Carl, Dan, I think Dan's is a good response.
The easy / hard distinction that the traditional science of consciousness people have is between The easy part - all the physio-chemical-biological things that can be explained to happen when things are being experienced, vs The hard part - explaining what it means to experience, what is doing the experiencing. Almost impossible for the scientists to explain - almost by definition in fact, since classical objective science shuns the subjective. In practice we, our consciousness, any consciousness, is a complex pattern of patterns (comprising, on, supervenient on ...) in the underlying levels. As Dan says, the levels are all there, all the time, but the pattens evolve onward and upward. (This is pretty consistent too with the more enlightened evolutionary philosophers like say Dennett's "memeplex" view, and dare I say, Hofstadter - the only other guy besides Pirsig that talks of the world entirely as patterns of patterns.) Ian On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 7:14 AM, Dan Glover <daneglo...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hello everyone > > On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 9:39 PM, Carl Thames <ctha...@centurytel.net> wrote: >> I don't know how it came up, but recently I stumbled across what's known as >> "The Hard Question" about consciousness. Specifically, that question is how >> consciousness arises from inorganic material. Our brains and bodies are >> made up of chemicals, etc. and yet from those inert chemicals we get >> consciousness, until we die, then we become inorangic material again as we >> break down through the process of decay. What would the MOQ have to say >> about that? Anybody know? > > Hey Carl > > According to the MOQ consciousness doesn't arise from inorganic > material... it arises from the Dynamic interplay of all four levels of > evolutionary existence. Biological patterns of quality (like the > brain) arise from inorganic patterns. They share little other than an > evolutionary history... in fact, biological patterns can be seen as at > odds with inorganic patterns, subsuming them for their own use. > > Social patterns of quality arise from biological patterns. These > patterns cannot be seen. Unlike inorganic and biological patterns, > social patterns of quality exist in the mind. Take the President of > the United States as an example: there is no way to examine President > Obama and determine that he is the President. The fact that he holds > office is a social pattern, one with which we are all familiar. But > there is nothing to his person that indicates he is any different than > any other man. > > Intellectual patterns of quality arise from social patterns. We are > all ensconced in the culture that we inhabit. That culture informs our > ideas of the world. Our response to Dynamic Quality is filtered > through our ideas, our perceptions of the world as we know it to be. > In the MOQ Dynamic Quality is seen as synonymous with experience. > > So in answer to your question, it seems clear that we do not become > inert chemicals when we die... we are inert chemicals to start with. > Consciousness does not magically imbibe those chemicals with life... > they are still inert chemicals being made use of by biological > patterns. > > Does this help answer your question? > > Thank you, > > Dan > > http://www.danglover.com > 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 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
