[MD] Babylonian intellectuals

[Ham Priday]

Mary, Krimel, All --


[Mary]:
> Arlo and dmb are struggling with a set of platypi below due to an
> incorrect definition of the Intellectual Level.  The unsolvable questions
> they are asking can be dissolved if it is understood that the Intellectual
> Level is not brains, smarts, intellect, or degree of intelligence. Nor is 
> it
> a bucket where you put thoughts, premises, ideas, or 'thinking itself'.
> If instead of this, you define the Intellectual Level as a pattern of 
> values
> which value subject-object logic and deny the primacy of value in the
> Universe, then all these questions go away, or become moot, or are
> solved, etc.

[Krimel]:
> A "level" is not a pattern. It is a collection of patterns of a similar
> type. It is a tool for organizing and thinking about patterns. Defining it
> as merely a definition that makes your problems go away is about as
> foolish as Ham positing an uncreated source as a solution to ex nihilo 
> fit.
> It would be like claiming that Quality is defined as THE solution to every
> problem. You name the problem and the solution is: Quality; well
> Quality or 42 depending on your level of math anxiety.

It may be a point of little significance to Pirsigians, and my comment will 
be taken as self-serving.  Nonetheless, I ask you to consider what is really 
"foolish" here.

I don't know which is fraught with more problems: positing Intellect as an 
outgrowth of the Social Level that occurred at the time of the Babylonians, 
or abstracting it as an eternal domain containing all conceptual patterns. 
Mary has offered an explanation of this so-called "level" (I would call it 
"reason") that not only accommodates Pirsig's Quality hierarchy but that 
would appear to resolve the "primacy issue" as well.

In her effort to be concise, Mary fell prey to a non-sequitor definition: "a 
pattern of values which value
subject-object logic."  Obviously values don't value, even as "patterns". 
But Krimmel, who was quick to criticize her explanation, committed a similar 
error when asserting that "Defining it as ...a definition is about as 
foolish as Ham positing an uncreated source as a solution to ex nihilo fit."

Leaving aside the promise of "solving ALL problems", one problem 
philosophers with intellectual integrity historically acknowledge is 
expressed by the metaphysical principle: 'Ex nihilo nihil fit' [Nothing is 
created by nothing].  Now, I don't know how Krimmel would resolve this 
paradox, nor do I claim that it's "THE solution to every problem,"  but I 
know of no other solution to THIS fundamental problem than an "uncreated 
source".

Like Pirsig's DQ, the concept of an uncreated source is more than "merely a 
definition".  It is the most logical and plausible answer to the age-old 
problem of infinite regression.  The fact that Krimmel, whom I regard as a 
true intellectual, has again chosen to attack this concept actually gives me 
a sense of satisfaction.  I only wish that he and the other intellectuals 
here--Babylonian or otherwise--could expand their mental capacity 
sufficiently to understand and appreciate that there is but ONE METAPHYSICAL 
level.

As Richard Schain phrased it in his essay on 'The Problem of Existence' . . 
.

"The placement of the problem of human existence on a metaphysical level is 
dismissed out of hand because science does not accept the metaphysical as a 
valid category of knowledge.  These types may be labeled as 'materialists of 
the mind' since their one article of faith is that all phenomena, mental or 
otherwise, are ultimately material in nature and subject to analytic 
investigation. ...

"The 'solution' to the metaphysical problem of existence is to be found in 
the values arising within the conscious mind, not in the analysis of the 
latter's nature. The antique Greeks are still our models in philosophy 
because they were concerned with values, not with analysis of the structure 
of the mind, which was always a secondary consideration with them.  The 
human condition requires a value-rich metaphysics, without which human 
beings are merely an out-of-control animal species, on the verge of 
destroying the milieu in which they live."

For anyone interested, Dr. Shain's insightful essay appears in its entirety 
on my Values Page all this week at www.essentialism.net/balance.htm .

Essentially speaking,
Ham