Case
I respond to yours of Dec. 25 in a reverse order:
> Thanks but perhaps a bit more refinement is in order. Emotions are
> hardwired heuristics in that, it is a good rule of thumb that when you see
> a bear charging at you, you should run away. When you see a fertile mate
> you should become aroused. When you see a patch of berries you should be
> happy and pick them.
It isn't easy to bring one's profound insights across ;-) and it seems like
the term "emotion" (in its MOQ role) is the most difficult one. In English
- as in my native "scandinavian" - there is the "feeling" term that
conveys both sensation and emotion. These must be kept apart. I
have this list of the respective level's "expressions" (I call)
Interaction - Sensation - Emotion - Reason
If senses are more hardwired than the rest is not an issue in the
MOQ, the impulse to run (or follow other strategies) confronted with a
threat, along with sexual reactions, hunger when the body needs
nourishment, pain when damaged and a billion other biological
patterns are NOT emotions. An animal would become a nervous
wreck if it becomes "afraid" in the emotional sense. Once the threat
situation is gone they are as calm as before. .
> These rules of thumb work almost all of the time and are effective
> across a wide range of species. But there are times when our rules of
> thumb do not work and our emotions will prove to be counter-productive.
> Our species has adapted to exploit this to our reproductive advantage
> by being able to recall past experiences and refine our rules of thumbs
> to make them better.
Yes, in the moqish the social level beings shares the biological level
with all critters, but the 3rd. level has risen on top of it and emotions
are sensation brought to a new refinement. No longer just hormonal
rush "out of sight out of mind" but something that can be recalled and
shared and makes for the social glue.There are of course primates
that live in tribes, care for their offsprings, react to death of other, but -
just one example - no animal weep, it's a most powerful social signal
as are facial expressions and reading thereof. With language - the
ultimate social tool - emotions could be teleported. "God is angry with
you" instilled fear in a possible rebel. As said: If this is hardwired or
learned is not an issue. Emotions are social values full stop!
> [Krimel]
> Kurzweil and others maintain that the brain is hardware and the mind is
> software and that it should be possible to have the software run on other
> hardware. Kurzweil thinks this could happen within the live span of some
> living today. He says that you could transfer your "self" into a machine.
> I see nothing in principle that would prevent this. In fact I would say it
> is already happening. We are transferring large amounts of our
> collectively held awareness and memory into machine storage. We are
> constructing higher orders of efficiency in processing outside of our
> bodies that could never be possible via biological evolution.
The software/hardware model is intellect's S/O and we are definitely
not transferring "awareness" (if you mean the intellectual
consciousness variety) We may imitate biological processes, f.ex.
memory storage, its retrieval and manipulation - computation - and
programs may theoretically be written that imitates all biological
functions, one for every chemical signal substance, it may result in an
artificial body and corresponding intelligence, but here the buck stops,
the social patterns are too complex to be imitated .... for now at least
> The point being that we construct reality out of raw sense impressions and
> our history of having such impressions. Similarly "consciousness" is a
> kind of illusion of the perception of self. It is not wrong or inaccurate
> nor is it fixed. It changes and adapts.
Yepp, SOM will never come to grips with the matter/mind relationship.
How "raw sense impressions" that - according to the empiricist don't
contain qualities (colors are just different light frequencies, sound just
air pressure waves, smell just molecular configurations .etc.) can
become the said qualities in "our mind". This enigma is what the Q-
level system solves - dissolves perhaps.
Likewise with the consciousness paradox, that of a humunculus inside
our heads that surveys reality out there. These thing are all intellect's
S/Os which are very useful, but when examined in a deeper
philosophical way leads to confusion and paradoxes.
> But this is an example were I think there are other "levels" that serve
> much better than Pirsig's. There is the emotional level, the sensory
> level, the memory level. These have identifiable structures and pathways
> of processing in the brain.
Good. Sensory is my sensation (=biology) level. Emotional = the social
Memory needs no level, that's biology's neural network that allows for
storing, retrieval ...etc.
---------------------------------
Then we spoke about the intellect/intelligence confusion
> [Krimel]
> I think we are agreed that the concept is nebulous at best. I would
> maintain that the ability to distinguish what is self and what is not self
> is no illusion.
No illusion. The "this body/not this body" is biology's business.
> I recently watched a video of a schizophrenic woman describing her
> distress at being unable to distinguish her "self" from the chair she
> sat in. She said she tried to move the arm of the chair and found it
> quite distressing that it would not move the way her arm would move.
The "self/not self" is the social domain and may be blurred by many
causes.
-----------------------
Then the clue. I had said:
> > Lots of sense, but if "exploitation" sounds offensive please find a
> > better one.
> [Krimel]
> My problem here is with assigning the qualities of personhood too yours
> abstractions. The levels desire nothing. They exploit nothing. They are
> explanatory tools not autonomous agents.
Assigning qualities is the very issue in the MOQ, personhood is
another, but because we use language with its analogies and allusions
and such it's difficult to avoid it. Moreover the abstract/concrete
dichotomy is an intellectual S/O and does not apply. A social pattern
like a country for instance is no "abstract" entity but - as said - a social
pattern where emotions is the basic attraction. And phrases like love of
country and that the country appreciates, likes ...etc. are as real as
real comes. A country may be overlaid by intellectual value that scoffs
at these terms as humbug and abstractions, but if the bell tolls ... the
social level is the safe latch below intellect. As is biology below society.
All in all the MOQ makes enormous sense and the SOM paradoxes
falls in droves
Seems we are alone on the dance floor, the other have succumbed to
social traditions.
Bo
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