[Horse] OK - I was being sarcastic and apologise if you or anyone else took offense.
[Arlo] No worries, Horse. I am just weary from the inevitable distorations of what I write. No matter how many times I get involved in this discussion, the end is always the same "Arlo denies the self, loves Pol Pot, and wants to toss people into gulags". [Horse] But my point was a bit more serious. We've been down the individual vs. collective road many times and so far it's gotten pretty much nowhere so I'm trying to introduce a different point of view with the hope of avoiding the usual arguments and maybe getting some agreement. Although I'm not holding my breath until it happens. [Arlo] Here, too, you seem to imply that I support a "side" in this "epic battle". I, too, think the whole "individual v. collective" is nonsense. Like choosing between night and day. Instead, I argue that these are simply co-constructs of a dance between a biological agent's bodily-kinesthetic experience and the Mythos, or collective consciousness. [Horse] I agree, but still we need to find some sort of common ground. [Arlo] I think I am on common ground. We DO have proprietary experience. There IS a collective consciousness. And the "Self" arises from the interplay of the two. [Horse] OK - so to re-cap we have a particular type of awareness/consciousness and a shared body of ideas. Agreed? [Arlo] Not so simply. What we have is a particular type of bodily-kinesthetic experience. This is the "awareness" we would possess growing up on a deserted island. But this is not the "Self", which is often what we mean when we talk about "awareness/consciousness". In short, there is a triad, not a duality. There is not man-over-here and knowledge-over-there. We are not apart from our "shared body of ideas", we ARE our "shared body of ideas". [Horse] Here's where the idea of collective knowledge comes in useful. The way that I'm suggesting knowledge is gained and transmitted has both a static and dynamic element within the different levels. An individual, as Platt refers to it, shares knowledge at, certainly, 3 and possibly 4 levels. However, at each level it is expressed qualitatively differently. Biological knowledge, social knowledge and intellectual knowledge are, obviously, related to the levels within which they live. But they are only part of their overall respective levels. [Arlo] The "individual", as Platt refers to it, does not "share" knowledge, it IS knowledge. Otherwise you are left with what Pirsig refers to as a "little homunculus" that sits behind our eyes and interacts with external knowledge. [Horse] Lets be real here. If you stick a baby alone on an island it's dead in a week so obviously would have no self. [Arlo] Well, sure. Its a hypothetical to make a point. [Horse] A baby can gain biological knowledge and does when it's vaccinated or catches a cold or similar. [Arlo] To disambiguate, this is solely what a baby on a deserted island would have. But as soon as you place that baby in a social environment, with the coos and sounds and faces and voices of others, that baby is also experiencing social patterns. [Horse] When it grows up and interacts with others it gains social knowledge such as how to behave in certain situations. [Arlo] It doesn't "gain" social knowledge, the "self" emerges when the babies "biological experience" intertwines with the social patterns it experiences. Thus it "becomes", it does not "gain". [Horse] At a later stage it gains intellectual knowledge by discussion and other means. [Arlo] Again, I'll have to disagree. It does not "gain" knowledge, it constructs knowledge dialogically, and in doing so "becomes" something new. I keep emphasizing this because I think its falling prey to another empty dichotomy to posit some external homunculus sitting back apart from what is interacts with. Indeed, this is simply another face of the S/O divide. [Horse] All of these precesses have both static and dynamic elements. The problem here is that we're trying to relate all these different types of knowledge to humans which is a complete non-starter. Biological knowledge, social knowledge and intellectual knowledge have far wider implications than just their relationship to humans. [Arlo] Agreed. But, the ability of the "self" to respond Dynamically (on the intellectual level, for example) arises from the interjoining of static bodily-kinesthetic experience as it assimilates static social and intellectual patterns. Thus the "self" is BOTH Dynamic AND static, emboding the yin-yang loop of this tension. It is NOT an external Dynamic agent that interacts with static knowledge apart from itself. Again that is just S/O illusion. [Horse] This is where the politically slanted arguments generally start. Can we say for the moment that intellectual knowledge is a subset of intellectual patterns of value (IntPovs), just as social and biological knowledge are subsets of social and intellectual patterns of value. [Arlo] I don't see anything to disagree with here. [Horse] They all arise in different ways according to the level they exist within. [Arlo] Agree. But the process by which they arise is similar. That is, collective activity on a lower-level creates "individual" patterns on a higher level. These "individual" patterns then, in turn, collectivize which gives rise to yet other "individual" patterns on higher levels. Seen this way, whether something is an "individual" pattern or a "collective" pattern is simply a matter of focus. [Horse] Not all IntPovs are shared or shareable... [Arlo] What would an example of a intellectual pattern of value that is not shareable? [Horse] ... but intellectual knowledge is shareable - same with social/biological patterns and knowledge - and thus can be considered collective. [Arlo] Yes, here is where I think our major disagreement is evident. In your words I still see some removed-observer sharing knowledge that is apart from her/him. They collective consciousness is not apart from us, it is a part of us. Collective "knowledge" is not apart from us, it IS us. [Horse] I just don't think that the term collective consciousness is particularly useful... [Arlo] I think this is because you externalize it, while I see it as fundamentally US. Our "selves" are every bit as much the knowledge it assimilates as it is the bodily-experiences unique to us as embodied beings. [Horse] Consciousness and knowledge have a relationship within the intellectual level but are not the same thing. [Arlo] Yes, they are, considering that "consciousness" also includes the unique experiences of our bodily-kinesthetic being. [Horse] So let's get rid of the causes of the ridiculous mass debate and look at the whole thing from a different perspective. An MoQ perspective would be quite nice. [Arlo] I think this is what I do. [Arlo previously] Bottom line, its a dance, not a war. [Horse] Care to have the last one with me! :) [Arlo] Anytime. 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/
