Mati, Ian, Bodvar, Everyone
Mati provided some questions for us to ponder around, and I think it was a
very good thing that he did. Ian - I read your post, and I hope that this
answer will provide you with the input you are looking for from me - it it
doesn't, ask me again if I missed something.
1. How does your definition or understanding of intellectual
level/value differentiate the social level from the intellectual level as
well as social values from intellectual values?
I think of the intellectual level as driven, at it's very core, by the quest
for understanding/knowledge. This Quest for understanding and knowledge is
at it's core not in service of anything else, because when you put them
alongside one another; the social levels core is that of maintaining a
social structure in the face of the continuing ongoing change that occurs in
every aspect of live and existence, and to do this it uses whatever means it
has to it's disposal - in humanities case even the intellectual level, but
in general the biological means it has subjugated. The intellectual level's
activity is continuously that of answering questions like "why" and "how"
and the like, Questions that at their core isn't asked in service of the
social level - BUT (I'll try to clarify this): The social structures that is
around when the intellectual level is working does influence the way that
the intellectual level works - I.e what this drive towards understanding is
aimed at. That is as it should be - all the levels exists in symbiosis, and
must do so. Moving on:
2. Given there is a evolutionary process to each of the levels, what
is a possible historical point in which represents the likelihood for the
birth of the Intellectual level, and what is the basis for this
period/event(s) chosen?
The intellectual level would have emerged as a child to it's parent level,
and I believe that at any moment in history when a social structure becomes
so evolved (due to it's makeup and relation to it's biological components)
that individuality is formed and able to be a vessel for the questions of "why"
and "how" - then the intellectual level is able to operate. Now, what Ic
mean by this is that there must be a notion of a self, seeking answers,
together or apart from others, before the intellectual level can start to
operate.
Then, as the intellectual level is of higher evolutionary Quality then the
others, it can effect them, and change them, and so Intellectual PoV will be
created as something the social level holds up. Cultures will be created,
cultures that is social level and intellectual level creations in a fine
combination. Humans are born into them, and raised to think in certain ways,
so the social level provides a basis for the intellectual level to operate -
because the society was made into that kind of society due to it's relation
to the intellectual levels activities. If we take a pre-Greek society in
ancient Mesopotamia we may observe a society where people are born into a
society where the social level values are quite dominant, but the
intellectual level has provided the people with different kinds of
explanations to their innate question of "why" and "how" that the
intellectual level continues to give them - the answers will be "Gods"
perhaps - and so the intellectual levels provided explanatorily patterns
will be fitted to serve the social level - and be dominated by it.
When a society is created where the intellectual level will have a stronger
position vis-à-vis the social one, we will se that humans born into it may
more easily be able to follow their instinct to perpetuate their "thirst for
understanding" (the intellectual level) without this process beeing directed
so heavily by the social level. There we find the Greeks I believe, and thus
could they institutionalize reason and the idea of "Truth" into the social
level, so that the intellectual level could operate from these more free
conditions when humans with their capacity to follow the intellectual level
and evolution was born into that society.
[I skipped the third question for now]
4. Given that intellectual values dominate it's parent level, the
social level, yet must sustain and maintain a relative harmony with the
social level. Given your definition or understanding of intellectual
levels
how do intellectual values do that?
I don't think the intellectual level dominates it's parent level fully. It
never really has. The umbilical cord is not cut so to speak, and so they
effect each other mutually, each of them fighting continuously for
supremacy, but so intimately intertwined that it is hard to see what is
what, and sometimes some things may be equality a result of the intellectual
level at work as the social level at work.
I have read Lila and much of Pirsig's work and am very familiar with what
Lila has to say about some of these questions in a general context. Yet in
Pirsig's letter to Paul Turner he seems to have made his final
contribution
to this question. In a private final correspondence with him long ago,
about a research question related to this very question of intellectual
values, he more or less has hung his hat his letter to Paul Turner in his
addressing the intellectual level. That being said, and with the deepest
sense of respect and gratitude for Mr. Pirsig, I feel that we have failed
to
really move forward on this question. Again I think Bodvar's approach,
begins to provide the capacity to approach these, I believe, essential
questions. Thus providing us with the capacity to move MOQ forward.
I agree with you fully. And I too think that Bodvars approach is a far
better one then the other one. What I try to do now is to mud through it
all. I have only just started with all this, and all of you - well many have
been at it for the majority of my lifetime. We are all just seeking Quality
answers though - and I intend to do quality work with this.
Regards
Christoffer
PS. Ian wrote:
[Quoting DMB] "knowledge exists not for its own sake but to improve the
quality of our lives, to guide future action and generally to make the
world a better place."
I'd agree this is the main objection to your suggestion.
I don't think this objection holds up. Mainly because I don't agree with the
assertion. Our strive for knowledge may lead us to find better ways to a
more comfy life - but that may have to do with the relation to the social
level, and most of all, the drive to understand things doesn't automatically
lead to this - at it's core.
IMHO
DS
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