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

[Platt Holden]

Hello Arlo:

> [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.

Gee, did I forget to tell you? Guess I did. It wasn't long before the stunningly
beautiful DIHI, after looking at the plant the seeds came from that she found
so delicious, suddenly in a flash of creative understanding, realized that the
plant grew from the seeds, and that if she planted the seeds as well as 
ate them, she would have a plentiful supply of seeds in the future, making 
it unnecessary to keep hunting all over the island for that particular 
plant with the delicious seeds. And thus, agriculture was born. 

> [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.

I disagree. The ability would remain the same. But once someone gets a 
bright idea and invented agriculture, his compatriots don't have to keep 
reinventing it. Once someone gets a bright idea and creates a word to mean 
"bear," her tribe mates needn't come up with a different word. The key to 
progress is the individual creator. 

> 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.

What I agree with is once an individual comes up with an idea, like 
"Planting seeds will result in more seeds" or "Reality is Quality," others 
can build on it.  

> [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.

Hmmm. Seems to me you're speaking in generalities again about groups, or 
nations, or classes of people who are different from one another in many 
ways. That's not the sort of difference I mean. What I mean is that Arlo 
is different from Bo is different from Paul is different from Ian, etc. 
etc. I celebrate the differences and the uniqueness of each, not their 
commonalities. 

> [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.

Yes. That's the reading that gives me the willies. Note the emphasis you 
place on "I'' --the individual. It's the "I" that I worry about being 
silenced by social power. 

Platt