[Ham] I've just had some off-line conversation with Case, who has expressed concern about my temporary absence due to a computer crash. (He's proved to be a true gentleman after all!) Well, I'm still here, and I couldn't resist commenting on how pathetic is this idea of "leaving a legacy" as the only hope of human transcendence.
[Case] A pleasure as always, Ham. It is good to have the occasional reality check to put all the naked hostility into perspective. But the disagreements are possibly no where as profound as in your statement above. I once responded to a question of yours that, "I am part of a self sustaining electrochemical reaction that has run continuously for at least the past four billion years." As part of that process my purpose is to see it sustained, to help to make it healthy and to further its growth and development. I really don't see how this can be considered "pathetic" in the least. [Ham] Surely a philosophy founded on value should suggest a plausible connection of the individual to "the primary source of empirical reality." Are we to assume that we "live after death in the 'static patterns' we leave to our survivors?" If this is our link to reality, of what value is it to us OR our survivors? I see the deficiency of the MoQ as its failure to make this connection. We mortals are swept along in the wave of DQ, but in the end it is the wave -- not us -- that prevails. So where is the morality in this scenario, and what is the point of cognizant existence? Without that, "evolving to betterness" has no essential meaning. [Case] It's kind of like the kid walking along the beach throwing starfish back into the sea. Someone asked him why that would matter and he replies by throwing one into the waves and saying, "It mattered to that one." This idea of eternal existence is a bit meaningless to me. In what sense can we transcend death? What would survive? Awareness? Of what? Everything that makes me, me is wrapped up in this world. It would be nothing more than a mass of useless concerns to a disembodied me. The process continues and I am part of the current iteration. I can identify with that but my experience and memories are what make this life fun. I can not see how they would be relevant in the absence of my physical self. > [Dan]: > Yes it is. I believe the question was: does consciousness survive the > death of the brain. To the best of my knowledge, no one has yet identified > what consciousness is or where (or if) it is located in the brain. Does > the brain act as a kind of antenna for consciousness? No one knows. If the > brain is indeed the seat of consciousness then when the brain dies, so > does consciousness. But if the brain acts as an antenna, then perhaps > consciousness survives in some fashion that we as living beings are unable > to comprehend. It is I suppose a mystery that only the dead share. [Case] Brain as antenna? I think Scott Roberts used to go on about this. The brain clearly does act in some respects like an antenna. We absorb light and sound and texture and chemicals and transmute these into conscious states. But why would you even suggest that we are antenna picking ups some undetectable force field from the cosmos? The notion of disembodied consciousness is so alien to any kind of human experience I can only wonder what would the point be? Why would this be at all relevant to us? [Ham] My answer would be that the brain functions as the "instrument" of conscious awareness. What we experience is filtered by the brain and nervous system so that our value-sensibility is limited to a differentiated perspective of objective otherness. This orients the finite creature to its finite world, a useful and necessary orientation for co-existence with Nature. It's also what undiscerning people call "the real world." But to equate the cause-and-effect dynamics of finite objects with ultimate reality is intellectually naive. [Case] If you wanted to use this kind of analogy then how about the brain acts as a transmitter of consciousness? Consciousness originates and emerges from the electro-chemical interactions of our physiology and radiates out to others of our kind. What meaning can ultimate reality have beyond this? [Ham] If Quality (or Value) is the source of finitude, as Pirsig seems to be saying, isn't it more plausible that this source is "uncreated" and absolute? Isn't it more logical that the multiplistic "patterns of quality" that we are attuned to in existence ultimately relate to the Oneness of our Creator? I find it remarkable that the concept of a transcendent source is inimicable to postmodern philosophy. By rejecting a primary source beyond finitude, we prevent the kind of workable ontology that could make the MoQ a meaningful breakthrough in contemporary Western Philosophy. [Case] It is hard to find fault for rejecting something you had no business embracing in the first place. I am beginning to suspect that much of this can be traced to confusion over the nature of Plato's forms. He seems to claim that the forms are more real than the shadows. This evolved into a notion of "ultimate reality" Whitehead like a good Platonist calls it the primordial nature of God. He claims that this primordial nature contains all of the possible "forms" and that these are manifest through time in God's consequent nature. I think these forms were Plato's attempt to explain the significance of the mathematical formulations developed by the pre-Socratic Greek mathematicians. Their theorems and geometric proofs stripped away the messy details of the real world and allowed us to seem how things might work in a perfect world. This perfect world allowed astonishing predictive powers but only when we ignore the sloppiness we actually see presented to us. This view was morphed into extreme form by the Gnostics who saw the body and the material world as evil. You see this in the oriental religions as well but I won't even speculate on the source of it there. I would suggest that the ultimate source of Ultimate Reality is the messy, sloppy, stinking mess you see right before your eyes not the other way around. [Ham] I wonder if its author has ever considered the humanistic value of leaving such a "legacy", instead of an unresolved enigma. [Case] Perhaps the enigma is resolved through the process of each iteration. 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/
