[MD] Reading & Comprehension

[Krimel]

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. 

[Krimel]
Your first bit of advice is well perhaps you should heed it. I understand
how uncomfortable all of this must make you feel. This attempt to rescue
Pirsig's inappropriate metaphor is noble but futile.

[dmb]
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]
I noted that she describes her impressions that way because it resonates and
it is her first person account. She also has the background to identify how
this feeling arise. Parallel processing meaning that many things are
happening at once. The feeling of unity is the product synthesis of these
diverse processes.

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?

[Krimel]
I have not had much to say about mysticism at all. In fact most of what I
have said over the past two yours has involved asking you what it is
supposed to be and what value it is supposed to have. 

I don't think knowledge of physiology threatens Pirsig's work. After all
experience and physiology are intimately intertwined. Can you imagine
experience without physiology? 

[dmb]
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? 

[Krimel]
I said that our reaction to dog shit, like our reaction to hot stoves is
pre-intellectual. While I did not say there was nothing else to such
responses; I invite you once again to elaborate on what else there is.