Ok Arlo, before I drop off to sleep, I really need to jump in here in a few place and comment on your dialogue.
> [Arlo] > Controlled and enabled. I am merely talking about what Pirsig wrote. "Mind" > comes from society, not directly from the biological level. When he wrote > "our > intellectual description of nature is always culturally derived" he was > very > clear. [John] That's what I like about Pirsig. He is very clear. Clear and definite, the way a good philosopher should be. And I draw your attention, Arlo, to the term "intellectual description". It makes sense because intellect and ideas and abstractions of language are based upon a culture. But I'd like to point out that there are other descriptions besides intellectual and there is a direct and primordial relationship we have with nature as animals - before we start analyzing anything. And my point is, and has been since I started this thread, that this biological level should get a lot more attention than it does. That when social and intellectual patterns violate biological ones, then they should be denounced or changed. This gives this seemingly "lower" level a lot more importances than it is usually accorded. > [Arlo] > our interaction with the environment.... > > [Arlo] > Not sure what this means. Our interactions with the environment are, as > social > beings, mediated by language. Do you mean the moment of Quality perception? > Or > is this in reference to our biology, which you mention next... > [John] "Not sure what that means" ??? My GOD man, do you never go outside and breathe the air and dig in the dirt? Just because modern man in his hubris thinks he can sit in his apartment and order take out pizza and get his water from a tap... I don't know where you get that our interactions with the environment are as social beings. When I'm in the woods cutting down a dead tree to make something out of it, there ain't nobody to be social with. And btw, the only sound it makes is the one *I* want to hear. [WillBlake] > the beating of our hearts, the intelligence of our immune system... > > [Arlo] > This is the hardware in which "we" reside. Yes, our unique biology mediates > the > encoding of our experiences (we "see", and so are able to encode > experiences > with "visual" icons, e.g.) > ' [John] Arlo, Arlo, Arlo. I thought way back that we promised each other that neither would resort to trotting out the poor old dead platypus of the mind/body split. "The hardware in which we reside"? Tsk tsk. Why not, "The hardware AS which we reside". Probably closer at least. > > [Arlo] > Our "passions" (outside of our innate biological > reflexes) are fully informed by the cultural language we assimilate. "Love" > and > "hate" and "pain" and "heroism" and "pride" are all concepts informed by > the > stories, myths, music, drama, poetry and a countless repertoire of encoded > experiences that make up the collective consciousness. Before "language", > you > would feel "love" only as a cat or dog. As a social being, "love" is so > much > more, and you feel it only after you assimilate the language to describe > it. [John] Only as a dog? "Only"? Everybody here raise your hands if you haven't known some dogs with a lot more love in 'em than some people. And I don't see where words or stories do that much to enhance or amplify the innate feeling of attachment to one's beloved. You saying that you only feel it after assimilation of descriptive language just goes way out of bounds with my wrongness detector. Describing the feeling was what language was invented for. Not the other way around. > > [WillBlake] > The problem with the notion that society dictates thought is that > individuals arise (especially in politics), that argue they have a social > solution to correct our inner selves. > [John] Was that what that whole PC Madness thread was about? Hmmm... > > [Arlo] > Society does not "dicate" what you think. You are a unique organism with > corresponding unique experience. "Culture" gives you the means to encode > that > experience, and as such both enables and constrains the results of that > process. [John] OMG!OMG!OMG! That is like the exact opposite of the very point you started with! Thought is completely derived from society! That's where you planted your flag and here you are contradicting yourself completely. And I just love it when anybody tells me I'm unique. Thanks for the reassurance. Just about nodding off now, John 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/
