Hi Everyone!
RICK said:
> Love is NOT an emotion? I guarantee you're gonna have a tough time
> selling that one.
Er ...naturally I meant love to be THE emotion while pain and
adrenalin are sensations. Hope that makes sense :-).
ERIN caught on to the same interpretation, and refers to an
experiment that allegedly proves "love" to be biology in disguise.
Interesting enough but we must realize that Bowlby conceived this
experiment with SOM's "nurture/nature" as the staring point. Will
there ever be a MoQ based experiment? Allow a little "speech"
here:
No answer will ever be found based on the SOM, it's not only the
genes or upbringing question, but each and every of its mind/matter
riddles, yet let's return to that one - of which the monkey
experiment is a branch: Either the monkeys are biologically
programmed to "feel for" the feeding or the furry "mother", or some
social (learned) trait influence their choice . Bowlby and Lorentz
idea is that if this question is resolved for animals it goes for
humans too. Gee, how many versions of this have we heard of?!
Anthropologists going to Samoa to prove the S side of the SOM,
biologists to the duck pond to prove the O side ...and then those
who claim that both sides are wrong: Our behaviour is a result of a
S/O balance act! The latter sounds so obvious, but no such
balance is possible and no sooner is it said than they are at it
again, and this will go on and on .....until the MoQ is realized.
However, the MoQ does not solve the riddle from the SOM point of
view, it's the Greek physic's paradoxes again which weren't
"solved" but dissolved by the new physics: The starting point was
false. Likewise, the pitting against each other of upbringing and
genes is wrong. Existence is the said value stages - no sudden
jump from "instincts" to "ideas". As Q-biology we are as instinctive
as an amoeba and as Q-society as bigoted as a ape colony, and
as Q-intellect we are h.. bent on the subject/object view.
Now SAM presented a question:
> In your schema, how would you describe or categorise the choosing
> between rational alternatives? In other words, is it a rational
> process (Mind) or is it an emotional process (social level)?
> As I understand it, such decisions are not made on rational grounds,
> but are based upon an educated emotional repertoire that is also the
> basis of the self (see my post - from last September (?) I think -
> about Antonio Damasio). Which has the corollary that I agree with what
> you said elsewhere in your post, "Reason - or the intellectual level -
> is emotions refined". That seems right to me.
Hi Sam. Glad to hear that you find this - partly - in accordance with
your own ideas and Damasio's findings. I have read his "Descartes'
Error" and find it most convincing, but don't you agree that
Damasio is "somish" to the extent that he is out to prove that if our
decisions are ...based upon an educated emotional repertoire
...then here is no real reason?. Like Bowlby is out to prove that if a
monkey's attachment to a parent is based on instincts there are no
real emotions. Always the either/or of SOM. However I think you
clearly see the MoQ idea and that reason's emotional base is such
a solid proof of the moqian tenet that Q-intellect is "out of" Q-
society.
Please refresh us on Damasio if you find him to say something
more that fits the MoQ, it's some time since now ...and the date of
your post.
GAVIN said:
> doesn't pirsig classify emotions as biological patterns?
He does.
> i think william james says this too: 'bodily changes follow directly
> the perception of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same
> changes as they occur is the emotion' (from 'what is an emotion').
I think we have the culprit here. Somehow the idea that W. James
is a proto-moqist has formed, but of course he was no such and
did not differentiate between any Q-biological and Q-social level -
so the sensation-perception of pain and the unpleasantness-
perception (emotion) was all "biology" to him. If an organism (solely
biological in a MoQ sense) is hurt it reacts by trying to escape, but
no "fear" or "panic" crosses it's - um - mind. One of the by-effects
of the MoQ is that it relieves us from the somish riddle of "what is it
like to be ...."?
> 'emotions are biological patterns that are mediated by social
> patterns'. that was my understanding until you guys shook my
> confidence?!?!
Please Gavin. This is exactly what I claim, but they are not
emotions UNTIL mediated by the social level. Pain hurts, but the
social level can transform the sensation to something worse or
even "better". F.ex. A person undergoing plastic surgery to meet
the beauty criteria of society will perceive it as almost pleasant as
will the hunger from slimming exercises :-).
> if we start extending emotions over more levels and types of
> experience don't we risk the charge of emotivism?
I most vehemently agree about the many levels. Regarding
"emotivism" see the above for Sam, there truly is a
social/emotional base to reason, but it may as well be said that
there is a biological/sensational base to emotions and an - um -
inorganic/interactional base to sensations. This is the very gist of
the MoQ.
PLATT said:
> I think Marco has it right except for religion which belongs at the
> social, not intellectual level, and art which belongs at a yet higher
> level.
I agree about religion ....and ART naturally!!! But (my eternal buts)
as said to Rick Budd, when one starts at the "what goes where"
one soon runs into problems. Why I try to distil this expression
essence.
> As for emotions, I'll stick with Pirsig's view that they are
> biological level phenomena, the two most critical being the urge to
> survive and reproduce, found in the lowliest virus and the basic
> engine of evolution to higher levels. Human emotions, as Marco
> suggests, are refinements of these
As with Gavin, this is my position too ... only that these urges
aren't emotions until refined to social purity. Somehow we have
been talking past each other it seems.
> with the possible exception of the
> aesthetic response which appears to be solely human.
If you mean that the urge to reproduce is not brought to fruitition by
- um - copulating with the nearest female in heat, but by seeking
out the one that meets your aesthetic sense, courtship and
romantic love? Sure, humans have evolved exceedingly complex
social patterns.
MARCO said:
> Biological level is matter, energy, space, time... refined. And it is
> life, senses, sex, emotions, intelligence, memory....
Matter definitely. Energy? Isn't that matter times the speed of light
squared?
> Social level is matter, energy, space, time, life, senses, sex,
> emotions, intelligence, memory.... refined. And it is communication,
> language, culture, family, tribes, nations, economy, governments,
> politics....
Yes, there are many patterns, so many that I find it exhausting to
list them all. May I deduce that your reason for placing "emotions"
in the Biology category is the same as as Gavin's and Platt's. In
that case there is no disagreement.
Thanks to those who has read this Galathean Letter.
Bo
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