[MD] Two Minds

Sun Nov 8 12:09:21 PST 2015

maybe we should differentiate on the concept of fitness,and fill it in in a
more detailed and nuanced way.
Is it only a concept?keep in mind that fitness is the main engine of
evolution,in all layers and tiers of biology, not to mention the factuality
that
fitness even applies to molecules ,bacteria and viruses.
Any model without fitness is a halted system(absence of dynamic quality)and
therefore theoretical, useless or history etc,...

my point is, fitness is more than a concept,it will still be there when
humans are long gone.
Adrie

2015-11-07 21:28 GMT+01:00 Austin Fatheree <austin.fatheree at gmail.com>:

> Arlo,
>
> Thanks for the recommendations.  They are on the way to my kindle!
>
> Let me explain a bit about why I am currently at my current conclusions.
> I've been thinking a good bit not just about the levels, but also about how
> each operates.  What is the gas of each level?  What makes it go?  What is
> the value that quality illuminates?
>
> Pirsig has this to say about biology vs inorganic in Lila:
>
> Biological evolution can be seen as a process by which weak Dynamic forces
> at a subatomic level discover stratagems for overcoming huge static
> inorganic forces at a superatomic level. They do this by selecting
> superatomic mechanisms in which a number of options are so evenly balanced
> that a weak Dynamic force can tip the balance one way or another.
>
> Pirsig, Robert (2013-11-06). Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals (p. 167). Random
> House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
>
> So what makes the inorganic 'go', what it values are this forces of
> nature.  Patterned forces are valued in such a way that enough patterns are
> produced by dynamic quality that biology can emerge.
>
> Now the biological level has access to the inorganic and regularly uses
> patterned forces to its advantage, but the patterned forces aren't what
> makes the biological 'go.'  Instead we find an economy of fitness.  A
> variety of fitness generated by dynamic quality produces a social layer
> that has access to both the biological and inorganic, but again, a new
> economy emerges.  The social values resources...a literal economy...where
> institutions and grouping emerge that seek to allocate resources in away
> that spreads and grows the institution. Valued resources allocation emerges
> in states and banks and all kinds of social institutions that increase the
> quality of resource allocation.  We can say at this point that the economy
> at the social level is fundamentally different than at the biological level
> because mere fitness is not the driver of the quality at this level.
>
> This is where my uncomfortableness came from with the intellectual emerging
> out of the social.  Perhaps I'll see better how this occurs in the
> recommended titles, but as I see it now, the emergence of intelligence is
> not  built on an economy of resources.  It is an alternate form of fitness
> where an organism can observe time and make valuable
> inferences(predictions) about the future.  This manifests itself in things
> like language where we see a set sound producing and expected meaning.
> Since intellect came after social the intellect can use all kinds of social
> symbols and concepts, but it isn't exclusive.  Intelligence also gives us
> basic prediction like 'If I drop this rock it will fall' and later leading
> to, after valued prediction emerges from dynamic quality, 'If I drop this
> rock it will accelerate at 9.8m/s'.  The ability to make this kind of
> observation increase the fitness of the organism that can avoid falling
> rocks.
>
> I would agree that most of our important intellectual constructs have a
> social component to them and so many of the conclusion can probably be made
> whatever the answer is.
>
> Again...thanks for the recommendations and I'll revert once I get through
> them.,
>
> Austin
> ᐧ
>
> On Fri, Nov 6, 2015 at 10:13 PM, ARLO JAMES BENSINGER JR <ajb102 at psu.edu>
> wrote:
>
> > [Austin]
> > I think that both the social and intellectual levels emerged out of the
> > biological level.  The intellectual did emerge after the social and still
> > holds moral authority over it and still has access to it, but it is more
> > correct to say that it emerged from biology.
> >
> > [Arlo]
> > This is a frequent lament from those schooled in the West. But you must
> > know this upfront, this is NOT Pirsig's MOQ. The
> > Inorganic-Biologic-Intellectual trajectory resurfaces from time to time,
> > sometimes out of the 'anti-social, raw individualism' cowboy motif of
> > American culture, and sometimes out of the West's inability to understand
> > the social origins of cognition (those are not random words).
> >
> > This can be a long discussion, and if you're genuinely interested I'll
> > bite and try to walk through this again. Before I do, I would encourage
> you
> > to read some Vygotsky, Bakhtin and Tomasello, as these are three of the
> > more translated philosopher/psychologists who agree with Pirsig that
> > 'intellect' is a product of social origins.
> >
> > Wherever you end up, understand though that a KEY point to the MOQ is
> that
> > intellect does NOT derive from biology. It can be a difficult point to
> > grasp, but it's critical to understanding Pirsig. Here are two more
> popular
> > works to get you started.
> >
> > The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition: Michael Tomasello (
> > http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674005822)
> >
> > Voices of the Mind: James Wertsch (
> >
> https://books.google.com/books?id=9EtTuaPMtjAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=voices+of+the+mind+wertsch&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAGoVChMI8b6rwbj9yAIVBlcmCh1zpAj0#v=onepage&q=voices%20of%20the%20mind%20wertsch&f=false
> )
> > this book overviews bothg Vygotsky and Bakhtin
> >
> >
> > Moq_Discuss mailing list
> > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> > Archives:
> > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> > http://moq.org/md/archives.html
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Austin Fatheree
> RIVVIR Consulting
> http://www.rivvir.com
> austin at rivvir.com
> 832-483-0741
> twitter: @afat http://twitter.com/afat
> Moq_Discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org/md/archives.html
>

-- 
parser