Hi Magnus 18 March you wrote:
> Yes, I get the point. But you're skipping ahead way too fast and > sketchy to make it a viable theory. You're forgetting that you must > always be able to explain everything on the way. For example, what > *are* those "images" above? Say it's an image of a prey in the mind of > a hungry predator. The image is not the prey, because the prey is > still alive, outside the predator. The image is not a biological > pattern, because such patterns are things like taste, smell, hearing, > sight, etc. Such things the predator must experience in "real-time", > but the image we're talking about is something the predator can > imagine in his head anytime he wants. The skipping point taken, but how much detail can people take? > So, for starters, what *is* that image? >From the 4th. level seen they are mental reflections of reality, but from the MOQ seen the ability to manipulate sense experience is a biological pattern, while - again - intellect's value is that of seeing the retrieval as mental and the senses impressions as real. But to forestall your next objection (that of pointing to senses as mental too) yes, the 4th. level (like all levels) evolved more and more complex (dynamic) patterns and intellect's went from the early simplist notion of a world "out there" that our mind, by way of senses, could detached watch, to the "modern" notion of the subject as participant in experience, something that spawned the Quality Metaphysics. This in turn leaves "intellect" its 4th. level and the said "simplist" S/O its static value. Bo before: > > The inversion that befalls intellect from its SOM role to its MOQ > > role is crucial. To SOM "intellect" is thinking (the "manipulation" > > part of the MOS only) while MOQ's 4th level's value is the S/O > > distinction, in this case symbols as different from what they > > symbolize. Magnus now > This sounds as if the SOM intellect is one level and your 4th level is > some other level. Or is the SOM intellect part of a lower level? In > which case, which one? Well, it's the said "extreme makeover" that befalls "intellect" from its SOM role to its Q-level one. SOM's intellect is "thinking" itself while the intellectual level is the power of seeing thinking as different from what one thinks about. If you can stand more detail, this is just what the social level DID NOT observe. Its many rituals are about "thinking" as one with - able to change - experience. Bo before: > > As moqists we are supposed to see everything in the level > > context and from that perspective words (language) is originally a > > social pattern, but brought into the 4th. level words became > > symbols that stands for something else. About lower levels' patterns > > becoming part of the upper's repertoire and there getting a > > different role is no mystery. Matter becoming "flesh" at the 2.nd. > > level for instance. Magnus now: > That wasn't so hard, was it? "brought into the 4th. level words became > symbols that stands for something else" is exactly what I mean with a > level 4 pattern. A pattern that stands for something else (not > necessarily another level 4 pattern though). But I fear yours is like Pirsig's "symbol manipulation as intellect", namely that it is the manipulation itself that's the great feat and that the symbols were other levels' patterns. But intellect's value is the symbol/what's symbolized DISTINCTION!!!!!!!!! BTW. language is the arch-symbol manipulation activity, but - see again - the social level speaks and writes, but here language IS part of experience. To the semitic religions "The Word" (logos) is the primary reality and further down the social ladder, magic formulas can alter reality ...etc. > But why do you have to insist on adding the S/O division into this? We > already have a definition of the 4:th level, but if you add another > constraint, some patterns will no longer fit in that new level, and > will fall between the chairs. Where would they belong? You too!? Show me what (preferable) intellectual patterns that fall between chairs. Bo before: > > As Pirsig says (in the PT letter) a line must be drawn somewhere for > > the social level lest it becomes useless (its biological roots show) > > as must be done for intellect, and he actually draws its line with > > the Greek thinkers (in MOQ this means SOM), but then he possibly saw > > the SOL implication and hastily added the cryptic "Oriental > > Intellect". Magnus now: > Here I really think Pirsig is being overly cautious, just barely > missing out on "coward". > This is also why I started the "what is a metaphysics to you" thread > the other week. It seems I'm pretty alone at being a die-hard > metaphysicist here... Before the MOQ I despised metaphysics because they took the SOM for granted. Not that I knew any SOM, still felt it a waste of time. Then with ZAMM's pointing to a SOM the ground suddenly shifted under my feet, but if you want to make the MOQ into THAT kind of idle "angels on needlepoint". Thanks but no thanks. > ..... I mean, why on earth would you want to draw a line based on > *size* for any level? Exactly *where* in the MoQ primer does it say > anything about SIZE??? If you start adding stuff like that later on > just because you can't overcome a few obstacles along the way, why > bother trying to define (or for that matter *use*) a metaphysics at > all? Who speaks of size? It's about "roots". Pirsig speaks of intellect having forgotten its social roots, but this goes for all levels, your once specialty of the pursuing the social level soon ended in biology and following intellect backwards will end in society - or more correctly in biology for those who haven't a notion of what the MOQ is about and consequently don't recognize any social level (for instance this Krimmel figure) As Ron pointed out the neurologist Antonio Damasio has seen this, but not having the MOQ at his disposal it's futile. > We would have a definition of the social level like. A society is a > bunch of biological entities that values living together, larger than > 10cm3. I mean, look how stupid it sounds. You think you are smart? ;-) Social value is not about "living together", communities are a fallout from a more basic value that began as an escape from biology's "eat and proliferate" existence to a higher level where these basic (instincts in intellect's lingo) are brought under control (see how obsessed religion is with sex and food) and the organism is seen as part of a greater context and cause that became "God" ....ok no more, but thanks all the same 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/
