From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Dec 07 2005 - 13:05:05 GMT
Welcome back Ham,
Nice to have you aboard again. The new mail system seems to be working
just fine. I too will soon be changing my e-mail address because we're
moving in a couple of weeks from Myrtle Beach to the Hilton Head area,
requiring a different Internet provider. So the new system will soon get
another test.
> Since I have your attention, I may as well take the opportunity to commend
> you on your persistence in championing the individual in true 'Randian'
> fashion. Your 12/6 post to Arlo, however, has me a bit puzzled. You said:
>
> > I don't think either you or I or any human being was there at the
> > beginning. But consciousness was. Does that clarify my position?
>
> Whose consciousness was "at the beginning"? I wonder if you are taking the
> position of Donald Hoffman who asserted that "consciousness and its
> contents are all that exists". If so, you would be identifying
> consciousness as Prisig's 4th level, thus denying its proprietary identity.
> Doesn't this contradict your argument on behalf of individualism?
>
> You reply to Arlo's question about separate individuals "emerging from this
> same consciousness" with this explanation:
>
> > "Emerge?" You do love that word don't you?
> > I would put it another way. We were both born into
> > consciousness (Quality), both knew the same
> > consciousness shortly thereafter, but as we developed
> > had different life experiences that gradually changed the
> > particularity of our consciousness. We soon recognized
> > we were separate individuals who could never know
> > another's consciousness, only that we were conscious.
> >
> > The key word is "share." As Pirsig points out, everyone
> > has a different (individual) life experience. But sharing
> > does not make for a collective experience, e.g., you'll
> > never know what it's like to be kissed by you.
>
> You seem to be saying that we all share the same consciousness except that
> we each have different experiences within it. I think that would be
> Hoffman's view, as well as that of Franklin Merrill-Wolf. I quoted this
> Wolf statement in last week's Values Page essay on autonomy and freedom.
>
> > "The One, nonderivative Reality, is THAT which I have symbolized by
> > 'Consciousness-without-an-object.' This is Root Consciousness, per se,
> > to be distinguished from consciousness as content or as state, on the one
> > hand, and from consciousness as an attribute of a Self or Atman, in any
> > sense whatsoever. It is Consciousness of which nothing can be predicated
> > in the privative sense save abstract Being. Upon It all else depends,
> > while It remains self-existent."
Yes. That's my position. You may recall at one time I mentioned a paper
that had a great influence on my thinking entitled "Why I became a
panexperientialist" by Charles Birch, available at:
http://www.nerdshit.com/wordpress/?p=623
One of his arguments for the existence of universal subjectivity is as
follows:
"Problems arise when we refuse to regard ourselves merely as external
spectators of nature but see ourselves as part of nature. We know in
ourselves that the brain is the locus of mental activities such as
consciousness. The physicist does not hesitate to attribute to atoms the
physical properties which he finds necessary to attribute to them in order
to explain the physical properties of matter in bulk. But atoms also
compose brains. On the same principle, should we not ascribe to atoms a
property which will be consistent with their function as elements
composing the brain which is the locus of mental activities? And surely
the only property of atoms which could provide what we are looking for is
some form of mental activity in themselves."
Another author who has influenced my thinking about consciousness is David
Darling. From his book "Soul Search" I found the following idea made
sense:
"If we accept that everything in the universe has a subjective aspect,
then the brain appears in a new light. The brain begins to look more like
a regulator or editor of consciousness—a reducing valve. Most, if not all
the major organs are regulators. The lungs don’t manufacture the air we
our bodies need; the stomach and intestines are not food producers. So if
we manufacture neither the air we breath nor the food we eat, why assume
that we make, rather than regulate, what we think?"
Although Pirsig equates consciousness, as you say, with the fourth level,
he hedged his bet in the following note in "Lila's Child:"
"Since the MOQ states that consciousness (i.e. intellectual patterns) is
the collection and manipulation of symbols, created in the brain, that
stand for patterns of experience, then artificial intelligence would be
the collection and manipulation of symbols, created in a machine, that
stand for patterns of experience. If one agrees that experience exists at
the inorganic level, then it is clear that computers already have
artificial intelligence. A question arises if the term "consciousness" is
expanded to mean "intuition" or "mystic awareness." Then computers are
shut out by the fact that static patterns do not create Dynamic quality"
(Lila's child, Note 32)
> As you know, I have some problems with this epistemology. Because
> consciousness infers an object as its contents, it is the subjective mode
> of awareness. In MoQ terms, consciousness is SOM; for the Essentialist, it
> is an attribute of the individual. Therefore, it cannot logically be the
> undivided Quality (DQ) proposed by Pirsig, nor the absolute Essence of my
> philosophy. You needn't negate subjective reality, however, if you can
> accept Cusa's concept of a primary source that is the coincidence of
> subject and object. In Cusan logic, both are 'not other' to the source.
> This definition for Essence (Quality?) rules out Arlo's "collective
> consciousness"; so perhaps by simply substituting "subjectivity" for
> "consciousness" you will have won your argument.
If I understand it correctly I accept the concept of a "primary source
that is the coincidence of subject and object," just as I accept the
concept that experience and value are coincident. But, I tend to doubt
that I can "win" my argument with Arlo although I believe his "collective
consciousness" to be a chimera just as believes my "individual" to be a
phony concoction.
Best,
Platt
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