Hi Rob and LS
On 11 Jul 99, at 22:42, Robert Stillwell wrote:
> "when you're dead, you're dead - the end."
>
> Why do you think it impossible -- at some point in the future -- to regain
> consciousness? By consciousness I don't mean in the tradition sense (with
> your past memories or personality in tact) but in a more pure sense:
> consciousness of *something*.
But when we refer to consciousness, what is it we're referring to? The
MOQ appears to see reality as static patterns of value and Dynamic
Quality with no distinct 'I' and 'You' and 'It' etc. But this is a
metaphysical (or possibly mystical) distinction and not a pragmatic
one. As with a subject/object distinction and language, the terms 'I'
and 'You' and 'It' still appear to have meaning. But we're so
thoroughly immersed in these terms that there is no escape without
resorting to a completely different language - which may come. But
as Pirsig has stated and I put in my last post:
" Like 'substance', they can be used as long as it is remembered
that they're terms for collections of patterns and not some
independent reality of their own."
So 'consciousness', bearing the above in mind, is/are(?) coherent
patterns that 'we' experience as 'ourselves' and 'others'. When the
coherence of these patterns is destroyed or dissolved, the process of
death begins. I would have thought that the destruction/dissotution
process starts with DQ, then the Intellectual/Social patterns then the
biological patterns and finally the Inorganic patterns until there is no
trace of what was formerly coherent and experiencing patterns. I
don't believe that it is possible to reconstruct those patterns or that
they will somehow re-appear. Like Pirsig's Chemistry professor you
can't re-do what has been undone.
> I ask this because it seems reasonable that
> there be some logical explanation of consciousness. There must be some
> reason why "I" am aware of "my" experiences and not of yours. If there be
> an explanation, it seems reasonable that the conditions could reproduced and
> probably will be reproduced eventually -- given time is infinite.
The subject of the 'self' is likely to induce severe schizophrenia. We
have great attachment to the idea of individualistic identity. It's very
convenient and seems to make a great deal of sense - especially on
pay day! This is where I tend to side with the 'mystics' in the group,
that much of the MOQ, and especially DQ, is about going beyond
the conventional, static illusion of self. Don't get me wrong here. I'm
no solipsist! I also subscribe to materialism, genetics, quantum
physics, social moral values et. al., but as intellectual constructions
of a dynamic reality. A stone is as real as a moral right is as real as
a 'ME'. But an intellectual understanding of these things is different to
the patterns that constitute them. To go beyond this into a 'mystical
reality' scares the holy shit out of me - it might be a one way journey
to the funny farm and the high voltage baseball bat. The nearest I
ever got to that place was the same way that Pirsig did - by
chemically induced means. Nice place, but like a holiday abroad,
great to come home.
As far as I can see, the idea of self, in terms of the MOQ, is a static
'reality' not a dynamic one and any 'logical explanation' is a static
intellectual pattern. But this intellectual pattern is the only one that is
likely to make sense as, by definition, the dynamic reality is the
conceptually unknown.
> Horse and I may one day be twin siblings *laughing*.
'Tis the wise man that knows his father :)
> Denis Poison said:
> > "we are nothing but the points of view by which the Universe
> > experience itself ! Thus, we are sacred in the most profound sense,
> > along with everything else in this universe."
>
> I love this explanation except for the word "but"! What ARE these points?
> Why am "I" at this point and "You" at that point! James called these points
> "streams". Pain, pleasure, passion, boredom are not me. But the
> *connection* of them into a "point of view" IS me. We are very REAL, my
> friends!
Patterns of value are completely real in one sense and completely
unreal in another. They are a context dependent convenience.
> To keep on topic "How does the "self" fit into the MOQ?" I say it doesn't!
>
> I don't think you can define the "self" in terms of any particular
> experiences. Intuitively, to define how experiences are connected, you have
> be outside of them. With this in mind, perhaps it is *impossible* for us to
> find the explanation. I am completely fine by that. The problem with the
> MOQ is that it denies there could even *be* an explanation.
No, I don't think so. I think it just means that any explanation that we
come up with needs to be considered in the context of the MOQ.
Remember that the MOQ is a metaphysics and as such provides a
context within which it may be meaningful to ask a question such as
'what is self?'. The problem comes when trying to answer the
question in a different context - i.e. any other metaphysical system.
Horse
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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