[MD] Which came first? Subjects and objects or SOM?

[skutvik at online.no]

Steve 

26 Feb.

Steve originally:
> >> I don't think there is such a thing as biology's intelligence. To
> >> talk about intellect in animals is not what people usually  mean by
> >> intellectual and is certainly not how Pirsig uses the term in the
> >> MOQ.

Bo replied:
> > You really are difficult. Aren't there intelligent - smart -
> > animals?

Steve now:
> Good point. We certainly do talk about certain animals being smarter
> than others.

Good, that was something. 
 
> But I don't think that animals think as Pirsig defines thinking as
> symbol manipulation.  I think most scientists believe that animal
> behavior that looks like thinking can be explained by conditioning
> rather than abstract thought.

But dear Steve, Pirsig does NOT define thinking as symbol 
manipulation, it's INTELLECT he defines that way, after railing 
considerably against thinking as intellect (the Paul Turner letter). 
Science, SOM (intellect itself ) as you correctly say  defines 
thinking as manipulation of symbols and has a hard time 
explaining animal's creative intelligence. They ascribe it to 
instincts and/or conditioning (Pavlov's dogs) but this is clearly 
inadequate.      

> It's an interesting topic, and I welcome hearing from anyone who has
> any insight into animal cognition. If animals do participate in
> intellectual patterns as Pirsig defines them it would be a problem for
> the MOQ as Bo says.

Steve, come to your senses! Animals participating in 
INTELLECTUAL ...!! Can't you snap out of this your Pavlovian 
trait? 

"Manipulation of symbols ..etc." was Pirsig's last effort to define 
intellect, but I maintain that this merely is a definition of language 
and that language added to the biological ability to "manipulate 
experience" creates what the intellectual level calls thinking. Thus 
the said level's value is not thinking itself but that of regarding it 
as an abstract process going on in a mental compartment called 
MIND. In the same vein, intellect is not manipulation of symbols, 
but the immense value of distinguishing between symbols and 
what they symbolize. 

This is the only view that doesn't pose a problem for the MOQ.

IMO

Bo