From: Case (Case@iSpots.com)
Date: Sun Nov 06 2005 - 02:41:06 GMT
Holy moly, Ham isn't the weirdest after all.
I went to Books-a-Million to pick up some Barfield and found him out of
print. They suggested a visit to Half.com. I come home for a bit of internet
research and find Ham's is on to something. The dude espoused Antroposophy
and followed Stiener who abandoned the Theosphists to commune directly with
the Akashic records. Is Barfield suggesting that consciousness played leap
frog in Sheldrake's morphogenic field?
Who is next? Zachariah Sitchin? The aliens made us smart to get us to mine
gold for them?
Beyond the attack ad hominem, this idea that consciousness evolves in fits
and starts is fundamentally flawed. It is far more likely that changes in
the ways cultures see the world are ratcheted forward by technology rather
than evolution. Inventions like astrology, the plowshare, the drainage
canal, animal husbandry or the development of a leisure class more than
account for the paradigm shifts we observe in history and as far as we can
tell in prehistory.
The human brain operates in several different modes. It is hardly surprising
that at different places and different times people have favored one mode
over another other. This is similar to what Benedict says about whole
cultures having personality types. In both cases the issue is the
probability distribution of modes of thought or personality types in various
populations.
I believe it has been readily demonstrated that in addition to being
linguistic creatures human beings think, learn and respond in many ways that
are purely nonverbal, from jumping at the sound of thunder to orgasm. We
"just get feelings about things."
Furthermore to identify the totality of experience with language seems a bit
limiting especially if this is based on semiotics which appears to be a
theory designed to explain language. The Saussurean model doesn't even need
to bother with referents since languages can be developed to talk about
nothing at all.
However, language is not even the only way we communicate.
There is a whole set of unconscious nonverbal behaviors that take place
between mothers and their infants. Both seem to be genetically programmed as
partners in a dance.
Humans are as easily conditioned as dogs in a Pavlovian sense.
In normal face to face conversations much, if not most, of the actual
information conveyed is not verbal.
What is profound or mystical about this "pre-intellectual" business?
My position is: Mu!
Case
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk [mailto:owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk]
On Behalf Of hampday@earthlink.net
Sent: Saturday, November 05, 2005 5:21 PM
To: moq_discuss@moq.org
Subject: Re: MD Looking for the Primary Difference
Scott, Erin, Arlo and Ian --
At Scott's suggestion, I've done a little research on Owen Barfield, who I
suspect has been a major factor in altering all of your consciences.
(Personally, I think he's a 97-year old nut.)
Knowing something of Pirsig's history, there must be a place for levels of
insanity in the Quality heirarchy. Scott has summed up all five of our
respective epistemologies quite succinctly. So, let's see if we can pick
the craziest thinker in this group. I'll start with my own belief system,
based on Scott's precis but reconfigured and slightly expanded to properly
prioritize it. The others' are quoted in Scott's words.
HAM: The human individual is the cognizant subject of objective existence,
without which reality would be either an absolute, something else, or
nothing. All objective sensibility (experience) is proprietary to
individual awareness, including somatic sensations such as pain, hunger,
passion, and ecstasy; valuistic judgments or responses such as desire,
repulsion, beauty, grossness, and morality (bad, good or better); and
intellectual precepts such as rationality, ideological concepts,
mathematical and geometric relations, logical principles, and the use of
language to communicate all of the above to other subjects.
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').
ARLO: Language and intellect are properties of humans only, while
individuality is a concept (that is, is linguistic), useful in getting along
with the environment.
ERIN(?): All that we experience (including individuality) is semiotic, but
whether that's true of non-human experience is unknown.
IAN: (Same as Erin, according to Scott)
'Mirror, mirror on the wall, who say you is the weirdest of all?'
Improbably yours,
Ham
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