dmb says: I think lots of well-educated people still hold to scientific materialism and the metaphysical assumptions behind it. There was the Positivism of Comte and more recently we had the Vienna circle.
[Krimel] Wasn't that like almost 100 years ago? Is that recent? [dmb] Rorty was still working these issues, trying to convince the many hold overs, until just the other day. To suggest that my complaints are about a dead and buried problems seems even more strange since you are demonstrating the same problem even as we speak. [Krimel] It does not strike me as a problem for science. It seems more like a personal problem for you. You are the one who labels me a scientific materialist. I never make much of the label. But it's just another scary label at disappears when you turn the light on. [dmb] This topic came up big time in the class I took last semester. The professor, who was trained in psychology, got into an interesting discussion with a retired physicist and they agreed that scientists are trained to think and work within the framework of realism. Philosophers of science are going to question this sort of thing if they're worth a damn, of course, but the people who do the actual lab work still function within that worldview. [Krimel] I suppose that is nice as far as it goes. But it assumes that there is a hard and fast division between the two. But there have been many who were both; many of the best in my view. Plato made lasting contributions to mathematics. Until Bacon and Galileo, Aristole was science, all of it, every last bit of it. Newton was a natural philosopher and Leibnitz too. Decartes was a mathematician who like Whitehead, Pascal and Poincare wrote philosophical works. Piaget was a philosopher who did science, as was Goethe, Russell, James, Freud, and Jung. Skinner, Einstein, Bohr, Wilson, Hawking, Dawkins, Schrodinger, were scientists who did philosophy. But maybe I just prefer to listen to people who have experience with what they are talking about. Perhaps many scientists do practice in a framework of realism. But this is pure pragmatism. They do it because it works. That does not mean they are ignorant or heedless of issues raised by philosophers on the sidelines. [dmb] My late great father-in-law and his friends didn't question it either. Apparently I'm talking about something much broader than you imagine, a basic world view that included Einstein as well as Newton. Wilber discusses how even the most recent and wierd stuff in physics gets trapped in flatland. [Krimel] If you are imagining that I can't imagine what you are imagining means I can't imagine; then I imagine you are wrong. Krimel said: But I don't see Pirsig calling for the abandonment of the scientific method or the wholesale adoption of whatever flits through ones mind at any given moment or even that deeply held convictions about the oneness of nature should not be put to the test. What I hear him say is, "The real purpose of scientific method is to make sure Nature hasn't misled you into thinking you know something you don't actually know." dmb says: Nobody is saying we ought to abandon the scientific method or replace it with capricious whimsy. And Pirsig's line here is only comforting insofar as it prevents one from interpreting the MOQ as a form of subjective idealism or solipsism. The MOQ has an element of realism that keeps it from being crypto-religious or Hegelian and I love that. Again, the MOQ's expansion of empiricism is not a rejection of empiricism. The idea is to improve it, not trash it. [Krimel] "The real purpose of scientific method is to make sure Nature hasn't misled you into thinking you know something you don't actually know." I know you speak for him, so what you think he's saying must be so. Still, you ought to tape that one on the wall beside you. It might also ward against pseudo-taxonomic philosophology. dmb says: An individual's account should be taken at face value? Hostile to research? In need of special treatment? Rigorous testing is unwelcome? I'm not saying any of those things. In fact, the Dali Lama has expressed one of my most central points: A real understanding of the true nature of the mind can only be achieved through meditation. EEGs provide such data only if you believe that the brain and the mind are the same thing. That's materialism. That's reductionism. That's SOM. That's you, dude... [Krimel] That's shrew dude, but only to the extent that you can not possibly imagine how far beyond where you are that I am with this. The real nature of the mind can only be understood through the mind, whether meditating or masturbating. The mind needs no explanation of itself. But if it desires one it has to look both ways. It's called experience. Krimel said: You seem to be claiming that one can have an experience that does not involve the senses at all. All experience involves the senses. If senses are not engaged there is neither experience nor memory of the experience. It is one thing to claim that the inner world can be altered to have experiences that are other than ordinary but they are occurring in a particular body in a particular place. Having an experience that "feels" disconnected from space and time is not the same as being disconnected. dmb says: No, for the millionth time, I'm not saying sensory experience is false. The complaint is about the limits of what can be learned through the senses and that it ain't the only kind that counts... [Krimel] If you keep repeating it maybe you will eventually see how misguided it is to be saying. I am not saying that you are saying the sensory experience is false. I am saying that what you are saying about there being any other kinds of experience is false. What Pirsig say in your quote and what James says about radical empiricism does not claim that there is evidence to be obtained beyond the senses. They are saying that we should deal with all kinds of experience as they arise in the senses. We sense art, morals, Quality all that stuff, "...knowledge arises from the senses or by thinking about what the senses provide." As limits go the senses are it. Until you expand your limited horizon you will not be able to truly see. Krimel said: Having an experience that can only be observed by the observer may be entertaining; it may be profoundly spiritual but what meaning does it have beyond the individual? The isolated experience of this kind means nothing to anyone else. Furthermore... dmb says: Again, you are exhibiting the very problem you deny. [Krimel] Again you are denying the very problem that you are. dmb says: Without reference to anyone or anything? Huh? I've been going on and on about the scientific method, about the marriage of meditation and the scientific method. Krimel: Sounds yummy. dmb: This would make plenty of references to plenty of things and people. Krimel: And inclusive... dmb: It would involve publishing and peer review and all that. Krimel: You've covered all the buzzwords... Dmb: Its just that it wouldn't be limited to sensory data. Krimel: oh... ...but if we can't sense them datum, how're we gonna catch 'em? [dmb] In fact, the metaphysical premise behind that limitation has been replaced with one that sees subjects and objects as concepts, as interpretations of experience rather than the preconditions that allow experience. You've been criticizing this expanded empiricism in terms of the limited empiricism it was meant to replace. This is what I mean in saying that you repeatedly offer the problem as a response to the solution... [Krimel] None of what you say above falls under radical empiricism. Seeing concepts is not outside the realm of the senses. There are no concepts that do not engage the senses. What you are describing is worse than TiTs. TiTs I can accept on the grounds that I have an experience OF them. They are metaphysically mysterious but they light up my life. The process of perception connects the dots of experience into memory and this is where we think "about what the senses provide." This thinking is a process that takes place in space and time whether these are simply categories of mind or accurate reflections of TiTs. What you seem to be referring to, in a senseless way, was describe once by Case like this: "It's the Sense of Senses that defines it; Processes and Refines it. We see, we feel, we think, we know Life does not require death, until it runs out of places to grow." I thought the last line was really dumb. I would have said something like: "Don't trust one who claims there's more, unless you want to stub your toe." It is about that sense of pattern recognition that integrates the divided sensory systems into oneness. That's how I know what something looks like by touching it and can judge distance using sound. "...knowledge arises from the senses or by thinking about what the senses provide." You should paste that on your wall too, as fast acting relief from delusions of certainty that can't be recalled or described. dmb says: See, the premise of you criticism here is that nature and the material world are the same thing, that empirical evidence is sensory evidence. This is flatland, my friend. [Krimel] Another shot from the bogeyman!!! The way you through "flatland" around is slapstick, like lemon meringue pie without the meringue. I believe I have said many times that nature, reality is undefined. If you can't state my premises properly you will be escorted off of them. A mystical experience is experienced. During an experience memory of it is formed. Sensations are recorded, perhaps these are of such a nature that we will need a new way to understand their referents but we are perfectly capability of transforming the relationships among the sensations we have into new orders of relationship. I have never seen a married bachelor but I can juggle evidence derived from my senses to try to imagine how that could be. I have never experienced a "the" before but I sense its meaning through usage. [dmb] And what I mean in saying that mystical experience can't be observed with the eye of flesh (sensory empiricism) is exactly what the Dali Lama said, that a real understanding of the mind can only be gained through meditation, not through scientific observation of the brains of mystics. [Krimel] Far be it from me to pick on his Holiness but, so what? If you or he or all of his monks come to some "real understanding of the mind through meditation" what's it to me or anyone else? Your understanding of your own experience has nothing to do with anyone else. My understanding of my own experience is mine. They are private. The history of people trying to interpret such experiences in others or interpreting experience for people is not good. Christians interpret ecstatic experiences as the movement of the Holy Spirit. Voodoo priestesses call it being ridden by a Loa. Sioux warriors describe them in terms of spirit animals. Descriptions of both the sensation and meaning of mystical experiences are plentiful. But the more fanciful and extrasensory they are the less seriously they deserve to be taken. Wilber for example draw distinctions and levels better nature, theistic and non-dual stages in his hierarchy. But there is nothing to base such distinctions on. He speaks of St. Teressa who had experiences she could not explain. She sought help in finding a framework to express them. Any such description is going to be couched in the mythos and logos of the one having it. And such a description whether it be of Nirvana or near death will say as much about the mythos and logos of the individual than about the validity of experiences without sensation. [snip pointless quotes] [dmb] That'll have to do for now. [Krimel] Aye, that'll do... That'll do. 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/
