[MD] MD 4th level - The more autonomous level

[Platt Holden]

> [Platt]
> This instant messaging Horse has provided is great. We can carry on a more
> realistic "conversation" this way. All that's missing is the beer.
> 
> [Arlo]
> Good point. To remedy that I am enjoying Magic Hat's Blind Faith IPA. A
> very hoppy "microbrew". Nice this time of the year when the land is frozen
> and white.

Sounds delightful. I'm partial to Heineken. 

> [Platt]
> The differences also have to do with the size of the "window" to 
> consciousness, yours and mine being larger than my cat's, and much larger
> than an atom's.
> 
> [Arlo]
> I would agree with this. I, too, do ascribe neurobiological "hardware" as
> involved in this. If it were strictly social, for example, we could teach
> chimps to manipulate symbols to the depth and degree that humans do. So,
> something, some feature of human brains, undergirds the "depth" of the
> contents of consciousness.
> 
> Tomasello (a favorite author of mine) postulates that an initial genetic
> trait, localized in specific neural hardwire, allowed very crude, but
> effective "shared attention" behavior. From this "simple" genetic feature,
> over social-historical time, emerged greater and more sophisticated symbol
> usage, because it allowed for a internal symbolic representation of an
> external from the "world of objects", it also allowed social "latching"
> (Tomasello calls it "ratcheting"). I'm not purporting Tomasello as
> "correct", only that I agree that there must be some basic genetic
> component of human brains that allows the functioning we take for granted.

Agree.

> [Platt]
> Well, I would say it's partly because of my brain size, partly because of
> social contacts, and partly because of memories of my personal experiences
> that contribute to my greater content of consciousness.
> 
> [Arlo]
> This is, oddly, a pretty good summation of MY point of view. I just don't
> separate "social contacts" from "personal experience", because I believe it
> is through social mediation that our personal experience is categorized,
> represented, encoded, etc.

I also include social contacts in personal experience.

> Lest I haven't said enough that our "personal experiences" are unique, I'll
> say it again. But, I do think that what you "value" (i.e., what gets into
> that stored personal experience) is structured by social mediation. That
> is, the intellectual knife is guided by a social hand in moving
> pre-intellectual experience to symbolically represented intellectual
> experience. I think this is what Pirsig was saying when he said that "To
> feel that one is not so united, that one can accept or discard this mythos
> as one pleases, is not to understand what the mythos is."

Well, to get back to the stunningly gorgeous DIHI, what she "values" has 
to do a lot with what she experiences, like the seeds she tries to eat. 
The good seeds supply pleasant nourishment, the bad ones make her sick. 
Such values become her "stored personal experience." No social mediation 
required. I think it's called the "school or hard knocks," leading to 
"street smarts" (to horribly mix metaphors not to mention coming up with 
bad analogies).  

> [Arlo had asked]
> Are you suggesting a hierarchy that removes the social pattern layer
> altogether?
> 
> [Platt]
> Not at all. I think a person's intellectual patterns arise from 1) her
> brain's innate ability to create symbols and arrange them in patterns of
> meaning, and 2) her unique personal experiences.
> 
> [Arlo]
> This, above, would seem to indicate a hierarchy that excludes the social
> layer, or places the social layer as a irrelevant coincidence to human
> achievement. That is to say, given the above, you'd propose that
> intellectual patterns emerge in an individual, such as a caveman or that
> gorgeous DIHI. I'd disagree.

Now we tangle. What defines the gorgeous DIHI and the ugly caveman is 
their ability to create symbols and combine them into patterns of meaning, 
i.e. intellectual patterns -- primitive patterns to be sure, but patterns 
nevertheless. As said, main is the rational animal. His ability to form 
intellectual patterns is his main tool of survival. 

> [Platt]
> When those experiences include contact with others, they are bound to
> affect the intellectual patterns she creates.
> 
> [Arlo]
> Again, a fundamental disagreement here. Here you posit that the caveman or
> modelesque DIHI creates intellectual patterns in the absense of others,
> whose only role is after the fact incidental contact.

I didn't mean it that way. The contact with others affects the 
intellectual patterns one creates before the creation takes place as well 
as after. But, as I've argued, that's not the only influence on the 
formation of such patterns.

> And again, you appear to removing the social level entirely, saying the
> from the inorganic emerged the biological, and from the biological emerged
> the intellectual. From individual "intellectuals" interacting, a
> coincidental social structure was formed, but that's about it.

Individuals began the social structure, support the social structure, are 
affected by the social structure and change the social structure. 
Especially the latter -- changing the structure -- depends on the 
individual. That was the point of the story of the brujo.

> [Platt]
> I don't doubt for a minute that culture influences people's thoughts. All
> I'm saying is that I have experiences which are uniquely mine as an
> individual that neither you nor anyone else can possible have in exactly
> the same way.
> 
> [Arlo]
> Well, yes, to this I agree. It's that "duh" truism you spoke of. ;-) But
> don't ignore the great amount of shared experiences we both have, including
> Pirsig's cross country bike ride and Hudson River adventures. Not to
> mention Socrates' lectures, and Rocky beating Apollo Creed.

It's not what we share as common experiences as much as who we are. We 
don't even share the same taste in beer. What makes Arlo uniquely Arlo is 
what I value most, not the fact that we're both social beings with a 
common social heritage... 

> [Platt]
> Like I said, you look at the static trail. I took at the trail blazer that
> creates the trail.
> 
> [Arlo]
> I don't think it separates like this. The "unique proprietary experience of
> the individual" is as static as the shared collective "calculus". As to the
> individual being the dynamo (as it were), we both agree. I think we
> disagree on where this "agency to respond to DQ" comes from.
> 
> In your opinion, it derives from biology, with social contact being
> incidental or irrelevant. In my opinion, it derives from social mediation.
> Pirsig's too.

Well, maybe it's a matter more of emphasis than anything else. So long as 
you value -- in fact are willing to encourage and defend ---- an 
individual's intellectual freedom from socially-approved thinking, we have 
no fundamental disagreement. I don't believe you sanction social patterns 
being used to force individuals to think a certain way. Isn't that why you 
detest advertising so?   

> [Platt]
> Are we getting anywhere, I just having fun -- not that there's anything
> wrong with that. :-)
> 
> [Arlo]
> I'm having fun too. Who knows if we're getting anywhere. If we're having
> fun, isn't that all that matters. :-)
 
Yes, that's all that matters. I wish everyone had the insight to see the 
beauty of  that truth -- without getting high. :-) 

Now I'll sign off for the night.

Platt