[MD] Consciousness (explained?)

[Ham Priday]

On 8/21/09 at 1:33 AM Bodvar Skutvik responds to Ham:


> 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???????????????

Yes, I got it long ago.  The problem with this ontology is that the ground
of existence, which you now call "Dynamic/Static", cannot be Quality or some
combination of dynamic and static quality.  Quality (Value) is what the
subject perceives and is not realized (i.e., does not exist) without a
sensible agent.  What you conclude as "real" is no more than plain old
existence conceived in two ways: as it is experienced (by the subject) and
as it is intellectualized (by the subject).  Eureka! ...you have NOT found
it.

> 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 quarreled 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).

I'll ignore the "deletes", as I assume they are an expression of your 
frustration.  Mind/body is not an "aggregate" but a dichotomy of beingness 
and awareness.  These are the primary essents of existence.  The biological 
organism with which the conscious self identifies is the subject's being. 
The knower of this self and its organic body is cognizant value-sensibility. 
That's not just Ham's epistemology; it's the way existence is constructed. 
What you fail to understand (or accept) is that ultimate reality -- the 
absolute Source -- is not existence, not differentiated or aggregated, and 
not directly perceived.  All we perceive or experience is the objectivized 
Value of the Primary Source.

[Ham, previously]:
> If consciousness isn't the subjective awareness of experience,
> then what is it?

[Bo]:
> 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.

My answer, which should be apparent from the above, is that there TWO 
"realities": the S/O reality that we experience as our existence, and the 
ultimate reality that we can only sense as Value.

> 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?

We live on the "fringe" of Reality and "interact" with it by our sensibility 
to Value.  Consciousness, matter, intellect, thoughts, precepts, and 
difference (identity) are valuistic attributes of the empirical world.  And 
let me add: This is the ONLY WORLD that Pirsig's so-called metaphysics 
addresses.

> 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!

Phew to you, Bo!  You claim that using metaphors to label the conflicting 
elements resolves the paradoxes.  You deny subjectivity, objective reality, 
and a primary source,  accepting at face value Pirsig's equivalency theory: 
Experience = Quality = Reality. What kind of "understanding" is that?

Essentialism, on the other hand, accepts S/O reality for what it is, but 
posits Essence as the ultimate source of all realized appearance.  Rather 
than defining Value and Intellect as externalized properties of the 
universe, I attribute them to subjective cognizance (which, incidentally, 
happens to be the view of cognitive scientists).  And I explain objective 
reality as a valuistic construct of subjective experience.

Now I ask you, where are the paradoxes in my ontology?

Essentially yours,
Ham