BO ANSWERS DONNY AND QUOTES A MAGAZINE ARTICLE THAT MAY
INTEREST XCTO AND PERHAPS GLOVE (MENTALITY OF APES)
Fri, 4 Dec 1998 Donald T Palmgren wrote:........
> What I would like to add to this is that Intellectual value
> rhythms manafest out of social moral rhythms and so always have a social
> ellement to them (ie. Living species are made up of "matter"; societies
> are made from an organic species; and intellctual "truth" is made from
> society.)
You Donny, Xcto and I have laboured heavily over the
intellect-out-of-society issue, and I think we have reached
agreement. Particularly did I like your "equation" of social elements
in Intellect, organic elements in society ...etc. Exactly!
> I stress that: (1) ONLY a society that has ideals (SocPoVs) suitable to
> intellectual morals will have IntPoVs. The *society* (as a collective)
> must hold that there is a better way to settle argumants than social
> statuss... that anyone can deduce and realize the -- objective -- truth
> regardless of what they're station may be.
.....ideals (SocPoVs) suitable to intellect morals.....? A most
unusual way of putting it. The values of a lower level does seldom -
nay never - suits the one on top. I would say that when society has
reached the IDEALS stage Intellect has already taken leave of the
(purely) social purpose. It's our old difference: your "society" way
too advanced for my liking.
An aside. I see from today's post that you wrestle with the
"society/culture" concepts. This is a most confusing aspect of the
English language - no better in Norwegian for that matter. "Society"
as an expression of MOQ's social value is freely interchanged with
the various communities, countries and cultures of this earth which
complicates things considerably. We must "come together" sometime and
try to work out a vocabulary.
> Here in the South we have a term (and parden my use of it) that
> still creeps around in our discourse: "trick niger." Until (basically)
> recently there was a great prejaduce that black people were basically
> dumber than white people.....snip
Your example reminds me of the trouble artificial intelligence raises
in a SOM context. Whatever the computer is capable of - or will be
capable of - it's a trick; it is not "conscious", it is just
mimicking the real human article. More on this when/if AI reemerges
in the discussion.
> Only since about WWI has it come to be held, popualerly, that
> there is an -objective- ellement to the truth -- that truth stands
> independent of race, creed, or income... such that, now, blacks, women,
> Native Americans, and everybody can be potential, suitable judges of
> truth. This is a SOCIAL value that must be in place in order for
> Intellectual rhythms to flower.....snip
You are right, but IMHO this is when Q-Intellect took over the
Western political scene, but there are other milestones: the American
Constitution, the French Revolution, Enlightenment..etc, until we
reach back to the Renaissance which was Q-Intellect awakening after
the Medieval hibernation. Still, its EMERGENCE as a value level in
its own right was the Greek experience. Its BIRTH however is way way
back, much as Xcto presented it in his message of ...?.
> Pirsig emphasizes the Greeks, but I think he's giving them too
> much credit. I think the Intelectual level is -- primarily -- the child
> of the Enlightenment philosophs (Voltare and Rousseau) and the
> philosopher/poloticians who put their ideas into effect (Jefferson,
> Franklin and Adams). Intellectual morality grew out of Western Europe and
> the collonies..........snip
> ....snip
> So, point #2 is: Intellectual value rhythms only arise among
> multiple persons (person = a social entity). Robinson Caruso on his
> island, building a hut and fire and snares to catch food... this is NOT an
> example of IntPoVs! Not only does IntPoVs not = mind, but it does not =
> reason/logic either. It must include this social ellement in it. My cat
> can emply reason/logic to a certain extent -- she can "figure something
> out."
Robinson Crusoe! My childhood hero not an example of IntPoVs?
Well, you may be right, but will perhaps agree with me
that he was the Enlightenment DREAM - the free-floating intellect
that would work regardless of ambient conditions.
> Now, before the spears start flying, I know that this is NOT
> exactly RMP's view. I've seen passages in LILA that clearly sugest IntPoVs
> are a kin to ego or mind or logic or your own picture of the world
> (contradicting my point #2) and toward the end of LILA he talks about
> non-Western IntPoVs, spicifically Native American IntPoVs (contradicting
> my point #1), and even says that "going mad" is nothing more than leaving
> Western IntPoVs for non-Western views (a "crazy person" is one w/
> unreasonable view who can't be persuaded to change those views no matter
> what kind of air-tite logic you argue w/). On the other hand, in a
> letter to Anthony, RMP *defined* the IntPoVs as the values of reason,
> clarity, comunicability and logical soundness (this would mean a crazy
> person has -no- IntPoVs) -- so, personaly, I don't think Pirsig is clear
> in his own head about this topic.
No need for spears. I agree that Pirsig is unclear on many points,
but how could he rewrite reality in detail not knowing if anyone
would understand the first thing of what he was talking about. My
excuse is that he tried desperately to make a footbridge from SOM- to
his MOQ universe. It's up to us to build a sturdier connection ----
and in the process perhaps tear down (parts of) his first rickety
structure (wow, big words).
The preferred (SOM) picture of madness is the foaming beast
in a straightjacket that the doctors will cure, but it is just as
often a person arguing very consistenly and logically, but starting
from a totally alien premise, this is why Pirsig calls psychiatry
"culture's immune system". (IMO "culture" = a cluster of communities
either Social- or Intellctual value dominated. As the West is
intellect-value dominated we have such an "immune system" as
psychiatry. A social-value dominated culture's "immune
system" is the regular Penal Code. [There's no psychiatry in Moslem
countries]). We - the LS - may easily be called "crazy" because we
accept the MOQ premises, but now that we are a group it is not so
easy :-)
> This is my view. It's BASED on RMP, but also influenced a lot by
> Van de Vate and Hegel and Erving Goffman. To me it seems a clearer
> picture... more useful, (perhaps) higher quality.
At this point - perhaps a little mal-apropos - I will cite a passage
from an article ("The Gift of the Gab" in "DISCOWER" (Nov 98) that I
think Xcto and Glove may find it relevant.
In their forthcoming book - Lingua ex Machina - they argue
that the ability to create symbols (signs that refer to
things) is potentially present in any animal that can
learn to interpret natural signs, such as a trail or
footprints. Syntax meanwhile emerges from the abstract
thought required for social life. In apes and some
other mammals with complex and subtle social relationships,
individual make alliances and act altruistically toward
others, with the implicit understanding that their favours
will be returned. To succeed in such societies animals need
to choose trustwothy allies and to detect and punish
cheaters who take but never give anything in return. This
demands fitting a shifting constellation of individuals
into an abstract mental model of social roles (debtors,
creditors, allies and so on) connected by social
expectations. Calvin and Bickerton believe that such abstract
models of social obligations furnished the basic patter for
syntax. These foreshadowings of symbols and syntax, they
propose, laid the groundwork for language in a lot of
social animals but did not create language itself. That had
to wait until our ancestors evolved brains big enough to
handle the largescale operations needed to generate and
process complete strings of signs.
(Glove. It may look like having little to do with your "Ape
Mentality" piece, but it was much more to it than that.)
Two points are affirmed above. (1) Intellect's vehicle -
language (and thereby Intellect itself) - is out of society. (2)
Donny's requirement of "personhood" for social interaction is
too "strict". What he is talking about is a society already
intellectually dominated. I'm not advocating beehive or
anthill societies, but it may be a terrible old value out of Biology
farther "down" than humankind. This is our last (major) difference.
Bodvar
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