[MD] subject/object: pragmatism

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi Ham and all Egg-heads. 

On 20 Nov. you wrote to Platt, but mentioned me.
 
> I was making a statement about what Intellect really is, based upon my
> own intellectual understanding.  The point I was trying to make is
> that while ideas and principles may be published and retrieved for use
> by others, the intellect that formulates them does not exist
> independently of their author. You called my statement "a fine example
> of an intellectual pattern."

This assertion (that  intellect does not exist independently of their 
author) looked a bit peculiar at first, but is a perfect 
demonstration of the faulty understanding of the "intellectual 
level" that you (understandably) harbor, but that most MOQists 
shares with you, namely that of mind, and that mind is biological 
(brain) subsidiary.

Why you associated me with this most un-MOQish understanding 
made me look at you original post of Monday 19.  

> [Platt]:
> > I don't think SOM can be all of intellect.

>  [Bo]:
> > Well if so we are back at start with a 4th. level that contains ideas,
> > theories, metaphysics .. etc. in a SOM-mind sense.

Ham: 
> This brief exchange captures the dilemma you folks have created for 
> yourselves by making Intellect an extracorporeal level, pattern, or 
> whatever.  I know that Ham's two cents aren't worth a wooden nickel in
> this forum, but please hear me out.

But it did not help in making me understand. Who says that  
"Intellect is extracorporeal level". It's "extra-social" if any, but 
listen for the millionth-and first time:     

All levels rose on top of the former and adopted it for own 
purpose, thus intellect - as the highest level - sits on top of all 
lower levels. The ability to think (store and manipulate former 
experience, what we call "intelligence") the 4th. level adopted 
from the 2nd. (by way of the 3rd. that had exploited it for 
millennias) Language intellect adopted directly from the 3rd. Your 
"author" (the mind) is the 4th. levels name for the intelligent 
SUBJECT that - in intellect' view - resides in our brain. This 
mind/brain (S/O) distinction is intellect's VALUE!!!. The fact that 
this subject seemingly surveys both the subjective and the 
objective realities is result of ever more turns of the S/O screw. It 
has turned since the Greeks and we may no longer figure out all 
its intricacies. The MOQ is an Ariadne thread that finally can lead 
us out of intellect's S/O labyrinth.

Dear Ham, I have read the rest of your post and it touched me, 
but it's no use commenting everything if not this basic 
misunderstanding you have of the MOQ is put right. It is caused 
by the false shepherds (follow me ;-) At times you seem to have 
a similar notion of intellect-as-SOM as the myself and that's 
encouraging. 

> Only the rational creature has the arrogance to place Intellect on a high
> pedestal and deify it as Cosmic Truth, if not Reality itself. 

I could not have put it better.The way ZAMM presents SOM was 
the emergence of the notion of Truth as opposite to Opinion. 
>From then on this dichotomy "screw" has turned out ever more 
elevated varieties of this dichotomy. The first Platonic 
"appearance/idea" we hardly recognize, while Aristotle's 
"form/substance" is more familiar. Subject/Object is something 
from Medieval times, only the Mind/Matter is fairly modern, but 
the gist of it is that the said screw has turned out many 
complicated varieties - finally the super-complicated one where 
intellect (rational thinking ) goes on in the subjective mind and 
thus nullifies itself. These paradoxes were what drove Phaedrus 
nuts and started him on the Quality quest, but that's another 
history.

Bo