SUBJECT for December, 1998:
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?
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It was very late last night when I posted the first summary. I was so
focused on thinking about it that I forgot to mention that this (these) are
drafts only. If I've misrepresented anyone's ideas, omitted anything, or
otherwise screwed up, please correct me. This is getting more and more
important, as the level of controversiality and complexity increased as the
discussion moved beyond the definition of intellect.
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HOW IS INTELLECT RELATED TO SOCIETY?
Xcto started us off by saying that intellect was originally a mechanism for
thinking about and creating social patterns. Donny, however, felt that
society was a prerequisite for the intellectual level, and illustrated this
by saying that an isolated person (such as Robinson Caruso) is not using
intellectual patterns of value because there is no element of society to
that type of thinking. Platt rejected that argument, saying that his
private thoughts are his intellectual level and only become a social value
when shared with others. Bodvar also seemed to take issue with Donny's idea
of individual thought not being a product of the intellectual level, stating
that the intellect grew out of society, but no longer requires society to
exist since it has moved beyond it to become its own moral level. Glove
retied the knot between society and intellect by stating that logic is a way
for a society to agree on the definition of reality. Diana felt that the
social level appropriates the intellectual level for its own purposes, and
that what really separates the social from the intellectual is the value of
the idea being thought. She stressed that the social level is about
following others while the intellectual level is mental abstraction.
The chicken and egg problem became central to the issue for a lot of people.
Donny stressed that a society must first have social values that enable
intellectual thinking before that thinking can develop. Bodvar stated that
the intellectual level grew out of the social level. Glove seemed to echo
that sentiment early in the discussion, but then said that intellect exists
before the social level. Xcto felt that mind came first. Magnus pointed
out that we would have a bootstrapping problem if society required intellect
in order to develop; implying that society had to have come first. Keith
seemed to imply that both society and intellect arose simultaneously. Mary
echoed that sentiment saying that thought and societies based on thought
developed at the same time. Peter, however felt that intellect developed
before society.
The key to the chicken and egg dilemma seemed to center around the
definition of a society. Those advocating intelligence first seemed to be
stressing cultural, human-type societies in their definition, while those
saying society came first seemed to have a broader definition which included
insect and animal societies. Viewed in that light, it seemed that everyone
essentially agreed that a society with an element of culture required
intellect for its existence.
The relationship between society and intellect also brought forward some
challenges to Pirsig's four basic levels. Jonathan pointed out that
individual intelligence and thinking could be placed in the biological level
and collective thinking could be placed in the social level; thus
eliminating the need for an intellectual level all together. Magnus
strenuously refuted that by saying that a lower level does not create a
higher one, but merely provides a foundation for its existence. Keith took
the chicken and egg problem in a different direction by advocating
additional levels to define the difference between biologically based
society, basic mental ability, cultural society, and abstract logical
thinking; thus turning the four static levels into six to give them clarity.
REFERENCES:
xcto 12/2/98:
>I use the idea that the first principles were
>choosing, organizing, and creating rituals and processes of passing on the
>best of the Social patterns.
>...But with the MOQ I think that divorce between
>what we think about on social issues and how we reason in the scientific
>village and how we talk when we argue philosophical and moral issues
>disappears and we are finally on the chessboard
Bodvar 12/2/98:
>Intellect is thinking, but along certain (what did Glove call it?)
>[credos]. very different from social [credos], which in turn is
>different from biological [credos].
Donny 12/4/98:
>...ONLY a society that has ideals (SocPoVs) suitable to
>intellectual morals will have IntPoVs.
>...
>...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 element in it.
Bodvar 12/4/98:
>Quality's
>intellect was once social value that grew - Grew - GREW and G R E W
>until it suddenly was a morality all of itself that no longer could
>serve Society.>>>>>>>>>
Glove 12/5/98:
>logic arose with the ancient Greeks, along with the social level coming
>into dominance. logic is not a search for truth but for way to agree on
what
>reality is socially.
xcto 12/5/98:
>I personally agree with Pirsig as I said
>before that 'mind' started as the beginning to the social level with
>language and tool use as the precursors..
>...
>Our ego, I would say is mostly social as well.
Bodvar 12/6/98:
>"Mind" does not stem from the brain, but from society!!!!!!!
>...
>Finally: Why a gang planning action in the future isn't Q-Intellect
>is because "thinking" is not automatically conveying Intellectual
>values, but just as easily social ones
Diana 12/6/98:
>it was just automatic - going with the flow. I think that's
>the key to the social level - it's about following the person next to
>you.
Magnus 12/7/98:
>My point is that I see a human brain much like an anthill. It's
>not populated by ants but neurons. It's much more complex and
>different in many ways but it is nonetheless a social pattern
>sustaining intellectual patterns.
>...
>if we can't find examples of social patterns not mediated
>by intellectual patterns, we have a serious boot-strapping
>problem on our hands.
>...
>A thought
>is an IntPoV, period. A thought can represent a social pattern but
>it *is* not a social pattern. You can judge the intellectual
>representation of a social pattern, but the judgment is an
>intellectual valuation, not a social.
Jonathan 12/7/98:
>Intelligence and thinking fall nicely into the biological (individual
>intelligence) and social (collective intelligence) realms. NOTHING IS
>LEFT OUT.
>Where does that leave intellect? Well, it seems to be off to the side -
>looking across. It's an abstraction of the three levels. The 3 levels
>are InPoV, BioPoV and SocPoV and together constitute MATTER. They are
>the OBJECT for Intellect which sits as MIND and SUBJECT. To
>regard this division as a primary metaphysical division is SOM.
>But, you will note that in the 3-tier scheme, Intellect is excluded as a
>level because it has no empirical reality. It seems to be some abstract,
>almost mythical construct which lacks substance (ha). Yet, without it,
>the whole 3-tier cake no longer has any structure. It is the structuring
>itself which IS intellect/intellectualisation.
Magnus 12/7/98:
>Patterns doesn't organize themselves into higher levels. They are just
providing the foundation for higher levels. There's a difference.
>...
>Second, a 3+1 world view would restate the futile assumption that there
>is an independent reality "out there" that can be described with
>intellectual patterns.
Platt 12/7/98:
>My thoughts (my
>intellectual patterns) are unique to me and unknown to anyone else
>unless I choose to make them public (social patterns), whereupon they
>become static (spoken or written patterns).
Keith 12/8/98:
>I think this explains exactly the kind of confusion we've been experiencing
>in talking about society and intellect. The two are creating one another in
>a self-reinforcing reaction. Culture determines the context for our
>thoughts <http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/COGNEVOL.html> but our thoughts
>communicated to one another generate the culture. This process of mimetic
>(*The Selfish Gene*, Richard Dawkins) replication takes place from mind to
>mind and in so doing creates our human society.
>SOCIAL behavior emerges as primitive communication and cooperation >between
organisms with nervous systems.
>MENTAL symbols and concepts appear in organisms as the ability to control
>associations apart from bare conditioning seen at the biological level.
>CULTURE emerges from the exchange of concepts/ideas between organisms >by
imposing rules that limit the replication of those ideas. Social behavior
>is enhanced.
>INTELLECTUAL rules constrain the ability of culture to control thought.
>Notice that the "control" here is not something external to the culture,
>but a particular pattern of thought within the culture that keeps it from
>extinguishing its source--the thoughts of individual minds. This is why the
>Bill of Rights (excuse the U.S.-centrism) is an intellectual code: it
>controls the culture by preventing it from restricting free thought by
>putting specific checks on the cultural institution of government,
>protecting speech, assembly, religion, etc.
>(The hierarchy above is primarily based on my reading of
><ftp://ftp.vub.ac.be/pub/projects/Principia_Cybernetica/WF-issue/Heylighen.
t
xt>
>and <http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HISTEVOL.html>.)
>...
>. Intellect is a type of constraint on society. It is the
>constraint that allows the free emergence of new ideas. These ideas, in
>turn, reshape the culture and its institutions in a feedback loop. Both
>intellect and society (culture) emerge out of biological mind. (I know that
>this conclusion is not original to the list, but I don't have the posts to
>attribute it. Sorry!)
>...
>I believe this view of intellect as cultural constraints supports the idea
>advanced by some that thinking does not equate with intellect. Intellect is
>a culturally transmitted *pattern of thoughts* that allows for the creation
>of new thoughts. Empiricism, or the idea that experience (not society) is
>the sole judge of the worth of a thought, is the very essence of intellect.
>That is why science, the practice of empiricism, is an intellectual
>endeavor.
>...
>My conclusion is that while his evolutionary approach is
>useful and his analysis correct, his choice and/or explanation of only four
>levels oversimplifies the situation. I do think we can get by with four
>levels for most ethical questions if, rather than inventing abstract
>definitions of each level which only seem to confuse our decision-making,
>we emphasize the primary role of each higher level as a *control* or
>*constraint* on the lower level. I believe this latter understanding
>provides us with a better definition of each level which will, in turn, aid
>us in analyzing our moral questions.
Bodvar 12/8/98:
>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.
>...
>its [intPoV] 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 ...?.
>...
>(IMO "culture" = a cluster of communities
>either Social- or Intellectual 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]).
>...
>"The Gift of Gab" Discover Magazine Nov., 1998
>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.
>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.
>Walter 12/8/98:
> Isn't intellect the DQ of the social level?
>...
>I can't think of static patterns that belong to the intellectual level
>without the possibility to place
>them also in the social level (religion, science etc.).
>Glove 12/8/98:
>Walter, you are both right and wrong, in my opinion. the intellect "exists"
>before the social level, in a manner of speaking. yet the social level must
>manifest what the intellect has "conceived" in order for the intellect to
>function.
>...
>but i would say that the social level, while it contains a great deal of
value, is
>not absolutely essential for the survival of the species. the intellect
>level is absolutely essential however, and this only reaffirms the
>hierachial positions of the levels and places the intellect as the highest
>moral static quality pattern of value.
Mary 12/8/98:
>Thought and societies based on thought developed at the same time because
>thinking about Social interaction was the first kind of thing the
>Intellectual level was interested in thinking about.
>The Intellectual level is just a newer, higher, better way of
>manipulating "ideas" (Dynamic Quality).
Bodvar 12/9/98:
>the social tool called "language"
>was grabbed by DQ to subvert the Social laws: it became the
>"carbon" of Intellect.
Mary 12/11/98:
>The intellect floats in a sea consisting of all the levels that have come
>before it. As such, there are bound to be thoughts that are an expression
>of the needs/wants/desires of all the lower levels; biological thoughts,
>social thoughts, even inorganic thoughts. The social value of the right to
>think freely is a high quality social level value. This value is of high
>quality because it allows the intellectual level free reign to think about
>anything. And since the intellectual level is a more advanced level this
is
>good.
Diana 12/13/98:
>The social level appropriates the
>intellectual level for its own purposes. Thus you have ideas which are
>intellectual patterns but which are held for social reasons. If you can
>separate the valuing of the idea in itself and the valuing of holding
>the same ideas as your social group then you have the separation of the
>social and intellectual level. The social level is mostly about
>following everyone else. The intellectual level is any mental
>abstraction of the world, ie thinking.
Peter 12/15/98:
>Intellect must have existed BEFORE society. Yet Bob says in L that there is
>some time dependent order.
>I wonder about this, quite a lot.
>...
>The Intellect was there all along, at the moment of the physical.
Malbin 12/18/98:
>It seems to me that a society is a group of
>beings which share a common communication for the
>purpose of developing "higher" levels of
>awareness.
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