[MD] Reading & Comprehension

[david buchanan]

Ian said to Mary:
I actually agree with this [the MoQ has much greater explanatory power when the Intellectual Level is viewed as SOM than when it is not I actually agree with this] so I ask you a question. If we limit the intellectual level to this kind of intellect ... where in the evolutionary levels of the MoQ does your Eastern Mystic view fit?



dmb says:

In the MOQ's hierarchy of levels the thing that puts intellect at the top and the reason it's considered the most moral level is not just because it is more evolved but also more dynamic. It is the most open to change and growth and evolution. If we limit the intellect to one particular metaphysical framework, we've arbitrarily arrested its development. I think its more like a phase in the historical development of philosophy and culture. That's how James describes it, as a persistent problem through the history of philosophy since Descartes, at least. 

Above the social-intellectual code, there is the intellectual-dynamic code. This code of art is about the immorality of suppressing intellectual creativity, of being too static with respect to science, philosophy or any other intellectual activity. (Lila, last two pages of chapter 29) The formation of a new scientific hypothesis is, in this sense, an act of artistic creation. And so is a new metaphysics. Again, this morality is not just about what is most evolved but also what's most dynamic (because that further serves the ongoing process of evolution). 

And it really does seem that there has been a shift in consciousness in the last century or so. You know, across the whole of Western culture, not just in philosophy. But this shift certainly show up in philosophy too. Even in the material sense, we live in a world that's very different from our ancestors' world. Constant change has become the norm. Seems like everything is in motion all the time, not least of all because there are nearly 7 billion of us now. (We should pick a time and all take a world-wide-nap.) And so this shows up in process oriented philosophies, dynamic philosophies about streams and fluxes and evolutionary moralities. Pirsig and James aren't the only ones who've rejected SOM. It's been coming on for a while and is fairly common. Hegel, Heidegger, Dewey, to name a few. SOM is criticized in textbooks and in journal articles. Really, the intellect is not locked into those metaphysical assumptions. 

  		 	   		  
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