[MD] Argumentation: Social/Intellectual

[Gene M]

Matt said:
>   These arguments _are_ the person.  We don't _have_ static
> patterns, we _are_ static patterns.


I think that is Exactly right. We don't have ideas, ideas have us. We can't
own intellectual patterns, it seems contrary. We are shaped by our ideas,
created by them.

Matt:
> I was wondering how you would answer my suggestion that thinking of ideas
> as
> disconnected from the person is, contrary to what Pirsig seems to suggest
> sometimes, anti-Pirsigian.  I've forwarded an argument attempting to
> dismantle the underpinning of what allows you to say the above, which I
> take
> to be typical of a bad social/intellectual distinction.  How would you
> respond to the argument?
>
> I should also point out that the dream of Enlightenment philosophy was
> exactly the extension of the Platonic dream of ideas being entities
> themselves.  I would warn away from such things, particularly because if
> ideas are "not creations of an individual" I wonder what they are.
>

I dunno how Much I feel they are disconnected. Currently, I would say they
are incredibly tightly linked. But I mean, I would say I as a person am as
much shaped as ideas other people have come up with, as by the ideas I have
come up with. In fact, most of the ideas I have are reformulations of
someone else's ideas it seems. If I can be affected as strongly by and idea
from "Outside myself" as one I come up with "inside" my head, then where is
the link between individual and idea? Sure an individual has the idea, but I
mean, so do lots of individuals.

How about this? When an individual person dies, does society fail? Do all of
their ideas simply dissapear? No. It seems like death is the end of static
biological patterns, but the static social and intellectual patterns that
made that person up continue on after biological death. So how can that
persons ideas belong to them? It seems like the only thing we really own is
our body.

I'm not sure how to get across what I'm trying to say, I'm not even sure I'm
straight on what it is I am trying to say! Ask me more questions, and maybe
I can coalesce these thoughts.

-Gene