As a thought experiment to delve a little deeper into "I","Me" and the
"self", if person A and person B were identical twins and person A had the
EXACT same thoughts as person B would they both mean the same peson when
they said "I".(The identical twin bit is there so that we can leave a
physical description of the self as irrelevant).
My own opinion as of right now is that the self as we see ourselves
is nothing more than a collection of thoughts and memories and the "I" as a
seperate entity independent of its thoughts ie objective observer aso is an
illusion.
-----Original Message-----
From: Gerhard Ersdal [mailto:ingeborg.ersdal@chello.no]
Sent: 21 July 2001 20:32
To: moq_discuss@moq.org
Subject: Re: MD Consciousness Explained
Dear Platt, Squonk, John and all (hopefully including Bo):
Platt wrote:
>Not that we can presume to do any better. But we certainly can do just
>as well by using the MOQ as the starting point, beginning with the
>basic premise that the world is not split between mind and matter
>(consciousness/substance), but between Dynamic Quality and stable
>patterns of value.
I'm not going to comment on your ideas, but rather add some of my own. I've
been re-reading parts of T. Norretranders book "MaerkVerden" (English
version "The user illusion") and trying to fit some of these ideas of
consciousness to the MoQ. I would like to use this opportunity to share some
of my thoughts in the Consciousness discussion, and hopefully receive some
comments and corrections. If all these ideas have been discussed earlier, I
would like to be pointed in the right direction. I would not be surprised if
they where, as it is Bo Skutvik's excellent essay "The Quality Event" that
did inspire me to look into this.
First, a few words about Norretrander and his book (or at least the part I
have re-read recently):
- T Norretranders is a Danish science writer and is more or less only
restating others theories in a readable way, and many of these ideas can
also be found in other book's (Dennett's Consciousness Explained, but
supposedly not explained nearly so clearly here). So the ideas may be
familiar to you from other sources.
- One of the interesting chapter in this regard is devoted to the odd result
discovered by Benjamin Libet. Libet observed that the brain seems to prepare
for a planned action a half second before we realise we have chosen to
perform the action. We don't notice this time lag because the mind
back-peddles and makes it appear that we are on sync. The mind must
backtrack so that our system will know when in real time that an event took
place. Reactions to things like removing a hand from a hot stove occur
faster than our consciousness has time to be aware. So the mind just
reconstructs the event and there is the illusion that we were aware in real
time.
- Norretranders makes a distinction between the "I" that is conscious and
has a short bandwidth of perhaps 16 bits and the "Me" that is non-conscious
and has a bandwidth of millions of bits. The "I" thinks it is in charge, but
all it has is a slow-moving veto.
- "The bandwidth of language is far lower than the bandwidth of sensation.
Most of what we know about the world we can never tell each other."
- The "I" experiences that it is the "I" that acts; that it is the "I" that
senses; that it is the "I" that thinks. But it is the "Me" that does so. I
am my user illusion of myself.
- The "Me" is in control of situations where you have to make decisions
faster than the consciousness can cope with. Examples of this is playing
football (soccer), bicycling etc.
So to the interesting part of this contribution (hopefully): I have tried to
sum up some of the characteristics of the "I" and the "Me".
I:
- The "I" is the part of the body that represent conscious mental processes
and functional actions.
- Have a slow-moving veto, this veto is suspended in fast moving processes.
- Is the conscious decision-maker.
- Is the decision-maker in slow processes.
- The "I" can communicate with other people and control this communication.
- The "I" is making social commitments.
- The "I" knows the rules for what is acceptable, and have due to this often
problems with the many initiatives of the "Me".
- Have a free will, but can only exercise this free will if the "Me" allow
for this.
Me:
- The "Me" is the rest of the person outside the "I".
- Is controlling the decision-making in many activities like athletics,
games, intense conversation, erotic activities etc.
- Operates at a much higher bandwidth, and is due to this superior in
performing art, play, music etc.
- The situations that the "Me" is controlling are often regarded as
comfortable situations.
- The "Me" is also able to communicate, but is lacking the consciousness of
what it is communicating. (It is nor certain to me whether this
communication is necessarily verbal, it cold possible be communication in a
more biological way.)
- The "Me" is unpredictable, disorderly, merry, quick and powerful.
- The "Me" is full of incompatible initiatives.
- Have free will in the sense that "Me" decide whether the "Me" is going to
let the "I" be a part of the decision-making.
The next step in this process would be to accept the general concept of this
theory and look how it would compare with MoQ. It would be my suggestion at
this point that the "Me" looks like the biological person in MoQ and the "I"
is a mix of the social and intellectual person, but there is a mix of static
and dynamic values. You do not need to be conscious to be biological alive,
but you are conscious at a social level.
Norretranders consciousness seems like a mix of the term consciousness
(social level) and self-consciousness (intellectual level).
The comfortable situations that we experience when the "Me" is controlling
might suggest that we are experience dynamic quality events easier on a
biological level than on a social and intellectual level.
In order to get any further with this problem, I need to come up with a
system / definition of how I am at the different levels. Here is my opinion
in this regard with some comments on how the ideas from Norretranders book
can be implemented:
- On an inorganic level I am atoms, tissue, cells and whatever there is left
in a corpse. According to Bo Skutvik, this level expresses itself by
interaction.
- On a biological level I have life in this body, I can transform dead
material (meat, vegetables, water and air) by a dynamic process into life.
The biological level controls the main processes that are needed to keep me
alive as breathing, digestion etc. These processes are controlled by an
autogenous neural system, not controlled by the conscious me (conscious used
in a medical term). According to Bo Skutvik, this level expresses itself by
sensations (adrenaline controlled emotions). I guess anger and fear is among
these sensations. I have no problem in adding that the biological level is
also controlling other unconscious actions, like athletics, games, intense
conversation, erotic activities etc. In my opinion my attractiveness on this
level is judged purely on reproduction qualities, sexual attractiveness.
- On a social level I have a language so that I can communicate with other
persons. I have a set of norms and rules for what is right and wrong on this
level, but I act according to these rules more or less unconsciousness
(although I must be conscious in a medical term). According to Bo Skutvik,
this level expresses itself by feelings. I have included guilt (not doing
what is right), a feeling of inferiority, hurt feelings and
faint-heartedness into this category. All these feelings may initiate
sensations on a biological level as a defence mechanism.
In my opinion my attractiveness on this level is judged by my degree of rich
and famous (this social attractiveness is probably different in different
cultures). The social patterns I have been accepting, is guiding what I
regard as sexual attractiveness.
Why do I do things that are not according to the rules, an end up with guilt
feelings? If my unconscious "Me" is running the show, I end up doing things
that might be outside what my social "Me" is accepting (making a fool of
myself at a party). I can also intellectual decide to do something else than
the society expect.
According to MoQ I'm controlling my biological "Me" from this level. I'm
still a little uncertain on how these processes are performed (my SOM mind
is disturbing my mind, I guess), but methods as mental training by
visualisation give an explanation here.
- On an intellectual level I have ideas and can think and reason (okay,
please no joking on this :-). I can make mental models of how things are
working. Without the intellectual level I guess I would not be able to make
a model about the world as the centre of the universe and the moon and sun
rotating around us. I would definitely not be able to interpret a more
abstract model of the sun as the centre of out solar system. I guess I would
only treat it as something like a social pattern.
I can use the information I have available and achieve a higher level of
understanding.
In my opinion my attractiveness on this level is judged by my degree of
cultural intellect, eloquence, being interesting in discussions, cleverness
and to some extent insight. Creative thinking is performed at this level.
According to Bo Skutvik, this level expresses itself by reason. I'm not
totally certain about this, so I will not comment any more on this subject.
Finally, a comment on Free will:
- Biological level have a free will to choose between "act by reaction /
training" or "wait for the conscious "I" to take the decision".
- Social level doesn't seem to have much free will in this setting.
- Intellectual level has free will if it is allowed to exercise this free
will. Most of the time we are living in an unconscious state where the
biological level and social level is guiding our actions, but if we becomes
aware of the situation - we can exercise our free will.
If you have read so far, thank you.
Gerhard
PS.
On the Meyer-Briggs Type Indicator I'm a ENTP, typically speaks (writes?)
first, and thinks next. I guess you all seen that by now. And more or less
addicted to conceptual ideas.
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