Hi Mel, Great post. Thanks for sharing your ideas.
> Platt: > > What are the "tool sets" of intellect besides science and reason? > > mel: > The "tool sets" are the competencies-one-gains to leverage > our abilities to "model and transform" the parts of the world > outside of our brains into meaningful reflections within our > minds. > > Just as the hand of an ancestor picked up a stone, a stick, and > a strip of rawhide and created something new, an axe, the mind > combines sense data (patterns), experience, and context to > create something new. Your example seems to me to be what is sometimes referred to as "Putting two and two together" which could be either intellect at its best and/or a human response to DQ betterness. In any case, the singular ancestor who invented the axe is to be commended for his individual achievement. > Platt: > > Does one need to understand the physiology of the eardrum or how sound > > travels through the air in order to lose one's separate self sense in > > listening to Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto? That's the sort of > > experience I was driving at. > > mel: > It is not that one needs to understand the abstracted physiology, > but one does need to learn the operational possibilities of hearing > and appreciate them beyond JUST the experience. > > I grew up in a house without music. I vividly remember the first time > I heard classical music played. The grade school teacher brought in > a record player and put on the "Grand Canyon Suite." I was in the > front row, next to the left side speaker and recoiled at the tumbling > chaos of noise that errupted in a confusion from the speaker...it was > horrid, an immediately low quality experience. > > Jangling, whining, screeching, booming, confusion rained and > flooded the room. I looked around and saw that no one else was > sharing this experience and I turned back to the speaker. > > What was I missing? > > I watched the red label in the center of the disc and the big > RCA circling 33 times per minute and tried to hear what was > going on. Some parts of it were more bearable than others. > > Maybe midway through the first movement something suddenly > aligned and I "got it." There was pattern, regularity, harmony, and > melody, stuff I had no name for, music and space and flow > and not just individual sounds. Coincidentally my first introduction to classical music was also the Grand Canyon Suite. But, I was fortunate in having a musical home. So I 'got it" immediately. > Music "theory" would be a tool. > To perform certain "forms of music" they must be > understood and whether its by formal theory or > fast, personal aprehension, the musician has to > "get it" or there will be no success in performance. Examples of individuals who "got it" without formal theory are Errol Garner and Satchmo Armstrong. At the classical level, I assume some formal training is required, not to mention 8 hours a day of practice. Mel: > Complex, fine motor skills are also a heavy modeling > activity on the CNS.(central nervous system). Diving > is a very complex task and the divier needs to learn > to express motions of position, time, change, and > movement, that will cause the outcome. > > Before you dismiss that from intellect, there is one more > item that makes it intensely interesting as a "tool set" > of its own. Divers develop an intense non-verbal language > by which they can understand each other's movements > outside of the actual performance of the dive... > > The language is a physical shorthand of small motions > expressing the reaches, bends, twists, flips, and entries > that make up their technical repertoir. > Two divers who do not share the same linguistic > background can communicate meaning in the realm of > diving, while standing together outside the pool. > > Martial artists often do the same. > > In both of these cases the participants "model and transform" > parts of the world outside of their brains into meaningful > reflections within their minds AND communicate them to > others. > > Painters, sculptors, anyone in complex technologies, potentially > can have specialized intellectual "tool sets" > > Science is simply one very specialized and powerful tool > set. Reason is not so much a tool as the talent to leverage, > create, and use the tools we need and derive the meaning. At least a part of what you describe is muscle training, like learning to ride a bicycle. No doubt intellect plays a role in all human activity even if no more than talking to oneself. > Maybe the most important part of this is that as we are not > truly used to looking at the world in terms of MoQ we often > forget that anything we do crosses multiple levels of our > existence to make things happen in life. > > example: > The [biological] diver pushes on a [physical] board that is > a [static construction of intellect expressed on the physical] > to gain speed and hight for motion [dynamic physicality] to > express a form [static intellectual construct] in competition > [a social function of a diving meet] and other people [in a > defined social role] will assign numeric values for various > attributes, aesthetic and intellectual, upon the result. Yes. Pirsig's emphasis on the lower levels supporting the higher is well to remember. But, I notice in the last line you draw a distinction between the aesthetic and intellectual. For me, this distinction is both palpable and meaningful, as in example of the Grand Canyon Suite. > So...that is how I see it when I use the tool box analogy. > > Thanks for the oportunity to work this out. Thanks again. Platt 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/
