Hello again David
16 Feb. you wrote:
> I once wrote a whole chapter (The Epicurean Concept of Mind, Meaning
> and Knowledge) arguing that feelings (using David Hume's definition
> that all perceptions are feelings) are the basic biological level of
> symbol:
Feelings (can we use "emotion"?) Why biological? and why
symbols? I once made a list of "expressions" (I called) that
correspond to each the Quality levels
Interaction - Sensation - Emotion - Reason
(inorganic) (biology) (social) (intellect)
that places emotion=social, but I have noticed that so many want
emotions to be biological and wonder why? It's just obvious that
animals don't "emote", it's jus us who extrapolate our experience
on to the animal world. .
> the only level used by babies and other nonverbal animals to
> understand meaning.
Human babies smile and cry (tears) before they have learned to
speak and these are the most powerful social-emotional signals
there are, and no animals do that.
> And that words are the same meaning translated to a social level. I
> argued that although the verbal level overwhelms the feeling level in
> the consciousness (especially in white males) the ability to read and
> write words is the ability to make this translation back and forth.
I have trouble with your levels compared to the MOQ. What are
the "verbal" and "feeling" levels?. OK, "feeling" is biology (to you)
and then "verbal" may be social?
> I would now argue you are correct, the word Zebra is a social level
> symbol ....
In the MOQ language emerged as a social pattern and while that
level ruled people did not regard words as "symbols". The animal
and the name were one and the same. In song & dance rituals
animals could be forced to obey their names and - f.ex. be brought
to the hunting grounds ..etc.
Then enter the intellectual level where language became
subjective symbols just having a rudimentary connection with the
object-phenomenon they symbolized The Zebra could have been
called "Arbez" without the animal "knowing". Language and nature
were now two separate worlds.
> .. but the interesting part for me is that either feelings or words can be
> used on the intellectual level.
I'm not sure what you say, but after language entered "man not
only gave name to all the animals", but to all aspects of existence
including emotions, and as the next Q-level grew on top of the
social, the names followed into the intellectual level.
> As anyone who has had a thought that they couldn't verbalize can tell
> you.
One surely can have subtle ideas that are difficult to "put in words"
and mixed feelings, but .... what was the point? ;-)
Regarding Pirsigs "symbol manipulation" definition of intellect
> I spotted the same fallacy in his computer metaphor (Lila) of course
> the meaning of the novel being written on the computer exists in all
> levels of the computer (electrical charge, binary, number and letter
> symbol levels). One only needs to learn how to read the specific
> symbol level to be able to read the words which are actually just
> symbols for the biological level feelings -david swift.
This I haven't thought about, but you may be correct, Pirsig used
the said metaphor to show how two realities (levels) can exist
without interacting: a word as a magnetic charges (or whatever the
modern memory devices uses) a different world from the meaning
of the word. But - if I understand you correctly - the written world to
an analphabetic is just as inaccessible. Hmm. I liked that
However my complaint regarding Pirsig's "symbol manipulation"
definition
Intellectuality occurs when these customs as well as
biological and inorganic patterns are designated with a sign
that stands for them and these signs are manipulated
independently of the patterns they stand for. "Intellect" can
then be defined very loosely as the level of independently
manipulable signs. Grammar, logic and mathematics can
be described as the rules of this sign manipulation.
is that it sounds as if "inorganic,biological and social patterns
designated with signs" means that intellect occurred with language
- that the two are identical - and that makes inellect a "subjective"
level while the three lower are "objective". In a metaphysics that
rejects the SOM!! It grates my MOQ nerve.
Bo
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