Re: sustain vs enhance, radical impartiality

[John M <***>]

Daniel,
I don't think we have an argument here. Maybe we complement the ideas (not
in the misunderstood sense of complementary).  I appreciate the #-d
questions.
#1- Isn't 'quality' our decision based on aspects we carry and include?
Qualia are characteristics, properties. Quality is IMO a judgement. (good or
bad).
You are tricky: instead of giving me definitions of 'life' and 'nonlife',
you want to trick into knowing and responding to their difference <G>. I
don't.
#2- Same here. Pan-sensitivity I substituted for the noumenon used by
different people for different things - called ubiquitously 'consciousness'.
It came from my proposal from the early 90s to regard Ccness as something
like "acknowledgement of and response to information" (Info in common sense
terms). Now these concepts ('life' included) are connected. Within the
overall complexity it is hard to specify partial meanings.
#3 question: the Tao Te Ching (Mitchell) story. May I continue it, where you
(and the sage) stopped:
*
...And the sage came and said: how do you know that impartiality is good? A
woman was not labeling and was impartial, did not offer opinions, so the
villagers shunned her and she died alone and abandoned, while those who
voiced their opinions got together with those of similar opinions and lived
a happy socially fulfilling life.- And the sage asked: how do you know that
a socially fulfilling...etc. etc. etc.
*
I was just scolded on another list by a smart sage that my rigid rejection
of reductionism makes me a reductionist in my holistic exaggeration. I ask
you
if you happen to catch how I think, tell it to me so I shall know it myself.

I think I mentioned it already how at an AI conference the Dalai Lama
proposed a really conscious machine: the constructeur of a big computer - a
very pius person - loved the machine so much that after his death he
reincarnated, i.e. lived on, within the computer and made it "mindful".
(According to the reports the D.L.
 was not really (only) joking).

Our definitions and identifications are restricted to our present
mindcontent and so I am suspicious of our capability of understanding
unlimited things.
This is why I am proudly vague and agnostic (sounds better than ignorant).
Do we know more today than 50 years ago about life etc.? Of course. What and
how much are we going to know 50 (or300) years hence about nature?

With my best regards

John M

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Fiscus" <***>
To: <***>
Sent: Friday, August 27, 2004 11:44 AM
Subject: Re: sustain vs enhance, radical impartiality


> John M,
> SNIPPED to save archive-space.