dave and all, On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 6:23 PM, david buchanan <[email protected]>wrote:
> > dmb says: > The infant is used as an example of non-conceputal experience or pure > experience used by both Pirsig and James. You know, because babies don't > have a concept of their mother's breast even though they experience it > directly. John: A group of sensations are conceptualized. All the babies I've had (5), had an instinctual conception of nipples, which they grasp - literally - from birth. I admit freely that they do not intellectualize at all, how to obtain nippleness, but they certainly grasp the concept! dmb: > They're not motivated by the idea of hunger and they don't plan meals but > they experience hunger all the same. John: Agree. Good examples of the difference between intellectualization and conceptualization. dmb: > There are perceptions and feelings and reactions going on of course. > Infants are far from inert. But concepts come with the acquisition of > language. John: Here is where we need clarification, I think. When I say "language", I don't mean english words necessarily. I'm talking about "language" in the same sense as a computer language - which can be a high-order language or a low-order language. The very simple language of the non-intellectual infant eventually becomes a higher order language of the adult. But all life, from the simplest to the most complex beings, have running through it at least the "language" of the dna molecule. This, as I've said before, is what I mean by "language" and why I think it runs all the way down. The bits of meanings which make up the simplest language of life, are the simplest concepts possible, without which, there is no existant. dmb: > Some researches push this absence of thinking pretty far, chronologically > speaking. I heard one psychologist recently who claimed that we don't really > doing any "thinking", properly speaking, until we can talk. It seems to me > that this very much supports the thesis of psychological nominalism, which > says thinking is just inward talking. > > John: My understanding of psychological nominalism is a bit different. I understand it to be the stance that there are no universals but that all conceptualization is created out of a psychological experience of sensation. But I realize I'm on shaky ground here with the technicalities of philosophic distinctions. dmb: > If memory serves, John replied to that example by claiming that infants DO > have ideas. As far as I know, there isn't a psychologist in the world who > believes that. > > John: I believe my idea of idea was hastily formed before I grasped "concept". Now I'd say "idea" is awareness of a concept - and thus contains the germ of intellectualization. Often it is this way in philosophy, an onward refinement of definitions. dmb: > I'm tempted to say that it depends on how you define "concepts" and > "experience". But I think those words, and words like them, are referring to > actual phenomena. John: Well I do agree that it depends on how you define those "actual phenomena". For even actual phenomena must be first conceptualized out of experience in order for them to have meaningful existence. dmb: > Terms like "pure experience" are abstractions or generalizations that can > refer to a wide range of actual situations with actual babies or actual Zen > monks. He's talking about something athletes and artists talk about all the > time. Brain scientists have been documenting this stuff too. Go check out > some reviews of Jonah Lehrer's "How We Decide". It opens with a fairly > ordinary example of somebody who uses this pre-conceptual awareness to make > millions of dollars a year as an NFL quarterback. You know, just in case you > wanna know the cash value. > > John: Well, not much value to me! I'm way past the age of quarterbacking. But the I'd say the different conceptualizations of "reciever" and "rusher" are used in some kind of non-intellectual process in a QB's head. Intellect isn't needed, but conceptualization is, just to be able to get the ball down the field. Hike! John 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
