[MD] Consciousness a la Platt

[Heather Perella]

> [SA previously]
> 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.

SA:  As long as you understand I wasn't saying we should get rid of "oops" or "aha" or ge-wiz or lalala.  I was trying to encourage a further description in what these concepts mean, which it looks like you may have done further on in this post.  Good.


Arlo:
> 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.

SA:  Ok, which Platt seems to suggest in the other thread is that people need some kind of authority that tells them or convinces them to be good or as he said to paraphrase, "change their attitudes".  Something bigger than them.  I don't know.  This all seems to come from angles that I'm not able to discuss very well without coming across loops of arguments that I may have to make more and more, due to the context, namely, "what is the origin".  To baby, the origin can be when the baby realizes and those first memorable memories come to light to reflect back on, but we all know, and soon the baby will know, especially teenagers will also someday realize, that people and lives were here before they were.  In other words, the quietness in the woods is where the crow caw emerges from, the tree emerges out of the quiet as I walk over the hill and now have the tree in sight, but then again, the crow caw is within hearing distance and the tree is now within
 sight.  Maybe it's more about how we are cultivating ourselves and inclining the discussions to be about.  Maybe the origin is over the next hill and I haven't gotten close enough to hear this origin yet.  Death and birth are quiet to me, yet, while here on this earth, death, the tree falling, and birth, those birds in the nest, are loud enough.  So, maybe this is the origin.  This is the beginning.  We are watching and experiencing this all create now.  What of this big bang?  Ah... one of those loops of where I'll argue with myself and critically think through to find a suitable, comfortable answer.  Annn, don't feel like it now, or the big bang is this blooming goldenrod (flower), the form has changed, but the emergence the same, which could lead into more abstract thinking of this and that.


Arlo: 
> 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.

SA:  I find a "Great Plan" too limiting.  I find "unintended consequence" too limiting.  Intention can connote a 'Intender', but I don't think that way.  Intention to me is the hills guiding the Allegheny River in a certain direction, but as geography shifts, the direction can shift.    

Arlo: 
> 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.

SA:  Ham doesn't know how to answer a lot of questions, even about what he says.  That's Ham & Swiss Cheese for ya.  I don't know would be a good enough answer for me.  

Arlo:
> 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?

SA:  I don't know.


SA