[MD] Reading & Comprehension

[John Carl]

Thanks Mary, for a well-written and well-thought post.

It's interesting to get your take on a period of MD, examined as a whole
from a slightly removed weekend perspective.  Being in the middle of
something grants less perspective than a bit removed from the fray.

I just have one quibble that jumped out at me, a correction of your
perception of my view:



> [Mary Replies]
> The quotes below are entirely consistent with my view of the Intellectual
> Level as SOM and with my additional view that thinking existed in
> rudimentary form all the way back to the Biological.  When discussing
> intelligence, one has to be mindful of "degree".  I do differ with John's
> idea that even pre-biological objects exhibit intelligence.
>
>
 I postulate intelligence as the defining characteristic of life.  The
difference between an amoeba and a crystalline growth is an intelligent
patterning of substance.  To me, that's just a simple, pragmatically
defensible definition.

Whereas intellect is the defining characteristic of humans.  Intellect
involves symbolic manipulation and intelligence "purposive response to
environment."

I don't insist upon inflicting my definitions, but I do see them as
provisionally useful for my own understanding.


Mary:


> Well, I further contend that art also resides at the Social Level.
>
>
John:

I disagree.  Just as humans alone exhibit intellectual patterns, so too do
humans alone exhibit artistic behavior.   Horses live naturally in a social
herd, but they don't do art.

Mary:


> I think this because basic communication is a Biological function, but as
> communication transcends Biological needs and also evolves into greater
> complexity, it becomes Social Level communication, and art is nothing more
> nor less than communication of ideas that transcend Biological needs.
>
>
John:

Communication is a social-level pattern, as one horse trumpet danger to the
others.  Language however is intellectual and confined to humans.

The "communication of ideas" is  intellectual, at least as I define the
term.

Mary:


> The reason I do not place art in the Intellectual Level is because that is
> not its purpose.  Art is not something we do in an attempt to thwart or
> control Society.
>
>
John:

 Oh my goodness Mary, what a disastrous confusion!  Have you never
contemplated the eras of Soviet State sponsored Art?  Of the uses Hitler
made of artistic propoganda or even our modern devotion to artistic
expression promoting  commercialism?  What is all this but exactly that
attempt to control society?

Even Pirsig's books are an artistic attempt to  thwart society's SOM.

Mary:


> Art is simply a way to convey our brief touches with Dynamic Quality to
> others.
>
> It is a form of communication.  Nothing more nor less.
>

Art has no Intellectual or Social axe to grind inherently - though it
> certainly has been used for such.
>
>
John:

Hmmm... I think this whole line of yours ought to be re-examined.  If Art
has been, "used for such", then I'd say it's an inherent feature.  And as a
"form of communication", it is definitely inherently then of an intellectual
basis.


Thanks for your thoughts, Mary.

And happy Mother's Day!

John