Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion of Walker Percy

[Ken Armstrong <armstron AT ohiou.edu>]

   Jim,

  Just a note, really. Your post below really grabbed me with the
first sentence. But by the time I got to the first sentence of the second
paragraph, my head was spinning.


> Seems to me that the drive to be conscious is
> the strongest drive of all. Consciousness is like going to the movies
> only better  --it's our own life that is being shown.  Being
> conscious of our motives and actions does not in my view necessarily mean
> we are freely choosing them.  Nor do I understand how consciousness
> would be necessary for free choice to occur.  
>  
> I'm not even sure what consciousness is. How does consciousness differ
> from mere responding? 

  Quite a feat, Jim, to declare consciousness the strongest drive of
all (I'm not sure, though, where the drives are kept) and then declaring
yourself ignorant of what consciousness is. And THEN of all the *$(@#$*%$
things, devolving to consciousness being no  different from
stimulus/response! Well, heck, man, no wonder you don't understand how
consciousness would be necessary for free choice to occur!

 All I can say, with some expectation of being understood, is that
Percy would indeed have been willing to deflate (much better than I,
obviously) the idea that will is illusion. I notice no one took me up on
my question of how that book came into being. Stimulus/response d'yer
suppoze?

 Cheers,
 Ken Armstrong