[MD] Post-Intellectualism

[Dan Glover]

John,

On Thu, Jun 19, 2014 at 6:59 PM, John Carl <ridgecoyote at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dan,
>
> We've wandered whither the wind will take us on this subject of
> post-intellectualism, but I think we are actually getting somewhere
> now.
> At least I feel like I am.  Ant's take on the Code of Art, helped me a lot.

Dan:
I'm afraid I disagree with a Dynamic level in the MOQ. That doesn't
seem right. I think Robert Pirsig says something about he supposes it
could be called a code of art but he refuses to go there. Well, here,
read it for yourself:

"As Phaedrus had gotten into them he had seen that the isolation of
these static moral codes was important. They were really little moral
empires all their own, as separate from one another as the static
levels whose conflicts they resolved:

"First, there were moral codes that established the supremacy of
biological life over inanimate nature. Second, there were moral codes
that established the supremacy of the social order over biological
life­ conventional morals- proscriptions against drugs, murder,
adultery, theft and the like. Third, there were moral codes that
established the supremacy of the intellectual order over the social
order-democracy, trial by jury, freedom of speech, freedom of the
press. Finally there's a fourth Dynamic morality which isn't a code.
He supposed you could call it a "code of Art" or something like that,
but art is usually thought of as such a frill that that title
undercuts its importance." [Lila]

Let's compare that to an excerpt from Ant's post:

"As we know the MOQ divides static reality into four levels which are
put in a hierarchy of moral orders starting with the least "moral" (or
less developed along the path of cosmological evolution) to the most
moral i.e. in evolutionary order: inorganic, biological, social and
intellectual.

"In addition to the four static levels, we also have the Dynamic level
(or Code of Art) above the static hierarchy.  This applies to the
rules (or, just as equally, non-rules) that a fine artist might apply
to their work where what "feels right" on the canvas, stone or wood is
more important than anything else such as making intellectual sense or
being socially acceptable." [Anthony McWatt]

Dan comments:
Now, if 'Dynamic level' was changed to 'Dynamic morality' I think it
would read better and more in line with the MOQ.

>
>> Dan:
>> Well, I rarely if ever write what I like as I write it. I just write.
>
> Jc:  You must be a lot pickier than me.

Dan:
I think once a person is able to get something down... be it a story,
a poem, a song, whatever... then the intellectualization begins. I
don't think it is a matter of being picky or being anything, for that
matter. Just do it. That is the essence of art.

JC:
> I aim at liking what I write
> and by that I mean, it matches an internal idea of expression.  If I
> didn't like it, I'd write something I did.

Dan:
That comes later. Sometimes when I look back over what I've written, I
realize it just isn't working. My junk folder is full of unfinished
short stories and manuscripts that I find unsatisfactory for one
reason or another. Someday that may change so I save everything.

I can't let that stop my writing, however. If I did, I wouldn't write
at all. When I am actively writing, liking and not liking it has no
meaning.

>
> Dan:
>
>> The interpretation of whether I like it or not comes later. Writing is
>> a sort of zone (I suppose that's the word) where time has no meaning
>> and even my 'self' tends to fade away.
>
> Jc:  Well I don't disagree with that, it's your experience after all.
> But it's not mine.  I need satisfaction in the moment.  And expressing
> textually, the truth of now, makes me happy.  Satisfies.  Scratches a
> certain itch.  Or I wouldn't do it.

Dan:
To me, there is no truth of now. As an intellectual pattern, truth comes later.

JC:
> And the entire effort is fraught
> with meaning.  It's understanding meaning and creative of new meaning
> and sometimes even meaningless, but in a meaningful way.  If there
> isn't a meaning, then I've got nothing to say.

Dan:
Often times it is exactly when I have nothing to say that I say it
best. It is too easy to get hung up on waiting for the moment when I
have something to say. Just write. There is no secret to it. There are
a million excuses not to write. There is only one reason to write. Not
for truth, or satisfaction, or because you have something meaningful
to say, or because you like it, or any of that crap.

Write because it is better than not writing. Period.

>
> Dan:
>
>  Later, when I read what has
>> been written, I feel as if someone else wrote it.
>>
>
> Jc:  I think that's always true.  The accomplishments of the
> individual are all in the past, and while that might be our history,
> we are more in the now than our history.

Dan:
We as intellectualizations are always in the past. That's what I'm
telling you, or attempting to.

>
> Dan:
>
>> I approach life in much the same way. If there is work to do, I do
>> it... not because I like it or dislike it, but simply because it needs
>> doing. I am not working to please the boss or to make money... that is
>> all secondary. It is the same with my art... I don't write to sell
>> books or to impress anyone or to disagree with them. All that, again,
>> is secondary.
>>
>
> Jc:  Ah, I see what you mean.  Focusing in upon the primary
> experience.  That sounds good.  Again, I'm not built that way.

Dan:
Why is that?

>
> Dan:
>
>> What it comes down to is: either you do it or you don't. Period. It is
>> as simple or complex as you make it.
>>
>
> Jc:  Sure.  And most of the time, using the scientific method on
> motorcycle maintenance is over-complicating the matter.   Just like
> philosophizing when you should be working.  Philosophy is the
> scientific method of rhetoric, in a way.  I guess I just have a dreamy
> personality.  I've been plenty of accused of that on the job.

Dan:
I use whatever tools are on hand for the completion of whatever task
is before me. The scientific method seems perfectly suited for
motorcycle maintenance, in my opinion. My bike won't start. What's
wrong with the darned thing? Kicking it doesn't help. Learn as much as
you can about it. Read the instruction manual. Form a hypothesis.
Pounding it with a hammer doesn't help. Experiment with something
else. Analyze your results. Make a conclusion. Oh! It's out of gas!
Ah! Now it starts!

>
>
>
>> > Jc:  Writing can be artful, but a technical manual is constrained a
>> > lot more than a novel.
>>
>> Dan:
>> Of course creative writing is more expansive than creating technical
>> manuals. Still, there are certain skill sets involved... some
>> instruction manuals are better than others, right?
>
> Jc:  I think we need to examine where this betterness lies - a manual,
> the betterness is functional and in a novel its imaginative.  That's
> really two distinct spheres of human endeavor.  Or differing abilities
> of human intellect. Unless you happen to be RMP!  The rest of us have
> to specialize.

Dan:
Well, I have read poor instruction manuals and I have read good
instruction manuals and there is a difference. Often the difference is
not something I can define outright but it's there nonetheless. It is
the same with novels.

>
>
>> > Jc:  Art is taking what is in your head, and putting it on paper, or
>> > canvas, or into rotisserie assemblage, but once it's out there, in the
>> > world where other's can experience it it's not just in your head.
>> > Likewise laws and ideas.  At the same time, the existence of a  rock
>> > or an amoeba, is filtered by mental pre-conceptions also, so I'm not a
>> > big fan of the "bottom levels objective, tow levels subjective" way of
>> > looking at things.
>>
>> Dan:
>> I don't think it is wise to begin dividing the world in that fashion
>> either. That's what the MOQ is meant to counter - a
>> subjective/objective vision that you're describing here.
>
> Jc:  The self might be only a pattern, but it's a pattern primary to
> philosophizing.  I don't see how viewing things in a S/O framework is
> unwise or bad in any way.  It's the reification that's the problem,
> not the conceptualization.

Dan:
We limit our perspective by viewing the world in terms of subjects and
objects. I wouldn't say that is bad so much as it is a low quality
endeavor, especially if we know of something better and more
expansive. It's sort of like sending your kids to a crappy college
when the best ones don't cost any more.

>
> Dan:
>
> It is helpful
>> in elucidating the MOQ in that manner as long as it is understood the
>> levels like subjects and objects are not really 'out there.' They are
>> convenient shorthand symbols for arranging our ideas of the world.
>
> Jc: Exactly.  Completely agree.  And part of that rearranging is
> delineating ideas that I've chosen from those ideas forced upon me by
> circumstance.  Sam Harris would have it that there is no difference
> between those, but I disagree.

Dan:
I suspect you are talking about social patterns of quality vs
intellectual patterns... right?

>
>>
>> >
>> >
>> >>
>> >>> JC:
>> >>> So is reality, but that doesn't make it
>> >>> "only".  But I agree, reality is filtered through our cultural leans.
>> >>> Therefore the  past is the same as reality.
>> >>
>> >> Dan:
>> >> Again, that depends on what reality you are talking about.
>> >>
>> >
>> > Jc:  Perceived reality.
>>
>> Dan:
>> Who is perceiving that reality and is it objective? Can anyone perceive it?
>>
>
> Jc:  From the reality of the self to the reality of reality, we're
> covering all the bases, Dan!
>
> Now that you pin me down, I mean by "Perceived reality", a precise
> philosophical term - possible experience.

Dan:
The reason I ask is: if we begin to talk about the reality of reality,
we fall into the trap of objectivity. Perceived reality is better in
that it takes into account our own static filters that limit
perception. The thing is, not everyone perceives 'reality' the same
way.

>
>
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >>> JC:
>> >>> But there's more to reality
>> >>> than the past!  This fits so well, all of our experience and it also
>> >>> illustrates DQ.  If the past is SQ, then DQ is the future.
>> >>
>> >> Dan:
>> >> I don't think so. The future is an intellectualization based upon the
>> >> past. Dynamic Quality becomes synonymous with experience in the MOQ.
>> >> Direct experience comes first but it is not the future.
>> >>
>> >
>> > Jc:  I will set this aside for now.  But I have some more thinking to
>> > do on Pirsig's equation of DQ with the future in ZAMM (altho he didn't
>> > know it yet of course)
>>
>> Dan:
>> Allow me, please:
>>
>> "A rush of wind comes furiously now, down from the mountaintop. "The
>> ancient Greeks," I say, "who were the inventors of classical reason,
>> knew better than to use it exclusively to foretell the future. They
>> listened to the wind and predicted the future from that. That sounds
>> insane now. But why should the inventors of reason sound insane?"
>>
>> "DeWeese squints. "How could they tell the future from the wind?"
>>
>> "I don’t know, maybe the same way a painter can tell the future of his
>> painting by staring at the canvas. Our whole system of knowledge stems
>> from their results. We’ve yet to understand the methods that produced
>> these results."
>>
>> Dan comments:
>> Here it is... right here! How does a writer tell the future of the
>> book they're writing? By staring at a blank screen, or paper if they
>> are old school. There is no other way. Reason is not going to create
>> anything new. That's why thinking about art only leads to dead ends.
>> The thinking comes later.
>
>
> Jc:  What the Greeks listened to was pneuma, which your standard new
> testament calls "spirit" and I'd say equates nicely to the MoQ's DQ.
> So yes, it all fits.

Dan:
I disagree. Dynamic Quality has nothing to do with spirit. Pneuma
means breath in ancient Greek. Think: pneumatic tools. Only in a
religious context does it take on the meaning of spirit.

Now, unless you happen to read ancient Greek, the bible you've read
was most likely the King James version written in the 1600s by a group
of 47 scholars who were all members of the Church of England. Not
exactly an unbiased opinion, that.

>JC:
> But then, if you say, intellect is blocking us from DQ, how are you
> going to keep from getting lumped in with anti-intellectuals?  You
> gotta admit, that's a toughie.

Dan:
Well, again, intellect comes later. I am not saying intellect blocks
Dynamic Quality. In fact, intellect opens our mind to the potentiality
of something new and unexpected. But then we have to let it go in
order to make that possibility a reality.

Look at it like this: there are times when I'm in a quandary as far as
the story I'm writing goes. There are holes in the plot...  things
don't add up the way I want... and no matter how many ideas I throw at
the problem, I can't seem to solve it.

So I go to my day job and start doing some mindless work like scraping
and painting a hydraulic lift that looks to be a thousand years old.
All of a sudden: BOOM! Out of the blue, the answer appears to me full
blown and perfect for solving the problem I've exhausted my every
resource on.

I've intellectually steeped myself in the problem and then forgotten
all about it. I don't know why it works--oh, I know you could say it's
the subconscious mind doing its thing but you and I both know that's
bunk--I only know it does.

Is that anti-intellectual? I don't think so.

>
>
>
>> > Jc:  I do not understand how the future can be a remnant of direct
>> > experience.  The future, when brought into consciousness, is a
>> > projection.
>>
>> Dan:
>> Didn't you just answer your own question? The future is a projection,
>> static quality, a remnant of direct experience.
>
>
> Jc:  No, I'm seperating here the ideas about the future, which are
> formed of static knowlede, etc, from the actual future that is coming,
> but nobody knows what it is.  That future, is certainly not connected
> to direct experience.

Dan:
Do you really think there is an actual future?

>
>

>
>
>> >> Dan:
>> >> Oddly, number one is directly related to number three in that nuclear
>> >> power is not a source of greenhouse gases. Are there going to be
>> >> accidents? Sure. I don't think it takes a genius to figure that out.
>> >
>> > Jc:  He was speaking to the hubris of the post-war optimism in science
>> > and technology to solve all our problems.  To the assertion that we
>> > can through reason, perfect our technology.
>>
>> Dan:
>> The few scientists that believe we can perfect technology are not
>> scientists in that sense of the word. I'm guessing laypeople are more
>> apt to believe in that scenario than any reputable scientist.
>
> Jc:  Oh my yes, you laid your finger on a the pulse of a major issue
> right there.
>       The way scientific knowledge gets dumbed down for the use of
> politicians or the masses is a big problem.

Dan:
We write up or down to our audience. That scientific knowledge is
being dumbed down should tell you something about the masses it is
being written for.

>
>
>>
>> >
>> > Dan:
>> >
>> >> And so far as number 2 goes, everything in moderation. I know folk who
>> >> routinely pop antibiotics every time they sneeze... smart people too.
>> >> They don't seem to understand the consequences and when I say
>> >> something  they look at me like I'm the crazy one.
>> >>
>> >> Unless we all go back to living in caves and beating each other over
>> >> the head with clubs, this is the world we've got.
>> >>
>> >
>> > Jc:  I'm  fatalistic also.  You've heard of the Tragedy of the
>> > Commons?  Well today we are experiencing that tragedy.  It would be
>> > nice if everybody else diminished their carbon output, but since
>> > that's not gonna happen, I wanna make sure I get mine.  That's the way
>> > the world ends.
>>
>> Dan:
>> Platt? Is that you?
>>
>
> Jc:  Funny.  Good ole Platt, may he R.I.P.

Dan:
Wait a minute... did Platt pass away?

JC:
> but I'm saying of course,
> Randian self-interest magnified by technologically-multiplied effects
> = Chaotic devastation eventually.

Dan:
I know it's easy to believe that we are all only interested in how big
a piece of the pie we can grab for ourselves but I think that is a
dangerous fantasy rooted more in a convenient fiction than in everyday
experience.

>
> Dan:
>
>> Think: doing more with less. I'm not fatalistic at all. The Tragedy of
>> the Commons is a 19th century myth that should not be taken too
>> literally. Foretelling a future based on the past fails to take into
>> account new and unexpected circumstances... in other words, Dynamic
>> Quality. That does not mean that the future is Dynamic Quality,
>> however.
>>
>
>
>
> Jc:  No, it could be a complete mess.  There's no guarantee that our
> long climb upward in material comfort and technological will keep
> going forever and there are many signs of system failure.   Maybe some
> miraculous cure could come.  Maybe Jesus in the clouds will appear.
> Who knows?

Dan:
I'm pretty sure I saw Chuy driving past the dealership in a souped up
low riding mother of pearl '57 Chevy but it might have been his
brother Jim. Either way, I'm pretty sure we're on our own.

I read reports from a hundred and fifty years ago or thereabouts how
New York City would be buried beneath a mile of horse manure in only a
few decades. Huh. Bummer, that. Imagine the smell. Especially during
summertime. Then the darnedest thing happened... some fool invented
the combustion engine.

>JC:
> It's just looking pretty doubtful to me.

Dan:
That's too bad.

Thanks, John.

Dan

http://www.danglover.com