[MD] Intellectual level of MOQ

[craigerb at comcast.net]

[John]
> according to MOQ, intellect evolves from the social level, not from the biological.
> It seems to be saying that we are born with a blank slate, and concepts get written on it
> entirely from our social interactions...and I can't understand how
> there could be no hardware functionality in it at all.

You've hurdled your own impasse:  "hardware functionality" is biological; concepts are intellectual.

[John]
> I feel that I'm not allowed to think of myself as an individual
> self, because that would be forbidden SOM thinking.

Thinking of individual selves (or individual objects, for that matter) is not SOM.  Only thinking that they are
most fundamental is SOM.

[John]
> I can't say I would become "conscious" if I were somehow born as the only human being on some island.

All normal newborns are conscious whenever they're awake, no matter what their environment.

[John]
> I also feel artificially restrained in the way I'm allowed to say things.

All human language is an "artificial restraint" in the way you're allowed to say things.

[John]
> I'd like to talk about the distinction between self and not self that I feel
> from the inside.  

You're assuming that the feeling that distinguishes self from not-self precedes the language
you need to talk about it.  How do you know the feeling doesn't arise from learning the language?
I recommend Wittgenstein's "Private Language Argument".
Craig