hi krimel&all,
commenst interspersed.
> I would like to raise a few points here that relate not
> only to the
> mind/body problem but also to the notion of a self and to
> mysticism. There
> seems to be an underlying idea in much of what goes on in
> these discussions
> that experience is a unitary phenomena. Not just the idea
> of mystical
> oneness but that we can have "an" experience.
> From my point of view this is
> definitely and demonstrably an illusion in the
> "Kulpian" sense, as Ron has
> outlined. We do not have singular experiences. We can not
> have singular
> experiences. We have multiple experiences through multiple
> pathways and we
> synthesize those into the singularity of experience and of
> self.
gav:
krimel says 'we do not have singular experiences'; but, phenomenologically
speaking, (immediate) experience IS unitary (this is obvious to anyone that has
done anything requiring their full participative awareness). this is very
important.
now is this an illusion? is this due to, as krimel thinks, the synthetic action
of our brains, esemplastically integrating discrete strands of sense data into
one polyphonic 3D experience?....
> various pathways of sight, sound, smell, taste, touch,
> temperature, balance,
> pressure, proprioception and perhaps a few more. But vision
> is our primary
> sense so let me start with that. Pretty much everything we
> see and the way
> we see it is a Kulpian illusion. The way that the receptor
> cells are
> arranged on the retinas of our eyes guarantees that only a
> tiny fraction of
> what we are looking at in any instant is actually in focus.
> Our lenses focus
> light onto a very small spot in the center of the retina.
> This area is
> packed with nerve cells which are able to pass along this
> focused
> information to the vision centers of the brain. Every thing
> we see "appears"
> to be in focus because we glance around a lot and construct
> from our
> multiple glancings a picture of a world in focus. As Pirsig
> notes the world
> that is in fact focused onto our retinas is also upside
> down so the illusion
> that we create is not only in focus but right side up. In
> addition there is
> a hole in our retinas were the optic nerve enters the eye
> and this blind
> spot is also covered over and masked as part of the
> illusion.
gav: okay krimel is making some good points here but they are all presuming
something....(and what is that gav?)...they are all presuming the existence of
an object 'sending' data to a subject. the perceiver receives sense data
(reflected light waves in the case above) from the perceived object. can you
see the subject and object here? and how they are discrete? THIS IS SOM.
>
> If what we "see" were just the raw sense data not
> only would it be out of
> focus, upside down and have a hole in it, it would be
> entirely two
> dimensional. While we can abstract three dimensional models
> from monocular
> input through our experience with visual textures, relative
> size of near and
> distant objects and so forth, binocular vision facilitates
> the process.
gav: more SOM. 'we' see the 'sense data'. this is subject and implied object
(source of sense data).
take the 'we' away and we are getting close to MOQ.
the experience of seeing is ontologically prior to the abstraction of who is
seeing and what is seen. in other words the dynamic event of seeing comes
first, then we abstract 'me' the subject and 'that' the object.
this point seems unassailable. why would sense data be esemplastically unified
AFTER the unitary experience itself? ie the experience is already unified - to
re-unify it doesn't make sense!
and it is equally nonsensical to say that sense data is unified BEFORE the
experience. immediate experience is immediate. there is no before. t=0.
but it would be remiss of me not to re-iterate what a good, thought-provoking
post this is by krimel.
in closing, krimel disparages (implicitly) the value of calmness and
compassion, but these are an example of pragmatic truth criteria. truth as
having utility. if something, some idea or state of awareness, is conducive to
compassion and calmness it is probably a damn good (ie true) thing.
one more thing. the brain-wave activity of meditating monks is corellated to
the state they 'subjectively' are in. the logic of what we know about the
regions of the brain corresponds with the logic of the meditation experience.
that is the parts of the brain that are involved in individuation and
self-consciousness become less and less active as the meditation experience
becomes more of oneness/no-thingness.
no causation though - from an MOQ perspective we can see that the brain wave
activity and localisation is an analogue of the experience itself.
the brain wave activity doesn't cause the subject to experience (sOm); neither
does the subject's experience cause the brain wave activity (Som). there is
first experience, then analogues that we use to help communicate to ourselves
and others the nature and logic of the experience.
thanks for the workout.
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