[MD] Intellectual and Social

[John Carl]

Prospero Ano Nueva, Mary, Matt and Steve,

Reading Mary's response piqued my dialogic interest, and so here goes:


> Intellectual patterns could never eliminate social patterns
> since if we had to first justify every action before acting
> we would be paralyzed.
>


I assume you mean, intellectual patterning could never eliminate social
patterning completely, but the fact is that intellectual patterns eliminate
existing social patterns all the time, or what was the French Revolution all
about?  Ditto the Communist.

Justification of action seems to be something that occurs in hindsight
usually, although a lot of it does occur pre-action when it's known that a
certain resistance or reaction is likely to occur.  But a lot of our daily
behaviour goes on with no intellectual reflection at all.  If I was aware of
every single action I took, as I made it, would that be a bad thing?  It
doesn't seem possible, but Buddhists practice a "mindfulness" that seems to
set this forth as an ideal.  If the ideal is paralyzing, then why have it as
an ideal?

So I guess I don't quite agree with the chorus here.

For the following, I do like Steve's formulation mostly.  I think he's
missing key pieces tho. He leaves out the social/emotional matrix, for one:

mechanistic cause and effect occur at the inorganic
Actions occur at the biological,
Emotions occur at the social
Thoughts occur at the intellectual.


> 1) actions occur at the biological level.
>
> 2) thoughts occur at the intellectual level.
>
> 3) a train of thought can continue on indefinitely.
>
> But his number 3)
>

An excellent point that hasn't been brought forward to my attention before:
 All the levels have boundaries except the 4th.  A train of thought can
continue indefinitely.



> > all thoughts must pass through a social-authority matrix to turn into
> action...
>
>
Mary:


> If you are saying that we do not take actions unless guided by a
> pre-existing Social level pattern, I disagree.  Bacteria take action
> without
> benefit of social organization.  Babies cry without benefit of language,
> logical thought, or social conditioning.
>
>
John:

Right.  Action is a second level activity.  The formulation works so stick
with it.

Mary:


> I do not think our inference engine is controlled by the MoQ Social level.
> I think our inference engine created the Social level.
>

John:

Excellent inference Mary.  I agree completely.  Inferences and hypothesis
come from higher up, not lower down the ladder.