From: SQUONKSTAIL@aol.com
Date: Thu Jun 19 2003 - 02:22:43 BST
Hello Scott,
I have to cut some length otherwise my posts don't ever make it through. If
this is disrupting our discussion i will split them for complete inclusion.
Sorry!
Scott:
Simple it is not. None of us were there 2500 years ago, so we must make our
best guess from the data available.
sq: 'For purposes of MOQ precision, let's say that the
intellectual level is the same as mind. It is the
collection and manipulation of symbols, created in the
brain, that stand for patterns of experience.' Lila's
Child
Clearly this includes language. Therefore, intellect is as old, and indeed
possibly older than language. So, we are looking at tens of thousands of years
of intellectual evolution before ancient Greece.
Scott:
For the evidence that it did spring into existence (not suddenly, but
gradually), see
Julain Jaynes, The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral
Mind
Owen Barfield, Saving the Appearances
Bruno Snell, The Discovery of the Mind (I haven't read much of this, but I
think it is relevant)
sq: You are referring to consciousness? I have no argument with that.
Within this evolutionary relationship it is
possible to see that intellect has functions that
predate science and philosophy. The intellect's
evolutionary purpose has never been to discover an
ultimate meaning of the universe. That is a relatively
recent fad. Its historical purpose has been to help a
society find food, detect danger, and defeat enemies.
It can do this well or poorly, depending on the
concepts it invents for the purpose." Lila Ch 24
Scott:
The "confusion" you refer to arises, in my opinion, in the fact that it is
practically impossible for us to imagine being a person without this
subject/object division we all now have. Yet the evidence shows that it is a recent
development. Without that division, there is no manipulating of symbols to *stand
for* existing static patterns, that is, there is no "thinking about".
sq: It is possible and you do it all the time. I do my best to forget this
cultural inheritance and stop thinking about subjects and objects. I used to do
it all the time when i was younger, before my culture began to insist
otherwise. We all still do it all the time anyway, at those creative times and in
those situations when we lose our sense of self.
Scott:
In the end, my point is that if we don't acknowledge this c. 500 BC
difference (whatever we want to call it), then our metaphysics is radically incomplete.
sq: The difference you point to was a new way of manipulation, not the
emergence or beginning of manipulation, by the intellect. When the new methods are
seen as art, then it becomes easier to see science as creative. I feel that is
pretty valuable.
Scott:
But they did not come in the subject/object form that they do today. The
intellect appeared to come from outside, now it appears to come from inside.
sq: Appearances are all we have to deal with. Even intellectual patterns have
an appearance of static morality. A better way may be to consider the DQ/SQ
tension of intellectual experience.
squonk
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