[MD] cognitive awareness

[Ham Priday]

Hi Marsha, and welcome Andy --


Thanks to you both for introducing a subject dear to my heart.  I only wish 
Marsha had titled this new thread "the cognitive agent" rather than 
"cognitive awareness."

[Marsha]:
> I don't know if you might have a comment, or that I can agree
> with such a comment, but I share this interest with you for
> what it is worth.
>
> So many times I have wanted to explore this with you,
> but it is difficult. I do not believe it is something RMP
> confronts directly, but I can easily relate it to unpatterned
> experience and static patterns.   Regardless,  I am an
> introverted explorer and wonder about the flow of
> consciousness and awareness.

Cognitive awareness comes under the topic of epistemology, a study sorely 
missing in Pirsig's Quaity thesis.  As a consequence, the difference between 
intellect and awareness is muddled, and thinking, if not awareness itself, 
is often falsely attributed to some extracorporeal domain.

> For me the 'flow of consciousness' comes in two flavors.
> There is the creative re-membering of static patterns from the past.
> And there is the creative projecting of static patterns into a future.
> Unless this seems to be address solving a problem, I dismiss
> most as imaginative story.

Memory, experience, and intellectual projection are all components of 
conscious awareness.  When used in combination, we call it reasoning or 
intellection.  Simple example: I emptied the milk container at breakfast 
yesterday (memory); I'm hungry for creamed chipped beef but see no milk in 
the refrigerator (experience); I shall therefore have to visit the grocery 
store and purchase more before lunch (reasoning).

> There is also an cognitive 'awareness' that is more immediate,
> and more puzzling. I suppose it is the techniques of mindfulness
> that brings this type of experience to ones attention.
> I have read that the Buddhist define these as six consciousnesses
> representing the five senses and mind:  I am aware of the thought
> of a dog.  I am aware of seeing a dog. I am aware of hearing
> a dog, smelling a dog, feeling a dog, etc.
>
> There is another type of awareness that seems to be awareness
> without an 'I' and without an object.   It is impossible to grasp
> because it is lost the moment one tries.  This is the awareness I
> have called 'unpatterned experience'.  This is more like rabbit/duck
> graphic experience that Craig cited, but it's unpatterned/patterned.
>
> Anyway, there does seem to be a cognitive agent(individual) involved,
> but not one I would designate a consistent, central controller.

Forget about the "controller"; ALL awareness is proprietary to the self. 
What you are describing here is immanent sensibility -- awareness captured 
by cognitive value.  A typical example of this is being struck by "love at 
first sight".  You instantly realize the value of the experience or insight 
without rationalizing the reasons.  As Platt has suggested, aesthetic 
experience -- beauty, magnificence, rapture, etc. -- also falls into this 
category.

I've always been concerned by your denial of a "self", Marsha, and suspect 
that it comes from reading too much Buddhist philosophy.  You are a 
cognizant creature, which means that you are aware of what you think and 
feel.  Nobody else has Marsha's awareness, thinks for her, or forms her 
ideas.  There's no domain out there that contains Marsha's intellect or 
moral values.  As a cognizant human being your life-experience is absolutely 
unique.  You are the cognizant locus of your reality,  This doesn't mean you 
are not influenced by the thoughts of others, only that what you know and 
feel as Marsha is yours alone.

[Andy]:
> Marsha, you mentioned unpatterned experience and cognitive
> agents.  I think cognition is essentially pattern recognition.
> The agent of cognition is concerned with patterns previously\
> recognized and patterns newly recognized. This almost fits with
> your "two flavors".
>
> I fail to see how an agent can have unpatterned experience.
> "Awareness of" is what you get *after* the Quality event.
> How can awareness take place before Quality has created values?
> That would permit Quality to be *seen* but that's impossible;
> only values can be seen. We know about Quality because we see
> everything that it creates; we don't see Quality itself.
>
> My experiences in meditation and psychedelia may have fooled me
> into believing that I could do that. I don't believe it anymore. I think
> what happened was a temporary inaccessibility of most previously
> recognized patterns. As mysterious and wonderful and terrible as it
> was, that experience was not unpatterned. It was far less rigidly
> patterned than the experience to which I had become accustomed,
> so less static and closer to DQ, but not quite there.

I agree with your epistemology, if not with your psychedia, Andy.  However, 
I view the Self as the "agent", and in deference to Pirsig, I do believe 
cognitive agents are primarily oriented to non-discrete ("unpatterned"?) 
Value or what he called "pre-intellectual experience".  Epistemologists 
might say we are "wired to be value-sensible".  Value is primary to 
cognizant awareness.  How else can we explain the impact value has on us, 
let alone the fact that we create values as experienced phenomena?

On the other hand, I depart from Pirsig's theory that Quality (Value) is the 
agent/agency of the cosmos and its guiding "moral principle".  I say this 
for the following reasons.  First of all, Value is an attribute of the 
Primary Source, not an independent "essence" in its own domain.  Secondly, 
it is obvious to me that man is uniquely equipped with the value-sensibility 
and intellect that enables him to be a "free agent" of value. 
(Unfortunately, Individual Freedom is not a concept championed by Mr. 
Pirsig.)  Putting all this together, my philosophy holds that man exists to 
freely realize the value of Essence and exercise his rational, self-directed 
value in creating a moral world.

As Marsha knows, I call this philosophy Essentialism.  As a newcomer here, 
Andy, you are cordially invited to read my online thesis at 
www.essentialism.net/mechanic.htm.

Essentially yours,
Ham