Hello Arlo, On Aug 3, 2011, at 1:20 PM, Arlo Bensinger wrote:
> [Marsha] > I agree that the concept of 'thinking' is an intellectual pattern. But I > thought it was stated, somewhere, that the activity of thinking indicated the > intellectual level. > > [Arlo] > How would you define "thinking"? Or, what "activity" would you witness and > point to and say "that's 'thinking'"? What has to occur to differentiate, in > your opinion, "thinking" from "not thinking"? Marsha: My point was that I thought someone (maybe Dan, maybe someone else) had stated that the Intellectual level was thinking. > As for a cultural, common use, I think we tend to use the term loosely to > refer to some degree of information processing embedded in some bio-neural > mass. It's outside the cultural norm, for example, to use "thinking" to > describe the activity of the sun, or a computer, or a tree. If I say, "that > tree is thinking about the next rainfall", would that make sense (within the > cultural use of the term)? What evidence would I point to in a tree to > differentiate a "thinking" from a "non-thinking" state? > > Granted, there is an inherent reductionism in defining "thinking" as the > firing of neurons in a brain mass, but this tends to be the evidence we look > for to support our shared cultural understanding of the term. Interestingly, > if we equate "thinking" in some way with neural activity, we may have to > grant that "computers think", since a similar "firing" of nodes occurs within > computer processors when it processes information. > > For example, if I ask the person sitting next to me "what is two plus two?" > and he responds "four", is that evidence of "thinking"? If so, why would I > not say my calculator was "thinking" as well when it gives me the same answer? > > I've read some post-Peircian work that speculates that abduction (or > hypothetical inference, which ties into Pirsig's works) may be a > differentiator between human and machine information processing in > determining "thinking". So "thinking" isn't JUST the processing of > information, or inducing or deducing, or making input-output decisions, but > rests on the ability of the "thinker" to abduce, or hypothesize, or (maybe > too simplistically) the generation of something "new". > > What do you think? Marsha: I have the 'activity of thinking' connected to language, which would be but one type of mental fabrication within consciousness. That would be as' talking to another person' (an external experience), or 'talking to oneself' (an internal experience). There are all types of mental experiences that fall outside of this definition. Science of Mind and Philosophy of Mind are very active fields right now, with many diverse opinions. At the moment, I know very little of the current thought on the subject. Within the MoQ, I think 'the activity of thinking' included within both the social and intellectual levels. Marsha ___ 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
