[MD] Food for Thought

[Joseph Maurer]

On Wed 10 January 2007 11:38 AM Laird writes to Joe

<snip>

> [Joe]
> IMO the intellect as a knife is a difficult analogy to understand. The
> intellect evolving from the social level as a law-giver, seems more 
> fitting
> to the intellect's role, rather than as an independent butcher of all
> levels.
>
>
[Laird]
I don't think the two analogies are exclusive - it's not a "pick just
one" type thing... One analogy describes intellect's 'behaviour' (awful
term for it though) while the other describes its origins. Two
orthogonal viewpoints of the same thing.

The "intellect as a knife" analogy isn't complete, though. The knife
just cuts experience/reality into pieces. Intellect then treats each
piece as a symbol. It can manipulate those symbols, shuffling them
around, comparing one to another, stacking them up in hierarchies of
symbols - symbols of symbols, recursive-like, putting them into more
complex relationships. Putting the 'knife' along with symbol
manipulation makes for a very powerful analogy.

-Laird

Hi Laird and all,

As you describe the analogy "intellect as a knife" it seems you are back 
into knowledge as abstraction. Once abstraction occurs you then have a 
symbol which you can manipulate. The difficulty I see is that in no way can 
the body do the abstraction. So you have a body/soul split and the mind/will 
are faculties of the soul.

In experience instead of abstraction for knowledge the symbol becomes a 
pattern. For a pattern to have a moral excellence over a lower pattern IMO 
it must exist differently-dimensions in existence not dimensions in the mind 
or intellect. An enlightened person exists differently than a 
rock-evolution. I prefer to see the experience of evolution as an experience 
of laws in existence which are accepted as 'givens', so we can get on with 
the conversation.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Laird Bedore" <lmbedore at vectorstar.com>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 11:38 AM
Subject: Re: [MD] Food for Thought


> Hi Joe,
>
>> [Laird]
>>
>> Glad to see so many others roping SOM (and its fruits) within intellect,
>> keen to its outgrowth from a strong S/O mythos. For a while I got the
>> feeling I was the only one working from this viewpoint.
>>
>> "[S/O] is the predominant mode of the intellectual level, particularly
>> in greek-derived cultures, but not the only mode."
>>
>> Cheers,
>> -Laird
>>
>> [Joe]
>> Hi Laird, Ian, Arlo, DMB,
>>
>> I am unsure, Laird, that I agree that "[S/O] is the predominant mode of 
>> the
>> intellectual level, particularly in greek-derived cultures, but not the 
>> only
>> mode." Modes of intellect seem to require a body/soul split. I can not
>> envision modes of body on a sentient level. If a woman's body and a man's
>> body are only modes of a body how is the identity or sense of self
>> different? Are there only modes of laws for the social level?
>>
>>
> [Laird]
> When looking as intellect as "mind" in terms of the mind/matter
> dichotomy, I can see your point. But when looking at intellect as
> patterns of value, I think that split just dissolves. Perhaps the word
> "modes" isn't the best fit - it seems to imply some degree of
> mechanistic interaction, but that wasn't at all the direction I was
> going for. Replacing "modes" with "categorization of patterns" might be
> closer to where I was aiming.
>
>
>> [Joe]
>> I see rather a conscious evolution and a cosmic evolution underlying an 
>> S/O
>> split. Although one sentient can experience both types of evolution, I 
>> don't
>> agree it is a modal difference. Different values are involved. Mechanical
>> values are static and subject to laws. Conscious values are not subject 
>> to
>> the same laws.
>>
>>
> [Laird]
> I see conscious evolution as a little subset of the patterns of cosmic
> evolution - no inherent difference, just a change in perspective.
>
> Your description above comes very close to Pirsig's positioning of the
> inorganic/biological levels representing objective reality and
> social/intellectual levels representing subjective reality. Wasn't the
> whole gist of the MoQ to scrap the inherent subject-object split? Aren't
> they all just static patterns of value underneath, waiting for
> intellectual patterns (to work sometimes recursively) to give them form?
> And hasn't history made a strong enough case that the S/O split is not
> prevalent in every culture, that the nature of that split may itself be
> culturally-derived? Mythos over Logos, emergence of intellect from
> social level... It seems to follow naturally that the S/O split is
> within intellect but is not universal, thus implying other "modes" of
> intellect.
>
>
>> [Joe]
>> IMO the intellect as a knife is a difficult analogy to understand. The
>> intellect evolving from the social level as a law-giver, seems more 
>> fitting
>> to the intellect's role, rather than as an independent butcher of all
>> levels.
>>
>>
> [Laird]
> I don't think the two analogies are exclusive - it's not a "pick just
> one" type thing... One analogy describes intellect's 'behaviour' (awful
> term for it though) while the other describes its origins. Two
> orthogonal viewpoints of the same thing.
>
> The "intellect as a knife" analogy isn't complete, though. The knife
> just cuts experience/reality into pieces. Intellect then treats each
> piece as a symbol. It can manipulate those symbols, shuffling them
> around, comparing one to another, stacking them up in hierarchies of
> symbols - symbols of symbols, recursive-like, putting them into more
> complex relationships. Putting the 'knife' along with symbol
> manipulation makes for a very powerful analogy.
>
> -Laird
>
>
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