Hello Matt, You said, " The question is: since inferential thinking can continue on indefinitely, how is it that we stop? Habits of satisfaction, conclusions to problems we are pleased with, was my answer--these habits take on something we could call "authority."
Excellent! For example, at the Social level, the patterns stop where the priests say they do. At the Intellectual level, the patterns of inferential thinking continue until we reach a logical conclusion based on best evidence. Newtonian Mechanics was the be-all, end-all of Physics until Einstein came along with a better idea. Hasn't every area of science had plateaus of this sort? Based on best available evidence, we reach a point where we think we have it all figured out. Conclusions are reached that purport to be THE answer. They take on a life of their own and become as much a part of our belief system as religion. Then sooner or later a new discovery is observed or a higher Quality Intellectual level thinker dashes that one and off we go again, working our way up the knowledge ladder one little static rung at a time. - Mary -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Matt Kundert Sent: Thursday, January 07, 2010 11:30 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [MD] Intellectual and Social Hi Steve, Steve said about his idea: It comes from Wim. Remember him? Matt: Yes, I do: Wim Nusselder. We started writing here at just about the same time. I liked him. Steve said: I'm not sure that it makes sense to say that the train of thought needs social patterns to intercede. Intellectual patterns are social through and through by the "mythos over logos" argument. Matt: Heh, well, I think pretty much everybody misunderstood what I was saying here. I wasn't saying, as I think Mary said and everybody jumped on board in thinking that's what I was saying, that social patterns control intellectual patterns--I was trying to identify a way of thinking about how they interact. The question is: since inferential thinking can continue on indefinitely, how is it that we stop? Habits of satisfaction, conclusions to problems we are pleased with, was my answer--these habits take on something we could call "authority." Since the patterns at different levels _must_ interact, people do need an answer to that question. They do need to specify how the levels interact. The thing to particularly bear in mind is how you balance the opposite philosophical intentions of the mythos-over-logos argument and the "distinctness" clause in Pirsig's articulation of the levels. The former is reductionistic--where Platonic philosophers wanted to draw a big, bright sharp line between logos and mythos, anthopologists were saying, "Nah, nah--not so fast." The latter clause is anti-reductionistic--these specified levels are different beasts for definite and specifiable reasons. It's defining the specification we've been having trouble with all these years. In the set-up I offered, I was suggesting how the intellectual interacts with the social, and then the social with the biological level, to thus produce action from a thought (remembering Pirsig's claim that you can't leap levels). I don't have any particular stake in this game, and so I have no other thoughts, except that I would urge that everyone who thinks that need to understand the Metaphysics of Quality take it as a necessary piece that articulation of how--in a definite kind of way--the levels interact with each other. That's what I don't think Pirsig ever did, and it's led a lot of confusion (and/or creative interpretation like the above). Matt _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail: Free, trusted and rich email service. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/196390708/direct/01/ 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/
