Hi John, I think you'd like this book be B. Alan Wallace 'Choosing Reality: A Buddhist View of Physics and the Mind.' The book has early on a chapter tracing the history of the scientific realism versus scientific instrumentalism debate. Very interesting!!! The next chapter is on science today.
Marsha On Oct 6, 2010, at 6:50 PM, John Carl wrote: > made me look, Marsha. Even worse, made me wiki-look. > ---On Rationalism vs. Empiricism > The most prominent distinguishing characteristic between these two > philosophies is that strict empiricists reject all *a priori* truths, > decrying any belief in innate knowledge or intuition > -------- > > So to an empiricist, "belief" is the problem. Do they believe this > strongly? And from what "facts" is it derived? > > Hmmm... indeed. I'm with you on that one, Marsha. > > John > > > > > On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 11:00 AM, MarshaV <[email protected]> wrote: > >> >> Hello again, >> >> Been thinking, normally dangerous, but with a fever doubly so. - I keep >> thinking about you using the term "rational construct". It seems to me >> while your Philosophy of Essence and the Metaphysics of Quality are both >> centered on Value their major difference is reason versus experience. Yes? >> Rationality versus Empiricism? Do you agree? And having done a search, I >> see ti is a very old conflict, indeed. Hmmm. >> >> >> Marsha >> >> >> >> On Oct 2, 2010, at 2:49 AM, MarshaV wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> Greetings Ham, >>> >>> On Oct 2, 2010, at 2:05 AM, Ham Priday wrote: >>>> >>>>> Marsha: >>>>> How I understand conscious awareness is as pure process, >>>>> 100% immediate experience, and the moment one tries to >>>>> analyze it, it is gone. All other entities - I, knower, self, >>>>> individual, me, etc. - are _conceptually constructed_ and >>>>> have no independent existence. They are a conglomerate >>>>> ever-changing, impermanent, interdependent, inorganic, >>>>> biological, social and intellectual static patterns of value. >>>> >>>> Ham: >>>> Marsha, you are attempting to describe the subjective self as if it were >> an objective entity, which of course is impossible. Yes, "raw" experience >> is "immediate", but it hardly represents 100% of conscious awareness. There >> is also the memory function which links self-awareness to the past and makes >> experience a continuum; the emotive response which is the psycho-biological >> reaction to what is experienced; and intellection which interprets the data >> as a rational construct. 'I', 'Knower', 'Individual', and 'Me' are not >> different entities but simply the labels we use to identify the Self. >>>> >>>> That standard definition, which even you must be tired of by now, paints >> a fuzzy picture of self-awareness as if to demean its credibility--which of >> course is your intent. I still feel this is somewhat disingenuous on your >> part. Certainly we cannot objectivize, quantify, measure, or localize >> conscious awareness as we can, say, a rock or a tree. Conversely, however, >> what would the rock or tree be if there was no awareness of it? As Pirsig >> insisted, experience is primary; and since experience is known only to >> awareness, all we really know about objective existence is that it is >> patterned from sensible value. >>> >>> Marsha: >>> I am putting aside the experience of raw data (unpatterned experience) >> and talking about conscious awareness as in mindfulness. Mindfulness is a >> technique easily learned and strengthened through practice. It's the >> experience of being here-now without constructing an associated past or >> future. In the mindfulness experience there is no building a subjective >> self for it is all _process_, all immediate experience. Pattern recognition >> seems limited to the function of the sense organ. It is _habit_ that >> associates these immediate experiences with an individual, independent self, >> or its various labels, rather than understanding that it is a flow of >> experiences. _Habit_ that when conscious awareness (mindfulness) stops then >> the making of meaning begins (internal story-telling). It is the conceptual >> constructing, making of meaning, that creates the independent self. It is >> an after-experience add-on. I am suggesting that in mindfulness it is >> obvious that experiences comes fi >> rst, and that associating now-experiences to a 'self' is a secondary >> habit. Experience is primary! Self-building is secondary. >>> >>> >>> Thanks Ham, >>> >>> >>> >>> Marsha > ___ 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/md/archives.html
