[MD] moq thought experiment 1.

[Ham Priday]

Craig and Marsha --



[Ham, previously]:
> There is no "free agency" in such a construct because
> the "field" itself is the operand of the patterns.
> The static patterns, in other words, are programmed by DQ.

[Craig]:
> That's like saying there is no free agency because the brain is
> programmed by atoms.

The brain is not "programmed" by atoms.  The brain's structure is determined 
by DNA in the cell nuclei and, to some extent, by the learning process.  But 
whatever its structure, the brain is only a conduit and memory bank for 
experience.  Thoughts, feelings, desires, and ideas are psychic functions of 
man
which are proprietary to the self and independent of organic structure.

[Craig, responding to Ham's analysis of the MoQ]:
> You can't find any evidence, so you PRESUME collective
> consciousness.  That's your presumption & your straw man.
> If you sit on a hot stove & jump off, it's you that has the
> experience not anyone else.  Was your jumping, free?
> It wasn't under anyone else's influence, but it's not something
> you deliberately chose either. ...
> You may have the final say, but all the pros & cons are
> accumulations of influences.

On the contrary, it is Pirsig who presumes collective consciousness.  My 
"presumption" is proprietary consciousness, by which I mean self-generated, 
subjective and non-transferable.  Pirsig discounts subjectivity, which is 
why he doesn't talk about the proprietary self as an agent of value. 
Jumping off a hot stove is a reflex action at the neuron level which would 
be equally exhibited by a frog, a grasshopper, or a flea.  While it 
demonstrates the most primitive response to organic trauma, Pirsig uses it 
as a simile for "the Quality event" in order to hammer home his point that 
quality "cannot be denied".  But what he's actually demonstrated is the 
organism's survival instinct, which may be a principle of "natural 
selection" but is not what I mean by individual autonomy.

[Marsha]:
> Show me an autonomous self.  What exactly is it?

All creatures are living "beings", in the sense that their existence is 
dependent on a biological organism relating to a physical environment.  A 
cognizant being has some measure of sensibility, so that it may be regarded 
as a "being-aware".
Human beings are distinguished from other creatures in that we are free to 
act on the basis of our innate intelligence and prioritized values, rather 
than simply driven by biological instinct.  This autonomy affords man the 
ability to structure his world, establish the morality of his culture, and 
direct the course of history. None of this happens "automatically", nor is 
it the affect of something called DQ pulling the strings to make us behave 
in a prescribed way.  It's achieved by individuals making decisions based on 
those values held to be most beneficial to the collective society.

Freedom is meaningless if it is not autonomous, and the universe is designed 
to ensure that autonomy.  For sure, we are all "influenced" by the laws of 
nature and subject to external conditions beyond our control.  And we all 
bear the responsibility for our free choices and actions.  But because 
value-sensibility is the subjective essence of human experience, man is 
uniquely created to be the choice-maker of his world.

J.F. Baxter has expressed man's role in the universe far more eloquently in 
'The Human Paradigm':

"Man is earth's Choicemaker.  The sublime and significant act of choosing 
is, itself, the Archimedean fulcrum upon which man levers and redirects the 
forces of cause and effect to an elected level of quality and diversity. 
Further, it orients him toward a natural environmental opportunity, freedom, 
and bestows earth's title, The Choicemaker, on his singular and plural 
brow."

I hope this helps to separate out the autonomy of the psychic self from the 
natural order of experiential beingness.

Best regards,
Ham