> [Krimel] > Just to clarify I said that experience is a process that begins with the > transduction of energy into neural impulses.
Dan: I don't know. I woke up one day and found myself here. Later, I might have formulated theories as to the hows and whys this should be. I think the beginning of experience is a mystery. And that is all one can say. [Krimel] I too woke up one day and found myself here. It was not on the day I was born. I am told I was born awake but I recall nothing of that event. I am told that I woke up every morning for four or five years but I do not recall those morning. Eventually, I did become aware enough to wake in the morning and have some conception of where I was and what I was supposed to do next. I acquired this ability to wake up in the morning and find myself here through experience. I was born with the ability to take in information and to decode it. And every morning I wake up to this mystery I find that experience has provided me new information to decode and better ways to decode it. If I toss aside the fruits of all that experience and decoding, I find that I wake to a mystery every morning. A fresh world and I am a blank state. Some days I must reencode and reconceptualize the world and I can't even get out of bed until afternoon. It takes me that long to figure out what the bed is. Some days I awake and it is as though a clever demon has fill me with a memory of my past life of the day before and the day before and I have a built in set of concepts that shape my perceptions. I understand who I am an who I was yesterday and what I need to do today. And at the end of days like that, I pull the covers around me at night wondering who I will be when I wake up the next morning. To say it is a mystery and just leave it at that, has its appeal. But for me that is a denial of processes that gave rise to my existence and the processes that continue in me and that I pass along into the future, into the next world, into tomorrow. We possess the tools to unravel the mystery and in the unraveling we find deeper mysteries. Unraveling those mysteries is one of the reasons I do wake up in the morning. I reflect on those mysteries when I enter the void of sleep. > [Krimel] > I agree but would join James in pointing out that experience synthesis of > percepts and concepts. You can't throw either one out as a way of achieving > balance. Dan: I'm not sure nor do I have the inclination to find out on my own so maybe you can describe the difference between percepts and concepts and why James thought this important. This is completely beside the point and maybe someone else has mentioned it before (I don't remember) but I was delighted to discover Ralph Waldo Emerson was William James' godfather. Pretty cool, huh? [Krimel] Here is an explanation I offered to Ron at the end of February: "William James draws an interesting distinction between percepts and concepts. Percepts are the ongoing ever changing dynamic flux of immediate experience. Precepts are synthesized from sense data. For James percepts are both dynamic and continuous. Concepts on the other hand are static and discrete. They are the categories into which we shelve our percepts. Concepts he claims are wholly derived from perception. James thinks the Greeks were seduced by the beauty and perfection of concepts. The rational world of concepts was without flaw while the messy world of percepts is always changing and dirty. The Greeks saw the world of percepts as shadows derived from concepts. James argues that this is backassward. For one thing, once you have carved the world into discrete conceptual categories, it is darn near impossible to reconstruct the dynamic continuum experience." I would add that in attempting to reconstruct dynamic perception with static concepts we often get confused. We mistake our concepts for precepts and this is the illusion, Maya, that Hinduism speaks about. > [Krimel] > Say you know a really great way to understand undifferentiated continua? > That's right as probability distributions. Dan: No. That's not right. I'm pretty sure Robert Pirsig says Dynamic Quality and undifferentiated continuum are synonyms. They both point to "not this, not that." You seem to be labeling "it." [Krimel] "Undifferentiated continuum" is a concept. "Dynamic Quality" is a concept. "Synonym" is a concept. We cannot talk at all without using concepts. And those concepts must be understood conventionally by others in order for there to be communication. We cannot avoid "labeling" if we are to communicate at all. The issue is not about using concepts, it is about which concepts to use. I am saying that probability offers a way of conceptualize any continuum. It is a way of making continuous perception discrete without violating its essential nature. To the extent that an "intellectual level" makes any sense at all to me; it is the historic accumulation of concepts and conceptual patterns. It is our shared history, wisdom and the knowledge, hopes and dreams of all mankind. Before writing it was only spoken. Before movable type it was only available to a very few. In the digital age it is available and accessible to just about everyone everywhere. This is the growth of the intellectual level; from master to pupil to Google. This is possible because through trial and error and millennia of effort we have developed concepts that serve as ever more precise maps of the perceptual terrain. For James concepts are secondary, they are derived from perception. But it is not as though we can do without them. As Bolte-Taylor says they arise out of our experience, in the left hemisphere of the brain where we have special areas devoted to encoding percepts into concepts and for decoding the concepts we hear from others into our own perceptions of the experience of others. Speech IS labeling, Dan. That is not the issue. So yes, "this" the (concept) is not "that" (percept). But without a label there is no communication. Your "thats" and my "thats" can never become our "this". Without concepts we are but beasts trapped in the moment unable to share our present, recall our past or anticipate what will come next. > [Krimel] > I take Dan's position to be more like it's just a dream. I think he > understands that outside of our perception there is nothing. Or if there is > something it is not worth talking about since it is outside of perception. > For me both faith and rationalism bridge the gap to an external world. But > that might not work for everyone. You seem confused about which way you are > going. Dan: I think it's easy to believe my position is more like a dream but that's not quite right. It's a good idea, as dmb says, to think static patterns exist in relation to experience. For instance, there are always tell-tale signs we're dreaming. Likewise, there are signs that we're not. Pinch me. [Krimel] It is fairly common to have dreams that cannot be distinguished from reality. I have pinched myself in dreams before and concluded that I was awake. In such dreams I could violate laws of physics. > [Krimel] > I've been through this before with both Dan and Ron and I think an illusion > is just one way of organizing perception. It is not true or false it is just > a pattern of organizing input. That point is that all perception is > illusion. It is a particular way of organizing experience. Some of our ways > of perception are learned and some are biologically programmed but they are > all ways of organizing input. Dan: Again, I prefer dmb's response. Krimel seems to be saying experience is input. There is one external reality experienced many different ways by organizing input from that external reality. I think that is a pretty conventional way of looking at things. The MOQ tells us experience arises dependent on our static quality evolutionary history: social and intellectual patterns of value which we find ourselves embedded. That's how the world becomes manifest - that is maya. [Krimel] You are correct Krimel, is saying that experience is input and behavior is output. I am also saying that something is out there. But my understanding, even my perception of the external world is a mixture of my current perceptions and my recollections of the past. The points of intersection of past and present are conceptions. They are the patterns of overlap and the points of departure. With those commonalities and discrepancies I construct a vision of what will come. The world that becomes manifest as concepts and percepts is Maya. It is not a dream or a fantasy it is a way of seeing, a way of being. Maya cannot be avoided but it can be refined. 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/
