[MD] subject/object: pragmatism

[skutvik at online.no]

Peter and Group.

On 12 Nov. Peter wrote:

> I was out shopping with my 82 yr old mum the other day and was struck
> by how she was at the mercy of her train of associations - she seemed
> to be losing her volition and unable to deliberate, my dad even more
> so since he fell and banged his head recently and now rambles and
> seems to be in a waking dream a lot of the time. It was very sobering
> to see them - some people die while they are in mid gesture, without
> warning or pain but most of us face the slow decline. So it goes.

I'm not exactly young and may be rambling  too.

> I thought I agreed with Bo, that SOM distinguishes the intellectual
> level, but as you have pointed out, subjects and objects are necessary
> at the social level too.

There is no subject/object distinction at the social level. Pirsig 
often used mind/matter instead of subject/object and it shows 
what's at stake. The social level is as present as ever, but to 
highlight things  I like to evoke the time when it was existence's 
leading edge. The Stone Age people surely knew self from other, 
they also had separate names, knew their ancestors ...and every 
social relationship as well as we do, better because the group 
was their primary focus.

What they lacked - or were blessed by not possessing - was the 
intellectual notion of being a lone subject facing a matter world 
governed by natural laws. They lived in a malleable reality, one 
that rituals could change, governed by forces  who would be 
swayed by offerings. Chantings that could bring animals to their 
pitfalls, paintings in caves also had some ritualism function. We 
see this social reality still at work in religions, prayers, 
sacraments etc.       

> Certainly, a characteristic of the most impressive people that I have
> met is an apparent ability not to be taken by the stimulus, not to
> react immediately, but, instead, to be able to momentarily say 'no' to
> the stimulus, pause, and then respond appropriately after a kind of
> reflection. This 'ability' has been referred to as 'inhibition and
> direction' (in the Alexander world) and 'apperception' by others. If
> intelligence is anything to do with the advantageous navigation
> through life of the individual then this ability to pause is one of
> the key attributes of that intelligence. Conversely, the absence of
> this ability to pause and reflect, is a characteristic of the herd,
> the tribe, the social mind.

Most penetrating observations Peter. "Stimulus"? Is that other 
people's influence or drugs, and is Alexander "the Great" one? 
Anyway, we are wrong to think of the social reality as some herd 
mentality, a senseless "stampede". Alexander's time was in the 
midst of intellect's birth throes, but his focus was certainly at the 
social, emotional level, that of urging his men on to ever new 
heights of "Aretê", but he certainly was a most intelligent man 
who both paused and reflected on his life and his tactics. You 
also raise the issue of intelligence, but see it as synonymous with 
intellect, but IMO this murks the 4th. level. If you can stand a 
"chautauqua"? 

The idea is that each level rises on top of the former thereby 
adopting ALL former level's patterns for its own purpose. Another 
tenet is that no level knows the level context, this is only revealed 
at MOQ's meta-level. IMO intelligence has its origin at the 
biological level but was first adopted by the social level and then 
by the intellectual. The said origin is the neural network that 
enables storage and retrieval of former experience (memory) and 
makes higher organisms capable of learning from experience. 
With the enormous human brain this ability reached an all-time 
height and (possibly) initiated the social level. Anyway when the 
latter rose on top of biology this "intelligence" became a social 
asset. But now THE point. That animals don't regard this storing 
and retrieval (dreams for instance) as taking place at a subjective 
realm is plain, but even at the the HUMAN social level - after 
language - there were no S/O distinctions, dreams were regarded 
as gods speaking to them and the silent language we call 
"thoughts" were no innocent activity, but could be heard by the 
gods/forces ...etc. Only with the the intellectual level did dreams 
become "just dreams" and the said thoughts were seen as taking 
place at a mental realm. The point is that what began as a 
biological pattern went through these value metamorphoses, 
ending up as intellect's S/O distinction. But the 4th level, being as 
blind to the level context as the rest, regarded its S/O as reality 
itself, hence SOM.  

> This is a semantic mine field but I'd agree and say that
> self-consciousness (not the embarrassed kind) could be understood in a
> similar way to this apperception. The self-consciousness I'm talking
> about should tend to be inclusive of the whole self, the corporeal
> self and it can be learned and practiced.

Mine field, you bet! The "apperception" term is not in my 
dictionary, but the so-called self-consciousness  is the very same 
INTELLIGENCE that intellect has elevated to a third entity who 
seemingly surveys both the subjective and objective realms and 
is why SOM (intellect before the MOQ) was sure that the S/O 
distinction is reality's deepest ground.    

Enough

Bo