ROGER ATTEMPTS TO CLARIFY HIS INTERPRETATION
OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INTELLECTUAL PATTERNS
AND OTHER PATTERNS -- STARTING WITH A RESPONSE
TO MARCO'S COMMENTS
To Marco, but of course open to all:
ROG (on the placement of human rights in the MOQ):
Pirsig explains human rights as "tweeners" between the intellectual and
social. I would label such modern rights as "free speech" as
intellectually-influenced social patterns. They concern social contracts of
how people are treated and allowed to interact -- a classic example of a
social pattern -- albeit an intellectually influenced one. (In previous
posts, I have admonished others for the folly of forcing things, many of
which are complex collections of patterns of various levels, into a single
level. It is probably best that I follow my own advice here as well)
> MARCO:
> But the MOQ says that every level will morally dominate the level below. So
> it's moral for the intellect to dominate the social, without destroying it.
> If you suggest that TODAY the society is evolving and learning without the
> rule of intellect, you just say that the intellectual level has not been
>
ROG:
I do not suggest such a thing. I do think that what we now label as "rights"
are descended from basic pre-intellectual level social agreements.
MARCO:
> Intellectual patterns are small pieces of DQ turned into a static
> intellectual form. When we take a small piece of DQ and put it into a
> "made-of-signs" form we create an intellectual pattern. The tool we use to
> create intellectual patterns is IMHO intelligence (Latin "Intelligere" from
>
ROG:
I agree, but please allow me to elaborate, because I believe there are also
non-intellectual patterns. In fact, as my other post today to Dan clarified,
I think that pattern identification is widespread throughout the biological
world. I give quotes from the biologist/mathematician team of Cohen and
Stewart, though they use the less anthropomorphic term of "feature detector"
rather than "pattern identifier." Below is the quote:
> "Our brains have evolved an impressive ability to detect features... and
> [these features] provide a quick-and-dirty method for anticipating events
> in our environment so that we can respond more rapidly to possible threats.
> There is thus lot of pressure for brains to evolve feature detectors."
I believe that feature or pattern detection is a biological talent that is
widely used throughout the biological and the social levels.
MARCO:
This is the first step. Then we need a tool to communicate (Latin again :
"Communicare"=to make it common) our reading to someone else. So we use a
set of signs, a code (language), to share these values. Intellect is
impossible without a social level, as it would be useless to read into
reality without sharing the resulting static values with someone else.
ROG:
This correlates well with the other quote I included from Cohen and Stewart:
> "We like to wrap up a bunch of complicated ideas in a single mental package,
> and label it. We use these packages to structure our world and make it
> comprehensible. The things we label in this way include the great
> simplicities, such as 'cat,' 'child,' 'tree' and so forth, but also more
> abstract items such as 'fractal' or 'molecule.' The reason the world of our
> daily lives seems so simple... is that we have become very familiar indeed
> with a small range of these mental packages, the ones that let us cope with
> most normal events in our structured environment... Language takes one
>
MARCO:
In conclusion, my definition of intellectual pattern is:
Intellectual static patterns of value are small pieces of dynamic quality
>
>
ROG:
I believe you have just given a workable MOQ definition of a meme! I
basically agree, but I still need to clarify the distinguishing
characteristics that separate intellectual patterns or memes from social or
biological patterns. But before I do that......
MARCO:
> ......in one of my firsts months in LS,
> when Denis suggested language as the
> "machine code" for intellectual patterns. I've just extended his insight
> adding intelligence as maker of intellectual patterns, using the generic
> term "code" instead of "language", and pointing out the importance of social
> communication.
>
> From this point, it's clear that modern art is a form of language, as it can
> be used to communicate significations ( for example: the author's thoughts
> and feelings). Ergo, art can be intellectual. It depends on the purpose of
>
ROG:
This gets to where we part paths. I don't see communication or pattern
identification as intellectual. I think animals do both. Both are cognitive,
which in my book places them as biological patterns. Maturana and Varela's
biological theory of autopoiesis is that life is a cognitive process based
upon sustainable self propagating chemical feedback loops to perceive and
adapt to their environment. [Read Capra's "Web of Life" for specifics]
MARCO:
meaning (or significance) exists
> when intelligence "defines" the perceived value by the use of signs in order
> to share it socially. For example, the cat feed has an high biological
> value,
ROG:
I used to have a cat that would run from anywhere in the house into the
kitchen every time I used the electric can-opener. To the cat, that sound
MEANT "feeding time" as we fed it canned cat food. The cat couldn't read or
use language, but it could detect patterns and it could communicate. You've
heard of "Pavlov's dog," this is "Roger's cat."
"Meow!!! I am hungry!"
I could go on about animals' and infants' abilities to detect patterns
(Pirsig does so in Ch 9), or of the differences between language and
communication; however, I still owe you my definition of what separates
intellectual patterns from other patterns. But I will send this in part
two.......
Rog
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