From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Sat Jul 12 2003 - 19:38:15 BST
Squonk,
(I have replaced the subject line, since this is not about racism.)
[Squonk:] The MoQ, however, describes intellect and intelligence as a relationship between DQ and Static patterns, and as DQ is undefined, there is no definition of intellect outside the relationship. The relationship is derived from an undifferentiated aesthetic continuum.
So you have decided to improve Pirsig's MOQ by subsuming ethics under aesthetics, like Oscar Wilde? I thought you disapproved of such improvements.
In any case, the MOQ describes *everything* as a relationship between DQ and Static patterns. So how do you distinguish intellect from everything else? You said in your previous post that "There are no subjects and objects in the MOQ". But Pirsig says (Ch. 29):
"What the Metaphysics of Quality adds to James's pragmatism and radical empiricism is the idea that the primal reality from which subjects and objects sprang is *value*."
Note that he is not denying the existence of subjects and objects, only noting that they are derived existences. *Like everything else*. My claim that the S/O divide is the start of the independent intellectual level is consistent with this. It is like saying that the biological level starts with DNA. It emphatically does not claim that the S/O divide is absolute.
[Squonk:] The derivation began at a time no one can identify, but appears, from linguistic evidence, to have begun with social ritual.
Pirsig says it started with finding better ways to survive.
[Squonk] Thus, using language to symbolise the wonder of social aesthetic is not social aesthetic - it is intellect making its first foray into Human life.
In Hindu mythology there is the claim that language developed out of music. I think this is a great notion, though I don't know how to confirm it in any way. I think you are doing the same sort of thing here. You have made aesthetics into a god, so you see everything in aesthetic terms. My question, though, is when did people start identifying their thinking as originating in themselves SO THAT they could wonder at social aesthetic (or survival or anything else) and not simply be driven along. As long as that hasn't happened, it is meaningless to try to ascribe intellect as an independent MOQ level, as one that can be in conflict with the social level (see Pirsig's quote below). Looking at the difference between the language of Homer and that of Plato, one can see that it started happening about 500 BC in the West. Similar comparisons, where we can make them (that is, where we have written records), show a similar development in other cultures, for example between the Upanishads and the earlier Vedas. Here's Pirsig, Lila, ch. 24:
"The doctrine of scientific disconnections from social morals goes all the way back to the ancient Greek belief that thought is independent of society, that it stands alone, born without parents. Ancient Greeks such as Socrates and Pythagoras paved the way for the fundamental principle behind science: that truth stands independently of social opinion."
[Squonk:] Skutvik never discusses art or aesthetics - he does not have the conceptual vocabulary to handle it. He does not have the conceptual vocabulary to handle it because his own definitions negate them. It is little wonder when it comes to the East, Skutvik blithely talks of, 'these people' as if they are over there somewhere in a box.
Translation: You think only art and aesthetics is important, or maybe you wish to redefine DQ as Art. So anyone who discusses things in a larger context is a bad person. That is bad logic. On a more specific note note, could you unpack the claim that "his own definitions negate them"? I suspect that it is only your own definitions that cause you to say this.
- Scott
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