[MD] Intellect's Symposium

[David Thomas]

Bo, 

>> So you see from above that I am not and never have been pursuing
>> intellect=intelligence. Neither is intellect=intellectual level. The
>> intellect is the capacity that emerged deep in the social level and
>> grew and prospered though group (social) interaction until many many
>> years later the intellectual level finally emerged.
> 
> OK, then we agree.
Great.
> Intellect is out of society, that's an important MOQ
> tenet, but regardless it somehow was in opposition to its parent all the
> way and finally the skeptical, objective "prodigy" could not stand the
> suffocating social-emotional, bigotry  (it called) and took off for it's own
> pursuit of pure reason (Kant's "Reinen Vernunft".)
Just to make sure you don't wriggle away I want to recap this way a see if
you still agree.

Intellect is some combination of evolving "wetware" and "application
software" that emerged at or near the border between the biological and
social levels.  It then latched on, grew, and evolved over some substantial
period of time until a critical mass of (shared information?) was reached
and the intellectual level emerged. It's probable the emerging intellect may
have been the defining event that separated the two levels. In other words
in highly probable you have to have an intellect before you can develop
really effective, teachable, communication techniques such a language.

Agreed? 

All your qualifications and objections above (opposition, skeptical,
objective, etc) we will address as we move along from what "intellect" is,
to what "intellect" does and how it does it.

[ An aside] In a weird coincidence the first mention of "intellect" in Lila
is also on page 19, with Indians, peyote, and its chemical
(physical<>biological) effects on the brain and its workings.

Moving on. The first mention of "intellectual" in ZaMM shows up on page 32
with the shim incident and continues on expanding on it up through 62
associating with it such words as: rational, classic, analytical, forms,
concepts, etc. On page 60 we read:

Pg 60: "In Part One of formal scientific method, which is the statement of
the problem, the main skill is in stating absolutely no more than you are
positive you know. It is much better to enter a statement "Solve Problem:
Why doesn¹t cycle work?"

Can we not say from this that the most basic use, good, function of the
intellect is to "Solve Problem:"?

The most basic problems that all animals have to solve are:

How to get food?
How to do it without getting killed?
How to get sex?

As far as we know humans are the only animals that can attack this problem
by making  "mental" constructs of them, work on them individually and
jointly over time, and then individually and jointly take actions to solve
them. One of the key attributes of the intellect that allows this to occur
is foresight. The ability to when trying to "Solve Problem" to ask a more
basic question, "What possible real difference would it make if this
possible solution were to come about"

I think there is enough here for you to disagree with that I should stop
now.

Still think'n

Dave