Andre to Bodvar, Thank you for your clarification Bodvar, this is a great help.
Bodvar: First of all I try to get (us) away from the 4th. level as "thoughts & ideas" (mental). Andre: I agree with this...simply because Pirsig said as much in his letter to Paul Turner. In this sense I also remain consistent when, first joining this Discuss (seems like years now but isn't) I suggested that the Intellectual level (the 4th) was a very lonely place to be (based on Pirsig's understanding/interpretation of ...'you have to cut it off somewhere') and me introducing the SLT (social level thinking) as a means of describing all the mental processes (i.e your 'thoughts and ideas') which, by implication would then be considered to fall short of being 'admitted' to the 4th level. Do you remember? Bodvar: There is no mental/corporeal divide in the MOQ. Andre: Totally agree. These have been 'dissolved' into the MoQ concepts called 'patterns'. Bodvar: YES!!!!!! SOM's paradoxes was what drove young Phaedrus out on his quest that ended in the Quality Epiphany. Thus SOM was the necessary springboard to the the MOQ. Andre: As well as birthing scientific exploration/ discoveries etc, leading to (technological) exploitation and (intellectual) advancement( I do not mean this in a negative sense). To repeat Pirsig's observation: 'We live in a technological paradise'. Without SOM this would not have been possible?!! (I suppose I am begging the question but it is perhaps an interesting proposition. I wonder if anyone else on this Discuss has any thoughts on this?). Andre: > And, thirdly, had this evolutionary step not been made possible, would > we still have lived in a 'myth' or rather a state wherein our (present > day) capacity to reflect and 'rationalise' would not have been > 'realised'?? Bodvar: That's exactly it. Andre: This all sounds quite acceptable to me Bodvar,but which leads me to ask the obvious questions: If this is the core of your SOL interpretation why has it been met with such resistance? And why has no one systematically (i.e. point by point) repudiated your SOL paper? Secondly, it seems to me that we remain at an 'impasse' concerning the 4th level. What needs to happen/change to make the 4th level a truly MoQ level? Or, do you not consider this possible? and perhaps change the MoQ into a Code of Art...or something (where I have placed it- also because I believe the MoQ to be more than a metaphysical programme). Thirdly, and following on from the 2nd question: are SOM and MoQ incompatible? Pirsig places them 'side-by-side'(as static intellectual PoV's) whilst at the same time saying that the MoQ rejects SOM (because SOM does not recognise Quality). He also says that there are many sets of intellectual reality in existence and that some have more quality than others (Lila, p 103). Perhaps we should leave it at that but I am not happy with this. Pirsig seems too reluctant to push home his MoQ power sometimes. Fourthly:Can the MoQ accomodate these inconsistencies (hinted at above) comfortably? ( I suggest not! At least not without the suggested MoQ semantic changes to interpretations of its observations/findings). Fifthly: As an addendum: if we do accept a distinction between mental activity (and its products) and intellectual activity (and its products) where does that distiction lie? and which is which? As an example: the business of politics is a purely social level PoV. What about its product: the creation of laws. Are these social PoV's or intellectual PoV's? I.e: to what extent is the creation of a law an example of the manipulation of abstract symbols that have no corresponding particular experience and which behave according to rules of their own? I will leave you alone for now Bodvar. Bodvar: > Clarifying these would greatly help me understand your SOL > interpretation. But again...keep it simple. Pretend you have to > explain this to a 5-year old!!! Oh, I did not see this before I started to write. ;-) However I think you have matured a bit beyond that age. Andre: Each in our own small and not so small way try to experience and be part of the evolutionary process. Kind regards 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/
