[MD] Consciousness

[Steve Peterson]

Hi Platt,


>>> Platt:
>>> If the levels can be identified by the reactions of their 
>>> experiencing
>>> participants as Pirsig suggests in that answer, then the levels might
>>> be better named as follows:
>>>
>>> Inanimate    (Inorganic)
>>> Instinctual   (Biological)
>>> Institutional (Social)
>>> Individual     (Intellectual)
>>> Ineffable      (Aesthetic)
>>>
>>> These names have a several of advantages. 1)The basic static nature 
>>> of
>>> the lower levels as being static (objective) is made clear.

Steve:

I don't see how inanimate and instinctual are more clearly objective 
than inorganic and biological. Plus, are plants instinctual?


Platt:
>>> 2) The social level is clearly identified as human (as Pirsig 
>>> insists).

Steve:
Social and institutional may be the most synonymous pair here, anyway. 
But social morality sounds right to me compared to institutional 
morality.


Platt,
>>> 3) The importance  of
>>> the arts in putting us in touch with DQ is highlighted ("Beauty 
>>> leads  the
>>> way forward" -- Gelernter)

Steve:
You've added a fifth level of evolution that I don't think is needed. 
Everything already fits into the four static levels plus DQ 
formulation.

Platt:
> Inanimate suggests the level so named is populated by static patterns
> unable to perceive or adjust to DQ which is what my renaming of the 
> levels
> was intended to convey...- Merriam Webster defines inanimate: "a. not 
> endowed with life or
> spirit." That's the meaning I intended to convey. Patterns at all 
> levels
> include motion.

Steve:
In my view, all levels are populated by static patterns since that is 
what the levels refer to--they are types of patterns of value.

But even if you are right that inorganic patterns cannot respond to 
dynamic quality, why is inanimate better than inorganic at making the 
point you want to make?



>> Steve:
>> If inorganic objects experience as Pirsig
>> says, then that experience has a leading edge. Right?
>

Platt:
> Lower levels patterns may experience DQ as the "leading edge." But, I 
> don't
> think they can "perceive or adjust to it."

Steve:
I guess it just depends on what you mean by perceive or adjust. 
Certainly lower levels won't perceive or adjust intellectually or 
socially.

You've accepted that inorganic patterns can be thought to experience 
and that experience has a leading edge which is known as dynamic 
quality. It seems to me that that should settle the issue.


Platt:
> In the context of deciding the
> morality of executing an individual accused of a capital crime, Pirsig
> wrote:
>
> "And beyond that is an even more compelling reason; societies and 
> thoughts
> and principles themselves are no more than sets of static patterns. 
> These
> patterns can't by themselves perceive or adjust to Dynamic Quality. 
> Only a
> living being can do that. The strongest moral argument against capital
> punishment is that it weakens a society's Dynamic capability-its 
> capability
> for change and evolution." (Lila, 13)

Steve:
The point Pirsig makes with the above is simply that social and 
intellectual patterns cannot exist without biological and inorganic 
patterns. Intellectual patterns evolve out of social patterns which 
evolve out of biological patterns. New thoughts only happen in the same 
way that all other thoughts evolved--on the shoulders of lower level 
patterns. Biologically killing a person is not merely the destruction 
of a biological pattern but also the destruction of a source of ideas.

But anyway, something about this whole line of discussion seems wrong 
to me. We start with experience is Quality and see experience in terms 
of dynamic and static aspects of Quality including recognizing 
ourselves as an experiencing subject as an idea, an intellectual 
pattern that is part of the static aspect of Quality. Then from the 
perspective of experiencing subjects we identify other objects like 
rocks and classify them as inorganic patterns and ask if they 
experience, too. We are no longer in the perspective of radical 
empiricism when we ask ourselves what it must be like to be a rock. In 
fact, we are about as far removed from that perspective as imaginable. 
We are trying to figure out if a rock's experience is also DQ/sq. The 
question itself seems to me to be outside the MOQ perspective and may 
need to be unasked. Then there is the pragmatic maxim: what are the 
consequences of believing that a rock's experience is DQ/sq versus only 
sq?

> Platt:
> Those who believe lower level patterns can respond to DQ should offer 
> some
> examples that are not simply explained by cause and effect. "But 
> Dynamic
> Quality cannot be part of any cause and effect system since all cause 
> and
> effect systems are static patterns." (LC, Note 56)

Steve:
But it isn't about our explanations about how the rock behaves, is it? 
Aren't we trying to take the perspective of a rock here? What does it 
mean to respond to dynamic quality anyway? Is ultimate reality 
something we can get closer to or further away from?

Regards,
Steve