From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Sun Jan 09 2005 - 08:35:37 GMT
Hi Platt --
>
> To repeat Pirsig's view of 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."
> > > (Note 32, Lila's Child)
>
> He is saying exactly what you say -- computers can never be conscious in
> the same way that man is conscious. And just as your hero Hoffman says,
> Pirsig agrees that consciousness in the sense of awareness or experience
> is "fundamental."
I don't think Pirsig is saying what I'm saying. In the context of "machine
intelligence", for example, he suggests that one "...could agree that
experience exists at the inorganic level". Except for cyberneticists, I
don't know of anyone in the field of science or otherwise who would agree
that computer processing is "experience". I certainly don't. Even if one
were to define human experience as nothing more than nerve cells reacting to
bio-chemical stimulation, it would be "organic", not "inorganic" activity.
And why does he have to "expand" the term "'consciousness" by adding
"mystic" to awareness? What's wrong with ordinary everyday awareness?
After all, there's nothing "mystical" about human experience. I see two
reasons why Mr. Pirsig does not want to postulate subjective consciousness
prior to and distinct from the physical world. First, to do so would be to
acknowledge that experience is dualistic in nature, a fact that is concealed
by his multi-level heirarchy. Second, if awareness is not indigenous to the
physical world, he would have to explain it as something else (probably
Quality), and the concept of Quality observing Quality doesn't hold much
water metaphysically.
But regardless of how Pirsig chooses to theorize his philosophy -- and
Lila's Child from which your quote comes, I believe, is the work of Dan
Glover -- the point in all this, as Hoffman and Tolstoy have suggested, is
that physical reality is the content of conscious awareness. Thus, the way
to resolve the SOM duality is to posit reality as totally subjective. Look
at it this way: if reality is not subjective it can't be experiential, and
if sensibility were not subjective there would be no awareness. (I call my
ontology 'subjective', and it's an other/not-other synthesis!)
> > Again, I find it necessary to express my
> > disappointment in your having been so easily suckered into New Age
> > scientism.
>
> "New Age scientism" is an oxymoron because New Agers reject scientific
> explanations of practically everything, attributing what happens in the
> world to all sorts of mysterious and usually sinister forces such as man's
> selfishness and greed which can only be changed by such practices as Yogi
> meditation, communal living, pot smoking, uninhibited sex and dancing to
> the beat of tom toms by the light of the moon.
>
> I'm baffled as to how you got the idea that I'm a Hippie. Perhaps you'll
> explain.
I didn't call you a Hippie, Platt, although, like the twinkling "little
star", I'm beginning to wonder what you are. ;-)
As I once told Marsha, I'm not into New Age mysticism, so perhaps Chin or
Marsha herself would be a more suitable definition source. However, a quick
search of the Internet produced three New Age descriptions which would
appear to put scientism in bed with mysticism.
According to the Creation Research Institute (evidently a Christian
organization):
"The so-called "New Age Movement" is a strange religion, or complex of
religions, that has come into increasing prominence in recent years. This
phenomenon is actually a combination of modern scientism and ancient
paganism, featuring systems theory, computer science and mathematical
physics along with astrology, occultism, religious mysticism and nature
worship. ...New Age Philosophy believes that human evolution can be
accelerated, if not in the entire mass of humanity, at least in suitable
individuals. Human nature is perfectible, through an intensive process of
purification and Initiation."
A Hindu philosopher, Mashu Mangalwadi, says:
"The continuing success of the scientific method seemed to vindicate man's
confidence in the capacity of human reason to unravel the mystery of life
and the universe. Science thus became the last citadel of rationalism. It
was only in this century, as we will see later, that the physicists
themselves reached what appeared to be a dead end with rationalism."
The third is from "The Skeptic's Dictionary" which, I suppose, represents
the anti-theist viewpoint, although his logic eludes me:
"Scientism, in the strong sense, is the self-annihilating view that only
scientific claims are meaningful, which is not a scientific claim and hence,
if true, not meaningful. Thus, scientism is either false or meaningless.
This view seems to have been held by Ludwig Wittgenstein in his Tractatus
Logico-philosophicus (1922) when he said such things as 'The totality of
true propositions is the whole of natural science...' He later repudiated
this view."
Essentially,
Ham
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Jan 09 2005 - 08:39:44 GMT