[MD] Consciousness & Moq.

[David Thomas]

DMB,

Reread the question again.

>> But let me remind you that James'

Where in the question does it mention James? I thought this was a discussion
of Pirsig's work. Yes Pirsig does point to two of James ideas "radical
empiricism" and "pragmatism" and in both cases gives a short synopsis of
what these theories mean to him. What he feels are good in these ideas.
Philosophers from Aristotle on down have been doing this with individual
ideas by others they both agree and disagree with. Your pattern here has
been to interpret Pirsig's mention of "pragmatism" as meaning he adopts the
entire field from Pierce to Putnam. I understand the allure of using this
"Me Too" approach given the thinness of Pirsig's work in some areas and
depth and breadth of ideas to choose from in the entire field of pragmatism.
It allows you to defend almost any point by claiming that Pirsig subscribes
to that position because is subscribes any notion related to "radical
empiricism" and "pragmatism."

>> One of them is titled "Does
>> Consciousness Exist?" and in it James answers "no", not if you mean a thing,
>> an entity that has the thoughts. There is no Cartesian self, no mental
>> substance. 

Did question say anything about "thing", "entity" or "substance" or anything
about what I though about "consciousness" at all. I asked about what the MoQ
says about "consciousness." Which as of now, you have failed to address.

You did however give credence to this meaning of  "disingenuous | not candid
or sincere, SOMETIMES by pretending that one knows MORE about something than
one really does."

You left the impression that James concludes that "consciousness" does not
exist. When in fact that is the furthest thing from the truth. As a powerful
lecturer he is using this statement as a rhetorical devise to wake up his
audience, to get their attention. Once he has their attention he goes on to
make his main point that yes, "consciousness" does exist but as a
psychological function. Which Chalmer's confirms on page 13 of his
introduction to "The Conscious Mind".

>> As you're reading Chalmers ask yourself if he's operating with the
>> subject-object metaphysical assumptions.

I will not deny it, Chalmers is a very tough read for me. He is a
mathematician first, analytic school philosopher of the mind, functionalist,
with a strong bent towards scientific materialism and reductionism. And yes
he does use the words subjects and objects.

The problem slapping SOM label on any work that happens to mention subject,
object, subjective, objective, or mind, mental is that it eliminates 99.999%
of all scientific or philosophic work old and new. Great defense.

The reality is that in the current world of real people doing real science
and philosophy Pirsig is currently a non-entity. He never even warmed the
bench. He refused to even try out. OK, there have been a handful of people
from the fringes that come through to make meaningful contributions in
philosophy. But once gaining attention they all to some degree then engaged
in the dialogue. Since he has refused, you fancy yourself as his "Boswell."
You are doing him no great service by using this SOM technique to maintain
that disengagement. On the other hand given your slim background in science,
mathematics, analytic philosophy, maybe not.

Dave

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