Dearest Bo and others, Though it is difficult to specifically narrow the birth of intellect I note that Pirsig is observant in his noting that intellect is conspicuously absent. One favorite example is Moses freeing the Israelite from Pharaoh's rule. Interestingly enough the word freedom cannot be found in the passages related to this time. Why, one might ask, because freedom is an intellectual concept. If one would try to go back in time certainly the Israelites would have wanted to be free but the concept of freedom was not in the cards, intellectual cards. No they were delivered by God's will a social construct of that time.
One book for the interest of MD members is Karen Armstrong's "The Great Transformation" in which she looks at the transformation of 5 great societies from 2500 to about 500 B.C. in which she look at the development of the Axioage in which these social societies were in search of greater social stability in dealing with ruthless bloodletting that their societies encountered. I noted in my mind this same conspicuously absent as well. But! One can begin to see the pre-intellectual development of these societies as they wrestled with their individual religious and social development. But as you have ask, where is the intellectual "beef". I concur that the strongest evidence is found in the Greeks and their development of Western Philosophy which, via Aristotle, provided the first metaphysical capacity to define reality beyond the social level. This of course brings me back to a question I believe I raised before. Why did Pirsig choose to attack SOM in ZMM? Was there any other metaphysical basis for reality to consider and dispute? I believe it was the mother of all metaphysical reality and therefore the only one beast for Pheadrus to wrestle with. If this is true I believe that many will concede that SOM is an intellectual pattern. As I would suggest, SOM is the taproot from which all intellect can be traced to. One question that is raised is what other intellectual patterns that could be considered? Stirring the intellectual pot. Mati -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 3:26 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [MD] What's missing? Absolutely All. I have tried to tried to air this "quiz" a couple of times but for some incomprehensible reason it did not evoke any interest, so I try again and hope that many will respond. In his letter of September 2003 to Paul Turner Pirsig uttered these words: Just when the evolution of the intellectual level from the social level took place in history can only be speculated on .... [snip] .... 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. But more specifically, what is missing from the said Biblical age compared to posterity? If that can be pinned down we finally have Pirsig's definition of what constitutes intellect. Of course there are a billion "things" and, not much talk about politics and economics ..etc. but you know what I mean.: In a MOQ context what has happened in between? Please Bo 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/
