Hi Elephant, Roger, Platt and all,
Firstly, I owe Elephant and everyone else an apology for misusing a word.
> Ach! I've been here several months without encountering this annoyance, but
> now Jonathan has finally gone and done it: he's used "refute" for "reject".
> You can't beleive how much that winds me up. It's all very well for
> politicians and other dumb suckers, but it we want to maintain the english
> language in a condition likely to permit the continuance of knowledge
> culture and commmon or garden reason we must resist these visigoths at the
> gate! Desist!
Elephant is right, and I am humbled. However, let's not let my mistake be
interpreted as a concession on any of the substantive points.
JONATHAN
> > Let me first address this less serious difference in approach. Elephant
> > is taking the mystical approach.
> > "Atoms" aren't reality itself - they're an invention of the human mind,
> > so it would be plain silly to give them attributes like "awareness". I
> > myself tend to take an almost opposite approach. I agree that atoms are
> > an invention of the human mind, but maintain that this and other similar
> > inventions ARE reality.
>
> ELEPHANT:
> Er, how do you manage that? You must be quite a good contortionist. I
> mean, normally we say that the stuff that's invented is invented, don't we?
> I do.
I don't see an alternative. I'm not going to go looking for some elusive
mystical reality. After hundreds of thousands of years on earth, man has yet
to make much progress on that front!. No thanks - I'll stick with the reality
I am familiar with. The mystics may call this imaginary reality, or "virtual"
reality, but until they can show me the "REAL" thing, I'll just call it
reality, or perhaps empirical reality i.e. the reality of my everyday
experience.
JONATHAN
> > The alternative approach (that I prefer) is to embrace everyday reality
> > as our own child.
>
This is my concession to the fact that I have no external reference to
validate my world view, and recognize that reality sometimes needs revision -
or as I put it before:
"When things get lost in a hiss of irrational babble, we must never forget to
consider the possibility that it is our own rationality that is out of tune.
we must never forget to consider the possibility that it is our own
rationality that is out of tune."
> ELEPHANT:
> I'm all for owning up to our paternity. Talk about this everyday reality
> reminds me of my paper "Iris Murdoch's everyday metaphysical entities"
> (http://www.ul.ie/~philos/vol4/index.html). To make the point that Murdoch
> and I both draw from Plato: there are degrees of reality. Fictional
> characters are quite real (in some degree), but that doesn't make them real
> in the way that *the real thing* is. This is also a thought from some paper
> on Buddhism I posted a link too a while back. All the world's a stage,
> *really* a stage, but appears like the real thing to all the best method
> actors.
>
This isn't where our argument is.
> > ELEPHANT:
> >> I'm sorry Jonathan. If atoms make choices then they are self-aware.. . .
> JONATHAN:
> > Awareness and self-awareness are not the same. . . .
I will illustrate the difference with Elephant's own statement:
ELEPHANT (27 March 2001)
BTW there's more to mind than making choices - there's creating the stuff to
choose between as well. (maybe this is where our enitire disagreement
lies).
As I understand it, the awareness of the atom is in making choices. Since the
atom and its choices are not SELF-defining, it is not useful to call it
self-awareness. The only self-aware identity would be one that defines its own
existence.
> ELEPHANT:
> It is quite true that awareness and self-awareness are not the same, but
> this is not the question. The question is whether the awareness that goes
> with *freewill* (eg of an atom) is self-awareness. And my verdict is: yes
> it is. This is a claim that you reject Jonathan, not one that you refute.
> If my claim needs support look at the whole library of christian theology
> saying that it is as individual self-aware souls that we are granted
> freewill. The freewill and the self-awareness are two sides of the same
> coin. *Souls* (Psyche) have freewill, not atoms (unless they have souls as
> well...).
>
Elephant you really should learn how to use Occam's Razor. IMO the FREE of
"freewill" and the SELF of "self-awareness" both have to go. Atoms are aware -
they have will. It is the extra baggage makes it all look ridiculous.
> ELEPHANT:
> >> . . .remembering to add RMP's kid-glove quotation
> > marks, [snip] It is *as if* atoms
> > prefer, and there's an end on it.
>
> JONATHAN:
> >you put the *as if* on
> > the awareness and not on the atoms themselves.
> > This appears to legitimize the atoms (real, objective), and delegitimize
> > atomic awareness (imaginary, unreal, subjective).
>
> ELEPHANT:
> I have no trouble at all with moving that "as if" to a position which makes
> the fictionality clearer in every way.
JONATHAN
If you were being true to your claims, you would say that nature
behaves *as if* it contains aware atoms.
>Yours is a trully constructive
> suggestion, and I accept it forthwith, pausing only to collect your graceful
> admission that atoms are not aware.
Now that you accept my "trully constructive" repositioning of *as if*, I will
apply Occam's Razor one again, and remove the *as if* altogether:
"nature contains aware atoms"
Sorry Elephant, this is not the graceful retreat you were seeking, but the
contrary. We are back where we originaly started, when Platt originally
brought up atomic awareness. I find that amusing.
Roger, I've hardly addressed your interim posts, but let me fast forward to
this:
ROGER
>bears are more aware than viruses, which are more aware than rocks.
>But in keeping with Diana's Texan theme "thars a mighty big
>spread 'tween them thar ...podner." By the time you get to rocks,
>the "A" word doesn't fit at all.
Like Roger, I identify more with bears than rocks, so can project my own
concept of "self" to the bear much more easily than to a rock. That's one
reason why I say that rocks are "aware" rather than self-aware.
I assume that Roger and I both identify still more strongly with Woody Allen -
bears, rocks and atoms have no sense of humour!
Jonathan
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