[MD] [Moq_Discuss] Aristotle & DQ

[pholden at davtv.com]

Quoting Ham Priday <hampday1 at verizon.net>:

> Greetings Platt --
> 
> 
> Sorry to divert you from your political discussions, but it's always good to 
> hear from you.
> 
> > I can't help but take issue with your assertion that "consciousness"
> > (awareness) is a cognizant attribute of being human" since I'm
> > convinced beyond a doubt that my cat, UTOE, is also aware and
> > knowledgeable albeit not at the same level as you and I. Now, maybe
> > you didn't exclude nonhumans in your statement, but that's
> > how I read it.
> 
> I can't speak for UTOE (can he speak for himself?) but I'm not deliberately 
> excluding animals from either sensibility or awareness.  As for "cognizance" 
> there are sufficient limitations, even for primates, that make me less 
> certain.  No offense to UTOE, but for me, to be cognizant means to possess 
> understanding, particularly the cause-and-effect kind of intelligence that 
> we normally associate with humans.  I'm not sure, for example, that UTOE 
> knows that the string you dangle before him is under your control.  If he 
> did, he would respond to you rather than to the wiggling string.  Also, I 
> doubt very much that UTOE perceives freedom as anything more than not being 
> physically confined or restricted (such as being tethered to a leash).  And 
> I don't believe in a 'felinethropic' universe.
> 
> Seriously, the valuistic world is revealed only to the human species -- at 
> least on this planet.  And since man's choices are based on his values, 
> rather than on natural instinct, human beings operate on an intellectual 
> level that even the best-trained animal is organically unequipped to access. 
> Your love and respect for UTOE is not something one would expect an animal 
> to demonstrate toward another creature.  But rather than argue the point, 
> can we can agree that human life holds more value for mankind than the life 
> of a cat?
> 
> > As for "sensibility," that too extends way down the biological chain to
> > the lowliest virus. Finally, if you think of consciousness as I do as 
> > being
> > everything there is then consciousness is not a "relative function" but
> > simply awareness of awareness. As the physicist Erwin Schroedinger
> > put it, "The external and consciousness are one and the same thing."
> 
> Wasn't Schroedinger the guy who put a cat in a box with a poison gas 
> tripwire, and deliberated over whether it was dead or alive before it was 
> observed?
> 
> Like Jos, you have expressed Donald Hoffman's position that consciousness is 
> all that exists.  Consciousness, like awareness, is relative: it always 
> infers an objective referent.  The essence of reality cannot itself be 
> dependent on an "other".  That's why I reserve the term Sensibility for 
> Essence.  Only the primary source possesses absolute sensibility; we humans 
> can only sense its value relationally using neurons and grey matter borrowed 
> from beingness.  I know your teleological position that value-perception 
> extends down to the atom.  I maintain that man's reality is a construct of 
> his value-perception.  Perhaps the result is the same, but the epistemology 
> is definitely not.
> 
> > Or, in the same vein, William James: "This paper (computer screen)
> > and the seeing of it are two names for one indivisible fact."
> > (Parens added). In other words, consciousness and reality are but
> > two sides of the same coin.  But, I could be wrong.
> 
> Which is the "indivisible fact"?  That you are seeing the screen?  Or that 
> the screen exists?
> Existential facts are always divided between the subject and the object(s). 
> That's because we are beings-aware, and that for anything to exist it must 
> be experienced.  Existence is a self/other dichotomy.  But this does not 
> mean that reality is limited to what we experience.  And this is where you 
> and Hoffman miss the boat.  Without an uncreated source, there would be no 
> existence, no you, no screen, no UTOE.  Our friend Pirsig also seems to have 
> missed this point, as Marsha has quoted him as saying "Dualism dissolves in 
> the light of [Noether's theorem] for all (including space and consciousness) 
> is energy."  I asked Jos rhetorically if that included Quality.  Maybe for 
> Pirsig it does.  Maybe energy is Pirsig's primary source. (I wonder if 
> anybody has ever asked him.)
> 
> Great to chat with you again, Platt.  Incidentally, can I expect you to 
> purchase my book when it comes out?
 
As usual, all your points are well taken, Ham. As for the book, of course I
will purchase it if I don't receive a complimentary copy. :-)

Warm regards,
Platt




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