Hello Kenneth, hi Richard, hi All
This is not referring directly to your argumentation, just a few thoughts.
I've been pursuing your exchange with great interest. On the one hand I'm very
interested in the 'meme'-thing and on the other hand I thought over and over
again the relation between the social and the intellectual level but I haven't
found a really satisfying explanation to it yet.
So that has lead me to the conclusion, that it must the perspective we look upon
this being responsible for not understanding it. This was even more astonishing
because when we look at everything else by means of the MoQ it works in an
almost elegant and beautiful way.
So I had then the idea, that perhaps the isolating of an individual for closer
observation is it, what makes all this so difficult. That is, I guess, also
supported by the fundamental assumption - one could also call this a MoQ-theorem
- telling us that value arises out of a valuing of at least two
'elements'(concerning the level we're looking at). That means that those two
elements for itself cannot show the meaning of what it makes when those two are
combined.
A near-by example: What is a family? A family CONSIST of at least a man and a
woman and perhaps a few children. But when an imagined 'six-level'-alien would
like to find out more about human beings family, it would'nt be sufficient to
describe what makes a man and what makes a woman; he (it) should look at what
special value arises from this 'family-system', isn't it?
And in a broader sense to understand a society - the belgian, the american, the
german society - we should look at a single individual as well as what makes the
society, because society is NOT EQUAL to the summation of those
something-million people. And furthermore when I imagine a society as a liquid
made of all relevant intervaluations, it's getting obvious IMO, that this
'society-liquid' is nothing but an aerosol, when substracting social
characteristics from it.
Social patterns are responsible to hold all this together, they are in a special
sense the cohesive force to hold this together. Indeed intellectual patterns are
ruling social patterns, or at least they should, but it looks to me much more
like a recursive process. The huge complex of global knowledge - it is the
leading force indeed - should guide and direct and influence a society, but it
is connected until eternity to the 'social' and therefore has to adapt its
ongoing to society. Intellect cannot walk alone, it has to wait until its
benefits has seeped into the social texture. And taking up again the image of
the 'society-liquid', you can see the surface moving, there are waves and
ripples which can be seen as the intellectual patterns at work; but waves can
get high the can make things moving, they can jump in the air, they can help the
'liquid' reach a new shore even, but they belong to the 'liquid' and return to
it again and again.
I don't know if this is of any use for you, but it helped me personally a lot.
BTW the 'liquid'-image is a very old one. It served me to explain my own
position in my society, because I felt always both the cohesive AND
anti-cohesive forces that had driven me now and then away from society and also
adhesive forces; MoQ for example has for me strong adhesive qualities that
lowers my bindings to society.
> Richard you wrote,
> > I'm not sure I full understand what you are saying here but the impression
> I get is that IYO my view is not that the intellect ignores society but that
> society is making ITSELF redundant. I hope that isn't what I have been
> saying, as my view is the exact opposite. I think that intellect DOES
> ignore society and the formulation of the new ideas from the intellect
> leaves the society redundant, as there is nothing within society to compete
> with the new laws.
>
> << I still get the feeling that is what you are saying, but I could be
> wrong.
> Anyway, I agree with the last sentence, but IMO this is something that will
> be solved in the nearby future. That is, you are quite right evocating our
> history over the lines of tribe- leader up to democracy, but in Europe, in
> contrast with the US we are just beginning to make a political midfield.
> The lack of just a field is due to our social/ political history, but I
> repeat_
> Intellect is chosen as the governement by the Social, it is something we
> place upon ourselves.
>
> People can 't bare total freedom. In total freedom we are drawn from all
> the others, with them we " make " ourselves. By the way, personally I
> don 't like that very much, but do you really think that the Social care
> for one bit about the Intellect/ Politics !? Oh yes, like you mention, when
> the Intellect treatens a take- over of Society, but is that not already done
[...]
> Last Thursday a Turkish girl came up to me, she is now for six months at
> home due to a depression. How come !?
> Her parents moved from Turkey to Belgium in order to give their children
> a better future. The parents, that was from the beginning their goal, gave
> them a " Belgium- education ", they speak four languages, one of them is
> now trying to get a doctor degree, but the girl mentioned above fell between
> the curtains (that is an expression). As a Turkish girl she was/ is always
> dressed like an European, you see almost no difference.
> But apllying for work her Turkisk name, her Turkisk identity, her genetic/
> memetic built- up sits in her way. Knowing that you can 't change the
> colour of your skin and that just that fact mimimizes your possibilites on
> the working- market, well...fill in the blanks.
>
> Who 's fault is this !? Society's no doubt about that !
> There is no Intellect in Society, therefor they " choose " their
> representa-
> tives, but are they " Intellectual " !? I don 't think so. They are, even
> more
> stupid than the Society by which they are choosen.
> Real Intellect is found within people, what is " BETWEEN " people,
> the help we get, within the words, within the conversations.
> Possible you can " educate " that, but from my stand here, I don 't think
> that, Intellect is something inside you, and I don 't have it here just
> about
> a high IQ.
What you described above is for me also subject to consideration and I try often
to apply MoQ-aspects as well as my own to those observations. For me is this a
very good example, that intellectual value patterns are nothing without a solid
foundation of social patterns of value.
This family/the girl is somehow destabilised under the influence of too many
forces (f.e. social stimuli) that pushes and pulls a person in this or in that
direction and this person is almost helpless against it. Those destabilisations
could lead to extreme behaviour or reactios in some cases, for instance crime,
or drugs or prostitution, where sometimes an individual finds local stability
and which gets more powerful the longer it lasts (local stability).
Kenneth:
In the beginning of discussing the memetic-concept, I thought I understood what
is meant by this, but in the meantime it became somehow amorphous; I can no more
grasp it. Seems to be the 'quantum-mechanics-effekt': you cut it down and look
at it and you do more and more of this dissecting until you say: "Hey, is a
particle or is it a wave?"
So memes are useful or successful patterns of behaviour or thinking, that get
stored physically(?) in a person, who can hand it over to it's children like
genes? Is that correct?
Thanks for reading,
regards,
JoVo
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