Re: MD Looking for the Primary Difference

From: Scott Roberts (jse885@localnet.com)
Date: Sat Nov 05 2005 - 19:19:06 GMT

  • Next message: David M: "Re: MD Quality, subjectivity and the 4th level"

    Erin (Arlo, Ian, Ham mentioned),

    Well, now I'm confused. I thought I was disagreeing with Ham's position
    (that "Not only is man the inventor and sole user of language, intellect is
    his proprietary gift"). What it looks like is that I may have mistaken your
    position. That is, Ham (and Pirsig, and Arlo and Ian) hold that there was no
    language/intellect, but now there is, but only in humans. My understanding
    of your position was that you were "on the fence" about this -- that you
    quoted McKenna as a possibility, but not as a statement of what you are
    committed to. But that you at least agree with Arlo that all that *we*
    experience is semiotic, while Ham, I think, would say that experiencing
    ourselves as individuals is pre-lingusitic. So in my reply to Ham, I wanted
    to point out that the position that Ham was calling absurd ("The idea that
    'Intellect' and 'Language' are not indigenous to human thought but hang
    around in some esthetic limbo waiting for man to 'latch onto' or 'evolve to'
    them is absurd") was only my position, not Arlo's or (or so I thought)
    yours. So, let me see if this summary of positions is accurate (anyone
    mentioned, feel free to correct)

    Ham: language and intellect are properties of humans only, while
    individuality is pre-linguistically an essence of humans.
    Arlo (and Ian and Pirsig, I think): language and intellect are properties of
    humans only, while individuality is a concept (that is, is linguistic),
    useful in getting along with the environment .
    Scott: language and intellect are what the universe consists of, and humans
    are individuals insofar as we are aware of ourselves as exploiting language
    creatively (and that 'essence' is just another word for 'concept').
    Erin (?): all that we experience (including individuality) is semiotic, but
    whether that's true of non-human experience is unknown.

    Does this help?

    - Scott

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: "Erin" <macavity11@yahoo.com>
    To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
    Sent: Friday, November 04, 2005 4:48 PM
    Subject: Re: MD Looking for the Primary Difference

    Scott,

    Could you clarify this for me?
    I was surprised that you agreed to what Ham wrote
    below.
    When I first read this I got an image of us evolving
    into language....I didn't agree with it because I
    thought it was saying we evolved from no
    language/intellect to language/intellect. When you
    said you were the one who had said it I went back and
    read it again because it didn't really seem consistent
    with your posts. I am not sure if my original reading
    was wrong or I am missing something. Is this saying
    there are higher levels of intellegience and language
    that we tap into..That makes more sense to me.

    Erin

    > Ham,
    >
    > Ham said [to Erin]:
    > The idea that 'Intellect' and 'Language' are not
    > indigenous to human thought
    > but hang around in some esthetic limbo waiting for
    > man to 'latch onto' or
    > 'evolve to' them is absurd. One must have a strong
    > aversion to
    > individuality in order to believe such nonsense.
    > Not only is man the
    > inventor and sole user of language, intellect is his
    > proprietary gift.
    > Through the use of his intellect and language, man
    > is the 'choicemaker' of
    > the physical world. That's MY explanation.
    >
    > Scott:
    > Actually, I think I'm the only one around here who
    > says unequivocally that
    > there is intellect and language outside the human
    > context. This does NOT
    > imply "a strong aversion to individuality", however.
    > See my 11/2 post in the
    > "Quality, subjectivity, and the 4th level" thread
    > for why it doesn't.
    >
    > - Scott
    >

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