From: Steve Peterson (peterson.steve@verizon.net)
Date: Tue Nov 11 2003 - 15:30:53 GMT
Hi Nathan and others following this thread,
Nathan said:
> But isn't this awareness a product of the working of my brain?
>
> If this is the case, then isn't this awareness an illusion.
Steve:
Sometimes I start to think that the SOM demon that Pirsig and we MOQers are
fighting is a straw man, but here we see a living example of a person
convinced by SOM that he himself doesn't even exist.
Nathan continued:
>That is, the
> awareness doesn't exist except as activity of chemicals and electrostatic
> impulses running in the various neurons.
Steve:
...and neurons are really just collections of molecules like any cells so
neurons don't really exist, and molecules are simply a bunch of atoms which
are just some random activity of subatomic particles which most certainly
don't really exist...so nothing exists! ;-)
Nathan, the importance of "starting with experience" rather than starting
with matter is because when starting with matter we come up with such absurd
conclusions as "awareness doesn't exist."
Even if you do insist on thinking in terms of matter, I would argue that
reducing everything to chemicals or molecules or atoms will never produce a
"Theory of Everything." You could know all there is to know about atoms
without knowing a thing about how a tiger hunts it's prey or how a democracy
functions or what makes Beethoven's Ode to Joy sound so joyful.
Are you playing devil's advocate to some extent or do you really not sense a
problem with reducing the experience of a sunset to photons striking a
retina?
Thanks,
Steve
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