[MD] What is SOM?

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[Ham]
My answer is that consciousness comes from "on high", from the Source, the
Creator, Essence.  But you're not satisfied with my answer. 

[Arlo]
You've not given me an answer previously. Now you have. When I asked, from
pre-primates without consciousness to humans with, "what changed?", I now take
you answer to be "God intervened and waved his magic wand and, poof, primates
that did not have consciousness suddenly had it". That's only moderately in
jest, of course, but I think that sums up your position, no?

[Ham]
You want me to say that consciousness is either a genetically-formed component
of the central nervous system or a socially-formed concept of self-identity. 

[Arlo]
No, I said if its not one of these, what is it. In the last post I tossed out
"Abracadabra" as another option. That appears to be the one you are going with.

[Ham]
You want me to date its emergence as an evolved organ and localize it
anatomically.

[Arlo]
Since its such a vital component of your thesis, I'd think you'd want to have
answers to these questions. Why you ran from the "God poofed it into us" rather
than being upfront all along, I have no idea.

[Ham]
This is my epistemological thesis.  It is NOT an anthropological conclusion or
a sociological paradigm of the kind that you seem to demand.  

[Arlo]
You use the idea so often, I thought it'd be worthwhile to see your ontogenetic
explanation for where it derives. I don't "demand" anything but
straight-forward and logically consistent answers. 

Saying that "man has consciousness, but where it comes from and how we have it
and what is the process(es) by which it appears and evolves is of no concern"
is not a strong thesis, in my opinion. 

An overview of social theories place the appearance of consciousness in "man"
at the time when the biological complexity of his evolving brain brought with
it the unintended consequence to hold shared attention (via symbolic
representations) with other beings in his world. Early brains at this time were
more limited, but as biological evolution continued, so too was the growing
complexity of man's internalized social world. This is the appearance and
process of consciousness, and it holds true for infants, who while born with
much more biologically evolved brains than our simian ancestors, and as such
much more capacity for social embodiment, the unsocialized infant will possess
no greater "consciousness" than the earliest primates. He possesses more
potential (the hardwiring) to be sure, but lacks the software, so to speak.

As opposed to this, you offer a "divine intervention", where somewhere along
the line "God" (or "Essence") suddenly made our primate line "conscious", and
this consciousness resides like an ethereal organ that is not tied to genetics
or social life. As for the infant, he is born with this ethereal organ which,
like his hair or bones or muscles, develops and grows over time... but not
according to genetics or social involvement... it just "grows", on its own. 

If this is wrong, if you find this a mischaracterization, please correct me.

[Ham]
Apparently, you are unable to comprehend subjectivity as anything but a subset
of objectivity.

[Arlo]
Well.. I am a commie. You know how stupid we are.

[Ham]
You are an intelligent, knowledgeable, self-seeking person like all of us; yet
you refuse to acknowledge that your conscious awareness is "the real" Arlo
Bensinger.

[Arlo]
I most certainly do. I just know that my "conscious awareness" is neither bound
solely to my genetic boundedness or floats exclusively in some social
netherworld, but is the fulcrum point where the two meet. It is the (to
paraphrase Hofstadter) strange loop that emerges from the contact between
social and individual worlds. 

[Ham]
Considering the narrow perspective of your worldview, it's a wonder to me that
you can understand Pirsig's Quality heirarchy, much less Ham's Essentialism.

[Arlo]
Yeah, its a wonder I can tie my shoes. Stupid, stupid, Arlo. Nice try, though,
love this kind of rhetoric. (So much for my being "an intelligent,
knowledgeable, self-seeking person"...)

[Ham]
I'm sorry you can't accept my explanation, Arlo, although it doesn't surprise
me, based on our previous correspondence.

[Arlo]
You've not given me an explanation before, but now you have. "Abracadabra and
poof there was consciousness". I accept that. Don't agree with it. But I accept
it. There are some follow-ups to the abracadabra theory I'd love to ask, but
since it took so long to get here... But here is one... 

Since, you've stated, consciousness is NOT tied to genetics, from the moment
when Essence poofed consciousness into existence, why did it need to "evolve"?
Why was early man not given the modern consciousness we enjoy today? And, since
you've said consciousness evolved from earliest-man to modern-man, what evolves
if its not a "thing" and not an "existent"? We know, for example, that DNA is
the conduit for biological evolution over time, but how does the consciousness
of my children become more advanced, even slightly, than my own? We have
earlist-man with barely a consciousness and then generations later we have tool
users. 

This begets this question... is consciousness inherited? Is it passed on? Or
does each new baby start with an unrelated, immaculate "consciousness"? If the
later, then why is there a slow evolution of consciousness? Is it like autos,
is God churning out newer and better models each year? But, for consciousness
to "evolve", it has to be inherited, no? So explain to me how this happens?

Not sure what that last poke is about. Took me a half-dozen posts just to get
an answer out of you. And yes, in our last exchange I was also unable to get
any answer out of you at all (remember the question? what are the "values
indiginous to North America" and what are the "Hispanic values" that are
replacing them, and how will this "destroy America"? I'm not asking again,
don't worry...)