Magnus Berg (MagnusB@DataVis.se)
Tue, 9 Jun 1998 05:49:53 +0100
Hi Theo and squad
You wrote
> Sentience simply means having the power of perception by the senses.
> For
> this to occur senses must be developed. Whether the earth, to our
> eyes,
> mimics sentience under speeded up observation is neither here nor
> there,
> as this is an example of our perception of the earth and not vice
> versa. Dynamic Quality can act upon the smallest of 'things' but to
> conclude that that thing is sentient denies the accepted use of the
> term
> 'sentient' in the English language. There is no doubt that sentience
> appeared with the biological level as this is what the term was
> invented
> to describe.
>
Remember that the English language developed in a SOM dominated
world and therefore inherited its flaws. I agree with Diana when she
said
that all Quality is sentient. Otherwise, there would be some significant
difference between the inorganic level and the other levels, but there
isn't, they're all SQ.
> Also, the term 'sentience' has nothing to do with free
> will. One could be sentient and yet not have free will, although free
> will does of course presuppose sentience.
>
I'm sorry, the more I think of the three terms sentience, free will and
non-determinism, the more they float together. They're all direct
consequences of the quality event. The subject is sentient of the
object, the dynamic influence gives each quality event some degree
of non-determinism. And who is to decide whether this non-
determinism is free will or not? In the MoQ, the question becomes
irrelevant.
> There really is no need to invent new meanings for long established
> words. They are quite clear in their descriptive function and all
> misuse does is draw a mystical veil over the whole area which serves
> no
> purpose at all other than obscurantism.
>
The MoQ presents some new meanings to the words quality, value and
moral. I certainly think that served a good purpose.
Magnus
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu May 13 1999 - 16:43:21 CEST