[MD] Social Imposition ?

[Case]

> [Ian]
> "The quality of an intellectual pattern is inversley proportional
> to the level of effort (needed to be) imposed by society to
> maintain that pattern, (but is proportional to how widespread
> it is believed by free thinkers)."

[Ham]
In plain English, Ian wants to make the point that Society (i.e., mankind)
is the great "spoiler" of what you folks regard as Intellect.  The more
"thinking individuals" contribute to it, the less quality it has.  This has
to be the most preposterous defense of the Intellectual Level concocted to
date.

[Case]
I defer to Arlo's explanation of how you have completely missed the point of
Ian's statement. But this does help to explain why you need to invent you
own private language since "plain English" seems to be a challenge for you.

[Ham]
Do any of you really believe that there would be anything remotely
resembling Intellect in the absence of individual cognizance?

[Case]
We are talking about the Intellectual Level. This is a bout shared memory
and its expansion. Individual participate by accessing and adding to this
collective memory. 

[Ham]
Then, on 12/18, Case enlightened us with this observation:
> As long [as] people were confined to talking amongst
> themselves and repeating tales around the campfire
> culture remained in a relatively primitive state.
> Culture really only became a significant force
> with the advent of writing.

Ignoring Platt's plea that credit should be given to somebody for this
invention, Case argues on a technicality: it was not "one" person, he
insists:
> Writing itself was not invented by any one person.
> It developed over thousands of years.

Well, so what?  It was developed by PEOPLE -- human beings with ingenuity
and a desire to record their experiences and thoughts for others to
evaluate.  Isn't that how culture advances?  After all, language and the
alphabet weren't floating around somewhere as DQ for humans to discover.
They had to be created and applied to parchment in order to communicate
information.  Guttenberg's press, which Case characterizes as "an
exponential shift in the process", was just one of a continuing series of
man-made inventions that have enhanced the use of language, thereby
accelerating man's access to information.

There was Henry Mill's typewriter (1714), Samuel Morse's telegraph (1835),
Alexander Graham Bell's telephone (1876), Edison's phonograph (1877),
Marconi's wireless telegraphy (1902), Deforest's triode tube (1906),
Zworykind's CRT (1923), Eckert & Mauchly's UNIVAC computer (1951), and
Robert Metcalfe's computer networking  (1973).  These are the names of major
technology leaders who, of course, worked with developmental teams in the
corporate world.  Without such human beings, or others with their expertise
and persistence, we would not have radio, television, computers, and the
Internet as communication tools.

[Case]
What you are describing about is the process by which shared memory has
grown exponentially since the enlightenment. Each of the names you pulled
out of Wiki engaged in the process of accessing and adding to the collective
pool of knowledge. That's how it works. My point was that in the absence of
any medium of storage beyond your precious "individual" pretty much nothing
happened. Spoken language appears to have been around for 100,000 years.
People got along fine with access to only the shared memory of their
villages for about 90,000 years. What is striking is the rapid expansion of
shared memory afforded by writing.

[Ham]
Emergence?  Exponential shifts?  Are these words supposed to transfer the
inventiveness of man to some cosmic force that creates all these
technologies in his place?  I mean, let's be serious, gentlemen.  The only
"pattern" I can see as relevant to the history of human communication is the
one that appears on my TV set when the broadcast day is over.

[Case]
The fact that you do not understand the use of these terms speaks volumes.
The expansion of shared memory results in all this technology. And
improvements in technology leads to further enhancement of the shared
memory. What I am talking about at least, is the expansion of storage
capacity. Right on of the computer I am writing on I have more books stored
than were available in my local public library when I was a lad. My internet
connection gives me access to vastly more information than was available at
the university I attended. Even you seem to be able to look up the inventor
of the typewriter in minutes. This could have taken all day even 30 years
ago. It is the snowball effect of enhanced storage that culminates in your
test pattern. Nice to see you are making such good use of all that
collective effort.