Hi Jorge
31 Jan. you wrote:
> Bo, In an answer to Chris Ivarsson you write:
> > "In Homer's time (1000 BC?) the Q-evolution had not reached the
> > intellectual level, then neither Stone- nor Bronze Age had arrived
> > there (not all present day civilizations for that matter) There are more
> > examples of the Quality premises leading to the intellect=S/O
> > conclusion, but enough for now."
> Would you mind presenting some of those other
> examples? I'm interested in the topic.
Most of my examples aren't as explicit as the one above, but
more circumstantial, yet telling enough. One point that must be
made is that all references to the Greeks means SOM (in a MOQ
context because of ZAMM) and as the SOL says that the
intellectual level=SOM, any indication (of Pirsig seeing) it as
emerging with the Greeks means affirmation of the SOL OK?
There had been other comparable times, Phædrus
supposed. The day the first protozoans decided to get
together to form a metazoan society. Or the day the first
freak fish, or whatever-it-was, decided to leave the water.
Or, within historical time, THE DAY SOCRATES DIED
TO ESTABLISH THE INDEPENDENCE OF
INTELLECTUAL PATTERNS FROM THEIR SOCIAL
ORIGINS.
OK, this sounds as if SOM (Socrates) is just an event within the
intellectual development (like the fish becoming a landlubber
within biology) but I can't for the life of me understand what
intellect was before the Greeks .. lest one reverts to the "thinking"
definition.
The same is true of subjects and objects. The culture in
which we live hands us a set of INTELLECTUAL
GLASSES to interpret experience with, and the concept
of the primacy of SUBJECTS AND OBJECTS is built right
into these glasses.
This more than anything shows that intellect = the S/O distinction.
Biology beat death billions of years ago. Society beat
biology thousands of years ago. But intellect and society
are still fighting it out, and that is the key to an
understanding of both the Victorians and the twentieth
century.
This one is more circumstantial, but if social value "beat"
biological value thousands of years ago, then intellect had not
entered the scene to start its beating of society. Ergo, intellect is
considerably younger and the Greeks fit like the proverbial hand
and glove..
The new culture that has emerged is the first in history to
believe that patterns of society must be subordinate to
patterns of intellect. The one dominating question of this
century has been, "Are the social patterns of our world
going to run our intellectual life, or is our intellectual life
going to run the social patterns?" And in that battle, the
intellectual patterns have won.
Even more circumstantial. Yet, "the new culture" indicates a
rather recent emergence of the intellectual level. Of course Pirsig
in LILA is preoccupied with Victorian times as Society's the last
stand so "this century" isn't the advent of the 4th level, rather that
intellect re-emerged after the Medieval Hibernating and has
struggled with social value ever since ...and won in the West.
But there is no way to light that torch within a Victorian
pattern of values. Once intellect has been let out of the
bottle of social restraint, it is almost impossible to put it
back in again. And it is immoral to try. A society that tries
to restrain the truth for its own purposes is a lower form of
evolution than a truth that restrains society for its own
purposes
Most circumstantial, but still telling. "A society that tries to restrain
the truth for its own purpose" means social value devouring
intellectual value. Ergo, Pirsig sees intellect=TRUTH and truth
(objectivity) was SOM's first manifestation.
Finally it's the letter to Paul Turner where Pirsig says:
... the same (absurdity) happens to the term,
"intellectual," when one extends it much before the
Ancient Greeks.* If one extends the term intellectual to
include primitive cultures just because they are thinking
about things, why stop there? How about chimpanzees?
Don't they think? (my parenthesis)
We see that Pirsig now is aware of the ingrained tendency to
regard "intellect" as the ability to think logically. To realize that
2+2=4 or worse as "consciousness". The latter is intellect's
internal view, and if allowed to infest the MOQ it's done for. I
must say that Pirsig himself has added to the said "infestation" by
his yearning for academical accept.
IMO
Bo
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