From: Scott Roberts (jse885@localnet.com)
Date: Thu Nov 03 2005 - 18:21:23 GMT
Mike,
Scott said:
> Finally, on the intellect/intelligence distinction, I see none. When a
> materialist speaks of "nature's intelligence" s/he is speaking somewhat
> tongue-in-cheek, and I think the same can be said of the way Bo speaks of
> it. As I see it, to say of some process that it is intelligent is
> meaningless unless there is value involved, and to say there is value
> involved is meaningless unless there is awareness involved, and a process
> that involves choosing among possibilities based on estimating
> consequences.
> That is, there is intellect involved.
Mike said:
All I'm saying is that, if we want to retain Pirsig's label for the
4th level - "intellect" - then we need to have a terminological
distinction between intellect and intelligence, so that "intelligence"
can refer to the same (non-)thing as Quality, and "intellect" can be
reserved for the intelligence that resides in autonomous individuals.
Scott:
Why retain Pirsig's label? As I see it, that label is the cause of the
confusion about what the 4th level is. The problem, as I see it, is that in
using that label Pirsig has preserved a remnant of materialist thinking,
which I call nominalism: the belief that intellect resides solely within 4th
level human beings. The point of the word 'participation' is that it says
that we know something when our intellect coincides with the intellect of
the thing known. Concepts are not unique to human thinking. A tree's growth
is the expression of its own concept (which is the tree's species). If we
distinguish between intelligence and intellect, it is too easy to think of
nature's intelligence in the same way that a materialist does. Instead we
should be thinking of it as the same as human intelligence.
Mike continued:
The second, closely related, point of disagreement lies in your claim
that "to say of some process that it is intelligent is meaningless
unless there is value involved, and to say there is value involved is
meaningless unless there is awareness involved, and a process
that involves choosing among possibilities based on estimating
consequences." While I agree that intelligence (as Quality) entails
value, I don't agree that value entails "a process
that involves choosing among possibilities based on estimating
consequences". This is because I want to extend "intelligence" all the
way down to the inorganic level, obviously in an attenuated and rigid
form. Amoebas and carbon molecules don't estimate consequences (they
don't have a "temporal buffer", as I think Case would say), but they
do behave in accordance with extremely rigid and predictable patterns
of value. Basically, I want to redescribe "intelligence" in exactly
the same way that Pirsig redescibes "value" so that it can refer to
that which holds a glass of water together.
Scott:
I agree that amoebas and carbon molecules don't estimate consequences. That
is, I think that it is a mistake to say that an amoeba is making
distinctions. However, that is the amoeba that we perceive. You might note
that in these situations I have been very careful to say "there is
intellect (or consciousness) involved" and to not say "the amoeba has an
intellect" or "the amoeba chooses to move away from the acid". Just how that
involvement shakes out we really can't say, though I am partial to Rupert
Sheldrake's morphogenetic forms as a possible description, if you're
familiar with it. The reaction of the amoeba to the acid, or the carbon
molecules habit of bonding the way it does is, as you say, an extremely
rigid and predictable pattern of value. So what I am saying is that those
SPOV are conceptual in nature, and the actions of the amoeba and carbon atom
are the spatio-temporal expression of those SPOV, in the same way that words
and sentences are the spatio-temporal form of the concepts that we trade
back and forth (the same except that the latter's dynamicism is higher:
words change meanings faster than species change form or behavior).
Mike said:
Now to the really interesting one:
> A perfectly detached intellect, I think, would not be subjective.
Actually, now I come to think of it, this might not be such a big
deal. Let me ask you a question: Would a perfectly detached intellect
be autonomous? Presumably yes. So what, then, do you consider to be
the difference between autonomy and subjectivity?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm...
Scott:
As I see it, subjectivity in the S[1] sense arises because one is aware of
one's partial autonomy, and so one is aware of resistance to full autonomy.
I don't think one can say anything about subjectivity in the S[2] sense, for
the same reason one can't say anything about DQ (they both transcend all
SQ -- which is why I think they are the same (non-)thing). So I guess I
would say that S[2] is the DQ/autonomous subject, and S[1] is the
SQ/resistent subject. However, I recognize that this "explanation", like all
attempts to grapple with the concept of 'self', must be inadequate. In the
end, one must fall back on the good old Buddhist tetralemma: one cannot say
the subject is autonomous, one cannot say the subject is not autonomous, one
cannot say the subject is both autonomous and not autonomous, one cannot say
that the subject is neither autonomous nor not autonomous. (Why not, you
might object, say the subject is both autonomous and not autonomous, as is
suggested by my saying there is partial autonomy? Well, because a mystic
might say that all that resistence you experience is in fact "you". You are
freely choosing to be bound... and as usual, with mysticism, our nice
dichotomies fall apart.)
- Scott
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