> [Krimel] > Ideas that are preserved, however they are preserve: that is the > intellectual LEVEL. Look at those cave paintings, for example. At the time > of their painting, the artist and his contemporaries shared an > understanding of what they were painting and why.
Steve: If they could indeed talk about WHY they were doing what they were doing, then they were indeed participating in intellectual patterns, but according to Pirsig, ritual action preceded such justification of action, so at some point people were doing such things but could not tell you why. Such people did not participate in intellectual patterns at all. [Krimel] Interestingly, Skinner argues that ritual behavior results from random reinforcement. He would also argue that asking people "why?" is not the best way to identify the causes of their behavior. You can ask anyone, anywhere, at anytime "why?" and they will give you an answer. The question may not have occurred to them before it was asked and their answer many not have anything to do with the actual causes of what they are doing. But intellectual activity does not depend on the quality of either the questions or the answers. I would suggest that both the asking and the answering are intellectual activities and the intellectual _level_ is the accumulation of questions asked and answers given. > Krimel: > The intellectual level is made up of ideas and what differs between the > intellectual level represented in cave painting and the intellectual level > today is mainly a matter of quantity and technological enhancements that > make ideas static and less like to be forgotten, things like writing, the > printing press, film, and the digital revolution. > > The _level_ consists not in the use of symbols but in the symbols > themselves. Steve: A slight quibble here. I think that the symbols themselves are best thought of as social patterns while the "rules" or habits concerning how such symbols should be manipulated were the intellectual patterns. [Krimel] According the Peirce, symbols are the most abstract of his three classes of signs. The pictures in cave art are iconic in that the picture has a direct correspondence to what it signifies. Smoke is an index that signals the presence of fire. Fever is an index of disease. Unlike icons and indexes, symbols for both Peirce and Saussure stand in an arbitrary relation to what they signify. That arbitrary relationship is both socially constructed and socially mediated. The rules for combining symbols, or syntax, are also socially constructed and socially mediated. In fact all intellectual activity is somehow or another social or serves a social function. Both the symbols and the rules for combining them are used socially to code and decode messages. I am suggesting that the intellectual _level_ is the accumulation of messages. [Steve] As an illustration of Pirsig's point about the absence intellectual patterns in the Bible, consider the Noah story in Genesis quoted below. Notice the almost complete lack of any justification for the events described. The story is pretty much of the form "this happened, then this happened, then this happened...." We can read into this story to take it as an explanation of WHY things are as they are that might ave satisified intellectual yearnings, but tend to think that reading is our intellectually ethnocentric view of how these stories functioned considering that there is so little about any of it that reads as an attempt to explain or justify anything intellectually. the story functions to answer the socially relevent question "who are we as a people or society?" rather than the intellectual question "why are things as they are?" [Krimel] I think both questions, who and why, are intellectual questions. In fact as I have indicated I think any question is an intellectual pattern as is any answer. You seem to be making your classification based on what kind of question is being asked and what kind of answer is given. I would say this misses the point. [Steve] A key is to consider the use of the word "because." So often in the Bible, the word is used in sentences where the "reason" for an action seems to have nothing to do with what it is supposed to explain, but since this word is sometimes used an dbecause there is a grammar for prescribing how sybols are organized to form words and sentences, we still see the beginnings of participation in intellectual patterns. [Krimel] I would argue that the intellectual _level_ predates writing by as much as 150,000 years. Writing involves the encoding of intellectual patterns into material form. Prior to that, intellectual patterns were encoded as speech. The story of Noah, depending as it does on Babylonian legend, is among the earliest written stories we have and is thus at the beginning of the encoding of the intellectual level into written form. But it is by no mean anywhere near the beginning of human participation in intellectual patterns. [Steve] For example, there is the justification that God decided to destroy the earth BECAUSE the people were all wicked. This statement captures the upper limit of the extent to which the Bible represents participation in intellectual patterns in these chapters, which is to say to only a very rudimentary degree. [Krimel] You seem to be attempting to classify ideas not on the basis of what they are but on how precise they are. I think that works if you are talking about Mythos and Logos for example but not in making social/intellectual distinctions. [Steve] Again, I cite this example as evidence that people did not always have intellectual patterns. Social patterns preceded intellectual patterns and even in writing and early art we can be looking almost exclusively at participation in social patterns only and perhaps only very very limited participation in intellectual patterns in cases where some justification of behavior is attempted and in the grammar of how words are organized in telling a story or the "grammar" of how lines are used in drawing a picture. [Krimel] When you put it this way it really makes it easier to disagree wholeheartedly. I would say there have NEVER been humans (homo sapiens) without intellectual patterns. Intellectual patterns are always preceded by some other kind of pattern whether it is social, biological or inorganic. We don't ask questions about things we have not experienced. BTW, with regard to the story of the flood; what you quote is the story as it appears in Genesis. In his book "Who Wrote the Bible?" Richard Friedman provides a compelling account of the story's sources and how it got edited into its present form. He points to two literary sources that were woven together by an editor, whom he identifies as the scribe Ezra. who has his own book in the Bible. I just looked and can't find where I put the book, but you can see more about this here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bible/flood.html Friedman claims Ezra was attempting to reconcile two conflicting accounts of the story. The first (P) was a product of the priestly class. In P God is not named and is actually spoken of in the plural form. The second source, (J) calls God by the name YHWH. Friedman finds, in the tension between them, some surprisingly sophisticated issues. These arise not only from the differences between the two accounts but in the subtle way they are woven together by the editor. If you go to that link and scroll down to the interactive part you can see which version is which and how they are put together into a single narrative. It is interesting to note that both P and J are thought to have been written shortly after the kingdom of Israel was divided, after the death of Solomon, around 700 B.C. or around the time of Homer. Ezra's editing took place when the Jews returned to Israel after their Babylonian captivity around 500 B.C. both of these dates predate the classical Greek period wherein we are told the intellectual level is supposed to have appeared by magic. I can't help but think that the production of conflicting accounts and the attempt to synthesize and reconcile them are all clearly intellect activities and the result is an ancient contribution to the intellectual level. That said, I have to confess that when it comes to the Flood story my preference is for either Bill Cosby's version or "The Unicorn Song" by Shel Silverstein. I thought "Evan Almighty" blew chunks. Since people seem to love posting inane YouTube links here's one for ya: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD90xcg6UaA 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/
