My fellow dictioneers,
I have a gripe, plus one class A argument against atomic awareness. Gripe
first.
> PLATT(previously to Roger)
> My guess is that such sentences are too metaphorically strong for your liking
> and thus present a false picture. Instead of “awareness” would you accept
> Whitehead’s much less provocative word “prehension” to describe a particle’s
> response to an observation or an atom’s sensitivity to its environment?
>
> ROG:
> Sure. No problem.
>
> PLATT:
> If Roger had posted this response early on, much of the ensuing argument over
> “aware” might have been avoided. “Prehension” is defined in my dictionary as
> “apprehension by the senses,” and “apprehension” is defined as “the act or
> power of perceiving or comprehending.” Atoms perceive? OK by me.
ELEPHANT:
Can I ask: would it in future be a good idea to atleast begin by treating
people as assenting to the views and words which they say they assent to?
Roger didn't agree to "perceive", he agreed to "prehension" on the
understanding that it meant a sensitivity which is something less than
conscious awareness - as you know full well Platt.
A lot of people are doing this "sign this blank cheque on the line here -
I'll come and tell you what I've cashed it for later" trick, and I not
amused. It's all of a peice with the "the word means exaclty what I say it
means and I'll tell you what I say it means sometime next week" movement.
It ain't big and it ain't clever. It sure as hell isn't philosophy.
But what about this....
PLATT:
> So when I say “atoms are aware,” I’m talking about a very low level of
> awareness. Similarly, atoms don’t experience all that we or even viruses do.
> On the continuum McWatt speaks of, atoms have very limited experience indeed.
ELEPHANT:
That's worth exploring.
Answer me this Platt: If what we directly experience is DQ, and what an atom
directly experiences is DQ, how can I be said to experience *more* than the
atom? Since DQ is continuous and infinite by definition, it is not possible
to have separate finite bits of DQ to compare between us.
What might be there to compare between us, if we are both trully aware,
would be experience of SQ: that you *could* possibly parcel up into
comparable units (objects, events, etc) that will then get stuck into your
smart alec accountancy system to say that an atom is aware, but less so than
a human - that an atom is aware of fewer objects/events/choices whatever
(*maybe*).
The problem with that is:
(1) that for an atom to experience SQ it would have to be a language user
(since the aesthetic continuum of DQ is not (contrary to some of Marco's
thoughts) pre-individuated.
and
(2) that you have all along been talking about the atom's "awareness" in
terms of DQ.
And that's fatal.
I'm explain.
So, you can claim that there is such a thing as comparatively conscious (a
phrase I'd compare to "comparatively pregnant"), but only if you can show
that atoms are language users. Somewhat unlikely. But if atoms aren't
language users and thus don't experience SQ there is absolutely no way you
can compare the awareness of an atom to the awareness of a scientist to come
out with your desired conclusion that a scientist is more aware than an
atom.
And since it is patently obvious that a scientist is more aware than an
atom, it follows that your failure to allow for this is the failure of your
theory that atoms are aware.
QED.
Show me otherwise. Without the use of a [expletive deleted] dictionary.
All best wishes etc
Puzzling Elephant
p.s. it occurs to me that you will say: "of course atoms are language users,
they speak maths". But:
(1) It also occurs to me that comparing atoms and Scientists on the basis of
their SQ awareness isn't a measure of how comparatively *aware* they are in
any case, but rather of how much they are aware *of*. Big difference. If
you bit the bullet and say that a chemistry professor is exactly as aware as
a nutrino you will have lost all plausibilty for the whole atomic awareness
biz.
(2) We are full circle and back to gravity. Apples do not perform
calcuations unless they are products of Apple computer inc, and it is not by
performing calculations that a thing moves in the world. Calculations are
what we use to understand the world, and it is only because of our choices
about how we shall picture the world that there are such things as atoms at
all. Sound of one hand clapping. It is what you say it is.
****The root of this is very simple Platt. How can you call something which
is essentially a dependant being, dependant for it's being on our contingent
choices, "conscious"? Such a move is all one with calling Macbeth
"conscious". Macbeth is a *character* Platt, can't you see that? This
world of static quality (including atoms) is a *fiction*, when compared with
Dynamic quality. Platt, are you deaf to RMP the Mystic?*****
[Note to Roger/anyone - can you recall: Pirsig gave this long talk about
movies somewhere, in Lila I think, and it is *completely* Plato's cave -
illustrates this fiction point that needs to be made. Do you recall/have a
note of the page no's as I can't find it just now - even though I think I've
quoted from it in the past. Oh well.]
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