[MD] Consciousness

[Platt Holden]

Hi Steve,

> >> 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:
> > Asking if a rock experiences is a category error. Rocks are heaps 
> > incapable
> > of experiencing, not wholes like atoms and cells which can experience 
> > at
> > their own levels.

Steve: 
> If it makes more sense to you, substitute "atom" for "rock." All the 
> questions remain.

Your point is well taken. We tend to imagine what it would be like to be X 
which I suppose explains the existence of whatever empathy we're able to 
muster.

Of course we can never literally put ourselves in another's shoes. When you 
stop to think about it, 98 percent of what goes on in the world goes on 
within entities (including atoms and people) and is simply not accessible 
to outsiders. We can split the atom just as we can dissect the brain. But 
what a particular atom or brain experiences is only known to each.

That being said, the evolutionary scenario set forth by the MOQ (the MOQ 
perspective) requires at least a one time response to DQ by atoms on up. To 
be able to respond experience must be presupposed. Thus, when asked if this 
was true at the inorganic level (Are atoms aware?), Pirsig answered: "I 
think the answer is that inorganic objects experience events but do not 
react to them biologically, socially or intellectually. The react to these 
experiences inorganically. according to the laws of physics." (LC, Note30) 

That's how things stand today. But, as he explained in Lila, at one time 
the carbon atom, responding to  to DQ, gained the capability of bonding 
with other atoms, overcoming then present physical forces. The rest, as 
they say, is history.

There are dyed-in-the-wool Darwinians who object to Pirsig's explanation of 
evolutionary history. For them, luck plays a creative role. But until they 
can answer the question, "Why survive?" as well at Pirsig, I'll give him 
the benefit of the doubt.  

Regards,
Platt