social level and in likelihood came in the times of
the early Greeks.  In notes, "But if one studies the early books of
the Bible or if one studies the sayings of primitive tribes today, the
intellectual level is conspicuously absent."  With the dictionary
definition we certainly find examples of rational thought long before
the greek and no doubt the social level used rational thought for it
own purpose, but when it was used to define reality as S/O, Shazamm
you have intellect as it own level.  You state that what, "is
essential to human experience is Awareness, and that involves
"feeling" (value-sensibility) as well as "will" (desire or
motivation)." Perhaps essential, however what is essential to
metaphysics as I see it is our capacity to understand what is going on
around us with a clarity that is devoid of philosophical tail chasing.
 Perhaps Pirsig really had something else in mind for the pattern that
sensed/or realized and what he called intellect.  I think many of us
also sense a similiar pattern, defining what that pattern at the heart
of the matter, and S/O neatly contains and defines that pattern.
Maybe it is only a few of us that really see it that way.

Ham:
> Pirsig and Bo are both attempting to deal with existence as a hierarchy of
> levels, which to me is an allegory with about as much meaning as the
> question, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?  Dividing
> existence into inorganic, biological, social, and
> intellectual is an arbitrary construct.

Mati: Yeah metaphysics is about picking up the knife and making the
first cut into reality.  The issue of the first cut is that it can be
made in so many places however, the strength of the first cut is what
do we understand about reality from that cut.  S/O cut was a stroke of
genius of its day and has allowed us to understand so much about our
world. MOQ however is a better first cut and now we can even learn and
understand more.   Arbitrary perhaps, but thoughtful and persuasive is
the way I see it.

Ham:
So many other categorizations would
> serve as well: Sensual, visual, auditory, and gustatory...Genesis,
> adaptation, growth, and death... Anamorphic, metabolic, and
> catabolic....Parmenides' earth, air, fire, and water...or, Hegel's thesis,
> antithesis, and synthesis, for example.

Mati: Yeah these opening divisions into reality only give us
incomplete understanding of the world around us.  And remember if I
where to ask you if these categorization are real, you are beholden to
S/O cut to justify your answer.

Ham:
> The "simplest philosophy" is to take experience at face value.  Explore
> nature, live life to its fullest, and be kind to all creatures great and
> small.  Of course, most of us do this all the time. You are among those with
> an intellectual curiosity, which is why you're seeking metaphysical insight.
> I can only tell you what I believe; but you will have to decide whether it
> "makes sense" to you.

Mati: Bingo, MOQ and SOL make sense to me.

Ham:
> In short, I believe that the only "true" reality is a sensible Essence that
> encompasses all as a "not-other" to itself.  The phenomenal (space/time)
> world is actualized by Difference, the primary affect of which is to
> separate Awareness (value-sensibility) from Being (the 'not-other') to
> create being-aware (existence).  What holds this self/other dichotomy
> together is Value, which is the individual's inextricable link to Essence. I
> also believe that physical reality is anthropocentric, and that man is the
> free and autonomous "agent" whose proprietary awareness is an experiential
> construct of value.

Mati: With all due respect, you lost me........

Ham:
> I don't claim that this ontology is "simple", but I do think it suggests a
> purpose for existence which is considerably more meaningful than Quality
> moving the universe toward "betterness".  (I have published this concept as
> a "thesis page" on my website at www.essentialism.net/mechanic.htm, if you
> should be so inclined.

Mati: Might give it a gander sometime.

Respectfully,
Mati