[MD] Loneliness

[skutvik at online.no]

Ham

13 Sep. 

Bo before to John:
> > There is nothing wrong with MOQ's level design, it's just
> > that it rejects the subject/object distinction as existence's
> > fundament, ergo there is no mind or matter in the MOQ
> > and what we call "intelligence" does not take place in
> > mind because all S/Os are gone with the wind.

Ham: 
> A couple of questions . . .
 
> If "there is no mind or matter in the MOQ and intelligence does not
> take place in the mind", where does the abstraction of intelligence
> occur?  Is this not a mental process?

I lag behind in our exchange but..  anyway, about the MOQ rejecting 
the S/O distinction as existence's fundament ought to be known, also 
that this means its many off-shoots - among those the 
mental/corporeal - have come to an end as as absolute But the 
question remains "what happens to the residual S/Os", it's impossible 
to imagine existence bereft of all these dualisms so Pirsig found that 
the S/O had to be part of MOQ's static hierarchy and he chose the 
known method of making the two lower levels "objects" and the two 
upper "subjects". 

But this way of subsuming the SOM does not work well, for instance 
how the MOQ resolves the mind/matter paradox sounds contrived. All 
in all it's cumbersome and leaves zero explanatory power. Only the 
SOL (intellect=S/O) works and as said a million times most of LILA 
conveys that interpretation. As said as many times, Pirsigs obsession 
was the Quality=Reality issue something that left the MOQ half-
baked. 

But you question was    where the abstraction of intelligence  occur?  
Is this not a mental process? And as always the answer is that from  
the MOQ seen "mental/corporeal" and the rest of the S/Os are 
confined to the intellectual level. It's an enormous valuable distinction 
that has brought us modernity, but it's static and when applied as 
existence's fundament it falters. I have spoken about the increasing 
neural (brain) capacity that enabled creatures to store experience as 
RAM and retrieve it in "cache memory"  to manipulate it through 
logical "gates" - without language of course.

The point is that biology - animals - did not (still don't ) know that this 
(what intellect calls) "mental" or "abstract". With Homo Sapiens' big 
brain and the social tool - language - the "symbols" - that with biology 
were images or smell, taste  - became words and the manipulation 
enhanced a thousandfold. But still not recognized as "taking place in 
mind", "being mental" or any such. I don't mean that ancient people 
went about as in dreams (when you don't know you're dreaming). 
They surely knew the "practical" sides of the S/O but the bulkhead 
between inner and outer (the SOM) was not yet in place. I know you 
hate this "approach" but you asked for it.          

> John had asked you to distinguish "intellect" from "experience", apart
> from the assumption that humans have intellect whereas animals exhibit
> intelligence "to a lesser or greater extent."  (He also seems to
> believe intellect has a "social origin".)  In your response, you
> quoted your own earlier statement:
 
> > "Patterns objectified for analytical thinking". That sounds like an
> > OK definition of intellect.
 
> Well, if objectifying patterns is what the intellect does, then it is
> part of the thinking process usually regarded as "mind or cognitive"
> activity. Similarly, mind is the locus of experience, sensations, and
> self-awareness. If there are no subjects, I assume you consider
> conscious awarenesss to be an electro-chemical phenomenon of the
> neuro-physical system.  In that case, you are postulating "pure
> objectivism".  Isn't that as fallacious as S/O reality or "pure
> subjectivism" in Pirsig's book?

I knew the moment I gave in to any other definition of intellect than 
my own I was on thin ice. So forget it 

> If possible, I'd appreciate an explanation in epistemological rather
> than evolutionary terms.

Sorry, but "the moment one gives in to epistemology" - to knowledge - 
one is at intellect's-as SOM's  mercy. 

Bodvar