From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Aug 06 2003 - 13:51:21 BST
Hello Bo:
P
> > Idealism is not the subjective half of SOM. Idealism says it's all S.
> > SOM says it's both S and O, mind and matter. Materialism says it's all
> > O.
B
> Yes, but this is - um - merely another approach to the the same issue.
> The idealist says that all is mind, but "all" includes matter so he is
> caught in the S/O divide nevertheless ...as is the materialist who can't
> do away with mind. They are both inside the SOM.
Point well taken. Intellectual patterns and their supporting languages
demand opposites, often unspoken. Examples: Black requires white. You
can't have the many without the one. Inside infers an outside.
>> Yes, the MOQ subsumes SOM. It allows it but says it's not the best.
> Right, in Pirsig's well-known fashion, but if so how can it - after
> having been subsumed - still reside in intellect? To me it IS intellect
> ..as you may know by now ;-)
Subsumed by a higher level of Quality, not by a higher level in a
hierarch. Every level is a moral level as well as being part of an
hierarchical intellectual value pattern. Within each moral level are
better and worse moral patterns. Ex: Within the social level there are
degrees of murder ranging from manslaughter, least immoral,. to first-
degree, most immoral. Within the intellectual level, the MOQ is more
moral than SOM.
> > If you see DQ as the creator of not only the Subject/Object pair but
> > also Idealism, Materialism, Scientology, Mysticism and everything
> > else, either singly or in combination, the problem disappears.
> As the intellectual level it has created the mind/matter,
> idealist/materialist, psychic/physical, culture/nurture ...and a host of
> other S/O-related dualities.
Yes. S/O values dualities. But so does the MOQ, the duality of Dynamic
and static. The MOQ can run from S/O, but it can't hide.
> > The static element in thinking is grammar and/or logic.
> Correct, but is intellect's STATIC value grammar and/or logic? If so the
> stone age people were "intellectuals".
As I've argued before, stone age people were capable of systematic
symbol manipulation (Pirsig's definition of intellect) and thus
possessed a modicum of intellectual capability. That's essentially what
separates man from animals (along with some small DNA differences). I
don't claim they were great logicians, but they obviously could put 2
and 2 together better than your average chimp.
> > One can principally think and say everything at the intellectual
> > level.
> This has been my charge against a thought-intellect, it's principally
> limitless or dynamic.
> > But at the social level, one can only think and speak of what
> > is proper or socially acceptable. There's your conflict.
> You see the snag, thinking or speaking takes place at the social social
> level too. Thinking is an impossible definition of intellect (I see that
> Steve comments this so now its back to "social repetitive behavior"
> again?
Sure thinking and speaking takes place at the social level. It's what
makes human human. Intellectual patterns are all over the social level,
in laws, in the courts, in the movies, you name it. How could it be
otherwise? But the MOQ LEVEL of intellect, that's something different.
The LEVEL freed itself from social level conformity by investing
thought primarily in individuals such as Plato, Aristotle and all the
subsequently named philosophers and scientists. Prior to those Greek
fellows, you had a bunch of mostly social level no-names.
> > We're in the system we're trying
> > to see and so cannot see the whole system any more than an eye can see
> > itself.
> But you are somehow able to describe this so there is an eye that
> sees beyond (SOM).
Yes, yes. You instantly comprehend the limits of S/O logic, the way it
always leads to paradox or infinite regress. There is indeed an eye
that sees beyond SOM, the same "eye" that responds to DQ. We're on the
same page!
> > But we can VALUE some descriptions (intellectual patterns)
> > over others and eventually come to a silent understanding of how the
> > world works.
> Right ...from the Quality point of view beyond SOM we can.
We come to the same conclusion from different paths. :-)
Platt
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