Group.
Maggie had said that mind was from Society and Squonk commented:
> Mind is culturally derived!
> Excellent!
I agree (but that's another thread) Squonk went on:
> Susan Blackmore would argue that society is a memepool from which self
> identity as memeplex is constructed?
> Our memeplex is imposed upon us in that it is from culture that we
> learn who we are (static) and developed in part through selecting
> choice (dynamic)?
I recently read a science magazine article called "The Grand Illusion" (where -
among other - Susan Blackmore is cited) and will comment on this piece which
started with the usual (SOM-manufactured) mystery how the firing of brain cells
produce subjective experience and went on about how it's no representation of
the outer world which is presented, but some sleigh-of-hand that even do tricks
with time. I have read about this before and the weirdest is for instance that a
touch on a toe is carried FORWARD in time so that it feels simultaneous with
the actual touch (the nerve pulse takes a considerable time from toe to brain).
This is defies all logic: how can one feel something that hasn't happened yet?
The author asked: "Could the problem be so serious that we need to start again
at the very beginning? Could it be that, after all, there is no stream of
consciousness, no movie in the brain, no picture of the world we see in front of
our eyes. Could this all be a grand illusion"?
But we (the moqists) know better, every "starting over" will be another turn of
the SOM screw; subtler explanations; more references to magic - even
spiritualism; more handwringing. The SOM is just incapable of escaping its
premises and in its view experience is either subjective or objective and the link
between the two can't be found because there are no such two realms to be
connected.
Maybe Susan Blackmore sees some social "memepoolish" or "memeplexic"
construct, but it's just more of the same. It's like the Danish science writer (Tor
Nörretranders) that wrote so eminently about these things (the "toe" experiment
among other) and who I once contacted and exchanged a few letters with, but
would he listen to Pirsig? Ha! These number-of-angles-on-pins questions are
their (the science writers) bread and butter and the least thing they want is a
new metaphysics that makes short thrift of the mystery. Even in this supposedly
Pirsig circle I have the feeling that many believes that the MOQ will explain the
mind/matter enigma in SOMish terms. But that is not the way. Earlier I have
compared the issue with Newton's solving the Greek dilemmas of motion and
inertia which weren't solved on their own premises, but will this be understood?
.....That is my mystery.
Bo
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