Hi Craig, Thank you for attempting to clarify.
I take it that the levels are degrees of complexity. They may be all the same thing, in a fractal kind of way. This notion of intellectual or abstract thought has me wondering. As soon as an interaction with the outside world enters our brain, it becomes abstract. A chemical entering our nose is converted to a patterned series of nerve impulses. It is no longer the chemical touching the nose, but an abstract representation of that event. To take this up one level, I could say that a certain smell resembles another. Thus equating two sets of neural impulses through a logical construct, which itself is a patterned set of impulses. The third level would be relating the smell to a visual set of patterns in the brain. Again, I am creating a pattern of nerve impulses that means that. Take an electrode to my brain and stimulate that set, and I would think "that flower has a smell". I could go on in this manner with all forms of rational thought, unless there is rational thought not born of experience. Yes, perhaps it is simply complexity. All these things seem to happen in animals. At which point does our thinking differ from that of a bee? If it is simply a matter of complexity, then the size of our cortex could explain that. We are equating complexity with human thinking. In the end, it is all the same process. Bigger maybe, but not different. Perhaps it is simply our human state which makes us claim that it is better, somehow more "evolved". Perhaps simplicity is a higher form of evolution, check out a Rothko painting. I can ask is it the communication between nerves that creates thinking? Is the communication the key. In that case a hive of bees is thinking, in the same way we are. If it is just communication, then a river thinks as the water communicates its way around a bend. This all makes sense to me; I find the notion somewhat expansive, at least for now. Wake me up. Cheers, Willblake2 On May 18, 2009, at 1:05:30 PM, [email protected] wrote: [Will/mark] > To think that our social institutional level is somehow much more > than that > of bees and ants is a bit presumptuous. I'm sure they do > not think so. That they don’t think so (& are unable to do so) is part of the evidence why it is true. [Will/mark] > How is our social institutional level different? Is it because we > use more sounds, create more symbols? Build more complex buildings? > Create languages based on abstract concepts? You’ve got part of the answer. But complexity is a symptom not the cause. Bees were making complex hives, when humans were making simple mud huts. What has allowed us to pass them by? Our institutions & ideas: language, mathematics, transference of knowledge, etc. [Will/mark] > Are these abstract concepts any different from smell or sight, which > are also an abstract interpretation of an energy of a certain > wavelength or a chemical of a certain structure. Yes, the former are 3 rd or 4 th level, the latter 2 nd level. [Krimel] > In fact Pirsig, mistakenly I think, asserts that the social level is > entirely human as well. > I think it was unfortunate that Pirsig termed the third level as > "social"… Or if he were really as up on anthropology as he claims to > be, he could have used ‘culture'. ’Culture’ doesn’t do it. Even bacteria are immersed in culture. ‘Institutional’ it is. [Ham] > The behaviors exhibited by bees or ants or people reveal nothing of > their thoughts or feelings. This can’t be right. This view leads to solipsism & nihilism. Craig 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/
