Kim Coble wrote:

> Dear Geoffrey,
>
> Could you elaborate? Specific questions follow...
>
> > Question: What do you think of human consciousness?
>
> I like Pentcho's idea (I hope I don't misquote!) of conciousness arising
> as part of a whole system.

Let me elaborate a bit (I hope I am not too obtruding). When one reads Spinoza carefully, one may come to the conclusion that any mind should be regarded as a particular crosspoint within the general interaction scheme operating in the Universe. If we imagine this scheme as a set of arrows symbolizing recurrent material relations of the type cause -> effect, any mind is a point in it with input and output arrows forming, together, a specific FIGURE around the point. However, in accordance with Spinoza's view, this figure should not be interpreted in terms of material (physical) interactions - this would involve an ever increasing number of details without any hope to reach the essence of the figure. Rather, Nature possesses another property (Spinoza calls it "attribute") which is self-sufficient ans allows Nature to rationalize the figure and see itself through
its own "eyes". Spinoza stops here, but next philosophers are desperately trying to discover the basic principle allowing any mind to "see" itself. Perhaps Hegel has gone far enough, but unfortunately he is too mystical and difficult to understand.
Let us return to the scheme
lamp -> animal -> food /1/

This is a material sequence with too many details - if one tries to understand itby describing all physical processes things are hopeless. Now Nature has endowed the animal with the property to bypass all this by making an IDENIFICATION:
lamp = food /2/

So a recurrent physical process in the Universe is "fixed" by Nature, in Spinoza'swords, under a different attribute. For the animal's mind, the identifiction is absolute - the animals licks the lamp. In fact, Hegel analyses the evolution of the property. According to him, /2/ is the "thesis": "A is B" - the most primitive and illusory step in the evolution of mind. Then an "antithesis" follows - "A is not B". For an animal this step does not exist, but for man it does. Finally, some highly evolved mind comes to an understanding of itself through a synthesis: "A simultaneously is B and is not B". This sounds contradictory, but it reflects the fact that the mind has understood its own evolution - it is aware of the initial illusion "A is B", knows that "A is not B", and in the same time it knows that both are essential - neither should be ignored.

Curiously, there is a mathematical discipline - the category theory, that seems very adequate for the above logic. Long time ago I went quite deeply into the problem, but then had to deffend myself against thermodynamicists' aggression, had to survive etc. Still I shall find time to be helpful in the development of this field as well. Aut inveniam viam aut faciam (I shall either find a way or make one).

Pentcho