[MD] Consciousness (explained?)

[skutvik at online.no]

Good morning Ham

18 Aug. you said :

after I had said:
> > ...I always wonder what we mean by "consciousness", if it is
> >  contrasted to unconscious it's not only humans, animals sleep
> > and wake up (to consciousness). I suspect it is the more enigmatic
> > "self-consciousness" which is at the stake, but Pirsig's above seems
> > not to address that, rather to demonstrate how Quality is necessary
> > for anything to be perceived at all, the point refined in the
> > "cutting edge of time" argument.
> <SNIP>
> > Pirsig does not really address the "self" issue, he just speaks
> > about pre-intellectual and intellectual awareness, the latter of
> > which is the mind/matter - SOM, which means that awareness is
> > identical to the respective level. Self-awareness is intellect's
> > internal view of a mind observing a world different from mind.

> I always wonder what YOU mean by consciousness, since you reject the
> S/O duality as "real" in favor of an "enigmatic" collective Intellect.

Phew, your interpretation of my SOL (interpretation of the  MOQ) is 
frustrating, do you do it to provoke me?. Anyway, the S/O distinction is 
the intellectual level's value (this is static and thus not existence's 
deepest ground, which is Dynamic/Static) but as real as the rest of the 
static levels, as real as rocks, as our bodies, as our social patterns. 
Get it??????????????? 

> Pirsig uses the first person plural ("we") throughout Andre's quoted
> paragraph.  For example: "WE are aware of millions of things...WE could
> not possibly be conscious if... WE would be unable to think...What WE
> select and call consciousness..." What in heaven's name is this "WE"
> addressed by Pirsig if it isn't the subjective you and me and any other
> individual reading ZAMM? 

I understand what you mean, the fact that "man" is from what 
everything emanates is watertight, but then "man is the mind/body 
aggregate and what of these is primary in your opinion? SOM's two 
camps have quarrelled over this since God knows without any result. 
The materialist says that the (material) body is primary with mind a by-
product, the idealists vice versa. So I wonder what of the individual's 
mind/body components you see as primary. If you don't see any 
problem with the mind/matter constellation you must either be 
(deleted) or (deleted)     

> If consciousness isn't the subjective awareneness of experience, then
> what is it? 

But how is it the awareness' relationship to "its" body. If you have the 
conscious agent (the body/mind aggregate ) as fundamental you must 
have a good answer to SOM's paradoxes. .  

> "For anything to be perceived at all" there must be a "conscious
> agent". The cognizant individual is that agent. 
 
How is the perceived "outer" world's relationship with consciousness? 
Is it always true. What about "consciousness changing" stuff? Where 
does matter interact with mind (consciousness) and vice versa?       

> Self-awareness is not "intellect's view"; it is the individual
> subject's sensibility.  The act of "knowing", the value appraisal, the
> sensual information, the conceptualizing, the emotion, the wanting, are
> all part of that sensibility.  In short, being-aware presupposes a
> conscious being -- the individual subject. You can pretend that it
> doesn't exist in order to satisfy a euphemistic doctrine, but in doing
> so you deny your own reality. 

If you have SOM as your starting point and don't know about its 
paradoxes, then the MOQ must be absolutely nonsense, but then you 
are outright (deleted). Anyway, the MOQ is a solution to SOM's 
paradoxes and if you haven't realized THAT after years at this site ..... 
phew!    

Bodvar