From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Tue Nov 26 2002 - 22:28:16 GMT
Dear Steve,
You wrote 26/11 12:39 -0500:
'Do you stand by the definitions that you gave for how patterns are latched?
The last one about intellectual patterns being latched "in a way that is
acceptable to others" has a social ring to it. Would it make sense to say
that intellectual patterns are latched as mental structures of the kind that
one is conscious of ie concepts? (By including the word "conscious" in your
definition of intellectual patterns and "unconscious" in your definition of
social patterns a subject is brought into play, no? Check my thinking here:
it's okay for moq because the thinker is deduced from the thought and not
the reverse.)'
Yes, I stand by my description of the way the intellectual level is latched:
'conscious motivation/justification of actions in a way that is acceptable
to others'. I consciously gave it BOTH a social ring AND an individual ring
(by refering to individual actions). In my view the distinction between
social and individual in the MoQ is not related to a distinction between
phenomena that can or can't be interpreted as 'collective'. Both social and
intellectual patterns of values combine an 'individual' (in the SOM sense)
aspect ('habit' and 'idea'/'symbolic representation') and a collective
aspect (sharing/copying/passing on habits/ideas/symbolic representations).
Intellectual patterns need for their 'latching' more individuals and
communication between them. An 'idea' or 'concept' that is not applied in
communication loses its meaning and effectively dies (even if it can be
conserved and 'sleep' for quite a long time by committing it to paper or
other media).
'Conscious' and 'unconscious' do seem to imply a subject/object division
(like 'awareness', 'value' and a lot of other words that we nevertheless may
need to describe the MoQ), because our language is to a large extent formed
by Subject-Object Thinking. So we need to be very cautious when we use them.
Putting the
pattern-of-comparable-thoughts-as-expressed-by-several-individuals first and
the thinkers second is indeed a way of expressing this needed caution.
You wrote at the end:
'Subjects and objects are deduced from value which explains why we can't use
SOM to make moral judgments. In a way, that would be backward.'
We CAN use SOM to make moral judgements. Subject-Object Thinking being a
high quality intellectual pattern of values, these are very useful moral
judgements. But their usefulness is limited. The MoQ can be used to make
moral judgements where SOM lets us down by stressing that moral judgements
based on SOM are only secondary moral judgements. The experience from which
we deduce subjects and objects (and which doesn't necessarily imply their
existence) is itself the primary moral judgement. That which is not value is
simply not experienced and does not exist. 'Value' implies 'moral
judgement'. (We must use 'moral judgement' even more cautiously than 'value'
however, in order to remove the apparent implication of a 'judging
subject').
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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