From: johnny moral (johnnymoral@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Jul 11 2003 - 21:21:39 BST
Hi Bo, Squonk, Jonathan, Rick, Platt, all
>PIRSIG (letter to A. McWatt)
> > "In the MOQ, experience is pure Quality which gives rise to the creation
> > of intellectual patterns which in turn produce a division between
> > subjects and objects. Among these patterns is the intellectual pattern
> > that says 'there is an external world of things out there which are
> > independent of intellectual patterns'. That is one of the highest
> > quality intellectual patterns there is. And in this highest quality
> > intellectual pattern, external objects appear historically before
> > intellectual patterns... But this highest quality intellectual pattern
> > itself comes before the external world, not after, as is commonly
> > presumed by the materialist."
>
>R
>Quality is the "pre-intellectual" reality. All four levels exist
>"post-intellectually". But note that in this sense, "intellectual" is NOT
>the same as the level of the MoQ called "intellectual" (which, to Pirsig,
>is
>a further subdivision of the category called 'subjects'). This
>pre/post-intellectual divide sits prior to all of the levels.
This is what Squonk and Bo are talking about, isn't it? Does that Pirsig
quote (thanks again Rick) shed light for you guys?
Rick, how can an intellectual pattern sit before the levels? I see that the
description of the four levels is an intellectual pattern that comes after
the levels exist, but don't you think the levels exist, along with all
patterns, pre-experience? I think experience would be of the patterns,
which creates them as "real" things and creates the subject also. Without
the patterns existing as patterns (not as things yet, but as moral
expectations of things) quality could not be experienced.
It is clearer to me when the word Morality is used instead of Quality. If
we say "Morality is the pre- intellectual reality", it should mean the same
thing, right? And Morality is the totality of all moral patterns, of all
the levels. They all exist, pre-intellectually, before they are perceived
and realized, as moral patterns. That's what makes each experience of
quality continuous and contingent on previous experiences, because the
patterns, morality, continues to exist "between" experiences of it, between
quality events (is there is any time between experiences where there is no
reality? I don't think so, because we believe that it is continuous) . I
think that is part of that "highest quality intellectual pattern" - the
faith that the "external world out there" is reasonable and continuous, that
it doesn't radically change from moment to moment for no reason, that there
is a reason for every change.
>J
> > > My own preferred solution to this problem is to put intellect back
>where it
> > > belongs, i.e. AT EVERY LEVEL. Without Intellect, there are no levels.
>The
> > > inorgnic level includes both "physical matter" and what we think and
>feel
> > > about it, and the same goes for the biological levels. Surely, that is
>the
> > > heart of the quality idea as expounded in ZAMM. That very beuatiful
>idea
> > > was destroyed when Pirsig gave intellect its own level.
>
>P
> > I'm shocked, shocked. Are you saying atoms and cockroaches do not exist
> > without our thinking and feeling about them? That there is no reality
> > independent of human observers? That evolutionary processes occur only
>in
> > the mind? Surely every bone in your scientific body rebels against such
>a
> > notion.
I'd say the pattern of cockroaches exists before we think about them, and
that is why we think of them and not nertblinches or thooufwuses, which
don't exist as patterns. (There is no way for us to see the
pre-intellectually existing patterns except by them creating us and
themselves along with the whole real world.)
>Counter-intuitive? To say the least. But, isn't that exactly what Pirsig
>is saying in the quote above? Isn't he saying that the notion of a reality
>independent of human observers (ie. external objects) that appears
>chronologically prior to intellectualization is really only a high quality
>intellectual pattern?
>
>take care
>rick
Yes, I'd say that's what he is saying. The "highest quallity intellectual
pattern", he said. I'd say it is faith itself: the idea that things will
do what they should and that expectation is realized. Faith in morality, in
patterns continuing, reason, is the highest quality intellectual pattern.
Johnny
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