Hi Platt, > [Steve] >> I don't have your post with me, but I try to address what I remember about >> it. >> >> Marsha quoted the whole paragraph which is important because the last >> sentence is key: >> >> "What had happened since the end of World War I was that the >> intellectual >> level had entered the picture and had taken over everything. It was >> this >> intellectual level that was screwing everything up. The question of >> whether promiscuity is moral had been resolved from prehistoric times to >> the end of the Victorian era, but suddenly everything was upended by >> this >> new intellectual supremacy that said sexual promiscuity is neither moral >> nor immoral, it is just amoral human behavior."
Platt: > Yes. The SOM intellectual level (not pattern) is what Pirsig is talking > about here -- the level that became "supreme" over the social level, > upsetting Rigel and causing him to dump on Pirsig. Steve: I never said that the intellectual level is a pattern, rather it is a type of pattern. I know that you view the levels as types of people rather than types of patterns. This is a misconception. Though the levels help us to understand people by understadning what pattern dominate diferent people, if you do a search for "intellectual level" in Lila, you will never see Pirsig refer to someone as "being on the intellectual level"--a phrase that is used regularly in this forum. What you will find is the frequent use of the phrase "intellectual level of evolution" and references to patterns as in the following: "But what the larger intellectual structure of the Metaphysics of Quality makes clear is that this political battle of science to free itself from domination by social moral codes was in fact a moral battle! It was the battle of a higher, intellectual level of evolution to keep itself from being devoured by a lower, social level of evolution. Once this political battle is resolved, the Metaphysics of Quality can then go back and re-ask the question, "Just exactly how independent is science, in fact, from society?" The answer it gives is, "not at all." A science in which social patterns are of no account is as unreal and absurd as a society in which biological patterns are of no account. It's an impossibility." and this: "Descartes' "I think therefore I am" was a historically shattering declaration of independence of the intellectual level of evolution from the social level of evolution..." as well as this: "Today we are living in an intellectual and technological paradise and a moral and social nightmare because the intellectual level of evolution, in its struggle to become free of the social level, has ignored the social level's role in keeping the biological level under control. Intellectuals have failed to understand the ocean of biological quality that is constantly being suppressed by social order." Obviously, "levels of evolution" refer to patterns of value as I'm, sure you recall Pirsig taking great pains to reinterpret evolution as the migration of static patterns of value toward dynamic quality. If that connection is too loose for you, consider that he also uses the phrase "intellectual level of patterns" to explicitly state that the levels refer to types of patterns: "Our intellectual description of nature is always culturally derived. The intellectual level of patterns, in the historic process of freeing itself from its parent social level, namely the church, has tended to invent a myth of independence from the social level for its own benefit. Science and reason, this myth goes, come only from the objective world, never from the social world." I think we wouls all gain much clarity in communication and understanding if we were careful to always use "of patterns" when referring to levels since that is what Pirsig means by the term. Go back to where Pirsig first introduces the idea to see what he actually means and that he actually is talking about types of patterns when using the term "level": "In this plain of understanding static patterns of value are divided into four systems: inorganic patterns, biological patterns, social patterns and intellectual patterns. They are exhaustive. That's all there are. If you construct an encyclopedia of four topics-Inorganic, Biological, Social and Intellectual-nothing is left out. No "thing," that is. Only Dynamic Quality, which cannot be described in any encyclopedia, is absent... This classification of patterns is not very original, but the Metaphysics of Quality allows an assertion about them that is unusual. It says they are not continuous. They are discrete. They have very little to do with one another. Although each higher level is built on a lower one it is not an extension of that lower level. Quite the contrary. The higher level can often be seen to be in opposition to the lower level, dominating it, controlling it where possible for its own purposes." Of course, you and Bo hope to lay your own claim to the MOQ with Bo's SOLAQI and your Individual level, so perhaps you are not all that interested in what Pirisg is actually saying. Steve: >> What Pirsig is describing is not intellect itself but rather the SOM >> view of intellect. Specifically it is the intellectual pattern that >> says that intellectual patterns are amoral that is screwing everything >> up. It is Rigel's rather than Pirsig's view of intellect. This becomes >> even more clear as we continue: Platt: > When Pirsig says "the intellectual level" I believe him. If he had meant > "intellectual patterns" he would have said so. Steve: As we see above, that is what he means and he did say so. He has also specifically refuted Bo's SOLAQI in Lila's Chld and in subsequent letters. I don't have my copy of LC with me, and maybe someone else can dig up the quotes, but he specifically addresses this idea that the intellectual level is equivalent to SOM. >> "That may have been why Rigel was so angry back in Kingston. He thought >> Lila was immoral because she'd broken up a family and destroyed a man's >> position in the social community-a biological pattern of quality, sex, >> had >> destroyed a social pattern of quality, a family and a job. What made >> Rigel >> mad was that into this scene come intellectuals like Phædrus who say >> it's >> unintelligent to repress biological drives. You must decide these >> matters >> on the basis of reason, not on the basis of social codes. >> >> But if Rigel identified Phædrus with this intellect-vs.-society code and >> the social upheavals it has produced, he certainly picked on the wrong >> person. The Metaphysics of Quality uproots the intellectual source of >> this >> confusion, the doctrine that says, "Science is not concerned with >> values. >> Science is concerned only with facts." >> >> In a subject-object metaphysics this platitude is unassailable, but the >> Metaphysics of Quality asks: which values is science unconcerned with? >> Gravitation is an inorganic pattern of values. Is science unconcerned? >> Truth is an intellectual pattern of values. Is science unconcerned?" Steve: >> Clearly Pirsig is indeed talking about patterns of values when he >> wants to get specific, and he specifically mentions them here. He is >> saying that what we need is for the intellectual pattern that says >> that truth is a species of good to win out over the intellectual >> pattern that says that intellect is amoral. This is ZAMM's pursuit of >> the Ghost of Reason or the root of the problem or the dark side of >> SOM. Platt: > Clearly Pirsig is laying the groundwork for his MOQ wherein values are not > limited to Rigel-like social conventions or science-like amorality, but are > the whole thing. Agreed Platt: >The MOQ is more than just another intellectual pattern > because at its root is direct experience prior to intellect. Like Andre, I > consider the MOQ a higher, aesthetic level presenting a broader > understanding of reality than the intellectual level. Steve: I agree that the MOQ is not JUST another intellectual pattern, but it is still an intellectual pattern. Again, Pirsig even says as much. Steve: >> Certainly many of our common intellectual patterns such as the one I >> just described are based on SOM assumptions, but that does not mean >> that ALL intellectual patterns are based on SOM assumptions or that >> SOM is what intellect is (the S/O aggregate or whatever Bo says). That >> would simply be a category error. Intellect describes a sort of >> pattern of value recognized as the manupulation of abstract symbols >> that stand for patterns of experience. The intellectual level is the >> collection of all such patterns. Platt: > Like I said, unless the intellectual level is SOM, the trance state of > today's "intellectuals," Pirsig's analysis of our cultural problems > collapses. Then the MOQ would be a philosophic non-starter. MOQ is a place holder for "Pirsig's philosophy." You are basicallly saying that Pirsig is wrong about what his philosophy is. Regards, Steve 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/
