Hi Bo
Our dispute boils down to the intellectual issue ... again!
Yes, we really need to find some common root here. And perhaps see where we part
ways.
When a dog sniffs something there is a recognition of this particular
experience, but it's not "thinking" in the (silent) language sense - this
we agree on?
Hmm. You use two words here that makes me uncertain. First, it's "recognition".
The word implies that the dog recognizes the smell, it has smelled it before and
the smell probably causes associations to past experiences.
The thing is, it's only the *experience* that is biological. As soon as that
experience is transformed and recognized, it's not biological anymore. It then
becomes a representation/memory of that original, cutting edge biological
experience. And that representation requires intellectual patterns. No other
level can represent anything else.
The other word is "silent". It implies you agree there is an internal language
in our brains. The language itself is perhaps no proof of the existence of
intellectual patterns, but the *use* of that language to represent external
experience, is.
When we humans do the same we will at times add a
name to the experience - out loud or to ourselves, but this isn't
intellect, stone age people surely had language and names for
different smells. Intellect is the ability to distinguish between the
subjective experience and the objective explanation of it. Something
the 2nd. and 3rd. level lack.
I disagree. Intellectual patterns are required to represent that "objective
explanation" as you put it.
First of all, that's a much more important step in the evolution of life than
the ability to distinguish between the experience and the representation.
Second, the levels are supposed to encompass everything. And if the "objective
explanation" is not an intellectual pattern, it must be something else. And it
can't be a biological pattern, because that's what the "subjective experience"
was. So what is it?
Regarding intellect the notion of the MOQ as an intellectual pattern
makes everything "intellectual".
No. And I have no idea why you keep persisting this. The MoQ is not
reality, it's merely a *model* of reality. I think it's connected to
your refusal to differentiate between gravity and the law of gravity,
but I can't really put my finger on it. At least to not so you
understand what I mean.
Intellect (the level) IS the distinction between the (in this case)
observed data of things falling to the ground and the explanation why
they do, while you claim that "thinking" is intellect (the mind that
observes and give names to the observations).
But you're dismissing the *things* that does the actual falling. You only
recognize those things as valid in your world after someone has observed them.
But things fall regardless of anyone observing them or not.
Those *things* are the real inorganic patterns. The observed *data* of those
things are not inorganic once they're data, they are intellectual patterns.
But I'll leave that up to you with a few questions.
* What type of pattern is the observed data of a falling stone?
* What type of pattern is the explanation of why the stone falls?
* What type of pattern is the stone? Does it exist to you?
Pirsig of LILA also fell
prey to intellect's lure and insists that the MOQ is just another
subjective explanation of objective Quality,
Come on Bo, "objective Quality", what the .... is that?
while ZAMM's Phaedrus
saw through intellect's veil demonstrated by the Newton example:
Intellect arrived with the Greeks and crystallized the present, the future
and the PAST in its subject/object matrix.
I interpret the intellect of the Greeks as the time in history when society was
first transformed into being ruled by intellectual value instead of being ruled
solely by old social value. But I also recognize that the exact same thing has
happened before, when the brain of animals became large enough to start ruling
the animal using intellectual value instead of social.
DQ itself is "intellectual", the static
levels are "intellectual". Craig protested and called this confusing
the menu and food, but after my Newton example he clammed shut.
Craig's right, you're wrong.
Is ZAMM's Newton example wrong?
Yes, it didn't have the level tool of the MoQ to explain the problem. And
actually, the tool to really solve that problem was first presented by me in
"The levels undressed".
From ZAMM (about gravity):
"Sitting there, having no mass of its own, no energy of its own, not in anyone's
mind because there wasn't anyone, not in space because there was no space
either, not anywhere...this law of gravity still existed?"
First of all, since he didn't have the level tool yet, he interchangeably used
both "gravity" and "the law of gravity" as if they were the same thing.
Second, the real answer is that gravity didn't exist until space and time came
into being at the Big Bang, creating the spatial level. Before that event, there
were no space and therefore no speed, acceleration or space curvature that any
gravity could affect. It's exactly the same reason why smells didn't exist right
after the Big Bang. There were no molecules that had any 3D-structure which is
the basis of smell. But as soon as those molecules were created, the universe
got a whole new way to create new stuff.
The "law" of gravity is of course an intellectual pattern, but since nobody had
thought of it before Newton, that law as an intellectual pattern didn't exist
before that. There's no need to make a mystery of it when there is none.
The SOL interpretation is now vouched for by Pirsig (as far as he
could possibly go)
I must have missed that, what did he say about it?
There has been a tendency to extend the meaning of "social"
down into the biological with the assertion that, for example,
ants are social, but I have argued that this extends the
meaning to a point where it is useless for classification. I said
that even atoms can be called societies of electrons and
protons. And since everything is thus social, why even have
the word? I think the same happens to the term, "intellectual,"
when one extends it much before the Ancient Greeks.*
The same (=usless for classification) happens to an intellectual level
before the Greeks. It means that the SOL interpretation is vouched for
by Pirsig.
First, isn't it a stretch to take that as an approval of SOL? Just because he
thinks the intellectual level appeared by that *time* doesn't mean that SOL is
the only possible result.
Second, as I said the other day. I have refuted the above too many times to
count so I don't take it as proof of anything. I simply think Pirsig is wrong
here and I would frankly love to hear what he would have to say about my essay.
I'll summarize:
The social level does *not* extend down to atoms.
Atoms are created by the atomic level where the only forces (i.e. types of
experience/value) are the strong and weak nuclear forces and electromagnetism.
Also gravity is involved but that comes from the lower, spatial level.
Further, molecules are not societies because they are created by the chemical
level. The forces (experience/value) here are the atom bonding preferences of
different types of atoms.
After that, some basic combinations of molecules are biological value. If two
molecules happens to have a good 3D fit with eachother, they can stick together.
That's the molecular version of biological sexual attraction.
This sets the stage for the social level. If that combination of molecules are
better (i.e. more moral) than they are separate, they will stick together.
*That's* a social pattern and it is metaphysically identical to two humans
combining to make a family, or a few people with different abilities combining
to make a small village. All are better as a whole than the parts individually,
they are even better than the sum of its parts.
I'm afraid I didn't understand what you mean by that last part. But I
will probably not accept it. And why would I drop the inorganic part?
Do you mean we should remove the inorganic level?
You said that "social" is what's left when there are no INORGANIC and
biological explanations. The biological part can be ascribed to the 3rd.
level in its parent's service, but the inorganic values as social is
untenable.
We have so vastly different ways of approaching this level business. It's quite
tiresome.
When I see a "thing", I want to explain what types of forces/patterns are used
to keep that thing intact. You don't seem to bother much with that though. For
example, what patterns keep a dog together? Biological you'd say, but does
taste, smell and touch keep the dog together? Does the tail taste good to the
back end of the dog and that's why the tail doesn't fall off?
I think you and many others are making it way too easy for yourselves. You only
care to solve one particular problem you set your sights on, but the rest is
just left as a pile of rubbish.
Magnus
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