[MD] Consciousness a la Ham

[skutvik at online.no]

Ham

On 24 Aug. 

Bo before
> > Ham's position is that the subject - the I - is the basic reality so
> > don't put me in that league. My position is that MOQ's 4th. level is
> > what spawned the idea about - and search for an essential reality
> > and according to ZAMM it resulted in SOM, can't you get that into
> > your head.

> Ham's position is that the 'I' is the subjective half of the 
> Awareness/Beingness dichotomy.  Basic (fundamental) reality is neither
> the knowing self nor its experienced other.  Ultimate reality is the
> Essence which encompasses sensible awareness, experiential beingness,
> and the value that separates all otherness.

I find your position (if this is the final version) identical to Pirsig's "Hot 
Stove" example. Ultimate reality (Quality) encompasses sensible 
awareness (the subject) experiential beingness (the world the subject 
perceives). If the last about "the value that separates all otherness" 
correspond to the static levels it would have been perfect. Pirsig said 
that Quality is "between" the subject and the object but "encompasses" 
is just as good.  

At least I agree with you in the debate with DMB who - now - has found 
Essence to be the Serpent in (our) Eden. To deny that Quality is 
Pirsig's ultimate is plain silly, but whether one says "Quality=Reality", 
"Essence=Reality" is insignificant, the important thing is that the S/O is 
not the fundamental divide of reality, the Dynamic/Static divide is.        

> Whether you "search for an essential reality" or not, it is
> metaphysically irrefutable that nothing comes from nothingness. 
> Everything that we experience is accountable to a primary source
> which, no matter how you define it, is the Essence of reality. the 

"Essence of reality" or simply Reality says the same. We have a 
saying about "putting butter on pork" and that applies don't you think? 
 
> Pirsig's critical mistake was his failure to take metaphysics
> seriously and acknowledge that source.  In the last analysis his
> quality hierarchy is little more than an allegorical representation of
> experiential existence.

Here I disagree, the mere Quality=Reality or Essence=Reality is 
barren. Only a metaphysical divide of reality can account for existence, 
the S/O one created paradoxes while the Dynamic/Static doesn't, 
thanks to the level hierarchy.   

> He (Plato) represented the new intellectual age and in his - and the
> > later Aristotle - work we see the outlines of things to come. Among
> > them the "essence" concept, when description of reality was divorced
> > from reality, when words (language) became something secondary
> > compared to what it is about ...and a million other S/O offshoots.
 
> The only "description" which man is capable of applies to the physical
> reality of his experience.  Ultimate realty is beyond physical
> description. 

About ultimate reality ... etc. goes without saying. My "Godelian" 
observation is that we "ultimately" will meet ourselves in the door and 
my meeting with myself is that I relegate the search for the ultimate 
(objective) reality to the intellectual level - SOM - that again gave rise 
to a metaphysics that degraded the very same search to a static level.      

> Value, Matter, Difference, Evolution, Intellect, and Consciousness are
> all relational aspects of being-aware.  The closest approximation of a
> relational definition for Essence is Cusa's 'not-other' principle. 

Why not include "Essence"? I think this is Ham meeting Ham in the 
proverbial door.

Bo