> [Krimel] > I think you are committing the DQ heresy. DQ, like SQ is an aspect of > Quality. They compliment and reveal each other. Consciousness may be > needed to perceive this but even consciousness emerges from it.
DM: Think that's my point, to describe consciousness in MOQ terms we can see that it varies accordingto the SQ available to it, like nerves, neurons, educational institutions, language, but you need more than SQ to give you consciousness you also need DQ and its opening of mere SQ to change. My point is that consciousness is only useful if there is change, otherwise its sameness, patterns and you can get by with mechanism, habit and unconsciousness. Now change and consciouness seem closely tied and change is a constant of reality whether there are humans or not. Where this leaves consciousness for non-humans, well that's hard to know. But we can consider it. [Krimel] My original point was to show that whatever 'consciousness' is, it is not the primary stuff of the universe. Rather it emerges out of the interplay and SQ and DQ. I think we more or less agree on the second part which leaves me wondering why I suspect we disagree about the first. Other than this lingering doubt I agree with what you say above. > [DM] > Been reading some Zizek (yes I have a habit) and he suggest quite > interestingly that it is a lack, a need, a void, and one that is somehow > answered. Pehaps this is what indeterminacy is. > > [Krimel] > Interesting description that says nothing. DM: Not to me. I think it gives us some idea of what we are trying to understand when we are looking to make sense of change and causality and consciouness in a consistent description. [Krimel] If understanding is a quest for more precise metaphors these just don't work for me personally. I see consciousness in terms of cortex and increased storage capacity, room for our past, encoded as memory to take shape and be reshaped; the ability to see similarity and difference and catalog things as a result. I see it as a construct of or network of associations. But then I gravitate toward fairly concert metaphors. > [Krimel] > At the quantum level particle wink in and out of existence > probabilistically. There is a degree of indeterminacy or uncertainty in > their winking. Above this level their behavior is more or less lawful and > this lawfulness increases with scale. DM: I think as systems get more complex they take on more or less law like patterns but they never become entirely law like, that's why all patterns break down or evolve eventually. [Krimel] I agree with this so much that I am increasingly willing to elevate uncertainty to the status of a metaphysical principle. That is it is a fundamental quality of whatever system of thought we choose to adopt. DM: Because we might just be needing some kind of vocabulary to discuss how laws evolve and collapse, we may need to tell a narrative and a history of inorganic evolution as well as one about organic patterns. [Krimel] Let me be clearer on this point. There is a time and a place for loose metaphors. I used to use them a lot in explaining both celestial and quantum mechanics to my children on the drive to daycare. I agree with Pirsig's agreeing with Poincare about the problem of specialized language that only experts can understand. I think experts should be able to explain themselves so that normal folks and small children can 'get it'. What I object to is passing off baby talk, like iron filing preferring to go toward magnets, as expert language. > [Krimel] > I don't see how consciousness can come before unconsciousness and I would > never equate DQ or SQ with either. DM: Well until you can make this imaginative leap you're gonna be missing my point. Frankly, why not? [Krimel] First, because it makes more sense to me to speak of the unconscious evolving toward consciousness, than to talk about consciousness falling asleep. (Lila game notwithstanding) As to the second part, because consciousness is neither; it is a combination of both. > [Krimel] > Heads is just the negation of tails. Tails is the negation of the negation > of the potential of heads to the sensible being-aware confined to the > space/time mode of awareness of the negation of Essense. DM: I knew you liked Ham. [Krimel] Hamish is a very useful language if your intent is to sound like an expert without the need to actually say anything meaningful. 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/
