[MD] Ham on Esthesia

[Case]

[Platt]
Your  faith in physicists is admirable, but sooner or later they run into
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Besides, the mystics tell us 
"Thought is not a path to reality."

[Case]
It is a faith so strong I have been repeatedly attempting to argue that we
should take that idea of uncertainty seriously. It is as I have repeatedly
tried to show engrained in our language, culture in fact our very nature. We
are creatures that attempt to beat the odds, We estimate probabilities on
the fly and scheme to overcome uncertainty. It makes us very uncomfortable.
Mystics... ok so do they just say this or is it a thought they have?
 
[Platt]
Harmony is often associated with beauty. But I wonder. How does a 
physicist or a materialist of any kind explain beauty?

[Case]
Beauty, harmony, love and all emotions are part of what we are. How is a
physical explanation inadequate?

[Platt]
Your analogy of lungs with water doesn't work. Lungs don't exist in 
different states. Lungs are like other bodily organs that interact with 
the environment, drawing from it what the body needs to survive. The 
brain, a bodily organ - a bulb of nerve tissue - can likewise be 
thought to draw awareness from a conscious environment for survival 
purposes. 

[Case]
I did aver all say I didn't understand your analogy and just proceeded to
make up one of my own. In the instance of lungs what you have is like a fire
able to fetch its own wood. I like your brain analogy but would say the
brain is able to produce consciousness from the raw materials of the
environment.

[Platt]
As for "emergence" from complexity being a favorite explanation of 
change among some contributors here, I like Ken Wilber's comment:

[Case]
I snipped the Wilber quote because it was too annoying to look at while I
type. All Wilber is saying to that "They" don't know so it must be... blah,
blah, blah. Frankly, the Christian view of an all loving God makes as much
sense is far more emotionally satisfying. I prefer an honest "I don't know".
Anything else is just wishful thinking. 

[Platt]
There's little doubt that the MOQ comes down on the side of "something 
else going on."

[Case]
And that something is static predictable patterns coalescing out the dynamic
uncertainty. Order emerging as a natural consequence of dynamic chaos.