David,
I have a problem with this definition of monism, in that: "As we all know,
Monism asserts that everything in the
universe is essentially built of one substance, and that substance is
energy/matter."........... is that what we all know? - this does indeed seem
to me to give rise to an entirely mechanistic view of the universe of
'things-made-of-matter-moving-through-space-and-time-due-to-energy-flows'
(sorry, I couldn't think of an apposite term), where qualities like
'information', morality, indeed Quality, etc., are "emergent properties" of
this machine. And I must admit that my opinion of Behaviourism (unitl you
gave an inkling of something other) was always that, in the same way, 'mind'
was regarded as a similar emergent property, the result of just wiring up an
awful lot of neurons, or even an 'epiphenomenon', a sort of accidental
by-product of the workings of the brain which has a one-way causal
relationship with that brain. (that is, changes in the brain cause changes
in the mnd, but not the other way round)............
BUT.. Doesn't this all rest on the notion that the monist view of
all-that-is is restricted to the basic 'stuff' of the universe as
enrgy/matter? - is this indeed the universally accepted definition? if so,
why?
The problem I have with this is that: a universe consisting entirely of
matter/energy, even when allowing for the fantastic combinatorial diversity
is, push comes to shove, potentially entirely explicable in those terms.
However, when we start to talk about human 'knowing' (inasmuch as it can be
said to exist) or even the sort of 'knowing' exhibited by any other species,
we suddenly have to bring in this concept of 'information', which likewise
is epiphenomenal, apparently an accidental by-product of the matter/energy
/time/space relationships, which doesn't affect the basic stuff of the
universe but is just 'given off' by it, and which is the only way we can
exist, navigate etc., in our present form in the universe.
So, we're kind of parasites, then, whilst the real business of the day, of
things spinning, colliding, converting from one state to the other, carries
on oblivious?
Might it not be easier to say that the absoluteness of matter/energy is
illusory? ( I don't mean that energy matter isn't real, just that it's not
rock bottom )
In this case, one can make the sort of 'universe is conscious' claim quite
easily - in fact it seems mandatory. There's no real problem about saying
some of it seems to be more conscious than some other - that's in the nature
of consciousness. for that matter, this approach gets over a funadamental
difficulty I have with the behavourist notion that a door can be said to be
reacting appropriately just as a human can. In my view, the difference
between the two is simply that the door is reacting directly to
matter/energy (something moved it), whilst a human is reacting to
infromation. So a human can anticipate a collision, whereas (to the best of
my knowledge) a door can't. And the human achieves this through processing
information, which involves fuzziness, choices, hypotheses about the near
future, assessment of probabilites of various holistic scenarios, etc.. The
door didn't *process* any information in advance of collision. Whether this
basic difference amounts to a qualititive or quantitive difference is not
argued here. In any event, if we're saying that a monist view of the
universe incorporates a notion that either
a) the bedrock stuff (of the universe) is 'conciousness', and therefore
everything is potentially conscious,or
b) the bedrock is something else, but nevertheless incorporates a notion
that all matter is capable of taking part in a conciousness setup,
We're not actually saying something particularly controversial, surely?
In fact, in doing away with the old absolutes 'cos they weren't doing their
job properly, and in replacing them with either the statements that there
are no such things as absolutes or, if there are, we could never know them
(except perhaps through inference...but then how else do we actually know
things?), we seem to be in mystic-land. And the problem with that, as we all
know, is that any idiot can come along and make any wild speculative
hypothesis, and say it's true because you can't disprove it. Hence science,
to sort of weed out the duff suggestions.
But I think Pirsig originally wanted more from science, and when he didn't
get it, he blamed science. I think he wanted 'knowing' in the sense of
certainty. So, he thought there should exist hard facts about absolute
bedrock substances and laws, and so on. The idea of science as being merely
a method of testing descriptions I think sounded odd to him. So,
congenitally wired up to seek 'certainty', he had a major breakdown and
headed for philosophy (generally not a good idea if you're having a
breakdown!). And I think a lot of what Pirsig wrote was an attempt to
provide sound intellectual reasons as to why intellectual reasoning wasn't
enough to 'know' about reality.
But what comes out of what you and elephant have been saying is exactly that
reality can't be known (in the sense of a comprehensive grasping of the
essentials) by anything less than.. well, itself, actually. Now I know
puzeph might pull me up here and say that is not what he said; fair enough,
but I'm confused: why can't 'all that is' be, or develop, 'awareness'? - are
we doing that "staying up all night arguing about infinity"-thing, here? - I
really need some help here, because the problem does appear that the
language we have is insufficient to address the concepts we would like to
develop; ...well of course - how else would it be? - Does denying evolution
amount to an expectation that language is somehow 'whole'? - that doesn't
seem right, that can't be what you're saying(eph).
For that matter, I can see how the appearance at one level of an apparent
conceptual split between "me" and "not-me" can be a jolly useful way of
facilitating universal awareness, even if that rift might eventually have to
be 'healed'.
I'm not sure that Struan's conjecture that nobody seriously thinks in terms
of SOM is useful here in that what you're saying, Struan, refers only to
philosophers, doesn't it? (correct me if I'm wrong).
All in all, David seems to be saying that the 'all' is trying to bootstrap
itself up in to a state of 'more', and eph seems to be saying that we don't
have the language to put it like that; in any event, it does seem analogous
to the situation of us trying to understand 'all'. Struan's point seems to
be that all this has little bearing on how we might live and make decisions;
this is a charge which pertains to any mysticism which says the self is
nothing and nothing matters, and is hard to refute.
have I understood everyone?
cheers
ppl
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