Hi Steve, > Hi John, Ron, Mary, all, > > I think intellectual quality is is like every other sort of quality, > isn't it? It is just the usual undefined betterness of Quality. When > we say an idea is good we mean "good" in the same way we do when we > say a chocolate cake is good. What distinguishes intellectual quality > from other sorts of quality is only the sorts of patterns we are > referring to with this general undefined betterness. Intellectual > patterns are patterns of manipulations of symbols. What emerged in the > evolution of the intellectual level was not a new Quality but a new > sort of way of having quality. > > What makes one pattern of manipulation better than another? We can > only say after the fact by inferring from the sorts of patterns which > have risen to the top as recognized for their high quality. Ones that > cohere with out other high quality patterns of symbol manipulation are > generally seen as good as are ones which follow the laws of logic > (which is again a sort of coherence with other patterns deemed to be > of high quality). Simple explanations are favored over complex ones. > Ones which explain a broad range of experience are favored over ones > which only explain a narrow range of experience. We favor dynamic ones > that say something new, yet not so new as to be incoherent with our > existing patterns. Some intellectual patterns such as a Beethoven > symphony are generally thought of as good, but we still haven't come > up with ways of describing what is good about them since coherence, > logic, and parsimony don't seem to fit (though musicologists can come > up with other ways of describing their quality). > > Notice that nowhere in here did I need to appeal to a metaphysical > subject-object dichotomy.
[Mary Replies] Ummm... better/worse, rising to the top/sinking to the bottom, broad/narrow, new/not so new, musicology? Any subjects/objects in that list? Distinguishing things which are > ontologically objective from those which are ontologically subjective > is only one particular intellectual practice. [Mary Replies] It is THE intellectual practice. Can't escape it. It is far from the only > one. For Mary, in case I've sounded too highbrow, I'll close by saying > the SOL is just dumb.. [Mary Replies] Uhhh, cool, dude! Gotta run. SouthPark starts in a few. 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/md/archives.html
