[MD] meaning, awareness and understanding

[Scott Roberts]

Ham,

Scott said:
> If the world of an amoeba were fully described in Newtonian
> mechanistic terms, there would be no value involved in the
> amoeba's reaction. What the Newtonian leaves out is that in
> avoiding the acid, there has been a placement of the particular
> situation within some general context: the amoebic species has
> cognized that acid is harmful, better move away.

Ham said:
You MoQers like to borrow terms from Pirsig's novels, make nice sounding but
false metaphors from them, and then convince yourselves of their profound
truth.  It drives me up the wall!  As I've said before, the amoeba does
not -- CAN NOT  -- 'cognize', 'recognize', 'cogitate' or 'value' anything.
It has no brain or nervous system.  A clinging vine does not encircle a
drainpipe because it values water.  An electron does not jump to a proton
because it values a positive charge.  Such assertions are pure fiction and
have no place in serious philosophy.

Scott:
First, you ignored my last remark which I put there to make sure you didn't 
think I was speaking for "You MoQers". It didn't work, apparently.

Second, I was very careful to NOT say that an amoeba can " 'cognize', 
'recognize', 'cogitate' or 'value' anything". But you ignored that as well. 
What I am saying is an attempt to make sense of Aquinas' dictum: "The 
natural object is established between two intelligences". The observable 
actions of an amoeba are a sign of that second intelligence, but what that 
second intelligence is I can only guess at (for Aquinas, of course, it is 
God). I consider Aquinas a serious philosopher. Also I consider Plotinus, 
Coleridge, Schelling, Hegel, and Peirce to be serious philosophers, all of 
whom are more or less within this line of thinking.


Ham continued:
There are forces in the universe, particularly in living organisms, that
tend toward homeostasis for the survival of the species.  But these
mechanisms are not values to the organism; the euphemistic use of value here
is incorrect and misleading.  The proper term for such "goal-seeking"
behavor on the part of an insentient universe is Teleology, and the Jesuit
paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin (in his "The Phenomenon of Man") and
biologist Edmund Sinnott ("Biology of the Spirit") argued that evolution
began at the inorganic level, geogenesis, progressed through the origin of
living material, biogenesis, to animal behavior, psychogenesis, and finally
to the mind of man, noogenesis.

Scott:
See above. In any case, I don't think much of Teilhard de Chardin. His view 
of evolution is too much like Pirsig's. Better than a neo-Darwinist view, to 
be sure, but still too much captured by a modernist, nominalist view of 
things.

Ham said:
But if teleology is really value, WHOSE value is it?  An amoeba isn't a
conscious creature; hence it can't value, based on your previous statement
that "value implies [presupposes] awareness".  Any value attributed to a
purposively directed universe must therefore reside either in the Creator or
in the conscious sensibility of man.

Scott:
See above. But why limit intelligence to a Creator and humanity? Ultimately, 
all intelligence and value derives from Intelligence, to be sure, but why 
can't it take on many forms, not just human? Why can't Nature be an exercise 
in value, consciousness, and intelligence just as much as humanity is?

Scott said:
> A particular encounter with acid, then, is a semiotic
> event -- this acid invokes the general pattern. This
> does not mean that an amoeba is in itself employing
> semiosis. But, I would argue, for the amoeba to
> follow a static *pattern of value* means that semiosis
> is being employed. I would venture that instinct is the
> word we have for this. The alternative to this is that
> it just moves away "automatically", or deterministically.
> That, I claim, denies that the pattern of moving away
>  is a pattern *of value*.

Ham said:
Kindly explain to me how an amoeba would use semiosis if it could (or did).
Are you suggesting that an amoeba might be conversant with words and
symbols?  Also, do you consider a "pattern of value" possible in the absence
of any conscious apprehension of it?  If so, then you are not talking about
what I understand as value.

Scott:
No, I am not suggesting that an amoeba might be conversant with words, which 
is why I put in that sentence "This does not mean that an amoeba is in 
itself employing semiosis". This discussion would proceed more smoothly if 
you would actually pay attention to what I say. What I am saying is that the 
observed amoeba, and all natural objects, are wordlike. That which is 
speaking these words I can only guess at -- the amoebic species, Nature as a 
whole, God, whatever.

No, I do not consider "pattern of value" possible in the absence of any 
conscious apprehension of it. That's why I say that value, consciousness, 
and intellect are three names for the same (non-)thing. And I repeat: this 
is my view -- you won't find it in any of Pirsig's writings that I am aware 
of.

- Scott