> you can't study
> something without seeing it through the filter of the info the social
level
> has given you
In fact, our studying of something (i.e. studying methods, experimenting)
and our capability to study, is given to us by the social level. Humans
aren't the only ones who squint at the sun but we are the only ones who
try to break up the picture into parts - like 'the sun', 'a person', and
'squinting'
- and try to 'figure out' how they interact (as in, we infer that looking at
the
sun causes us to squint). All of the ideas above - 'the sun', 'person,
'squinting',
and 'figuring out' - all come to us from society. They are intellectual
values that
society teaches us when we are children. Society creates intellect.
So in Pirsig's quote:
> 'Our scientific description of nature is always culturally
> derived. Nature tells us only what our culture predisposes
> us to hear. The *selection* of which inorganic patterns to
> observe and which to ignore is made on the basis of social
> patterns of value, or when it is not, on the basis of
> biological patterns of value.' (p 343, paperback)
I think he does mean 'derived' and not simply 'motivated'.
Ta,
John
> -----Original Message-----
> From: enoonan [SMTP:enoonan@kent.edu]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2002 6:20 AM
> To: moq_discuss@moq.org
> Subject: RE: MD science/society independence
>
> >===== Original Message From moq_discuss@moq.org =====
> GLENN:
> >However, there's a few complaints I have with this expanded quote.
> >That is, I'm trying to make sense of it. First, it doesn't make
> >sense to say that if I look up into the glare of the sun, I will
> >not see its light if my culture doesn't predispose me to see it.
> >People from all cultures squint when they look in the sun.
>
> ERIN: I think how I read that the mediation is that the social level will
> be a
> filter that you can not take away. The filter is whatever you have ever
> learned about the sun. One culture may have taught the sun was a god,
> another
> taught that it revolved around the earth, etc. So biologically we all
> are
> squinting at "something" but culturally you are squinting at the "sun".
> Whatever "sun" is depends on what you learned from your culture. So in
> other
> words that the intellectual is mediated by social is that you can't study
> something without seeing it through the filter of the info the social
> level
> has given you.
>
>
>
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