[MD] Reading & Comprehension

[plattholden at gmail.com]

Hi Horse, 

Thanks for the opportunity to further clarify my views. I have tried to do so 
by inserting comments in your post below.

On 1 May 2010 at 15:03, Horse wrote:

> Hi Platt
> 
> Thanks for answering the question. You're absolutely correct - I don't 
> agree with you but at least it's good that we should try and find out if 
> our differences can be resolved. Unlikely as maybe, but definitely worth 
> a shot.
> 
> On 30/04/2010 03:07, Platt Holden wrote:
> >> "Within this evolutionary relationship it is possible to see that intellect
> >> >  has functions that pre-date science and philosophy. The intellect´s
> >> >  evolutionary purpose has never been to discover an ultimate meaning of the
> >> >  universe. That is a relatively recent fad. Its historical purpose has been
> >> >  to help a society find food, detect danger, and defeat enemies. It can do
> >> >  this well or poorly, depending on the concepts it invents for this purpose"
> >> >
> >> >  If intellectual patterns of value didn't exist prior to SOM (SOM as the
> >> >  entirety of the Intellectual level) as you seem to be saying then how did
> >> >  SOM create the Intellectual level?
> >> >
> >> >  This question needs to be answered.
> >> >
> >> >  Horse
> >>      
> > Your wish is my command. Again, you conflate intellectual patterns of value with the intellectual level. The two are separate concepts (thoughts, ideas).
> 
> [Horse]
> I disagree. Intellectual patterns constitute the Intellectual level. As 
> static patterns of value this is the only place where they fit in within 
> the MoQ.They are constituents of the same thing - Intellect. Thoughts 
> and ideas are intellectual patterns that are within the Intellectual 
> level. This also appears to be how Pirsig sees the situation. In 
> annotation 136 of Lila's Child he says:
> 
> "...an imprisoned criminal is no longer a threat to society and it 
> becomes arguably immoral to kill him because he is still capable of 
> thought."

[Platt]
No doubt in some instances Pirsig considers" thought" to be the 
intellectual level. But, in other instances he considers the intellectual level 
to be the subject-object understanding. There's the rub. What I don't 
comprehend (and what you may be able to clarify for me) is how the 
MOQ as a static intellectual pattern can include itself in its own 
intellectual level, i.e., the problem of a smaller container trying to contain 
a larger one. 

> I.e. social patterns should not destroy (a source of) intellectual 
> patterns. I haven't used the full quote as I am only showing what is 
> necessary for the immediate purposes of what we are discussing and would 
> prefer to leave any political implications alone for the moment.
> Also in annotation 111 he says:
> 
> "Objects are biological patterns and inorganic patterns, not thoughts or 
> social patterns."
> 
> here contrasting Objects (biological patterns and inorganic patterns) 
> with Subjects (intellectual patterns [thoughts] and social patterns).
> 
> There are other instances where Pirsig makes similar references - can 
> you show me some where Pirsig makes any claim that is not in accordance 
> with this - i.e. that thoughts, concepts, ideas, intellect etc. are not 
> intellectual patterns and thus part of the intellectual level. 

[Platt]
I can show you where Pirsig associates the intellectual level with 
scientific subject-object understanding:

"The INTELLECTUAL LEVEL of patterns, in the historic process of 
freeing itself from its parent social level, namely the church, has invented 
a myth of independence from the social level for its own benefit. Science 
and reason, the myth goes, comes only from the objective world, never 
from the social world. (Lila 12) 

"What had happened since the end of World War I was that this 
INTELLECTUAL LEVEL had entered the picture and had taken over 
everything. It was this INTELLECTUAL LEVEL that was screwing 
everything up." (Lila, 24)

"Today we are living in an intellectual and technological paradise and a 
moral and social nightmare because the INTELLECTUAL LEVEL of 
evolution in its struggle to become free of the social level has ignored the 
social level's role in keeping the biological level under control." (Lila, 24)

Not only does PIrsig directly tie SOM to the intellectual level in these 
passages but in doing so continues the critique of reason, intellect and 
intellectualism that he laid out so clearly and passionately in ZAMM. For 
example:

"That's probably why he felt such a deep kinship with so many failing 
students in the back rows of his classroom. The contemptuous looks on 
their faces reflected the same feelings he had toward the whole rational 
intellectual process.". .  

> Alternatively, please show how and where thoughts, concepts, ideas, 
> intellect etc. (all static patterns) fit within another static level.

[Platt]
The thoughts, ideas, concepts of religion, for example, arguably fit in the 
social level. Similarly, thoughts, ideas, concepts comprising Victorian 
social moral codes fit in the social level. Before the intellectual level "took 
over everything," there was plenty of thinking going on, all the way back 
to the first human tribes. In fact, up to the time of Greeks, most thinking 
was social level thinking, and there's a lot of that sort of thinking going on 
today. Pirsig made this distinction himself when he said the original 
purpose of thinking was to "help a society find food, detect danger, and 
defeat enemies." For me, it makes sense to put such thinking in the 
social level. 
   
> > Intellectual patterns of value is a broad concept that includes all sorts of ideas other than SOM that were used to find food, detect danger and defeat enemies, most of them having to with the activities of various Gods and spirits.
> 
> [Horse]
> But still thoughts, concepts, ideas, intellect etc. and thus part of an 
> Intellectual level. Where else would they fit?

[Platt]
See above.
 
> > So intellectual (thought) patterns certainly did exist prior to SOM which wasn't a prominent concept until the ancient Greeks came up with
> > the idea.
> >    
> 
> [Horse]
> Precisely. The Intellectual level was in existence prior to SOM. SOM was 
> a new pattern of values that came into existence through intellectual 
> processes. It was also of higher value than previous intellectual 
> patterns but those other intellectual patterns did not cease to exist or 
> become social patterns. Other intellectual patterns came along later and 
> are competing for "space" within the Intellectual level. SOM is a 
> dominating or dominant pattern within the intellectual level but not the 
> only one.

[Platt]
Perhaps this where we can find agreement -- SOM as the dominant 
pattern of the intellectual level. I want to ponder that some more. I 
wonder, for example, where does "mystic understanding" fit in the levels? 
. 
Seems to me we understand some things (have ideas, thoughts about) 
that we can't prove "intellectually," like the truth of Godel's Theorem. 
Also, where does the idea of beauty fit? I disagree with Pirsig's claim that 
nothing gets left out of his static levels. Even he seems to have doubts 
when he imagines a Code of Art or something similar.   

> > As for your final question, SOM didn't create the intellectual level. A man named Pirsig did. Before him there was no "intellectual level" as such.
> >    
> 
> [Horse]
> Not as such, I agree - but what Pirsig did was to create a metaphysics 
> centred on Quality and expand on other intellectual patterns and create 
> new ones. Effectively, he renamed, reconfigured and added to existing 
> patterns of value by creating a new way of looking at how we classify 
> the results of experience. That's what a metaphysics is, isn't it? Or at 
> least one way of looking at it. Either way, a metaphysics is still a 
> static pattern of intellectual values - regardless of what it refers to.

[Platt]
Yes, we agree. A metaphysics is a static intellectual pattern. But for the 
MOQ there is the problem of a smaller container trying to contain a larger 
one. And, for a full understanding the MOQ, is intellect alone enough, 
especially since the indefinable aspect off Quality plays such a central 
role? I don't think so, but I could be wrong.

Finally, in ZAMM Pirsig speaks of the need to escape from the "prison of 
intellect." I empathize with that need  . . . which may influence my 
understanding of the intellectual level. :-)

Thanks again,  Horse.

Platt