Sorry Bo but all I see from your explanation is conjecture and wishful
thinking. Pirsig does not subscribe to "SOM as Quality's Intellect" or
however you wish to phrase it and has specifically and overtly rejected
this idea. SOM is not the Intellectual level of the MoQ and your
repeating mantra does not make it so. Both SOM and MoQ are Intellectual
Patterns of Value. I've made some comments on your reply below:
On 20/02/2010 21:04, [email protected] wrote:
Horse
20 Feb. you wrote:
Hi Bo Perhaps I missed it in my reading of Pirsig's letter to Paul
Turner ( http://moq.org/forum/Pirsig/LetterFromRMPSept2003.html ) but I
don't see anything to support your claim. In fact what I do see is an
outright rejection of your position:
My position is that the previous SOM (minus the "M") necessarily
must become MOQ's 4th. intellectual level (for it to have its alleged
explanatory power) and this was finally affirmed by Pirsig in the said
letter with him saying that it's no purpose in speaking about an
intellectual level before the Greeks - that "the Greeks" spells SOM in
a MOQ context we all know. OK?
No, definitely NOT OK. This is NOT Pirsig affirming your mistaken idea,
this is you assuming something that is not being said, affirmed, hinted
at or anything else. Pirsig has stated quite categorically that your
idea of SOM as the Intellectual level is wrong.
"The argument that the MOQ is not an intellectual formulation
but some kind of other level is not clear to me. There is
nothing in the MOQ that I know of that leads to this
conclusion." Robert Pirsig to Paul Turner (
http://moq.org/forum/Pirsig/LetterFromRMPSept2003.html )
But if the 4th. level is SOM then it follows that the MOQ can't be a
SOM pattern, how dense can anyone be to claim that the MOQ is a
subsystem of a subsystem of its own system. It violates the container
logic that Pirsig stressed so vehemently and every logical rule there
are.
"If the 4th Level is SOM" is incorrect because the 4th Level is not SOM.
The 4th level is Intellectual Patterns of Value which have created both
SOM and MoQ. They are competing systems of Intellectual Patterns of
Value along with a number of other systems.
MoQ is not a SOM pattern it is an Intellectual Pattern and no "container
logic" or other logical rules are broken - in fact they are very much
unbroken and only broken if one mistakenly confuses SOM for the 4th
level. Or mistakenly confuses the MoQ for reality as you do.
So where in the letter does Pirsig do as you say and come within a
'hairs breadth' of your (incorrect) position?
In saying that the Egyptians in spite of their INTELLIGENCE had not
entered the INTELLECTUAL level and that only with the Greeks did
this transition happen ... on the Western hemisphere that is, the
Oriental "intellect" is accounted for. The "hair's breadth" was his
saying "not much before the Ancient Greeks", he had to leave that
margin for obvious reasons.
This is also where you end up twisting yourself into knots in order to
accommodate your pet theory. Non-western intellects are also part of the
Intellectual level and are not SOM but all of the Intellectual level is
(by your theory) composed of SOM so the non-western intellect must be
SOM. But it isn't, as you admit so you are twisting yourself into
logical absurdities.
The above is not an indication of Pirsig coming within a "hair's
breadth" of accepting your interpretation - he doesn't come within a
mile of it. You are completely wrong in this respect and your continued
misrepresenting of this fallacious position is dishonest and misleading.
Horse
--
Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an
attractive and well preserved body, but to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine
in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what
a ride!"... Hunter S Thompson
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