hi, keith, you say:
in most
linguistic contexts, the word "instinct" is used in opposition to
"rational" or "thought out", potential synonyms for intellect. Instinct is
often associated with biology, and I believe that is a correct assessment.
Lithien:
keith, have you ever wondered why the title reads: "Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance". even if the book hardly talks about zen, surely it
would have peaked your interest, right? zen is a discipline that holds
instinct in a higher plane than intellect. in a way, instinct replaces the
intellects ability
"to know". only you dont know with the mind but with your gut. that is the
way the spider "knows" how to weave her beautifully perfect web.
it is a different way of "knowing" that we are taught in our Western
culture, but one which is just as valid, i think.
another book that talks about the intellect in a very different way from
traditional linguistic contexts is Jaynes, "The Origins of Consciousness in
the Bicameral Mind". have you read it? i think that is where glove is
coming from.
another exponent of this different definition of instinct and intellect is
Jung whose belief in synchronicity and the collective unconscious bypasses
traditional connotations. in many novels like Herman Hesse's Demian in
which he says:
"that which is within you and directs your life knows already. It's good
to realize that within us there is someone who knows everything, wills
everything, does everything better than we ourselves".
this last quote from the book is the same premise that diana's articles on
the zombie. that our conscious mind...the rational intellectual ego, is not
the only part calling the shots. in fact, may not even be calling any shots
at all. in fact, in the article it says that instead of free will, the only
thing we may have is free won't. meaning that we cannot will to do anything
but rather will not to do it. this zombie side of us is called instinct in
the articles too.
so, there you are, keith! many many sources for a different interpretation
of both instinct and intellect.
nice to be of service,
Lithien
http://members.tripod.com/~lithien/Lila2.html
-----Original Message-----
From: Keith A. Gillette <gillette@tahc.state.tx.us>
To: moq_discuss@moq.org <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Date: Wednesday, December 09, 1998 8:15 PM
Subject: Re: MD Spider Stomping
>At 6:03 PM -0600 12/9/98, glove wrote:
>>Keith, perhaps, perhaps not. but if a spider has no capacity for symbolic
>>manipulation, why do they construct their webs in the fashion that they
do?
>
>In what fashion is that? Do you mean what you said in a previous post that
>they do not learn how to spin a web but know it instinctually from birth:
>
>>>because baby spiders are not taught to weave webs by adult spiders. they
>>>just seem to "know" how to build a web. where does that "knowledge" come
>>>from? prior to the LSD experiment the concensus was that the spider,
under
>>>the influence of a hallucinogenic drug, would be unable to spin a web.
>>>however, just the opposite happened. the spiders began spinning webs of
>>>abnormal beauty and perfection.
>
>That seems to be what you mean since you go on to argue that instinct is on
>the intellectual level:
>
>>Keith wrote:
>>
>>COGNITIVE: the origin of mind, i.e. the basic cybernetic, cognitive
>>organization, going from simple reflexes to complex nervous systems,
>>learning, and thought.
>>
>>Keith, this was part of your cybernetics post of 12/8/98. simple reflexes
>>would cover instinct, to my way of thinking. if that is true then i fail
to
>>see the cause of your disagreement with my placing of instinct in the
>>intellect level instead of the biological. clearly they belong to the
>>intellect. and the cyber-people seem to agree with me as well. and i can
see
>>where cognitive could indeed be placed before the social and the social
>>level regarded then as the highest. i just dont think that is right
however.
>
>If you read my post "A Cybernetic View to Intellect" carefully, you'll see
>that the COGNITIVE level is not one that I invented or recommend. It is one
>of the tracks the writers of Principia Cybernetica suggest and I merely
>included it in my post to explain their position. I then used their
>insights on the role of control in defining emerging metasystems to develop
>a tentative six-level hierarchy that defended Pirsig's ordering of the four
>levels by revealing some detail within his levels. In my tentative
>hierarchy, the simple reflexes you mention were contained in the BIOLOGICAL
>level. INTELLECT was four levels above that.
>
>I think it should be clear that instincts are on the level of biology, and
>not intellectual responses. The definition of intellect I proposed holds
>that it's a particular pattern of ideas that constrain culture, which
>itself is the sum of all of our shared ideas. My arguments aside, in most
>linguistic contexts, the word "instinct" is used in opposition to
>"rational" or "thought out", potential synonyms for intellect. Instinct is
>often associated with biology, and I believe that is a correct assessment.
>
>Cheers,
>Keith
>
>______________________________________________________________________
>gillette@tahc.state.tx.us -- <URL:http://www.detling.ml.org/gillette/>
>
>
>
>
>homepage - http://www.moq.org
>queries - mailto:moq@moq.org
>unsubscribe - mailto:majordomo@moq.org with UNSUBSCRIBE MOQ_DISCUSS in
>body of email
>
homepage - http://www.moq.org
queries - mailto:moq@moq.org
unsubscribe - mailto:majordomo@moq.org with UNSUBSCRIBE MOQ_DISCUSS in
body of email
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:02:43 BST