On 28 May 2002 at 21:57, elliot hallmark wrote:
> >DMB says:
> >There's no denying it. There was a great intelligence in the social
> >level. It created language, art, civilization and religion. And even
> >the spoken language is an exercise in the manipulation of words and
> >pictures, which are symbols. But the manipulation of language-derived
> >symbols is a step above that. Are you more confused than ever or did
> >that help?
> >Thanks. You can have your eyes back now. DMB
> Elliot:
> Well, it will all make sense once you explain to me the difference
> between symbols and language derived symbols. in the pirsig
> annotation he didnt seem to be stressing any sort of distinction
> between the two.
Elliot and DMB.
Having been reprimanded by David about the SOLAQI I can only say
that this quandary springs from the impossible definition of q-intellect
that most of you harbour. With a cropped-down intellect it's no problem.
I agree with Elliot that language already is a manipulation of symbols,
and that "language derived symbols" don't add anything.
> And i also dont understand why you think that the
> social began along side intelligence, why did not the social begin
> long before hand and the "invention" of symbol manipulation just not
> revolutionize it? the boundries between social and intellect become
> amazingly blury such that the step from social the intellect seems
> almost trivial when compared to the step from chaos to inorganic and
> inorganic to biological (not to mention you seem to suggest that the
> social is the invention of intellegent beings).
First a little about the "intelligence" term. My dictionary says: "The
power of perceiving, learning, understanding and knowing; Mental
ability...", but we know that animals both perceive and learn and
display skills that surpass our capacity. I won't go in details here, but we
see that already life is a rise from the automatic behaviour of lower
creatures to something resembling our human "freedom".
Now, this is SOM-speak and in its light it's impossible to come to grips
with these phenomena, one must either lump it all into the "instinct"
term, and if so everything is instinct - even our freedom - or have
animals be mute humans. I.e, that they are like us only with no way of
expressing themselves.
Enter the Quality Metaphysics with its value levels where a human
being - as biology - isn't any outstanding quality (there are animals with
far greater skills), but whose social quality has developed patterns
advanced enough to carry intellectual value ....IMO on the brink of
leaving intellect. Anyway, where the MOQ differs from SOM is that
"intelligence" - along with "awareness" and "consciousness" - is no
separate level, because they are part and parcel of the mind/matter
dualist setup.
> I admit the distinction is tricky becuase language is obviously a
> social level thing but the manipulation of language, of words (which
> are symbols derived from language) into sentances and thoughts is
> intellectual. This is why i say language is an evolutionary step
> within the social, because the intellect is implied in its exsistance.
No, no, language per se isn't q-intellect. I have no idea when language
entered existence, but I believe that the Neandertals and Cro-Magnons
of fifty thousands years ago spoke (the last is that excavations in Spain
has revealed remains as old as three hundred thousand years with a
skull like "modern" man and also a voice). These people naturally lived
in communities, but not developed to the stage of carrying intellectual
value.
> Im not a linguist but i do know that the process of language
> development involves taking symbols and assigning associations to
> them. the letters D O G come to sybolize a small furry mammle whic
> looks and behaves a certain way. If this liguistical D O G is not a
> language derived symbol for use in manipulation (sentances about a
> dog, which change the idea of that particular dog), then what is? If
> it is a language derived symbol, then im lost again because you say
> language developed before the intellect where the connection between D
> O G and what we experience to be dogs implies to me the manipulation
> of such symbols.
All this makes sense, but where you Elliot miss the MOQ point is that it
is social patterns that must advance to a certain stage of complexity to
"carry" intellect: It was not by "manipulation of symbols" that human
beings became "intellectuals". Language was ....in the service of social
value ....for hundred of thousand of years for the maintenance of social
institutions.
> You could have just skipped to this line where i say: I dont get what
> distinction could exsist between symbols (one example you give of this
> is words) and "language derived symbols" which are somehow different
> (not words?) from just regular symbols.
Exactly.
> Also, i'll add that although language and religion are social things,
> to me they seem to have been born from the intel level and were later
> altered and mediated to become the social things we know now.
This is MOQ nonsense - with all respect.
> the
> Mystic experience (the high point of the intel level as i understand
> it) seems to be transformed into religious doctrine (and Dao, God,
> Great Spirit and soul all get confused), not the other way around
> which your system seems to say. In the same way that mystic
> experience becomes religion, so personal experiences become language
> as some intellect must use his knife to cut a piece out of perception
> and give a name to it, then it becomes mediated and becomes language.
> not the other way around. I'll say it one last time: Your social
> seems to me to require the simultaneous exsistance of what i call the
> intellect.
Intellectual value won't have anything to do with "mysticism".
> I also didnt understand your statement about my eyes,
> sorry,
Neither did I.
Bo
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