[MD] MD 4th level - The more autonomus level

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

Ham,

Yes, Ham, you do answer my questions in your latest posts. I apologize for my
inability to relate your previous posts to my specific questions. 

[Ham]
Yes.  As I've previously stated, man's consciousness includes self-awareness and
value sensibility, neither of which has a feline correspondence that we know
of.  (Incidentally, the "deserted island" has nothing to do with this
distinction.)

[Arlo]
The "deserted island" has everything to do with getting at the origins of man's
consciousness. Your proposal is that this "consciousness" has NOTHING to do
with social or cultural structures whatsoever. To say this, you would, of
course, have to take the posistion that a human individual matured in complete
isolation from other humans who possess the SAME level of consciousness as
"you" or "me".

And you've now stated this to be your position. The "deserted island" scenario
also allows the question to be raised as to the origins, if not social or
cultural structures, of said "consciousness". The only two possibilities would
be that (1) consciousness is somehow derived/emerged/whatever from specific
human genetic traits. That deserted island human individual (DIHI) would, of
course, have the same human DNA, which could account for the equivalent
development of consciousness. Or (2) that consciousness is somehow a "gift" to
all human individuals from some Supernatural or Divine Source, such as a
"soul".

You've answered this to, saying that consciousness is a gift, given to humans
from some Infinite Source. Fair enough. 

[Ham]
Genes, brain size, chemistry and body size have nothing to do with
consciousness in my opinion.  Again, I'm not talking about "behavior' but
about the subjective faculty of being-aware which is "absolutely" and
fundamentally individual.  I'm not a geneticist, and fail to see why you
think genes are relevant to consciousness.  They might predispose an
individual to bipolar anxiety or delusions relative to certain perceptions
of reality, but I don't believe they affect fundamental consciousness.

[Arlo]
I think genes are relevant to consciousness in the way the circuits in my
computer are relevant to this online discussion. I only brought up genes,
again, as a possible explanation for your DIHI supposition. Which you've now
explained as due to that DIHI being given a divine gift.


[Ham]
I do not deny the existence of DNA, and I did not say everyone possesses the
same consciousness.   What I said was "every human being from adolescence
onward has self-awareness and value-sensibility, irrespective of his or her
environmental conditions."  

[Arlo]
Believe me, Ham, I know you did not say everyone possessed the "same
consciousness". What you said was everyone possesses an equivalent level of
consciousness.

But here you do begin to get at a development trajectory for human
consciousness, that begins as "sensory awareness" in the womb, and by
adolescence reaches "maturity"(?) in the sense of it being of uniform
development across the human population. Yes?

[Ham]
We are all born with awareness, which "comes from" the primary
differentiation of Essence into "other" and "not other".  Awareness is the
not-other.  In the newborn infant it is probably best described as the
integration of organic sensibility.  

[Arlo]
I have some things to say about this, but I'll hold off, as its an entire
thread, and may have been discussed before. I'll check, and might start this up
as a separate thread.

[Ham]
After a period of contact with things and people, the child develops a sense of
self in relation to other which eventually leads to self-consciousness and a
fully developed sense of value. 

[Arlo]
Certainly, Ham, this is a typo. Certainly your statement would be as true if
read, "After a period of contact with things --- ------, the child develops a
sense of self in relation to other which eventually leads to self-consciousness
and a fully developed sense of value." Remember, other people are irrelevant to
the development of consciousness.

[Ham]
(It should be noted that, while consciousness "ripens" with maturity, it is no
less a special creation and the locus of an anthropocentrically designed
world.)

[Arlo]
Certainly, evolution doesn't deny that it is God who set the evolutionary
process underway.

[Ham]
When you talk in terms of before and after, your perspective shifts from the
metaphysical to the existential.  From the absolute viewpoint nothing changes. 
That's why I regard creation as a constant of Essence rather than an
evolutionary process. The pre-natal fetus responds to tactile
stimulation; so you had sensory awareness prior to birth, but psychologists tend
to define "consciousness" as the fully integrated awareness of a 2-3 year-old
child.

[Arlo]
Yeah, I'm not concerned really with what psychologists say persay. But I'm not
sure I understand your position. Does consciousness (your and mine) come into
existence when we are born, or did it already exist somewhere and was assigned
to us by the Infinite Source? When we die, does it dissipate? Is it destroyed?
Or does it have continued existence?

[Ham]
As I stated above, there is a gradual transition from simple organic
awareness to the development of a fully integrated consciousness that
includes self-awareness and value-sensibility.

[Arlo]
A transition that occurs, as I understand your position, or coincides with
biologic maturation. That is, as the human body grows, consciousness develops
naturally along with it. Like biological maturation, it occurs without any
"outside" influence at all.

This really sounds genetic to me, Ham. I know you deny this, and you've posited
that the consciouness is given to us by a higher force, but given the
statements that it develops coincidentally to biological development, and owes
nothing to external or outside processes, and this gradual transition occurs
identically between "you" and some DIHI, well, I don't see how consciousness
is, in your position, not a part of some biological and genetic trait.

[Ham]
It is the "awareness" that's primary; without it there could be no
consciousness. The human organism is wired to make this transition.  (Possibly
this is where your precious "genetic traits" kick in.)  I look at it as one
continuous creation toward a purposeful goal (teleology).

[Arlo]
MY precious "genetic traits"? Jeez, Ham.

If you are arguing that the simple "awareness" of "self" and "not self" is the
primary, fundament, "individual" locus, I might agree. As you called it above,
an "organic sensibility". But here is where I go a different way.

This originating "organic sensibility", I'd say, is found in all "living
beings". At our birth, a human infant has a "comparable" organic sensibility to
a cat. However, the human organism (to agree with you again) IS wired with a
trait that has allowed the evolution over historical time of social mediation.
That "trait", as proposed by Michael Tomasello, is "shared attention", which he
posits has a neurological origin. But from this ability, humans have entered a
evolutionary trajectory that has allowed for, as I said, social mediation. It
is from this social mediation, that the human infant's ability to think
symbolically, echo the voices of others, and act agentically (in anything other
than a "very hungry, find food" response).

So, the DIHI would be born withthe same "organic sensibility" as an infant born
in downtown Chicago. That DIHI would possess, by virtue of DNA, the same
hardwiring that would allow for shared attention, and the ability appropriate a
social-symbolic system to socially and culturally mediate their world, but
without others that's as far as that DIHI could go. The fundamental process of
the development of our thoughts is social.

But note, just becaue it is "social" does not mean the "individual" is not part
of it. You need the voices of others in your head in order to "think", and to
categorize and symbolically represent experience, but in that is also what
emerges as "your voice", owing to the unique microgenetic experiences of your
particular existence.

[Ham]
I don't know Platt's cat.  (Mine died several years ago.)   The only answer I
can give you is that cats were not designed to be the creatures of
self-determination on this planet.  Man was.  Most cats I know live a good
life; ours certainly did.  Unfortunately for them, it is man who was
designed to be the Top Cat :-)

[Arlo]
God made man in his image, and gave him dominion over the other living things.
Or something like that, eh?

[Ham]
So far I think I've answered or at least addressed them all.

[Arlo]
Yes you have, Ham. And I thank you for that.

[Ham]
I never claimed to be an anti-theist.  If you read "God" into my Essence,
does that make me a "charlatan"?

[Arlo]
It makes you a charlatan if you deny your thesis is theistic, yes. If you are
not denying it, then I take back the charlatan remark in this instance. 

[Ham]
I don't know that I've disappointed you so much as feeding you something to
complain about!

[Arlo]
No, you've not disappointed me. And I have nothing to complain about. You've
answered openly, and revealingly. Some of my best friends are theists. You've
posited that consciousness is divinely bestowed, deliberately on humans, who
were created specially by the divine for that purpose. I accept that. Although
I disagree with it.

[Ham]
I'll let your P.S. editorial pass without comment.

[Arlo]
See, here's where you guys amaze me. Your email ended with several paragraphs
berating my position as being "in denial", misguided, oblivious to the obvious,
and pretty much implied that what I think is deluded. Fair enough, you're
entitled. But when I respond to one of those charges in a postscript, rather
than making it the body of my reply, you act indignant, as if somehow I've
stooped to depths you would never go. In other words, why should Ham be allowed
to editorialize, but not Arlo?

Arlo