From: Scott Roberts (jse885@cox.net)
Date: Fri Jul 22 2005 - 20:45:35 BST
Paul,
>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?
Paul said: I think it does say that there is an accompanying description
but
that isn't the same as saying that "mind is really matter." I take this
from three places:
[quotes skipped]
From which you can conclude that all intellectual patterns are also
inorganic, in the sense described above.
Scott:
All of which means that the MOQ denies the possibility of
non-physically-embodied intellect. And it says that the biological developed
out of the inorganic, etc. with DQ as the agent that caused this
development. Thus we have the same assumption that is held by materialism,
but the MOQ differs from materialism in saying that the cause of development
is DQ, rather than chance and natural selection. So why do you object to
having the MOQ called materialism plus DQ? Or let me be a little more
accommodating, and say it follows an assumption taken from the materialist
viewpoint (the progression from non-consciousness/intellect to
consciousness/intellect) but provides a non-material means for that
progression. More on this at the end.
Scott said:>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.
Paul: I would think the MOQ would say that there were inorganic, biological
and social patterns before intellect and they were doing just fine without
the intellectual patterns of space and time.
Scott: But they had a language, and I presume experience, with 'up', 'down',
'before', 'after', etc., which is all I mean when I say that space and time
was part of experience before the time that intellect became "my" intellect.
That's why I don't see the point of the Barfield quotes to this discussion.
What he is saying is that the experience of space and time has changed, and
that it wasn't until after this change occurred that one could come up with
the particularly Newtonian intellectual pattern of space and time (a fixed,
objective container). So in my vocabulary (in which all patterns are
intellectual) the change is from one intellectual pattern to another.
>Scott:
>Because intellect is the evaluation of patterns in order to create new
>ones.
Paul: Whereas I think intellect is one manifestation of evaluation and as
such is not the precondition of evaluation. This is probably the crux of
our differences.
Scott:
Right. See below.
>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.
Paul: I think that assuming intellect is involved in all static judgments
is incorrect. Is one's choice of a sexual partner intellectual? The choice
to obey authority is not necessarily intellectual either.
Scott:
They follow patterns, that is, they are cases of habitual thinking, rather
than new thinking, clinging to the static rather than the dynamic. When I
add 5 plus 7 and get 12, I am following an intellectual pattern, same as
when I follow authority, because I do not wish to face the consequences of
disrupting the pattern.
Paul continued:
I can think of
hundreds of judgments made all of the time which aren't intellectual. Then
there is the Dynamic Quality which is no judgment at all, just the awareness
of new values.
Scott:
While I would say that all judgments involve intellect, as does all
awareness, but this is just my 'tis to your 'taint, so let me restate why I
think this way.
The MOQ rejects materialism because materialism has no place for value, yet
we know value is real because all our experience involves value. So far so
good. But by retaining the materialist assumption that we developed out of
the inorganic, the MOQ must account for that development. It notes that in
our experience there is creation of new static patterns out of existing
ones. We find some existing patterns not good, and create new ones. So the
MOQ extends that to all levels. But in our experience the creation of new
from old involves consciousness and intellect as well as value, but the MOQ
only extrapolates value. The only reason I can see for not also
extrapolating consciousness and intellect is to remain faithful to the
materialist assumption.
- Scott
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