Krimel said to dmb: ... You adopt and claim that Pirsig adopts an almost purely phenomenological reading of James. This is the kind of reading that turns him into one of the pure idealists he was so vehemently opposed to. All you are doing is solving the SOM problem by denying that anything outside of your personal immediate experience has value or even exists. This is not what James is saying at all. You don't solve this kind of problem by pretending half of it doesn't exist or by defining it away.
dmb says: Well, at least you're admitting that SOM is more than just a straw man. I guess that marks SOME progress. Sadly, however, this is the uncomprehending reply that I expected. Your accusation above reveals a misunderstanding which you repeat several times below. The idea that I would be turning James into an idealist only makes sense from within SOM itself. Since I'm saying external, objective reality is just a concept, just a product of reflection, you figure, I must be advocating a reality composed entirely of the other half, of subjectivity. From within the assumptions of SOM, that would look like idealism, if not solipsism. Ah, but of course that's not what I'm saying at all because the radical empiricist has already rejected SOM and so the subjective self is just a product of reflection too, just a concept derived from experience every bit as much as the objective side. There is an article about Nishida in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy that happens to make this point pretty well. "For Nishida, experience in its original form is not the exercise of individuals equipped with sensory and mental abilities who contact an exterior world; rather it precedes the differentiation into subject experiencing and object experienced, and the individual is formed out of it. “The moment of seeing a color or hearing a sound” is prior not only to the thought that the color or sound is the activity of an external object or that one is sensing it, but also to the judgment of what the color or sound might be” (Nishida 1990, 3). “Pure experience” names not only the basic form of every sensuous and every intellectual experience but also the fundamental form of reality, indeed the “one and only reality” from which all differentiated phenomena are to be understood. Cognitive activities such as thinking or judging, willing, and intellectual intuition are all derivative forms of pure experience but identical to it insofar as they are in act—when thinking, willing, etc. are going on. The experience of a running horse, for example, underlies the judgment that the horse is running, and the activity of judging is an exercise of pure experience prior to a subsequent judgment that “I am now judging.” Objective phenomena likewise derive from pure experience; when unified they are called “nature,” while “spirit” names the activity of unifying. Pure experience launches the dynamic process of reality that differentiates into subjective and objective phenomena on their way to a higher unity, and the recapture of our unitary foundation is what Nishida means by the Good.Nishida would deny that his position is a kind of idealism, either subjective or transcendental, because no subjective mind, human or divine, is the origin of what is taken as reality, and no personified or ego-aware spirit is its beginning or end. His notion of pure experience clearly shows the influence of William James, Ernst Mach, and others, but it differs from their notions as well..." Krimel said:James isn't saying there is no relationship between knower and known. He is saying we have to be careful of an artificial one. dmb says:That's right. But it's not like he was on the lookout for artificial conceptions to pop up. He found one and identified it as a problem throughout the history of philosophy. That artificial conception is SOM. I appreciate your attempt to bring Lambert into it, even though he's a theological type, but for the most part I don't see the relevance of the quotes you picked. I suspect that's because you're reading them just as you've been reading me, from within SOM. Maybe you'll pick a favorite or two and explain to me how it address the issues or refutes something I said. Krimel said: All I can add is that you are doing nothing more to solve the problem than inverting it. Instead of saying that internal ideas are not "real" you want to say that any external reality is not "real". You are trading one extreme position for another. I do not think this is what James is after. dmb says: That's another example of your reading things from within SOM. "Pure experience cannot be called either physical or psychical: it logically precedes both." In other words, if subjects and objects are derived from experience, it would be logically impossible for that experience to be the experience of a subject. That would be a case of the subject being derived from the experience of the subject. A guy would have to be retarded to think that makes sense. And yet that's what your accusation amounts to. Sorry, but I've made this point many, many times and it's really not that complicated. Your obliviousness to the simple logic of this is very frustrating. Krimel quoted from James's "Some Problems of Philosophy": "The pragmatic rule is that the meaning of a concept may always be found, if not in some sensible particular which it directly designates, then in some particular difference in the course of human experience which its being true will make. Test every concept by the question 'What sensible difference to anybody will its truth make?' and you are in the best possible position for understanding what it means and for discussing its importance. If, questioning whether a certain concept be true or false, you can think of absolutely nothing that would practically differ in the two cases, you may assume that the alternative is meaningless and that your concept is no distinct idea. If two concepts lead you to infer the same particular consequence, then you may assume that they embody the same meaning under different names." dmb says: If memory serves this is what James said in relation to the question of whether the man got round the squirrel or not. His friends debated it for a while and then hoped James would settle the question for them. His reply was as you see above. He puts it in careful Victorian language but today we'd just say there is no practical difference. It just doesn't matter. And that's pretty much how I feel about this quote. How is it connected to our dispute? Lambert said: (and Krimel thinks this quote "provides a bit of insight into the very discussion we are having here".) "One of the more difficult and pressing problems for understanding James's radically empiricist Weltanschauung as a whole concerns the terms "experience" and "experienced" themselves. What he means by "experienced" in his statement above, as well as by "experience" in his thesis of pure experience, has been a subject of great debate among his interpreters, with no real consensus emerging. A number of different interpretations have been suggested, ranging from a variety of phenomenalist and panpsychist interpretations, in which to be experienced might mean to have an actual experiencer, or to be experienced by something, or even to be self-experiencing, to a rather moderate and inclusive methodological interpretation, in which "experienced" means to be experienceable or describable in terms of experience." dmb says: WEll, if you're suggesting that there are pragmatists who read James's and Dewey's radical empiricism differently than I do, then I can only say, "yea, I know". Maybe you recall the explanations about the differences between Neo-Pragmatism and Classical Pragmatism? Their respective stances toward radical empiricism is probably the single most important difference between the two. This is the difference between Rorty and Pirsig, between Matt Kundert and myself, between Stuhr, Rosenthal, Hildebrand and their counterparts on the neo-pragmatist side. There is a paper published at robertpirsig.org called "Clash of the Pragmatists" that explores this. I wrote it about three years ago so it would probably already embarrass me to re-read it but it does show that I've been aware of the lack of unity on this issue for a long time. But then again, you're not a neo-pragmatist and you certainly have not been making their case. Krimel said: I think you are arguing for an extreme phenomenalist, panpsychist position. Obviously I think its rubbish. But the inversion of the problem as a whole from "thoughts" aren't real to "things" aren't real is exactly your program. I don't think an exclusive position either way works at all and I really don't think that is what James is after. dmb says: There is another example of you reading me from within SOM. From that perspective, a rejection of objectivity has to be an acceptance of subjectivity because those are the only choices. But as I keep saying, the kind of radical empiricist I'm talking about has already rejected the idea that these are our only choices. Also, I seriously doubt that you even understand what "extreme phenomenalist, panpsychist" means. I think you made that up that meaningly drivel about five seconds after you read the Lambert quote. You tend to do that sort of bullshit. This, for example... Krimel said previously: As I understand it conjunction is generalization and disjunction is discrimination. These are the two great superpowers that give us pattern recognition. dmb tried to be polite about this little piece of stupidity: Conjunction junction, what's your function? It's not about generalization so much as the continuity in experience. ... James is saying that experience is a continuous stream in which a complex series of transitional moments seemlessly takes us from thought to thing or from thing to thought. In other words, subject and object are already unified in experience and... Krimel replied:Those were James' terms. I was merely putting them into terms that make more sense to me. Actually he thinks the problem of traditional empiricists is... Kant's a prioris blah blah ... Pirsig's talk about... blah blah .... Kahneman and Tversky's ideas in prospect theory which I have mentioned several times. dmb says: You were merely putting James's terms into terms that you understand? Is that so? Please explain to me how "the condition of being joined" is in any way related to "generalization"? Obviously, they aren't related at all and you were trying to interpret James on the topic of "conjunctive" relations in experience without even knowing what the term means. I was trying to be polite about it before but it's obvious that you're bullshitting you're way through this whole thing. Since James is accusing the traditional empiricists of leaving out these "conjunctive" experiences, where do you get the balls to pretend that you understand this at all, let alone better than anyone else? I just deleted a few unnecessarily hostile comments but I do have to say, at least, that this sort of thing doesn't exactly make you look good. Krimel quoted Lambert: "This understanding of the concrete and frequently sensible character of experience draws attention to a streak in James's thought that often disturbs his modern-day readers - an apparent romanticism concerning the relation of thoughts to sensation. Some of his pithy remarks to the contrary, James does not ultimately mean simply to take up a romantic position against thought with his thesis of pure experience, thus preferring an un-"conscious," mystical state to the abstract one that follows upon reflection. Commenting in 1909 on his own essay "The Function of Cognition," where percepts are treated as the only realm of reality, James writes that he "now treat[s] concepts as a coordinate realm." Clearly, if percepts and concepts are coordinate, there cannot be a philosophical preference for the perceptual or sensory order, whatever his rhetoric may suggest." dmb says:I wouldn't expect too much mysticism from an academic theologian. That doesn't mean a case can't be made. Lots of people have and when the time is ripe, I'll make it to you. As to the larger point here, percepts and concepts are presented as coordinate in the essays I've been quoting from and wasn't even aware that James had previously held otherwise. So this couldn't possibly be in contradiction to anything I've said. I've been saying that subjects and objects are concepts rather than existential realities, but that doesn't make them unreal. They're real concepts. dmb said: That traditional conception [of experience] entails the assumption that the external, objective reality is coming into the subjective perceiver of that reality through his senses. Krimel replied: And that is exactly what James says is happening. dmb says: That is the fourth example, in this single post, of you reading things from within SOM. That is exactly NOT what James is saying. You're reading his solution, radical empiricism, as if he were endorsing the problematic view he just replaced. Like I said, it is a conception from within subject-object philosophy and radical empiricism sees that as a philosophical problem to be overcome. Notice what he's saying here about the instant field of the present. It is "as yet undifferentiated into thought and thing". Krimel replied with quote and a comment: Yes and notice here what he says about that very point: "Only new-born babes, or men in semi-coma from sleep, drugs, illnesses or blows, may be assumed to have an experience pure in the literal sense of a that which is not yet any definite what, tho ready to be all sorts of whats; full both of oneness and of manyness, but in respects that don't appear; changing throughout, yet so confusedly that its phases interpenetrate and no points, either of distinction or of identity, can be caught. Pure experience in this state is simply but another name for feeling or sensation." I guess if you think "...new-born babes, or men in semi-coma from sleep, drugs, illnesses or blows..." have the inside track to Nirvana but I don't think that is what James is about. dmb says: James is only pointing out that "experience pure in the literal sense" is an exceptional state of mind. This qualification goes along quite nicely with his idea that percepts and concepts are coordinate or, in the MOQ's terms, that direct everyday experience involves the constant interplay between static quality and dynamic quality. This also goes along quite nicely with the idea that our thoughts shape what we see as much as our sight shapes what we think. The difference between babies and mystics is that babies don't have yet have any static patterns to abandoned but the idea is essentially about recapturing that original undivided state. But the mystic's goal is NOT to return to an undeveloped state. Mystics go beyond their static patterns of thought while babies have yet to acquire them. The mystic transcends his ego-identity while the baby doesn't yet have any such thing. And extreme situations can bring about the mystical experience spontaneously, that is the say without the benefit of meditation or the other techniques that have been developed. The American Indian vision quest, for example, was a relatively dangerous and unreliable way to precipitate such an experience. Later, because it was safer and more reliable, they adopted the use of peyote. The ancient mystery religions where soaked in hallucinogens, for example. Some of today's most admired artists suffered childhood illnesses severe enough to have nearly killed them and that experience had a lot to do with the development of their creative intuition. Francis Ford Coppola is one such case. And James himself was quite impressed with the effects of nitrous oxide in his own experience. It wasn't his golden ticket to the Truth, but it made him realize that other forms of consciousness were available to us. In short, I do not take this quote as a refutation of mysticism or pure experience. It is a qualification worth mentioning but it does not undo the larger point, which is simply that pure experience is occurs prior to the differentiations of consciousness and is very much related to the mystical state of undivided consciousness. To be enlightened is to fully realize this lack of division. To be an infant is to live in this lack of division without "realizing" a damn thing. Big difference. Krimel said: First of all one could imagine a world with no subjects and just objects which is materialism or a world of just ideas and no objects. I don't think you have to seek hard for quotes of mine that suggest which way I lean. I won't even bother searching to show which way you incline. ... I have also stated many times that my inclination toward a pre-existing world external is an act of faith. I don't think your clinging to idealism is any less so. ... One is not more privileged than the other. ... dmb says: That is the fifth example of where you are reading things from within SOM. By now, there's no point in elaborating on why this is so wrong. Krimel said: Except that a world of "pure experience" is impossible and not even desirable to acquire or sustain unless you want to live as "...new-born babes, or men in semi-coma from sleep, drugs, illnesses or blows..." dmb says: We all begin as infants and so we all begin in a world of pure experience so actually it is impossible to avoid it. The trick is to realize it in your own experience even as an adult. The qualification that says normal consciousness is never literally "pure", never literally and completely devoid of static patterns, does not mean that this categories is extinguished or eliminated. It simply has to qualified by the effects of the developmental process, in which we lose sight of it even though we're operating on its basis all the time. Ordinary words like feeling, intuition, hunch, and yes even sensation refer to the persistence of this basic mode of consciousness even in adults. dmb said to Krimel: As wiki article says, the traditional "empiricists unjustly try to reduce experience to bare sensations, according to James" because guys like Locke and Hume saw "experience in terms of atom like patches of color and soundwaves". That sounds very much like your descriptions of the way energy is transduced by our sensory organs and brains. Krimel replied: That view of atomic experience was being actively pursued by Wundt and even more aggressively by his student Titchner. The introspectionists where among the first approaches taken in psychology and the first to be utterly abandoned. Sensations result totally from different kinds of energy, modes of transduction and pathways of processing. Sensations are received separately and combined in the process of perception. Hearing and seeing are two different kinds of experience. But they do not constitute discrete elements of experience as they too are continuous. dmb says now: Huh? What does that have to do with the fact that James criticized the reductionist tendencies of the traditional empiricists? Aren't you just demonstrating a more contemporary version of the very same reductionism? Yes, you are. And if lightwaves and soundwaves aren't the forms of energy transduced, then what kind of energy are you talking about? dmb said: I'm not saying your descriptions don't reflect what's going on in that branch of science. I'm just saying that this science is working within the assumptions of SOM and within the traditional empiricism. It's based on the very assumptions that radical empiricism is attacking and sees as a problem to be solved. Krimel replied: That is because you think it is important to over turn all of science. Your SOM label is just your way of feeling justified about refusing to address the obvious. ... As I believe I have said before, Dave, you are not making an argument here you are making an excuse. dmb says: Really? SOM is just my label? We've regressed back to that now? In the most recent exchanges I showed you where SOM is in your own comments, in traditional empiricism, in the philosophical attacks of James, Pirsig, Dewey, in Stuhr's explanation of Dewey, and in the work of Nishida. For you to revert back to this old tactic at this point only makes you look like a belligerent jerk and like a guy whose just not very smart. Obviously, you're the one with nothing but excuses. Krimel said: As I said if I HAD to choose between idealism and materialism I wouldn't because I think we need a bit of each. If you stuck a gun to my head, I would pick materialism but even materialism today is not "whirling particles" it is probability fields. dmb says: That is the sixth example of you reading things from within SOM. Again, the debate between idealism and materialism takes place within SOM and does not make any sense in terms of radical empiricism. dmb said: Like cutting the lady up to find her beauty, it just doesn't work. Anti-reductionism is just a sophisticated form of the sentiment that says the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts. Krimel replied: One more time there is nothing wrong with asking what conditions are necessary for a whole to exist at all. dmb says: Right, there is nothing wrong with asking about the lower conditions that make the higher conditions possible. Unfortunately, asking those questions does not amount to reductionism and so your reply does not even address the actual charge. Obviously, you've failed to answer the charge again because you don't understand it. This incomprehension is quite baffling to me because the explanations seem so obvious to me. The one above is child's play and the one below should be well within your reach as well but for some reason this simple concept eludes you entirely. dmb said: It (anti-reductionism) simply asks that complex phenomena be assessed in their own terms, on their own level of complexity and that they not be reduced to whirling particles. Such is the case for experience. It is far more complex than any of the physiological processes that can be correlated to any given experience. To use one of your old examples, the fact that we can detect the kind of brain state that exists in a person who is meditating simply doesn't mean that the meditative state of consciousness IS a brain state. Krimel replied: The fact that meditators can be shown to have similar patterns of brain activity is what actually leads us to say that meditation is a brain state. The same way that sleepers have a similar brain states as to drunks and pill poppers and people watching movies. Those it is the common features that make them brain states. Those similarities may not account of the felt experiences of individual meditators but the similarity of their descriptions is what contributes to calling this a "state" in the first place. dmb says: Oh, for Christ's sake! Do you think I'm objecting to the word "state"? You can't really be that stupid, can you? Reductionism is when you reduce complex things like consciousness to the biological processes. The objection, your obliviousness, is EQUATING the brain's functional state with the experience had by the meditators. May I remind you of a simple fact, the people who observed and recorded the brain states of the meditators had a completely different experience than the meditators did. In effect, they were observers of the experience from outside the experience itself. They were looking at physical objects, namely the scientific instruments and the brains they were hooked up to. If you asked them what the meditative experience itself is like based on their role in the experiment, they couldn't possibly have a clue. And yet you see no problem in equating the two, in saying that meditation IS a brain state, which is a claim that such a brain state and meditation are identical. That's reductionism. Like I said, under normal circumstances the brain state itself in not even a part of the meditator's experience. Krimel replied: >From one point of view that state IS the meditator's experience. But any >experience can be understood from many points of view. dmb says: The observer of the brain state is having an experience too but, obviously, it is not the experience of the meditative state. This is the whole point of being an anti-reductionist. He says it is inappropriate to confuse these two things. Like I said, people have been able to get at the point, purpose, effect and meaning of the meditative states long before there was anything like knowledge of what the brain is doing at the time. Krimel replied: Right and looking directly at what is going on at the biological level helps account for what makes those states significant evolutionarily. The Dalai Lama for example thinks his meditators are developing heightened compassion. EEG recording show increased activity in the areas of cortex previously associated with such feelings. Learning to feel more open to others is a healthy, socially desirable way to be, a good skill to acquire. But how is this philosophically or metaphysically significant? dmb say: Are you saying that compassion IS a brain state now? Are you giving us a materialistic reduction of love now? Krimel said: I have never said that meditation can be described purely or exclusively as a brain state ... dmb says: If you think you haven't said that, then you don't even know what the meaning of "is" is. Unbelievable! You just can't be that dumb. There's no way. It has to be an act or a practical joke or something. By the way, trying to untangle your nonsense is not fun. It's just a chore. It's a drag. I'd welcome a real challenge but this ain't it. Even with major help from that theologian, you're not making any sense. Over and out,dmb _________________________________________________________________ Insert movie times and more without leaving Hotmail®. http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/QuickAdd?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_QuickAdd_062009 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/
