[MD] Philosophy and Philosophology

[Ham Priday]

On 8/11 at 3:46 PM Platt wrote to Bo, John, All -- 


> If consciousness is self-explanatory, and self is an illusion
> (according to Pirsig and others), where does that leave us?

It leaves us on a speeding train to nowhere without an engineer and with only a 
passing glimpse of reality.

> Bo hints that the original MOQ as described in ZAMM dissolves the
> mind/matter enigma. But how? By making it a static level within the
> umbrella of the MOQ? OK. Does that make the DQ of the MOQ
> consciousness itself?

Allow me to change the Dynamic/Static paradigm just described to the 
Conscious Realism paradigm of one of your favorite writers.  I've just 
reviewed Donald Hoffman's essay "Conscious Realism and the Mind-Body 
Problem," and I think I understand how he has hypothesized reality.

Hoffman develops a single ontology that it is adaptable to either the 
Physicalist (objectivist) or the Conscious Realist (subjectivist) worldview. 
About this, he says: "Explaining the genesis of conscious experience from 
the physical has proved, so far, intractable.  Explaining the genesis of the 
physical from conscious experience has proved quite feasible.  This is good 
news: We do not need a mutation that endows a new conceptual apparatus to 
transform the mind-body problem from a mystery to a routine scientific 
subject, we just need a change in the direction in which we seek an 
explanation."

Central to his concept is the theory of a Multimodal User Interface (MUI), 
which he explains by using our perception of the moon as an example:

"MUI theory says that the moon you see is, like any physical object
you see, an icon constructed by your visual system.  Perception is not
objective reporting but active construction.  A perceptual construction
lasts only so long as you look, and then is replaced by new constructions
as you look elsewhere.  Thus the answer to Einstein's question, according
to MUI theory, is that the moon you see only exists when you look at
it.  Of course the moon Jack sees might continue to exist even when the
moon Jill sees ceases to exist because she closes her eyes.  But the moon
Jack sees is not numerically identical to the moon Jill sees.  Jack sees his
moon, Jill sees hers.  There is no public moon.

"Something does exist whether or not you look at the moon, and that
something triggers your visual system to construct a moon icon.  But that
something that exists independent of you is not the moon.  The moon
is an icon of your MUI, and therefore depends on your perception for
its existence.  The something that exists independent of your perceptions
is always, according to conscious realism, systems of conscious agents.
Consciousness is fundamental in the universe, not a fitfully emerging 
latecomer.

"The mind-body problem is, for the physicalist, the problem of getting
consciousness to arise from biology.  So far no one can build a scientific
theory of how this might happen.  This failure is so striking that it leads
some to wonder if Homo sapiens lacks the necessary conceptual apparatus.
For the conscious realist, the mind-body problem is how, precisely,
conscious agents create physical objects and properties.  Here we have a
vast and mathematically precise scientific literature, with successful 
implementations in computer vision systems."

As I just posted to John (but forgot to sign), it is ironic that, after thousands of years, the greatest minds in history are still unable to fathom exactly what a "mind" is.


My own theory is that, apart from its contents, the knowing self is a 'negate' (nothingness) -- a "cosmic void" that sucks up the value of Essence to objectify its reality.  There is metaphysical support for such a theory.  For example, whatever we can't sense or experience is by definition 
nothingness.  Secondly, the moment a particular entity is identified and defined in space/time by the intellect, it becomes separated from the whole of existence by nothingness.  This suggests that the act of experience differentiates finite phenomena by "encapsulating" them in our own 
nothingness.  Finally (and fundamentally), there is the problem of explaining how an undivided absolute Source can give rise to differentiated finite existence without negating the nothingness that actualizes it.  (That, incidentally, is the premise of my Creation hypothesis.)

> In Lila Pirsig says Quality is experience and experience is value. Is
> consciousness the same as experience? Frankly, I don't see a
> difference. So that would make Quality=Consciousness.

I would say that consciousness is the awareness of experience, which (in actuality) is Value objectivized.    

> Is this what you are saying, Bo? Is this where your train of thoughts is
> leading, John?
>
> Or is the problem of consciousness something we don't want to deal
> with? After all, nobody else has come up with a satisfactory explanation
> of consciousness. The idea that it somehow emerges from a lump of
> electric meat means it's a miracle. Shall we settle for that?

As you know, Platt, I don't settle for anything -- least of all, a metaphysical unknown. 

And thanks for letting me add my two cents.  

Best regards,
Ham.