Krimel said to dmb: But yeah, Dawkins and Wilson are heroes of mine. Yes, what they say makes me uncomfortable probably for the same reasons they make you uncomfortable. But I don't think discomfort is sufficient justification for dismissing them or their methods. I am unable to get Rosenthal's talk into a format that is convenient for me to listen to all the way through but I can see nothing whatever in the first half of her talk that supports your view of radical empiricism as the royal road to cosmic consciousness. But maybe she saves the best part for last.
dmb says: Oh, so now the geeky square is having technical problems. [Krimel] Yes, actually and they involve encoding and decoding issues that you wouldn't understand if I explained them to you. At least I can see them for what they are and not just piss and moan about technology destroying the Mythos or some other silly romantic notion. [dmb] Sure. ...Actually, I was thinking of an exchange in the responses to Rosenthal's talk. This is not just the second half of her talk, but a separate file. Anyway, someone in the audience asked what James would say about Dawkins and Wilson. Rosenthal said James would find them quite upsetting. She criticized them for being reductionists, how pragmatism is opposed to this and accused Dawkins in particular for being dogmatic and intolerate too. The audience member argued with her answers but the Hilary Putnam chimed in and said the very book in which Wilson denies reductionism, is reductionistic from page one. I don't know about any royal road to cosmic consciousness but the Harvard conference surely offers a path to clarity on these topics. Why not let the professionals explain it to you? And it's free! [Krimel] Ok, I listened to the exchange and like so much of what you cite as supporting your views, it doesn't. You have a talent for misreading people. About all Putnam say is, "there is zero evidence that complex behavior patterns... not say emotions... but real behavior patterns are carried on single genes or small groups of genes in the case of the human species." This is just not true even on the face of it. Emotional responses are complex behavior patterns. The infants drive for food and comfort are complex behavior patterns. Walking is a complex behavior pattern rooted in genetics as are blinking, swallowing, coughing and breathing. Language is a complex behavior pattern that is largely genetically determined. Wilson's claim in Socio-biology is that when we see similar patterns of interaction in cultures than cannot have learned from each other then we are looking at biologically influenced patterns. All of these result from the genetic code. We are still in the process of understanding how to read that code, but who doubts that complex responses are the result of stuff built from genes interacting with the environment? Putnam also asserts correctly that evolutionary psychology draws heavily from sociobiology. He should also know and have noted that evolutionary thinking in psychology is James' lasting contribution to the field. Both Rosenthal and Putman, when they address the substance of what Dawkins and Wilson say are quite deferential. They just don't seem to like their attitude. Rosenthal in fact seems quite critical of anyone who would take a dogmatic position that is atheistic. Doesn't that make your shorts creep up your crack just a little bit, Dave? Krimel said to dmb: ...Pirsig resorts to teleology, claiming that some higher order future state of "betterness" is pulling evolution forward. That is not bottom-up processing. dmb says: Not at all. Betterness is just a general direction, not "some higher order future state". This movement toward betterness occurs from within. [Krimel] I really hate rehashing Pirsig's understanding of evolution but what you just said makes no sense at all. Any movement toward "betterness' that comes from within is programmed by the past to be there. But moment from within a given organism is not about evolution it is about individual survival. Evolution is a statistical result of lots of individual moves to survive. [dmb] In the case of the hot stove, to expand on Pirsig's example, there is no top down processing that directs you to get off the stove. It's an immediate response within experience. This is the same betterness that pushes evolution. There is no master plan or final goal. [Krimel] That is a classic example of a genetically programmed response. [dmb] That's what Pirsig is denying when he says Quality is not some Hegelian Absolute. That's why James disagreed with Royce. Pragmatism was born as an alternative to all that Hegelian, quasi-theological stuff. Have you seen Pirsig annotations on Bradley's Idealism? Like Royce, he was a kind of Hegelian Idealist too. [Krimel] As I have no interests in Absolutes you might want to take that up with Ham. I have no interest in Hegel or Hegelians. I am not sure I have see annotations on Bradley unless you are referring to the Copleston annotations. Krimel said: Your hero Wilber makes on even bigger mess of this, claiming all kinds of new age mumbo jumbo exists at higher levels that we lesser beings have to tie ourselves into pretzel shapes mentally and physically to grasp. dmb says: There is a moment during the Harvard conference wherein Cornel West speaks about the intellectual project he was working on with his "brother" Ken Wilber. When it comes to discerning new age mumbo jumbo from legitimate professionals in philosophy, I think I'm gonna go with Cornel West and the Ivy League (which has granted a number of Ph.D.s based on Wilber's work) rather than your judgement. This is not out of respect for institutional authority so much as agreement with my own instincts. [Krimel] What a surprise, rather than actually address the issue, you revert to an argument from authority. Oh yeah, and you own instincts. Instinct? Biologically programming? As I said to Marsha not long ago: Oh what a tangled web we weave When you practice to Belief. Krimel said to dmb: As I have said there are plenty of reason to throw out greedy reductionism. It is a bit frustrating to continuously be charged with advocating a position I do not hold. But from your point of view I can see how it is easier to address a caricature. dmb says: A caricature? Said the guy who just characterized Wilber as a new-ager and me as offer the royal road to cosmic consciousness! Project much? [Krimel] Oh I have gone to great lengths to specify exactly what I find offensive about Wilber. Top down processing, intelligent design, trees with great souls, reincarnation... He is a cornucopia of the New Age. [dmb] Besides, the charge of reductionism was a specific response to specific claims you made. Since those specific comments we're reproduced along with the charges of reductionism, it hardly seems possible to construe this as addressing a caricature. Wasn't I explaining how your own words expressed reductionism? We're your intellectual heroes charged with the same at the Harvard conference? This is a genuine philosophical issue, not mere name-calling, you soul-less nerd. I cannot recall a single instance where you provided an accurate or adequate account of my position. In every instance I have addressed your concerns and that's about the time you usually run off. The fact that you run off thinking you have made some kind of point, smacks of self delusion. But hey, that's what the New Age is all about right? Krimel said: One or two threads over dmb, called me a scientific dogmatist. That just sounds like an oxymoron to me. Science is anti-dogmatic. It is rooted in skepticism. It recognizes the tentative nature of truth and offers nothing more than a best guess. It insists that concepts are subordinate to perception. It states its assumptions and invites questioning of them. ...Does this give science a privileged claim to Truth or even truth. Not really. But I would say to anyone two-stepping to a different gong that if we have guess on these matter, why not make it our best guess? dmb says: Yes, ideally at least, scientific truths are provisional. But people can be dogmatic about anything and some people are dogmatic about science, like Dawkins for example. [Krimel] Oh golly, people might actually carry something too far. My we ought to throw out the whole enterprise. Dawkins works from a very substantial basis. Evolutionary theory, while it is provisional, is about as close to fact as science gets. I believe that that is the position Dawkins takes. The positions he attacks and the people who are uncomfortable with him are mostly the ones who ought to feel uncomfortable with what he is saying. [dmb] There is an article in the Atlantic Monthly online that pretty well explains why James would dislike Dawkins, as Rosenthal contends. The article is titled "The Nitrous Oxide Philosopher" and includes this little quote from James... "No part of the unclassified residuum [of human experience] has usually been treated with a more contemptuous scientific disregard than the mass of phenomena generally called mystical. Physiology will have nothing to do with them. Orthodox psychology turns its back on them. Medicine sweeps them out; or, at most, when in an anecdotal vein, records a few of them as "effects of the imagination"--a phrase of mere dismissal, whose meaning, in this connection, it is impossible to make precise. All the while, however, the phenomena are there, lying broadcast over the surface of history." [Krimel] I agree with James that religious experience deserves more study than it was getting at his time or since. I am appalled at federal government drug policies that, in addition to providing federal subsidies for the criminal class, have put an end to legitimate scientific study of the effects of these drugs. But seriously, while I like going to the dentist for the occasional hit of laughing gas, there are a host of much more fun alternatives. But what you constantly dismiss is the fact that the studies that have been done, suggest that religious observance provides a number of health benefits. They suggest that if you practice thinking happy thoughts you will get better at thinking happy thoughts and thinking happy thoughts is good for you. What, I continue to ask, do you think they provide that extends beyond this? 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/
