From: Scott Roberts (jse885@earthlink.net)
Date: Tue Sep 14 2004 - 00:33:48 BST
Mel,
>
> [Scott prev:]
> It is a myth that the MOQ has dissolved the mind/matter debates. It has
> appeared to have done so only be redefining some words so that the debates
> can no longer be adequately expressed. This is what materialism does,
except
> the MOQ has added the word "quality", so that anything mysterious can be
> said to be done by DQ. which is no more help than saying it is done by
God.
>
> mel:
> I think it would be more accurate to say that the mind/matter distinction
> was a myth in the first place. It is an example of paradoxical reasoning
> where one can state a formal definition of non-sense and pretend that
> it means something. Since mythical understanding is the allegory or
> analog pattern of explanation used in much of thought and education
> we can say alternatively one can take general simplified notions of
> poorly understood phenomena and pretend enough comprehension
> to speak athoritatively.
Unless you can give me a nuts and bolts explanation of how intellect
(complete with reflective consciousness, universals, etc.) came into being
from a universe that didn't have any of this (which is what the MOQ claims)
then there is a mind/matter distinction. I don't believe such an
explanation exists, so in fact I agree that there are not two substances,
one called mind and one called matter. Rather, I believe that intellect is
primordial, and that it expresses itself dualistically. So my complaint
with the MOQ is not that I think that SOM is really true, rather my
complaint is that the MOQ has ignored some things about mentality, and it
does so because it continues a SOM-based bit of nonsense called nominalism.
This is the belief that ideas/universals exist only in humans, yet it
offers no explanation of how humans came to have universals.
>
> Better is to understand that the assumptive structure used to test
> "the universe" is limitedly useful and will tell you only about the way
> the universe looks according to THAT structure. No more, no less.
Yes, all assumptive structures are limited. What I disagree with is the
idea that there is some really true universe existing out there that is not
an assumptive structure. To speak mythically, I would say that God assumes
some structure, and that is how universes come into existence. In other
words, language writ large isn't about describing some non-linguistic
reality (as SOM would have it). Instead, all realities are different ways
for Intellect to express itself.
>
> [Scott:]
> The mind/matter question is not resolved unless the following questions
have
> answers:
> If there was a time that there were no universals, how did the first
> universal get created?
[mel]> In existence, there was no time before universals, but the first
> instance of a sub-set allowed a relative distinction to exist.
Tell DMB, and maybe Pirsig, that there was no time before universals. That
is what I have been claiming. All SQ are universals.
>
> What is the origin of language?
> Awareness precedes language, which is merely an accretive
> specialized example of abstracted currency.
This is nominalism, which I reject. Where did the ability to abstract come
from? It is irreducible, and presupposes universals. So language is
aboriginal.
>
> Why does thinking and feeling seem to come from "within" (to be "me")
while
> sense perception seems to come from "without" (to be caused by "not me")?
> In many people's earliest memories, there was no distinction between
> within and without. That is a learned distinction, both a mirror and
> words teach this. Within is always from your point of view at the
> moment of experience and memory, without is your ability to
> abstract from the now and approximate elseness in relation to your
> point of view. (All of this is as you apprehend. The rest of the
> universe exists when you do not remember, as do you. - sleep ]
Whom does it teach? I will grant that there exists consciousness that does
not concern itself with me/not-me. Adult human consciousness, however,
does, and if it didn't there would be no intellect, no ability to reflect
on SQ. So I see adult human existence as, in some very moderate degree
fulfilling intellect, that our intellects are repeating on a very small
scale the Intellect that makes realities.
>
> Why does simply thinking that subject/object dualism is "just a static
> pattern of intellectual value" not allow one to dissolve the difference
> between me and not-me?
> In most cases when you say or think "me" you are holding
> an entire learned set of "me-ness" rules and social functions,
> rather than simply the pure consciousness of your-point-of-
> view-now, just as you are holding the learned set of SOM
> rules and definitions.
> Sometimes, rarely, you can lay it all down and BE without
> the baggage. [lots of names and descriptions of this...]
You can do the same thing with a lobotomy. Pure consciousness is of no use
except for a bit of blissfulness. See Franklin Merrell-Wolff as an example
of a mystic who went beyond it, and reports all of existence as being
fundamentally noetic.
>
>
> Why is being aware of what I just thought different from being aware of
the
> tree in front of me? (note: in SOM these are two different kinds of
objects.
> In the MOQ one cannot say that, since in the MOQ only inorganic and
> biological patterns can be objects of awareness.)
> same as "within" - "without"
>
> Is mind identical to the brain (or: can there be mind, or consciousness,
> without a brain)?
> Nope! [not for humans that can exists as "normals"]
I don't understand which question your "nope" is the answer to, nor the bit
in brackets.
>
> [Scott:]
> And so on. The MOQ's answers (at least as you give them above, and I
haven't
> seen any better answers) amount to dualism. There was matter (static
> particulars) and then there was mind (static universals). Unless DQ is God
> and created universals ex nihilo, in which case the MOQ is theistic.
Unless
> universals "really are" reducible to particulars (say neural events), in
> which case the MOQ is materialist. In short, the MOQ provides nothing new
> for a philosophy of mind.
>
> mel:
> Don't try to make the MoQ be TOO MUCH...it need
> not be a gilded lilly.
But it does need to purge itself of its nominalist bias.
>
[Scott:]> (And yes, I acknowledge that I don't have answers to these
questions either,
> at least ones that can be expressed without violating the law of the
> excluded middle, or without questioning the absoluteness of time. My
> position (borrowed from Peirce, Coleridge, Barfield, Nishida, etc.) is
that
> the answers require polarity, or contradictory identity. That subject and
> object arise together, that each defines the other as it negates the
other.)
>
> mel:
> Slot screwdriver doesn't work well in Phillip's head...
Please explain how this applies.
- Scott
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