Hi David,
I was hoping you were just being funny. I love reading your posts. You are
humorous and creative, and intelligent. Squonk's thought experiment never
made any sense to me, but it seemed right for him to try it. But I was a
little concerned that you might be objecting to the unpleasantness of the
experiment itself, which was stated to be just a mental exercise. Squonk's
a creative guy too.
Nobody wants to be there or enjoys it. It's called a descent into hell, not
a trip to happy hour. Hopefully it's a short visit, and there's not much
blood. Actually, it's a horrible job, but somebody has got to do it.
Metaphorically... Maybe I'm wrong. What did Joseph Campbell have to say?
Am I lecturing? Doesn't sound very Zen. Sorry.
Marsha
----- Original Message -----
From: "david buchanan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2008 5:58 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] moq thought experiement 1.
Marsha sais to dmb:
I don't get much from Squonk's mental exercise, but I do not understand
your objection to his thought experiment. I would think the mind would
be the perfect place to perform such a controlled experiment. One could
imagine the problems, test different solutions, and thoroughly explore all
aspects without doing harm to anyone. (As has been pointed out by stating
the difference between an infant and an enlightened Buddha.) The question
for me is, if you would object to such a philosophical thought experiment,
would you also want to inhibit the artist's imagination?
dmb replies:
Well, first of all let me say that I understand a thought experiment is
something we think about rather than put into practice. And I have to ask
in all seriousness, who doesn't understand that?
The reason I object is very simple. I think its a bad idea. Don't you know
me by now? Expressing disagreement with folks around here is my favorite
hobby. Been doing it for years. And most of the time mysticism will be
involved in that disagreement. Hard to imagine how any MOQer could be
surprized or fail to understand why I'd engage in this current round of
disagreements. Basically, I think it all hinges on a flawed premise. By
equating those who have transcended static patterns with those who never
acquired them in the first place, static patterns have been construed as
irrelevant or even as something negative. Even though its just an "idea",
preventing human minds from developing is still objectionable on moral
grounds. If one is going to include any kind of cruelty or deprivation as
part of a thought experiment, I reckon there ought to be a very good
reason for it. But in this case, the reason for it, to maximize DQ, is
based on the fallacious equation of babies and mysti
cs. In the case of infants, there is no possibility of getting consent
from the subject. Of course, if I thought it was an actual proposal I'd do
more than complain about it in cyberspace. I'd call Scotland Yard or the
FBI. But so far I'm just saying the experiment is poorly designed, that it
is based on a misunderstanding of the MOQ, as well as infants and mystics.
But now I'm just repeating myself.
The original "brain in a vat", or at least the one I know of, is a good
example of a thought experiment. If memory serves, it can be found in "The
Mind's Eye". This asks us to imagine that a brain can be kept alive and
healthy in a lab. (The owner volunteered and would otherwise be dead of
natural causes.) What would happen if another researcher wanted to take
half the brain to his lab and they figured out a way to do that while
keeping the whole mind in tact via electronic connections, even though the
two halves would be very far away from each other physically. Then
interest in this divided brain grew and grew so that 10,000 researchers
each had a small section of this single brain and it was all still
connected via electronics, etc. What if each lab had just a single brain
cell? This thought experiment asks us to think about the mind/body problem
in a novel way. If the brain is scattered in billions of locations - all
over the planet, under the ocean and in orbit too - the
n where is the mind? In what sense is it in the brain at this point? This
illustrates the issue so that one really gets a sense of what the
mind/body problem is all about. Doesn't have much to do with the MOQ, but
that's how I remember the brain in the vat experiment and I think its
pretty cool. It doesn't provide any answers but it paints a clear picture
of the question. It helps us grapple with the question.
So far, my objections have been met with explicit and implicit accusations
of censorship, philosophological thinking, unoriginal thinking, of having
no argument, of arguing from authority, of using twisted rhetoric, of
using humor and emotion, of relying too much on Pirsig's thought, of
straying outside Pirsig's thought and now with a wish to inhibit the
creative imagination. But I don't think my objections are out of bounds or
unfounded in the least and so all those accusations seems quite
unwarranted to me, even a bit over the top. Like everybody else here, I'm
just talking and trying to make sense of the MOQ. Obviously, I do not have
the power to censor anyone and really wouldn't know how to inhibit the
imagination of an artist. What the heck? Let's just say I object because I
hate freedom and apple pie. Let's say I belong to a cult that worships
highly educated babies and I'm secretly trying to convert all the MOQers.
The other accusations are a little less silly, but not
by much.
I'm saying that a mystical experience occurs within the context of a
person's developmental process. Squonk's experiment is all about arresting
that development from the start, so this would be a pretty major
objection. Frankly, I don't think there is much doubt that Squonk is
mistaken on this point. Here's one of the bigger planks that form the
basis of my objection...
"...From the baby's point of view, something, he knows not what, compels
attention, This generalized 'something', Whitehead's 'dim apprehension',
is Dynamic Quality. When he is a few months old the baby studies his hand
or a rattle, not knowing it is a hand or a rattle, with the same sense of
wonder and mystery and excitement created by the music and heart attack in
the previous examples. If the baby ignores this force of Dynamic Quality
it can be speculated that he will become mentally retarded, but if he is
normally attentive to DQ he will soon begin to notice differences and then
correlations between the differences and then repetitive patterns of the
correlations. But it is not until the baby is several months old that he
will begin to really understand enough about that enormously complex
correlation of sensations and boundaries and desires called an 'object' to
be able to reach for one. This object will not be a primary experience. It
will be a complex pattern of static
values 'derived' from primary experience. ...In this way static patterns
of value become the universe of distinguishable things. Elementary static
distinctions between such entities as 'before' and 'after' and between
'like' and 'unlike' grow into enormously complex patterns of knowledge
that are transmitted from generation to generation as the mythos, the
culture in which we live. ...In the past Phaedrus' own radical bias caused
him to think of Dynamic Quality alone and neglect static patterns of
quality. ..But now he was beginning to see that this radical bias weakened
his own case. Life can't exist on Dynamic Quality alone. It has no staying
power. To cling to Dynamic Quality alone apart from any static patterns is
to cling to chaos. ...Static quality patterns are dead when they are
exclusive, when they demand blind obedience and suppress Dynamic change,
But static patterns, nevertheless, provide a necessary stabilizing force
to protect Dynamic progress from degeneration
. Although Dynamic Quality, the Quality of freedom, creates this world in
which we live, these patterns of static quality, the quality of order,
preserve our world, Neither static nor Dynamic Quality can survive without
the other." (Lila, pages 119-121, near the end of chapter 9)
I think the worry that our culture will degenerate by slipping back to the
social level, as opposed to being led by intellectual values, is
consistent with the basic idea that static patterns "provide a necessary
stabilizing force to protect Dynamic progress". The idea of evolution as a
kind of static latching applies this same idea to the widest possible
context. If I'm correct on this point and it shuts down the experiment,
that still doesn't make me a censor. It just makes me a guy who pointed
out a big mistake, who disagreed with a bad idea, who still enjoys his
favorite hobby.
Thanks,
dmb
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