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

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

Good morning Platt,

[Platt]
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.

[Arlo]
Sure. But your talking above about biological quality. I am sure she would have
what Ham refers to as "organic sensibility" (I like this term). A deer on that
same island would value the seeds that supply pleasent nourishmenet, and
de-value the ones that make it sick. Above functioning as a biologic agent,
however, what "valuations" would this bewitching DIHI be able to make?

Or, to get back to Pirsig's "Sans Mythos Neanderthal Reversion" (SMNR) :-), that
b-e-a-utiful DIHI would be limited to the same valuations a caveman would have
been able to make. Certainly this is at the least equivalent to other 
biological entities, and from the archeologic record perhaps a primative
manipulation of pre-formed objects as tools, but there is no record of the type
of symbolic manipulation that coincides with language, and underscores all the
great "leaps" man has made in recent times.

In other words, man did not become wise and then live socially, man became wise
because he lived socially.

[Platt]
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. 

[Arlo]
Like I said, I do agree that there is some basic, genetic, hardwired
functionality found in the human brain mass that gives rise to symbol
manipulation and the creation of intellectual patterns. And, in the absense of
social others, there would be a base level functioning that I would place as
very close to, but slightly greater than, that of comparable biological
entities. 

But, were it not for the emergence of a social level "collective consciousness",
transmitted through language and culture (or, a term I've heard recently I like
"linguaculture"), but "uniting our minds", YOUR ability to create and
manipulate symbols would be no greater than a caveman.

So, we could agree, perhaps, that there is a basic, genetic, hardwired feature
of human neurobiology that gives rise to "caveman-like mental ability". And we
could agree, perhaps, that modern brains are not so genetically different from
caveman brains as to account for the differences between the contents of your
consciousness and the contents of a caveman's consciousness.

What I agree with Pirsig on is that evolution from caveman thought to modern
thought derives from social mediation.

[Platt] 
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... 

[Arlo]
Ah, but what gives us the ability to communicate, so that you can appreciate
"Arlo" and I can appreciate "Platt" is the social Mythos, or collective
consciousness. There are differences in our unique (or as I prefer
"microgenetic") experience trajectories. But only through representation in a
common symbolic, and in parallel with the shared symbolic representations in
the historical dialogue, do these differences attain value. Indeed,
historically anyways, humans have proved that the lesser the commonality, the
lesser the "individual" is valued. If we truly valued "individual differences",
we would value those most different from us, rather than those most like us.

[Platt]
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?

[Arlo]
Actually, yes. Although I'd say that social patterns ipso facto influence the
way people think. What I'd separate in the above statement is the function of
the Mythos, or collective consciousness, that underscores the social layer, and
"groups of individuals" seeking power over "other individuals".

That is, with one reading "socially-approved thinking" is pretty much a truism
(to me). You think with your language. You can't think with concepts that
aren't "approved" culturally and historically by the social Mythos. The
saw-hammer-axe-log study, for example. Their "socially-approved thinking"
places these all in the same category, ours separates them.

With another read, "socially-approved thinking" means "you exerting power over
me to manipulate what I think". This IS not a truism, and is a dangerous, and
stagnating, power.

Arlo