[MD] The Fringe Factor

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[Micah]
If no one was here to know the cat was hungry, how would we know?

[Arlo]
"We" wouldn't know. But the biological patterns we call the "cat" would continue
to experience hunger.

[Arlo previously]
I'm sure that monkey could convince his/her partner that reality would continue
to exist when we are all gone.

[Micah]
That line cracks me up. Would they be having tea during their discussion?

[Arlo]
Monkeys perceive their distinction from their surroundings. They may not have
semiotic representations of it, but they possess awareness of what is "them"
and what is "not them". As such, for example, when one monkey jumped onto of
another monkey, both would know that something exists that is "not them".

[Micah]
Almost there. Quality is not a result. "Quality event" implies that. It is
medium that connects subject and object.

[Arlo]
A "result"? When did I say this? You really do appear to be quite reliant on
rhetorical tactics, I'll give you that. What I said originally was Quality
precedes the subject/object division. Another quote from Pirsig, "Since all
intellectually identifiable things must emerge from this preintellectual
reality, Quality is the parent, the source of all subjects and objects." (ZMM)

You had said Quality is the meeting of subject and object. To which I gave you
this passage from Pirsig. "This means Quality is not just the result of a
collision between subject and object. The very existence of subject and object
themselves is deduced from the Quality event. The Quality event is the cause of
the subjects and objects, which are then mistakenly presumed to be the cause of
the Quality!"

Quality. Parent. Cause.

Lest there be any further confusion on your part, Pirsig also wrote, "Quality is
neither a part of mind, nor is it a part of matter. It is a third entity which
is independent of the two."

I'd say its you who are "almost there".

[Micah]
If you are the only human alive, how would you know you're alive? Or sane? Two
or more humans are required to have shared objective reality.

[Arlo]
Two or more humans allow the emergence of a mythos, a shared, collective
consciousness, and the emergence of intellectual patterns. If you are the only
person alive, it is impossible for you to be insane, since "sanity" is a
description of normative group behavior.

Let me ask this, let's say we place a newborn on a deserted island. The next day
the human race is annihiliated by a virus that kills every human on earth
except that lone newborn. Let's say the newborn manages to survive. Does
"reality" still exist?

If by "reality" you mean inorganic and-or biological patterns of value, I'd say
absolutely, the I/B patterns of value that we call "rock" and "monkey" (for
example) would continue on their own evolutionary trajectory. The mythos, all
the collective social and intellectual patterns of humans would cease to exist.
And so you could, as Craig refers, play the Wittgensteinian game of "since
there is no human using the semiotic representasum "rock", then rocks cease to
exist." And yes, as a concept that is true. But the inorganic patterns to which
we responded to by the generation of the concept "rock" would continue to
"exist". 

[Micah]
Humans are the only animals that measure.

[Arlo]
So you keep saying.