[MD] The Upside down evolution

[Krimel]

-----Original Message-----
From: skutvik at online.no [mailto:skutvik at online.no] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 12:15 PM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] The Upside down evolution

Craig, Krimel, Andre, All.

18 Jan.:

> > > [Andre]  
> > > What about Pirsig surmising that from rituals intellectual patterns
> > > may have emerged? 

[ Krimel ] 
> > Rituals ARE intellectual patterns. 

[Bo]
A criminal statement :-)

[Krimel]
If you mean greeting ritual like handshakes nods and smile perhaps you can
make a case that they are purely social. But rituals like sacrificing
animals on holidays or as penance or tossing virgins into volcanoes

[Bo]
"Modern" ritual sounds a bit awkward, all rituals are social and as 
Andre once pointed to, the wine IS supposed to the be the blood ... 
etc. Now, people who have intellect as part of their constitution will 
hardly believed  in it, but they suspend their skeptical mindset and 
enjoy the social feeling.  

[Krimel]
These are unquestionably intellectual patterns and people believe in them
for intellectual reasons. People who participate in them do so on the basis
of their specific world view. The ritual reinforces that world view at the
same time it teaches, extends and replicates the intellectual patterns
built into the performance of the ritual.

[Bo]
The social reality is a huge span of time, and since Homo Sapiens  
(whenever that was) till the Greeks (on the Western Hemisphere) it 
was "leading edge". Stone Age rituals may have been much like Craig 
says, but the later mythologies, like the Greek, were much about the 
gods - sacrifice etc. 

[Krimel]
The point you keep missing is that gods and sacrifices are intellectual
patterns. They offer explains of how and why the world is as it is and
provides a way to influence and change reality to better suit us. The fact
that these intellectual patterns are no longer useful to us does not make
them any less intellectual, any less Logos. Relegating them to Mythos is
just a way of trying to save the baby while throwing out the bathwater.


[Bo]
Krimel said when I pointed to this quote to Dave (18 Jan.)

> It's like you have Pirsig and Julian Jaynes confused in your head. Jaynes
> argued that consciousness or self awareness began in the time you keep
> harping on. He made this argument in the late '70 and almost no one but
> starry eyed seekers have taken it seriously. You have converted an
> interesting but dubious idea into something profoundly goofy.

I never quite get Krimel's attitude regarding the MOQ, if he is genuinely 
interested or just perfunctory speaks moqtalk to be allowed here at 
least "consciousness" (self-  or ordinary) have no place in the MOQ 
other than inside the 4th level. I mean intellect has coined the term.  

[Krimel]
It is obvious you don't get my attitude at all. Perhaps this explains your
failure to effectively address the issues I have raised.
 
[Bo]
Well, as all is "intellect" to Krimel  why bother, but in the MOQ there is 
a static Q-level called Social after the Biological and before the 
Intellectual and it is the Social-Intellectual transition we speak about 
and, inadvertently or not, Pirsig affirms the SOL (intellect=SOM)  

[Krimel]
Intellect is what humans do. It is who we are. As Pirsig points out we are
never interacting with the "real". We interact with our sense data and the
concepts we build upon them. That's empiricism.

[Bo]
If so - now that technology is available to every remote corner - why 
isn't all humankind "lifestyle" profoundly identical, why does f.ex. 
Taleban and Al Qaeda fight "Western (intellectual) Values" with such 
ferocity to prevent them infecting their Islamic (social value) purity? Oh 
yes the social vs intellectual struggle explains tons of present day 
SOM-induces quandaries (paradoxes). 

[Krimel]
Whenever we see traits of any sort expressed in every culture on the planet,
that is, to me, clear evidence of a genetic basis for the trait. Social
traits such as religion, family patterns, social hierarchies or respect for
the dead are universal. The specific expression of these biological patterns
can be highly variable. Some cultures bury their dead, some burn them, some
eat them. Humans are very clever about finding ways to act on these
universal impulses and in finding ways to condemn those who prefer some
other form of expression.