----- Original Message -----
From: <skutvik@online.no>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Monday, July 09, 2001 2:12 PM
Subject: Re: MD Emotions revisited.
> Stephen Devlin (>) remarked to my (>>)
>
> > > But language/imagination isn't Quality's Intellect, we may safely
> > > assume that cave-dwellers spoke as complex (grammatically) a
> > > language as ourselves,.......
>
> > I don't think thats a safe assumption really, what are you basing that
> > assumption on?
> This assumption I base on the fact that however primitive or remote
> the culture or tribe, no "rudimentary" language has ever been
> detected. The vocabulary may be richer or poorer dependent upon
> the environment - and not at all based on the Indo-European
> substantive-predicate-object frame - but nevetheless ...
This is essentially a creationistic view of language development. If you
want to hear rudimentary language then listen to the way a baby talks. Since
people are not born with the knowledge necessary to speak a language, it is
a safe assumption that first human language ever spoken was as complex as
the way a baby speaks it.
> > One experiment i have read about that is interesting on the
> > subject
> > of emotions involved cats that had their brains exposed and certain
> > parts were probed until they found a part that when "prodded" gave the
> > cat a pleasureable response. When, however the same part was prodded
> > with more pressure the cat did not have a pleasurable response but
> > experienced fear and anxiety (I think it got violent). i'll dig a bit
> > to try and get the name of this research and post it on.
>
> Interesting. I''ve heard about an experiment with laboratory rats that
> had electric probes connected to (the brain) pleasure centre and a
> lever they could pull to give themselves a "shot". They operated the
> lever until they starved to death. If the current (this was an electric
> probe) was increased it may well have changed the pleasure into
> pain, but this is sensation not emotion.
Here's another interesting story. In the excellent book Phantoms in the
Brain : Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind by V. S. Ramachandran the
author talks to a mental patient whose had something happen to his limbic
system. The patient had the many of the characteristics associated with an
eastern guru- the contentment, self-assuredness, and "inability" to share
his limitless understanding with lesser person asking the question.
> > an emotional state can arise
> > from an intellectual thought process, a sexual activity and sometimes
> > seemingly from nowhere ( I don't like to use the term unconscious).
>
> Yes, and I said so. Imagination can (retro-)activate the body to
> produce biological sensations which give rise to emotions in a
> closed loop. But I see by one single glance what our difference is.
> You believe that any "thought process" is Intellect and this wrong
> IMO. What is subjective or mind (in the SOM) is not (solely) MoQ's
> static intellectual level.
Here's a list of the internalist MoQ hierarchy-
INTERACTION - SENSATION - EMOTION - REASON(Intellect)
There's 1 that's left out, and that's the most important one of all, Dynamic
Quality!
And which ones of these are are thought processes depend on the definition
of thought. If it's anything going on in the mind, then all of these are
thought. If it involves using logic and reason to understand something then
only intellect is thought. And if it involves coming upon something new
that can't be arrived at by objective logic, then only Dynamic Quality is
thought. That's the one I agree with.
> > An animal with no knowledge of life and death is immortal.
> > So if i had no knowledge of life or death would i be immortal?
>
> I know it sounds outrageous, but the MoQ IS outrageous .
Plants have no knowledge of life and death, and can't they live forever with
proper nourishment?
> > imagine
> > i was abandoned as a child on a desert island with a lifetimes supply
> > of rations etc but had no schooling whatsoever, couldn't talk and had
> > not encountered death)?
>
> An interesting "thought experiment". There are a few known cases
> of children raised among animals and they were said to behave
> like animals; no language and thereby no Intellect that "knew that
> objectively...etc."
No language? As far as I know many animals have some rudimentary language.
As far as the death part.. I'll have to look that up in Lila again
> A solitaire child on an desert island however? Honestly, I don't
> think it would survive at all - food or not. We so easily fall prey to
> the SOM notion of an independent mind that can live independently
> ...even as a free-floating brain in a jar.
You're referring to a soul, but that's a completely different topic
> > when we "feel" something do we mean "I" in the sense of my body or "I"
> > as in the "I" in "I will"?
>
> Well, the question of self has been much discussed, I haven't got
> the time here to pursue the different threads. You distinguish only
> between a body and "will", but according to the MoQ the social self
> comes in between.
> > Allready that might imply there is a
> > division opening up as we feel our buns get hot when we sit on a hot
> > stove but the manner of expression in the brain of that sensation is
> > different from that felt by the hot bun. Is there a different meaning
> > connoted to "myself", i think to explore these terms (as they are
> > fundamental aspects of "appreciating and realising Quality) would be
> > valuable.
>
> The "hot-stove" example is often seen as something about the
> autonomous nerve system, but it's the opening argument by Pirsig
> in LILA to demonstrate the preeminence of value ... maybe that's
> what you say.
um, I'll come back to this once I find out the relation between will and
MoQ. I'm 2/3 of the way through Lila so that may be the problem.
> > > But the Q evolution is open-ended, a 5th level will modify
> > > Intellect. This makes ME shiver and (at times) wish that Pirsig
> > > never had opened this Pandora's Box.
>
> > I agree it is scary, i have a tentative approach
> > to discussing this but cannot find the threads to previous 5th level
> > posts. my tentative approach doesn't try to set out what the 5th level
> > is but rather tries to determine its existence by its effects on the
> > lower levels, and use this approach to 2hunt" it and try to get at its
> > meaning. I think meaning is all that we would get as anything else
> > would be further abstracrtion on an intellectual level.
>
> I greatly agree with this approach, only a little comment. Your
> "....further abstraction on an itellectual level" indicates that [you
> regard] the Q-intellect as ABSTRACTION ITSELF and that
> evolution hereafter can't escape the "mere thinking" realm, but in
> my first entry I said that the social level introduces abstraction.
>
> I wish that somone someday would understand that the MoQ does
> away with the mind/matter division. It was ONE SOCIAL PATTERN
> which "went off on a purpose of its own" and became Q-Intellect
> (not the usual awakening to awareness) and further that a 5th level
> will be an AN INTELLECTUAL pattern that will go off on a purpose
> of its own.
> Bo
I think the best name to give the 5th level is Genius. Modifying intellect
is what genius is best at.
Stephen M.
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