[MD] Intellectual Level

[Mary]

Hello Ham,

[Ham]
Welcome back, Mary, and Happy New Year to you all --

[Mary replies]
Thanks and Happy New Year to you as well!
You make a few points here I can't agree with.  I wonder if we can make any progress today?

[Ham]
If I am right, the "paradox" Platt and Ian are lamenting is not the limitations of Intellect but of the MoQ itself.

[Mary replies]
Pirsig would say that Quality, Values, and Morals all exist independently of an intellect to pass judgment on them.  

[Ham]
Existence is a paradox because of the contradictions it exhibits. 

Outside of a mind with preferences, goodness cannot exist."

[Mary replies]
This is true if you believe the goodness is an aspect of the thing, but If you turn it around and say the thing is an aspect of the goodness, then preferences become secondary.  Does Lila have goodness?  No.  Goodness has Lila.

[Ham]
"Something cannot be valued without a consciousness.  Value is a property that exists within minds.  Something can be valued by some people in the world, nobody in the world, or even everyone in the world, but there cannot be a value that is 'objective,' 'necessary,' 
or 'a priori.'  In other words, there cannot be anything that is desirable to, and independent of, every possible point of view.  

[Mary replies]
I happen to think there are some things that do have a priori value, but for those that do not, Pirsig constructed the levels.

[Ham]
Any belief that such a value exists can only be supported by a naïve argument that fails to make a connection between what exists and what ought to be.  In order for something to have value, there must be a point of view to perceive it. 

[Mary replies]
Again, this is only true if you define value as a property.

[Ham]
Mr. Pirsig has equated his Quality with Value.  Although the unnamed author does not claim to have developed a metaphysics, insofar as existential values are concerned, this on-line essay complements the MoQ as well as the "intellectual point of view", in my opinion.  (Of course, it assumes that the reader believes in a subjective self.)  You can access the full text at http://www.indval.org/IV.htm.

I am curious as to how the Pirsigians will react to this philosophy, and whether it resolves what they see as paradoxical.

[Mary replies]
I apologize, but so much wordplay has gone on for so long on this site that I am honestly at a total loss to know what you mean by the "intellectual point of view".  Can you explain?   I have long contended (once Marsha said something that sparked transcendent thought, that is) that the Intellectual Level represents the set of values that prize the subject/object dichotomy we experience in everyday life.  It is this Pirsig struggled to vanquish with the insights of the MoQ.  As you read ZMM, it seems clear that were it not for his fundamental unease with the standard subject/object world-view in the first place, he would likely never have come up with the MoQ at all.  There would have been no need.  It was the catalyst - no -  the reason the MoQ exists today.

Best,
Mary