Bodvar says: It's the very same letter and if you now will ask where Pirsig confirms the SOL its this passage
There has been a tendency to extend the meaning of "social" down into the biological with the assertion that, for example, ants are social, but I have argued that this extends the meaning to a point where it is useless for classification. I said that even atoms can be called societies of electrons and protons. And since everything is thus social, why even have the word? I think the same happens to the term, "intellectual," when one extends it much before the Ancient Greeks.* You would not expect Pirsig to use the word "SOL" or say out loud that "Bodvar is right"? This is as close as he could get. What "much before" means I don't know, but "Ancient Greeks" spells SOM in a MOQ context. Ipso facto! That he went on to the symbol manipulation definition does not bother me, all who have the least inkling of the MOQ will see through this as mere procrastinating. Also the asterisk regarding the Oriental Intellect ... at least if we speak about the level and not SOM's "intellect". Thanks for reading my boorish posts Andre: Bodvar, your posts are not boorish! but I have gathered that you cling to an idea and want to see this idea confirmed and proven time and time again. Nothing wrong with that. I told you that we are going to have "our' little tussles as well. I think I sense what Pirsig is getting at ( I realise this is an incredible assumption but I'll do it anyway):Pirsig says: If you extend the meaning of 'social' down into the biological...its becomes useless for classification. This is the very exact same point I have argued in my last post: if you extend the meaning of "intellectualising" ( i.e Intellectual levels of value) to include "thinking" about social and (in)-organic PoV's related to "experience" (ie non abstract) it becomes meaningless for classification. How can you compare "A la Recherche du Temps Perdu" to the latest sensational book on gardening or cooking or the economy? One cannot say that one is low and the other high static intellectual patterns of quality. They belong in different categories/levels!!! What Pirsig is saying about the intellectual level not extending "much before the Ancient Greeks" I think that what he is suggesting is that there is a difference between "thinking about" (call it "intellectualising" but to make the difference please keep the difference in mind) and making sense of the inorganic/organic/ natural world as it was understood in pre- Greek times (the world of Phaedrus and its rhetoric, having given rise to opposing points of view .. ie the Immortal Principle of the Cosmologists vs the 'decadence of the Sophists', ZMM p 368) in a rhetorical frame of mind as opposed to and development of the dialectical (SOM) which happened "with" the Ancient Greeks. Now, to make sense of this I again refer to the point I am trying to make in my previous post: the rhetorical side of intellect is firmly grounded in experience, that's why Phaedrus was so attracted by it. This is the period "before the Ancient Greeks". Pirsig's Intellectual level is not from before the Greeks, it finds its birth with the Greeks, especially with Aristotle...i.e. the start of abstractions and subdivisions of these abstractions...Aristotelian ethics,...definitions, logic,...forms,...rhetoric,...laughter...ha-ha,ha-ha. Today..it includes math, logic and whatever other high abstract stuff that can be understood only with the aid of mathematical/ logical paradigms etc etc..all firmly based in SOM and that is where you, Bodvar are correct, Pirsig's intellect is SOL,but...he suggested that the 'true' intellect should comprise the incorporation of rhetorical values. I.e an expansion of SOM. The expansion begins in ZMM and is developed in Lila and then the balloon deflates. SOM superimposed on the levels?? Thinking about this I think this is not what Pirsig intended (again presumptious!). He constantly talks about an expansion of SOM within his own development of the MoQ...it encapsulates/incorporates/supersedes SOM. That's why. Am I making sense? Andre 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/
