[MD] Regarding The Fundamental Nature of The Intellectual Level

[MarshaV]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Arlo Bensinger" <ajb102 at psu.edu>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 10:36 AM
Subject: Re: [MD] Regarding The Fundamental Nature of The Intellectual Level


> [Marsha]
> When I'm hungry I eat, when I tired I sleep.  When I paint, I paint.  I 
> try to keep it all pretty simple.
>
> [Arlo]
> Yes, but unless when the hunger bell dings in your head you reach for 
> whatever is in arm's reach and grab it and eat it, I bet that you too 
> engage in deliberate planning of how to satiate that biological craving. 
> Maybe you think "Pizza? No, I had that yesterday. Chinese? Other side of 
> town and I'm low on gas. The Burger Emporium? Well the waiter there was 
> rude to me last time so that's out.". Or maybe you think, "My daughter is 
> having me over for a big dinner tonight, so maybe I'll skip lunch of just 
> have a little yogurt"... Point it, we manipulate symbols deliberately and 
> purposefully on the social level.

Your definition of  'deliberate and purposeful' is interesting.  I cannot 
say what you describe is done without deliberation and purpose, but they are 
not focused on the improvement of the Social Level, which is a part of the 
MOQ definition of the Intellectual Level's function.

>
> [Marsha]
> I imagine there were intellectual patterns before there evolved an 
> Intellectual Level.
>
> [Arlo]
> I can imagine a time when organic patterns existed but biological patterns 
> had not yet emerged. I can also imagine a time when biological patterns 
> existed but social patterns had not yet emerged. Why not a time when 
> social patterns existed but intellectual patterns had not yet emerged? Are 
> you suggesting that social and intellectual patterns co-evolved, meaning 
> appeared at the same time?
>
> Indeed, I'd argue that it is the biological level that is "automatic", and 
> the social level brought autonomy and the ability to plan and enact 
> deliberate plans into everyday activity. Before the social level, when an 
> ape was hungry, he ate. He couldn't mediate his actions by thinking "let 
> me hold off on eating this banana because the other apes are planning a 
> large feast tonight". It is the ability to manipulate abstract social 
> symbols (language) that brought freedom "from the laws of the jungle" to 
> the fledgling human tribes. With language they could plan, debate plans 
> and courses of action, determine best routes and optimum strategies, and 
> then negotiate the implementation of those decisions. Human tribes could 
> observe in the world in a whole new way, a shared social way, that freed 
> them from the immediate moment and set them on course of migration, 
> discovery, crafting, storytelling, dance, exploration and a myriad of 
> behaviors made possible by social language.

I cannot imagine a time without all of them since static patterns of value 
are conceptual entities.


>
> [Marsha]
> To me social level patterns are ritual and habit.
>
> [Arlo]
> Ritual and habit exist at both the social and intellectual level. Indeed, 
> said this way I'd say that "ritual and habit" are simply other terms for 
> "static patterns", and the intellectual level is, too, static patterns. 
> The Dynamic Freedom you mention is outside all of these levels, but is 
> manifest on each level by the agency afforded by that particular level. 
> The social level brought a great deal of agency and freedom to human 
> behavior. And wo/man continues to this day to act upon this freedom 
> brought by the social level. In the same way, the intellectual level has 
> brought its own freedoms and affordances.x

Maybe I should have stated ritual and habit below consciousness.  I have not 
denied the importance of the Social Level.  And I do not remember writing 
anything about 'Dynamic Freedom'.  Maybe those were RMP's word from a quote. 
Freedom for me, at the moment, is understanding emptiness.  Or, the fact 
that patterns, in general, are interrelated, ever-changing  _conceptual_ 
entities.   Analogies, every last one of them, all the way down.

>
> [Marsha]
> From my point of view, reification of any kind is illusion.  Seems to be a 
> worldwide convention, but it's illlusion just the same.
>
> [Arlo]
> Agree. What I picture here is the analysis of the motorcycle in ZMM. We 
> break the world apart in certain ways and then cling to the idea that 
> those parts are real in a primary kind of way.

I like RMP's MOQ-worldview.  (Real is too static for me.)  The four levels 
take into consideration all the 'stuff ' the West has invented and points to 
the wisdom of the East.  It's very exciting.

BTW, did you see that spider on caffeine?


Marsha