[Bo] That intellect have its origin in society is plain, but just as plain is it that the next level is a break with its origin.
[Arlo] Certainly. Although the origins of "mind" social, intellectual patterns (of which the "self" is one) are the result of the interplay between the social consciousness (collective consciousness, Pirsig calls it) and the unique experiences of the bounded organism. Here again I think the confusion draws from an (low quality) purist dichotomy between "individual" and "collective", on all the levels. To be brief, I do NOT deny the unique contribution of the "self" pattern to other intellectual patterns, nor do I deny that "intellectual" patterns are MORE than the social patterns from which they emerge. When you look at the MOQ, and consider the emergent process between levels, as well as the complexity spectrum within levels, I think its apparent that the words "individual" and "collective" (1) apply to all levels, and apply to various patterns within levels, (2) "individuals" appear OUT OF the "collective" activity of lesser patterns (atoms to cells, cells to bodies, bodies to cultural habits, etc.), and (3) any pattern is BOTH an "individual" and "collective" depending on your level of focus. When we specifically look at the "self" dynamic, we see that it originates from the collective social activity of the culture. Moreso, we see that its "agency", or ability to act upon its unique bounded experience, is not antithetical to its social origins, but derives FROM its social origins. A human being surviving from infancy on a desert island would have NO self-concept, and because of the absence of social patterns, would have NO agency on the intellectual level. Two of Pirsig's statements taken together confirm this. "If Descartes had said, "The seventeenth century French culture exists, therefore I think, therefore I am," he would have been correct." (LILA) Mental patterns do not originate out of inorganic nature. They originate out of society... what a mind thinks is as dominated by social patterns as social patterns are dominated by biological patterns... There is no direct scientific connection between mind and matter. As the atomic physicist, Niels Bohr, said, "We are suspended in language." Our intellectual description of nature is always culturally derived." (LILA) In the first, we see that the ability to "think" occurs only upon the assimilation of a cultural consciousness. "Men invent responses to Quality, and among these responses is an understanding of what they themselves are", said Pirsig in ZMM, "These fill the collective consciousness of all communicating mankind." Hence the "self" (the "I am" of Descartes) is an intellectual construct built socially, mirrors the cultural values that the bounded biological organism assimilates. In the second we see that our bounded, unique experiences are always mediated by this social foundation. Our agency is not "free", but the thing to notice is that it can never be "free". Our affordance to act intellectually is always made possible, constrained and structured by the social consciousness assimilated by the bounded organism. If we see the potentiality of our ability to respond to DQ as both enabled and constrained by this social foundation, we stop looking at "man as individual" or "man as social" and instead see "man as social individual". This is why, I believe, we are in agreement when you say "I disagree with Platt who seems to think that an individual with Descartes' qualities could have said the same in Medieval times .. or appear in an Afghan village tomorrow." What ANYONE at ANY TIME can say is both MADE POSSIBLE and CONSTRAINED by the social consciousness so assimilated (as well as the social-material circumstances of the organism). [Bo] Again the fallacy of intellect as a mere social appendix. [Arlo] Well that's a ridiculous accusation, Bo. "Mere"? "Appendix"? I'd no more say this than I'd say the biological body is a "mere appendix" of the inorganic level. What I gather from your accusation, though, is that you as well buy into this "war" between "the individual and the collective", and since I am doing more than proclaiming "glory to individual man on high", I must be demeaning the entire nature of anything outside of social conformity. This gets old. So, again, let me reiterate my belief that "intellectual patterns" are MORE than the social patterns from which they originate, but are never separate from them. The "self", the intellectual pattern in question, is "more" than the assimilated social consciousness and "more" than the bounded experience of the organism, but represents a synergistic union of the two. Also, rather than play talk-radio rhetoric games where "collective" is "evil and bad" and "individual" is "righteous and good", I think it far more valuable to see that ALL patterns on ALL levels are ALWAYS both individual and collective, that complexity within ALL THE LEVELS is built upon the collective behaviors of simpler patterns, and that applying the terms "individual" or "collective" is a matter of pragmatic focus. When my body is healthy, I prefer to think of it as an "individual body", when it is not, I am forced to recognize that it is a complex "collective" of "individual organs", themselves also complex "collectives" or "individual cells", etc. This applies to ALL static patterns, even the "self" pattern. 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