Hi Bo, Glenn:
Bo writes:
>. I agree with Glenn that no such experiment
> (based on the idea of a disembodied mind trying to influence a mindless
> coin) will show anything above random.
You gentlemen seem to suggest that a bunch of PhD's at Princeton are
complete dolts who never heard of the Law of Large Numbers. I find
such a conclusion ludicrous on its face, a trillion to one shot. (-: If you
want to disprove the experimental results, you'll have to do better than
that. To find out what's been going on, you can check it out at
www.princeton.edu/~pear/
> Platt had said:
> > > Students of the MOQ would suggest the experiments demonstrate the war
> > > between biological and inorganic levels. Since life requires a degree
> > > of certainty to survive, it must have power to dominate the probability
> > > patterns of the inorganic level.
> Hmmm. Is this the relationship? That life manipulates matter by willing it
> to perform biologic? Then Dynamic Quality becomes "mind" and that I see as
> dubious.
Willing, wanting, desiring, preferring--I don't know how you best describe
it but something "made you want to buy the record" and that something,
"the first good" was, according to Pirsig, Dynamic Quality. Something in
you "responds" to DQ. "The patterns of life are constantly responding to
something 'better' than the laws have to offer." (11)
Yes, "brains" and "minds" as words should be avoided in the MOQ. As
Pirsig says, it's best to describe "mind" as "static intellectual patterns
of value." To further avoid confusion with the mind/body dichotomy, he
points out that values can never be located by an MIR in the brain or
anywhere else. But, that the human being can act in response to
something perceived as "better" there's no doubt. Just as particles can
"prefer" to do what they do (8), so too humans.
"Biology exploits substance for its own purpose" writes Pirsig,
indicating an ability of our bio-patterns to affect inorganic patterns. The
Giant "converts accumulated biological energy into forms that serve
itself." (17) indicating one level can impact a lower one.
Throughout the MOQ, forces of value do things. I don't know whether it's
possible to measure these forces, but I don't discount the possibility out
of hand. No one knew about brain waves until someone invented a way
to detect them.
> > > Other types of experiments could be devised to test the MOQ thesis, but
> > > someone a lot smarter than me will have to think what they might be. I
> > > believe Bo had one idea in connection with the Libet experiments that
> > > show we subconsciously know what to do before we consciously know it.
>
> Wow, the Libet experiment! I would say that it demonstrates the mind/matter
> doctrine is fundamentally wrong and that even its subconscious/conscious
> notion is inadequate. The weirdest is the "forwarding in time" which goes
> like this. Nerve signals travel relatively slow and if a big toe is pricked
> it takes a considerably time to reach the brain, yet it is "felt" as taking
> place simultaneously. Libet found (by experimenting on exposed brains) that
> once this signal reaches some cerebral centre it is forwarded in time
> exactly enough to compensate for the delay (nothing to do with the
> autonomous nerve system). This sound inconspicuous at first glance but is
> absolutely outrageous: While the actual signal is in the calf region (nay,
> ,just starting) we have already felt the touch. I know that this is taken
> as some proof that the mind creates experience, but that is not Libet's
> point - if I could send a signal to my lazy body to look up the book it
> says for example (I'll try to translate):
> --------------
> "In her great work "Neurophilosophy" the philosopher Patricia Churchland
> writes for example that the experimental findings seem to claim that the
> mental phenomena precedes the brain phenomena which are supposed to give
> rise to them, but that is not Libet's point, he merely says that it is
> EXPERIENCED that way?"
> My point is that scientific testing is intellectual and won't allow
> anything else than SOM results.
True. I'm probably expressing my frustration that more aren't willing to
take a look at the MOQ as an explanation for some of the "platypi"
science avoids. Just as the Libet experiment shows the mind/matter
division is fundamentally wrong, I hope there's another experiment out
there that could back up some of the MOQ ideas. I look to renegades in
the scientific community like Jahn and Sheldrake for possible
breakthroughs. The establishment of closed minds (static intellectual
patterns), of course, isn't interested and never will be.
Platt
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