From: Joseph Maurer (jhmau@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Tue Jun 28 2005 - 21:02:13 BST
On 27 June 2005 12:30 PM Scott writes to Bo:
Scott:
I do not call you a materialist. I am only pointing out that you, and
Pirsig, and most everybody, continue to work within a framework that is only
required by materialists, namely, the belief that the inorganic existed all
by itself, and then -- somehow -- evolved into the biological, etc. When you
consider that all that we perceive of the inorganic through our senses is
created only when we sense it (color, extension, etc.), and when you toss in
quantum non-locality, there is no reason to persist in this framework, and
good reasons to reject it, mainly because there is no "somehow" for
sentience to arise from non-sentience, intellect from non-intellect.
Hi Scott and Bo and All,
IMO a *belief that the inorganic existed all by itself, and then -somehow -
evolved into the biological, etc.* is a high quality idea. I find
irreducible mystical experiences, and I have no problem with a hierarchy of
an inorganic level, an organic level, a social level and an intellectual
level. Whatever is inorganic in me responds to the inorganic level etc. To
reason that there is no *many* only *one* order of yes and no is
unsupported.
IMO evolution is cosmic, and individual. Can an individual evolve? I answer
yes! Whether for an individual or a cosmos there is a medium for evolution.
The yes and no of the cosmic medium is of a different order than the yes and
no of the individual medium of evolution. The medium of cosmic evolution
leads to death for an individual. I am old, I am dying. The medium for
individual evolution leads to a different kind of life. Death is still
apparent, but what is in between maturity and death? I realize these are
simplistic questions and assertions and answers cannot be assertions.
Joe
> Bo,
>
> Bo said:
> Thanks Scott, this is enough to affirm my hunch that the
> mysterious "separate oriental intellect" is a hoax. There can as
> little exist a non-S/O intellect as there can a non-biological
> biology. Even the dictionaries define intellect as S/O, but my
> pointing to it is like pouring water over a goose (as we say) There
> must be something with the English-American mind that
> "beatifies" intellect.
>
> If you disagree with this and join Paul in the "belief" that intellect
> may harbour any "thought patterns" ...I have problems with your
> logic. The below ..
>
> Scott:
> I agree with you that the S/O divide is what makes intellect among humans
> in
> our stage of consciousness possible. However, when mystics like Franklin
> Merrell-Wolff speak of Knowledge through Identity, which is not
> S/O-divided,
> then I do not accept equating intellect with the S/O divide. And
> mathematics
> is a special case, see below.
>
> Scott previously:
>> I wouldn't say it corrects all shortcomings -- one still needs to see
>> Intellect as the driving force of evolution, as being the same
>> (non)-thing as Quality. The belief that intellect just came into being
>> in humans 2500 years ago is unworkable. And mathematics is an exception
>> to the SOL idea that all intellect is S/O.
>
> Bo said:
> Reveals that you subscribe to the "intelligence" definition of the
> intellectual LEVEL and that is untenable. People of the social era
> surely made calculations (the Egyptians of the pyramidical form)
> and what is the big difference between calculation and math?
> None whatsoever, and "mathematics an exception to the S/O"?
> I'll wait for your elaborating here before answering this seemingly
> nonsensical statement.
>
> Scott:
> I don't know what you mean by "subscribe to the "intelligence" definition
> of
> the intellectual LEVEL", so can't comment on it.
>
> On mathematics, as Coleridge and others have pointed out, mathematical
> "objects", such as zero-dimensional points, perfectly straight and
> width-less lines, proofs, and so on, exist only when they are thought,
> that
> the thinking of them *is* the object, so there is no subject working with
> a
> separate object. An ancient Egyptian knew that a triangle of 3, 4, and 5
> unit sides gave him a right angle. He did not know that for any a, b, and
> c,
> where a^2 + b^2 = c^2 one gets a right angle. He could not have the
> concept
> of an irrational number, and so on. Applied mathematics is not the same as
> pure mathematics, and calculating is applied mathematics. I do think that
> mathematical thinking would not have arisen without more general S/O
> thinking, but in itself, in the act of thinking, it is not S/O.
>
>> Yes, I've read Jaynes. I am also aware that Jaynes' had to squeeze his
>> correct observation (that intellect -- that my thoughts are *my*
>> thoughts -- started after Homer) into a materialist framework.
>
> Bo said:
> How you manage to nail me a materialist is beyond me, maybe
> because you are an idealist and sees no other alternative. After
> rejecting the SOM - and its idealist/materialist dichotomy - this is
> "over and out".
>
> Scott:
> I do not call you a materialist. I am only pointing out that you, and
> Pirsig, and most everybody, continue to work within a framework that is
> only
> required by materialists, namely, the belief that the inorganic existed
> all
> by itself, and then -- somehow -- evolved into the biological, etc. When
> you
> consider that all that we perceive of the inorganic through our senses is
> created only when we sense it (color, extension, etc.), and when you toss
> in
> quantum non-locality, there is no reason to persist in this framework, and
> good reasons to reject it, mainly because there is no "somehow" for
> sentience to arise from non-sentience, intellect from non-intellect.
>
> - Scott
>
>
>
> MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
> Mail Archives:
> Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
> Nov '02 Onward -
> http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
> MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
>
> To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
> http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
>
>
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue Jun 28 2005 - 21:21:44 BST