[MD] Does the MOQ invalidate Subjectivity?

[Ham Priday]

Gene --


> I really still just want an answer to this one question:
> What reason can you give me to believe that only humans have awareness.

I don't think I ever said that only humans have awareness.  What I said (or
least meant to say) was that humans are unique in that they are aware of
themselves as cognizant beings.  I'm not certain whether to call this
faculty "self-awareness" or "self-consciousness"; in either case, the
individual human "knows" that he is a cognizant entity, that his awareness
of the world is private (proprietary) to himself.  [See my latest response
to Steve and Matt in which you are mentioned.]

> Sure animals do what they're biologically programmed to do. So do humans.
> For all our vaunted self-awareness, and consciousness, we're basically
still
> just a bunch of monkeys. And frankly, most of humanity still acts like it.
I
> don't see much difference between a well trained monkey and a well trained
> desk jockey.
> So really. What reason can you give me to deny self-awareness to animals
as
> a whole?

I think that considerably sleights man's capabilities and potential.  Man
has the sensibility to discriminate in matters of moral behavior, esthetic
values, and intellectual judgment.  He can plan his life in accordance with
his values, and can equip himself to live in virtually any environment or
climate he chooses -- the planet Mars, if necessary.  Early on he learned to
use  fire for warmth and cooking, the wheel for transporting himself or his
goods, and the cultivation of crops and domestic animals to allow more time
for his creative pursuits.  He not only developed mathematics and a refined
language to communicate his thoughts, but invented books to pass his
knowledge on to succeeding generations.  He discovered the laws and
principles of nature and mastered the science of quantifying all observable
phenomena.

Not one of these achievements was biologically programmed.  What other
creature can you name that has done any of these things?  The lower animals
still spend their lives hunting for prey, scavenging for food, seeking more
habitable shelter or climates, and copulating -- all of which they were
biologically programmed to do.

Gene, I don't deny that animals have awareness and are capable of perceiving
things, and I can't prove that they lack self-consciousness.  But this isn't
the point of my argument for subjectivity.  Steve and Matt have referred to
the phrase "an experience of experiencing" (it may be Pirsig's, I don't
know) which would seem to be a semantic way of "objectifying" awareness.
Now they are starting to question its validity in the MoQ thesis.  I would
be happy just to have you all acknowledge the proprietary nature of
individual experience without having to quote Pirsig denying it.  You would
then have the option, it seems to me, of postulating either that existence
is all in "your head" -- in which case Reality is "subjective", or that
everything is Quality -- which, I suppose, would make You its object.

As you already know, I don't subscribe to either of these ontologies.  For
me, existence is a dichotomy.  My "monism" is the Absolute Source.

Incidentally, how are you progressing with my thesis?  I would have expected
at least a dozen questions by now ;-)

Essentially yours,
Ham