Hi Ham, >> [Platt previously]: > > I wonder where "consciousness" fits into your description above.
[Ham]} > The way I look at it, Sensibility is primary to self-consciousness > (proprietary awareness), intellection, and experience. > Merriam Webster defines "consciousness" as the "quality or state of being > aware, especially of something within oneself." Wherever there is > "awareness of something" you have a subject conscious of an object. That > holds true even if the something is a pain in your stomach. Pure > Sensibility, on the other hand (which I maintain is the "core self") has > only the Value of Essence as its object. We do not experience Essence > directly but as a sense of value. Consciousness (neuro-sensory awareness) > intellectualizes value differentially, and we experience it as being in > space/time. Thanks for the further explanation. The way I see it, consciousness is the ultimate reality or substratum of creation, whose primary intention to fully be itself forms the basis of 1) evolutionary creation and 2) the multi-dimensional field of experience -- a description I borrowed heavily from: http://www.synchronicity.org/shopcontent.asp?type=Glossary Pirsig's Quality is the same as the consciousness I've described above by understanding that the "intention to be fully itself" is the universal drive towards betterness (moral worth). [Platt previously] > > And is my cat, UTOE, a self-aware "cognizant individuated organism" > > with "value-sensibility?" > > I recall having discussed UTOE's cognizant capabilities at some length with > you before. While this remains largely a matter of semantics, cats, dogs, > and apes exhibit varying degrees of self-consciousness. I tend to > associate "cognizance" with "intellectual understanding", which for > household pets is minimal in my view. > > A recent Newsweek feature on animal intelligence says that primatologist > Frans de Waal, et al, have concluded that only animals that are aware of > themselves are capable of the empathy toward other creatures which denotes > value sensibility. One of the "experiments" used to determine > self-consciousness puts the animal in front of a mirror. If it shows > evidence of recognizing the image in the mirror as "its own", this is > assumed to be a demonstration of self-consciousness. I tried this a few > times with my cat (now deceased), but he sniffed a couple of times and > turned away. (Of course, the animal's owner can always claim that it > already knows this is a reflection and quickly seeks a more "stimulating" > object.) But you might try it with UTOE and let us know the results. UTOE totally ignores the cat in the mirror. So I presume he either lacks self-consciousness or is unimpressed. He certainly lacks empathy towards anything but his bowl of Fancy Feast. But, I presume as a living creature he possesses some aspect, however small, of your Essence and Sensibility, and is to some extent conscious (aware) for he howls mightily if I accidentally step on his foot. So he has self-value sensibility for sure. I tend to get very confused with words like sensibility, sensitivity, sentience, sensation, perception, awareness, consciousness, experience, observation, cognizance, conception, intellection, intuition, etc. not to mention Primary Source, Essence, God, Quality, Absolute, etc. Hopefully that's just me. Thanks for your response and your continuing contributions to this site. Best regards, Platt Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
