Bo, All
3WD
I guess my current uneasiness with Pirsig's levels hierarchy revolves
around this thread line. In my opinion the really radical evolutionary
jumps are from nothing to something, inorganic to biological, and from
biological to human consciousness. Under the MoQ there are three choices
as to where this jump to consciousness occurred. Either it is the event
defining the split between biological and social levels or between the
social and intellectual levels or it occurred sometime during social
evolution. None of these choices seems to fully correspond with the
characteristics Pirsig gives for the static levels of MoQ.
I did a brief web search and turned up this theory on a paleopsychology
web site.( http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/~acheyne/signcon.html) under the
heading "Overview of "Signs of Consciousness". (I recommend reading the
whole article as background to my comments)
> It has been conjectured that the large prey animals portrayed in the Paleolithic graphics,
> being so central to the lives of the graphists, were simply "good to think about." A great
> discovery of these earlier graphists was that the externalization of their visual-spatial
> imagery helped them systematically to think about things that were "good to think about."
Simply "GOOD to think about." This might be the first sign of the birth
of consciousness. But is it a sign of an emerging social level or
emerging intellectual one?
That Part II of the paper starts with a brief discussion of the
semiotics of C S Peirce is a GOOD sign and we read:
********
"Peirce's semiotic, in contrast to that of Saussure, must be based on
the psychology of perceiving, thinking, and acting as much as on
linguistics. For a Peircean semiotic "verbal language is far too narrow
a field from which to construct a general theory of signs" (Hoopes, 1991,
p. 11). For Peirce, semiotics is a part of natural science, but an emergent
part that is culture creating. Peirce's semiotic is not a result, but
the very ground, of language, culture, and history. Perceiving, thinking
and acting are not, on a Peircean view, different things. Indeed,
thinking is but a way of acting and its effects are as real as for any
action. Acting effects changes and is understood by the changes it
effects. All of these are forms of practical interpretation.
Consequently, perceiving, like thinking and acting, is constrained by
previous practical interpretations, not only immediately preceding
interpretations of the thinking actor but by the previous interpretive
actions of the larger culture. They are the effects and effectors of
history. From his early writings Peirce argued against intuitionism and
the notion of immediate access to understanding. Understanding is, for
Peirce, always in signs mediated by further signs. There is no moment
when the Cartesian observer apprehends clear and distinct ideas that
stand alone on a projection screen in the mind."
******
3WD
So maybe my use of "thinking" in the previous post as a sign of
"intellect" is too narrow.
That the birth of the "intellect" required a quantum shift not only in
"thinking" but perceiving and acting. But we see in both Peirce's quote
and the one below the terms "culture" and "social" are indicated either as
forerunner and/or integral to this development.
*******
"It is only as the array of recovered artifacts from the period from
40,000 to 10,000, that is, the Late Paleolithic, has grown has it become
evident just how remarkable culture development was during that period.
None of the claims listed are entirely uncontroversial, however, they do
represent some of the best documented claims in the archaeology of the
period. Only a few of the most significant events may be mentioned here.
They include the first clear evidence of:
Semeiosis: that is, the act of creating signs that stand for objects.
The production of figurative and non-figurative marks on stones, bones,
plaques, cave walls etc.,
Productive recurrence: production of second-order tools. This refers to
the production and use of tools such as the graver, or burin, the most
likely use of which was to work bone, ivory, antler, and similar
materials into a great variety of new tools such as points, awls,
needles, pins, spear-throwers, etc.,
Production and use of simple "machines:" that exploited mechanical
advantage (e.g., the spear thrower and perhaps the so-called baton-de
commandment), An ability to visualize the complex action of tools or
simple machines: The production and use of fish-hooks and harpoons
appeared at this time. The mechanics of these devices required that the
makers be able to visualize and understand or predict the sequence of
remote events such as those of penetration, withdrawal, and secondary
penetration of a barb. The makers of such instruments were the rocket
scientists of their time.
Spatial structural organization of living sites, and
Long distance transport of raw materials: such as, stones and shells
over tens or even hundreds of kilometers.
These cultural and technological developments were associated with
other developments of enduring significance. These were:
A rapid expansion of the of human populations into all territories
previously occupied by earlier developed forms of humans and the
extremely rapid replacement of the indigenous populations,
Further expansion into territories not previously inhabited by humans,
An increase in population densities to levels comparable to those of
hunting and gathering societies of historical times, and
The development of an extremely stable form of life. Human groups have
survived to historical times at approximately the same level of social
organization and technology having been pushed to near extinction only
by a world culture that developed out of the same foundation."
********
3WD
Under one of the common interpretations of the MoQ (Bo's , DMB's etc.)
the above patterns are all "social" patterns, no intellectual values
have yet emerged. And this article refers to "earlier societies and
cultures" as lacking these values. So it would seem that under the MoQ
human consciousness is not the event defining the jump from biological
to social. So are we are left to conclude that one of the hugh jumps in
evolution, the jump to human consciousness, is so insignificant that is
lies buried somewhere in the middle of the MoQ's social level? What
about the jump from social to intellectual? The last line of the above
quote reads:
> The development of an extremely stable form of life. Human groups have
> survived to historical times at approximately the same level of social
> organization and technology having been pushed to near extinction only
> by a world culture that developed out of the same foundation."
So once this jump to human consciousness was accomplished some humans
stayed pretty much at this level at least until European expansion
during early colonial times and in some isolated locations like the
Amazon river basin until the middle of the 20th century. But none of
these people, under Pirsig's scheme (or Bo's interpretation which I
think, is minus his SOLAQI theory, accurately reflects it), have evolved
to intellectual level. Why? Because the intellect is reserved for higher
level, post Greek, post Enlightenment concepts and theories such as
democracy, human rights, etc. Now the obvious problem with this is that
there is ample historical, empirical evidence that during Western
exploration and colonialization of the world that "primitive savages"
the "humans groups [that] survived to historical times at approximately
the same level of social and technology" [i.e. Paleolithic] had both
crude and refined forms of "democracy". More refined, working, day to
day applications of it, in some instances, than any in history of the
world at that time, West or East.
So while almost every other thinker, scientific or religious,
acknowledges that the emergence of the human "mind" or "consciousness"
was a huge step or jump in evolution; under the MoQ it is not. It is
neither the jump from biological to social nor from social to
intellectual but some minor event buried in the middle of social evolution.
Sorry, I don't buy that, nor do I see the GOOD in it.
3WD
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