Hi Platt
Sun March 16 you wrote:
> A brilliant recounting of the history and nature of the intellectual
> level. Many thanks.
Thank you, when will we be rewarded?
> Only one small bone to pick.
Fine, no bone too small for old dogs ;-)
> You assert "I know of no truth that's not objective --." I presume
> your answer is limited by the context of Jorge's question because it
> appears you omit Pirsig's concept of truth -- like "paintings in an
> art gallery" -- showing that the S/O split is actually superseded by
> DQ/SQ.
I believe this is the "bone":
But if Quality or excellence is seen as the ultimate reality
then it becomes possible for more than one set of truths
to exist. Then one doesn't seek the absolute "Truth."
One seeks instead the highest quality intellectual
explanation of things with the knowledge that if the past is
any guide to the future this explanation must be taken
provisionally; as useful until something better comes
along. One can then examine intellectual realities the
same way he examines paintings in an art gallery, not
with an effort to find out which one is the "real" painting,
but simply to enjoy and keep those that are of value.
There are many sets of intellectual reality in existence
and we can perceive some to have more quality than
others, but that we do so is, in part, the result of our
history and current patterns of values.
which is based on the early mind-definition of intellect (before the
Turner letter) where all explanations are "intellectual", included
MOQ itself which - if applied - would rid this intellect of the
illusion that there is anything called truth and objectivity. I find
this dangerous and uphold that the intellectual level is the VALUE
of the S/O distinction in the "objectivity over subjectivity" sense.
In such a context the S/O isn't in conflict with the DQ/SQ
dichotomy.
This does not apply re. intellect, all static levels are less than
fundamental meaning that they merge with the lower level if
examined closely. It has long since been discovered that matter
dissolves into ...chaos and also that life's border to the inorganic
is blurred. Societies will merge with biology if pursued far enough
and if intellect is examined its social roots are visible. In the said
Turner letter Pirsig says that a line must be drawn somewhere
unless the social lvel becomes useless, and he also says that the
line for intellect is drawn with the ancient Greeks (meaning SOM
in a Quality context).
> Truth, no matter how arrived at, is first and foremost a value, like
> goodness and beauty.
Truth is a value all right, the highest STATIC value IMO, while
goodness isn't (a) value, but VALUE itself which is
dynamic/static-divided by the MOQ. Regarding Beauty I think it's
part of the many Quality derivatives.
Regarding Truth and how it (unnecessarily )came to be Quality's
antagonist (ZAMM)
But why? Phædrus wondered. Why destroy areté? And no
sooner had he asked the question than the answer came
to him. Plato hadn't tried to destroy areté. He had
encapsulated it; made a permanent, fixed Idea out of it;
had converted it to a rigid, immobile Immortal Truth. He
made areté the Good, the highest form, the highest Idea
of all. It was subordinate only to Truth itself, in a synthesis
of all that had gone before.
Aretê=Quality and Phaedrus accuses Plato of having usurped
Quality by making it an immortal truth. In a MOQ retrospect this
becomes the point where the intellectual level takes precedence
over the social level, but - note - if the MOQ is to "identify" with
social value in the same fashion that Pirsig accuses intellect of
doing with biology (to quell society) it's no good. Phew, the MOQ
opens up such an welter of new perspectives.
> That the ideology of science largely ignores these ultimate meanings
> accounts for much of the current moral decay.
Right, but with science a pattern of an intellectual level no longer
SOM but a subset of the MOQ all is made good.
IMO
Bo
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