Krimel said:
Pirsig's metaphor is particularly inappropriate in this context. The leading
edge of the train is following a predetermined path of rails that must be
equidistance from each other. The perceptual order is thus not dynamic at all
but rigidly static and any deviation would result in a collapse of the whole.
Streams flow and over flow their banks and there exists a dynamic relationship
between the water and the environment.
dmb says:
I think a bigger man would have simply conceded the original point. Now you've
resorted to a silly little made up criticism. Yes, the train runs on tracks but
the stream has banks and a bed. Yes, the stream can overflow its banks but a
train can go off the rails. It's usually considered a disaster in either case.
Besides, why can't the rails be part of the static quality? That is how it
works, after all. Static patterns are derived from past experience and we
"ride" them into future experience, as James put it. But I do like to imagine
that the tracks are laid as the train moves, which is tougher to do with the
stream analogy. Imagine the Colorado River going through the Grand Canyon and
you can see how the chances of changing direction could be construed as pretty
slim.
dmb said to Krimel:
You still haven't explained what it is you think I do not understand or what I
have misrepresented. What are you objecting to, exactly? What do you think my
point is in making reference to her case and what's wrong with that point? Like
I said already, "Your complaints are too vague for me to know what you're
talking about, what it is you think I don't understand."
Krimel replied:
That's a bit hard to answer since no matter what I say your only comment has
typically been, "That's reductionism...blah, blah, blah." Talk about having to
deal with really vague complaints...
dmb says:
Yea, that's what I thought. You've got nothing but vague insults. That's why I
asked you to grow up and get real. That's why your complaints seem insincere
and disingenuous, because they are.
Krimel offered some "recollections" and "impressions" of our past conversations:
You have mentioned Bolte-Taylor in connection with her "nirvana-like"
experience of a sense of unity being much like mystical experiences. I pointed
out that the unity of her experience is still composed of... what were the
terms she used? Oh yeah, parallel processes. I have also pointed out the stroke
is not a path to enlightenment that most would choose for themselves. I should
have pointed out that the reason Bolte-Taylor was able to give a TED talk and
write her book is that she spent seven years of exhaustive effort to regain the
capabilities you seem to be advocating that we give up voluntarily through
years of exhaustive effort.
dmb says:
It's very hard to believe that I could give anyone such an impression. I never
thought we ought to give up the ability to write and I never thought that
having a stroke is a path people would choose. Those are absolute ridiculous
positions that no sane person could hold. Obviously. And so this whole this is
just a bunch of made-up bullshit. Maybe it's entertaining for you to produce
this stuff and you're just having a laugh but, dude, it kinda makes you look
like an idiot. The other straw men are laughing at your straw men, you know?
It's a joke even compared to other fake positions that nobody holds.
And by the way, it was Jill Bolte Taylor who described her experience as
"Nirvana", as a mystical experience, as a feeling of being one with the
universe. You're using Jill's words to mock Jill's words. It's ridiculous. And
how does the fact that the right brain uses parallel processing even relevant
to that, let alone a way to refute it? It's not and it doesn't.
Krimel said:
Most of the research I have cited here for the past five years has been in
support of Pirsig's work.
dmb says:
That's not my impression. Not at all. You just got done using Bolte-Taylor's
science to dispute Bolte-Taylor's "nirvana-like" experience AND you insist that
it's a mistake to use that science to support the notion of a mystical
experience. Isn't that a case of undermining Pirsig's work by reducing the
experience to physiology?
I mean, c'mon. You just got done saying the pre-intellectual experience is
nothing but a reaction to dog shit on your shoe. You really don't see how that
is reductionism and a school yard taunt at the same time? It seems designed to
outrage and belittle far more than anything else. You're constantly mocking and
criticizing Pirsig (and me) in such a manner, which would be fine if you were
serious and sincere and well informed on the relevant issues. But I don't see
anything like that coming from you. What I see is an insincere dude who is
playing a character in some game he's making up as he goes along.
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