Peter, Ian, Steve (maybe), Excuse me for butting in... Krimel [Peter] Plain experience starts with the inorganic; when we touch something molecules at the end of the finger are jiggled. Experience becomes vanilla flavoured via the biological substrates. I suggest some experience gets sufficiently processed at the organic level and never makes it to register as a symbol. Sorry if my language is imprecise, I don't have specialist knowledge of physiology, I'm just describing the way I see it now.
[Krimel] This is a hard sell in these parts, my friend. But let me see if I can't help flesh out your argument. The sensory nervous system is rather like Indira's net cast over the surface of out bodies. It is equipped to "transduce" energy from the environment into electro-chemical impulses in our nerves. The various sensory nerves transduce different forms of energy from the environment into very similar nervous impulses that are conveyed along different pathways to the brain where they are processed and integrated with previously stored experiences of like kind. One of the problems with a notion like pure experience for example is that if it were possible it is unlikely to be desirable. The pure experience of any instant is composed of activation of nerves by, light and air pressure and temperature and chemicals in the air. It is highly fragmented. There is some processing at the organic level as you suggest, especially in the visual system. The sense of consciousness as James would have it is a function that describes the integration of diverse inputs into a conceptual whole. [Peter] That's a neat side step Ian. So what experience have you had that you can't explain with words? Pirsig's Dynamic Quality? Tao? We can't define it but surely we can talk about it's effects and it's uses? [Krimel] Words serve only to convey information about common experiences. We have no need for words to explain our own experiences to ourselves. Words serve mainly as attempts to reproduce our subjective experiences in others or to approximate the experiences of others in ourselves subjectively. The Subject/Object split is little more that a set of labels identifying these different subjective kinds of experience. That is immediate sensory input and memory of previous experiences. Perception then is the active integration of the present with the past. [Peter] Agreed we can by an act of will momentarily stop associating, and that's a useful thing to do. Don't think, feel! [Krimel] I am not entirely sure we can do this but if we could it would be a bit like holding our breath under water. A useful experience but of what significance in any larger sense? [Peter] Again, you seem to have side stepped; what kind of thinking can we do without symbol manipulation? I suggest mystical experience is difficult to categorise because it rings so many bells all at once. Such an experience surely registers in the intellect because later we feel the need to reconsider it. But because it is such a new experience the intellect cannot so easily file it away and the experience continues to resonate 'I'. [Krimel] Mystical experiences whether induced by chemicals, seizures, social pressure or formal training alter the normal processing of sensory data. In Tibetan monks long term meditative experiences seem to expand the processing centers of pleasure and well being in the frontal cortex. LSD seems to interfere with the processing of emotional content and filtering of sense data. When sensory input is altered either as input or as it is being processed it certainly creates new kinds of information that does not fit into ones current network of past associations. This new subjective experience is thus difficult to communicate or find agreement with others about. [Peter] Agreed, we can experience without rationalising but when we later discuss our experience then it's via subjects and objects. [Krimel] Exactly! What I feel and what I can say about my feelings that you might share in common. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
