[MD] Emergent Consciousness

[Ham Priday]

Hey Peter [Arlo mentioned] --

> In generaI I agree with what you said except: 'nothingness in effect
> makes...'. Maybe it's just very difficult to be precise when dealing with
> the concerns of this discussion board but as I see it the nothingness,
'I',
> does not do or make anything - it is just a proposed symbol for that
> autonomous individual composed of 4 strata of spandrels proposing the 'I';
> so for me it is the individual that "in effect makes 'being-aware' in
> consciousness". I suppose that implies that the 'I', awareness or
> consciousness is DQ (as someone else on these fora has said).

I can appreciate your objection to my use of 'nothingness' in an active
sense.  Reinier and SA, among others, have also seen this as problematic.
However, this doesn't appear to be your objection.  What troubles you is
that I haven't attempted to define the subjective self in terms of the
Pirsigian levels.  I'm sorry, but the 'I' I'm talking about is not a
biological or social entity, and while it uses intellect to construct sense
impressions and ideas, "intellect" is hardly a synonym for "awareness".

This symbolic 'I' stems from Buddhistic literature and is not my preferred
term for proprietary consciousness.  It was Arlo who I think used the term
in reference to an Einstein statement.  You quoted Arlo as saying:

> "Like I've said, I consider the 'I' and the 'collective
> consciousness' to be co-constructs at the social level,
> siding with Einstein's view that the 'I is an 'optical
> delusion of consciousness'.

Actually, there was no 'I' in Einstein's statement, and the only reference
that could be considered sociological was his plea for "...widening our
circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature
in its beauty."

But Arlo persists in misconstruing awareness as behavior.  Whether this is
purposeful or in deference to the MoQ heirarchy, I'm not sure, but it is
annoying.  Frankly, I don't see how it's possible -- let alone reasonable -- 
for an individual to ignore the fact that everything he knows, thinks, or
feels is awareness.  And with Experience being the primary MoQ interaction
of the individual with reality, I should think awareness would be the
dominant issue of these discussions.

As to whether this implies that "the 'I', awareness or consciousness is DQ",
you would have to ask the author.  For me awareness is the subject of the
self/other dichotomy otherwise known as existence.

Best regards,
Ham