Bo,
This is not my post Bo. This is another Heather.
SA
> 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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