[MD] Sex, Rape and Law in a MOQ

[rapsncows at fastmail.fm]

John,
reading this I just had a thought that I found interesting, figured I'd
share.

just as background for Andre or others, you too, but I think you
understand some of this of me, the whole static quality thing for me is
still, to the best of my understanding, a tool for getting out of the
abyss - and in to DQ.  within the utter present, I see all these levels
as wholly intertwined, layered on top of each other.  So intellectual
analysis of certain acts, or behaviors, will never to be able to
properly pin down the exact contribution from each level.  Every act
seems composed of some contribution from every level, so to argue that
rape is intellectual, or biological, or social, is to miss the fact that
the levels are more to help you see contributions that you were
overlooking entirely - in other words to help you get out.  In fact, I
had thought about starting a discussion of: how do you classify brushing
your teeth.  I figured this would get past the moral overtones that
might have hindered discussion about rape.

anyway, other than this I haven't cared to think much about the level
structure at all, and classification of certain acts even less.  But
emotions are important, so...



> 
> [John] How about intellect then, Andre?  Is it also biological?  Ideas are
> created inside of brains, does this mean all ideas are biological?
> From my perspective, this makes a complete hash of the levels.  We end
> up with the MoRon view (metaphysics of randomness, ontologically
> necessary) that  inorganic randomness is the cause of everything and
> nothing has meaning.

[Tim]
MoRon - wonderful, btw.


> 
>[John] My "point of orientation" is that my biological reactions are the
> effects of my emotions, not the cause of my emotions.

[Tim]
this is what set me thinking.  to me, emotions seem to be the
culmination of a really long time scale pattern.  The thought of
elephants communicating over many miles by low frequency ground
vibration, sound which is inaudible to humans and thus has gone
unnoticed until recently, came to mind as an analogy.  hunger has no low
frequency, long time pattern.  It is repeated often, sure, but it really
a very immediate biological response.  Some types of fear might be like
that too, like the other night when I was out for a walk and got
attacked by a pack of 4 dogs; luckily they were all small!

but there are higher emotions which I cannot think of as being purely
immediate.  Even lust.  when I was in ninth grade I could lust over
ninth grade girls.  If it were all biology I would be lusting over them
now too.  Well, there is this thing of epi-genetics, which name is about
the depth of my knowledge.  Anyway, I don't know that epigenetics can
explain the development of emotional response.  It seems emotions cannot
be purely biological.

perhaps it is better to get away from these slimy sex based examples.  I
am thinking of an enduring love, like my grandparents, or how my
emotions towards death have flipped since I was younger.  ohh, back to
the sex stuff.  back in the day corpulent girls were IT, now it is
skinny girls: does biology explain this?  anyway, I'll let y'all pick
examples.  It seems to me that emotions, like intuition, ...  hmmm,
actually, maybe this is the verbiage.  If RPM said that emotions are
biological responses, perhaps he meant that the biological responses are
what he is calling emotion.  perhaps we need a cognate to 'intuition'
which is proper for describing the long term pattern which I access in
the utter present.  If 'intuition' is a sort of pre-intellectual
apprehension of intellectual matter in the utter present, then perhaps
we need a word for a pre-emotional apprehension of emotional matter in
the utter present.  I don't think mystical or spiritual fit the bill.
> 
> [John] My intellect influences my social status,
> My social status influences my feelings.
> My feelings influence my body,
> my body influences materialistic reality.

[Tim]
perhaps 'feeling' does fit the bill.  Though I would say that I think
that intellect and feeling can directly feed off each other.


> [John] Ok, that was then.  This is now.  One thing that seems plain to me is
> that for us to have such disagreement, we must be making some
> fundamental confusion in our terms.  And since in the most basic
> formulation of our dispute - you say emotions are biologically caused
> and I say they're caused by social relations - that perhaps the
> problem is how we differ in our understanding of "caused" in this
> case.  For there is no doubt that emotions are bound up with our
> biological being.  "Feelings" are something we feel with biological
> bodies and in this sense, feelings are biologically experienced
> (caused).

[Tim]
this seems to have come together better than I thought it would when I
started.  What do you think of the distinction between 'emotion' and
'feeling'.  It seems to fit in.  we shouldn't let raw emotion get the
better of society or our intellect,  but un-raw emotion, 'feeling', is
further up the level structure, so no worries.

> 
> [John] But the cause of feelings as I mean "cause" is that the emotions are
> driven by social concerns and patterns, primarily.

[Tim]
then we might say that 'emotions' are driven by 'feelings'.

And I'm not sure what I would say is the primary generator of
'feelings', it seems like that depends on the person, but I think it
goes up to the utter present of DQ.

Tim
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