[MD] Intellectual and Social

[Steven Peterson]

Hi John,

On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 12:30 PM, John Carl <ridgecoyote at gmail.com> wrote:
> Greetings Steve,
>
> On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 8:50 AM, Steven Peterson <peterson.steve at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Hi John,
>>
>> > 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.
>>
>>
>> Accoring to Pirsig, the MOQ puts emotions at the biological level:
>> "The MOQ sees emotions as a biological response to quality and not the same
>> thing as quality. There are many cases, particularly in economic activity
>> where values occur without any emotion." Note 141, Lila's Child
>>

John said:
> Yeah, I've encountered this.  I beg to differ with Pirsig in one or two
> small, inconsequential areas and this is one of them.  I get permission by
> reading his explanation of his demarcation  confining the third level to
> human society, which is basically "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
>
> You really think economic activity occurs without emotion?  Ha.  Without
> emotion, there wouldn't be economic activity.  Or put another way, I wonder
> if Bob is quite so glib since the collapse in investment values.

Steve:
Whether or not economic activity involves emotion is not really the
issue here. The question is whether emotional activity can manifest
without social patterns.  I still say it can.


Steve:
> The feeling of fear, for example, can be a biological response to
>> biological threats that does not depend on any social patterns.
>>
>>
John:
> Wrong again.  Lizards feel no fear, cows do.  For fear to occur, some sense
> of self must be in place.  A sense of self is created through infant nurture
> and the realization of the self/other dichotomy.  Thus any fear for this
> socially constructed self, is  social.

Steve:
I think I heard that the part of the brain that is responsible for
human emoptions is present in mammals but not reptiles, so you may be
right about lizards and cows with regard to fear. But then after
saying that cows experience fear you say "For fear to occur, some
sense of self must be in place." Are you saying that cows have a sense
of self? If so, this is an unusual claim that needs some defending.

At any rate, what I've argued as key to distinguishing social and
biological patterns is that biological patterns are "hard-wired"
through DNA while social patterns are learned. Fear seems pretty
clearly to be this sort of "hard-wired" response to biological threats
rather than a behavior copied from one individual to the next through
social learning.



John:
>SOL is social, not intellectual.
>  SOM is intellectual, because it takes this SOL as fundamental to existence.


Steve:
I don't know what you are talking about here. There is no SOL in the MOQ.


>From Lila:
“The Metaphysics of Quality resolves the relationship between
intellect and society,
subject and object, mind and matter, by embedding all of them into a
larger system of
understanding. Objects are inorganic and biological values; subjects
are social and
intellectual values.”


Best,
Steve