Mark points out=> When a child is born, it has no > concept of other. In fact it cannot distinguish itself from its mother for > a while. When a child is born, all it has is Will.
Right Mark. Although to be precise, the abstract entity of "child" is a social label applied to a pattern of value that we cognizers of values slap on its butt (shortly after smacking it's behind to help introduce it to air) This "Will" you speak of, is a purely instinctual urge to get its biological needs met. Then, through the process of getting its needs met by mothering, it learns it's social place and all about otherness. > This then becomes more > All Self and No Other. What this means is that during the early stages of > development, a human has NO SOM. I'll spare you the other stages. > > I like this because I think there is a crucial distinction here, between 4th level intellectual patterns concerning the fundamental nature of the subject/object metaphysical stance, and the self-other realization which occurs at the social level, and is the basis for much of our knowing. subject/object realization rather than subject/object metaphysical belief. The first is a social pattern and the second is about the social pattern - an absolutization on an intellectual level, of a very basic, lowest-common-denominator of realization of self-existence. The "kindergarten" of the 4th level - SOM. Mark: > Now, how can we even say this is a possibility? Well, I am no > psychologist, > but you will find this kind of thing in such journals. A more convincing > example of the absence of SOM in early childhood can be found in certain > accounts of autistic people (please don't get too caught up in the autistic > label stuff, it is only misleading). There are people, labeled as autistic > (for lack of a better term) who are capable of living part time in an > autistic world of pure sense, and then capable of communicating with the > rest of us as to what that type of consciousness is like in our own logical > terms. Now, I don't want to seem kind of fringe on this kind of thing. If > you are interested in the applications of SOM and Quality to autism, then I > suggest you read Autism: The Lost Art of Sensing by Donna Williams. She > can > explain it much better than I, because she lives it. And, no, it is not > fruitcake stuff, but it does take an open mind. > John: Sounds interesting. There's a lot to learn about ourselves through aberrant extremes of brain-behavior, imo. Mark: > If you accept the paragraph above, I can go on to say that SOM develops > during childhood, for most of us. John: Well yes. Everything does! But more than when, I'm interested in the why. Innate or programmed? I'd say it's programmed in by culture. scarey thought- especially in light of an increasingly aberrant cultural pattern, to be sure. Mark: > In fact some people can vividly remember > when they became aware (so to speak). Carl Jung speaks about this (I > forget > where). The tipping point is communication. Because of communication we > need to label things, you know, nouns, verbs. Try to differentiate pacing, > from walking, from loping, from jogging, from meandering... you know what I > mean. John: Yes. I do. Communication is the tipping point, indeed. A signifier, a signified and a sign. Mark: This simplification of our perception into quantified things is > necessary because our brains need to condense reality into little > simplified > bits. John: Exactly. Thinking itself is dependent upon meaning, a narrate, a story. Every word contains a story and stories are nothing but collections of words. Which is fundamental? word, dude. Mark: > As you know, there were people who were obsessed with this such as > Aristotle. You can appreciate that by having to simplify into words, much > of the original experience is lost. John: Ellul butts in his ugly french head and disagrees, "non, non" he shakes his head sadly. What he means is that meaning and experience arise out of this fundamental relationship - the interaction between self and other IS experience itself, and these are not two distinct entities, but co-creative, a co-dependent arising, as you pointed out to start this "moq difference". Another good name than Quality for this co-dependence, is communication - a word. Not so much a "good" word, as the goodness OF words- the cognizant reflection of self and other that it seems only humans do, so it's hard to judge whether they do it well or not. Mark: > Suffice it to say that words do improve > memory so that if you attach some awareness to a word, it is easier to > recall that awareness through this word. It is sometimes proposed that we > think in words. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It is only words > when communication is involved, it is only SOM when words are involved. > Most of our consciousness is wordless > > John: Well, speak for yourself there. Mine's all in words. Everything I think about, I do so verbally. All feelings are conceptualized, often they are conceptualized poorly, or misunderstood and transferred - in other words, the verbal creations which we use to story things in memory and access, assign as words to a feeling that are completely "wrong" or mis-applied. And by this we mean "unconscious" or "subconscious" or whatever. But just because the verbally processed information about our ideas or feelings is mis-applied, they are there, testimony to a certain existence - a reality. And if there is no word, no concept, no realization at all, of any differentiation, then there's no reality. Where there is no word, there is no reality. Mark: > Now, I could go on, but I will leave it at that for now. So, again, I am > not circumventing anything in fact it would appear that you are. You > provide vague notions of this cognitive agent of awareness by wrapping it > in > cosmic separation from something else. Sure, water becomes gas when it > gets > hot, and thus separates, but how does such a notion create cognitive > awareness? You are missing a lot of pieces in between. I would be more > than > happy to have you present to me how personal consciousness arrises. > > John: It could also be, that he's just trying to get your goat, Mark. He can have mine, anytime. I've learned a lot from arguing with Ham. I'm most grateful to the old goat. Mark: > So, I have no intention of disinheriting the subjective sense, in fact I am > embracing it. It is your pseudo logical encapsulation of this sense into > an > ineffable construct which creates the disinheritance. What I see so far is > much hand-waving. > > All in good fun, > Mark > > > Stay calm. Be brave. Wait for the signs. John Charles Peirce 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/md/archives.html
