From: Dan Glover (daneglover@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Mar 15 2005 - 01:46:30 GMT
Hello everyone
>From: "Sam Norton" <elizaphanian@kohath.wanadoo.co.uk>
>Reply-To: moq_discuss@moq.org
>To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
>Subject: Re: MD categorising the mental
>Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 11:54:11 -0000
>
>Hi Dan,
>
>Sam said:
>>>As I'm in the mood for quoting things, here's one from PMS Hacker, in
>>>"Wittgenstein's place in twentieth-century analytical philosophy", p131:
>>>"...many twentieth century materialists, vehemently repudiating the
>>>Cartesian conception of the mind as a spiritual substance, retained the
>>>fundamental logical structures attributed to psychological concepts by
>>>the dualist picture, simply substituting the brain for mental substance,
>>>grey glutinous matter for ethereal stuff."
>>>[Here it seems we could substitute 'intellectual patterns of quality' for
>>>'grey glutinous matter']
>
>Dan said:
>>I don't think this is right. I believe the MOQ would call "grey glutinous
>>matter" inorganic patterns of value, not intellectual patterns.
>Sam:
>My comment may have been unclear, but it's worth spelling out what I meant:
>'intellectual patterns of quality' can be substituted for 'grey glutinous
>matter' _in_the_quote_from_Hacker_. So the quote would then read: "...many
>twentieth century materialists, vehemently repudiating the Cartesian
>conception of the mind as a spiritual substance, retained the fundamental
>logical structures attributed to psychological concepts by the dualist
>picture, simply substituting the [the third and fourth levels] for mental
>substance, [intellectual patterns of quality] for ethereal stuff."
>
>So it's not that the intellectual patterns = grey glutinous stuff, it's
>that the intellectual patterns stand in relation to the biological patterns
>etc in an analogous fashion to the way that Descartes described the
>relationship between mind and matter. That's what Lash (and behind him
>Wittgenstein) are trying to unpick.
Dan:
Hi Sam
Thank you for the clarification but if you have time, please humor me just a
bit more. Now, I'm not a Descartes scholar by any means, but from what I
understand, Descartes saw human beings as composed of two distinct things: a
soul and a body. The body was purely a mechanical system while the soul a
pure thinking substance, spirit. He saw a close union between body and soul
yet suggested that such a union is a primitive and unanalyzable notion. On
the other hand, RMP says the four levels have little in common except for an
evolutionary history. If you have the time, could you please unpick for me
your reasons for believing as you do that RMP has simply substituted the
social and intellectual levels for Descartes' "spiritual substance." I don't
see it as a tenable position.
>
>For what it's worth, I think your baseball analogy is as pure an example of
>the Cartesian theatre as it is possible to provide. To say "I'm still
>processing the experience through my senses, filtering it, ignoring most of
>what I experience in favor of what I deem important" is, it seems to me,
>100% Cartesian. That such a view seems to be grounded in the MoQ only
>confirms my impression that Pirsig's comment about S/O corresponding to
>soc/int vs bio/phys is a severely wrong turn.
Again, I could be wrong but I get the severe impression that you're
devouring the menu instead of the meal. Of course the analogy is "Cartesian
theatre" in as much as our language is grounded in such a manner. It was the
idea I was attempting to get across by using the analogy, not visa versa.
This could be construed as a real impediment to seeing what RMP is saying as
well.
>
>BTW this is a discussion about the categorising of the static patterns, not
>Quality "as such", so I'm completely at peace with the Quality of sausages
>:o)
But where does "spirit" fit into the static patterns? That was my point.
Thank you for your comments,
Dan
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