[MD] On Time?

[Scott Roberts]

Ian,

> Scott:
> Ok. But observe that I am making a distinct point in saying that
> consciousness and intellect have the same denotation as value. In short,
> this means that I am treating consciousness and intellect the same way 
> that
> the MOQ treats quality (well, subject to my disputes with the MOQ). In
> particular reference to this discussion, it means that consciousness has a
> dynamic aspect that is not susceptible to being studied scientifically --  
> or
> as I've been putting it, the study of form always leaves out awareness of
> form.

[IG] I'm clearly not getting the subtlety of "denotation" - but I
agree with your last cluase.

Scott:
Frege's classic example is that "the Morning Star" and "the Evening Star" 
have the same denotation -- the planet Venus -- but different connotations: 
what one sees in the morning, and what one sees in the evening. So I am 
saying that we can see any experiential event as an act of value, or as an 
act of intellect, or as an act of consciousness -- but all referring to the 
same event.

>
> > Scott:
> > For why you shouldn't suspend disbelief that physics will actually 
> > explain
> > the whole of nature, I've given two reasons: the Munchhausen fallacy, 
> > and
> > the one that the debate with Case has been on about, that examination of
> > form (which is what physics is limited to) can never encompass awareness
> > of
> > form. Which is, basically, Chalmers' "hard problem".
>
> [IG] Clearly I don't buy that. Your "can never" sounds suspiciously
> like a folk intuition rather than an argument. You may have to point
> me at the specific arguments you refer to, if we're going to progress
> here. To use Dennett's words Chalmers' version of the hard problem is
> a chimera - though I'm still open to the need for some hard explaining
> in this space.
>
> Scott:
> I can see that whenever I raise my objections to physicalism, the answer
> will always be "intuition pump". Is that also your answer to Pirsig's 
> saying
> that DQ is undefinable?

[IG] This is close to the crux I think. That's the first time I've
every used the intuition pump defence with anyone - I'm not in the
habit - it's not my main argument - I only used it because you chose
to claim "can never" with no hint of reason or explanation.

Scott:
No hint? Read the last few posts I've written to Case in this thread and in 
the "Quality, DQ and SQ" thread.

Ian continued:
I don't see why physics should be restricted to the study of form,
rather than the study of awareness or interaction with form. Clearly
that's what I'm applying physics to - the quality interaction.

The undefiniablity of DQ - is indeed no different to the hard problem
- the ineffability of qualia (the subjective qualities of awareness).
It may be ineffable with any given resources of language and science
(world model / physics / metaphysics). That is simply a difficulty,
not a blockage to progress. The definition will improve as progress is
made - to a point where it ceases to be a problem. (Just look at the
history of "elan vital" - the inconceivable factor was just how much
information about life could be packed redundantly in to the chemistry
of every cell nucleus - once that was appreciated the mystery
evaporated - uintil then it was a mystery - a "hard problem" -
intuitions can be misleading for many generations, and still turn out
to be wrong.)

Scott:
Well, you are definitely disagreeing with Pirsig here.

> Scott:
> It isn't. If you can imagine someone who's mystical insight is comparable 
> to
> that of Eckhart or Shankara, but who was a 20th century American,
> well-versed in modern philosophy, science, and mathematics -- that's FM-W.
> He is well able to stand back and critique his own mystical experience.

[IG] OK - I'll need to research unless you'd like to give some
specific insights ?

Better that you read FM-W yourself. DMB provided some quotes, but the 
problem with mysticism is how much one trusts the mystic, and thats as much 
a matter of overall tone and attitude than it is of mystical propositions.

> Scott:
> One must be pedantic to make clear our differences. Forms of consciousness
> are just forms, in my vocabulary -- one needs to bring in the ubiquitous 
> but
> undefinable Dynamic aspect of consciousness as well. So from my point of
> view, we cannot "clearly" define some forms of consciousness, no more than
> we can clearly define some forms of quality.

[IG] Again it's the level of pedantry. When I said "define" I meant in
a useful ontological sense make distinctions between - dead / alive /
sleeping / unconscious / applying lingustics symbolic manipulation /
being more or less intelligent / being reflective / being first person
aware of ... etc.

I suspect you are reserving bthe word conscousness for this ineffable
human first person awareness - I wasn't, I was being more general
about the subject as a whole, starting from simplest behaviourism ?
(I've made no human / non-human distinctions in talking about the
subject generally)

Scott:
No, I'm using consciousness the way FM-W does -- as a most general term, 
while human first person awareness is what he calls 'relative consciousness'

> Scott:
> Actually, I've found that the MOQ does not clearly state that there was no
> consciousness until some point in time. When I raised this question a 
> while
> back, I got ambiguous answers from DMB and Ant.

[IG] Whatever Pirsig has stated or not - I think it's fair game to
debate which view creates the most consistent workd-view.

Scott:
Agree.

> Scott:
> I have my differences with the MOQ, though the ubiquity of value is not 
> one
> of them, nor is the dynamic/static dichotomy. I do not deny evolution,
> though I agree that there is a huge question -- to which I don't have an
> answer -- of what it means if time is not presupposed.

[IG] I see this time debate is a red-herring here - any causal
sequence argument would suffer, not just evolution, and the fact that
time has some mysteries shouldn't lead us to assume time ceases to be
a valid concept.

Scott:
Of course they would suffer, since the concept of causality suffers. But 
that's only when one gets metaphysical or mystical. Science does not suffer, 
since science works just fine within the relative world. This is the 
Buddhist "two truths" business. We work within the concepts of causality, 
space, and time in going about our daily business, and science is part of 
that daily business. But that all breaks down if we start asking about value 
(or consciousness or intellect). It also breaks down in quantum physics. 
This means that we can't explain the appearance of the macrocosmic world 
(that is, perception) in terms of spatiotemporal causality. This means that 
science is the wrong tool for studying perception -- it's looking in the 
wrong place. It should also make one suspicious about using it as the tool 
for extrapolating into the past to an assumed time when there was no 
perception, since then there was no macrocosmic reality, which is to say, no 
spacetime. To think that there was is to assume that the objective world 
that supposedly exists independently of the observer is the macrocosmic 
world. That kind of thinking should be history by now, but apparently not.

- Scott