Sam, Marco and Squonk and MD.
I left out a few contributors to the last "emotions" thread so I take
the liberty to bring it up again
For SAM
who wrote about Damasio's "Descarte's Errror" book.
I find your review extremely good and you are surely right in this
observation:
> Damasio writes, 'I see self and the subjectivity it begets as
> necessary for consciousness in general' ..etc.
This I see as an affirmation of my claim that once a subject is
established the next step is to divide reality into its own image and
voila: the subject/object division and eventually the SO
Metaphysics. This may have taken tens of thousands of years, but
the outcome was inevitable. But does Damasio really leave the
Cartian dualism?
I regret not giving you excellent review my full attention, only this
last excerpt:
> However, the relative truth of the specific elements of Damasio's
> hypothesis
> are less important than the validity of the principal conclusion
> relating to the impossibility of separating reason from emotion. A
> he puts it 'It does not seem sensible to leave emotions and
> feelings out of any overall concept of mind'.
Right, emotions are the base of reason (society the parent level of
intellect IMO). I know that no one supports my "emotions as the
social expression", but let that rest.
> From the point of view of integrating this with the MoQ, I would
> argue that 'emotion' cannot be reduced to either the biological,
> the social, or even the intellectual level.
Well, I see all evidence pointing to emotions as social. They don't
merely BELONG to the social level: they ARE the carrier of social
value. Nor do I see any reduction in doing so, to the contrary, it's a
mighty force.
> It is a combination of all the different
> parts of human being. It would also be true to say that the intell
> ectual level depends upon the social and biological for both
> existence and proper functioning.
You are right, but this a different aspect of the MoQ. Thus seen all
levels are are dependent upon the inorganic level, but each level's
raison d'etre is to free itself from its parent and its mission is to
suppress it. Emotions cannot be spread out on all levels, that
makes for a MoQ indistinguishable from the SOM - much like that
of those who want the subject-object split to be part of all levels.
Sam, please post your review on to the moq.org homepage it's
worth saving.
Over to MARCO
who wrote:
(to Sam)
> thanks for your post. I think that emotions are biological as they
> arise at the biological level. And thought also. IMO it's a frequent
> mistake here to equalize thought or mind with intellect.
We disagree about emotions' place in the static hierarchy, but as
with our disagreement about the Q-idea itself (I see it as a budding
5th level, you see it as an intellectual pattern) it might be
reconciled. At the upper reaches of the biological development,
emotions may have arisen (out of sensation), but from there
"started on a purpose of its own". Each level was originally an
"unruly child" that couldn't be controlled by its parent. In my
opinion language was the unruly social pattern that became the
carrier of intellectual value.
To say that I agree with your last line is an understatement. Not
many see this point and it remains the stumbling block to
understanding the MoQ.
Finally for SQUONK
who said about my Interaction-Sensation.Emotion-Reason list
> This is a human view of the MOQ hierarchy. Its 'internalist'? The
list
> does not indicate culture for a start. Placebos may be valued in
some
> cultures?
Er...internalist in contrast to what? The MoQ doesn't recognize the
SOM dichotomies: "internal/external" and "cultural/natural" are
offshoots of the subject/object root.
> The mind/body split is a non-starter as far as i can see?
> The split is arbitrary and illusory.
Exactly, but SOM - like a mushroom - has an enormous
underground network and pops up at the most unexpected places.
People may declare the mind/body divide to be invalid, but then
they meet SOM in a new guise and don't recognize it.
Thanks all who have read this far.
Bo
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