On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 12:10 AM, John Carl <[email protected]> wrote:
> 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. > > > [John] > 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. > > Platt prior] According to Pirsig, the social level as he > envisioned it is limited to human beings, not social animals like ants and > wolves. [John] > 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. [Platt] Here's what Pirsig replied when asked why he restricted the social level to human beings: "Societies is used figuratively here as a more colorful word meaning "groups." If I had known it would be taken literally as evidence that cells belong in the social level I would not have used it. Maybe in a future edition it can be struck out. One can also call ants and bees "social" insects, but for purposes of precision in the MOQ social patterns should be defined as human and subjective. Unlike cells and bees and ants they cannot be detected with an objective scientific instrument. For example there is no objective scientific instrument that can distinguish between a king and commoner, because the difference is social." (LC, Note 49) Note his reason: "For purposes of precision in the MOQ." I take him to mean that without such precision, the MOQ would suffer from unnecessary confusion, as he explained in a letter to Paul Turner: "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?" He goes on to further clarify the intellectual level: "I think the same happens to the term, "intellectual," when one extends it much before the Ancient Greeks.* If one extends the term intellectual to include primitive cultures just because they are thinking about things, why stop there? How about chimpanzees? Don't they think.? How about earthworms? Don't they make conscious decisions? How about bacteria responding to light and darkness? How about chemicals responding to light and darkness? Our intellectual level is broadening to a point where it is losing all its meaning. You have to cut it off somewhere, and it seems to me the greatest meaning can be given to the intellectual level if it is confined to the skilled manipulation of abstract symbols that have no corresponding particular experience and which behave according to rules of their own." You can see where I got the idea for my description of the intellectual level as symbols about symbols, language about language, thinking about thinking, i.e., "skilled manipulation of abstract symbols." [Platt prior] > There are plenty of good ideas at the > social level, like the invention of the spear and the wheel. [John] 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. [Platt] See Pirsig's comments above. [Platt prior] > 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.) [John] > 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. > > [Platt] Are not all dichotomies fallacious in the sense you cannot have one without the other? Can there be a whole with parts, or many without one? To say individuals are related to society is like saying people are related to air. Doesn't tell you much about people or air. If individuals and people always together, why make a distinction? [John] Furthermore, strong individuals can only be created by a strong society and a strong society can only be created by strong individuals. [Platt] What defines a "strong individual?" > 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/
