[MD] Two Minds

[ARLO JAMES BENSINGER JR]

[Austin]
I think that both the social and intellectual levels emerged out of the biological level.  The intellectual did emerge after the social and still holds moral authority over it and still has access to it, but it is more correct to say that it emerged from biology.

[Arlo]
This is a frequent lament from those schooled in the West. But you must know this upfront, this is NOT Pirsig's MOQ. The Inorganic-Biologic-Intellectual trajectory resurfaces from time to time, sometimes out of the 'anti-social, raw individualism' cowboy motif of American culture, and sometimes out of the West's inability to understand the social origins of cognition (those are not random words). 

This can be a long discussion, and if you're genuinely interested I'll bite and try to walk through this again. Before I do, I would encourage you to read some Vygotsky, Bakhtin and Tomasello, as these are three of the more translated philosopher/psychologists who agree with Pirsig that 'intellect' is a product of social origins. 

Wherever you end up, understand though that a KEY point to the MOQ is that intellect does NOT derive from biology. It can be a difficult point to grasp, but it's critical to understanding Pirsig. Here are two more popular works to get you started.

The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition: Michael Tomasello (http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674005822)

Voices of the Mind: James Wertsch (https://books.google.com/books?id=9EtTuaPMtjAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=voices+of+the+mind+wertsch&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAGoVChMI8b6rwbj9yAIVBlcmCh1zpAj0#v=onepage&q=voices%20of%20the%20mind%20wertsch&f=false) this book overviews bothg Vygotsky and Bakhtin