[MD] Reading & Comprehension

[david buchanan]

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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