Jonathan B. Marder wrote on Wed, 30 Dec 1998
> Hi Bodvar and other LilaQs,
> BODVAR wrote [30th Dec]:-
>> Intellect is the subject-object division as a static value that
>> has no value outside Intellect ...
> Question - does any "metaphysical" division, including the levels of the
> MoQ, have any value outside Intellect?
Jonathan and LilaQs
You closed 1998 in the same vein as opening it. That goes for me too
I suppose. :-)
I alternate between two answers:
1) No, not in the MOQ, but many seem to think so. In that they bring
along SOM's intellect and impose the subject-object division to - for
instance - Biology and Society.....even Matter!
2) Yes: in SOM where intellect is "thinking itself" and thus all
there is. Like you write lower down:
> If one discards ALL metaphysical divisions, that kills perception
> itself. There is no way to distinguish anything from anything else. You've got
> to cut the cake to eat it.
An animal, a cat f.ex. (Garfield :-)) doesn't cut the cake before
eating. Perception works fine without metaphysics, and we humans
perceive Biology too. I really don't think perception (experience) of
Social value requires much metaphysics either. But seriously. You and
Mary have a most interesting exchange over this confounding issue in
your message of 31 Dec.
> Let me clarify this a bit. I did NOT mean to say that Intellect
> should be merged into the social level, though certain patterns
> Pirsig called intellectual (democracy, rational discourse etc.) can
> be considered social patterns.
Again, it's the too advanced society concept that you (and Donny and
Glove too) operate in that complicate things. Democracy and
rational discourse considered social values?!? No, no and no again.
> What I DID say was that while BioPoV and SocPoV emerge via complex
> interactions at the lower level (or
> better, they ARE those complex interactions), the Intellect emerges
> from abstraction of any patterns (not just social). It all gets even
> more complicated when one uses the word "intellectualization" to
> describe the realisation of DQ into SQ patterns (as does Pirsig).
Here is the crux of the matter: "Abstraction of any pattern..." as
opposed to its concreteness: mind opposed to matter. I feel my
cheeks grow stiff from harping on the danger of superimposing
Intellect's subject-objectivization on to the other levels, and I
understand perfectly why Intellect is a non-level in your book.
> Logic is a system of data processing (or signal/pattern processing)
> But I think it was initially a development of the biological level
> that made more advanced society possible....
Yes, about this I agree. Biological organisms process signals, but
you want this processing to be an abstraction of the REAL neural
workings. Look. The electro-chemical signalling itself is Inorganic,
while Biology is a value step up: Life IS the the processing of
signals. I call it SENSATION, but it implies no *real* organism and
abstract sensation. The signal processing - logic you call it - can
be so simple as to be as predictable in the way that Inorganic values
are (a bacterium or amoeba follow patterns regardless). But also so
volatile as to be able to support the next value step: Society.
Now, society is also the same rise in complexity. An anthill is
indistinguishable from a body, while a baboon tribe is social order
imposed on to "free" organisms; not much welfare but not only
biological consumption and annihilation.
The increasing social co-operation among the proto-humans fostered an
increase in neural complexity: the brain got even bigger. If language
was hen or egg I don't know, but even at this stage there was no
abstraction of a *real* social level: the myths were the social
reality. Language was the best Social tool ever, the common myth
could be maintained over a greater area, but it was also a cuckoo's
egg and became the vessel of the next quality step - Intellect.
In (my) MOQ context there is no s-o (abstract-concrete) division
outside of Intellect. Myths of origin and destiny are Social
"metaphysics", while the myth of subject and object is Intellectual
metaphysics. Moreover, If the Biological level is seen as signal
processing this capacity underlies the Social level and as the
Intellectual level is out of Society; signal processing is part of the
Intellect as well BUT IS NOT INTELLECT!!. This is why the MOQ has
something important to say about what is called Artificial
Intelligence. The signal-process is "intelligence". You hint to it
too:
> Logical operations can be performed on many types of
> hardware. Even the natural interactions of inorganic molecules can
> be considered as logical operations, so I'm hard put to say that
> logic is an outgrowth of the biological.
Okay let's say that "logical operations" (Logos) is the ground-stuff
of existence. It becomes another name for value and we have a
Metaphysics of Logos (MoL). No big revelation: it shows the enormity
of Pirsig's insight. Inorganic Logos was its first stage; at the
Biological level Logos grew mobile "incarnated", but as each level is
the base for the ones above, Logos is part of the Social and the
Intellectual make-up as well, but it did not make it directly to
intellect in the "thinking itself" or "mind" of SOM.
However, logical operations can be mimicked in cruder material than
organic tissue and have a different approach to problem solving.
But it may change. I read in a special issue of "Scientific American"
that a ganglion from an animal nerve had been integrated into a
silicon logic circuit.
> Still, I know what you (Mary) mean. Perhaps to regard some behaviour as
> "logical" is (dare I say it) a SUBJECTIVE view!
Sure is .......seen from the MOQ Intellect, but that's no big deal.
Bodvar
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