[MD] -elitist ideas

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Arlo previously]
I'd say "sentience" is a complex mix of social and intellectual 
patterns, but is different from the experience of the amoeba not in 
"kind" but in "degree".

[Case]
And I would say that probably social patterns and certainly 
intellectual patterns required nervous systems to be manifest.

[Arlo]
This seems to be true, a brain is required for the manipulation of 
said symbols. But when did I say an amoeba experiences social or 
intellectual patterns? I said it experiences biological patterns (and 
even quite unsophisticated ones, compared to a dolphin, as I said to 
Kevin). But experience, it does (says Yoda-Arlo).

[Arlo previously]
Um, isn't "optimum" just another way to say "better" (or "best", 
perhaps)? What is different from my saying "an amoeba is a complex 
system that moves towards some better state with its environment"?

[Case]
Except that "better" implies awareness the difference and ability to 
choose, disappointment. Introducing these notions provides the 
illusion of empathy without any real improvement in understanding of 
the events.

[Arlo]
Well, I'm not sure how "optimum" doesn't imply choice (in this 
sense). The amoeba would have to experience that Point B was "better" 
than Point A, and then "choose" Point B. It wouldn't be a symbolic 
"choice", of course, indicating that it would be visible only by 
virtue of response, not of intent or reflection (which require 
symbolic activity).

[Case]
What do you see as the gain from such anthropomorphism?

[Arlo]
I'm not sure its anthropomorphism, which for me suggests again an 
extra-natural "man" who experiences and values apart from a nature 
that does not experience or value. What it does, for me, is embed man 
IN nature (or refuse to separate the two). Experience and 
value  (Quality) is manifest from Quantum Theory (intellectual value) 
all the way down to the quanta themselves (inorganic value).

[Case]
This is a little weird but about what you expect when you get close 
to the edge but I would say an amoeba's responses are not purely 
biological in the same way that carbon bonding is not purely 
inorganic. In other words an amoeba is a biological system that 
responds in a purely electrochemical way. It is simply the level of 
complex chemical interactions that it involved in its behavior.

[Arlo]
The edges are always fascinating, and typically the place where 
intellection breaks down. But you could say the same about "man", 
could you not? That we respond in purely electrochemical ways. Even 
our most complex thoughts rest on electrochemical action. I'm not 
sure what this reductionism does, except posit two levels, "man" and 
"everything else".

[Case]
No but I think "experience" required a nervous system sophisticated 
enough to encode memory.

[Arlo]
I think static symbolic representations require memory, but 
experience is direct.

[Arlo previously]
So the amoeba does not "experience" anything?

[Case]
This is where I like Whitehead's notion of occasions or events as the 
fundamental units of process.

[Arlo]
You'd have to explain to me the difference.

[Case]
Experience implies memory and learning; the integrations of the past 
with the present.

[Arlo]
Not to me it doesn't. Reflective experience does, but even that 
amoeba experiences value.

[Case]
These terms carry tons of extra meaning with them that simply do not 
apply. If the intent is to alter our understand of the terms 
themselves perhaps it is better just to use value
neutral terms to start with.

[Arlo]
I understand this concern, and said the same thing about the word 
"moral". But I think positing "value-experience" (Quality) as a 
natural process from quanta to Quantum Theory represents a 
significant improvement over not doing so. My opinion only, of course.