Hey Ham,
I read both Pirsig's books several times but never picked up a suggestion
that he thought intellect exists on a supra-human plane, accessible to man
but not a human function; and, like you (and I guess like skutvic, whose
argument I favour) I reject such a view.
I also disagree that the process is exclusive to humans, other beings have
it too - like SA's cougar hesitating to jump the ravine, how else can such
behaviour be possible without intelligence?
I have appreciated some of the ideas you came up with, but this! I give you
a chance to explain otherwise I know I'll tend to skip your posts in future.
-Peter
On 02/11/2007, Ham Priday <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> Hi-ho Bo --
>
>
>
> [Bo stated to Ham]:
> > You don't see value as intellectual, and that's right: Intellect is
> > supposed to be seen as value.
>
> [SA stated to Bo]:
> > Thus, intellect is quality. Quality is value is moral Bo, this is
> > where I believe the distinction between your view and my view
> > takes place.
>
> [Bo "clarifies" for SA]:
> > What the inscrutable Ham means by "not seeing value as
> > intellectual" I leave to the wind, I just commented that the
> > MOQ's intellect is a static value level. This and the fact that
> > there are other terms for quality ("value", "morals" and
> > "goodness") is plain, but how it's possible to differ over
> > this point is beyond me.
> >
> > However, I believe that the definition of the term "intellect" is
> > what all is about....
>
> I can't help thinking that your argument is germinal to the ontology that
> MoQ's author never really formulated. And I believe the problem has more
> to
> do with "equating" terms than with defining them.
>
> When you say "that there are other terms for quality ('value', 'morals'
> and
> 'goodness') is plain," you are throwing a bunch of human concepts into a
> barrel labeled Quality and pulling them out as if they were all the same
> thing. "Plainly" this is not true.
>
> A quality is a perceived property of a thing, such as density, opacity,
> roughness, or fluidity. A value is a measure of a thing's worth or
> utility.
> A moral (principle) is an axiom that applies to human behavior in a
> collective sense. Goodness is a general term for anything that is
> pleasurable to the senses. And intellect is the reasoning process of the
> human mind. We sometimes use these terms euphemistically with reference
> to
> intangibles, but when we conflate apples and pears in a metaphysical
> ontology, we end up with a nonsensical theory by the familiar "trash-in,
> trash-out" principle of computer technology. Calling these descriptors
> "levels" or "static patterns" only compounds the problem by fudging over
> their differences.
>
> [Bo]:
> > Pirsig doesn't really define any level and the
> > first 3 are self-evident...
> >
> > But when it comes to the 4th. level the problem is that the term
> > has an erroneous definition among the general public different
> > from the correct dictionary one. The former is more close to
> > "intelligence" while the latter is the correct S/O one, and when
> > this error is transferred to the MOQ it creates confusion. My
> > Oxford Advanced says about INTELLECT:
> >
> > "Power of the mind to reason contrasted with feeling and
> > instinct."...
> >
> > In other words intellect is the distinction between what's objective
> > and what's subjective - the S/O. I've pointed to since God knows
> > when, but it's water on a goose's back. Intellect to you (all) is all
> > mental activity, thus when an animal shows great prowess and
> > people of old made up mythologies around their social/emotional
> > reality it was "intellect".
>
> No, Bo. AWARENESS is the distinction between what's objective and
> subjective. Intellect is the mental process of conceptualizing
> experienced
> relations, whether material, social, or emotional. What I suspect you
> want
> to do is codify the idea suggested (but never really postulated) by Pirsig
>
> that Intellect exists on a supra-human plane as a body of intelligence
> which
> is accessible to man but not a human function. And that is an invalid
> epistemology. Intellect is not collective knowledge or intelligence; it
> is
> a relational process that is exclusive to the individual human. It simply
> does not exist apart from human cognizance. And it has no ontological
> relevance to quality or value.
>
> Not so inscrutable,
> Ham
>
>
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