[Mary] Not an 'expansion' of intellect, but an overthrow of computer intellect entirely.
[Arlo] "Newton invented a new form of reason. He expanded reason to handle infinitesimal changes and I think what is needed now is a similar expansion of reason to handle technological ugliness. The trouble is that the expansion has to be made at the roots, not at the branches, and that's what makes it hard to see." "We're living in topsy-turvy times, and I think that what causes the topsy-turvy feeling is inadequacy of old forms of thought to deal with new experiences. I've heard it said that the only real learning results from hang-ups, where instead of expanding the branches of what you already know, you have to stop and drift laterally for a while until you come across something that allows you to expand the roots of what you already know. Everyone's familiar with that. I think the same thing occurs with whole civilizations when expansion's needed at the roots." "You look back at the last three thousand years and with hindsight you think you see neat patterns and chains of cause and effect that have made things the way they are. But if you go back to original sources, the literature of any particular era, you find that these causes were never apparent at the time they were supposed to be operating. During periods of root expansion things have always looked as confused and topsy-turvy and purposeless as they do now." (ZMM) Apparently this is still "hard to see" for a few people trapped by anti-intellectual blindness. "Our current modes of rationality are not moving society forward into a better world. They are taking it further and further from that better world." (ZMM) What is need, and I am in full agreement with Pirsig here, is a new mode of rationality, an expansion of rationality, a root expansion as he refers to it. This is not about deeming his highest static moral order by definition cancerous, something to be raged against and defeated, but by seeing that intellectual patterns, just like social patterns, come in many guises, and each guise informs a particular orientation to "the world". Just as a Roman Catholic living in the villages outside Naples will have a different orientation socially to his experiences than a Antakarinya tribesman living in southern Australia. Both will "interpret" the world and orient his activity around these particular social patterns he has habituated since birth. One may see the trees as embodiments of spirits long departed, another may see the trees as fuel to burn or timber to make large houses. One may walk around the tree and bow to it, another may bring out an axe and chop it down. Pirsig's genius recognized the same structurating effects of all levels, and saw that the dominant western intellectual paradigm, descending from the post-Sophist Greeks, was orienting or informing social patterns in a way that was not good. His ability to think critically about the issue led him to realize that what those in the West accepted as "intellect" was not some true nature of intellect, but merely one particular orientation. And so he called for a root expansion of western rationality, from one based on SOM premises to one based on what he termed MOQ premises. 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/md/archives.html
