[MD] Consciousness (explained?)

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi Ron 

18 Aug. you wrote:

> Bo, have YOU read Kant? Immanuel Kant, the 18th century philosopher.
> Have you heard of "the critique of pure reason"? Pirsig mentions his
> apriori concept in reference to his motorcycle in ZAMM?

No one since ?? has "read" Kant, we trust interpreters. You seem to 
trust Wikipeda and it says just what I said. The empiricists had found 
that there was nothing "out there". Remove the "knowledge" or the 
qualities provided by the subject leaves a complete void. THIS was the 
"pure reason" Kant found frightening and what he criticized. I can't 
start analyzing all this "every schoolboy knows" stuff just because Ron 
launches his endless Wikipeda quotes (like the one about Lorentz 
Transformation that confirms what I say) hoping that it sounds like 
debunking Bo.

Why not read ZAMM for a change: Strart here (page 130 in my copy)


    To follow Kant one must also understand something about the 
    Scottish philosopher David Hume. Hume had previously 
    submitted that if one follows the strictest rules of logical 
    induction and deduction from experience to determine the true 
    nature of the world, one must arrive at certain conclusions. His 
    reasoning followed lines that would result from answers to this 
    question: Suppose a child is born devoid of all senses; he has 
    no sight, no hearing, no touch, no smell, no taste...nothing. 
    There's no way whatsoever for him to receive any sensations 
    from the outside world. And suppose this child is fed 
    intravenously and otherwise attended to and kept alive for 
    eighteen years in this state of existence. The question is then 
    asked: Does this eighteen-year-old person have a thought in 
    his head? If so, where does it come from? How does he get it? 
    Hume would have answered that the eighteen-year-old had no 
    thoughts whatsoever, and in giving this answer would have 
    defined himself as an empiricist, one who believes all 
    knowledge is derived exclusively from the senses. The 
    scientific method of experimentation is carefully controlled 
    empiricism. Common sense today is empiricism, since an 
    overwhelming majority would agree with Hume, even though in 
    other cultures and other times a majority might have differed. 
    The first problem of empiricism, if empiricism is believed, 
    concerns the nature of ``substance.'' If all our knowledge 
    comes from sensory data, what exactly is this substance which 
    is supposed to give off the sensory data itself? If you try to 
    imagine what this substance is, apart from what is sensed, 
    you'll find yourself thinking about nothing whatsoever. Since all 
    knowledge comes from sensory impressions and since there's 
    no sensory impression of substance itself, it follows logically 
    that there is no knowledge of substance. It's just something we 
    imagine. It's entirely within our own minds. The idea that 
    there's something out there giving off the properties we 
    perceive is just another of those common-sense notions 
    similar to the common-sense notion children have that the 
    earth is flat and parallel lines never meet.  


Good luck.

Bodvar