[MD] Computers vs. Brains

[markhsmit]

Hi All,

I just read through the string of Computers vs. Brains.  Heavy stuff, and an age old question.

I like what Ham is saying, although I do not quite understand it.  It seams to be
similar to my understanding, I think.  "Understanding" is a function of putting
enough thoughts together until I feel comfortable with them, and they reflect
my personal experience; the separation of mind (consciousness) and matter
is a difficult one.

This understanding has social consequences, such as if a body is brain-dead, is
the self dead to this world?  When does a living organism (embryo) gain human
rights?  If a person cannot support him(her)self do we let it die.  We don't do this for
starving people, but we may for someone in a coma.  We can cry, let nature take
its way!  But by preserving or destroying the embryo we are letting nature take
its way, because we are nature itself.  Our preservation of a person in a coma
is nature taking its way.  Our moral thoughts are nature at work.

If I read Ham correctly, and I apologize in advance, our human consciousness is a
sum total of our physical experience plus a personal awareness that exists
outside of that.  I think this is true, otherwise we would be zombies where all
is dark inside.  This feeling (maybe a jump) leads me to think that all has 
consciousness, just not in a human sense.

Is there a big difference between our brains and an ant hill?  Both require
extensive communication, both are adapting to the environment on 
a minute by minute basis.  If the ant hill (or beehive) analogy is to be
useful, there must be a queen ant (or bee) around which everything is
centered.  Is there such a queen nerve cell?  Is there a seat of the soul?
Knock one nerve cell out and our purpose disappears (or maybe it is group
of nerve cells)?  I don't know if they did this experiment in Nazi Germany,
and I don't know if the ants in a hill have done this experiment either.

So, if everything has consciousness, each cell in our body has its own.
This would be similar to the ant hill of New York being composed 
of individual consciousnesses but the city having its own.  I'm on board
with that.  

At the risk of being nihilist, I don't believe this consciousness
is anything purposeful, and it brings me peace to just be part of it.

Ham, I'm sure you have provided the address for the thesis, but
could you provide it again?  I'll try to read it.

Cheers,
Willblake2

On Apr 8, 2009, at 12:40:57 AM, "Ham Priday" <hampday1 at verizon.net> wrote:
Hey, Krimel --


> On its merits, I have given your "metaphysical theory"
> more time and credit than it deserves.

Okay. You choose to continue the endless discussion as to what is dynamic 
and what is static, how experience breaks down into a tetrology of levels, 
and what Pirsig's equivalency equations really mean. That of course is an 
exercise of free choice which is your prerogative as an agent of value in a 
relational universe. I respect your freedom and will not press you toward 
an alternate worldview.

Before ending this dialogue, however, I want to correct a few misconceptions 
you've expressed concerning Essentialism.


> Well of course you disagree. But I am not attracted to
> ultimate reality. As I said I do not know what the term is
> supposed to mean. I find the source of Value not in one
> big thing but in all the little everyday things I find in
> the world around me.

Like everybody else, you "find value" in the everyday things you experience. 
But while your sensibility is irretrievably linked to the SOURCE of Value, 
you experience only what value represents, relationally, in your world. 
(Even Pirsig has said that "experience is the cutting edge of reality" and 
that what isn't valued does not exist.)

> We are not "placed" here in space and time.
> We arise out of space and time.

Our existence is framed by time and space, which is the mode of human 
experience. But we are neither caused by nor derived from these dimensions. 
The sensibility at the core of self-awareness is negated from Essence to 
divide it from an insentient otherness. It is
this Sensibility/Otherness dichotomy which establishes difference from the 
oneness of Essence and makes the differentiated world of appearances 
possible.

> You keep saying "nothing can come from nothing" but
> this is a testable notion. It may or may not be true and
> apparently in the case of the universe itself it may be
> utterly false. And as always, you fail to account for where
> the primary source comes from. Have you actually
> thought about this?

Yes, but apparently you have not. Everything in existence has a beginning 
and an end, the alpha and omega of cosmology's entropy. All of existence is 
"process", which the human intellect interprets as cause-and-effect, 
starting with creation or the Big Bang. But Essence is absolute, not an 
existent, so it is not limited by the conditions of finitude, such as 
space/time, difference, and change. The Essence I have postulated is 
immutable in its absoluteness, which means that the primary source is 
"uncreated". This is not a new idea in religion or classical philosophy, 
and it is the only logical solution to the mystery of creation.

[Krimel, previously]:
> And you whine about Nihilists. Without brains or
> sensing creatures what you have left is Death.

[Ham]:
> You've just demonstrated the kind of reasoning that makes me whine about
> nihilists.

[Krimel]:
> You don't actually address what I said. So you confess that
> your Absolute reality ultimate thingymabob is utterly lifeless.

You must be taking "restructuring" lessons from Arlo. I confess to nothing 
of the kind.

Nihilism is the view that values and beliefs are unfounded and that 
existence serves no moral purpose. Central to the philosophy of 
Essentialism is the belief that Essence negates "otherness" within the 
"not-other" to support the existence of a sensible agent that can appreciate 
Value autonomously and without bias. Back in December, Arlo got his jollies 
by suggesting that "God that has created a cosmos as a stage for man, whose 
purpose for being is to revel in the Magnificence of the Source." 
(Actually he was half right: the value agent is also repulsed by what is 
experienced as evil and harmful.) But later he got really asinine: "Ah yes, 
far better is the purpose that we are here to satiate the ego of a vain and 
insecure Source, who's Superiority is only marred by his need to be
adored." Do you see this as anything but the satire of a nihilist?

> Again without sensory apparatus nothing gets experienced.

True. But "experience" is not what undifferentiated sensibility is. That's 
why I make a distinction between sensibility and experience.

> Sense and all of its derivatives in English refer to the five
> commonly acknowledged senses which do require neurons.
> If you have something else in mind might I suggest you find
> a more appropriate term or make up a new one of your own
> but please stop abusing the common tongue.

Neurons or not, the five senses are involved in producing experienced 
sensations: tactile, visual, auditory, aromatic and taste. These 
differentiated sensory values are integrated by the central nervous system 
as "experience". By "sensibility" I refer to the undifferentiated 
(Essential) Value from which psycho-emotional or esthetic awareness is 
derived. But if you have a better term for sensibility, I'd be happy to 
know it.

> Epistemology is about human understanding and what humans
> can understand. To propose that understanding is beyond
> understanding is ridiculous. And yet even then, you say it is
> beyond understanding, but you understand it. You seem to
> regard being unable to explain something in meaningful terms
> as a virtue. I do actually read your stuff sometimes and mostly
> I just let you ramble on in your befuddled way. But yeah,
> occasionally I find some comfort in reminding you that you
> really are not making the least bit of sense.

Absolute Essence is beyond understanding, just as Absolute Truth is 
inaccessible. The reason I "seem to regard (this) as a virtue" is that it 
affords us the capacity to realize value independently without bias. I 
believe the "innocence" of man's position in existence is necessary for his 
free choice of values, which is the central morality of my thesis.

I'm pleased that you take occasional pleasure from my writing, despite your 
inability (or is it unwillingness?) to make sense of it. Perhaps, in time, 
the ontology will "sink in" and your comfort will be augmented by the logic 
of my thesis.

Anyway, thanks for the critique, Krimel.

Best wishes,
Ham


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