From: Scott Roberts (jse885@earthlink.net)
Date: Mon Sep 27 2004 - 15:30:18 BST
David M et al,
Naturally I reject the charge that I am being unfair to Pirsig. I think he
made a serious mistake, and that this mistake has serious moral
consequences. When SOM came along in the 17th century, it moved the
concepts of quality, value, and morality from being all-pervasive to being
just subjective, i.e., human. But it also did the same with intellect. In
classical and medieval philosophy, nature (the inorganic and biological)
was value-full and idea-full. Pirsig made the correction with quality, but
not intellect.
Now I'm not claiming that pre-SOM philosophy got everything right, but to
restore Quality but not Intellect just makes no sense. Something has value
if and only if its value is appreciated. Something is moral if and only if
there is choice. An isolated thing has no value. Its value only exists in
the thing's relations and functionality, which are universals. In short,
Quality and Intellect are two facets of the same thing. In our experience,
both value and intellect only seem to occur in humans, though one can also
see appreciation of value in higher mammals. For us to think that value
exists in rocks and earthworms is a bit of a leap of faith, but a little
reflection shows its plausibility. That is to recognize instinct and laws
of nature as supplying the context for appreciation and choice. But again,
these are intellectual processes. Without the universals, and the judgment
of how well the particulars fulfill their roles in universals, there is no
value. So it takes no more of a leap of faith to consider Intellect as
all-pervasive, as much as Quality, especially when a little thought shows
they are identical.
So why does Pirsig not see this? The charitable view, which may well be
correct, is that it just didn't occur to him. But there is a presupposition
in Lila that wouldn't allow it anyway. That is the interpretation of
mysticism that to transcend means going beyond language and thought. Beyond
intellect. Hence, someone indoctrinated in this way is going to do what
Pirsig did: assign intellect solely to SQ, as something to be transcended.
Now to the consequences. As I've tried to explain, this interpretation of
mysticism is a misleading one. It arose because many mystics have said that
their experience is beyond all concepts, is indescribable, etc. Well, this
is no doubt partially true. One can't read a book and thereby become
enlightened. But you can't read a book to learn how to ride a bicycle
either. Nor can most experiences be described, such as being in love, or
what it is like to see a patch of blue. One can only refer to them and
count on one's interlocutor to have had the same experience. Franklin
Merrell-Wolff at some point says the same about mystical experience. A
community of mystics would have no problem communicating. But there is also
the claim that what is experienced is prior to all conceptualizing. Well,
this is no doubt also true. But what it leaves out is that *there is
conceptualizing*. That is, while the Ground of Being (or Be(com)ing, or
whatever) may be said to be prior to all division, it is nothing without
all that division. The two (the formless and form) are the same
(non)-thing, a contradictory identity. But as soon as one has form one has
value and intellect. To put it in mythical terms, all reality is created by
God's conceptualizing. Hence the error of the "go-beyond-intellect" school
is to treat intellect as just being about reflecting on what exists. It is
also the source of what exists.
The unfortunate consequences of the conventional interpretation of
mysticism is a tendency to spurn the intellect. No doubt, our current
intellects are faulty. But to reject it for some ideal beyond intellect is
to go in the wrong direction. It tends to result in falling into Wilber's
pre/trans fallacy. But consider the last two of the Buddhist 8-fold path:
concentration and meditation. What these do is discipline and train the
intellect. The basic characteristic of our intellect is the S/O divide, the
ability to detach an observer from an observed and reflect on it. Now
granted that there is no absolute division (that would be SOM), this
detachment is what makes intellect possible. And meditation is the practice
of strengthening that detachment. Therefore, Zen works, but by transforming
intellect, not by going beyond it. Of course, one has gone beyond our
everyday, SOM-drenched intellect. But if that is all that intellect can be,
one has fallen into the error of thinking that evolution has stopped.
There is a more general moral question, though, and that is how we consider
intellect in general, never mind those few who are mystically inclined. I'm
kind of surprised that in Lila and in this forum there is very little
attention paid to intellect itself. Well, in Lila there wouldn't be room --
it is already a full-length book without going into it, except to make the
valid point that intellect trumps the social, and discussion around it. But
there is no discussion along the lines of "what is intellect", in fact in
LC, Pirsig says he purposely did not go into it, on the grounds that those
who read Lila know what it is. In a sense he is correct, but in another
sense, we don't really know. The unique difference between intellect and
the other levels is that intellect can reflect on itself. That means it can
be self-evolving. It is DQ and SQ all right here available to us to think
about, but nobody seems to care. I find that perplexing.
- Scott
> [Original Message]
> From: David Morey <us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk>
> To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
> Date: 9/26/2004 12:13:31 PM
> Subject: Re: MD A bit of reasoning
>
> DM: Nice debate, DMB defends Pirsig well and I think Scott
> is unfair on Pirsig overall but may have something in what
> he says in terms of how we may try to understand DQ.
>
> DMB: The mystical reality is undivided, but intellect and language are
ALL
> ABOUT
> divisions.
>
> DM: You see if there is division from the beginning -ontologically,
> i.e. before human experience, or in pre-human experience,
> or in the story we tell of the evolution of levels, division
> into light & dark, or proton/electron, then is there intellect and a
> form of language as you say. SQ seems to imply universals or ideas,
> because SQ -from the beginning, means repetition, some kind
> of tendency or disposition as McWatt says discussing Popper.
> DQ implies openness, choice, possibility but the emergence of
> SQ implies a commitment or value or re-expression of some
> form that has become established, the universe has some how
> SIGNED-up to electron/positron and has not gone for
> another possibility such as sour-tron/sweet-tron you could
> perhaps imagine.
>
>
>
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