[MD] Individual v Collective

[Squonkonguitar at aol.com]

Mark,

This was the bit which I paraphrased as you making the point  about
"intellectual meaning"
[QUOTE]
The Social aesthetic is a  relationship between your values and the  current
social conventions  (values). This is social meaning.
The Intellectual aesthetic is a  relationship between your values and the
current intellectual conventions.  This is intellectual meaning.
Value come first - meaning is an intellectual  pattern of ambiguous nature ...
[UNQUOTE]
 
Mark: Hello Ian. I am experiencing difficulty following what you are  saying. 
I can read and understand my own statement, but where is your paraphrase  
please? I can't follow what you are saying.

Ian: Elsewhere in the recent  response you accused me of getting hung up on
the intellectual habit of  needing "definitions".
 
Mark: let us leave accusations to the law courts please? I did not accuse  
you of anything; i pointed out that definitions are within the realm of  
intellectual patterns according to the MoQ. This can be supported.
 
Ian: Touche. That is in
fact a large part of the point I was making to  you ... being hung up
on a precise definition of social vs intellectual ....  and warning
against it :-) An unnecessary split, etc.
 
Mark: From my last post: The difference is an empirical observation. The  
behaviour  
of the social level wasn't deduced, it was observed to be  so.
If you wish to deduce a definition you are confined to the  intellectual  
level of symbolic manipulation.
Mark: Social patterns are not defined, they are observed to be: 'behaviour  
which is transmitted via imitation.'
Biological selection isn't defined either. There is no definition of why  
partners select each other.
Inorganic relationships are well modelled by geometric relationships, but  as 
observation progresses the models have become ever more crazy (String theory, 
 quantum chaos, etc.)
The difference between the social and intellectual levels is one between  
that which is deduced and that which is observed.
The MoQ advances rational deductive methodology by introducing DQ and an  
aesthetic appreciation of deduction as an art.
When this move is made, the intellectual level is aligned with the other  
levels because one may also speak of a social art.
Art aims at Quality and Quality has no splits.

Ian: Anyway in that  final piece ... I thing we get to the crux ... it's the
order it happens ie  social before intellectual ... value before
meaning.
Will you let me agree with you on that?
I'm sure any disagreement can only be in definitions of words ;-)
 
Mark: Disagreement is a matter of opposing values.
Values may come into opposition outside the intellectual level. There  are no 
definitions outside the intellectual level, but there are sure as hell  
values, and when they come into opposition there can be trouble. Piss the  
neighbour off playing your Fernandes along to Rush at 3 a.m. too regular  and see what 
happens?
Words don't come into it; the neighbour may be Icelandic and speak not a  jot 
of English, but there may be trouble all the same.
It is the business of the intellectual to explore the relationship between  
social imitation and intellectual manipulation.
I suggest the intellectual is legitimate when it defines the social as  a 
non-defined realm of imitated behaviour. And i don't see a problem with the  
suggestion that the non-defined pre-existed the definitional. I don't see a  
problem with the definitional attempting to define that which existed before the  
definitional.
That's evolution at work maybe? I mean, sociologists here will be quick to  
whip out their phase diagrams? They can't be arrested you for it.
 
Ian: I think all I was suggesting, in these terms, was that whilst one  may
come before the other in a primary experience sense ...  "we
westerners" jump into the intellectual level so fast ...  present
company excepted ... that the gap is marginal and they are  quite
tangled up in everyday socio-cultural-intellectual patterns.
 
Mark: The jump is an observation. The explanation of the jump is  post-jump.
A margin, of what ever width, has a well defined break. That's what a  margin 
is. You use the term 'Marginal' here to convey: 'not valued enough  to be 
bothered with.'
You then impose you own term, 'socio-cultural-intellectual' (a term not  seen 
in this thread before) to justify your argument.

Ian: (And of course the value in e-mails is very hard to get at without  a
little intellectual interpretation unless we're going to quote poetry
at  each other. Did I mention Cornflowers ... ?)
 
Mark: Your e-mail's are highly intellectual. Your e-mail's are some of  the 
highest intellectual e-mail's on this site. I wish i knew what they  meant?

Ian: You are saying the social "interaction" aesthetic is more  primary than
the intellectual "interpretation" aesthetic ... Yes ?
I  wouldn't argue with you on that.
Ian

Mark: The term 'Prime' is an interesting one. Qualitatively speaking prime  
is best (a prime cut of Beef went into this sausage). As intellectual  values 
have moral authority over social patterns i  suppose intellectual patterns are 
prime contra to your  suggestion. Social patterns are prime only in an ordinal 
sense. In an  ordinal sense you would appear to agree that Hydrogen is more 
primary than  Charles Dickens. I wouldn't argue with you on that.
Love,
Mark