Ham 13 Sep.
Bo before to John: > > There is nothing wrong with MOQ's level design, it's just > > that it rejects the subject/object distinction as existence's > > fundament, ergo there is no mind or matter in the MOQ > > and what we call "intelligence" does not take place in > > mind because all S/Os are gone with the wind. Ham: > A couple of questions . . . > If "there is no mind or matter in the MOQ and intelligence does not > take place in the mind", where does the abstraction of intelligence > occur? Is this not a mental process? I lag behind in our exchange but.. anyway, about the MOQ rejecting the S/O distinction as existence's fundament ought to be known, also that this means its many off-shoots - among those the mental/corporeal - have come to an end as as absolute But the question remains "what happens to the residual S/Os", it's impossible to imagine existence bereft of all these dualisms so Pirsig found that the S/O had to be part of MOQ's static hierarchy and he chose the known method of making the two lower levels "objects" and the two upper "subjects". But this way of subsuming the SOM does not work well, for instance how the MOQ resolves the mind/matter paradox sounds contrived. All in all it's cumbersome and leaves zero explanatory power. Only the SOL (intellect=S/O) works and as said a million times most of LILA conveys that interpretation. As said as many times, Pirsigs obsession was the Quality=Reality issue something that left the MOQ half- baked. But you question was where the abstraction of intelligence occur? Is this not a mental process? And as always the answer is that from the MOQ seen "mental/corporeal" and the rest of the S/Os are confined to the intellectual level. It's an enormous valuable distinction that has brought us modernity, but it's static and when applied as existence's fundament it falters. I have spoken about the increasing neural (brain) capacity that enabled creatures to store experience as RAM and retrieve it in "cache memory" to manipulate it through logical "gates" - without language of course. The point is that biology - animals - did not (still don't ) know that this (what intellect calls) "mental" or "abstract". With Homo Sapiens' big brain and the social tool - language - the "symbols" - that with biology were images or smell, taste - became words and the manipulation enhanced a thousandfold. But still not recognized as "taking place in mind", "being mental" or any such. I don't mean that ancient people went about as in dreams (when you don't know you're dreaming). They surely knew the "practical" sides of the S/O but the bulkhead between inner and outer (the SOM) was not yet in place. I know you hate this "approach" but you asked for it. > John had asked you to distinguish "intellect" from "experience", apart > from the assumption that humans have intellect whereas animals exhibit > intelligence "to a lesser or greater extent." (He also seems to > believe intellect has a "social origin".) In your response, you > quoted your own earlier statement: > > "Patterns objectified for analytical thinking". That sounds like an > > OK definition of intellect. > Well, if objectifying patterns is what the intellect does, then it is > part of the thinking process usually regarded as "mind or cognitive" > activity. Similarly, mind is the locus of experience, sensations, and > self-awareness. If there are no subjects, I assume you consider > conscious awarenesss to be an electro-chemical phenomenon of the > neuro-physical system. In that case, you are postulating "pure > objectivism". Isn't that as fallacious as S/O reality or "pure > subjectivism" in Pirsig's book? I knew the moment I gave in to any other definition of intellect than my own I was on thin ice. So forget it > If possible, I'd appreciate an explanation in epistemological rather > than evolutionary terms. Sorry, but "the moment one gives in to epistemology" - to knowledge - one is at intellect's-as SOM's mercy. Bodvar 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/
