From: Matt Kundert (pirsigaffliction@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Sep 29 2005 - 03:42:33 BST
Bo, Ham,
(Ham, I'm not sure who Reinier is, but I think you were refering to Bo in
your last post.)
Bo said:
Saying that rocks are conscious is not all easy. Consciousness means
self-consciousness and implies the piece of rock saying to itself "I am a
rock" and that is clearly not the case.
Matt:
Well, I don't know about that. The thing that always strikes me about these
conversations about imaginative redescription is how some people are so
willing to throw some descriptions into total disarray (like "value" and
"experience"), but not others. To me, the problem isn't some fact of
definition about consciousness or value or experience or reality or quality.
The problem is what one is willing to say on behalf of a redescription.
For instance, Bo, you're willing to say that "experience=reality" is a
tautology, when to others it isn't, but you balk at rocks having
consciousness because "consciousness means self-consciousness," referencing
I suppose to some fact about the definition of consciousness. Saying "X
means Y" simply means that you usually infer Y from X. But these usual
routes of inference are sometimes what are up for grabs in the act of
creative redescription.
Bo is well-disposed to take Pirsig's redescription that reality is value.
He's also willing to take Pirsig's redescription (one that's more common to
others) that reality is experience. In other people's usual routes of
inference reality is _not_ value, nor is it experience. If it were, Pirsig
wouldn't be saying anything nearly so revolutionary and instead simply
recapitulating common sense. But he isn't, we all seem to recognize that.
So, the question I ask (and everybody else does, too) is how do these core
redescriptions affect our other usual descriptions, like consciousness?
Pirsig doesn't talk a lot about consciousness, so this is something we have
to draw out on our own.
Bo, who feels fine about redescribing something usually taken to be
paradigmatically human (i.e., value) into something covering the whole of
reality, wants to reserve consciousness for humans. Which is fine.
Something has to remain paradigmatically human or else there'd be no
difference between us and rocks. But Scott has been trying to raise
difficulties (I think successfully) in thinking of value without
consciousness. To skirt around that, I'm suggesting that we simply
redescribe consciousness, too. That Pirsig's redescription of
Quality-as-reality-as-experience requires a follow-through redescription of
consciousness. This would, of course, commit us to redescribing
_self_-consciousness, so that no longer would self-consciousness be thought
of as requiring the spoken phrase "I am a rock," which Bo quite correctly
points out a rock could not do.
Ham, quite naturally, asks what the difference is between "rock
consciousness" and "human consciousness." He apparently was waiting for a
response from me, but I'd dropped the topic because Ham's never really
understood what I, or Pirsig for that matter, have been up to (for instance,
he's weird remark that Pirsig's redescription of reality is a logical
fallacy). Most of his questions are inappropriate and I end up just moving
away from the conversation after a few give and takes (like when he starts
calling me a philosophologist when he can't really describe to me what the
difference is between philosophology and philosophy). But, simply, the idea
of "rock consciousness" simply banks on the metaphor that a rock "knows"
another rock when he sees one. This pans out in common sense language to
simply, a rock _reacts_ to other rocks. Physical phenomena--rocks falling
to the ground, lightning striking the ground (or, really, the sky I guess),
hurricanes swirling in the ocean--are the effects of physical "objects," or
centers of evaluative gravity (if you will), being conscious of their
surroundings and taking the according appropriate action. We trace these
appropriate actions as "The Laws of Nature." So, what is human
consciousness? Predictably for me, the use of language.
One might naturally, easily, and quite rightly respond--but Matt, aren't you
pushing the word "consciousness" into places it doesn't serve to be in?
Aren't you wrecking it as a term, being as it doesn't really have any force
now?
Yeah, I am. But what I think people have to face up to at this forum is
that _this_ is what _all_ philosophers do. Philosophers take words out of
common sense parlance and start pushing them to their own designs. Again,
what strikes me in this forum is that there are _any_ dictionary thumpers,
let alone more than a few, considering that the Divine Providence of the
forum is Robert Pirsig, who took the word "Value" and made it synonymous
with "Reality." If you're willing to make that leap--and many are not (but
most of them aren't at this forum)--then you should prepare yourself for
some other imaginative leaps.
The idea is to follow these imaginative leaps to their natural ends and then
turn around and assess the damage. Was it worth it? One of the key things
to keep in mind when assessing that worth is to what _purpose_ these
redescriptions were wielded. Pirsig's were wielded for self-creation and
the dissolution of philosophical problems. And that's what's up with the
redescription of consciousness. I suggested it because I think it both
saves the power of his original redescription's effect on philosophical
problems, while avoiding some other newly arisen problems from old
intuitions. My suggestion isn't the only way to go. That's the deal with
redescriptions--once you start using your imagination and start pushing and
pulling, all sorts of new ways occur to you. The trick, once you get your
imagination going, is to not get too bogged down by rather arbitrary
Archimedean points--like the definition of a word. All you need to do is
figure out which of your old intuitions you'd rather not let go of. For
instance, I'd rather not let go of the old intuition that there is _some_
difference _somewhere_ between rocks and humans. But I'm willing to let go
of the intuition that this difference is consciousness.
Matt
_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE!
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu Sep 29 2005 - 03:47:53 BST