[MD] Consciousness a la Platt

[Arlo Bensinger]

[SA]
What are we really trying to say, that "aha" or "oops" may or may not 
be readily defining, I guess what I'm saying is instead of "aha" or 
"oops" one might say, "in other words what I mean is..."

[Arlo]
I don't mind "Aha!" I think it captures the emergent nature of the 
MOQ perfectly. What this all boils down to, SA, is the word 
"unintended". And this is why Platt's Qualigod concept is simply a 
theist revision of the MOQ. Why he can't just be honest about that, I 
have no idea.

In my "Aha!" view, the atoms never "planned" to make cells, cells did 
not "plan" to make bodies, and bodies did not "plan" to make social 
symbols, etc. Nor is the historic timeline the willful enactment of a 
Qualigod's Great Plan. For me, the emergence of consciousness is tied 
to unintended consequences of the growing complexity on the levels 
beneath it. No one "planned" it. Nor was it part of a Master Plan in 
the mind of Qualigod. What happened is that Quality latched onto the 
unintended consequence, as an "AHA! This has value!" metaphor, hence 
a new level of reality was born.

In Platt's "Abracadabra! Poof" view, atoms "planned" to make cells, 
cells "planned" to make bodies, bodies "planned" to make social 
symbols. Or if not as individual planners, they were helpless 
Play-Dough as Great Qualigod fashioned the cosmos according to His 
Divine Plan. A billion years ago, or even longer, Qualigod had the 
idea to make "man", and this plan resided in Qualigod as He ordered 
and built the universe according to his specifications.

This is why to my simple question, "what changed in the timeline?", 
Platt (and Ham) can only offer "Qualigod (or Essiegod) poofed 
consciousness into the timeline". They have been wholly unable to 
deal with the question "how does consciousness evolve?" I've just 
answered (lo and behold, again!) my views on the first, I'll restate 
this for the second.

Consciousness evolves, from the earliest primates to modern man, by 
means of the collective consciousness. This distributed 
consciousness, assimilated by all members the social world, is what 
"evolves over time" and why the consciousness of modern man is "more 
evolved" than early primates. To this, Platt (and Ham) can only 
vaguely offer the idea that Qualigod updates the models of 
consciousness bestowed upon His Children each generation. Thus for 
them, the reason that modern man has a more evolved consciousness 
than early primates is simply that Qualigod is giving us new and 
improved models.

As Krimel said, I too would respect an honestly and well-crafted 
argument for theism. I would not agree with it, mind you, but it 
would at least be honest. Instead what we are getting is evasion and 
deception. Ask yourself, SA, why do you think Platt feels he must 
resort to such blatant lies to mask his inability to answer these questions?