From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Wed Oct 01 2003 - 18:57:28 BST
Hi
I believe there have been some brain/reaction
experiments that seem to indicate that we
can react to an intellectual-symbol stimulus
quicker than a signal can become conscious in the
brain, as if the finger on the key board responds
before we can become conscious of the stimulus.
Some people suggest that this means the conscious
explanation for the behaviour is added on to
an unconscious response and therefore consciousness
has no agency role. However, there is a
built in assumption in the experiment that consciousness
is associated with the brain in a particular way and that the movement
is caused by the brain, whereas it is possible that
conscioussness is not located in this way and that
the brain is a reflection of consciousness rather than its cause.
Consciousness moves the finger, and a signal is sent back to the
brain to integrate the event with other aspects of the body,
we certainly feel in experience that we move our hands directly
not via any signals. Lots of brain science time delay problems
seem to be solved if we take consciousness as occupying the body,
in a sense, rather than the brain.
regards
David Morey
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Glover" <daneglover@hotmail.com>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2003 4:22 PM
Subject: Re: MD Dealing with S/O
> Hello everyone
>
> >From: "Scott R" <jse885@spinn.net>
> >Reply-To: moq_discuss@moq.org
> >To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
> >Subject: Re: MD Dealing with S/O
> >Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 20:46:01 -0600
> >
> >Dan,
> >
> > > From the narrow viewpoint of SOM, yes. But I think the MOQ offers a
> >more
> > > expansive viewpoint. Of course intellect is subjective but it is not
> > > subjectivity itself. For example, in Robert Pirsig's hot stove
> >experiment,
> > > he says the mystic will tend to jump off the stove faster than the
> > > intellectual. Intellectual patterns of value tend to take us farther
> >away
> > > from reality instead of bringing us closer.
> >
> >I questioned this interpretation in a recent post to Platt, to which no
one
> >has replied. Here it is again (I've added another bit at the end):
>
> Hi Scott
>
> Thank you for your reply. I read your post to Platt and though I wanted to
I
> just didn't have time to reply. There's that little thing about earning a
> living that seems to take up most of my time these days.
>
> >
> >"When the person who sits on the stove first discovers his low-Quality
> >situation, the front edge of his experience is Dynamic. He does not
think,
> >"This stove is hot", and then make a rational decision to get off. A
"dim
> >perception of he knows not what" gets him off Dynamically. Later he
> >generates static patterns of thought to explain the situation." [Lila,
ch.
> >9]
> >
> >Pirsig seems to be ignoring his own warning about confusing the MOQ
meaning
> >of
> >"dynamic" and "static" with the way the words are used in physics. There
is
> >nothing Dynamic, in the MOQ sense, in jumping off the stove. Instead, it
is
> >the body following the static biological pattern, called a reflex. In
fact,
> >the only way the Dynamic could come into play in this situation is if
> >someone highly disciplined in mindfulness is so focused on the here and
now
> >that he could block the reflex and stay on the stove. So (in the next
> >paragraph) where Pirsig guesses that the mystic will get off sooner than
> >the
> >subject-object scientist, I think he has it backwards. In practice, of
> >course, they will get off at the same time, since they will both obey the
> >reflex, but it is the mystic who has the possibility of choosing to get
> >off.
>
> I remember reading that Rene Descartes had a habit of dissecting live
> animals. His feeling was that the resultant yelping and cries of pain were
> merely reflex actions of a biological machine incapable of feeling real
pain
> like we humans do. I think you're barking up the same tree by discounting
> the Dynamic nature of reflex actions that get us off hot stoves and out of
> harm in general. I think what Robert Pirsig is pointing to with his hot
> stove example is the why behind the reflex that gets us off. What it that
> knows it's better to get off the stove? We don't think, oh this stove is
hot
> I should get off. We just jump off. Later, we might wonder why doesn't the
> reflex cause us to shift over a bit and see if it's cooler there?
>
>
>
> >
> >[Added now]. One might object that I am ignoring the business of the
"front
> >edge of his experience", but why should I postulate that there is such a
> >"front edge"? All this example shows is that a biological reaction
happens
> >more quickly than thought.
>
> This seems a real stretch to me. How fast is a thought? If I think, I'm
> going to get up and walk across the room, then I get up and walk across
the
> room, it seems to me that the thought was pretty much instantaneous while
> the body's action only came later and happened slower than the thought.
Now
> if I suddenly feel a burning sensation on my butt I don't think at all. I
> just react. I jump up. It may seem like merely a reflex but the front end
of
> my experience tells me something is wrong and to move quickly to remedy
the
> situation. Only later do I think, damn, I was sitting on a hot stove and
it
> burned my butt. So it may seem like the thought itself is slower than the
> reaction but only since there was no thought to begin with.
>
> Dan
>
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