Ham, You claim not to understand yet reaffirm the statements by re-stating them in your own words. Fair enough. However there is one angle you are not considering when maintaining that individuals are the originators of thought not society, you forget that each one of us were taught the structure of social norms from birth, the structure in which we think within. This tradition is where thoughts originate from. Pirsig once asked, if a human were born isolated from all human contact and expereince would they have a thought in their head? Quine , I think had said one chimpanzee is no chimpanzee, that what is recognized as the normal behavior of individuals only arises in the context of a society. Reading up on what defines a Psychosis one understands how social standards of agreement define "rational" from "irrational" thought and behaviour, which is why when Pirsig states that pre-intellect is more "empirical" he means that expereinces hold more "truth" value when they are verified biologically rather than intellectually which answers your question as to why MoQists simply will not agree, or hold an intellectual static standard regarding the meaning of the four levels, for the four levels refer to our own unique experience. You rant against collective thought yet utilize it and hold to it's standards to define truth in meaning. Empirical, logical, rational standards of thought are collective standards of agreements of meaning or "truth" as we recognize it. Now, one may reflect on past expereince and one may project future expereince drawn from it, this may be considered thought of a "true" individual nature but how we distinguish uniquely human "thinking" is primarilarly by virtue of social standards of meaning.
thnx -Ron ________________________________ From: Ham Priday <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, May 18, 2009 2:48:44 AM Subject: Re: [MD] Arlo's Rant and 3rd levels Greetings Willblake2 -- > Arlo is talking about the peripheral mind, that behavior above > ground, and claiming that the subconscious thinking is also > societal, control by language. This cannot be true, it is the > other way around. A society has a completely different > consciousness which we are not privy to, in the same way > each individual nerve is not privy to our thoughts. You're absolutely right Willblake, and I'm sure Arlo and Krimel realize that too, but in deference to Pirsig they prefer not to notice that "the emperor wears no clothes." Craig recently suggested that had Pirsig "... called [Society] the 'institutional level', he could have made his point without getting it mistaken for the biological activities of bees & ants." But even Craig misses the point. Activity, behavior, and expression are terms designating objectively observed events or processes. Awareness, thinking, and cognizance (intellection) are subjective functions of the conscious self. The behaviors exhibited by bees or ants or people reveal nothing of their thoughts or feelings. Conciousness is proprietary to the individual and is non-transferable, or, as Ayn Rand once said, "No man can think for another." Of course one's thoughts and attitudes are influenced by society. But what is loosely referred to as "the social intelligence" can only be a collective reflection of thoughts and ideas that originate with the individual subject. Why are the MoQists so reluctant to concede this? Obviously, because the author needed to do away with subjects and objects (SOM) in order to "overcome" duality. Instead of the duality we all know, he posited a four-level Quality hierarchy which can be interpreted in so many ways that even the charter members of this forum can't agree on which is "correct". > If all we are are our thoughts, what are we when we are > listening to music without thought? I believe Arlo brought up > a similar example with food. > I suppose the argument would go that is: we are with thoughts, > the music is the social level, and we are appreciating it through > language. However, one does not have to understand music > to appreciate it. It interacts with the inner self, that is separate > (in a continuous) manner from the outer (ego) self. I can ski > down a slope thoughtlessly, but I am still there. The locus of awareness is the knowing 'I' of each individual. It's hard to define because it is not an existent; that is, it can't be measured, quantified, or localized objectively. If it's any help, I refer to any kind of value response as "sensibility". The stimulus or trigger can be physiological (e.g., pain, taste, pressure, balance), psycho-emotional (joy, sorrow, fear, love, excitement), esthetic (music, art, poetry, beauty), or intellectual (freedom, morality, justice). I reserve the term "experience" for interactive or relational awareness, such as meeting other people, working in the garden, or skiing down a slope. In addition, there is recall of past experience (memory), learning (acquiring factual knowledge), and conceptualizing (figuring, comparing, abstracting, organizing, defining, etc.) In all cases, awareness is proprietary to the individual subject. > We are the sum total of our awareness thoughts, our > subconscious thoughts, our interaction with the environment, > the beating of our hearts, the intelligence of our immune > system, the thoughtless passions, emotions, feelings that > arise to form thoughts. We are so much more than our > thoughts (or ego as I believe you state). True, but not all of these processes are conscious. For example, we're not normally aware of our heart or respiration rate, blood pressure, and other autonomic activities. > 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. > This is dangerous indeed, and leads to the polarization of > people through the abuse of social ideas (fairness, security, > compassion), who are each trying to fulfill their ideas. > Such things lead to wars based on ideology, which can > never be won, because the ideology is made up and > doesn't really exist. There is no tangible winning, > only a subjective sense of one. I'm in general agreement, but would prefer to leave politics out of this discussion. Nice to chat with you again, Willblake. Best regards, Ham 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/ 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/
