From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Tue Jan 14 2003 - 03:24:17 GMT
Matt,
> Granted, I'm begging the question, which you are likewise doing.
Actually, I don't see where I am begging any question (up to the point that
faith takes over). I am arguing that the belief that perception (or anything
mental) can be derived from the non-mental requires that the non-mental be
non-local. This implies that the Darwinist viewpoint is useless to explain
anything mental. My faith then kicks in by saying that, since mystics (some
of them) have all along been saying that space and time are contingent, why
not accept what else the mystics have been saying, namely that this
non-local mental source is Good, and Realizable as such by everyone?
I'll also note that this argument occurred to me *before* my faith kicked
in, and basically served to make my leap of faith a small one.
I think
> the best way to describe our differences is that you have faith in the
> "Real (non)-Thing" to help with the explanation of the mystery of the Many
> and the One and I have faith that science will one day get to the bottom
of
> causal chains.
No, in that my faith says don't try to explain consciousness in terms of
anything, rather, it proposes explaining the (apparent, but perhaps not
actually) non-conscious in terms of consciousness. As to your faith in
science ever explaining consciousness, as I see it, my argument shows that
it is misplaced. Now I recognize that my argument is not a proof, but no
argument is (outside of mathematics). Nevertheless, as I say, I don't see
where I have appealed to anything beyond what we agree on (the nature of
perception, space and time as conventionally understood).
Another way to describe this difference is to say that I
> leave science to deal with causation and such and leave self-creation off
> on another side and you want to twine the two together. The "Many and the
> One" anomaly has led you to lose faith in science's ability to deal with
it
> and led you back to metaphysics to deal with it, which is also where you
> deal with self-transformation.
No, I accept science as a good way to deal with the inorganic realm. It
cannot explain it, but it can describe it, and for dealing with it, that is
what is needed. It fails progressively as one moves into the organic, the
social, and the intellectual.
>
> To punch up these differences, the example of consciousness. Most
analytic
> philosophers don't talk much about consciousness anymore because of the
> difficulty in describing what it is. They've left it off as one of those
> problems that is best redescribed in language where there's no problem.
And I'm saying that it cannot be described, since it is what describes. (Or,
because the Many/One anomaly is intrinsic to it, requiring the logic of
contradictory identity). What they have done is try to explain it away
(Ryle, Dennett who, like Rorty, seem only concerned with arguing with other
secularists who they see as crypto-dualists (Nagel, Searle). In other words,
the Darwinist view is taken for granted. My position is that things, in the
most general sense of the term (etc.) hang together better with a mystical
philosophy).
> For instance, on my reading of Pirsig, Pirsig redescribes consciousness
> into the basic structure of reality with his shift into a value
vocabulary.
> He gives "choice" to the very basic stratum of existence (I argued this
in
> a post from a long time ago, "Free Will, Determinism, and Consciousness"
> (8/20/02)). Since we can easily redescribe everything as having
> consciousness, I don't think there's any much need to mull over the
> problems consciousness. As I see it, there's only a problem when you
think
> that we need one over-arching vocabulary to describe everything into: a
> metaphysics. I prefer to have to vocabularies, one for rocks and another
> for how to live my life. As I see it, the move back to metaphysics is the
> move back to metanarratives, a single vocabulary to describe things,
> whether or not you're ironic.
Well, no, I see the attempt at creating a metaphysical vocabulary -- an
ironic one -- is to start with the proposition that it *cannot* describe
anything. For description or explanation one uses a nonironic vocabulary,
like science for rocks, etc. (There's no doubt a range of irony, though, as
one gets to things like literary criticism). So the metaphysical vocabulary
doesn't overarch, since it isn't intended to replace any of these particular
ones. Instead -- or this is what I hope -- once develops it not in the hope
of completing it, but that the activity of developing it aids in one's
self-transformation (this is where John B and I radically part ways).
>
> But, as you say, the move back to metaphysics wasn't initiated by the need
> for an arch-vocabulary, it was initiated by lost faith in science's
ability
> to deal with rocks (or more specifically bodies).
Not with rocks, but with mind..
Thus, my saying that
you
> want to twine self-creation with explanations of causation might be wrong.
Yes (it is wrong) at least from where I sit now. Causation belongs to
rock-describing, not self-creation.
> Its still certainly plausible to have multiple vocabularies while losing
> faith in science. But I don't see consciousness as having to enter into
> science's range.
Good, because it can't :-)
- Scott
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