[MD] Consciousness (explained?)

[Joseph Maurer]

On 8/21/09 10:59 AM, "Ham Priday" <hampday1 at verizon.net> wrote:

<snip>
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
 
Hi Ham and all,

The word you have chosen to encapsulate the meaning of your ontology
³Essence², for me is a weasel word.

In Latin the conjugation of the verb "to be", ³esse², is very irregular:
sum, es, est, sumus, estis, sunt.  The infinitive is ³esse², the participle
is ³ens².

The English word ³essence² contains the sound of both the infinitive ³esse²
and the participle ³ens².

I can have no idea what it means.   When you use it as the meaning for your
ontology, I am totally confused.

When I accept that I can use a sound that is undefined, yet meaningful in a
normal conversation, like ³quality²,  ³essence² is a mountain I cannot
climb, and so far all your explanations have simply confused me more.  Can
you describe your ontology in different words?

I see you have the same problem with ³Value² and ³Intellect² in an
evolutionary setting, and you redefine them as ³subjective cognizance²
rather than ³externalized properties of the universe².  I don¹t have a
substitute for ³essence².

I can see how you can translate for yourself ³objective reality² as a
valuistic construct of subjective experience, but the word ³valuistic² as a
³construct of subjective experience² is very original, way outside the
normal usage.

Joe 

> 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
> 
> 
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