[MD] Ham on Esthesia

[Joseph Maurer]

On Wednesday 23 August 2006 5:36 PM Ham writes to SA and Case:

<snip>

The root of consciousness is self-awareness. Tnis can no more be
universalized than can the experience of love, joy, or contentment. The fact 
that
subjectivity is inimical to Science does not mean that it does not exist.
Rather, it demonstrates the fact that Science is incapable of dealing with
subjective phenomena. The scientist is bound to the objectivist approach to
knowledge, which is to disregard or remove subjective influences from the
objects of investigation. The "meat" analogy of conscious awareness is not
only grossly disgusting, it is a total misconception of proprietary
awareness.

Regards,
Ham


Hi Ham, SA, Case,

This is an excerpt from P.D. Ouspensky's book In Search of the Miraculous.

Gurdjieff asks Ouspensky:

How do you define consciousness?

Consciousness is considered to be indefinable, I said, and indeed, how can 
it be defined if it is an inner quality? With the ordinary means at our 
disposal it is impossible to prove the presence of consciousness in another 
man. We know it only in ourselves.

All this is rubbish, said G., the usual scientific sophistry.......... Only 
one thing is true in what you have said: that you can know consciousness 
only in yourself. Observe that I say you can know, for you can know it only 
when you have it. And when you have not got it, you can know that you have 
not got it, not at that very moment, but afterwards. I mean that when it 
comes again you can see that it has been absent a long time, and you can 
find or remember the moment when it disappeared, and when it reappeared. You 
can also define the moments when you are nearer to consciousness and further 
away from consciousness. But by observing in yourself the appearance and the 
disappearance of consciousness you will inevitably see one fact which you 
neither see nor acknowledge now, and that is that moments of consciousness 
are very short and are separated by long periods of completely unconscious, 
mechanical working of the machine. You will then see that you can think, 
feel, act, speak, work, without being conscious of it. And if you learn to 
see in yourself the moments of consciousness and the long periods of 
mechanicalness, you will as infallibly see in other people when they are 
conscious of what they are doing and when they are not...................

...............In reality consciousness is a property which is continually 
changing. Now it is present, now it is not present. And there are different 
degrees and different levels of consciousness. Both consciousness and the 
different degrees of consciousness must be understood in oneself by 
sensation, by taste. No definitions can help you in this case and no 
definitions are possible so long as you do not understand what you have to 
define. And science and philosophy cannot define consciousness because they 
want to define it where it does not exist. It is necessary to distinguish 
consciousness from the possibility of consciousness. We have only the 
possibilities of consciousness and rare flashes of it. Therefore we cannot 
define what consciousness is. pps116-117 In Search of the Miraculous by P.D. 
Ouspensky. Paperback edition.

IMO Pirsig emphasizes this approach by dividing Quality into DQ/SQ, our 
experience.

Joe

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ham Priday" <hampday1 at verizon.net>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2006 5:36 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] Ham on Esthesia


> SA --
>
>
> Jos asked:
>> From your studies in neurosciences how far have things
>> gotten with those cool fancy color images of the brain at
>> work? Are those hard to get and require injecting people
>> with radioactive stuff and tons of expensive equipment?
>>
>> What would you say the neurosciences tell us about the
>> nature of consciousness beyond what you say below?
>
> Case replied:
>
>> Ham, this is completely inaccurate. There are a whole range
>> of "neuropathic pain" states where individuals perceive immense
>> discomfort and pain without any external stimulus.  People here
>> seem to like to refer to pain as an objective commodity, (direct
>> from the meat). The basing this on objective "scientific"
>> evidence they then go on to use it as part of an argument
>> against biologically derived consciousness.
>> I can report that this is a misrepresentation of scientific
>> opinion. Having trained as a neuroscientist I can assure you
>> that all collegues and supervisors of mine were in complete
>> agreement in their description of pain an emotional response.
>> The meat derived element is generally described as
>> "nociceptive stimulus" but the interpretation of that stimulus
> < (pain) is a non objective experience derived from consciousness.
>> Awareness includes more subtle sensibilities than pain.
>
> It's interesting that you define the phenomenon of pain as a "response".
> This makes the sensation objective (or universal), thus validating it
> scientifically.  But the experience of pain is proprietary to the 
> individual
> subject and, therefore, is not a transferable or universal phenomenon.  It
> is proprietary to the individual who experiences it.  I do not contest the
> fact that pain is produced by truuma to
> injured nerve cells.  But the experience of pain is proprietary to the
> individual.  It is a subjective experience, and no amount of objective
> evidence is going to explain it away.  There is a significant difference
> between what is diagnostically recorded as the patient's "complaint of
> experiencing pain" and the actual experience.
>
>> All of these supposed "higher" or more subtle forms of
>> awareness are no different from Pain; in fact they are
>> absolutely intertwined with it and its role in consciousness.
>> They are the other end of the same see-saw, we strive
>> for the good stuff and move away from pain. Nociceptive
>> stimulus is meat, but it no more defines "pain" than the
>> firing pattern of certain cells in your amygdala defines love.
>
> Any and all awareness is proprietary to the individual.  It is not 
> universal
> experience, and the attempt to define it in terms of a behavioral response
> is a misrepresentation.  This is another example of Science defining
> proprietary awareness in terms of behavior, which is an objective 
> perversion
> of subjectivity.
>
>> Consciousness doesn't "emerge from a lump of meat",
>> part of it is below the meat, part of it is the meat, part of it
>> is written on top of the meat. The meat resides in
>> consciousness and the two are interdependent.
>
> The root of consciousness is self-awareness.  Tnis can no more be
> universalized
> than can the experience of love, joy, or contentment.  The fact that
> subjectivity is inimical to Science does not mean that it does not exist.
> Rather, it demonstrates the fact that Science is incapable of dealing with
> subjective phenomena.  The scientist is bound to the objectivist approach 
> to
> knowledge, which is to disregard or remove subjective influences from the
> objects of investigation.  The "meat" analogy of conscious awareness is 
> not
> only grossly disgusting, it is a total misconception of proprietary
> awareness.
>
> Regards,
> Ham
>
>
>
> 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/
>