[MD] MD Quality, DQ and SQ

[ian glendinning]

Hi Scott, (and David) and Happy New Year MoQ'ers,

Anti-Kuhnian ? no I'm not. Small changes until the leap is visible,
I'd agree, then leaps can happen - though it can still take along time
for "received wisdom" to catch up with the new "paradigm". (Like most
"scientists" I'm anti-Kuhnian only on the suggestion that some
ignorant conservatism is the thing that holds the leap back - far from
it - it's the language that embodies the conservatism, takes time to
evolve in wider consciousness). On this one - I still don't see the
leap to needing to believe a fully developed consciousness pre-existed
so much "science"

Science ? - You re-inforce my lingustic argument. The fuzzy,
non-objectively testable, metaphorical models and thought experiments
explicitly not intended to be taken literally, etc aspects of what I
call physics are are according to you beyond "science" into pure maths
and philosophy. I'd agree, if you're going to limit science to the
objectively predictable and testable, then you're talking about a much
narrower science than I am with my physics. Just a lingustic problem
in what we call the thing we're talking about. I call it physics (or
nature, I suspect) - the best model of knowledge of the workings of
the real world.

(The objectively testable bits of science are only 20% of science, as
I've said many times - the so-called scientific method.) How many
times do I have to quote Max Born "I am convinced that theoretical
physics is actual metaphysics". That's been true for almost a century
in mainstream physics.

Anyway - our core (non-lingustic) point. Which "consciousness-like"
things existed before any of the layers in the MoQ ? I say "quality" -
a kind of proto-consciousness I suggested - "the existence of
significant, detectable differences". What do you say ? (Your stuff on
semiosis suggests we almost agree.)

(If the problem word in there is "before" - then our debate is back to
a working model of time and causality - altogether tougher.)

Ian

On 12/28/05, Scott Roberts <jse885 at localnet.com> wrote:
> Ian,
>
> Ian said:
> Clearly I cannot yet suspend disbelief in the FM-W view, but the point
> of this approach is evolutionary - making small leaps from where one
> already is.
>
> Scott:
> This sounds anti-Kuhnian of you. I see it the situation as one of noticing
> anomalies, until one realizes that all these anomalies arise from "where one
> already is", and so requiring a major leap -- in this case, from thinking of
> consciousness as emerging in space and time to thinking of space and time as
> creations of consciousness, which is a major leap.
>
> Ian said:
> I still says when you say "science" you mean good old fashioned
> objective logical positivism type science. I still says this is just
> linguistic.
>
> Scott:
> I'm not sure where you got that impression. I see science as the study of
> that which can be studied through building models and testing them (that is,
> the models should provide predictions). Around that there is metaphysical
> and mathematical creativity, but the line between them is fuzzy (quantum
> gravity theories are mostly mathematical exercises, pondering the quantum
> measurement problem is mostly metaphysics).
>
> - Scott
>
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