Re: MD Consciousness/MOQ, definition of

From: Scott Roberts (jse885@cox.net)
Date: Thu Sep 01 2005 - 22:30:21 BST

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    Dav,

    This has long been one of my complaints about the MOQ. The questions of
    consciousness and how thoughts arise are simply not addressed. It could be
    argued that in LILA, Pirsig had other fish to fry, in particular giving an
    account of morality, and it makes sense that in the space of that book there
    would be metaphysical issues he would have to leave out. But as far as I can
    see there is little way to use what is in the MOQ to address the questions
    you raise.

    My own view (which is not generally accepted here) is that to speak of value
    is to speak of consciousness (awareness of value). Since, according to the
    MOQ, there is value at all levels, so must there be consciousness at all
    levels. In other words, consciousness did not arise at some point in time,
    and the idea that consciousness is a consequence of the nervous system
    reaching some level of complexity is just a materialist error.

    - Scott

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: "David Zentgraf" <deceze@gmail.com>
    To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
    Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005 7:05 AM
    Subject: MD Consciousness/MOQ, definition of

    Hi all,

    this is my first post to the list and I have only been reading it for
    a few weeks, so please excuse any missing knowledge or ignorance on
    my part. I am currently trying to fully wrap my head around the MOQ
    and I am not sure yet whether it falls in line with my own thoughts
    or not, but it certainly is on to something. ;o)

    One question I keep getting stuck with and which is essential to me
    is what the actual scope of the MOQ is. And this mainly appears to
    depend on how I try to define consciousness, awareness or generally
    the question how thoughts come into existence. Briefly browsing
    through the archives showed that the mere process of finding the
    right word to form the question is rather difficult already, so let
    me take a step back...

    The example of the "human born into isolation" has been used here
    before and also by Pirsig himself in ZMM. Thoughts are not "just
    there", they are produced over time by stimuli. And our brain, which
    after all is said to produce this consciousness/awareness, seems to
    be fully explainable by specific biological processes. Spontaneous
    reflexes not based on actual "active" thoughts are a nice indicator,
    as is the fact that young children do not yet possess a real
    consciousness, or at least only a very vague and unstable one.
    So the question is, how and when does this process of conscious
    thinking start? If it's all basically impulses running through
    "wires" in the brain, where does the feeling of self-consciousness
    come from? Is it a kind of interaction or interference between these
    impulses, a sort of accidental side effect? Then are we actually able
    to control our thoughts, or are we mere observers, or rather are "we"
    nothing at all? Is there a "critical mass", a density of nervous
    cells that needs to be reached before thoughts can occur?

    As far as I could see in the archive these questions have been
    brought up before to one extend or another, but without any (for me)
    satisfying answers. My main point is, how does the MOQ relate to all
    this? Where does it start, what is it actually trying to explain?
    Depending on how this consciousness/awareness is defined, to me the
    MOQ seems to be either the beginning and the end of everything or it
    becomes just another subset of our already existing idea of reality
    (or at least my personal idea of it). Can the MOQ itself shed some
    light on the question of the (physical, biological) production of
    thoughts? Or is the answer to all of these questions according to the
    MOQ "Mu"?

    Looking forward to possible answers.

    Chrs,
    Dav

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