[MD] The Word is Not the Thing

[Ham Priday]

Bo --



> I don't know what your position is, hope it emerges by and by.

My "position" is that the label Biocentrism may not apply to Robert Lanza's 
theory.  I raise the question because several here have read Lanza (a 
bio-physicist) and mistakenly assumed he is postulating Life as the creator 
of the universe.  (I guess I saw "What's in a word?" as complementary to 
"The Word is not the Thing."

> I regard Biocentrism a new SOMish convulsion, now from the idealist
> camp? Emerson however sees the futility of SOM: The objective world
> that it postulates that the subject will find the workings (laws) of is
> contained in the subject's mind". But I suspect you Ham to cite this in
> support of your system, i.e. that (Emerson's) "The Highest" is
> something akin to the your  ...whatever you call it.

Essence is the word you're looking for, Bo, although I don't refer to it as 
The Highest.  Emerson (the poet) was a transcendentalist who believed in the 
unity of the universe with the soul of man.  His philosophy thus bordered on 
Panthesim, but with an affinity for the intuitive thought of Spinoza and 
Kant.  He understood life as a "process" in which the individual is free to 
develop "self-reliance", a virtue that he envisioned as a kind of stoic 
authenticity.  Although he disliked contradictions, I doubt that Emerson 
gave any thought to what you call "SOM".

[Ham, quoting Lanza]:
> "Space and time, not proteins and neurons, hold the answer to the problem
> of consciousness.  When we consider the nerve impulses entering the brain,
> we realize that they are not woven together automatically, any more than
> the information is inside a computer."

[Bo]:
> "Space and time" ... why not "causation" and we have Kant's about the
> subjective filters that order the objective "impulses entering the brain"
> (the thing in itself) and "weaves them together" into patterns that
> constitutes "the thing for us". This is regarded as the the final word on
> the mind/matter conundrum that began with the empiricists,  and
> everything since has been footnotes to Kant. Lanza obviously thinks
> he has said something profound, but it looks like old tea in new cups.

Lanza has outlined a mind-based worldview which is unique for the 
objectivist community.  Aside from astrophysicist John Wheeler and cognitive 
scientist Donald Hoffman, how many scientists do you know who have gone 
public with a theory of conscious reality?  And who do you think determines 
the "final  word on the mind/matter" paradox?  Inasmuch as ultimate truth is 
inaccesible to man, I expect discussions about the "conundrum" to go on 
indefinitely.

> I agree that the S/O metaphysics distinguishes between the material-
> yet-biological apparatus (brain) and mind itself (consciousness) S/O-
> based science (materialism) however will forever search for the
> biological site of consciousness while S/O-based thinkers (a la Ham
> Priday) will forever come up with idealist theories. And never shall any
> of them succeed because the SOM is faulty from the outset.
> Existence's fundament is not subject/object but dynamic/static.

Bo, I've asked you this before, but you have either avoided the question or 
are answering it in a way I don't comprehend.  What is "the S/O 
metaphysics"?  What is metaphysical about a subject/object  universe?   It's 
the reality of our existence, and we confront it constantly with each new 
experience.  If you don't accept yourself as the cognizant locus of your 
world, pray tell me what is.

> Who launched Lanza and Biocentrism as having any relevance
> for the MOQ?

I may have introduced Lanza here last year when I published his "New Theory 
of the Universe" on my Values Page.  I've lost all posts prior to May of 
this year, but I assume Lanza's thesis addressed some topic then being 
discussed.

Biocentrism came up again in a 9/15 post to Marsha by John Carl who provided 
a 7-point list of its principles (I suspect from Wikipedia) which Marsha 
found "interesting", and followed up on 9/16 with some responses to a 
science journal article by Richard Henry, a Harvard physics and astronomy 
professor, concerning Lanza's views.  You'll have to ask John about the 
relevance to MOQ.

> MY final Words are that SOM will continue its "see-saw" between
> mind-creating-matter and matter-creating-mind until some more
> people discover the MOQ.

Okay, then.  I suppose this discovery will stop the "see-saw" by revealing 
DQ as the Creator.  Remarkable how a couple of autobiographical novels can 
resolve a 3000-year-old dilemma.

Essentially yours,
Ham