File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2003/bhaskar.0306, message 129


Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2003 11:47:18 +0100
From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>
Subject: BHA: re:Identity (or Stones in Summer)


Dear Guenter

>To say that consciousness is
>enfolded in matter does not mean it's present in all matter, any more
>than the view that human beings are an emergent species of nature
>means that all animals are (actual or potential) human beings.

On the current story of the big bang, I think it does entail this, 
bearing in mind that we're speaking at the level of possibility and fine 
structure, and not of the actual: given consciousness as we know it, its 
possibility must have been enfolded in the particles at the moment of 
the bang, hence enfolded in all matter as such. The metaphysically 
materialist story that mind emerged from matter can only be true if 
matter 'contained' the possibility of mind -- and this must be true at 
every stage of any diachronic explanatory reduction, including a stage 
at which there was 'just stones' so to speak. (Unless of course we 
inhabit two comoses, one in which mind is enfolded in matter and one in 
which it isn't.)

Given the openness of emergent processes (and also CR's anti-anthropism) 
I can't see that this entails viewing animals or anything else as 
potentially human.

>We
>don't have to claim that there's consciousness in stones - even as a
>paradoxical conand - to make the point that we are connected with
>stones by a common origin.

True, but there are other points at issue, and in any case, while to say 
that stones are conscious is on the face of it paradoxical, to say that 
they are *implicitly* conscious in the above sense (which is what the 
saying *means*) is not (if of course the above is correct) -- it's a 
graphic way of referring to the objective intelligibility of matter and 
of specifying the subjective condition for identity consciousness and 
alethic truth. The other points at issue are Bhaskar's drive to help 
effect a paradigm shift in which (once capitalism is gone!) we will no 
longer relate to Being instrumentally or self-preservatively (to use 
Adorno's phrase) but as intrinsically valuable -- the doctrine of the 
implicit consciousness of matter philosophically underpins the 
re-enchantment of the world (or at any rate is one of the 
underpinnings).

Mervyn


PS. It being summer in the Northern hemisphere, this sub-thread keeps 
reminding me of a slim volume of poetry by the Cypriot/Australian 
philosopher Tony Palma called 'Stones in Summer', which, like a lot of 
poetry, illustrates some of the relevant issues, in particular our 
experience of identity consciousness.



In message <1863521065.20030620000912-AT-unsw.edu.au>, Günter Minnerup 
<g.minnerup-AT-unsw.edu.au> writes
>Dear Mervyn,
>
>On Thursday, June 19, 2003, you wrote:
>
>> PS re consciousness in stones
>
>> Why does he put it that way? Because he wants us to
>> re-think and re-do the way we relate to the world
>
>But it is acutely misleading, is it not? To say that consciousness is
>enfolded in matter does not mean it's present in all matter, any more
>than the view that human beings are an emergent species of nature
>means that all animals are (actual or potential) human beings. We
>don't have to claim that there's consciousness in stones - even as a
>paradoxical conand - to make the point that we are connected with
>stones by a common origin.
>
>Regards,
>Gnter
>




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