[MD] Reading & Comprehension

[MarshaV]

On May 6, 2010, at 8:14 AM, skutvik at online.no wrote:

> Greetings Marsha
> 
> 4 May.you wrote:
> 
>> Hi Bo, Just feeling the need to reaffirm my agreement with you that the
>> Intellectual Level is  comprised of intellectual patterns as SOM and
>> represent reified concepts and the rules for their manipulation.
>> Intellectual patterns create false boundaries, giving the illusion of
>> independence, or thingness. For me understand this fourth level to
>> represent a formalized subject/object level where the subjective is
>> supposedly stripped from the experience to reveal an objective truth.
>> "The question of "How do you justify the statement that Quality equals
>> reality?" was the best one. The correct answer from a MOQ perspective
>> is, "by the harmony it produces", but this answer is only for people
>> who already understand the MOQ. Those who don't can't see the harmony
>> and for them this answer is meaningless." (Pirsig, 2000)  
>> I do think your point-of-view is more harmonious than the bits and
>> pieces presented by many of the others.  
> 
> Sorry for the belated response, but I had to analyze it. I am at times 
> cautious of your phrasing, for instance:  
> 
>    " The Intellectual Level is  comprised of intellectual patterns as 
>    SOM and  represent reified concepts and the rules for their 
>    manipulation".   
> 
> I don't know, but the "reify" term ["To regard or treat (an abstraction) 
> as if it had concrete or material existence."] is hardly what 
> charachterizes the 4th. level. Look Marsha it's so simple. ZAMM tells 
> exactly how the intellectual level emerged. THE ABSTRACT/ 
> CONCRETE DISTINCTION is an intellectual fallout, not the other way 
> round.  

I understand the fourth level to take a concept such as 'justice' or 
'truth', which does not represent an object in an external universe, 
and turn into an object for investigation.  'Particle spin' is another 
example of a concept that is taken as an entity of objective 
investigation.   This reification is accomplished by giving concepts 
artificial boundaries and imaginary independence.   It is SOM 
through and through.    


> 
> "Rules for their manipulation .." smacks of thinking and/or intelligence, 
> but thinking precedes the 4th. level by hundreds of thousand of years 
> and the "manipulation" were the same for the Neanterthals as for 
> modern humans (only a matter of capacity). This is the fallacious 
> intelligence definition of intellect.   

These would be the rules, such as hjgher mathematics, formal logic 
and grammar, which are sometimes used to manipulate objects.


> 
>    For me understand this fourth level to represent a formalized 
>    subject/object level where the subjective is supposedly 
>    stripped from the experience to reveal an objective truth.  
> 
> But this is spot on. The objective, detached attitude leaves emotions, 
> morals and values subjective disturbances that has to be stripped 
> away to make way for progress. But/and here comes the juggler's act: 
> It was progress  - the 4th. level IS the highest static value - but as 
> SOM (i.e. before the MOQ) the notion that the S/O schism was 
> existence's fundament created several nightmares, the social of 
> destroying law and order (Platt's point) and the metaphysical that 
> caused young Bo's "weltsmertz" back in the sixties sand early 
> seventies before Pirsig's ZAMM "saved" me .       
> 
>    The question of "How do you justify the statement that Quality 
>    equals reality?" was the best one. The correct answer from a 
>    MOQ perspective is, "by the harmony it produces", but this 
>    answer is only for people who already understand the MOQ.  
>    Those who don't can't see the harmony and for them this 
>    answer is meaningless." (Pirsig, 2000)  I do think your point-of-
>    view is more harmonious than the bits and pieces presented 
>    by many of the others.   
> 
> The SOL is no Bo hobbyhorse but Phaedrus' of ZAMM's point where 
> the first deliberations on the Quality Ideas was "pre-intellect/intellect", 
> this becoming Quality/SOM (the only level at that stage) And had the 
> final MOQ kept the 4th. level = SOM all trouble would have been 
> avoided, as it is the MOQ has wasted ten years over this quandary 
> with the pig-headed resistance against a return to the roots. 

I like to think in terms of Quality(unpatterned experience and 
patterned experience).  I can ignore the pre-intellect and intellect 
confusion.  But for the record, I consider pre-patterned or 
'unpatterned experience' to be a much better label than the 
confusing 'pre-intellect.'  And I prefer simply 'patterned experience'  
to 'intellect' when it comes to describing the application of static patterns.  

Because my point-of-view is so much influenced by my reading 
of Buddhist texts, I try to stay out of your line of argument.  I think you 
are on the correct track, but I don't want to confuse the issue with 
my more Eastern flavored perspective.  


Marsha
 
 


 
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