From: johnny moral (johnnymoral@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Feb 27 2003 - 18:47:14 GMT
Hi Platt,
>We seem to have different ideas of what an idea is. I'll go along with
>Pirsig's idea that it "is the collection and manipulation of symbols,
>created in the brain, that stand for patterns of experience," an ability
>not evident in bees or sunflowers.
But do you put all manipulations by the brain in the intellectual level? I
think ideas that operate within society, that formed society, are social
ideas. They are personal scale ideas like 'let's stick together' and 'this
is mine' - monagomy and property - but as actually practiced, not as they
are thought about. Ideas like 'i'm hungry' or 'i'm horny' are biological
ideas. Ideas like 'I will bond with that hydrogen atom' are inorganic ideas
(a speculative notion). Ideas ABOUT society, like 'all people should marry
so as to create fairness and equality for men and women', or 'the workers
create the capital' are intellectual ideas. So I maintain that ideas and
intellectual patterns are not synonymous, it depends on what the idea
applies to, what scale of pattern it applies to.
Intellectual patterns MAY have started out as an idea, and we can conceive
of them as ideas (should we conceive of them at all, which is not necessary
for them to exist as patterns, we notice and name them afterwards in many
cases), but they have a life of their own, living on top of the lower levels
and are ultimately indifferent to them. They live off society like animals
live on chemical reactions, replicating and evolving according to their own
patterns. Technology is an intellectual pattern that is now an evolving
life form or meme that could care less if humans lose their freedom or even
die off completely, as long as it continues to evolve. It treats humans the
way we treat natural resources, we are only worried about losing them for
our own sake, because we want or need them in order to exist or just like
looking at them. But if they get in our way, we get rid of them. Pirsig
would say it is absolutely moral for Technology to wipe out humanity, and
absolutely immoral for humans to arrest Technology, but I vehemently
disagree. Unless of course Technology is seen as inorganic, but that seems
like a rationalization. I think it is moral for humans to preserve their
own dignity and the dignity of their children, because that is what any of
us would probably do, and morality is what is expected.
>But drunk or sober, I would be hard pressed to object to the idea that bees
>and sunflowers are aware, even if they don't know it.
It all comes down to what we mean by aware, I guess. I don't think
technology is aware, but I do see it as a replicating and evolving set of
patterns that adapts as a pattern to changing conditions, so it must be
aware in some sense. It isn't any one group of people who are aware for it,
it is aware as a pattern of stuff that the people who work for it aren't
aware of. But I attribute real dignified "awareness" only to humans and
dogs, because I am one (woof).
more coming...
Johnny
_________________________________________________________________
Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu Feb 27 2003 - 18:47:54 GMT