Andre, I have brought this up to Bodvar many, many times in the past just this very idea, the notion that the intellectual level is defined by the culture it emerges from. He has none of it...he insists that intellect=the s/o distintion, everywhere, in every culture, it is a universal evolutionary stage of development.
-Ron Subject: [MD] Re Proposed solution to SOL/Intellectual level Andre: Hi All In my post to Ron I made one and other clear based on my reading of Northrop. Reflecting on what I said I came to the conclusion that I hadn't been 'radical' enough. Language, words we use, are social PoV's. They do not operate outside the DQ/SQ configuration. They are a fundamental part of it. To suggest that words are something else to what they denote is to fall victim to symbolism and makes a mockery of this social PoV. Why, for example does the MoQ avoid, nee refuses to use the term 'God'? Because it has low quality connotations and associations and does not accurately represent Quality. Why does the MoQ do away with words such as 'substance', 'cause-and-effect' and replaces them with 'patterns' and 'preferences' ? Because these reflect the relationships in the levels more accurately. The MoQ means what it claims and it is the most profound claim ever made! Why this distortion of words and their meaning? Why suggest that words are analogies? Within the MoQ perspective they are not. I think it may be the SOM legacy that has made such a mess of things. Confused things so much that we do not know whether we are coming or going. Part of this confusion is outlined in both ZMM and LILA and which I tried to make clear to Ron. An event happens...direct experience...but we have to wait for the written reports to appear ( plus a recommendation to visit the shrink umpteen times) to be told what 'really' happened. And that what we do find in these reports are SOM interpretations. So called factual, so called, scientific, so called independent and so called objective. Words in the service of S/O intellect. A social PoV has become the plaything of intellect. The way poor Phaedrus was torn to bits by Socrates. When this happens you can see that the higher level pattern rips the lower level pattern out of its context...resulting in deletion, distortion and generalisation...plus a host of other things that gave 'life' to the pattern at which level it originated. This SOM pattern as Intellect, this scientific understanding of reality was 'fathered' by Aristotle. It was around this time it was born. I argue that it was still- born ( no offence intended to anyone who has ever experienced such a tragedy). It lay in suspended animation for centuries and was only used by the Christian Church to further their own cause ( e.g. Thomas Aquinas) and to make the Christian doctrine at least a little more 'truth- acceptable, to be founded upon scientific Platonic/Aristotelian doctrines, to give it credence and the power to wield this 'evidence' to the contrary during the Terror of the Spanish Inquisition. Come Renaissance and the Enlightenment. Descartes, Newton, Locke etc etc. Aristotle's scientific doctrine is resurrected. (Still fear of the Church with whom it has now close ties). Pirsig argues that this pattern, now slightly modified to accomodate new discoveries and especially Descrates, was actively employed to dominate society on Nov. 11, 1919. Armistice Day. By then SOM had developed into a full- fledged adolescent however, with no 'modern' social experience. (it came from Greek culture, through the Dark Ages and ended up being employed at the start of the twentieth century. It got the job of managing a system it was never trained for. It never completed its apprenticeship (it could be argued it is doing it now!). It had no idea what it was confronted with- the connection between it and its parent level had been severed many, many centuries before. They were strangers to one another. It went off on a tangent of its own, creating neologisms left, right and centre to bridge the unavoidable and unfatomable gap...to no avail. ZMM discusses this beautifully. Words, as social PoV's became empty and this is why there is unrest, in the West at the social level which expresses itself in the crisis of Democracy, crises in Education, crises in the Health and Welfare sector, the Economic sector... everywhere. A rust-belt Pirsig tems it, and he is right. I began wandering about the birth of this pattern. I believe it can be argued, based on my own piddly effort and Pirsig's insight that this scientific understanding has not fully emerged into the intellectual level as MoQ level. Pirsig asks, rightly, is science, in fact, independent of society ..and answers not at all. Aristotelian science and its developments are in fact not separate from society at all. It is a farce to suggest otherwise. This makes for an opening: if that is indeed the case (as the MoQ argues) then I argue that the SOL, the subject/ object distinction is a dominant Western CULTURAL pattern, a combination of social and intellectual values meshed together. It hinges between the social and the intellectual. The SOL is a cultural pattern of value. This clears up a few things: it accounts for differing cultural integrations of the two ( e.g. Pirsig's difference between one importance in Germany and crossing the border into France the importance is lost). It accounts for a different CULTURAL development in the Orient. It explains Pirsig's definition in the letter to Paul Turner. ...manipulation of symbols (and words are not symbols!!) that have no direct...etc. and makes this fit in with the proposed view. That is the intellectual level proper. Pure symbol manipulation without social pattern words. It overcomes the 'suspended in language' thing though that challenge, that 'sales- trick' still remains. Now we have the MoQ. We have DQ/SQ. Let this social PoV come to its own again within the DQ/SQ configuration (a language used is a 'living' language). DQ/SQ=Reality. What else does it refer to? Concepts, abstractions, analogies? Christ allmighty. Before the MoQ I had a girlfriend- now, with the MoQ I have an analogy pointing to a girlfriend. I have nothing but a concept in my own arms sometimes! Ridiculous! The words Pirsig uses are social PoV's with precise meanings. He is very fussy about them as the LC annotations show. I am with Bodvar on this one...not sure if he is with me after this post!! I have the menu and have been consuming some very sumptuous meals thank you! I know there are holes in this. At places I have short-circuited things. Please consider this as a constructive suggestion only. I respect the intellectual efforts of Bodvar and Mr. Pirsig. I suggest that this may get us closer to a 'solution' realising that all is provisional and no Papal Bull. Time for my electric blanket. Good night 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/ 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/
