[MD] MD Quality, DQ and SQ

[Scott Roberts]

Ian,

> Scott:
> Well, I see the problem in that there are two meanings to the word
> 'material' and to the word 'physical' -- but since they are often used
> interchangeably, I'll focus on the latter. The first meaning, call it
> physical[1] means what we sense with bodily sense organs (to leave out, 
> say,
> 'sense of value'). The second, physical[2], is what physics has formulated
> as models to explain and predict what happens in physical[1]. The thing is
> that before quantum physics these were pretty much the same, that
> hypothesized atoms, for example, were taken to be the same sort of thing 
> as
> dust particles, just much smaller. They existed in spacetime in the same
> way, for example. And of course all that changes with quantum physics.

[IG] Agreed. Let's not get pedantic. 2 meanings, multiple meanings,
whatever - all I'm saying for the fourth time is that despite the
arrival of quantum physics the very root of the word material carries
ancient and mis-leading connotations of something substantial. That's
all.

Scott:
And I'm saying that you haven't overcome all the ancient and misleading 
connotations.

>Scott said:
> The thing is, when you conclude with statements like
>
> "Evolved forms of consciousness and living-socio-cultural-intellectual
> patterns have both emerged together - in fact consciousness and 
> intellegence
> etc, are just such evolved patterns. The MoQ is spot on, Where's the
> problem?"
>
> the problem is that this whole mind set of emergence came to be when
> 'physical' meant 'physical[1]'. But with quantum physics, one cannot 
> assume
> the Newtonian view of space and time as being an objective basis for
> understanding origins. That is, if, as you quote Deutsch: "but Deutsch
> addresses that - time and causality are the seriously weird issues getting
> in the way of common sense explanations here", all the Darwinian business
> becomes questionable as well.

[IG] - It might provide such doubt, true, but there has been plenty of
stuff since that simply re-inforces the evolutionary fundamentals - so
the doubt is dispelled. I buy ths idea that time and causation may be
seriously more weird than our folk-views, but I don't buy the idea,
that all ideas of process of change over time will therefore be
totally invalid. Disbelief remains suspended (for now), but as you go
on to say, that would be no argument anyway. I can't believe your
prior-consciousness-based arguments would be any less undermined by
such a twist of time and causality than my natural physics ?

Scott:
But I don't say that consciousness is "prior". That's Ham-talk. What I say 
is that evolution is the evolution of consciousness (/value/intellect). The 
forms that result are SPOV, including the form called spacetime.

> Granted, that does not in itself provide
> license for the sort of thing I am espousing, but it does highlight that
> Darwinist explanations of consciousness have no evidential basis either.

[IG] Says who ??!!?? Are you denying Darwinian evolution per se ? Are
you suggesting homop-sapiens didn't arrive later in evolution than say
dinosuars ? Are you suggesting humans don't have any higher level
qualities of consciousness than dinosaurs. None of it conclusive or
perfectly explained (nothing ever is) but don't deny evidence
entirely.

Scott:
Within the spacetime SPOV, one says that humans arrived later than 
dinosaurs. A human has much more of the dynamic inside (under his or her 
control) than a dinosaur (as does a 4th level human compared to a 3rd level 
human). What I take this to mean (speculatively) is that a dinosaur is not 
an individual in the way that a human is, that the comparable thing to a 
human might be the species dinosaur. So I am not denying evidence. I am 
denying an interpretation of that evidence.

> Scott:
> The thing I would question about Chalmers is: if the problem is so hard, 
> why
> not question the presupposition that makes it a problem in the first 
> place?
> That presupposition, of course, is the belief that consciousness is an
> addition to a world that existed without it (and would revert to a world
> without it if all life forms were extinguished). Hence the need on 
> Chalmers'
> part for diving into supervenience and such.

[IG] Doh !!! So let me get this right. A philosopher would not have to
explain consciousness if he he could sleep happy with the idea that it
pre-existed anything else ? Sounds like the God sky-hook to me. (The
whole problem with this is there is no "it" to use in the above
sentences - as we've stumbled across many times elsewhere in this
correspondence - there are many varieties / sub-types and components
of consciousness - we're using a very broad loose word here covering a
wide range of concepts. Anyone suggesting the whole of this
pre-existed anything else seems to have a lot of explaining to do. A
lot more than any humble physicist. I though we were having a serious
debate ?

Scott:
It is only a sky-hook if one assumes that it is something that needs 
explaining, something one should have a theory about. Instead, I take it as 
that which explains, that which makes, maintains, and breaks theories. It's 
not a matter of consciousness pre-existing anything else. It is a matter of 
explaining existence in terms of consciousness. (More pedantry needed on 
'existence', however: what exists "stands out", and it is consciousness (aka 
quality) that makes things stand out. So of consciousness itself (or value), 
one cannot say it exists, one cannot say it doesn't exist, one cannot say it 
both exists and doesn't exist, and one cannot say it neither exists nor 
doesn't exist. My point in this pedantry is that in interpreting what I am 
saying as being a claim that consciousness "pre-exists", and so acts like a 
"sky-hook", you are still locked into a view of consciousness as a 
"something" distinct from "something else" -- physical building blocks, for 
example. Again, do you see Pirsig as employing Quality as a sky-hook? --  
Well, actually, in some ways I think he does employ DQ as a sky-hook, but 
that's one of my complaints about the MOQ).

Your last statement "I thought we were having a serious debate" just means, 
as far as I can see, that you insist on your vocabulary. That is, unless I 
learn to think in your terms, you will not consider me as being serious. We 
are betting on different horses: me on mysticism and the logic of 
contradictory identity as a way of getting a philosophical grip on mysticism 
and on consciousness/value/intellect, you on physicalism. What to you is 
"not being serious" is to me quite serious. What to me is "stuck in a 
useless modernist way of thinking (about consciousness)" is to you being 
serious.

> Scott:
> Yes, QM does not explain consciousness. But then Dennett and Chalmers both
> start from the position that consciousness needs explaining, an attitude
> that originated back when materialism was NOT dead, that thought that the
> perceptual contents of consciousness (physical[1]) were the the one true
> objective reality.

[IG] Agreed, as a statement of historical fact. But the fact that the
felt-need to explain consciousness pre-existed even Newtonian physics
is not changed by the fact that modern physics has arrived, even if
the potential explanations available may have changed - a total
non-sequitor. And that's why the MoQ moves the combination of
Evolution and GoF Physics onward and upward.

Scott:
I question your "fact that the felt-need to explain consciousness 
pre-existed even Newtonian physics". There was a lot of discussion about how 
souls and bodies relate prior to the 17th century, but no sense that the 
existence of consciousness needed explanation. It was just part of reality, 
as was the body, both created by God. There was no attempt to explain 
consciousness in terms of body or any other way that I am aware of -- except 
among the atomists, but they were the crackpots of their day.

{IG] Do you have any interest in the MoQ Scott ?

I've explained many times my agreements and disagreements with the MOQ. 
Among the latter is that the MOQ retains too much modernist thinking, in 
particular a nominalist/materialist view of the succession of the levels of 
SQ. To me, its explanation of their emergence amounts to materialism plus 
DQ. I am not saying that the MOQ is materialist, just that it is still 
infected with some materialist notions, such as the notion that there is a 
need to explain consciousness.

- Scott