[MD] Emergent Consciousness

[Steve Peterson]

Hi Arlo,

Arlo:
I have been saying for a while that the basic principles of Pirsig's emergentist
model (indeed, ANY emergentist model) is that each level contains
"individuals", and it is through "collective activity" of these "individuals"
by which the next level "up" emerges.
Steve:

I have been away for a while and haven't heard you talk about the MOQ as an emergent model. I've had some thoughts along the same line but I don't recall ever discussing it much.

Arlo:
>From the collective activity of individual atoms emerges the cell. 

eventually it makes a jump from "more complex" to "whole new thing". 
Restated, "individuals" on one level are the product of the "collective
 activity" of "individuals" one level down.
Going up the scale, we come to the statement, "intellectual patterns emerge from
collective activity of social individuals". 

Steve:

I recently mentioned that I sometimes think of intellectual patterns as waves in a sea of social patterns which are waves in a sea of biological patterns, etc.



Arlo:
In thinking about Platt's claim (intellectual level is individual level), I
first fault him for a poor word choice. Atoms are "individuals" (on the
inorganic level). Cells are "individuals" (on the biological level). Human
bodies are "individuals" (again, on the biological level). I.e., ALL levels
contain "individuals". Indeed, my read of Pirsig would say that a correct
statement would be "The Law of Gravity is an "individual" on the intellectual
level". (The Law of Gravity, an individual on the intellectual level, emerges
from the collective activity of individuals on the social level).



Steve:
I agree.


Arlo:
But what Platt means, I gather, is that the "intellectual level" is the level of "individual human consciousnesses". "Platt", "Arlo", "SA", these are all "individual intellectual patterns". 


Steve:
 
 I think for Platt the intellectual level is more like the Randian level. It's the level of Harold Rourkes and John Galts.
 
 I agree with your idea that identity emerges out of social patterns and that there is a conection to the evolution of the intellectual level. Perhaps the first idea was "I." 
 
 DMB could probably draw some correlates from developmental psychology to show how this particular emergence happens to everyone.
 
 But I wouldn't equate consciousness with the intellectual level. There is "consciousness" at all levels which can be equated with the ability to respond to Quality at whatever level since to be aware is to value.
 
 RMP Annotation 30
 "I think the answer is that inorganic objects experience events but do not react to them biologically socially or intellectually. They react to these experiences inorganically,according to the laws of physics."
 
In that way, I think inorganic objects are conscious. It's just the lowest possible level of consciousness.

 Likewise, biological objects (animals and plants) can respond to biological quality, social subjects (humans, perhaps primates, or other animals) can respond to social quality, and intellectual subjects (humans) can respond to intellectual quality. These are all levels of consciousness.
 

Arlo:

What struck me as odd today, as I sift through some old papers, is how Foucaultian this position is. It is, of course, well within the social constructionist school, but posits that "identity" (individual human consciousness) is the result of collective social activity.


Steve:

I don't know that first thing about Foucault, but I can agree here. Except I'm not sure we are on the same page as to what social activity refers to.

I think that if intellect is the manipulation of abstract symbols, the first symbols must have been social patterns. It is words that are being manipulated and it is the collective activity (manipulation) of these words from which intellect emerges.

Can you see abstract symbols as the "individuals" from which intellect emerges?



Arlo:

This, of course, supports the notion of "social mediation" between the
"individual human consciousness" and the "physical world". (SOMist thinking, I
gather, was the result of the "myth of independence" invented by the
intellectual level).

Of course, there continue to be problems. It is one thing to say "Platt is an
intellectual pattern" (meaning his consciousness, not his body) because it
seems localizable IN his physical body. But then what is "The Law of Gravity"?
It, too, is a pattern, but where does it reside? Can you point to it? This
perspective, I suppose, drops The Law of Gravity to a social level position.


Steve:
I don't understand why the Law of Gravity falls to the social level. I don't see why whether we can "localize" an intellectual pattern matters.

Regards,
Steve

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