Hi Bo
As far as I can see, your biggest mistake is to confuse the data of the
intellectual level with the tools that manipulate that data. The
intellectual level is composed of ideas (data) and SOM, MoQ, metaphysics
in general, science, philosophy, mathematics etc. are the means by which
they are ordered, manipulated and presented (tools - or ideas about
ideas). At least, that's my take on it. Ideas can be good or bad,
supported or unsupported, weird or normal and a number of shades in
between! Similarly, the tools used (ideas about ideas) can be simple or
complicated, complete or incomplete etc. etc. Your insistence that the
entire Intellectual level is composed of a single tool is what I object
to and why you have to jump through hoops and mangle what is, for the
most part simple and elegant.
Reading through your post you are only regurgitating what you have
repeatedly - and incorrectly - stated in the past. There is nothing new
here and once again you have failed to make a coherent argument for your
ideas.
I've made a few comments on your post
Horse
On 25/06/2010 06:29, [email protected] wrote:
Horse.
22 June:
You wrote
If you could come up with a single coherent argument then you might,
possibly, get somewhere but so far even that seem unattainable.
As a first installment I would like to pursue Platt's a bit further
Platt originally:
Check the full quote: "Now that intellect was in command of society
for the first time in history, was this the intellectual pattern it
was going to run society with?" (Lila, 22) Note "intellect" in command
of society, i.e., the intellectual level. One, not many.
Arlo:
Yes, check the full quote. "was this [SOM] the intellectual pattern
it was going to run with". Thanks for proving my point. SOM is one
particular intellectual pattern.
> From then on Arlo just kept parroting: "THIS intellectual pattern" as if
SOM is a Western intellectual variety and that there are lots of non-
S/O intellectual patterns. I would like to start at some earlier point
(LILA's Chapter 22).
Now, it should be stated at this point that the Metaphysics of
Quality supports this dominance of intellect over society. It
says intellect is a higher level of evolution than society;
therefore, it is a more moral level than society.
See the "intellect" he speaks about is the higher level no mere
pattern..
What! Pirsig is supporting the dominance of intellectual patterns of
value over social patterns as per the MoQ. No reference to SOL or SOM as
Intellect etc. This is just you reading something into it which isn't there.
But having said this, the Metaphysics of Quality goes on to say
that science, the intellectual pattern that has been appointed to
take over society, has a defect in it. The defect is that subject-
object science has no provision for morals. Subject-object
science is only concerned with facts. Morals have no objective
reality.
This says that science have "no provision for morals", but that is what
charachterises the entire intellect. The only place you find morals is at
the social level which is the (traditional) moral level par excellanec
(religions) Ergo intellect = S/O.
The only reason you see it this way and have to mangle the MoQ so badly
is because you have defined the intellectual level as SOM, equate that
exclusively with Science and, as a consequence, get very confused.
Philosophy is an intellectual pattern of values (a tool - ideas about
ideas) and deals with morals - they're called ethics.
You can look through a microscope or telescope or
oscilloscope for the rest of your life and you will never find a
single moral. There aren't any there. They are all in your head.
They exist only in your imagination. From the perspective of a
subject-object science, the world is a completely purposeless,
valueless place. There is no point in anything. Nothing is right
and nothing is wrong. Everything just functions, like machinery.
There is nothing morally wrong with being lazy, nothing morally
wrong with lying, with theft, with suicide, with murder, with
genocide. There is nothing morally wrong because there are
no morals, just functions.
This reinforces the amorality of the intellectual level.
Bullshit - it reinforces the amorality (not immorality) of Science.
Science is not the Intellectual level, it is an intellectual pattern of
values (tool - ideas about ideas) in competition with other Intellectual
systems. At the point in time referred to by Pirsig in these quotes
science was on the up-stroke (still is to a great extent - I don't have
a problem with that) and didn't and still doesn't deal with morals.
Science has never dealt with morals - that is best addressed by other
intellectual patterns or tools.
Now that intellect was in command of society for the first time
in history, was this the intellectual pattern it was going to run
society with? As far as Phaedrus knew, that question has
never been successfully answered. What has occurred instead
has been a general abandonment of all social moral codes,
with 'a repressive society' used as a scapegoat to explain any
and every kind of crime. Twentieth-century intellectuals noted
that Victorians believed all little children were born in sin and
needed strict discipline to remove them from this condition.
The twentieth-century intellectuals called that 'rubbish.' There
is no scientific evidence that little children are born in sin, they
said. The whole idea of sin has no objective reality. Sin is
simply a violation of a set of arbitrary social rules which little
children can hardly be expected to be aware of, let alone obey.
Here is the original Platt quote where Arlo clung to the "THIS
intellectual pattern" straw, but it's plain that no intellectual patterns
have provisions for morality, unless social patterns become "intellect".
The "twentieth-century intellectuals" (now twentyfirst) dislikes Pirsig's
blaming intellect for undermining law and order and - like Arlo - cling to
SOM as just one intellectual pattern, but as shown - remove SOM and
there is no intellect left - unless you resort to intellect = intelligence.
Sorry Bo but this doesn't wash. It's just you confusing issues and
making unsupported assertions.
MOQ as a new intellectual pattern - which is supposed to set things
straight - is also untenable. Nothing that "makes provisions for morals"
can enter intellect without being attacked by its immune system, and I
believe that is exactly what's happening. All "intellectuals" works
overtime to reduce the MOQ to another dee-da-dum philosophy
While the mystics cembrace the Quality/MOQ.
So Horse, think and reason for yourself, no ruminating of the "Pirsig
has rejected ...".
Bodvar
I don't need Pirsig to tell me that your ideas are wrong Bo - all I need
to do is be able to read. That Pirsig has rejected your non sense is
just confirmation for me and the vast majority (i.e. everyone minus 4 or
5) of people on this list.
"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines
or dates by which bills must be paid."
— Frank Zappa
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