Hi Bo
Magnus:
When we ask that, we don't care whether it was read in a book, in
English, Norwegian, Swedish or if it was read on a computer. What we
mean is whether we have read the content, i.e. the intellectual
patterns stored/represented by those ink signs or transistor states.
The content is the intellectual patterns.
Bo:
But this indicates language as intellect's hallmark and you can't
possibly mean that (after correctly pointing to language's social origin)
Language is not intellect's hallmark. Intellect depends on it. I.e. language is
the social pattern that intellect is built upon. Take away the language and the
intellectual patterns goes with it, (the Rosetta stone). It's one the easiest
and most visible examples of inter-level dependency.
To return to Pirsig's on the Old Testament.
"But if one studies the early books of the Bible or if one studies
the sayings of primitive tribes today, the intellectual level is
conspicuously absent. The world is ruled by Gods who follow
social and biological patterns and nothing else."
It's plain that it's SOM - the objective attitude that declares all
references to the supernatural to be delusion - which is missing. Thus
there are books that can contain social value and there are books that
go beyond social value - i.e. contain intellectual value - and there can
be books that go beyond beyond intellect.
Ok, yes, I agree that when you read a book, the reasoning used in that content
can be based on social values, intellectual values or some other type of value.
But to do that reasoning in the first place, you need the intellectual patterns,
i.e. the meaning of the words.
And no, I don't think you would ever be able to represent a higher level pattern
using a lower level pattern. So even if you think the MoQ is somehow a higher
level, the intellectual level wouldn't have a clue about how to represent it.
When you, and Pirsig, talk about the reasoning in the bible or primitive tribes,
you already assume that there is a person that is *able* to reason at all. I'm
more interested in that part and I don't for a second buy that a human being is
just biological.
One lonely human being is still able to think, to handle intellectual patterns
in her brain and reach conclusions that might improve her lonely life.
So, yes, I acknowledge that reasoning can be socially justified, (think teenage
girl reasoning). What you need to acknowledge is that even teenage girl
reasoning requires *reasoning*, i.e. imagination about what happens if I do
this, maybe he'll do that, then perhaps it's better if she does it, and then he
might...
My opinion ought to be known by now. LILA is the second (in a coming
avalanche) of books that will go beyond SOM. From the above (Pirsig
letter) it's clear that SOM=Intellect, thus the highest static value
becomes the S/O distinction.
To me, it's only clear that SOM reasoning requires intellectual patterns, simply
because it's *reasoning*, not that SOM=intellect.
How does that fit into the MoQ with a first division of DQ/SQ and then
SQ into the static levels? It seems you have added another division
somewhere.
How come? The MOQ is the DQ/SQ metaphysical arrangement, the
fact that intellect's has the S/O distinction as its static value poses no
problem ... if that is your objection?
That was rather cautiously expressed, you usually rampage about the MoQ being
some kind of higher level bootstrapping the whole structure into something else.
It was your assertion that (social) language was the basic patter-
mapping that provoked me to give these as examples of biological
pattern-mapping. Yes, all levels are pattern-mapping.
No, all levels interact via quality events, that's not pattern-mapping. A map is
a representation of reality, and a mapping is a translation table from one
pattern to another. For example, a language is a mapping since it translates
each word in the dictionary to something else.
The sulfuric acid reacting with the amoeba is *not* a mapping since there's no
translation table involved, it's just a pure quality event.
Lila is no different than any other book from an intellectual
perspective. And there is no MoQ level above the intellectual that you
somehow need to acquire to understand the MoQ
Really? Is the said Old Testament - or the Koran - intellectual
documents?
They contain intellectual patterns, yes, since they have a content.
But the *content* may or may not be very intellectual, and that's probably what
you meant by "intellectual documents".
Do you see the difference? It is very important if the MoQ is to work as a real
metaphysics.
And if the MOQ is intellectual, what is NOT intellectual?
Again, you're confusing the content with the fact that is has a content.
You are up to your neck in SOM from where the MOQ is an
Aristotelian type metaphysics, i.e. a theory about reality. And you are
not alone, according to the (at times) silly Pirsig reality is supposed to
be Quality, but where does anyone say that reality is NOT quality? Or
is something at all except some enigmatic that we make theories
about? There is just SOM that says that qualities are subjective, so it's
SOM which must be brought under MOQ's control and that can only
happen if it is relegated the role of the intellectual level. And so much
of LILA indicates just that.
SOM doesn't need to be controlled by the MoQ. We just have to disregard it, or
at most find flaws in it and then prove that the MoQ does a better job.
The MoQ *is* a theory about our reality, any metaphycics is. It's just better
than SOM, not more.
Magnus
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