From: Paul Turner (paulj.turner@ntlworld.com)
Date: Sun Oct 26 2003 - 11:57:30 GMT
Hi Scott
Scott:
It is an impossible topic, since consciousness, and hence
self-consciousness
is undefinable.
Paul:
Is this a set-up? :-) You criticise the MOQ for being silent on the
topic of self-consciousness, I offer an MOQ interpretation, and you
reject it upfront as being an impossible topic!
With regards to consciousness being undefinable, the MOQ defines
consciousness as static intellectual patterns of value. That you reject
the definition doesn't stop it from being one.
Scott quotes Paul:
> Since the small [static] self is described as a collection of evolving
> static patterns at all levels, and consciousness is described as
static
> intellectual patterns emerging from Dynamic Quality,
> "self-consciousness" is intellectual patterns standing for patterns at
> all levels [including other intellectual patterns] around which a
> conceptual boundary of "me" has been drawn to organise and explain
> experience.
Scott:
Again, I just see this kind explanation as worthless, in particular,
"consciousness is described as static intellectual patterns emerging
from
DQ" as on a par with materialists' claims that it "just happens" and has
good survival value.
Paul:
As I have said before, materialist explanations stop at biological
patterns. The MOQ doesn't, therefore value is not limited to biological
survival and shouldn't be reduced to it.
Scott:
This kind of thinking is only possible if one simply
doesn't notice how weird consciousness is.
Paul:
I agree it is weird, but weirdness is in everything when one examines it
closely enough. Subatomic physics is weird but that doesn't prevent it
from being valuable. The fact that I'm sat here writing about
"weirdness" whilst physically sat in the northern hemisphere of a globe
hurtling around a ball of energy spinning in the middle of a potentially
infinite universe, is weird. Still, there are high quality explanations
for the physical universe.
Scott:
It transcends space and time. How
does the "standing for patterns" happen? It's like in previous debates
we've
had, where you blithely accept the process of abstraction, without
noticing
that in a strictly spatio-temporal universe, it could not possibly
happen.
Paul:
I do notice that, and you've given good accounts of why consciousness is
physically impossible. I also notice that space and time are
intellectual patterns themselves and, as such, are logically posterior
to the process of abstraction. Consciousness is therefore not to be
described in terms of space and time.
> Scott:
> With self-consciousness, SQ (sticking to MOQ terms) has the ability to
> create SQ.
>
> Paul:
> I don't see the argument that leads to this conclusion.
Scott:
You don't think you create anything, like the sentences you write? If
you
do, and if you think you are strictly SQ, then SQ must have the ability
to
create SQ.
Paul:
I'm not "strictly SQ," as I said below.
Scott:
If you deny that it is you that is doing the creating, then I
don't see how your philosophy is any different from theistic
determinism,
except the name God has been changed to DQ.
Paul:
If I bring into the static universe a new concept that expands
intellectual understanding for the better, then I am being Dynamic. If
I'm manipulating existing symbols into "new" ways of saying the same
thing as someone else, then I'm being static. In both cases, "I," is
used as a figure of speech.
I don't think God has anything to do with the explanation unless by
"God" you mean something like "undefined betterness."
Scott:
If the pattern is new, then it has been created.
Paul:
As above, it depends on how you understand "new."
Scott:
Note that intellectual
patterns also manipulate intellectual patterns. They reflect on them
(and
all the rest), which is more than manipulation.
The jump in kind is from automaticity (on the part of SQ) to
non-automaticity, which happens only at the intellectual level, since
that
is the only level (from our viewpoint) in which reflection occurs.
Paul:
What is your explanation of intellectual reflection?
Scott:
...on Pirsig
and mysticism, my objection, as I posted recently to Matt, is that
Pirsig
has based his philosophy on centric mysticism, and not differential. As
far
as religious practice, they are simply two paths. But in making
philosophy
out of them, centric mysticism ends up being dualist, while differential
does not. In my opinion, that is the root cause of all that I find
objectionable to the MOQ.
Paul:
OK, I'll check out the post to Matt.
Paul
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