[MD] Emergent Consciousness

[ian glendinning]

Platt, earlier in this thread, before you and I eventually got to
"first-base" on emergence from interactions (aka Quality), you threw
in here "You should read Atlas Shrugged"

Having previously read some of Rand's non-fictional philosophical
work, I've not been impressed with her apparent stereotypical
"objectivisim" - that won't surprise you - in fact I've blogged about
it in previous years and "moved on".

Anyway given your repeated plea, I have actually obtained and started
to read Atlas Shrugged. Given that I'm about 180 pages through my 1000
page edition, I need to know why I'm reading it ?

The curiosity keeping me going so far is "why did Platt recommend it,
what message did Platt think I would take away from it." I'd be
interested to know.

There are plenty of characters, central and incidental, that say a
wide range of philosophical (and political) things about business and
motivation. Some of it convincing, some of it claptrap (some of
deliberately so, some of it maybe unintended no doubt). The point is,
given that I'm sticking my neck out at this point less than 20% of the
way through, I can see all the set-ups that are going to get resolved
or turned on their heads as we go along. Suspending disbelief for a
moment, that Rand is a "clever" novelist I could be interested in how
some of those turn out, despite the fact that there are a lot of
fictional elements I find hard to swallow - as an engineer with (real)
interests from metallurgy to business operation and management.

But I have the sneaking suspicion the characters whose opinions I find
credible are the ones you (and Rand) will conclude are speaking
claptrap. Where does this story actually take us as far as morals and
purpose, capitalism and social engineering are concerned. Platt ?

Ian
PS - What makes me really nervous is that all the "glowing credits" to
"Rand's genius" on the back and inside covers are all from the "The
Ayn Rand Institute", not from any credible independent sources. I must
be some kinda mug ?

On 6/28/06, ian glendinning <psybertron at gmail.com> wrote:
> Platt and I exchanged ..
>
> [Ian] Well thanks for that ignorant presumptious caricature Platt, all
> your own work, none of which I said ...
>
> [Platt] You're welcome.
>
> [Ian] That kind of Idealism went out with the Ark .... even for
> redneck conservatives ...
>
> [Platt] There's not an ounce of prejudice or bigotry in Ian. :-)
>
> Ian responds - No there isn't. But there are several pounds of irony :-)
>
> [Platt] Maybe you should let go of illusion that your existence depends on
> someone or something observing you.
>
> Ian says - Never even remotely held such a view. Did you read the
> mail, the semantics, not the words ? Existence depends on interactions
> between things - aka Quality. All else is emergent.
>
> As I say can we even get to first base ?
> Ian
>
>
>
> On 6/28/06, Platt Holden <pholden at davtv.com> wrote:
> > > Well thanks for that ignorant presumptious caricature Platt, all your
> > > own work, none of which I said ...
> >
> > You're welcome.
> >
> > > That kind of Idealism went out with the Ark .... even for redneck
> > > conservatives ...
> >
> > There's not an ounce of prejudice or bigotry in Ian. :-)
> >
> > > "Emergent Appearance" .... to anything "it" interacts with - we
> > > MoQ'ers call it quality don't we - that dynamic interaction ? Why can we
> > > never get past first base Platt ?
> > >
> > > Appearance to humans is just our apparent privelidged position (from our
> > > actual position) ... and all the anthropocentric confusions that causes.
> >
> > So rocks observe? I think you'll have a hard time convincing anyone
> > that rocks and other inanimate objects are capable of sense
> > impressions.
> >
> > > The tree in your back yard needs me to see it in order to be the tree
> > > that I see. It's inherent existence is something quite different (from
> > > the tree that you or I see) - it's the sum total (emergence) of all the
> > > quality interactions of something somewhere sometime - exactly what,
> > > where, when, we can never know (by definition) except by any emergence
> > > we detect. How hard can it be ?
> >
> > Talk about assumptions. We can never know, but somehow we know..
> >
> >  > You need to read the Nagarjuna / Magliola stuff Paul had been
> > > dissecting for us all, and at least understand why the Buddhist
> > > perspective helps, and why the Z in ZMM matters. Don't worry it's not a
> > > religion :-)
> >
> > If I listed all the things you "need to read" it would take all day.
> > Begin with "Atlas Shrugged."
> >
> > > Just let go the irrelevant "illusion" of inherent existence.
> > > Dive in, the water's lovely.
> >
> > Maybe you should let go of illusion that your existence depends on
> > someone or something observing you.
> >
> > > Now - "sensible" - a very good word ... we could do 2000 words on
> > > that, but they'd be wasted, sadly. Sensible - Adj. Capable of being
> > > sensed .... see above.
> >
> > Yes, see rocks above.
> >
> > Platt
> >
> >
> > 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/
> >
>