from a psychological point of view, the idea of 'pre-intellectual
conciousness' is certainly interesting. But Psychology is largely at a loss
to explain or describe conciousness. You're right that it usually seems to
be considered as the same thing as self-awareness, but isn't closely defined
otherwise.
Generally, computational approaches and cognitive ones seem to imply that
most of the 'knowing of the world about us' ( :"perception") is actually
quite different from conciousness. That is to say, most aspects of knowing
the world don't require the concept of conciousness, in any case
conciousness is regarded as being closely associated with so-called 'slow
processes' (Jackendoff, and others) and is therefore too slow to actually
deal with many of the worlds' events as they happen. In fact, conciousness
is sometimes thought of as a relatively minor part of what the brain does,
though this may be taking it too far. But certainly, it is often postulated
(with quite good academic reasons) that conciousness arises out of the
brains processes, is an expression of the workings of the brain (i.e. is
'caused' by the workings of the systems of connections between areas of the
brain at a neurological level), but is in itself 'causally inert'. In other
words, conciousness is a sort of mirror, but doesn't actually cause
behaviour, or anything in particular; (bit like "ivory tower intellectuals",
really!). Generally, the burden of scientific proof lends itself to this
view, but intuitively, and on the basis that evolution doesn't waste
expensive computational abilities (in other words, conciousness isn't just
an accidental byproduct of the fact of exceeding a certain level of
connectivity), I feel thgat there is probably a better way to think of
conciousness.
Perhaps as an emergent property of complexity, granted, but one which serves
the purpose of supplying a new, "super-slow" cognitive capacity- one which
is able to consider matters out of 'real time' and which therefore may yield
information not normally available in the normal 'directly engaged' level of
cognitive ability of more simple organisms. In other words, its about
long-term prediction.
I should stress at this point that this is not a well fleshed-out theory, at
present; -I would need some time to develop the idea, as befits the workings
of a super-slow cognitive capacity!
I'm not sure how this might relate to Pirsig, but it's one perspective.
regards,
ppl
----- Original Message -----
From: "Marc Brookhuis" <brookhuis1@zonnet.nl>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: 15 November 2000 08:14
Subject: MD december topic?
> Maybe a nice topic for december: Consciousness or self-awareness.
> I have a feeling there's a lot more to say on that part. In my opinion
> Pirsig makes lot of statements on f.e.Zenconsciousness as a
pre-intellectual
> awareness, before intellect comes into play.
> - some questions and remarks, as a start up
> Do these terms, consciousness or self-awarenss have the same meaning in
the
> MOQ as in the so-called subject-object
> metaphysics?
> What is the difference between the psychological approach and philosofical
> approach of these terms?
> (And everything else we which comes to mind on this subject... )
>
> Best regards
>
> Marc
>
> MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
> Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
> MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
>
> To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
> http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
>
>
>
> MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
> Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
> MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
>
> To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
> http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
>
>
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:00:50 BST