Krimel (are you Case of old?) On 14 Nov. you wrote:
> I see a number of points that just seem confused in your response to > Matt. You mean Confucian, yes I aspire to that position ;-) > [Bo] > This I actually agree with. At some point in the biological > evolution the neural node called brain enabled animals to store > former experience in a Read/Write Memory from where it can be > retrieved and change future behavior. OK I won't go in details > here. > [Krimel] > Certainly memory is a critical factor in all of this; perhaps the most > critical factor. Beyond the neural node, what society has done is > allow the off loading of biological memory into other forms, written, > pictorial and now digital. This expansion of our ability to access the > past is a key point. All right no disagreement except the phrase " ..what society has done..etc.) "Society" in this your context is just - well - society, what we in MOQ speak about is social VALUE and - for instance - the USA is not a "society" dominated by social VALUE. > [Bo] > Yes, that's all there is - at the biological level. Even if the brain > grew to primate and hominid size it was no more than an ever > increasing ability to survive. But as the social level established > itself on top of biology the said "intelligence" became a social asset > (all upper levels exploits the lower levels) but still something > totally different from intellect (the level). > [Krimel] > The social level is a biological strategy for evolutionary survival. > Primate social patterns show remarkable similarity across species from > monkeys to humans. Dominance hierarchies, feeding patterns, rearing of > young, social interaction are as critical to baboons as to people. > This is just another example of the rather blurry distinction between > Pirsig's levels. Those lines are often so blurry one wonders why they > were drawn at all. Likewise, there certainly are biological VALUE dominated "societies", but from this your mis-conception all errors spring. Look at it the other way - levels as escape from the former level's strictures, where social value is bringing biology UNDER CONTROL An animal pack, herd - even tribe - is no such just more eating, copulation and killing. No, the level lines are sharp provided one sees what they are about and not uses "social" in a sloppy way. > [Bo] > IMO language is the ultimate social pattern. I don't regard - for ex. > - wolf packs to be social, yet there may have been pre- language human > (Neandertals, Cro Magnons) societies when only facial expressions and > body gestures conveyed emotions, but these could not be "broadcasted", > only with language did the social reality take off. But even if the > individual knew self from other, had language and the grammatical > subject/object distinction, this was not INTELLECT in a MOQ sense, > only "social intelligence". > [Krimel] > Certainly most primate species are able to organize themselves into > social groups without much in the way of complex symbolic > communication. Expressions of emotion and the ability to interpret > those responses in others are critical in this regard. But there is no > indication that human societies either originated or "took off" as a > result of language. While it is difficult to specify when language > developed in humans there is every reason to think that it has been > with us hundreds of thousands of years. Not THAT fast. Language's biological facilities in primates are easy to track, whether Neanderthals had it is dubious and that's just fifty thousand years ago, however if there have been unknown human races before those may well be, yet its has little to do with it, IMO language is the ultimate social tool in the said sense of tearing existence loose from biology. > That is hundreds of thousands of years with very little change in > cultural patterns. Radical social changes began with agriculture and > writing roughly 12,000 years ago. This was a truly significant change > in the way people organized and interacted. Its effects have been > profound and long lasting. In your trite "social" context, sure, but the great VALUE upheaval had already happened. > [Bo] > I'm not sure what you say here, but it's plain that - in a MOQ > context - the intellectual level emerged the way SOM is > presented in ZAMM by applying biological-turned-social-turned > intellectual intelligence for its own purpose. Fist as a rebellion > against the old mythologies (social values) in the form of a search > for eternal principles, that ended with the notion of an objective > TRUTH independent of subjective OPINION, i.e. the skeptical, > scientific attitude was born. Later the subjective side (the equally > obvious argument that everything takes place inside the subject mind, > i.e. that all is "opinion") emerged, but this is intellectual's > eternal see-saw. > [Krimel] > Again there is no clear line between the biological and social and > even less between the social and intellectual. It is not even the > least bit clear whether the intellectual grows out of the social or > visa versa. But your claim that the Greeks invented the idea that > objective truth as independent of subjective opinion is just > misguided. Well with your non-understanding of the level IDEA no wonder you see no clear lines anywhere. The mystery is how you can deny the intellectual level growing out of the social when you don't see any levels? > The priests of Ra in Egypt proclaimed the facts of life as revealed by > the gods and that Truth was objective and independent of any petitioner > who tried to advance subjective opinions on the matter. This, however, is an interesting point if I was able to understand it. "The facts of life as revealed by the gods ... and that Truth was objective.." Do you say that the divine revelation was TRUTH or that these ...? Try again please. In a MOQ context the pre- Greek, pre-intellect cultures (among those Egypt) surely claimed that their respective gods were reality itself (If an Egyptian travelled to Babylon and learned that BAAL was god over there it did not disturb their belief in RA, these godheads only concerned themselves with their respective realms). But if the Egyptians had a notion of TRUTH above the god context I doubt. THAT was the 4th level emerging. > As for rebellion against old mythologies, it is hard to imagine a time > when this was not going on. Each new generation has come into the > world equipped to question the received wisdom. Amenhotep in Egypt was > the first monotheist. This rebellion against the established > priesthood was a milestone in human culture that is seldom mentioned. > It is significant to note that the Jewish Exodus occurred within a > generation of his rule and if one were to draw a direct connection > between them Amenhotep's rebellion had as much impact on the > development of western civilization as anything the Greeks did. A most profound observation. Monotheism was a great shift and in connection to my above (about the various old mythologies not interfering) with monotheism it all changed. GOD was universal, yet we see that the Jews considered themselves the chosen ones so it was also the birth of jingoism. > > Matt: > > Your point, however, is not my point. We _can_ define intellect, > > and all the other levels, and we _should_ define intellect, and all > > the other levels. > [Bo] > Agreement! > [Krimel] > So what's the hold up? The likes of you who don't see any levels, much less any definition of them. Bo Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
