Hi Platt
On 2010-09-17 18:01, [email protected] wrote:
[P]
Hold it right there. Pirsig makes it clear that all levels are dependent on the
levels below. Specifically he says culture provides each individual with a set
of "intellectual glasses" each uses to interpret experience with. So I question
your statement about intellectual patterns not being dependent on social
patterns.
Magnus:
Even if you take that person and move
it to the moon, it will still be able to think and manipulate thoughts
in his brain. So, the social patterns that those intellectual patterns
depend on, are not the social patterns of its former society, such as
church, school, yada yada. The intellectual patterns of the individual
human are build using what I call the universal stack, but this is not
recognized here very often. People seem to be content with the notion
that the intellectual patterns of a human *is* dependent on the social
patterns of the society, but if you really think about it, it's not the
case.
[P]
OK, but I've thought about it and Pirsig thought about it and many others have
thought about it and have agreed it's the case. There may be built-in-the-brain
assumptions about space and time such as Kant opined, but to divorce the
influence of social patterns on intellectual patterns puts the individual on
the moon at birth, a highly unlikely case.
Dependent. We seem to have very different opinions about the word. To
me, something depends on something else if and only if it can't exist
without that something else. To you, it seems to be something like:
"Something that can help something else into existence", but that is
another word, catalyst. Don't you think that would be a better word for
what you're describing as the relation between intellectual patterns and
society?
A few examples:
A biological pattern, take a cell, is dependent on its inorganic
patterns - the carbon, the water, the amino acids, etc. Take those away
and the cell - the biological pattern - is just as gone.
That is dependency.
A set of intellectual patterns, take a human, is dependent on all lower
levels - the carbon, water, etc. Take that away and the intellectual
patterns are also gone. It's also dependent on its biological patterns,
so if the human dies, the intellectual patterns are gone even though the
inorganic patterns remains intact.
That is also dependency.
Take the same person, which is supposedly dependent on the society in
which it lives, and remove it from that society. Will the intellectual
patterns vanish?
Not a chance! That is *not* dependency.
Pirsig, you and all others who claim it are just doing it because you
can't find the real dependency, which is the society of the human body
itself. The intellectual patterns of each human being depend on the
language of the nerve signals and synapses of the human brain. Take
*that* away and the intellectual patterns goes with it. You might even
be able to sustain the biological "life" of the rest of the body,
because that is not really dependent on neither the synapses nor the
intellectual patterns. But then, what you have a brain dead person.
Don't you see that it all makes sense? We have here a direct and
absolute dependency from intellectual to social through biological down
to inorganic.
[P]
I think I may be getting a glimmer of understanding you. Correct me if I'm
wrong.
1. Your reference to "underlying assumptions" is restricted to your three
stacks, Computer, Universal and Human. It doesn't mean, as I first thought,
that your system could reveal all the assumptions underlying a philosophical
point of view such as those underlying science.
Hmm... I wouldn't want to restrict myself to only three stacks. On the
other hand I wouldn't dare to claim it could reveal *all* underlying
assumptions.
2. The underlying assumption of your stacks is that all knowledge can be
divided into three parts -- things that happen in computers, things that happen
without human observation, and things that happen as interpreted by humans.
Nah, rather that the MoQ levels can be applied to those three stacks.
The levels contain different patterns in those three stacks.
3. Your stack system does not reveal its underlying assumption. It doesn't
appear anywhere in the stacks.
No, as I said, I didn't claim it would reveal all assumptions. The MoQ
is still the metaphysics. I don't claim to replace that.
Thanks for your continued patience. My ultimate question would be: "How is it
possible to exclude the human perspective from knowledge unless one is God?"
Knowledge? Well, I think we must back up one step here. We can't *know*
anything, I'd say. However, if we assume the MoQ, we *can* know all
these things without having to be some god.
Magnus
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