[MD] confused

[Platt Holden]

Hi Ham,

> Yes, I see you and Arlo are engaged in a vicarious morality debate on
> female nudity.  Do you suppose he could arrange with Horse to post some
> photo samples?  (It would liven things up a bit here.)

Sure would. Pictures of naked girls included with posts on the morality of 
public decency would obviously find acceptance by Arlo since he is 
"indifferent" to the female body. Of course, in the interests of Zen 
harmony and balance we should include photos of naked men, too.  :-)  

> Terminology is a sticky wicket, as a wordsmith of your caliber certainly
> knows.  I suspect that more than one philosopher has doomed his thesis to
> oblivion by the words he chose to explain it.  Practically speaking, we all
> adopt a vernacular that best conveys the concepts we're trying to express.
> I'll admit that I've selected terms whose common or root meanings come
> closest to expressing the concepts of Essentialism.  I don't insist, or
> even encourage, others to use my terms and definitions in communicating a
> different philosophical perspective.  However, I do think it behooves any
> theorist dealing with abstractions to carefully define those terms for
> which some "special meaning" is assumed or intended.

I whole-heartedly agree. Rand is particularly adamant about this. She 
often
demands of wooly-headed academics, politicians and other bloviators to  
"Define your terms." Here no one seems willing to submit to an authority 
on word meanings, whether Webster, Random House, or other legitimate
dictionary, probably because the word "authority" is anathema to many
brought up under the aegis of multiculturism where no one is ever wrong
(except conservatives).
   
PH
> > I see your "sensibility" and Pirsig's "experience" as synonyms.
 
H
> I don't, because "experience" presupposes an object, while sensibility does
> not.  Thus, feeling pain or pleasure, seeing red, and being aware of
> ourselves can be regarded as types of sensibility in the absence of
> objects, but without a referent object or event, there can be no
> experience. Experience is always the conscious awareness of 'something'
> apart from the self.  (Although one can be aware of himself in the absence
> of experience, he's not likely to expressed it as: "I am experiencing my
> self.")  All organisms have sensibility, whether they integrate it into
> consciousness or not.  Human beings "know" that they are aware, which is
> why I refer to human consciousness as proprietary awareness.

I don't see the difference between experience and sensibility. I 
experience pain, red and other aspects of myself all the time as objects 
of my subjective "I." The fact that I know that I experience or sense 
things both internally and externally doesn't seem to me to be definitive 
of the difference between the words experience and sense.  

PH
> > I see "awareness" the same as "sensibility" and "experience."
> > I don't know what the brain stem has to do with anything.

H 
> The brain "intellectualizes" sensory data into specific objects of
> experience localized in time and space relative to the subject.  That of
> course makes Experience somewhat ambiguous, too.  Is it correctly described
> as subjective or objective?   In the sense that WE are the perceivers,
> experience is subjective.  But in the sense that its contents are WHAT we
> perceive, experience is objective.  Inasmuch as Pirsig doesn't acknowledge
> subjects and objects, he probably thought it doesn't matter -- he can refer
> to experience as a "quality pattern".  Metaphysically, though, (I THINK) we
> would both say that the objects of experience are intellectualized
> constructs, which -- at least in my philosophy -- means that objects are
> the subject's representational (i.e., differentiated) images of the
> value(s) perceived.

Doesn't my cat UTOE also "intellectualize" sensory data into specific 
objects in time and space relative to himself? I think so. So I find the 
word "intellectualize" a bit off base because I don't think of animals, 
even those with brain stems, as "intellectualizing." My knowledge of 
biology is weak, but don't germs (who I believe are without brain stems) 
also react to objects relative to themselves? They certainly raise hell 
with my white corpuscles sometimes.

PH
> > What about "consciousness?"

H 
> I see consciousness as synonomous with cognizance ("knowing").  I don't
> think we can be fully conscious without experience, as defined above, but I
> think it underlies or subtends the continuity of sensible awareness.  I
> would choose the second of Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary's five
> definitions: "2. the state of being characterized by sensation, emotion,
> volition, and thought."
> 
> Incidentally, Webster's follows this definition with the word MIND (in
> caps. as a synonym).  So there's the answer to SA's query: What is MIND?" 
> It's Consciousness.

Seems to me "intellectualizing" fits more with consciousness and mind than 
experience. But, this merely illustrates the problem of definition. I 
would be more than willing to accept Merriam Webster's Collegiate 
Dictionary as the "authority" regarding definitions except I don't have a 
copy. I use Random House Unabridged, Random House Webster's, and the
on line Merriam-Webster -- mostly the latter. I believe you have referred 
from time to time to a philosophy dictionary. Would be helpful I think to 
have an "official" dictionary and an "official" encyclopedia for this 
site, one that is preferably accessible on the Internet without a fee. To 
coin a phrase, that way we would all be "on the same page," allowing us to 
rise to "the next level" so we could "make a difference" by "giving 
something back" for the sake of "the commons." :-) 

Best regards,
Platt