Hi Robert and MD,
You've written a very interesting post on Cartesian Dualism vs MOQ. I don't
have hours to dissect and rebut every point you've made, but I am going to try
to make a few comments on the first 2 or 3 points and wait to see what you have
to say about it. Thank you for your post. It is exactly the kind of criticism
the MOQ needs to be able to withstand if it's to have any longevity. This will
be a great exercise for all of us. I look forward to hearing everyone else's
thoughts too...
Sent: Monday, July 26, 1999 8:13 PM
Subject: MD Robert 4 --MOQ 0
> ...
> But, but, but, if I leave the room and come back the glass remains there.
> It intuitively seems there is an external glass-thing that remains in
> tact even when I am not experiencing it. With intuitions such as this
> reality becomes dualistic. There is the experience AND the external
> form/structure separate from experience but verified by experience.
> Suppose, for example (gloom alert), there was no experience because
> everyone died. This dualism says that there would still remain bunch of
> dead bodies (external structure) around. We can not know this, but it
> is reasonable to assume.
> To summarize, this non-SOM Cartesian type dualism deems reality is made
> of (1) material reality or structure (2) the individual selves, streams
> of consciousness, points where reality experiences itself, souls,
> sensitivity of the structure through experience.
How do you know the glass is still there after you leave the room? You don't,
really. You only know that you remember that a glass was there, and your
subject/object dualistic intellectual level is pleased to deduce that the glass
must still be there because you saw it in the past. Is that a safe assumption?
What if someone else carried the glass away while you were out? When you
returned, your SOM intellectual level would be surprised, and then immediately
start thinking up reasons why the glass was now gone.
For a "thing" to exist in the MOQ it must be experienced. But the MOQ says
nothing about what must do the experiencing. If you are not there to
experience the glass it doesn't necessarily mean the glass disappears into thin
air. In fact, on the inorganic level that would be pretty hard to do. The
inorganic level is able to experience things of the inorganic level just as
well as you experience things on all 4 levels. The atomic structure of the
glass experiences itself - that is, the atoms comprising the glass are arranged
in a particular way because of their experience of each other. That kind of
experience is just as valid as human experience - really more so, because
without it there is no way for the other 3 levels to arise.
> But the Cartesian type dualism *also* says to take a total experience
> approach. There is structure to reality apart from experience, but this
> structure is inferred from experience only.
There is no structure apart from experience, though there is frequently
structure without intellectual level experience. Any kind of structure is, or
at least can be, experienced by the other structures operating at its level.
> Cartesian duality says there is external form and experience of it. The
> self can be seen as a link between the two.
Cartesian duality is completely anthropocentric. In a Cartesian diality there
is no way to say that inorganic patterns experience other inorganic patterns.
The self is required as a link between the two because Cartesian duality only
addresses the intellectual (SOM) level. It is an attempt to explain the
workings of the intellectual level by the intellectual level. In a SOM world,
it is very comforting to think of me in here and everything else out there.
But, the intellectual level owes its existence to the 3 levels that came
before. SOM is unwilling to allow that the intellectual level - the self -
owes its existence to anything other than possibly a god - but even this is
illogical from an intellectual level point of view. Imagine trying to convince
a Cartesian Dualist that rocks experience each other.
Ask a C.D. where the laws of nature came from. Why are the laws of physics the
way they are and not some other way? No answer or the god answer. Ask an
MOQist and he will say it is the inorganic level expressing a preference. What
would a C.D. say to that? Nuts? Hogwash? What do you say to that?
This is as far as I can go tonight and still hope to remain reasonably
coherent. Look forward to hearing from others,
- Mary
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