Magnus Berg (MagnusB@DataVis.se)
Tue, 16 Sep 1997 03:09:50 +0100
Hi guys.
Bodvar:
This is starting to look silly. First I give you a dilemma that I
thought
would disprove your view of MoQ, and you regard it as proof *for* it.
Now, you gave me another one, and I'll do exactly the same. Either
we don't understand each others point of views, or we're plain stupid.
About the wolf society dilemma.
What it shows to me is that "our society" is needed to develop what
"our society" considers intellect. In the same way a wolf society is
needed to develop what a wolf would call intellect - stay clean, lie
down when the big chief growls and so on. It shows to me that wolves
and boys are able to develop static intellectual patterns of value built
on...
A few comments on your last letter:
You say "Symbolic abstract language IS the Intellect!". I'd say that
symbolic abstract language, i.e. most human languages, is the base
on which static intellectual patterns of value are formed on top of a
SOM society. Todays manifestations of such patterns are libraries,
databases, the internet and so on.
Then you say "Needs and warnings may be conveyed much more
effectively by other signals by ALL animals.". But those signals are
*also* a language. It is the language that enables an animal to perform
a function for its society. The only language a child knows at birth is
the built-in one, cry when hungry, loud voices and spanking are bad.
If it had no language, it would be totally impossible to communicate
or affect it. I'm beginning to think that this is the core to our
disagreement. You think of languages as, human languages
communicated spoken, written or . I think of a language as
any type of output that becomes input and affects the receiver.
Or to put it in MoQ terms, something that the receiver values or not.
Now on to your answer to my dilemma for you. You say that "ideas
are the most powerful means ever brought to bear". Yes, ideas, i.e.
intellectual patterns of value are more powerful than social patterns
of value. But it isn't the society that carries the idea, it's the
human.
A human can be a part of one society, grow an idea, and then apply
that idea to another society. It sounds to me like you think that an
individual can hold on to a thought only by saying it to himself over
and over.
On your last point, "Principally the MOQ's static intellectual
'dimension'
has nothing to do with smartness, intelligence or ability to think.", I
totally
agree. That is partly why I think it's so hard to define what
"intelligence" is,
and now I mean what we usually calls intelligence. Most agrees that it
is
not Jeopardy-knowledge, which is static. Intelligence is dynamic.
Magnus
>
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