Re: MD Free Will

From: August West (augustwestd@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Jun 11 2003 - 21:15:17 BST

  • Next message: johnny moral: "Re: MD James's inversion"

    Scott,
    I thought of something else.. you say "mind" as in the
    "not distinguishing"

    I say:
    Isn't distinguishing what the mind does? Right now I
    am looking around and distinguishing different keys on
    a key board and looking at a screen and if I turn my
    head a bit to the left I could distinguish all sorts
    of objects thourgh the window.. cars, trees, grass,
    kids playing with a ball, the ball is in motion.. when
    I say the phrase to make a choice.. I am not saying I
    make a choice.. curiously enough... this means I
    decide a course of action. The choices exist in their
    own right.. but they are distinguished in what I call
    my mind. If they weren't how could I know they even
    exist, they would have to "stand out" as you say.

    > > Hi Scott, August and All,
    > >
    > > Scott:
    > > I am saying that I do not distinguish an "I" from
    > > the choices (and all other
    > > events occurring in what I call "my mind", such as
    > > the "not
    > > distinguishing").
    > >
    > > > In this view, the word "I" is to be considered
    > > only as what linguists call
    > > > anaphora: the locating in space and time of
    > where
    > > the saying,
    > > > distinguishing, choosing occurs.
    > >
    > > The word "exist" means to "stand out". In that
    > sense
    > > I exist (my body can be
    > > seen, what I say can be heard). But I do not
    > assume
    > > that I have what
    > > Buddhists call self-existence: any sort of
    > > permanence. To think otherwise is
    > > to be a dualist: there is an "I" and there is the
    > > choice.
    > >
    > > But to think that I am only a location of mental
    > > events would seem to be
    > > contradicted by memory, or more generally,
    > > continuity. When I wake up in the
    > > morning, I "remember who I am". Or I can hear a
    > note
    > > of a song. If there is
    > > no continuous "I" what makes it possible that I
    > hear
    > > the whole note, and not
    > > feel 440 changes a second of air pressure? Or how
    > > can I distinguish one
    > > change in air pressure -- that is, there had to be
    > a
    > > state of low pressure,
    > > then a state of high pressure. How did the two
    > > states get connected? (To say
    > > the brain connects them just pushes the problem
    > into
    > > the brain: the nerve
    > > cells are in one state then another, and maybe
    > there
    > > is another nerve cell
    > > that only gets excited when those two other states
    > > occur. So what detects
    > > the difference between an excited nerve cell and
    > an
    > > unexcited one? Only
    > > another nerve cell.)
    > >
    > > > If space and time are fundamental, there is no
    > way
    > > they can get connected.
    > > > Yet they are connected. Therefore, space and
    > time
    > > are not fundamental.
    > > > Otherwise, one has to say that in every
    > perceptive
    > > act I transcend space
    > > and
    > > > time. But to do so puts us back in dualism:
    > there
    > > is a non-spatio-temporal
    > > I
    > > > that has the power to observe spatio-temporal
    > > events.
    > >
    > > Well, that's no good, so what I think is the case
    > is
    > > that the act
    > > ofobservation creates the spatio-temporality of
    > > events. And, to avoid
    > > solipsism, the same act creates the "I".
    > Likewise,
    > > the choice creates the
    > > particular typed words and the "I". (That is, the
    > > solipsist can say that I
    > > create the events, while what I am suggesting is
    > > that what we call "things
    > > and events" are all fundamentally
    > > non-spatio-temporal and it is the act of
    > > observation that turns them into spatio-temporal
    > > things and events. For what
    > > it's worth, this also provides a consistent
    > > interpretation of quantum
    > > weirdness.).
    > >
    > > joe: I am trying to describe an instinctive
    > > sensing of reality, which is a
    > > way of knowing the indefinable. In that
    > description
    > > I must distinguish
    > > between Patterns which are created by dq static
    > > latching to sq, and Patterns
    > > of the indefinable which are generated by a
    > > mystical, artistic sense. How
    > > can I distinguish them? "Free Will" or "Free
    > > association" is the
    > > distinguishing mark of a mystical or artistic
    > > capability.
    > >
    > > In every patern there is dq and sq. In the
    > mystical
    > > artistic pattern the dq
    > > is a part of the individual knower's pattern.
    > > Existence is indefinable and
    > > is only an aspect of a pattern unless I accept
    > > infinite regression. I can
    > > define "existence" as "standing out" only by a
    > > metaphor to my own
    > > indefinable "existence", which is then included in
    > a
    > > pattern of "existence."
    > >
    > > Is the gravity field generated by a body
    > > indefinable? Yes, since it cannot
    > > be separated from the fody. Yet I know it as a
    > > force, and I artistically
    > > describe it with mathematics.
    > >
    > > Purpose is a specific direction to a force, and
    > DNA
    > > generates an indefinable
    > > "purpose" in an indefinable "gravity". In a way
    > the
    > > organic level can be
    >
    === message truncated ===

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