> [Krimel]
> Intellect is a biological function that evolved in higher primates. It
> is what assures the survival of our species. Social behavior evolves
> even earlier. Even more importantly there are certain aspects of the
> parasympathetic nervous system that evolved in mammals. These include
> elaborations of the structures of the midbrain and the development of
> the vagus nerve which moderates and perpetuates emotional responses.
> These major elaborations in the development of specifically social
> emotions are what bond species members together. You can see that this
> is critical in mammals because it facilitates the growth of mammalian
> offspring who are not mature enough at birth to survive. The parents
> are programmed to be attached to each other and the infant. The vagus
> nerve for example contains high levels of the hormone oxitocin which
> promotes feels of connectedness and compassion.
[Bo]
Correct to the last comma seen from intellect's premises (SOM)
where the term "intellect" means "ability to think", but the (SOL
says that) MOQ says that the 4th level has nothing to do with
thinking per se, but is the value of the
Thinking/what thoughts are about
distinction which is one among countless S/Os f.ex "language/what
language "treats"". The said "ability to think" (i.e. learn from
experience, draw logical conclusions ..etc.) is a biological pattern
emerging with the higher organisms' complex neural system,
brain. AKA "intelligence"
[Krimel]
What I was talking about above is mostly how and why emotional responses
evolved in mammals. The human cortex is considerably more sophisticated than
even or nearest evolutionary cousins. There is considerable debate as to how
and why our 'rational' functions evolved. But however those issues are
resolved, your "Thinking/what thoughts are about" can't exist at all until
it is formatted into human experience. We alone on this planet have brains
of sufficient complexity to format experience into speech. In most respects
this ability seems to be an expansion of our ability to communicate our
emotions to others. Rational thinking seems to be a byproduct of all this.
In terms of the MoQ the point is that there is no discrete line to be drawn
dividing the social level from the biological level or the intellectual from
the social or to divorce the intellectual from the biological.
[Bo]
Of course it is an intellectual pattern if any turning of mental
wheels is "intellect". Then laboratory rats are intellectuals.
[Krimel]
All that is really at issue is the Qualitative increase in function that
results from our greater quantity capacity.
[Bo]
Nor can matter exist in the absence of mind, but never mind!!,
intellect is a static level and its S/O will produce paradoxes if
viewed as fundamental, so will all levels.
[Krimel]
One can say with some confidence that without minds, no conceptual patterns
of matter would exist. But to say that whatever interacts with mind to
produce conceptual patterns could not exist without minds is a bit of a
stretch. Those of us possessed of minds can find little to compel our
agreement either way.
[Bo]
I don't think Dynamic can be applied to energy but never mind this
too.
[Krimel]
I think Dynamic applies directly to energy. Matter is energy in a static
form.
> I have not equated objective=static and subjective=dynamic. I don't
> think they do equate and frankly I think almost all of the talk here
> about SOM is nonsense. They are confusing, ill defined terms which
> just provide an excuse for missing the point.
[Bo]
OK, then the fundamental split is between the realm of concepts
(in here) and the pre-conceptual world (out there) which is SOM
and a mighty static value. The tragedy is DMB seeing the pre-
concept/concept matching the DQ/SQ ..... and Pirsig that it
creates a Quality/MOQ split.
[Krimel]
You are missing the point again. Both concepts and percepts are in here not
out there. Percepts are the dynamic flux of incoming sense data, processed,
emotionally colored. Concepts are just adding a layer of rational analysis
to all that. These are two modes of experience, perceptual and conceptual.
They work together. We turn concepts into percepts. An automobile is a set
of concepts turned into a perceptual format.
> {William James, Some Problems of Philosophy]
> "The great difference between precepts and concepts is that percepts
> are continuous and concepts are discrete. Not discrete in their
> _being_, for conception as an act is part of the flux of feeling, but
> discrete from each other in their several meanings. Each concept means
> just what it singly means, and nothing else; and if the conceiver does
> not know whether he means this or means that, it shows that his
> concept is imperfectly formed. The perceptual flux as such on the
> contrary _means_ nothing and is but what it immediately is."
[Bo]
No sarcasm, but you have to create a "For Dummies" regarding
this point.
Percepts are just what you are seeing, hearing, feeling at the moment. James
likes this to a stream; always changing, never the same, continuous like the
spectrum of light. Concepts are how we crave up our experience. It is the
color names we impose on the rainbow. We make red discrete from orange by
naming or making conceptual distinctions out of the continuous experience of
the spectrum. Those conceptual patterns integrate into the perceptual stream
of experience. So that the concept Red is associated with all things red:
apples, firetrucks roses... To claim that oranges are red is to have in
imperfectly formed concept. Concepts give us meaning that does not exist in
the immediate percept and yet all concepts are derived from perception.
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