[MD] confused

[Ham Priday]

SA and Marsha --

SA asks:
> What is MIND?

Marsha answers:
> I think MIND is a constellation of patterns of
> quality.

SA then procedes to tell Marsha that Mind is not [cannot be?] defined:
> Thus, mind, for you, has been a constellation of
> patterns of quality, you've just defined it so. Yet,
> as a reality (a quality) mind is undefined, always, as
> well.  Thus, it is always pre-intellectual and we may,
> if we want to, keep defining it, again, and again, and
> again.  I don't really want to. ...

You may recall my stating that a philosopher must carefully define the terms
he uses, and use them consistently; otherwise he risks confusing his
readers.  It seems to me that terms are being thrown around here without any
attempt at definition, and everyone is using them according to his own idea
of their meaning.  No wonder there is confusion!

Pirsig's favorite term for conscious awareness is Experience.  Now, that's a
common enough word whose meaning would appear to be universally understood.
But it isn't.  For example, do we experience values, such as Beauty, Love,
Justice, Goodness, and Wisdom?  If you say yes, you make no distinction
between cognizance of physical phenomena, apprehension of abstract concepts,
and one's emotional state (feelings). Yet, such distinctions are important
when dealing with epistemological theories.  If they aren't defined, we're
each be trying to communicate our ideas in our own private language.

I used the key word 'Perception' (defined as "understanding") to access a
page on Thesaurus.com and found the following synonyms among the terms
listed: apprehension, awareness, conception, consciousness, discernment,
feeling, realizing, recognition, sensation, thought.

I then looked under 'Awareness' (defined -- wrongly IMO -- as "knowledge")
and found these synonyms listed: apprehension, cognizance, comprehension,
experience, mindfulness, recognition, sensibility, sentience, understanding.
(Note that at least two of the synoyms -- apprehension and recognition -- 
were duplicates of those listed under Perception.)

I repeated the search for 'Concept' (defined as "idea") and copied these
synonyms: abstraction, conception, conceptualization, hypothesis,
intellection, perception, supposition, theory, thought, view.  (Here the
duplicates were perception and thought.)

Finally, I copied the following synonyms for 'Mind' (defined as
"intelligence"): apperception, brain*, cognizance, conception, cognizance,
intellect, intuition, judgment, mentality, perception, psyche, reason, soul,
spirit, wits.  (Again, the duplicates were conception, cognizance, and
perception.)

MD participants use all of these terms, among others, often to mean the same
thing.  If your epistemology has significant differences, you will not be
expressing your views with any degree of clarity.

Since I also deal with these concepts (e.g., abstractions), perhaps Ham's
"simplified" nomenclature for consistent usage may be helpful to the MoQers.

I use Sensibility as an all-encompassing term for non-subjective (i.e.,
non-proprietary) awareness.  This would apply to pre-conscious,
pre-intellectual organisms, the perception of Value (psychosomatic feelings)
by man, as well as the sentience of any supra-natural source (e.g., Essence,
DQ, deity).

I reserve Awareness for the conscious apprehension of creatures with brain
stems.  (In the case of human beings, who possess self-awareness, I use the
term "proprietary awareness".)

Intellect, and its verb-form "intellection", is restricted to human
cognizance of ideas, precepts, and relational constructs of objective
reality.

I avoid Mind altogether, as it suggests an extra-corporeal or collective
realm of intelligence (which I reject), and because it is too often confused
with the brain [hence the asterisk in the Thesaurus listing] and the general
thought process.  Mind is simply too ambiguous a term to be meaningful in
epistemological discussions, as can be seen from Marsha's cryptic
definition: "a constellation of patterns of quality."

I hope this resolves some of the confusion.

Regards,
Ham