Krimel > This is where the idea of an undefined reality arises. "Reality"
is in
constant flux. It does not hold still. The information we have about it is
limited individually by our sensory systems and collectively by our
negotiated shared meanings.
DM: Problem with this is the talk about sensory systems, as if there
is some kind of spectator using systems to analyse information coming
from some sort of outside. I think the point of criticisms of the dualist
empiricism derived from Descartes is to say that perhaps a better
conception would be to see that we are no in any way isolated in
some inner realm, that there is only one realm in which change is
occurring, that what we experience is change or even more precisely
the value positive or negative of this change, and worse yet, in terms
of descriptive complexity, we are active is any given situation, finding
ourselves thrown into complexes of potential that we are seeking to
fully realise or avoid. All we ever know directly is this change and
how we respond to it and what good and bad possibilities it presents.
Without this being open to possibilities and our need to influence these
possibilities there would seem to be no need for there to be any
consciousness to worry about the choices pre-sent-ing or pre-sending.
You need to listen to your Heidegger pods for a better summary of
all this:
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details.php?seriesid=1906978475
Change is primary, change that changes what we are. All that we can
directly know, with the first differentiation, perhaps after changing
not-changing, being bad-change and good-change. Now have our
bodies evolved to enable better responses, and make possible
better possibilities? Sure. But this is in response to the need to
deal with what is already being experienced as change. Take
a single cell organism, it is very exposed to change, perhaps
too much pleasure and pain. Are not our more evolved bodies
ways to keep out too much change and too complex a situation
with too many bad possibilities? Our bodies keep too much
change out, giving us more space in which to develop a greater
capacity for response and managing this difficult change, but
not just difficult, also offering opportunities. With developed sense
organs we differentiate this change more effectively, focussing,
I guess, on what are the better looking possibilities available.
If change did not also offer possibilities then there would be
no need for a 4 levelled organised organism with a dynamic ability to
respond. Our organs of perception are more about filtering than
creating our experience. Experience is the fundamental value-response
to change that underlies the opportunity to evolve and improve
our exploration-exploitation of what is possible. See the difference
in emphasis here? One worth making I think. Also Merleau-Ponty is good on
this as well as James and Dewey. We are embodied beings not
spectator beings in an inner realm inferring about information, as least
not until rather recently. I think this fits better with current science
than the
concepts suggested by Descartes that still seem to lurk in your language
but they are concepts that are difficult to avoid and are not often useful
some of the time, but there is much to gain from this Dewey-Heidegger-James-
Pirsig & Merleau-Ponty alternative.
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