From: Valuemetaphysics@aol.com
Date: Fri Dec 12 2003 - 20:36:17 GMT
Bo:
I recognizing Paul's MOQ expertise, and admire his rhetoric skills,
but it's pretty clear that P. doesn't consider his own thoughts
regarding intellect as more valid than anyone's else (no Papal Bull
..etc.). This is really admirable and doesn't detract from his great
achievement in creating the MOQ (something I have said unto
exhaustion) but the orthodox definition of intellect remains dubious.
Mark 11-12-03: A definition is an Intellectual aesthetic. It is misleading to
describe definition as dubious, because dubiety implies doubt, and doubt
implies openness to truth claims. In the MoQ, truth is a species of the good,
therefore, the good is more determinant and important: a definition is beautiful
or ugly.
The MoQ description of intellect places coherence and beauty central to it's
nature - therefore, inventing truth definitions of the intellect is less than
the totality of the intellect.
Bo:
We seem unable to snap out of this mind/matterish frame of mind
reflected by these analogies, that Q-intellect's problemes are to be
likened with "thinking unable to define thinking" and/or "the eye
unable to see itself" ...etc. We are "...still somists after all these
years." to say it with Paul (Simon).
Mark 11-12-03: The term, 'Q-intellect' has been repeatedly verified as an
invention of Bodvar Skutvik. The term, 'Q-intellect' is therefore a term used in
a different metaphysics to that of the Metaphysics of Quality. Here, Bodvar
Skutvik is describing the MoQ in terms of a different metaphysics - that of his
own.
The static levels and DQ relationship of the MoQ may be considered to be an
improvement on the Dhuka of Buddhist description and not Western Mind/Matter
metaphysics.
Bo:
The root of the problem lies in the fact that few people recognize
the fact that intellect is supposed to be a static level, but rather
regard it as in the fashion shown above: Abstraction per se. Some
(Scott Roberts mostly) has shown that this leads to everything
being intellect (a definition wielded by Jonathan and many more,
but not from Scott's premises) who I most intensely would have
liked to join in a thrust for a more "quality-like" intellect, but he has
left the MOQ ....for this very reason!!!! ....it's frustrating.
Mark 11-12-03: A static repertoire is by definition static. The Intellect has
both a static repertoire and a Dynamic tension between static patterns. The
evolving coherence of the patterns is towards DQ.
Bo:
Paul is of course right in saying that Pirsig isn't saying that
intellect is mystical and that the term "preintellectual awareness"
says it all. What we mean by all these SOM's S-derivative: mind,
consciousness, awareness, thinking ...etc. are of course the
VALUE-PERCEPTION connected with intellect. But there are
similar pre-static perceptions at all other levels. At intellect it leads
to the subject/object value, but there is the ineradicable notion that
this part of the ZMM describes another intellectual pattern being
born, while it is MOQ taking leave of intellect.
Mark 11-12-03: This is wandering away from the central point raised by Sam.
Sam is concerned to discover if a description of the Intellect is incoherent.
But if a description of the intellect is aesthetic rather than truthful, the
problem dissolves: The pre-intellectual response to Quality is found in SQ-SQ
tension between components of the static repertoire; this tension is the point
at which DQ evolves greater coherence, or destroys coherence altogether in the
unfortunate.
A process of SQ-SQ tension and SQ-DQ evolution indicates the source of our
experience of beauty, and this description is explicitly made in Lila.
Sam:
> Either we can talk about the intellectual level in comparison with the
> other levels or we can't. Either we can develop some systematic analysis
> and description of how the intellectual level functions and about the
> static patterns that we can discern emerging, or else the level
> collapses into DQ, whereof one must remain silent.
Spot on!!!!
Mark 11-12-03: The essay, 'The edge of Chaos' indicates how a static
repertoire of patterns (The intellectual level) evolves towards increasingly coherent
states of beauty in response to DQ. Aesthetic appreciation provides a
vocabulary with which to describe, and influence our experiences in a progression
towards greater coherence and beauty.
One may reflect upon the use of poetry and music, mathematics and geometry to
transcend the static repertoire of our Intellectual experience? In these
endeavours, artists discover exceptional coherence between static patterns in a
pre-Intellectual response to harmony.
> Either RMP is right
> to say that "Grammar, logic and mathematics can be described as the
> rules of this sign manipulation" - and we can therefore describe some
> elements of the fourth level with confidence - or else RMP is right to
> say that "the intellectual level cannot describe itself any better than
> an eye can directly see itself."
Right, Pirsig's initial intention when writing his MOQ was obviously
that intellect is no mystical realm, but very much another static
development, but then ...he somehow lost momentum and lapsed
back into this somish mindish mire.
Mark 11-12-03: The intellectual level may be fruitfully described as a static
repertoire of value patterns. That repertoire, is a potential of
relationships which open up to Dynamic intervention when aligned in an exceptionally
coherent state. One must note that mind is an inappropriate term to apply to these
relationships - it may be more appropriate to think in terms of Dhuka of
Buddhism.
Mark.
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