From: ian glendinning (psybertron@gmail.com)
Date: Wed Oct 12 2005 - 16:18:44 BST
Firstly Platt - two asides (for fun) then a serious attempt to findthat common ground - as I do so frequently ;-)
Aside 1 - No one is advocating "Drugs which destroy one's ability toreason." At least not that kind of drugs :-) And as you may of noticedthere is quite some other debate going on about what reason andintellect are really worth anyway - but as I say this is an aside.
Aside 2 - I hope my impression of your lifestyle and politics is asmistaken as yours of mine. I (like Pirsig) am a fully paid-upcapitalist, much to Gav's annoyance I'm sure, I just happen to have anopen mind.
Seriously though ...
Firstly, I'm a fan of Nagel too. I think (and it's only my opinion)that you give away a prejudice, a blind spot, when you use the word"reduce" in the sentence "consciousness cannot be reduced to brainactivity".
Secondly, with your Sheldrake reference - I think you fall into thebinary trap - you imply in that since consciousness is something(independent) that can be tapped into by a brain, then the brain isexcluded from any causal connection with consciousness. You excludethe middle - it really can be both.
It's my old explanation argument again (which remains incompletelyexplained, I'll grant you).
Reductionism is only one kind of explanation - there are betterquality ones to be had. I wouldn't want to "reduce" consciousness toanything - it's far too wonderful for that. But the way it works andarises in human brains, can be (and is) explained by the workings ofhuman brains. But not exclusively - consciousness can also beexplained arising in other complex systems - like bats' brains,walrus' brains, ant-colony's, populations of large large communistrepublics (or capitalist economies) - choose your preferred system ofsufficient complexity and requisite variety. No reason why twoconsciousnesses thus arising in different systems can't interact and"tap-into" each other either - communication it's called.
Some things have to be believed to be seen.If you keep excluding the middle Platt, you will never see the explanation.
Ian
On 10/12/05, Platt Holden <pholden@sc.rr.com> wrote:> > Ant McWatt comments:> >> > Platt, sometimes I do get worried about you. It sounds like you didn't> > enjoy the Sixties quite as much as you could have done. Did Jimi Hendrix> > refuse to sign your Pat Boone songbook or something?>> Not to worry. Unlike you I guess, blowing my mind was not something I> "enjoyed." Pirsig writing about the 60s" "Drugs that destroyed one's ability to> reason was almost a sacrament." (Lila 24) I never considered destroying> reason to be "groovy.">> > BTW, for Ian's benefit, the proper rendition of the first line of "I Am the> > Walrus" is "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together"> > and was inspired by the other master of English surrealism, Lewis Carroll> > and his nonsense poem "The Walrus and the Carpenter". In a 1980 interview> > John Lennon remarked that he should have titled his 1967 psychedelic sound> > portrait "I Am the Carpenter" as the Carpenter is the good guy in the poem> > and the Walrus
is the George Bush one. Ever the artist, Lennon did note> > anyway that "I Am the Carpenter" doesn't roll off the tongue as well as "I> > Am the Walrus"!>> Yes, sitting around a circle holding hands in a haze of hashish and> singing "I am a walrus" is surreal all right. I prefer real myself, as in> Pirsig's description of the 60's flower children: "Anarchy become the> most popular politics and squalor and poverty and chaos the most popular> lifestyles." (Lila, 24).>> > Finally, (as Matt Kundert, Brent Vizeau and Rebecca Temmer will no doubt be> > aware), Thomas Nagel's paper "What is it Like to be a Bat?" is a 1970s> > philosophy classic often given to philosophy undergraduates to discuss> > consciousness and the mind-body problem in a relatively different, Dynamic> > way. So if Platt does indeed occasionally think himself as a walrus (or,> > even a Fox's parrot?) rather than a human being then he will be in good> > company and – Zeus forbid - might even learn something.>> Nagel is one of my favor!
ites, be
lieving as I do that consciousness cannot> be reduced to brain activity. I'm with Sheldrake in considering> consciousness a field that the brain taps into, i.e., pre-intellectual> Quality embodying the Principle of Rightness.>> Platt>>>>> 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>>
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