From: Scott Roberts (jse885@cox.net)
Date: Tue Jul 19 2005 - 01:49:56 BST
Paul,
[skipping -- either agree or dealt with below]
Scott said:
You say "Although events at the biological, social or intellectual
levels can, in principle, be described in terms of events at the inorganic
level this does not mean that that is "all they are."
I do not understand it.
Paul said:
I'm making the simple statement that e.g. the intellectual solution
to a math problem written out on a blackboard is not to be found by studying
the properties of the inorganic chalk marks even though the activity can be
described in those terms. It can also be described in terms of the
biological movements involved in writing, or the socially agreed
conventional meanings of the symbols being drawn.
Scott:
Ok. I was thrown -- and in a sense still am a bit -- by your insertion of
"in principle". This is a phrase used by a strict materialist to say that
mind is really matter, that it is in principle reducible to material
processes (though we don't know how). So the question I would ask is: does
the MOQ say that in any intellectual pattern there is an accompanying
inorganic description? (This leads to whether there is the possibility of
non-physically embodied consciousness.)
Scott said: I argue that space and time are produced in the act of
perception
(since the act of perception transcends the spatio-temporal nature of the
perceived).
Paul said: The MOQ supports this by saying that space and time are
intellectual
patterns produced by Quality, which is perception.
Scott:
Hmmm. If Quality is perception (which I don't deny -- or at least I would
say that perception is Quality (and a form of Intellect)), then what is the
problem with the iron filings -- see below.
I would also say that space and time are intellectual patterns, but since
they shape perception, this probably does not mean the same thing that you
mean to say. For example, I would say there was space and time before 1000
B.C, i.e., before the intellect manifested itself in human thought.
Scott: Hence the one level they cannot be assigned to is the inorganic, if
the inorganic is not sentient.
Paul said: Space and time are intellectual patterns which are not presumed
to
represent an independent objective reality existing at the inorganic level.
They are intellectual patterns that are extremely valuable for predicting
and controlling inorganic (and biological) patterns.
Scott:
The god Kronos existed before there were MOQian intellectual patterns,
though. And the gods were thought to live in a place, so there was space.
Paul said:
With respect to the question of sentience at the inorganic level, this, of
course, presupposes that sentience produces or enables an awareness of value
whereas I think in the MOQ, it is presupposed that an awareness of value
produces or enables sentience i.e. sentience is one, evolved, mode of
responding to value but is not its precondition. Think of the MOQ
description of iron filings valuing movement towards a magnet - does this
require the iron filings to be sentient?
Scott:
It requires (with a caveat) that there is awareness involved. If you are
restricting the word "sentience" to entities with sense organs, then
obviously no. But since you seem to be agreeing with me that where there is
value there is awareness of value, that is all I am after.
The caveat is that it may not be correct to say that the iron filings are
aware, since the iron filings that we know through observation are probably
not the locus of awareness (I am trying to avoid S/O-speak). What that locus
is, or if there even is a locus (non-spatiotemporality raises that issue) we
can't tell.
Scott: In any case, if the value that produces and maintains both inorganic
and intellectual patterns is not dependent on the prior existince of a
spatio-temporal universe, why is intellect seen as the latest stage of
evolution?
Paul said: The spatio-temporal universe is an intellectual construction
which is
extremely valuable for predicting and controlling inorganic and biological
patterns. It is proposed that intellect is dependent on social, biological
and inorganic patterns of value, not space and time.
Scott:
While I see no reason to so propose. Nor did Plotinus. I argue that that
proposition is a remnant of materialist, reductionist thinking. While it is
true that for there to be human intellect tied to a brain, it is dependent
on biology. But did biology evolve on its own, and then out of nowhere
decide to make sense organs and nervous systems, which later happened to be
useful for thinking, or did thinking learn to manifest itself in physical
form? I go with the latter. (And I hope the word "learn" serves to
distinguish this from theistic Intelligent Design.)
Scott said: Why is it anathema to say intellect is involved at all stages?
Paul: I think one problem is that this can lead one to equivocate between
uses of "intellect." We need to distinguish between what occurs at the
inorganic level and what occurs at the intellectual level. By your lights,
we have inorganic intellect, biological intellect, social intellect and
intellectual intellect. This just seems to me lead to an unnecessarily
confusing philosophy. Or are you denying that there is a difference between
e.g. digesting food and geometry?
Scott:
Of course, in my view, intellect is not a fourth level of static patterns of
value. Instead, what Pirsig sees as the arrival of a new level of SPOV in c.
500 BC I see as the emergence of Intellect in physical human beings, where
thought becomes "my" thought. It seems so obvious to me that by thinking I
create intellectual patterns, that thinking is DQ/SQ, not just SQ, while at
the social, biological, and inorganic level, there is just SQ (from our
limited viewpoint).
That does not mean that human intellect is the same as Intellect, though. I
think of it as baby Intellect, not fully manifested.
Paul said:
We already have value involved in all stages, why do we need intellect as
well?
Scott:
Because intellect is the evaluation of patterns in order to create new ones.
Paul said: Non-sentience is a description of some lower level sets of
responses
to value; sentience is a description for another higher level set. The
linkages between the responses are evolutionary. Evolution is a description
of a migration of value patterns towards better patterns.
Do you disregard all evolutionary theories as arm-waving? What about the
evolution of consciousness proposed by Barfield? Is he doing a bit of
flapping as well? Why did alpha-thinking occur? Why did beta-thinking
occur after alpha-thinking? Why does anything change at all?
Scott:
We know how intellectual patterns change: by thinking. Why assume there is
some other means -- granted that value is inherent in all thinking.
Scott prev:
One can never explain that which is fundamental, so I don't know why you
complain that it is too mysterious to explain.
Paul said: I agree that one can never explain that which is fundamental to
your
explanation i.e. starting axioms. But I was pointing out that you complain
about evolution being "Darwinian arm-waving dogma" whilst doing (what I
think) is the same thing with the supposed ubiquity of semiotic
consciousness.
Scott:
Please. I have always been careful to distinguish "evolution" from
"Darwinism". And all philosophy is, in the end, arm-waving. Some is of
higher quality, though, and I consider Darwinism to be of low quality.
Evolution, of course, is a fact.
Scott prev:
So what I am trying to get across is (a) that intellect, like quality, is
irreducible (and is implied in the phrase "static pattern of value"), and
(b) the resistence to acknowledging it seems to me to stem from a lingering
materialist conditioning.
Paul said: I don't think intellect is implied in the phrase static pattern
of
value. Or if it is, it is not the intellect that is referred to by the term
"intellectual level."
Scott:
If you call it Plotinian Intellect, I'm happy with that. As long as human
intellect is recognized as Plotinian Intellect writ small. As for being
implied, my argument is that value implies awareness of value, and if B
values precondition A, then there is an aware choice being made over not-A.
A pattern is evaluated and acted on accordingly. That is intellect.
- Scott
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