Bo,
skutvik@online.no wrote:
> Hi Scott and Erin
>
>
>[Scott previously}]
>>Even more interesting is that perception was also different. From
>>anthropological work, he finds a consistent pattern of perception being
>>more than what it is for us. For us, it is something like "seeing a tree
>>is seeing form and color", but in earlier times it was more like seeing
>>the outer form AND the spiritual tree "behind" it.
>>
> [Bo:]
> Yes, but I think the "form" vs "the spiritual" thing behind is
SOM-Intellect casting the past in
> its own picture. The reality of our ancestors was not divided in any
way and could be
> created/manipulated by correctly performed rituals. But I guess this
is exactly what you
> mean.
>
Correct. And yes, I am casting into SOM-Intellect. We do not experience
in the way that they experienced, and so we do not have any clear way to
describe it, so we are forced to put it into S/O terminology.
Barfield calls this pre-intellectual kind of consciousness "original
participation", with the word "participation" being this experience of
the spiritual in perception. What has happened in the shift to
SO-Intellect is that this participation has "gone inside", into our
unconscious, so to speak. If it weren't there, we wouldn't be perceiving
anything at all. For the mystic, it has become conscious again, but not
in the same way -- and of course that is indescribable as well.
>
[Scott prev.]
>>The story goes on. The post-tHomeric Greeks were the first to "think
>>about" things. However, it was only a gradual process before the
>>thinking came to be completely experienced as "my" thinking, only
>>completed around 500 years ago, and which made the scientific revolution
>>possible, and lo SOM (Descartes) was born. Barfield's point is that SOM
>>-- the clear separation of the subject from the object wasn't possible
>>until this evolution of consciousness occurred.l
>>
>
[Bo:]
> OK, "think about" means a subject who regards an objective reality
...from a distance ...
> which is what Q-intellect is all about. And of course it was gradual,
yet I think what is
> described in ZAMM is the birth of the SOM (its conception around
Homer's time) and
> Descartes meant it's "coming of age" ...and WW1 it's "take-over" of
western civilization.
THe Greeks started the process, but it took 2000 years before it became
common to think "I am my mind", and until one does, one doesn't have
SO-intellect. The Greeks and the medievals were concerned mainly with
the appearance/reality distinction, not the mind/body distinction.
>
[Scott prev]
>>And, of course, consciousness will continue to involve, with the next
>>development being the re-merging of the subject and object worlds, ie,
>>what we now call mystical transcendence of SO dualism.
>>
[Bo]
> Oh, here it is - the dreadful CONSCIOUSNESS term. It is loaded to the
plimsoll mark with
> SOM and means a lot more than conscious versus unconscious. As said
before, all
> creatures sleep and must necessarily wake up to some reality
different from sleep, no, when
> we utter this word we really mean "awareness" and the way you speak
it's synonymous with
> DQ ...whose next development will be "...the re-merging of the
subject and object worlds". I
> agree but not in the sense that subject and object is "merged". The
S/O divide is terrible
> valuable - it is intellect itself - but it will be the overlaid by a
new value layer. Again I believe
> that this is what you say, it's only from intellect p.o.v. it's
called "mystical"
"Evolution of consciousness" is Barfield's phrase, which if you like can
be replaced with "evolution of awareness". As to the value of the S/O
divide, I agree and disagree. Agree since in the current stage, which
Barfield characterizes as "participation gone inside, into our
unconscious" (that's my paraphrase, not a direct quote from Barfield),
our consciousness is S/O consciousness -- it's all we (normally) have.
But I don't see it as valuable in itself. Rather, it is a necessary
stage to go through to final participation (Barfield's term again). What
we have here, as you may have gathered, is the Fall and a promised
Redemption.
>
[Scott prev]
>>My own take on all this with respect to "defining the intellectual
>>level" is that it doesn't fully exist yet. The closest we come is with
>>mathematics, where there is no object. Instead the thinking is the
>>mathematics -- there are no mathematical objects being thought about.
>>(This requires more detail, but another time). I might also add (with
>>respect to the question of feeling and intellect) is that now mostly
>>feeling is a matter of reaction. When the intellectual level come into
>>its own, then it carries its own feeling, that is feeling and thinking
>>merge -- again the closest I can guess at might be the aesthetic
>>pleasure of doing mathematics, though perhaps music is another case.
>>
>
[Bo]
> Here we differ. Intellect/SOM is developed do the degree of
dominating our outlook
> completely, making it so hard to understand the MOQ - which is a
development out of
> intellect. Mathematics the intellectual epitome! Weren't ancient man
capable of calculating,
> maybe not in the algebraic way, and what is math except an advanced
calculation with ever
> more abstract quantities? No that is not Q-Intellect. Archimedes and
the number
> (geometrical figures) mystics weren't intimate part of the
Socrates/Plato/Aristotle movement.
Mathematics -- in my mind -- came into existence with the concept of
proof, as in the Pythagorean proof that the square root of 2 is
irrational, and with Euclid's breakthrough of clearly stating the axioms
and postulates on which his mathematical system is based. Since Plato
was influenced by Pythagoras, and since ever since philosophers have
dreamed of being as successful in what they do (stating the TRUTH in
unimpeachable ways, like mathematics states it theorems), I think
mathematics can rightly be seen as the ideal intellectual activity. Now
is it Q-intellect? No, if you insist that all intellect be S/O. Yes if,
I as I will try to elaborate (in later posts), Q-intellect has not yet,
in general, happened.
>
> Sorry for sounding so cock-sure, but here in the last paragraph you
veer off into the usual
> blind alley of equating "thinking" - as such - with the Q-intellect.
Thinking OBJECTIVELY is
> Q-intellect. Thinking EMOTIONALLY is Q-society and thinking SENSUALLY
is Q-biology.
I guess I don't agree with characterizing Q-intellect as "Thinking
OBJECTIVELY" since then mathematics is not Q-intellect. I also think
that philosophy can be done without presupposing objects (that which is
"thought about" as something distinct from the thinking itself). But I
realize I am not yet ready to fully justify this, though I'm working on
it. I do agree that when thinking is emotionally driven it is not
Q-intellect, but then we need to distinguish the aesthetic pleasure of
doing mathematics (or any "pure", i.e., non-emotionally-driven
intellectual activity) from socially-centered emotions, as well, of
course, from sensual pleasure.
Have a good trip,
- Scott
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