Chistoffer & Group
12 July you wrote
> Joe. It's late and I'm not sure how well my brain functions at the moment,
> but your post produced this though of mine:
> If the intellectual level is the quest for knowledge for knowledge's sake
> alone - Can this quest come to be without a distinct *I* to perform and be
> the vessel of that quest?
> Or is it so that the social level had to evolve to such a degree that it
> produced the basis for the idea of a distinct and separate *I* to form -
> and only when the social level had provided this *I* could the
> intellectual level emerge?
All levels served its parent before breaking free and Pirsig postulates
that intellect's original purpose weren't to find the ultimate meaning of
the universe (ultimate knowledge) rather to help society find food ...etc.
but it's after the breakout that levels are levels, before they were
"prodigious children" (of their parents).
> Could this be it? That when social structures become so evolved that
> distinct and separate *I's* are created that provides the vessel for the
> intellectual level?
It's a sin to pick nits, yet .... Ancient people (before the intellectual
level) surely had personalities, names, ancestry, property and
everything we have (so have people in social-value-steeped cultures
to-day) thus the personal 'I' isn't the vessel of intellect. Had it been the
intellectual level would have been universal. Again we must look to
ZAMM and SOM (which is intellect breaking free from the social -
Aretê - level) What exactly started the first Greek thinkers on their
quest for the "ultimate meaning of the universe" (eternal principles) I
simply don't know, but I guess the Greek city state had reached a
degree of complexity (labour distribution) that created a leisure class.
Anyway it developed as known to Aristotle when our present scientific
attitude was born according to Pirsig.
I attach my former input below.
Bodvar
-----------------------------------------------
Hi Christoffer.
10 July you wrote:
> This thing regarding the nature of the intellectual level has proven to
> be, well, difficult - to say the least. I think we can all agree that
> the nature of the intellectual level is that of a way of
> responding/understanding/seeing/etc Quality in ways that are different
> to the ways that the other levels /responds/sees/understands Quality.
You are right, but the discussion seems to have given up on
"intellect" - on the MOQ as well, nowadays it looks like a contest in
NOT mentioning Pirsig or his ideas.
> Most everyone of you are fully aware of the debate concerning the
> "Symbol manipulation" given by Mr Pirsig and other explanations and
> interpretations of the nature of the intellectual level - most notably
> Bodvars SOL.
Thanks for mentioning it, the SOL stems from my initial encounter with
the Quality Idea through ZAMM and the "shock" of meeting a thinker
who pointed out a SOM. Like everyone else I thought the mind/matter
schism was indigenous, that mankind were permanently locked inside
its subjective mind with no hope of knowing objective reality. The relief
wasn't about the chance of knowing "objective reality" but the insight
that both subjectivity and objectivity were inventions.
> I myself tend to discard the symbol manipulation explanation because of
> the - as I see it - quite obvious reason that this is not in conflict
> with anything. The MOQ is a moral order, as we all know, and the
> different levels have more or less competing "views" on Quality and how
> to follow it. Thus I am inclined to thing along the paths of
Right, the MOQ postulates a moral struggle between the lower and the
(next) higher level, but any society/intellect such is impossible to spot
with a "symbol manipulation" 4th. level
There are however many passages in LILA that paints a different
picture of intellect, look at this:
"The animals Dynamically invented societies, and societies
Dynamically invented intellectual knowledge for the same
reasons."
"Animals" (biological value) invented social value, and social value
invented intellectual value. Here it's called "knowledge" (at other
places "science") but it makes for a S/O intellect.
On page 306 he says
"The intellect's evolutionary purpose has never en to discover an
ultimate meaning of the universe, that's a relatively recent fad.
It's purpose has been to help society find food ...etc".be
This however was intellect in its parent's service, after it took off on a
purpose of its own it did become a search for the ultimate purpose, we
see it first manifest as the Greek thinker's search for eternal (ultimate)
principles - for TRUTH - i.e. intellect's liberation from society emerged
as SOM in ZAMM. I's obvious.
It's after freeing themselves from their parents the levels become
levels. This BTW solves Magnus' quandary about insect colonies, wolf
packs and ape tribes (as social value). These are society still in
biology's service, taking off on a purpose of its own was solely an
human social endeavour.
> "What is not by it's _fundamental nature_ in service of either the
> inorganic, the biological or the social level?"
> As I said - manipulation of symbols doesn't really cut it for me -
> where is the FUNDAMENTAL conflict?
> Today I thought about "human nature". Human nature and what thing
> it
> is that is usually connected to the expression that it is in "the
> human nature".
> The Quest for knowledge. Embedded in us since - well, pretty much
> always.
The emergence of intellect (roughly 500 BC) may seem like "always"
but humankind is infinitely older (ZAMM):
> This drive that seems to be something that is a fundamental part of
> what makes humans humans, and something that - of course - may
> service our biological needs and our social standards, but that in
> essance is separated from these things, that in essance is something
> that strives towards something quite aside from these Patterns of
> Value. Knowledge for knowledge's sake.
The term "knowledge" is ambiguous, we know many things, but
intellectual knowledge spells "objectivity" and it certainly serves (our
intellect-dominated) societies but is in conflict with Q-social value. In
Afghanistan the Taliban don't want schools, they know(!!) that
educated people tend towards secularism and it's the god-ruled reality
which is at the core of "social value". On this point I agree 100% with
Pirsig.
But if one studies the early books of the Bible or if one studies
the sayings of primitive tribes today, the intellectual level is
conspicuously absent. The world is ruled by Gods who follow social
and biological patterns and nothing else.
> I am not sure that it *is* the Intellectual level, but it sure seems
> to be a most notable manifestation of it.
You are right "knowledge for knowledge's sake" (Kant's "Reinen
Vernuft" is intellect and intellect alone.
Bodvar
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/
