[MD] Two Minds

[david]

Arlo said to Austin:

...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. ...


dmb says:

Right. Maybe it would help to point out that each level includes all the levels below it or prior to it. In other words, the intellect obviously requires a healthy brain and body but that's not enough because it also requires social level cognition too and so does not derive from biology directly. In the same way, social structures can't be directly derived from inorganic matter but you can't have life without those basic physical elements so that the social level requires both but emerges only after life has evolved enough to sustain it.