Hi Spirit
On 4 Dec. you said:
> [quote]
> Do you think that a cat can think?
> "To think" carries tons of SOM. What you ask is really "are cats
> self-aware"? Cats are certainly INTELLIGENT but is neither part
> of the social nor of the intellectual levels, particularly the latter
> where the "self-awareness" term - not belong - but was CREATED.
> My own observations:
> Some cats can certainly "think". Some people think. It seems to
> hinge on what the definition of "thinking" is in each persons personal
> dictionary. Attempts to create Absolute definitions about "IQ" or
> "thinking" create VERY slippery slopes for anyone with that much of
> confidence about ALL cats or ALL people.
Sure, cats can think if you mean have what it takes to be a
"good" cat. Birds likewise, my favorite is a crow, I have told about
its ability to hoist up a food ball by the string by using its beak,
then steps on the string while it shifts the grip. This clearly
requires a lot of thinking and learning by experimenting.
I also agree that it hinges on the definition and "thinking" must be
one of the words that has most entries in dictionaries. In my
Oxford Advanced what comes to what we mean is this:
"To use your mind to consider something, to form
connected ideas, to try to solve problems ... etc.
But there is also something about
"Having ideas, words or images in your mind".
We see that everything is supposed to take place in a mind and
because "mind" has just as many definitions including that of
"consciousness", no wonder that SOM has had problems with
smart animals. The classic nineteenth century notion was that
they lived in some slumber-like state, but that's wrong, none are
more alert than animals.
But MOQ has a totally different approach - ought to have at least
- but Pirsig's initial definition of the intellectual level as something
resembling "mind" created an insumountable problem for MOQ's
breakthrough on the scene. Pirsig:
"For purposes of MOQ precision, let's say that the
intellectual level is the same as mind. It is the collection
and manipulation of symbols created in the brain, that
stands for patterns of experience." (Lila's Child annotation
25)
This is simply a definition of language and not of the
intellectetual level: Let me start with the MOQ view of
"intelligence" and how this differs from the intellectual LEVEL
Far down in the biological realm the neural complexity (not
necessarily neocortex brain) allowed "storage of experience"
(read-write memory) this could be manipulated in some "cache",
where the organism could visualize situations "if I do this, such a
thing will happen", all wordless and thoughtless, rather intuitively.
This capability increased in step with brain, but must not be
confused with INTELLECT which is the S/O ability, in this case to
distinguish between the imaginary and the real *) paraphrasing
Pirsig: "Intellect is the power of distinguishing between symbols
and what is symbolized.
Intellect is solely and genuinely a human level **) while thinking
/intelligence is common with most animals. Below some
biological threshold there is just ROM (read only memory), yet
even an amoeba knows its ways around the amoeba world, i.e. it
recognises the biological values. That is not dependent on brain
or nerves or senses in the 5-senses sense.
*) Animals sleep and dream and in dreams one doesn't know the
imaginary from the real and there exist a blockage that cuts the
brain/body connection that hinders "us" from enacting dreams.
**) I have skipped the social level. It is also a human endeavor. It
exploited biological intelligence for own purpose, but even at this
plane the S/O in the intellectual meaning weren't realized.
IMO
Bo
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