[MD] The Quality/MOQ dichotomy.

[MarshaV]

At 03:08 PM 2/16/2009, you wrote:
>Dear Marsha yesterday you said:
>
>
>Marsha before:
>I'm not talking about dreams. Static patterns of
>value are much more than words.  Think about
>something, zebras for instance.   What comes to
>mind?   If all you can experience are words and
>sentences, you have my sympathy.  Can you conjure
>up the memory of the smell of an orange?  The
>memory of its color, shape, surface texture,
>'orange', its taste, etc.?  Can you remember
>making fresh orange juice?  Can you see the pulp
>floating in the glass?  Memory is more than
>words.  Does the memory of orange blossoms come
>to mind?  Orange groves?  Do you know you cannot
>wear anything the color orange?   Does your body
>respond?  Does your mouth water?  I could write
>for weeks on what comprises an orange pattern and
>its overlapping relationships.
>
>Or do you get only something like:
>
>An orange?specifically, the sweet orange?is the
>citrus Citrus sinensis (syn. Citrus aurantium L.
>var. dulcis L., or Citrus aurantium Risso) and
>its fruit. The orange is a hybrid of ancient
>cultivated origin, possibly between pomelo
>(Citrus maxima) and tangerine (Citrus
>reticulata). It is a small flowering tree growing
>to about 10 m tall with evergreen leaves, which
>are arranged alternately, of ovate shape with
>crenulate margins and 4?10 cm long. The orange
>fruit is a hesperidium, a type of berry.
>
>David:
>I once wrote a whole chapter (The Epicurean Concept of Mind, Meaning and
>Knowledge) arguing that feelings (using David Hume's definition that all
>perceptions are feelings) are the basic biological level of symbol: the only
>level used by babies and other nonverbal animals to understand meaning. And
>that words are the same meaning translated to a social level. I argued that
>although the verbal level overwhelms the feeling level in the consciousness
>(especially in white males) the ability to read and write words is the
>ability to make this translation back and forth.

Marsha:
I'm not sure how David Hume's definition (spov, analolgy, symbol) 
became pertinent to this discussion, but I'd like to read about the 
Epicurean concept of mind, meaning and knowledge.  I do not think 
feelings and the sensual memory I'm talking about are the same, but 
they are both analogy.  My point was that static patterns of value 
are mental constructs, but not just words.


>David:
>Today you said:
>
>
>Marsha before:
>Zebra is a static pattern of value, an ever-changing mental construction
>extracted from Dynamic Quality.  There is not an external object Zebra, but
>only the overlaid pattern whose label is zebra.  Zebras exists only by
>conventional recognition of the pattern.  The Zebra-spov would fall into the
>Biological Level.  Where you want to stick the word 'zebra' is where I get
>somewhat confused.  Because language is a social phenomenon, I would tend to
>put it in the Social Level.
>
> >
> >
>
>
>David:
>I would now argue you are correct, the word Zebra is a social level symbol
>but the interesting part for me is that either feelings or words can be used
>on the intellectual level. As anyone who has had a thought that they
>couldn't verbalize can tell you.


Marsha:
There you've done it again, overlaid another static pattern of 
value.  You may be correct.  I'm still whirling in the vortex that 
the nature of all static patterns of value are as mental 
constructs.  Meanwhile a giggle crawls up my spine.


>
>
>Coincidentally and also yesterday Bo said:
>
>
>Bo:
> > "Not in the sense that the other levels are "real"
>and intellect "represents" them, this is the fallacy that Pirsig
>commits at the beginning of the "symbol manipulation" definition:"
>
>
>
>     Intellectuality occurs when these customs as well as
>     biological and inorganic patterns are designated with a sign
>     that stands for them and these signs are manipulated
>     independently of the patterns they stand for. "Intellect" can
>     then be defined very loosely as the level of independently
>     manipulable signs. Grammar, logic and mathematics can
>     be described as the rules of this sign manipulation.
>
>
>David:
>I spotted the same fallacy in his computer metaphor (Lila) of course the
>meaning of the novel being written on the computer exists in all levels of
>the computer (electrical charge, binary, number and letter symbol levels).
>One only needs to learn how to read the specific symbol level to be able to
>read the words which are actually just symbols for the biological level
>feelings -david swift.

Marsha:
I don't see a fallacy, unless of course you mean it's all 
fallacy.  Biological symbols or not, aren't they still analogies, 
mental constructions, spovs, all the way down and all the way up?  If 
I'm missing something please try to explain.


Marsha


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Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.........
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