In a message dated 9/14/02 3:33:40 AM GMT Daylight Time, jse885@spinn.net
writes:
> Squonk,
>
> SQUONKSTAIL@aol.com wrote:
>
> > In a message dated 9/13/02 3:36:28 AM GMT Daylight Time,
>
> >
> > Hi Scott,
> > Do you feel intelligence IS the subject/object split?
>
>
> I think the intellectual level emerges in humans with the advent of what
> Barfield calls alpha-thinking: He chose that term precisely because it
> doesn't presuppose any philosophical baggage, like "subject/object",
> which in Barfield's analysis did not become fully split until about 500
> years ago. Alpha-thinking started with the Greeks, after Homer. It is
> the building up of ideas/theories *about* what we now call objects.
> (Barfield calls the "objects" "collective representations". They are
> what we, subconsciously, create out of the "unrepresented" -- think
> quantum wave/particles. Barfield's thesis is that we make a mistake to
> assume that the collective representations are the same throughout
> humanity's existence. In particular, before the arrival of
> alpha-thinking, the creation of the collective representations was not,
> or not entirely, subconscious, as it is today. However, this conscious
> participation in the representations was considered to come *from* the
> representations, that is, one perceived the gods communicating from the
> mountains and trees, and so forth. He calls this "original
> participation". This gradually dwindled, which made alpha-thinking
> possible, and has been eradicated by our own time. Thus we now have SOM,
> the belief that we are independent of what we observe.)
>
> You use the word "intelligence" in your question, and that word I would
> use more broadly, to include what we call animal intelligence, social or
> mythological intelligence, bearing in mind that this application of the
> word is done from the intellectual level. Conscious intellect, i.e.,
> alpha-thinking, only applies (according to this theory) to humanity of
> the last 2500 years or so.
>
>
> > Do you feel the Quality as an idea emerged from this split?
>
>
> I'm not sure what you are asking here. The ability to form a metaphysics
> requires alpha-thinking. Prior to that one talked mythologically.
>
>
> >
> > My suggestion that subjects and objects existed at the time of Homer
> > appears to be non starter, which is fine by me - i like that. However, i
> > still feel intelligence emerged well before rationality.
>
>
> Making the distinction above, I would say intelligence has been around
> forever (I am somewhat of a neo-Platonist). Now cleverness, say, is
> older (consider Odysseus), but the ability to reflect on the world and
> make theories about it seems to me to require a different order of mind,
> one where the world consists of de-godded things.
>
> - Scott
>
>
Thanks Scott,
Much appreciated.
All the best,
Squonk.
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