[MD] Two Minds

[Austin Fatheree]

If things have been too quiet, let me throw some things out there for
discussion.  I know I'm late to the party so if any of this has been
discussed before, feel free to point me in the right direction.

A thing occurred to me while reading Lila that is really a technical point,
albeit I think an important one, that doesn't really change any conclusions
that Pirsig makes, but that may be worth discussion.

Pirsig indicates that the Intellectual level emerges from the social
level(and by definition emerged in time after the social level) and thus
has moral authority over it.

I think this is technically wrong, although the technical reasons don't end
up changing many of the conclusions.

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.

I think this because it more adequately fits what we see in reality.  Our
brains have many parts and recent Psychological analysis shows that it also
has multiple modes.  Kahneman puts this forward in Thinking Fast and Slow (
http://amzn.to/1MzA82R ).  Here we see System 1 (Quick Judgments) and
System 2 (Methodical Thought) being driven by various parts of the brain
and assimilated in the neocortex.  The theory is that the more reptilian
brain evolved first, and the neocortex evolved with access to these other
parts of the brain to add prediction and better fitness.  System 1 is the
social level brain and System 2 is the intellectual part.  System 1 just is
and just does.  System 2 can override and use simulated expectations as a
basis.

Ultimately though, both evolutions were biological responses to fitness.
Both emerged out of biology and out of what the biological level values
(fitness).

I think this is important because at one point Pirsig says that a level
only has access to the level below it.  I think the Intellectual level does
have access to the biological(although it has many built in biases because
System 1 was around with it developed).  System 2 may even be completely
reliant on System 1 existing, but it can still reach down through it and
act at the biological level.

Unfortunately the fallout from this is that distinguishing that the
intellectual level should have moral authority over the social level
becomes even murkier.  Unfortunately this also seems be an accurate map of
the territory.  I’m from Houston and yesterday we voted down our Houston
Equal Rights Ordinance(HERO) because we have a significant portion of our
population that has no desire to operate at an intellectual level.  It is
all still way to social here in the South and social means that that guy
over there is going to get one over on me if I don’t take it for myself.
Boo us.

-- 
Austin
twitter: @afat http://twitter.com/afat
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