Matt,
This is an add on comment to my response to your
post below.
By the way, I see language on the intellectual
level, too. I see language as another kind of paint
brush or musical instrument, poetry if you will.
Language is a very creative intellectual tool.
SA
> Matt said:
> That's why I don't go for the distinction between
> intelligence and intellect as what divides Pirsig's
> levels. Intelligence is obviously the biologically
> linked thing that we share with the animals, but I
> think that's all there is. "Intellect" is a
> reification of a set of cultural innovations that
> humans were able to create in part through their
> creation of language. Language was just a tool we
> created to help us survive. So were all the other
> innovations that language made possible. Some of
> these innovations took on a life of their own, but
> how do we tell an evolutionary story about the
> creation of "intellect" if it isn't a set of
> cultural innovations? We haven't been able to do it
> for "mind" or "representations" yet, and that's
> partly why philosophers of a pragmatist stripe have
> been working so hard to retire them.
>
> SA said:
> My point exactly. This is why I keep saying we
> could try to define intellect and any other level
> all day and night and we wouldn't be able to. If we
> completely thought we did, then we would be stuck.
> These levels are defining something more dynamic,
> creative, free, and open than we may think at this
> moment. This is how improvising works so well on
> the day to day events. We may try to organize and
> structure our lives into Confucian habits, but
> nature's wind will blow and the inspiration will
> flow.
>
> Matt:
> Your point, however, is not my point. We _can_
> define intellect, and all the other levels, and we
> _should_ define intellect, and all the other levels.
> You've made the exact mistake I think we should
> avoid: you've conflated thinking with SOM. The idea
> of defining something "completely" is the SOMic
> mistake, the possibility that is an impossibility.
> Plato's Forms are this idea, where the concept
> hooked directly onto its essence in a perfect,
> immutable relationship. But thinking that we are
> ineluctably drawn to SOM simply by virtue of
> thinking, or using words, is the perfect inverse of
> SOM: monistic quietism--and an inverse is no better
> than the original.
>
> When we define concepts and terms, we aren't
> defining _completely_, we're trying to fashion an ad
> hoc tool for the moment. The zephyr wind will
> always blow, but Pirsig's point is that organizing
> and structuring is one of the things that we do to
> weather hurricanes. All we need to do is to stop
> writing our earthly messages into the stars above.
>
>
> Matt
>
_________________________________________________________________
> Help yourself to FREE treats served up daily at the
> Messenger Café. Stop by today.
>
http://www.cafemessenger.com/info/info_sweetstuff2.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_OctWLtagline
> Moq_Discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
>
http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
>
http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
>
____________________________________________________________________________________
Be a better sports nut! Let your teams follow you
with Yahoo Mobile. Try it now.
http://mobile.yahoo.com/sports;_ylt=At9_qDKvtAbMuh1G1SQtBI7ntAcJ
Moq_Discuss mailing list
Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
Archives:
http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
