[MD] Digesting the world and burping Quality: An Analogy

[MarshaV]

On Feb 12, 2011, at 2:06 AM, craigerb at comcast.net wrote:

> [John]
>> the underlying matrix of
> understanding is formed by the common experience of a common environment.
> 
> "If language is to be a means of communication there must be agreement not only in
> definitions but also (queer as this may sound) in judgements."
> (Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 242.)
> 
> http://people.su.se/~kgl/Wittgenstein%20and%20Davidson.pdf
> 
> [Mark]
>> I think that there is fallacy in considering the societal level to be
>> the sum of individual levels.
> 
> Very good.  Otherwise, bee society would be on the MoQ 3rd level.
> 
> [Mark}
>> As individuals we exist in the biological level (or organic, whatever).
> 
> IMHO all 4 levels are integrated in a human individual.
>>  
>>  
>> [Mark]
>> A collection of individuals synergistically form the societal level which goes by its own
>> consciousness.  This is similar to the cells making up our consciousness.
>> As such, we are speaking of group consciousness, not individual desires all summed
>> up and fought over in a political way.  Such values are not within the domain of the
>> individual, although he does provide basis for them, in the same way our cells
>> provides the basis for our consciousness.
> 
> IMHO this analogy obscures more than it enlightens.  It would be like saying a lion moves
> thru the savanna just like a bishop moves around a chessboard.  The kind of mistake
> the lion could make (e.g., falling in a tar pit or scaring off its prey) is of a different kind than
> a bishop could make (e.g., by moving off its diagonal).
> It is not clear how individual brain cells create consciousness (the "hard problem" of
> consciousness), but it isn't the way individuals create "group consciousness".
> Craig

Hi Craig,
I do no think there is any certainty that consciousness can be constrained to the brain;  
a correlation seems obvious, but beyond that is the unknown.  


Marsha 
 
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