3D, Bo and all:
"When they call it freedom, that's not right. 'Freedom' doesn't mean
anything. Freedom's just an escape from something negative. The real reason
it's so hallowed is that when people talk about it they mean Dynamic
Quality."
The Pirsig quote from page 220 has to be understood in context. Who is
"they"? Who is wrong to call it freedom? And what is the "it" they
mistakenly see as freedom? The context answers all that. In that section of
the book Pirsig is talking about the social level "Giant" and the
comparative merits of socialism and capitalism. I think Pirsig is telling us
that those rival political views are both wrong because they don't really
understand what freedom is all about. Their ideas of freedom are just "an
escape from something negative".
Pirsig's idea of freedom is not meaningless. He says Dynamic Quality IS the
Quality of Freedom and uses the phrases interchangably. I mean, I'd hate to
see a Pirsig quote used to undercut Pirsig. Pirsig isn't "they", right?
And thanks for the summary. On to Bodvar's SOLAQI....
Sorry friend, I have to disagree with your picture of the intellectual
level. I think it's much richer and more complex than SOLAQI seems to allow.
In short, I think non-SOM intellectual patterns are not only possible, they
already exist.
Like Rick, I think social and intellectual levels are "subjective" in spite
of the fact that Western science is founded on "objective" facts. In SOM
both are considered "mental" rather that "physical". So I really don't think
its right to see the intellectual as objective.
There is a great variety of static patterns at all levels of Quality and the
intellect is hardly an exception. As I understand it, the fourth level is
the most diverse and Dynamic. Not only are they many thought systems and
dozens of intellectual traditions in the world, they change and evolve over
time. Paradigmatic shifts can occur as an historical process and individual
persons can similarly be transformed within their own intellect. In other
words, I think there are layers and stages of development within the
intellectual level, both collectively and personally. So to say that the
MOQ's intellect IS subject/object logic short- changes the complex nature of
the hightest level.
The conventions of our language force me to talk about "minds" and such, but
that's not formal SOM, and the trap isn't even really intellectual in
nature. It's already in the structure of our language long before formal
philosophy is devised or world-views are constructed. Perhaps it takes a
great deal of energy for the intellect to master and transcend the
conceptual categories of one's inherited culture, but that's true weather
those categories include S/O logic or not. The very nature of the
intellectual level is all about transcending the social level, I agree. All
the levels do that. But the split between "subjective" and "objective"
occurs between the biological and social levels so that there are two levels
on each side of the dicotomy. Naturally, the MOQ re-imagines the nature of
subjects and objects in a radical way and splits things up in a completely
different way, but the simple diagram in SODV shows the levels that way.
And finally, No, I don't imagine the MOQ's intellect the same as SOM's, with
it's mind/body problem and all that. There is no vessel that contains
intellectual patterns like a vessel holds water. IntPOV are outdoors like
everything else. But there is little doubt that persons and brains are
intimately involved the creation of new intellectual patterns. It can happen
no other way. Brain surgeons can't cut the intellect with a knife, but he
can effect the "mind" with his skills in some way. Hmmm.
DMB
------- End of forwarded message -------
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:03:21 BST