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Sci Tech    H4'ed 3/25/10

Consciousness, Values, Science, and Nature

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Jim Arnold
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Consciousness can be RESPONSIVE. Everything that occurs with the objects of physics and biology involves an immediate reaction, but as conscious beings we are able to respond to complex situations in the present, in view of implicit values, even of future considerations that don't yet exist. When we're not being "absent minded", or performing habitual tasks, we can deal with ambiguous, unexpected, even unprecedented events in the moment they occur, situated in an ever-weaving fabric of place and time. A policeman can respond to life-and-death situations for which there can only be general guidelines. A flood victim without food can ponder whether it is right to procure, or wrong to steal, from an abandoned store. Rules of behavior (as with "instincts") can't apply and regulate reactions to all situations, but we nonetheless have the evident and distinct ability to respond to our surroundings as a coherent environment, uniquely, resourcefully, and with a presence in the moment.

In contrast to responsive consciousness, computer "intelligence" can only react to situations that have been anticipated and projected into the present by the imaginative responsiveness of the programmer. At best, a computer programmed for "artificial intelligence" can expand its repertoire by "learning" new interrelationships that can be identified and reacted to next time.

Consciousness is here and now; an object of science simply is. And a world where responsiveness is possible is fundamentally different from a world of reaction. A meta-scientific world-view can only attempt to explain the emergence of responsiveness with a "presto! " whereby a virtual infinity of mutations is claimed to have led to a whole new kind of reality, where the present awareness of a responsive consciousness supplants mechanical reaction as if by some miraculous leap.

Consciousness can be TRANSCENDENT. I don't mean "transcendent" in a metaphysical sense. To transcend is to encompass, to unify, by getting "outside" the elements of a situation. When a computer is mistakenly instructed to complete an impossible task it goes into an "endless loop", and would continue forever unless it is somehow interrupted. But consciousness is able to transcend a situation, to comprehend it from beyond the particulars, and immediately say, in effect, "this can never work - it's pointless to even try."

The evidence for conscious transcendence is abundant. When we derive meaning from a collection of words that goes beyond their individual and literal definition we transcend the elements of language to form a thought. Poetry is a celebration of transcendence; it is the essence of poetry to evoke an image or concept that can't be expressed in the literal combination of words, and it would be meaningless in a world defined by discrete linguistic elements and their serial combination. Even in everyday conversations, our comprehension can transcend the meanings of words. To hear, for the first time, someone say "that's bad" and realize they actually mean "that's very good", is to transcend definition - and to delight in (or abhor) the novel reformulation of the words. Language can of course be influential in our manner of thinking, but for transcendent consciousness, language is only the material basis, the stepping-stones of thought.

Much humor, maybe all humor consists in the enjoyment of suddenly transcending a situation or juxtaposition. When at the end of each of the old Burns and Allen comedy routines George told Gracie "say goodnight, Gracie" and she responded saying "goodnight Gracie" the audience laughed at her chronic inability to transcend the literal. When you first heard the question "why did the chicken cross the road?" you probably searched for some transcendent explanation of motive; then when you laughed at the unexpected answer, it was with the sudden appreciation of your initial and unnecessary transcendence of the immediate and obvious. When the difference between a reaction and a response sneaks upon us in a joke framed like a trick, it can be a lucid and funny encounter with our own transcendence.

The transcendence of consciousness is scientifically inexplicable, except by a dismissive tautology. ("Every characteristic of behavior is simply a physical evolution or bi-product, therefore every characteristic of behavior is simply a physical evolution or bi-product".) In the meta-scientific view, thoughts must be reducible to, and determined by their elements - in language, a product of evolution. The irony here is that transcendence is required to deny transcendence; there is nothing in language itself to indicate that it may be an enclosure.

Just as the science of linguistics has been dominated by the belief that our thoughts are "determined", as if imprisoned by our language, anthropology was for a time dominated by a belief that we are "determined" by our native culture - until it was realized that the anthropologist has to transcend her culture in order to conclude that culture cannot be transcended. Anyone who is truly confined by their cultural beliefs would be unable conceive that their beliefs are only cultural.

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A former visitant of UC Santa Cruz, former union boilermaker, ex-Marine, Vietnam vet, anti-war activist, dilettante in science with an earth-shaking theory on the nature of light (which no one will consider), philosopher in the tradition of (more...)
 

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