From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Sun Jul 20 2003 - 20:42:53 BST
Bo,
I think this clarifies a lot, but I am not clear on what you are getting at
when you say:
"I simply can't understand the annotating Pirsig about the MOQ being a
pattern of its own intellectual pattern"
On the one hand, the MOQ is a set of static intellectual patterns (those
expressed in the book LILA), or it is ... what? (Or maybe, I don't
understand what the annotating Pirsig says. I see no immediate problem of
regress with a static intellectual pattern being about static intellectual
patterns. That is what logic studies.)
I am also not convinced that SOL is the precise right term for the fourth
level. I agree that one should not look for something that includes DQ, but
I still see mathematics as not falling under SOL, other than if one hasn't
learned to think in general with S/O logic, then one can't do mathematics.
But in the doing of mathematics itself there are no subjects and objects, as
there are when doing science or SOM philosophy. Overall, though, I think
this exception is not that important, relative to the importance of the S/O
divide.
I am also of the opinion that the logic of contradictory identity, in so far
as it is a logic, may be something that is undecidable as to whether or not
it is a static intellectual pattern. Which is why I think it has salvific
potential. It arises when one asks: how do DQ and SQ relate to each other
and to Quality, and is as old as the Parmenides/Heraclitus encounter.
- Scott
----- Original Message -----
From: <skutvik@online.no>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 20, 2003 9:26 AM
Subject: Re: MD Intellectual patterns? huh?
> Platt, Pi and Multitude.
> Both of you seem to despair over the problem the current intellect
> creates so I hope you are open for the solution
>
> 13 July you wrote (to Pi) who had said
>
> > >I personally took about 2 years to completely draw a boundary
> > > around this thing called the intellectual pattern. Part of the whole
> > > problem of intellectualizing intellectual patterns is that when you
> > > try to draw a line around it, you have to draw a line around the
> > > line drawing process!
>
> > You've put your finger squarely on the nut of the problem. Until that
> > infinite-regress paradox is addressed by each participant,
> > intellectual descriptions of the intellectual level will continue to
> > go around in circles without end.
>
> > I have yet to find anyone who has made a clear distinction between
> > intellectual patterns that belong in the intellectual level and those
> > that don't. (Intuitive intellect is an oxymoron.). If there are
> > intellectual patterns that don't belong, where do they go instead?
>
> > I have also yet to find anyone who has offered a better definition of
> > intellect than Pirsig's "manipulation of symbols." (Since that is the
> > author's definition, I take it to be "Q-intellect.") Anyone have a
> > better definition?
>
> I have been exchanging letters privately with a guy about the MOQ,
> Naturally I have force-fed him with my S/OL interpretation of intellect
> and the other day I got a message about it and his questions started
> a small understanding why this definition - the one that puts an end to
> the infinite regress problem - have such a hard time.
>
> He asked:
>
> > Is SOL as Quality Intellect the only form of intellect? I understand
> > that REASON=intellectual awareness, and that SOL is based on
> > reason. From that stand point then perhaps MOQ comes from SOL
> > leaving the SOM behind. Can Reason alone
> > support a concept such as aesthetics and if so then how?
>
> It was the "other forms" and "aesthetics" that triggered my Eureka and
> made me understand why people reserve themselves and/or say that
> the S/OL goes too far .. is too limiting ..is ugly etc. They think about
> concepts like aesthetics, intuition, intelligence, .. things beyond the
> S/O divide and want Q-intellect defined in such a way that it supports
> all these. Even Pirsig of LC seems to have joined the chase.
>
> But all these things are facets of the dynamical aspect of existence -
> out of which Phaedrus picked "the mother of them all" QUALITY. To a
> lesser or greater extent they all share the same ambiguity that makes
> it possible to construct a metaphysics similar to the MOQ around
> them. This does not diminish P's achievement one iota, his stroke of
> genius was to identify and challenge the SOM, then replace its S/O
> slash with the Dynamic/Static one.
>
> As the present top level Intellect is our age's REASON and reason
> can neither explain Quality nor its many variants. That's the whole
> point of my insistence upon Q-intellect being S/OL (subject-object
> logic). Intellect can't explain any of these ambiguous yet unavoidable
> phenomena. It can't explain intelligence* in animals without reverting
> to the slanderous "instinct" term, it can't explain our sense of beauty
> ..etc, .but places them all in its subjective box. Not part of reality!
>
> I don't claim that the S/OL-intellect explains and/or support these
> outsider phenomena, on the contrary I claim that Q-intellect must be
> S/OL because it DOESN'T support them! This is the great fallacy to
> believe that a STATIC level may contain/explain/support the dynamic
> aspects of existence and is why I am a little exasperated over the
> "thinking"/ "manipulation of symbols" intellect as if this is capable of
> integrating them ...... Come to think of it, even "thinking" is one such.
> One may as well wish for an intellect that could explain/contain DQ
> itself ...and that is the next fallacy. Calling the MOQ an intellectual
> pattern.
>
> Intellect is a STATIC level per definition and on page 167 in LILA
> Pirsig says:
>
> "..Finally there's a dynamic morality which isn't a code, he supposed
> you could call it a code of Art."
>
> In other words Aesthetics, sense of Beauty ...along with the rest of
> the many-splendour DQ don't fit anywhere inside the static hierarchy.
> Why not admit that Intellect is a STATIC level and stop this futile
> chase after one's own tail, namely a fancy enough intellect to explain
> DQ and its many aspects.
>
> The below paragraph touches the essence of it all.
>
> > I have yet to find anyone who has made a clear distinction between
> > intellectual patterns that belong in the intellectual level and those
> > that don't. (Intuitive intellect is an oxymoron.). If there are
> > intellectual patterns that don't belong, where do they go instead?
>
> Yes, "intuitive intellect" is an oxymoron as is the thinking intellect.
> They are all facets of existence's dynamics - DQ called - and don't
> belong in the static hierarchy - intellect least of all.
>
> All this does not violate Pirsig's claim that an encyclopedia of the four
> STATIC levels would cover everything except DQ because the said
> phenomena are facets of DQ. Efforts to define an intellect that
> includes these is counter to the MOQ, and I simply can't understand
> the annotating Pirsig about the MOQ being a pattern of its own
> intellectual pattern, nor do I understand various suggestions from
> other people about removing intellect, changing its name ...about
> adding more intellects, about intellect's values being social, and so on
> ad nauseam. All such are patch-ups of our inability to let go of SOM.
>
> Thanks for your patience.
> Bo
>
>
>
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