John, Contemplating the intellectual level, My own thoughts pretty much follow your own. I think the intellectual level is defined by the society it emerges from. This leaves the door open to intellection in animal species and I like that idea. I think the MOQ is about transcending cultural boundaries which means at least attempiting to drop an anthropocentrist attitude. There very well could be an ant hill somewhere that dwarfs our intellectual capabilities and we would never know it.
Pirsig defined the intellectual level as the manipulation of abstract symbols which have no corresponding expereince. I think thats a pretty accurate appraisal for it represents the abstact/concrete status of nouns rather well. Since we do not experience numbers, it accounts for that as too. ( althought I experienced a rather nice number "2" this morning :->) -Ron ________________________________ From: John Carl <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, July 9, 2009 12:10:16 AM Subject: Re: [MD] Reductionism On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 8:46 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: Thank for responding, John. We've been kicking around how to best > define the intellectual level ever since this site began over ten years > ago. Despite many attempts, notably by Bo Skutvik, there has been little > agreement. Pirsig himself left the question pretty much up in the air by > assuming, as he later wrote: "In Lila I never defined the intellectual > level > of the MOQ since everyone who is up to reading Lila already knows > what 'intellectual' means." (Lila's Child, Note 25) Having your fresh eyes > on the subject may help settle our arguments, or at least move us > toward that goal. Well nothing like the great weight of responsibility to make me feel wanted. Sit back and I'll explain the whole thing. Cuz that's what I've been thinking about while watching my bbq smoke and enjoying this fine late summer eve. I like to keep it simple. Society is when there is more than one. Animals act socially, with a definite ladder of complexity approaching a scale of social interaction in humans, but falling so short of the human ability to melt the face of the planet, that we tend to see these two differing "societys" as different as one species from the other. But human society includes the behaviours of animal societys, even while transcending in effects and power. And when we analyze much of man's social behaviour toward his fellows, I think we find much of animalian (especially mammalian) emotional drives and social urges abstracted through technology and intellection. For the moq, I like to think that all levels are active at all times, thus even bacteria behaves "socially" but barely, and rocks do so in strictly Newtonian play by the rules of cause and effect and motion and rest. Now the tricky part comes in, when I try and figure out how and where intellect makes the next jump into meta land, and becomes a more comprehensive patterning "thing" than social language. Even ants and bees talk to one another. They don't talk about talking about tho. At least I don't think they do. > > > > Yes, that's certainly true. According to Pirsig, the social level as he > envisioned it is limited to human beings, not social animals like ants and > wolves. Well why do we call them social? We have this perfectly acceptable term for the way beings interact, and I'm ready to extend it to the non-organic and Pirsig won't even grant it to wolves or gorillas? Man, he really is antisocial. > > Not sure abstraction in general marks the beginning of the intellectual > level. Communication at the social level must have been partly abstract > such as, "Let's talk." But, "Let's talk" in semantics is an example of > directive language, or in grammar an example of the imperative mood. > IMO, such abstractions about language are examples of the beginning > of the intellectual level. Even the the idea "abstraction" is intellectual > level. It's about language. When we started making symbols about other > symbols, we started the intellectual level. Yeah, it's that "meta jump". > > There are plenty of good ideas at the > social level, like the invention of the spear and the wheel. I think the ideas occurred at the intellectual level and the implementation occurs at the social. I think social and intellectual go hand in hand through out human culture and development. Somebody in my tribe gives me a reason to think about a need.... it generates ideas, hypothesis and tests using logic, memory, asking questions of others. The intellect is fully engaged and the social needs of my group are present. Even as society exists in very primitive form all the way down the chain of animal being, so too does intellect exist in every human society no matter how primitive. Or seemingly primitive. That's another topic for another time. > But the > beginnings of intellect occurred with the invention of writing and came > into full flower with the invention of rhetoric, grammar, mathematics, > logic, semantics, etc.-- those disciplines devoted to the use of symbols. > That's my tentative theory anyway. (Another theory I proposed but got > shot down was my attempt at renaming the highest level the individual > level as as compared to the collective (social) level. But, it proved to be > too politically incorrect for most contributors.) > Well I'd shoot it down too, but not as being PC., but as individual/society being a fallacious dichotomy. My man Royce in his philosophy of Community points out that every individual is defined by and related to a society and every society is composed of individuals. You can't have one without the other. Furthermore, strong individuals can only be created by a strong society and a strong society can only be created by strong individuals. I don't see how what is beyond the MOQ can "screw > > > up" the MOQ any more than the symbol "aesthetic" can screw up a > > > poem. > > > > depends upon the quality of the poem, of course. Fer instance... > > > > There once was man from Cathetix, > > > > Who worked in sales for prosthetics > > > > He'd often beg > > > > for an arm and a leg > > > > Just to make you look un-aesthetic > > > Is that high or low quality? Well it was supposed to be low, in order to make my point accurately, but it came out better than I thought... I've since improved it and I like it now. A girl skilled in psychokinetics Got a job selling prosthetics she'd often beg for an arm and a leg Just to please her own sense of aesthetics > > > 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/ > -- ------------ There are differing interpretations of Reality, some are just better than others, that's all. ------------ 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/ 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/
