[John] The "but" butts in because I'm thinking the conceptualization of self comes before and precedes intellectual description OR social symbolic code.
[Arlo] Some have proposed this, yes, but again (as I said to WillBlake), you are arguing against Pirsig. Which is all fine and dandy, to be sure, but the MOQ would say that "self" (an intellectual pattern) comes only after one assimilates a social code. "Me" is a software program, and one that comes from the cultural language we grow within. And, as with WillBlake, I see you proposing a hierarchy that goes something like inorganic-biological (self?)-intellectual. I put "self" with biology, because you seem to equate this awareness with a complexity of brain mass, that is that "self" is an innate pattern formed due to a complex brain system. [Arlo had said] I don't know, I was sitting here eating a dark chocolate bar infused with chili extract, and I think that in the moment of enjoying that, nothing was more evident. [John] Hah. That's what you think. [Arlo] Only after (hence use of past tense), in the moment of NOW was only "Quality", which was the most evident thing around. [John] I agree of course. I think the point is that it's tricky. There are very strong and pervasive common-sense notions of time and causation that contain paradoxical truth traps in the very system of rationality developed from them. [Arlo] Sure there are, and I think many quantum theorists are leading the way to an understanding of time quite different than the "arrow" we are used to. By the way, I certainly wasn't saying you were arguing those examples (dinosaurs willed into existence by modern man), they were just off-the-cuff hypotheticals to make a point. For example, and let's use Ham since he seems to play the poor persecuted radical card so well. Ham has said that (1) at some point, A, in the historical timeline "consciousness" did not exist. Then (2) at some latter point, B, it did exist. He outright denies that (3) biological changes/mutations/adaptions account for consciousness' appearance and that (4) the appearance of social behavior/language/activity accounts for consciousness' appearance. I've asked repeatedly, "then what does?" What changed between point A and point B that accounts for the appearance of "consciousness"? Even if you find fault with the "point A to point B" line, you simply can't go "that's not important, ignore it, look over here and forget about that". Which is precisely what he does. If your metaphysics is going to deny the evolutionary trajectory of "non-conscious primates" in pre-history to "conscious" man, then you must make account of that. By the way, I gather from your view that the "self" precedes social and intellectual patterns, and your thoughts on the dog and amoeba that seem to place "self" as some sort of function of brain complexity, that you would propose that the appearance of "consciousness" is rooted in specific neurobiological adaptions. That is, "what changed?" is that brain's became more complex. "Self", then, is a part of the neurobiology of the organism. No? 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/
