> [Willblake2]
> So, it seems we agree that all perception is illusion.
>
> [Krimel]
> I don't know about everyone but I am in. But let's be clear, illusion in
> this sense in not a trick or a fantasy. It is a just a particular way of
> perceiving. It can be "t"rue or false and its Value is assessed
> pragmatically, by how well it works.
>
[John]
Ok Krimel, I'd like to address your clarification then. When you say
illusion is _a_ particular way of perceiving, this implies that there are
ways of perception which are not this particular way of perception, but some
other way, does it not?
Thus not _all_ perception is illusion, just some particular ways of
perception. If I'm interpreting correctly, this is a contradiction of the
initial premise.
Pragmatically assessing the Value of the statement "all perception is
illusion" leads me inescapably to "false". I doubt if one could come up
with a less useful philosophical statement. Pragmatically, that is.
[Krimel]
I was at pains to make it clear that illusion does not mean or necessarily
imply false. Here are a few examples. Consider the simple wine glass faces
illusion. It looks something like this: }{. This is a figure/ground
illusion. The sensory data is constant. There are black areas and white
areas. Typically people see a white glass on a black background or black
faces on a white background.
Black faces
White vase
Black faces
White vase
Either/or but not both at the same time. That figure ground shift is a
change in perception. The odd feeling that accompanies it is call a Gestalt
shift. This means a change in the way one perceives the whole. It happens
rapidly and all at once. There is no transition from one way of seeing to
the other. Also the shift is qualitative. It is a change not just in what we
are seeing but in the meaning of what we are seeing. The Gestalt
psychologists who studied perception defined a set of perceptual laws that
they said helped to account for how and why we tend to perceive things one
way over another.
Figure ground is one of those laws and it should be intimately familiar to
artists. M.C. Escher did interesting studies in figure ground with
tessellations where figure and ground swap places. Going from top to bottom
like this:
http://www.mcescher.com/photogallery/photo4867/LW306.jpg
I think figure ground is important to the MoQ because at a very deep level
the MoQ is all about seeing static patterns emerge from a dynamic
background. At an everyday level the reverse is true. What we attend, what
attracts our conscious awareness is dynamic activity against a static
background.
Another critical aspect of illusion is point of view. Sometimes what is
critical about how we understand what we see is exactly where we are
standing. Here is a work by Julian Beever who draws with chalk on sidewalks.
Here he draws a woman in a swimming pool.
http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/swim.htm
This is the same picture from a different point of view:
http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/wrongview.htm
Is one of these points of view "right" and the "other" wrong? From the
artist's point of view and the point of view of most viewers probably yes.
But the other PoV is not "wrong." An understanding of either PoV enhances
one's understanding of the other.
This concept of point of view is also important to the MoQ. For example, the
subject/object distinction is not fundamentally metaphysical. It is a matter
of point of view.
> [Krimel]
> And just a reminder: an illusion is a conceptual construct. Building and
> sharing them is among the most fundamental and urgent tasks of every child
> who exits the womb.
>
[John]
Ok, I was wrong. Our human task is to build up and share illusion... that's
not only unhelpful, it is down right destructive. Destructive like an atom
bomb, which is about as pragmatic as one can get.
[Krimel]
Our human task is to create a conceptual structure to guide us through the
chaos of sensory/perceptual world around us, yes. I would say any such
structure is subject to "shift." It is illusion because we can understand
the same thing, the same sensory input, in multiple ways and from different
points of view. Usually it is not a matter of right and wrong, truth of
falsehood, it is simply difference.
Children often seem amazing not just because their conceptual systems are
not sophisticated but because their ability to construct such systems is
different from that of adults. They have neither the same illusions nor the
number of them nor the capacity to organize them that adults have.
But I don't see hope flexibility in understanding can be regarded as
destructive.
[John]
Ok then, a little refinement I see. Particular PoV = Perception = Illusion.
wherein a "seeing" which defines illusions as true or false is a mistake.
Is false, in other words. Seeing falsity is false? Observing an error is
an error because there is no error, it is all illusion?
Krimel my friend, this philosophy you present is unsound. It is circular
logic, tautology and nonsense. And if you try and explain it further, you
will only get caught up in more complicated circles that go nowhere.
[Krimel]
I am simply trying to show the similarity of the Hindu concept of Maya to a
more updated understanding of what illusions are and what they mean. I think
it conforms to everyday experience. We shift points of view all the time and
our understanding of relationship and circumstance shifts accordingly. In
retrospect we may often decide that one point of view was better or more
correct or more useful but that is not the same as saying that one is True
and the other False; anymore than the picture we started with IS a vase or
IS two faces.
This is not nonsense. It is just a frank acknowledgement of the fundamental
ambiguity of perception.
> [Krimel]
> Well no, the whole point Pirsig makes via Descartes, Hume and Kant is that
> each of us lives in our own inner world all of the time. Pirsig's
> description of Quality is 100% subjective. He more or less resolves the
> mind/matter duality by rejecting the external world all together or at
> least
> by claiming that it is always and forever inaccessible to us.
[John]
Well this just can't be right. The horns of the great Pirsigian dilemma
were "is quality part of the objective universe, or is it only in your
head?" You are claiming that Phaedrus just grabbed that subjective horn and
impaled Quality upon it. That just doesn't even come close to the facts.
[Krimel]
Perhaps I have misunderstood but what Pirsig says is that subjects and
objects emerge from pure experience. But emerges where? Experience is a
process and Pirsig describes Quality as perception or an innate ability to
detect good from bad. It is perception. We parse subject and object from
experience. We can parse and reparse experience by taking different points
of view. In reflecting on an experience I can see myself sometimes as the
subject of the experience. I am the one having the experience. Or sometimes
I am an object. I am a part of the experience.
[John]
Of course, that was just MY perception of ZMM. And we already know that my
perception is just an illusion. Tra-la-la.
You've got your self-sustaining system working overtime now.
[Krimel]
I am trying to keep this short but that is a challenge so if I am stripping
to much out in the effort to simplify let me know I can supply detail to
flesh this out for you.
[John]
Two weeks ago, I didn't even know how to define idealism and now I are one.
My Idealism is defined for me by J Royce, who stood opposed to W James and
his pragmatism. I'm not sure how others define idealism, and I'd like to
know, since you mention "idealists" - plural - on this list, who understands
the underlying conflict and who is on my side?
According to your perception, I mean, illusion.
[Krimel]
You have picked a great place to start. As I say to you early on I think
Royce would be very valuable to those of us here who are fans of James. I am
especially fond of James because I think some of the distinctions he makes
illuminate the problems of idealism and materialism, empiricism and
rationalism, perception and conception. Not to be tacky but you are
involved, as I understand it, in work at a small city library in California
named after Royce. The psychology building at Harvard is named after James.
I think that indicates the relative contributions of the two.
[Krimel]
> Accepting them as illusions is one thing but not all illusions are created
> equal.
[John]
I could almost buy your relativity, but we do use language wherein words
mean things and the word "illusion" has to have a definition and you haven't
drawn any line between "false perception" and "relatively true perception"
that would make the term useful.
[Krimel]
Illusion does have the connotation of falsehood. I think that is the
connotation that is most commonly applied by westerners who try to
understand such eastern concepts as Maya and Thou Art That. I think that
connotation leads them astray. That is why I am attempting to show how a
Gestalt shift can improve their understanding.
[John]
So I'll wait.
John the idealist.
[Krimel]
I hope that helps. I await your assessment of Royce because as I said from
the start I think it would really help a lot of us who are interested in
James.
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