[MD] Intellect vs. Intellectualism

[118]

Hi John,

In regard to your post below.  There seems to be a disregard for things such
as feelings which somehow separates them from the intellectual aspect of
being.  It is difficult to actually separate the two.  If anything, the
intellect is the expressive societal portion of human behavior.  Feelings
are personal and are then expressed through the intellect as personal
communication.  There is a harmonization of such feelings, and one could say
that those with the most Quality predominate.  This of course goes askew
with the vagaries of crowd behavior, but always rectifies itself in the end
due to the pressures of Quality which has a mind of its own (our minds
included of course).

In terms of Quality choices, it is sometimes instructive to separate feeling
from emotions (just labels to use a knife with).  If we call feelings those
things that are positive and emotions as those things which are negative, it
is easier to make quality decisions.  We can also create a third category
which are involved in basic survival (such as true hunger) which could be
segregated to the instinctual.  These are all artificial categories of
course.

Such categorization, however, is useful for intellectual methods of
discriminating behavior, and as such can point to a direction in morals.  If
we keep the notion of goodness at the forefront, these things become
obvious.  The danger is trying to enforce our notions of goodness on others.
 This then becomes a justification for a negative intrusion into other
people's lives.  A general rule is to favor selflessness over selfishness.
 Usually these two can resolve themselves pretty clearly.  If justification
is needed, it is selfish.

So much for my little essay in psychology.  In the end, there is no
difference between the intellect, and that which consider to be other.  If
anything, it is a continuum from personal to societal.  The push between
these two creates the conversation.

Mark

On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 1:00 PM, John Carl <ridgecoyote at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  The problems clears itself up by holding the essence of MOQ outside the
> hierarchy where
> it rightly belongs for it cannot be a part of itself. By "essence" (a word
> Pirsig himself uses
> to identify the MOQ) is, as you say, an aesthetic sense. Further, as you
> correctly state,
> the aesthetic sense is the leading edge of evolution. This "Quality" sense
> is an inherent trait of all entities, from the lowliest atom to the highest
> artistic genius.
>
> I suppose you can call this sense akin to feeling. But I think it's better
> to keep this finer, artistic sense apart from general crass feelings of
> hunger fear, greed, jealously, etc.
>
> In fact, I like to call this sense of the essence of things a meta-sense of
> which we have many including a meta-sense of perfection, truth, harmony and
> of course, value.
>
> For example, my meta-sense of "goodness" applies to your posts. Compared to
> some others they always seem "fresh" with challenging ideas.
>
> Best,
> Platt
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