From: Scott Roberts (jse885@earthlink.net)
Date: Sat Oct 16 2004 - 02:20:33 BST
Chuck, Mark, et al,
> <Mark>
> "what reason
> do we have to believe that human intellect is limited at all?"
> <Chuck>
> I don't see any reason.
>
> Just so I understand though, are you guys saying that in the absence of
> human intellect, DQ is impossible?
I'm not. DQ is everywhere and everywhen, just as the MOQ says. My addition
to this is that DQ can also be called Dynamic Intellect, and human
intellect is just a crippled version of it. So I am saying that elsewhere
and elsewhen (from the human) there are other forms of intellect, all being
versions, some crippled, perhaps some not, of DQ.
As for limitations of human intellect, this is tricky. That human intellect
is infinite I have no doubt: Godel's Proof shows that. Whatever system we
might think in (if it's at least as complicated as arithmetic), one can
never think it through entirely. And one can always consider any system as
a whole, thus jumping out of the system.
But I think there are things we cannot understand, in the sense that we can
understand a scientific procedure or theory. At least, we cannot understand
them without what for lack of a better word I will call transcendence, and
if we attain such Understanding, we cannot describe it to those without
such Understanding. This is straight mysticism, but I think it also applies
to such things as understanding itself. Or awareness, or intellect, or
will, or perception, or quality. I've found, when I try to think about such
things -- pretty much anything we typically call mental -- that I run into
a contradictory situation. So I am interested in what Nishida called the
logic of contradictory identity, and Coleridge called polarity. It cannot
be understood, but keeps one focused on one's not-understanding, and why.
Sorry to be so cryptic, but then that's what one gets when one tries to
think about limits to thinking. If we knew the limits, we would have passed
them. How does one describe description? How can we be aware of change
without being something continuous, and yet be aware of our continuity
without changing? Etc.
- Scott
>
> msh asks:
> Just a general question about the limitations of human intellect,
> addressed to anyone who wants to take a crack at it. When we say
> that there's a point beyond which our limited human
> intellects can't go, we don't mean that this point is fixed
> somewhere along the continuum of possible human mental activity, do
> we? It sems like this point gets pushed along, right along with our
> own intellectual/biological evolution. If this is true, what reason
> do we have to believe that human intellect is limited at all?
>
> Thanks,
> Mark Steven Heyman (msh)
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