Hi Bodvar, In your description of Western philosophy, you might be right about Descartes, I am no expert. However the notion of mind and consciousness is at the core of much Hindu thought, as described in the Vedas. In fact Buddhism draws heavily on this. This in no way diminishes what you are postulating, only that the notion has been around for some time.
Whenever one uses equalities, it leaves one open to interpretation through semantics, but I think I see what you mean. Also, in math and science, equalities usually require some kind of constant with units that make the two equalities the same. For example the equality of mass to energy. Mass is in Grams and energy is in Joules (for example) so a factor must be introduced with appropriate units of conversion. I'm not sure what the units are in Quality and Consciousness, so I wouldn't know what that factor would be. Where I differ from you is the notion that consciousness is experience. That is not to say that consciousness does not experience, it most certainly does. If consciousness is that individual "I" which is behind us all, then it exists without experience. By way of metaphor, Consciousness is the page of a book. It is the white background. On that page there are words, sentences, feelings, experiences. One must not confuse the writing for the Consciousness itself. Of course, this is just my interpretation. I have found many mistakes and prejudices in Wikipedia, and prefer not to use it as a source for metaphysical support, but that's just me. Cheers, Willblake2 On Aug 12, 2009, at 3:35:08 AM, [email protected] wrote: From: [email protected] Subject: [MD] Consciousness (explained?) Date: August 12, 2009 3:35:08 AM PDT To: [email protected] Hi Platt, John, DMB, Anthony, Descartes ;-) All. Platt will possibly remember the early days of the Lila Squad how some Zohar book "The Quantum Self" created a stir by he assertion that the site of consciousness had been found in the "Einstein Bose Condensate" (I guess it was our quantum buff Doug Renselle) Before that it was Hammeroff with his "microtubulae" which is some sub- atomic structures in the brain. This expresses science's (SOM's) vain yet indestructible hope that mind and matter will meet at some point. And also that its a wrong track to think that the MOQ has some affinities with Quantum Physics, NewAge or New Physics ... or that philosophical idealism is the stepping stone to the MOQ. According to the MOQ all levels will "meet" their parent level if pursued deep/far enough, thus intellect (SOM, science) will not find the mind/matter bridge but the intellect/social one. I leave that point, but is treated most convincingly in LILA and when I reach "civilization" and my home computer I will bring the quotes which shows that Pirsig really is the same Phaedrus who wrote ZAMM and postulated that the intellectual level is supposed to be SOM, but was side-tracked by W.James) that led to the mind-intellect that "our" academics savor, but leaves the MOQ impotent. Now, from the SOM = intellect premises, i.e. that ZAMM's description of SOM is the 4th. level's emergence from the 3rd. the picture that emerges is that the subject/object split evolved by fits and starts up through the centuries and millennias. At first it was the "permanent" (objective) versus the "apparent" (as it looks to us subjectively) with Aristotle the permanent had become "substance vs form". Its Pirsig's assertion that S/O became a metaphysical with Descartes: A spiritual mind that inhabited a matterish body. A century and shortly afterwards the empiricist started to point out the problems of this constellation, that the qualities were created by the subject, the "out there" were without qualities. And it's plain that "consciousness" is a direct product of the S/O: >From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualism_(philosophy_of_mind) A generally well-known version of dualism is attributed to René Descartes (1641), which holds that the mind is a nonphysical substance. Descartes was the first to clearly identify the mind with consciousness and self-awareness and to distinguish this from the brain, which was the seat of intelligence. Hence, he was the first to formulate the mind- body problem in the form in which it exists today. and it's also clear that Pirsig is the first EVER philosopher (since the instigators of SOM) to deliver a "solution" with his MOQ, but even plainer is it that MOQ's capacity resides in the SOM = intellect. If the 4th.level merely is the Cartesian "mind", with SOM a faulty mind pattern and the MOQ a better ditto nothing is gained (besides being absurd) The MOQ overturns the whole bl..dy Aristotelian metaphysical table by its Dynamic/Static split. And now this split must be a new fundamental. Pirsig's Quality/MOQ is as damaging as DMB's Quality/Concept variety. Platt wrote: > Bo hints that the original MOQ as described in ZAMM dissolves the > mind/matter enigma. But how? By making it a static level within the > umbrella of the MOQ? OK. Very OK! > Does that make the DQ of the MOQ > consciousness itself? In Lila Pirsig says Quality is experience and > experience is value. Is consciousness the same as experience? Frankly, > I don't see a difference. So that would make Quality=Consciousness. We must first of all see the implications of Descartes role (the above Wikipedia) Consciousness is a byproduct of SOM, there is no indications of (as Pirsig said in the letter to Paul Turner) the people of old were "conscious" of having a consciousness - i.e. that their experience of the world weren't THE world. Pirsig said that "the old books of the Bible showed no intellectuality" but one may point to more recent texts and find no awe about "consciousness" and/or wonder where it resides in the body. . John said: > Here is something you've been explaining for a long time, and yet > somehow I've had great difficulty in following you. But as I've gone > along and investigated the MoQ on my own, I've found myself at times > starting to come to some conclusions which have made me think, "This > sounds like what Bodvar has been asserting." So we shall see where my > rollercoaster train of thought leads and if I end up on the same > track. Good! Hope this "essay" brings you some insight. I'm not out to create factions in this forum, but it's hard not to condemn DMB as the spanner in the MOQ works. Anthony McWatt I don't know if is so adamant in declaring this true SOL interpretation heresy, but his PhD's description of MOQ's intellectual level as one of "ideas" is just as faulty and misleading. In my interpretation, but I still have to find a flaw in it. Bodvar 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/ 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/
