hello everyone
DECEMBER'S TOPIC: BRAIN, MIND AND INTELLECT
In chapter 12 of Lila, R. M. Pirsig writes:
‘The mind-matter paradoxes seem to exist because the connecting links
between
these two levels of value patterns have been disregarded. Two terms are
missing: biology and society. Mental patterns do not originate out of
inorganic nature. They originate out of society, which originates out of
biology, which originates out of inorganic nature. And, as anthropologists
know so well, what a mind thinks is as dominated by social patterns as
social
patterns are dominated by biological patterns are dominated by inorganic
patterns.
There is no direct scientific connection between mind and matter.
As the atomic physicist, Niels Bohr, said, "We are suspended in language."
Our intellectual description of nature is always culturally derived.’
Roger writes:
Brains, minds and intellectual patterns……. How are these related to each
other
and to society? What defines and distinguishes an intellectual pattern and
gives it its lofty perch atop the static patterns of value?
Glove writes:
Mentality of Apes
Wolfgang Köhler, better known for his Gesalt Psychology, studied the
mentality and intelligence of apes from 1913 to 1917 at the Anthropoid
Station in Tenerife. in "The Mentality of Apes" he relates many instances of
controlled learning experiences by chimpanzees, one of which involved the
monkey being put in a two-level cage with a piece of fruit just out of reach
outside the cage.
the fruit is on a ramp that goes down to the lower
level and to get the fruit, the monkey must learn to use a one meter stick,
tied by a
string to the outside of the cage, to push the fruit down the ramp, away
from the monkey, towards the lower level where
there is a small opening in the cage at the bottom. and then go to the lower
level and retrieve the fruit.
Köhler observed a particularly intelligent male, Sultan, first try and reach
the fruit with his arm, then pick up the stick and pull the fruit toward
himself with the stick, and try and reach it with his hand. but the hole in
the mesh was too high up for him to successfully grab the fruit from that
location.
Sultan then took the stick and pushed the fruit sideways away from himself
to the other hole on the lower level, scampered around and reached through
and successfully retrieved the fruit. Köhler wrote:
"We thus have the case...that an act in itself meaningless, even
disadvantageous, becomes intelligent in connexion with another, but only
then (Go later to the second place and reach objective from there). In fact,
the whole taken together constitutes the only possible solution.
The first part of the experiment (a) pushing away from the animal to a
second place, cannot arise intelligently ALONE. It is often more
disadvantageous than useful; part (b) however, (Going to the second place
and seizing the object) does not yet come into consideration.
Is it conceivable that (a b) spring from the situation intelligently
surveyed by the animal (or man) as one COMPLETE AND UNITARY plan of action?
I see no other way, if the beginning of the procedure contains no trace of a
solution, but seems rather to prevent one, and so cannot arise as a isolated
part. Actually a whole is required to justify, as it were, its "parts"--for
such procedure as described to be intelligently accomplished.
The theory of forms recognizes wholes which are something more than the
"sum of their parts": here a whole is required, which even stands in a
certain opposition to one of its "parts".
That seems peculiar; evidently this state of things would be crucial for any
theoretical attempt to understand the occurrence of intelligent solutions
physiologically." (Page 227-8, The Mentality of Apes, 1927)
now it seems to me that what Pirsig calls the Quality Event in the
Metaphysics of Quality is exactly what Köhler calls a "complete and unitary
plan of action". this is the essence of static latching. each Quality Event
contains the beginning and ending of itself when conceived of.
is the conception of a Quality Event the intellect at work? there is
certainly much more involved that simply the intellect, in my opinion, for
without the inorganic and biological levels, consciousness would not arise
in the first place. and the interaction of the life form with its
environment seems as if it belongs to the social level entirely. but is it
the intellect that "conceives" the Quality Event before it occurs? and how
does it do that?
somehow Mind (via intellect?) must conceive of the Quality Event BEFORE it
occurs...there is no other way to explain the occurrence of the Quality
Event. and this fact renders our linear notion of time useless. it simply
doesnt make logical sense but there is no other way to look at it. and this
is a major source of confusion which becomes much more clear when notions of
before and after are dropped.
before and after are moot points to the Quality Event, much like the only
data that mattered in Bohrs complementarity came out of the concluded
experiment. nothing before that experiment mattered and nothing after. that
is the essense of Quality Event, and that is the essence of our awareness.
our whole lives could be viewed as a Quality Event without beginning or
ending. it is meaningless to talk of either.
now i realize that there are those who would rather not discuss awareness at
all. yet i cannot see any way around that discussion. at the heart of the
Metaphysics of Quality lies the Quality Event, which is awareness itself.
without that, this universe that constitutes our reality would no longer
exist.
as Wolfgang Köhler says: "...evidently this state of things would be crucial
for any
theoretical attempt to understand the occurrence of intelligent solutions
physiologically."
best wishes
glove
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