From: johnny moral (johnnymoral@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Aug 04 2004 - 22:12:29 BST
Hi Platt,
I wrote:
>Everyone who exists has been noticed by someone, everything that exists has
>been noticed by someone. Things only exist in consciousnesses.
You wrote:
"These statements are tautologies. The meaning of the word "notice"
presupposes the existence of something to notice by someone. Likewise, the
meaning of "consciousness" presupposes the existence of something to be
conscious of by someone."
"To get beyond such subject/object problems, Pirsig places existence
(Quality) prior to "consciousnesses," "someones" and all other such
intellectual patterns which are merely derivatives of an omnipresent but
ineffable moral being."
I certainly know about Quality coming first, Platt, sheesh :) Yes, I should
have said that the consciousness that things "exist in" are also
simultaneously created by the Quality patterns that creates the things.
Saying "exist in" was confusing and incomplete, perhaps, but that's because
things are all conflated when you try to get to the bottom of it all and
"being is ahead of itself" (Heidegger). A consciousness only exists if it
is conscious of something, if it MORALLY believes something. Quality, the
collection of patterns that will create the next moment of the universe and
all the subjects and objects in it, makes it according to the patterns which
it is. Consciousness really IS the patterns, just as the rocks and things
are the patterns.
So those statements aren't tautologies, I think they stand firm as true
statements, but just not all-encompassing statements. The point was, in
answer to the semi-serious question about someone unobserved not existing,
that yes, someone completely unobserved does not exist, because things that
are not believed to exist do not exist. People are noticed when they come
into existence, no one slips into the world unobserved through the secret
back door.
makes me want to sing Donovan:
first there is a mountain then there is no mountain then there is
(not sure what the heck that means, actually, maybe it isn't as high quality
as Beethoven, but I like it...)
Johnny
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