[MD] Platt's Individual Level

[Platt Holden]

Hi Steve, 

As Pirsig points out in your first example, the tree is presupposed and 
thus doesn't vanish. Likewise, for the assertion that ideas exist only 
in the minds of individuals, all attempts to refute the assertion 
presuppose an individual either creating the idea, hiding it, 
forgetting about it, or rediscovering it. In the artificial 
intelligence example, an individual is presupposed in creating the 
computer and in identifying its creations as ideas.

I think the best argument against my assertion is the Platonic one 
whereby all pure ideas exist in a Platonic realm outside the cave, and 
we deal only in the shadows. Smarter individuals than I, like Roger 
Penrose, believe this to be the case. The more I think about it, the 
more Quality in its pure form exists in the Platonic realm, and we are 
the beneficiaries of its shadows. Through beauty we get a glimpse of 
Quality's light.

But I could be wrong.

Regards,
Platt
  
> Hi Platt, all
> 
> >>      Platt said:  "There is no way to separate ideas
> >> from individuals."
> 
> It seems absurd to assert that an idea written down ceases to exist
> until someone reads it. I guess this is one of those "if a tree falls
> and no one is around" questions. 
> 
> RMP in LC:
> "It is similar to the question, “If a tree falls in the forest and
> nobody hears it, does it make a sound?” The historic answer of the
> idealists is, “What tree?” In order to ask this question you have to
> presuppose the existence of the falling tree and then ask whether this
> presupposed tree would vanish if nobody were there. Of course it
> wouldn’t vanish! It has already been presupposed."
> 
> 
> Once we imagine this idea having been written down and forgotten, it
> seems silly to then also imagine that that this imaginary idea does not
> exist. Platt needs to go that route to support his primacy of the
> individual in his philosophy, and there is no way to argue that he is
> wrong about the idea that he's been asked to imagine. It's his
> imagination after all. But it seems clear that Pirsig wouldn't take that
> route.
> 
> also related is this from LC note 32:
> 
> "Since the MOQ states that consciousness (i.e. intellectual patterns) is
> the collection and manipulation of symbols, created in the brain, that
> stand for patterns of experience,then artificial intelligence would be
> the collection and manipulation of symbols, created in a machine, that
> stand for patterns of experience. If one agrees that experience exists
> at the inorganic level, then it is clear that computers already have
> artificial intelligence."
> 
> Steve:
> If computers have intellectual patterns, then it seems that ideas can be
> separated from individuals in Pirisig's view of the MOQ
> 
> Regards,
> Steve
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ---------------------------------
> How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messenger’s low  PC-to-Phone call
> rates. moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/