DMB, DT, All 5 Feb.
Ian (McLean) to David T.: > The MOQ states that the intellectual level "consists of the collection > and skilled manipulation of abstract, language-derived symbols that can > either have no corresponding particular experience or can, and which > behave according to rules of their own." When you have a culture > without a written language, this is a hard standard to achieve. Don't > get defensive about a perceived slight which feels like culture > relativism. I have no doubt that the genius(es) who built Stonehenge > qualify, as would geniuses from the Native American population who had > no way to record their thoughts. In fact, if you read my previous post > [and ZAMM, and Lila], you'll have a hard time prosecuting Pirsig (and > Sidis) for valuing Native American thinking as anything other than > world-class. The Greeks may have invented the jury trial and elections, > but Pirsig and Sidis credit Indians with a healthy percentage of the > political concept of democracy. I like the definition of the fourth > level and belie ve it makes a worthy border. The Bible makes a good > test case. This is getting ridiculous. Ian using the fallacious "skilled manipulation" intellect to refute DT's even more fallacious "intellect". DMB: > I think that's right. As Pirsig puts it, it's not that intellectual > patterns are truer in any absolute sense, whatever that means, it's > just that intellectual patterns are more dynamic, more flexible and, > to the extent that they're empirically based, they're > self-correcting. Even more nonsense. Has this turned into a "silly thinking" (Monty Python) competition? Neither DaveT's "Intelligence-intellect" nor Ian's "manipulation of symbols-intellect" (which is mere language) is correct. As Matt Kundert shows in his essay "Excavating SOM" the basis of the intellectual LEVEL is the subject/object distinction. Please snap out of your compulsive thinking that the term "intellect" means a mental prowess, in the MOQ it is a STATIC Q-LEVEL, There was no intellect before the level!. DMB: > Apparently, David has the idea that intellectual means "smart" and > social means "dumb". Apparently DMB has the capacity of not reading posts, DT and I at least agreed on INTELLIGENCE being a result of the biological (big) brain which hasn't increased since Homo Sapiens. My contention is that this prowess first assisted biological survival, then social value sat itself in the intelligence chair then intellect kicked society from the chair and placed itself in front of the computer screen. A result of this was that thinking itself - intelligence - became "intellect" seen from the 4th level, but now the MOQ is starting to demand "computer time" and from its view intellect is no longer thinking itself, rather subject/object-thinking. The rest of DMB's post I omit for sheer boredom. 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/
