From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Sat Jun 14 2003 - 15:58:27 BST
August,
>... but I'm having trouble with how the concept
> of responsibility fits into what you are saying here.
This is the million dollar question. In the end, I don't really know, but
then I don't really know anything in this realm (what is mind, etc.). What I
think is that all such questions are undecidable in any terms that common
sense can make sense of (like quantum physics: there are the mathematical
formulae, but no way to visualize what is going on. In questions of mind we
don't even have the formulae. Which is why I think the logic of
contradictory identity has promise.) But this is digression.
The question of responsibility rests on the larger question of how -- if it
does -- the mind makes matter move. But, as T.S. Eliot put it, "Between the
idea and the act, falls the shadow." This is dualism's problem, of course:
how does the mind move matter?
While not a dualist, I recognize the need to talk of mind and to talk of
matter, so in those terms, here is what I suspect is going on. One can take
hypnosis, especially post-hypnotic suggestions, as a prototype. Quality is
everything, so ultimately, "I" ( at least as ego) have no direct causal
power. But what does
happen is filtered through my beliefs and desires.
On the other hand, what does happen is perceived by me, and the quality
rated. These judgments will effect future actions. At a minimum, I am
responsible for providing Quality that feedback. (or maybe one should say
that "I" am Quality's feedback mechanism. In any case, don't take this as a
serious, well-thought-out answer. It isn't.)
- Scott
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