[MD] Reading & Comprehension

[skutvik at online.no]

Mary and DMB, All!

22 May.:

DMB initially:
> > > If SOM and the intellectual level are identical, then how would it
> > > be possible for all four of these philosophers to reject it for
> > > intellectual reasons?

Bo replied to this: 
> > Phaedrus rejected SOM for Quality reasons and so did "these
> > philosophers", but they brought it no further.

Mary says to DMB. 
> I wonder if what you weren't driving at, though, DMB, was the question
> of how one (or 4 philosophers as in your example) can reject SOM by
> using SOM? This is a perfectly natural outgrowth of SOM.  

Bo speaks to whoever may listen.
The intellectual level (as SOM)  grew in complexity like all levels, the 
biological "computer" it had inherited the level-out-of-level way had 
been fed the S/O program and ever more complex S/O varieties 
emerged, century after century, but with the empiricists the paradoxes 
from the S/O as existence's fundament became obvious and with Kant 
philosophy gave up, there only were these philosophers that DMB 
refers to who saw that things had come to a dead end, but even if 
James had a dynamic hunch and saw that something preceded 
subjects and objects, yet his pre-concept/concept created a pitfall that 
Pirsig of LILA regrettably fell into. 

OK, the gist of it all is that intellect-as-SOM grew to a level of instability 
that finally enabled DQ to spur the hyper-intellectual Phaedrus to the 
DQ/SQ insight, but just a small bridgehead is yet established. 
Phaedrus was killed in the first charge .....regrettably.           

> A somewhat overdue next logical step wouldn't you say?  I could as well
> turn the question back around and ask you why not?  If the Intellectual
> level contains as part of its value set the notion of free and
> independent thought unfettered by Social constraints, 

Maybe a bit un-called for, but the levels - before the MOQ - didn't know 
the level context, thus intellect-as-SOM just regarded anything that 
hindered the newfangled objectivity (as time passed science was 
intellect's spear-point and  religion the chief fetter) as unscientific. This 
still carries much weight so social value is no problem. What intellect-
as-SOM now sees as a threat is the MOQ which wants to make it a 
subset of its own system, and our quasi-moqists fights to keep the 
MOQ an intellectual pattern -  which   means another subjective idea.    

> beholden only to the experiential, then what would prevent it?  Seems
> logical to me that once the Intellectual Level had thoroughly trounced
> the Social Level with its unassailable objective logic, the next victim
> would be SOM itself. Patterns are trusty friends, though, and this has
> taken a very long time to emerge.

Hmm, I see your reasoning Mary, and here may be our mysterious 
disagreement, IYO objective logic's trouncing of social value was 
intellect's job which is correct, but IMO the intellectual level IS 
objective logic (it grew to SOM proportions while intellect was leading 
edge)  thus the trouncing of SOM cannot be performed by intellect, 
only by the MOQ (now in command of INTELLIGENCE) which reduces 
SOM to its proper role as its 4th. static level. 

> If the Intellectual Level can commit heresy against the Social, what's
> to stop the open-minded intellect from committing heresy against
> itself? 

The same goes here, intellect-as-SOM looked like heresy from the 
social level and the MOQ looks irrational from intellect, however the 
MOQ was not born from an open-minded intellectual, but from the 
intellect-tormented Phaedrus. 

> It is entirely possible to trash SOM by SOM.  You can see it every day
> in this very forum.  It is a valid - high Quality - use of SOM.  It is
> exactly what Pirsig himself did. 

I don't think intellect voluntarily will surrender its position as the apex - 
what the MOQ calls SOM -  only the MOQ can do that, it's only the 
MOQ that HAS a static intellectual level!!! At this point where existence 
converges into the MOQ things get a bit complicated, it (MOQ) 
assumes a quasi-level-like relationship with intellect, but is of course 
not a static level but the Quality Reality.  

Bodvar   













 
> > > Doesn't prove that Bo's position is untenable? I think so. SOL is
> > > RIP and Bo is a no go, bro.
> > 
> > These philosophers knew no S/O metaphysics the way Pirsig presents
> > it in ZAMM - a world view having arrived at a point in history and
> > subsumed Good by " ...converting it to a rigid, immobile Immortal
> > Truth" and further - in LILA - presented a new world view which in
> > turn subsumes SOM by making "immortal Truth" - i.e. intellect - 
> > into its own highest static Good.
> > 
> > The point is that it's no great feat to criticize the S/O  but
> > without a new metaphysics where the S/O is subsumed it's stillborn,
> > I can come up many more S/O critics but - as said - without a system
> > which provides a place for the S/O it leads nowhere.
> > 
> > dmb quotes Hildebrand:
> > 
> > > "Realists and idealists assume that subject and object are
> > > discrete and then debate which term deserves first rank. Dewey
> > > assumes that what is primary is the whole situation - 'subject'
> > > and 'object' have no a priori, atomistic existences but are
> > > themselves DERIVED from situations to serve certain purposes,
> > > usually philosophical" (Beyond Realism and Antirealism, p27).
> > 
> > Yes, what I repeatedly have said about intellect's (as SOM) eternal
> > see-saw.
> > 
> > > "The first great pitfall from which such a radical standing by
> > > experience will save us is and artificial conception of the
> > > relation between knower and known. Throughout the history of
> > > philosophy the subject and object have been treated as absolutely
> > > discontinuous entities; thereupon the presence of the latter to
> > > the former, or the 'apprehension' by the former of the latter, has
> > > assumed a paradoxical nature which all sort of theories had to be
> > > invented to overcome" (James, A World of Pure Experience, p 27).
> > 
> > Can't find better preliminaries for a rebellion against the S/O, but
> > it peters out here,  where is the realization of S/O as SOM and the
> > alternative Metaphysics that will subsume it?
> > 
> > > It probably goes without saying, but Dewey is rejecting SOM and
> > > conceiving the primary reality in terms of "the whole situation"
> > > rather than anything dualistic. The "whole situation" is whole
> > > precisely because it is as yet undifferentiated into thought and
> > > thing, knower and known, subject and object, etc.. Those kinds of
> > > intellectual distinctions or differentiations are derived from the
> > > whole situation, and this whole situation is what James calls pure
> > > experience or the immediate flux of life.
> > 
> > OK, Dewey and James may have started on a new metaphysical
> > system where "the whole situation" and/or the "immediate flux" may
> > be likened to DQ and what spawns the subject/object distinction ,
> > but in ZAMM the SOM history was told and in the proto-moq it was
> > called INTELLECT and  in LILA made into highest static quality level
> > and thus the necessary "subsuming act" was performed.
> > 
> > You'll notice that this is the SOL interpretation, i.e the way
> > Phaedrus would have completed the MOQ had he lived. And had you been
> > honest you would have to admit that it is the only viable
> > interpretation.
> > 
> > > As James puts it, in the moment of pure experience "its phases
> > > interpenetrate and no points, either of distinction or of identity
> > can
> > > be caught. Pure experience in this state is but another name for
> > > feeling or sensation [aesthetic value]. But the flux of it no
> > > sooner comes than it tends to fill itself with emphases, and these
> > > salient parts become identified and fixed and abstracted; so that
> > > experience now flows as if shot through with adjectives and nouns
> > > and prepositions and conjunctions [static patterns].
> > 
> > I have nothing against good old James' presentation of "DQ", but his
> > contention that what "solidifies" is concepts or abstracts is deeply
> > wrong and Pirsig took a fatal turn by embracing that. As you
> > correctly say above S/O is the "thought/thing, knower/known, subject
> > and object" even if you had added "concepts/what is conceptualized,
> > abstracts/what is abstracted " it too would have been correct. Check
> > your facts!
> > 
> > You conclusion again.
> > 
> > > If SOM and the intellectual level are identical, then how would it
> > > be possible for all four of these philosophers to reject it for
> > > intellectual reasons?
> > 
> > Look ar the top. The intellectual level as SOM was rejected for
> > Quality reasons!
> > 
> > > Doesn't prove that Bo's position is untenable? I think so. SOL is
> > > RIP and Bo is a no go, bro.
> > 
> > Maybe Andre will swallow this, but not the true philosophers of this
> > site. The SOL is gaining on your ... whatever it's called
> > 
> > 
> > Bodvar
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
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