[MD] Quick one: causation

[MarshaV]

At 10:35 PM 1/14/2009, you wrote:
>
>I feel a little misunderstood. My own fault really; I wasn't clear.
>
>Marsha you said: Would you like to state that words are not a mental
>phenomenon?   Plato is not an authority for me, and I do not find his
>invention true to my experience.  I have no perfect mental image of a bed,
>or a horse.  And if I did, I do not know how that would translate to
>anything physical.
>
>Plato's argument doesn't work for me either; I certainly don't buy any part
>of his mental category. It may well be the source of the subject object
>division that plagues western thought.
>
>I do have universal concepts of bed's and horses and I think you do too.

Greetings David,

You may have a universal concept of beds and horses.  I do not have 
access to your mind.  I do not.

For me bed and horse are patterns, not a universal, independent 
concept.  While there is some overlap ,that does not make a universal 
concept.  We might agree that a bed's function is for sleep (but 
maybe not), but that then assumes the sleep pattern and it's assumed 
function.  I have spent some time meditating on zebra.  It seems to 
me more accurate to state a pattern equates to 
opposite-from-non-zebra than a universal concept 
(thing-in-itself).  Try it.  Bed and horse are more a flowing process 
than a universal concept.  At least, that would be my experience.


>I mean in the sense that Aristotle and the Scholastics meant when they used
>the term. We all seem to have a common concept of women that isn't based on
>any particular Marsha, Jill, or Amy but is a simpler, perfect, universal
>symbol for all women.

Are you kidding?  I think I'll just let this nonsense slide away.



>I said:>but if the mind is physical the bed and the horse have to be
>physical too.
>
>You replied: How did you get to the mind is physical?
>
>How did I get to mind is physical? I couldn't see any other reasonable
>option. Mental and spiritual offer zero predictability... so unless you have
>a forth option?

I didn't get how you got to the 'mind is physical' option.   My 
option would be mind is a process.  And it seems to me that even your 
neuroscientist conceptualize any physicality they think they find.



>I said: If you can accept that the electrical energy measurable as it
>  varies in
>
> >nerve cells and the mechanical energy measurable as it travels through
>
> >air or some other medium are physical, then the words that are the
>
> >effect of these energies on ear drums are as physical as rocks and
>
> >trees.
>
>
>
>You replied: I can and do accept this as a conventional truth.
>
>
>
>You can and do accept this (the scientific explanation) as a conventional
>truth. Well, without conventions we couldn't communicate at all and if you
>accept the conventional scientific explanation as a basis for communication,
>can you entertain the concept that words only exist in a living being, that
>you are creating words with meaning from these electronic images?

Sure I can conventually accept it, as long as I also accept that it 
is a provisional, convenient, temporary truth of human invention.  Or 
better yet, an ever-changing, collection of overlapping, interrelated 
and interconnected patterns.




>
>
>You said: I do not accept, except when convenient, that mind, meaning and
>knowledge are physical things.
>
>"Quality is indivisible, indefinable and unknowable in the sense that
>there is a knower and a known."
>
>
>
>In general, I sense that we agree about many things but I cannot judge
>knowledge or truth by convenience and I cannot accept that anything is
>unknowable. It insults my concept of humanity.

Do you mean 'humanity' as in the ever-changing, collection of 
overlapping, interrelated and interconnected patterns?


>You flattered: Life is a dance.  And I bet you are good at it.
>
>I enjoy verbal dancing better than fancy footwork. Thanks for this one.


I enjoy the concept of the cosmic dance, thank you.



Marsha





>Bo, you said: >Kant did not exactly speak about Quality in the MOQ sense,
>but to
>
> >begin with a kind of the beginning.  Western philosophy has
>
> >always had SOM as its premises,  but then came the discovery of
>
> >the empiricists that all qualities, color, sound, taste, smell, touch
>
> >were produced by the senses -  were subjective - Berkeley went as
>
> >far as to claim that  there was nothing "out there". everything was
>
> >subjective.
>
>I'm a huge fan of Kant but he didn't get everything right either. I only
>wanted to observe that all of his categories are comparative, and the basis
>for each comparison is Quality. German idealism is as alien to MoQ as
>Plato's realism. I get that, but although I've been a huge fan of Pirsig's
>and have read ZMM at least forty times I haven't drank all the Kool Aid yet
>and won't until something convinces me that MoQ describes my reality.
>
>By the way, Bishop Berkeley was related to the Irish Swifts and probably one
>of my ancestors. His idealism was extreme; it's more likely that Kant was
>closer to the truth, the mind interprets "the thing itself".
>
>Then Kant who set out to save reason from this mad "pure reason"
>
> >and claimed  there were something he called "forms of perception"
>
> >built into existence itself,  not learned FROM experience rather
>
> >what experience was filtered through These were TIME, SPACE
>
> >and CAUSATION that made up OUR experience "das Ding f?r
>
> >Uns" (the world for us)  But note that Kant did not shake the
>
> >foundations of SOM, the was still a world out there "das Ding an
>
> >Sich" (the world in itself).
>
> >
>
> >But the MOQ has taken leave of SOM , so I'm a bit surprised that
>
> >some of us keep speaking as if SOM's artificial problems  has any
>
> >bearing inside the MOQ with statements like yours
>
> >
>
> > > ... "They continue with the realization that mind is not mental but
>
> > > rather physical, biological, entity and therefore, intentionality can
>
> > > be explained by the laws of physics".
>
> >
>
> >Yes, we know that the SOM struggles with such self-inflicted
>
> >problems stemming from its faulty premises that the S/O split
>
> >being existence's ground. The MOQ's premises however is the
>
> >DQ/SQ split and then the static levels, the said S/O split is
>
> >intellect's STATIC value. Kant's just cemented SOM, but has no
>
> >bearing on the MOQ.
>
> >
>
>Your comments are a puzzle to me. You've given me something to think about,
>let me reread Lila and get back to you in a few weeks.
>
>Chris, I wanted to say that anyone who claims that intentionality is a
>mental phenomenon is really saying that the actions cause by intentionality
>are really cause by magic. It's not much of an explanation. If, however, you
>assume that intentionality is a physical phenomenon, you can try for a more
>reasonable explanation than "magic". Science is not the final answer but
>it's better at explanations than fantasy.
>
>I apologize; I've only been following along for a week or so and don't know
>each of your positions. Let me fade back for awhile until I get a better
>feel for you guys. - thanks david swift
>







.
.
The self is an ever-changing, collection of interrelated and 
interconnected, inorganic, biological, social and intellectual, 
static patterns of value responding to Dynamic Quality .
.
.