Bo, 3WD, Cory and all, I will continue my last post, trying to show that SOM is not the only possible expression of q-intellect, yet predominant. But firstly, for who is interested, some answers for Bo and 3WDave, and a short comment on Cory's post. --------------------------- on lunedi 12 giugno 2000 Bo wrote: > In your definitions build-up (worth an Imanuel Kant) you reached > this stage: > > > Part A - (My) Definition of level > > > We must always remember that when we refer to a "level", this is > > primarily a level of (human) experience. We can experience everything > > as part of every level. Bo explained it very well last 19 January > > talking about the Leonardo's Monna Lisa: it can be seen Inorganic, > > Biological, Social or Intellectual depending on the "Focus" of the > > observer. This leads me to consider every "thing" (even myself) an > > individual, that is an infinite mix of patterns of every level. > > I am glad that the Mona Lisa example went home so well, but the > "human experience" grates my Q-nerves a bit. Bo, on martedi 2 maggio 2000 you wrote: > According to my MOQ all > static levels are levels of experience, > and my sense of concistency > tells me that Q-intellect can't be a leap > into this enlightened state > intellect pompously has allotted itself. > Q-intellect is merely another > static experience. The only difference seems to be the term "human" (but who else is experiencing? ) and in fact I had bracketed that term. You write "q-nerves" to mean your "human" reaction to my words. My fault is maybe that I'm not so used to put a "q-" before every word... Is it better if I write: " levels of q-human experience", or do you prefer "levels of q-human q-experience" ? :-) I'm just trying to mean that the MOQ does not deny the existence (and consequently the value) of subjects and objects, just tells that they both arise from quality events, and are made of static quality. > Conclusion: I see no particular purpose in saying that the levels are > of human experience. Even to counter it by asking what is not > human only brings one deeper into the som-mire. 'Human' in > moqian at most indicates Q-intellect, while on the social, biological > and inorganic plane the experience is common to all existence. In my last post you find these words: "... there's no accordance between patterns as [...] models of SQ and [...] intellectual models to catalogue reality. Our intelligence is there to interpret these patterns of reality, but the products of our intelligence can't match exactly such a complexity. [...] Mistakes of senses , memory of past perceptions, cultural lenses, language, prejudices... All these static filters are there at the same time to help and condition the intellectual pattern codification." Here I call "static filters" the same static patterns the q-human being is composed by. I don't agree with your " 'Human' in moqian at most indicates Q-intellect": what is after all this q-human being, who is able to experience reality and create intellectual static patterns to explain and communicate this experience? Just a sum of static patterns: my black eyes sensing reality have been modeled on the same biological pattern on which have been modeled my mother's black eyes; my cultural lenses filtering my sensations are modeled according to many cultural static patterns I inherited from my parents, my teachers, my friends, my readings; the language I use to code and communicate my interpretations of reality is a social static pattern that is part of this "Me". In conclusion I mean that it's not so bad to talk about a "subjective" experience if it's clear that this subject is not a lonely awareness in a world of objects, at the contrary it's a stratified complexity of the same static qualities that are compounding at the same time all "q-subjects" and "q-objects". ---------------------------------------------------- On mercoledi 14 giugno 3WDave wrote: > On your cat being an intellectual pattern. > > I do not suggest that "all patterns are intellectual patterns" or that nothing exists or is real but > intellectual patterns. But, without the intellect to: > > "arrange, define, duplicate, label, list, memorize, name, order, recognize, relate, recall, repeat, [.....] > select, support, value, evaluate" > > no "pattern" for those values that you call "cat " > exists, even though your cat can, and quite nicely > will, live on without all these distinctions. How can you explain this strange property of cats to generate always and only cats? Never a dog, a shell, a tree? Evidently there's an aggregation of static biological patterns there outside, which conditions the properties of every biological individuals we call "cats". Our interpretations of that are intellectual patterns that are not able to match exactly the biological pattern (may I call it "catness"?). If you tell that I can't be sure of the "real" existence of such a biological pattern, I ask you for a different explanation. > (technology) > > Only recently technology (as Information Technology) has > > become to support also our intellectual > > activities (as help for memory and communication), but the > > social goal is however predominant. > > Less recently but still recent, Umberto Eco in "The Return of the > Middle Ages" suggested: > > "We are still living under the banner of medieval technology. > For instance, eyeglasses were a > medieval invention... At that time, an intellectual who became > farsighted at the age of forty (bear > in mind the difficulty of reading unreadable manuscripts by > torchlight in dark rooms beneath shadowy > vaults) was unable to produce actively after the age of fifty. > With the introduction of eyeglasses > intellectual productivety increased enormously and the following > centuries could better exploit > these human resources." > > hmmm ... Is it time to get the mace out of the closet and mow the lists? Smart. But IMHO eyeglasses are not very intellectual. You see, every invention help people in their activities. I could also say that the invention of wheel helped people to exchange information as they became able to travel quickly during an age when the only chance to communicate was orally, face to face. Eyeglasses have primarily a biological goal as they enforce my sight. Then you can find also a social goal if you wear them driving your car, or an intellectual goal if you need them to read a book. Again, it depends on the "focus" of the observer (especially in this occasion! :-). When I talk about Information Technology I mean something else: a technology able to make my intellectual patterns independent by my biological or social presence (in DMB words: to TRASCEND the social).Probably the very first form of Information Technology has been the Gutemberg's press; today we have telecommunications, computers and the net. I can create new intellectual patterns and make them circulate even without me. I will die only as individual, my intellectual self in some way will survive after me. However the main goal of IT is still social, I guess. Microsoft and IBM are not philosophical schools. The main reason of such a quick development of the Net is the "New Economy", not a "New Intelligence". I notice that we often tend to "classify" patterns without considering a lot the goal of their creation. According to my definition of intellectual pattern and intelligence, I argue that our society, which arose for biological purposes, has developed thanks to intelligence and consequently thanks to intellectual patterns. There's no contradiction saying that many intellectual patterns have been created for biological or social purposes. In this case they are just "tools" in the hand of society. --------------------------------- Goals. The post Cory has sent last sun day has something to say about it. on domenica 11 giugno 2000 Cory Ramage wrote: > I sit. Here at this window I can watch the storms roll in over the valley; [...] > Can you tell me, anyone, where does such sorrow come from? Was it always > there deep inside of me, waiting to surface? Elephants weep, they say, but > surely if they felt such exquisite sorrow as we they would all fling > themselves into tar pits and off cliffs rather than face such anguish and > there would be no more elephants to weep, to bother the universe with tears > of uselessness. What keeps us from doing the same? I honestly can't say. > > I wonder. Sometimes it seems as if my life never really happened at all. > There are no statues of me anywhere and no one seems to know my name. > What I know, no one else cares to know, or so it seems. > I reach out and no one is close to me, yet were they ever? > Did I ever let them get close to me? This sorrow, this anguish is the terrible damnation of who has the force to sit down, sometimes, and watch... If we look back at our past hopes we see a lot of lost occasions. And as the future path is getting everyday shorter our intelligence is tormented for lack of new goals. So we find ourselves short of visions, short of breath, short of forces and will. Martin Heidegger talked about anguish. The anguish for our inevitable end gives value to our existence. The anguish for this certainty (the only certainty, the only equal justice that the Italian dramatist Eduardo De Filippo called "La Livella" , the leveler ) is also our input to create, to survive after our biological death. To live morally, to bequeath good remembers. But inevitably when you have the force to sit down and watch, you can find a lot of regrets. Is there a possible way out? Well, a lot of people run, run and run, and never sit down. Many probably will die and will never allow themselves a minute to watch. Anguish can be terrible, but isn't ignorance worse? -------------------------------- And now, finally, the beloved Greeks. My last post ended with: "But attention! IMO the scientific view is not the whole q-intellect [...]. John Wooden Leg was completely on another position, and I think we can find different positions also in our western culture: now it's late, but next time I will tell you a story about the Greeks." The Greeks, the so called (by Bo) "emergence of intellectual level". If I understand well the Bo's point, the Greek topic in ZAMM, the clash between the Sophists and the Platonic/Aristotelian absolute, is the first example of the social / intellectual struggle. The Sophists represented the society, while Plato and Aristotle, with their philosophies, founded the SOM worldview, that is, in Bo's opinion, the whole Q-Intellect. But if we claim that this was the emergence of the intellectual level, what aspect of q-intellect was emerging? According to my description of intellectual level, this level is made of: Intellectual patterns (Coded and shareable interpretations of reality); Public opinion as environment; Discussions as behavior (attempting to conquer the public opinion). And we all know that the intellectual era really begun during the twentieth century. Many pre-Socratic philosophers tried in the period between the 700 and the 500 b.c. a lot of intellectual explanations of reality. Of course many of these interpretations are childish, if seen from our point of view, but it's quite a miracle that they were able to theorize the atom, or describe a great number of geometric theorems. This is enough for me to say that intellectual patterns were already existing. But, before the Athens of the fifth century B.C., where the philosophies were discussed? Is it possible to talk about a public opinion? At that time the only sustenance for philosophers was to be helped by some tyrant. And the school were not very democratic. For example, it's said about Pitagoras he used to begin every lesson with this sentence: "For this air which I respire, for this water which I drink, I will not bear any objection about what I'm going to say"; his students were admitted to his presence only after five years of studies; it was severely forbidden to communicate outside the secrets of the school. Then what happened in Athens? It was possible to be defended by advocates in trials. It was possible to became leader of the city. It was possible to discuss freely own ideas in public. In one word, the first form of Democracy. So many philosophers begun the profession of advocates to sustain their lives. IMHO at that times money was not the same almost immoral social pattern of today: at the contrary free economy was the latest dynamic social improvement. For the very first time Thought wasn't a tool in the hand of tyrants. When Plato and Aristotle presented these philosophers, known as Sophists, as paladins of relativism and bad thinkers who sold their intelligence for money, were false and unfair. Aristotle was the tutor of Alexandros, and I think this service was not free.... At the contrary, the Platonic and Aristotelian schools were more similar to the Pitagorian. In fact, the famous sentence "Autos efe" (Ipse dixit), formerly used referring to Pitagoras, was shifted to refer to Aristotle. And also the idea of an absolute true reality, the Platonic Idea, or the Aristotelian Essence, were more similar to many past beliefs (the Number of Pitagoras, the Oneness of Parmenides and so on... ). Sadly this age lasted less then one century, but in such a short time happened the biggest intellectual development of the story. Athens lost the war against Spartans, then came the Macedonians and the Romans, but, maybe it's the only case in the history, no one presented the loser as the "evil". At the contrary, every winner was contaminated by the culture of Athens. One important thing went lost: democracy. In this situation, only the schools of absolute were allowed to go on, while every form of free thinking was of course deterred. One lesson remains: in that short period, the birth of a public opinion and of a free circulation of ideas conditioned the development of a great number of diverse competing schools of thought. That period represents IMO the birth of another necessary piece for the intellectual puzzle: the intellectual environment. The Sophists were not the expression of q-society fighting against the Platonic/Aristotelian q-intellect. At the contrary they were IMHO carrying an evolved form of intellect, but they had few time: it was too soon for the beginning of the intellectual era. The reason of this story, which you know very well, is to show that also in our western culture we can find diverse forms of intellectual patterns. The idea of the absolute truth, which is the basis of SOM, is predominant, but not the only one. (When they will invent the time machine, I will go back straight there). ---------------------- tks Marco. ___________________________________________________________ Attiva la tua Email gratuita al sito: http://www.infinito.it MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
