[MD] meaning, awareness and understanding

[Scott Roberts]

Ham,

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ham Priday" <hampday1 at verizon.net>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Friday, April 21, 2006 10:33 AM
Subject: Re: [MD] meaning, awareness and understanding




 Scott replied [to Kevin]:
> I've been arguing that they are the same, that meaning
> (value) implies awareness, and implies intellect (and --
>  as per the MOQ, both awareness and intellect imply
> value). That value implies awareness seems to me a
> no-brainer. That it implies intellect comes from the
> phrase "static pattern of value". Intellect is the creation
> and processing of patterns -- no intellect then no pattern
> -- if one assumes that all patterns are "of value". ...
> So what I am saying is that any such reaction is
> meaningful only with respect to some context, but all
> reactions are within some contextual pattern, and to
> fit the particular within the general pattern is intellect.

Ham said:
I don't agree that implicating is the same as equating.  You are talking
about several different functions here which really cannot be equated to
each other.  I would rephrase your statement so as to define the
interrelation of these attributes rather than trying to equate them.  For
example: Meaning and value both pre-suppose awareness because they are
cognitive precepts.

Scott:
The words are not equal. But if whenever you have one you have the other 
two, then "which came first" must be: all of them. On the metaphysical level 
of "what is fundamental", they must all be words denoting the same 
(non-)thing.

Ham said:
Although I fail to see how the phrase "static pattern of value" implies
intellect, I'll accept your assertion that intellect is the creation and
processing of patterns.  However, the remainder of your analysis has me
mystified.  "That any such reaction is meaningful only with respect to some
context, but all reactions are within some contextual pattern..."  Forgive
me for not fully comprehending Pirsig's "patterns" concept, but what is this
supposed to mean?

Scott:
If the world of an amoeba were fully described in Newtonian mechanistic 
terms, there would be no value involved in the amoeba's reaction. What the 
Newtonian leaves out is that in avoiding the acid, there has been a 
placement of the particular situation within some general context: the 
amoebic species has cognized that acid is harmful, better move away. A 
particular encounter with acid, then, is a semiotic event -- this acid 
invokes the general pattern. This does not mean that an amoeba is in itself 
employing semiosis. But, I would argue, for the amoeba to follow a static 
*pattern of value* means that semiosis is being employed. I would venture 
that instinct is the word we have for this. The alternative to this is that 
it just moves away "automatically", or deterministically. That, I claim, 
denies that the pattern of moving away is a pattern *of value*.

Please note that what I am saying here is my own spin on the meaning of 
"static pattern of value", and is almost certainly not Pirsig's view.

- Scott