From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Sun Oct 12 2003 - 17:49:06 BST
Hi DMB
This is fine. It is certainly clear that a certain new type of behaviour
occurs
when people become able to manipulate symbols, this becomes increasingly
abstract, it opens up reality for people in amazing ways in terms of a
more complex and richer future, full of more and more possibilities, and in
terms
of creating a story about the past and understanding why certain
possibilities do
not exist for us. This can be told in terms of the SQ we have to live with
and the
DQ possibilities that now lie before us. But prior to symbol manipulation
there
has been a lot if intelligent activity that has not used symbols. Especially
when
you realise that all the perceptual contents of our experience have
many-language
like qualities, beginning with the ability to differentiate between aspects
of our
experience, e.g. what is or is not food. Non-intellectual tigers can do
this.
If we assume that man had rituals before language, then quite complex forms
of differentiation could occur, although we can talk about full symbolic
abstaction
only with the full emergence of langauge and hand-in-hand with this the
individual.
Regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Buchanan" <DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2003 9:10 PM
Subject: RE: MD Intellectual level - New letter from Pirsig
> Mati, Morey, Turner and all MOQers:
>
> David Morey asked:
> Can ritual exist without language?
> Could humans copy each other's actions
> visually and form rituals? If so is ritual a form of intelligence?
> Is ritual the manipulation of the visual language?
>
> dmb says:
> I'm not exactly sure what you're getting at with these questions. But if
we
> want to draw a line between the social and intellectual levels, and I
think
> we HAVE TO do so if we want a proper definition of the intellect, then I
> think its worth pointing out that language and ritual are not
intellectual.
> Yes, there is certainly great intelligence at the social level, but
rituals
> and language don't involve the same kind of independent symbol
manipulation.
> Its not very hard to see the difference because we're not just talking
about
> some mysterious pre-historic rites, but a level of ourselves that we know
> every day...
>
> Pirsig in the recent letter:
> Handshaking, ballroom dancing, raising one's right hand to
> take an oath, tipping one's hat to the ladies, saying "Gesundheit!"
> after a sneeze-there are trillions of social customs that have no
> intellectual component.
>
> dmb continues:
> Notice how these everyday rituals each involve a physical gesture? Notice
> how each of them is largely a matter of proper behavior rather than self
> expression or anything else? We could say the same about the more formal
and
> overtly religious or civil rituals of our time too. I point this out
because
> there is something about the social level that seems to be closer to the
> biological level. We feel it in our bodies. We express it in gestures and
> stances and such. We can't dance with our brains; the intellect just can't
> feel the beat like the hips can, you know?
>
> It might be helpful to point out that things such as
> song/dance/ritual/language and story telling and religion certainly are
> distinctly different things in our modern world, but once upon a time all
of
> this and more was part of a single complex. Once uopn a time these things
> were not yet differentiated from each other and the whole thing was
related
> to with a different kind of consciousness. Not that we should find it
> strange and ancient, because we still shake hands and bless sneezers. (But
> one should avoid shaking hands with recent sneezers.)
>
> Paul Turner said:
> ...the conscious manipulation of symbols by individuals
> doesn't seem to have occurred until around the time of Odyssey. Until
> recently I, for one, did not appreciate the massive change in human
> behaviour that seems to have occurred around this time.
>
> dmb says:
> You're not the only one. There are tons of misconceptions about this
> transition period, even for those who are fascinated by the ancient and
> pre-historic worlds. But there is no avoiding the conclusion that the
> difference between the social and intellectual levels is easier to see for
a
> person who knows something about that period. And I think that even if
> Pirsig's ideas were completely excluded from the discussion, a person who
> learned lots about the period would conclude that something rather
> astonishing happened around that time...
>
> Pirsig in the recent letter:
> Just when the evolution of the intellectual level from the social level
> took place in history can only be speculated on. I certainly wasn't
> there when it happened. ...Maybe the early Greek philosophers. Who
> knows? But if one studies the early books of the Bible or if one studies
> the sayings of primitive tribes today, the intellectual level is
> conspicuously absent. The world is ruled by Gods who follow social and
> biological patterns and nothing else.
>
> dmb says:
> I was there. It happened on a Tuesday. But seriously, it seems we can
almost
> draw a fuzzy line even if we can't pin point the exact moment. Its hard to
> imagine how such a thing could happen in a moment or that anybody at the
> time realized what was being let loose in the world. But if the Egyptians
> were not but the early Greek philosophers were and if the early books of
the
> Bible were not, and the later ones were... the time frame gets narrowed
down
> to something we can get a handle on. But this historical approach is only
> one way to get at it, one way to picture the shift from social to
> intellectual. There is psychology, comparative religion, the social
sciences
> and my favorites - mythology. Jaynes' ideas seem to describe this same
> shift, but he's certainly not the only game in town.
>
> Maybe its worth repeating that the social level is not been consigned to
the
> dust heap. We can learn something about it by looking at pre-historic
> cultures and such, but that level still defines us to a very large extent.
> Its most of what we are.
>
> Thanks,
> dmb
>
>
>
>
>
>
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