Hi Arlo, Johncarl, Ron, others, This is perhaps a continuation of "Arlo's Rant and 3rd levels", I have mutated the title to remove the subjectiveness, and perhaps invite others.
I am interested in learning more about the notion of hierarchy in MoQ, as it may stimulate some thoughts for me about consciousness. We speak of the inorganic, organic, organism and society as levels of complexity, as well as of intent. Each of us are experiencing the organism level of consciousness. Being a biochemist/neurochemist/biotechnologist/pharmacologist by training I approach things with this background. I have worked on mapping the brain in the laboratory on a chemical basis, and can imagine the appearance in consciousness as the communication between nerves. An additional level of complexity arrises when different areas of the brain serve different functions of our consciousness. The next level would be the interaction of our brain with the rest of the body. Then there is a spacial jump of the interaction of humans together. We cannot experience this consciousness, but can imagine it through extrapolation, in the same way we can "imagine" multiple dimensions in space. So we are talking about complexities of interaction on a size basis. We can go the other way, a nerve communicates with another nerve through a chemical (language) to create a response on the next. There is also a complex feedback system. Once this response is initiated, sodium and potassium ions begin the travel short distances across membranes and enable a variety of systems to propagate this across a length. Whether or not this propagation continues, and where it goes depends on a number of factors. We have the Ions (individuals), we have the channels (stop lights), we have the overall state of the cell (household) and so on. The point is that the hierarchy we see goes both ways. Each system would seem to have its own consciousness. What I believe we are calling the abstract intellectual level, is where individuals interact in the same way that nerves do. Our brains still interact in a more complex way than society (at least for me, each nerve has more contacts than I have contacts with others), but this is rapidly not becoming so due to the internet (the new nerve system). Does this societal level have consciousness? Anyway, I am taking up way too much of your time. This topic has probably been dealt with at length. Such is the nature of apprenticeship. Cheers, Willblake2 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/
