[MD] Consciousness

[ml]

Platt,

I replied to Bo, my suspicion that I may
have failed to adequately discriminate
dynamism within a level from dynamism
between levels and thus may have bred
confusion where I sought the opposite.




<snip>

mel said:
>>> Animal self-consciousness tends towards the
>>> "dynamic immediate" for the  majority of its life,
>>> because that is what is most successful in
>>> staying alive.

Bo replied:
> > I still have doubts about "dynamic". The most static is in fact what's
> > known as the autonomous neural system, the said hard-wired
> > operating system, instincts, reflexes.

Platt refined:
> Right. Change in, of and by itself doesn't mean a response to DQ. The sun
> rising and setting, the seasons changing, plants growing and dying,
animals
> fighting, fleeing. feeding and f ---ing are all examples of static
> patterns. >

mel:
It seems to me in the continuum  from static, to less static,
to more dynamic, to "pure" dynamic, there is a sense of
tangibility as one primary identifying vector.  So,
using that vector of tangibility, I see a square mile
section of granite, in-situ a mile beneath the earth's surface
as generally less dynamic, than the equivalent amount of water
in a water shed during the summer.

or

I do see that among biological entities, that fixed location
life forms, such as lichen are in some sense less dynamic
than a heard of buffalo in the number of possible behaviors
in response to environmental conditions.

-----------------------


Platt:
>Science and technology thrive on static patterns at the inorganic
 >and biological levels. Singular events (anomalies), like the creation of
 >life, science is at a loss to explain.

mel:
In general, when I look at science, I find that it explains far less
than it describes.  The history of science has 'largely' been a
narrative of the ongoing exercise in reductionistic exploration
that describes the "building blocks" of the "building blocks" of
the "building blocks."  (all very important)

Attempts to move from the richly-quantified-descriptions-of-
behavior to a fundamental explanatory "why" are often more
reminiscent of our own discussion here and as equally often
they degenerate into infighting far less polite than anything
seen here.  (ah, the politics of people)

I love science, but it is an ongoing evolution of its own
with eyes-that-are-bigger-than-its-stomach, often.

thanks--mel