[MD] Experience, essentialism, physicalism

Sun Apr 9 08:56:35 PDT 2006

Hi Anthony

Sounds great.  Take a look at how ordinary people are
moving this way as discussed in:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0334027632/qid=1144598111/sr=1-44/ref=sr_1_0_44/026-2138948-4944444

David Morey

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ant McWatt" <antmcwatt at hotmail.co.uk>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2006 1:52 PM
Subject: [MD] Experience, essentialism, physicalism

> Matt,
>
> Here are a few more answers and a lot more questions.
>
> I mentioned Northrop's concepts by intuition and postulation as they put
> more detail in Chalmer's criticism of Dennett's conflation of 'seem' in 
> the
> psychological sense and 'seem' in the phenomenal sense.  You appear to 
> brush
> this criticism off by stating that "Dennett and some others do sometimes, 
> in
> their less careful and more scientistic moments, sound like they are using
> the distinction and saying the latter psychological 'seem'" but, as far as 
> I
> remember, Chalmer's thought this conflation largely undermined Dennett's
> theory on consciousness especially as it appears in a critical part of
> "Consciousness Explained" i.e. Chapter 12 where Dennett is trying to
> "disqualify" qualia (or what you portray as an explanation of "_why_ we
> believe in qualia").  I'd also say that it is wrong-headed to think that 
> you
> can "believe in qualia."  It's an inane project as "_why_ we believe that 
> we
> breathe" and is no doubt an 'epiphenomenon' of an SOM frame of mind.
>
> Even before you get past the first page of "Consciousness Explained",
> Dennett asserts that there is a mystery to be explained about why 
> Cartesian
> mind substance can "fit in the same world with the nerve cells and 
> molecules
> that [make] up my brain".  And, of course, the answer is..
>
> (drum roll)
>
> .there isn't a mystery unless you're buying into SOM (or at least some of
> its assumptions).
>
> F.S.C. Northrop ("The Meeting of East & West", 1946, p.452-53) explains 
> the
> difficulties with the "mystery" below:
>
> "The concatenation of factors which is an awareness of a rose as red is 
> not
> a result of an unaesthetic material substance by some mysterious activity
> jumping out of space across a metaphysical gulf to act upon an equally
> unaesthetic blank mental substance which in some mysterious way projects 
> out
> of itself the color which is observed, as a mere appearance; instead all
> occurrences in human awareness and in human knowledge are a result of
> natural relations between entities which in their aesthetic character and 
> in
> their theoretic character are in the same world of discourse."
>
> "The color of the rose is, to be sure, a function of the observer, but it 
> is
> equally surely a function also of the character of the rose.. it is a
> function, not of any hypothetical mental substance with which the observer
> is supposed to be identified, but. of the observer's bodily sense organs..
> for it is not by altering the mental substance but by altering the effect
> upon the rods and cones in a normal person's eye that he can be made to 
> see
> a different color upon the rose than the one he normally sees."
>
> The "Cartesian mystery" can only be avoided by Descartes' assumptions
> concerning mind and matter being dropped completely (which Dennett isn't
> doing!) and by employing a completely different ontology such as that 
> found
> in Taoism or Mahayana Buddhism.  I think you not only avoid the unlikely
> conclusions of behaviourism etc with such systems, you get better accounts
> of how qualia and consciousness relates with other aspects of reality. 
> The
> real mystery - in this regard - is the length of time it took Western
> philosophers to catch-up with their East Asian counterparts.
>
> Unfortunately, if one does not become familiar with East Asian philosophy
> before approaching the usual analytic suspects (such as Dennett, Putnam,
> Sellars & Quine) found in the contemporary Anglo-American philosophy
> department then you're usually heading for a metaphysical mess (and a
> headache).  The "analytic game" is already loaded within a particular
> physicalist/behaviourist frame of reference so solutions based on East 
> Asian
> philosophy don't get a look in unless you bring them in yourself.  From 
> what
> I've read so far, John Searle is probably the best of this "bunch" but 
> even
> he is miles away from where Northrop and Pirsig are coming from.
>
> Anyone with some interest in the philosophical background of Pirsig's work
> will know that Northrop's ontology is also based on the East Asian 
> tradition
> rather than, for instance, a Kantian one (though Northrop's concepts by
> intuition and by postulation, of course, aren't a feature of the MOQ).  As
> such, I do suspect that Quine's attack on the analytic/synthetic 
> distinction
> and Sellars' attack on the Myth of the Given (that you mentioned), are 
> both
> attacking some forms of Cartesian SOM and, as such, are irrelevant to
> Northrop's conceptual framework.   (However, if you do think their
> respective critiques dismiss the Tao/Dynamic Quality altogether, it would 
> be
> interesting to hear why).
>
> An explanation of why you replied "I can accept it looking like hubris" to
> David E. Cooper's point that there is the issue of hubris that 
> philosophers
> such as Rorty and Dennett are engaged in denying (or at least, denying the
> importance of) the non-linguistic source of all (static) things would also
> be of interest.  Are you saying that a correct recognition of the Tao in a
> philosophical system is not a desirable thing?  Or are you declaring that
> Dennett's and Rorty's work only appears to be implying this?  I'm also not
> sure the "worshipping of mystery" should be just discounted without
> explanation.  I'm not saying that I necessarily disagree with your 
> sentiment
> but I do wonder where your dismissal is coming from.
>
> I do think philosophers should at least be concerned with mystery though 
> not
> the "Cartesian mystery" which Dennett thinks (on page one of 
> "Consciousness
> Explained") is the last genuine one remaining!   Rather, I think the 
> central
> mystery remains the aesthetic component found in the world and human 
> nature.
>  As Northrop (from "The Logic of the Sciences & Humanities") discusses in
> the following:
>
> "[For instance], the primary task of poetry, arising out of art in its 
> first
> function, is to convey the aesthetic component of reality in and for 
> itself
> apart from all postulated doctrine and theory. Put more concretely, it 
> must
> keep men continuously aware of the freshness and the ineffable beauty and
> richness of the immediately apprehended.  This is a function which must be
> provided. Otherwise we lose the riches and values of life which are
> immediately before our senses."
>
> "One of the most deadening influences upon human living arises out of the
> need to move on beyond the aesthetically immediate to postulated
> common-sense objects for the purposes of practical life and to postulated
> scientific objects and philosophical systems for the satisfaction of our
> intellectual curiosity and the attainment of more complete and manageable
> human knowledge. Both of these movements are necessary and good.
> Nevertheless, by themselves they tend to cause us to treat the ineffable
> beauty and the soul-sustaining freshness of the aesthetically immediate
> merely as a means to an end, thereby overlooking the contemplation of it 
> in
> and for itself. As we hurry down the street of an evening the worries of
> practical living so overwhelm us, or, - if we are more scientifically and
> philosophically minded - we become so engrossed in our theories of the
> internal molecular constitution of the stars that we do not see and become
> refreshed by the beauty of the sunset which is immediately before our 
> eyes.
> Unless we are protected by poetry and the other arts functioning purely in
> and for themselves, reality in its theoretical aspect is sought at the 
> cost
> of losing its equally real aesthetic component, and the mind of man 
> becomes
> overstimulated while his spirit dies."
>
> "There is a factor of the nature of things which can be known only by
> science and by theory with its recourse to concepts by postulation, and
> there is another important part pressing on the very threshold of our 
> senses
> denoted by concepts by intuition which is equally essential for calm and
> complete living. The tragedy of the neglect of poetry and its sister arts
> treated in and for themselves is that we lose those riches of life which 
> are
> available to everybody, rich and poor alike, immediately before our ears 
> and
> noses and eyes. It is as if a man has part of the riches for which he is
> searching, present in his own yard and being so concerned about what is on
> the other side of its fence, goes off seeking in a far country."
>
> "The character of anything immediately apprehended merits more meticulous
> examination. Any item which is immediately felt or sensed is ineffable. 
> One
> can look at a blue for hours and not quite intuit all its depth and
> richness. Also, if one's friend has never sensed a blue, no amount of
> discourse by the poet or the scientist can convey that datum to him. This 
> is
> the character of anything immediately apprehended that it has to be
> immediately experienced to be known. If to be unstatable and hence 
> ineffable
> is the characteristic of the mystical, then, contrary to popular opinion,
> the mystical and the ineffable is not off in some far distant speculative
> heaven, but in immediately apprehended fact directly before our eyes."
> (Northrop, 1947, pp.175-77)
>
> Northrop also discusses the aesthetic component of reality in some depth 
> in
> "The Meeting of East & West" and emphasises here that it is important that
> we take proper account of it in learning to deal with the different
> (intellectual and social) values held by the various cultures in the 
> world.
> Northrop argues that since the creation of nuclear weapons this _isn't_ a
> luxury that can be conveniently divided from other philosophical concerns.
>
> "First, the aesthetic component is an irreducible and essential component 
> in
> man's nature.  Second, this aesthetic component is in part indeterminate.
> As cultivated by the Orient, the indeterminate aesthetic continuous
> component in man's nature and in the nature of all things has demonstrated
> itself to be a factor which pacifies men, giving them a compassionate
> fellow-feeling not merely for other men but for all nature's creatures, 
> and
> serving to keep them more at peace with each other, rather than to send 
> them
> off on wild, ill-considered and ill-grounded aggressive private,
> nationalistic, or religious military escapades."  (Northrop, 1946, 
> p.471-72)
>
> As such, it sounds like a good idea that everyone should become Zen
> Buddhists or Taoists with strong interests in fine art, nature 
> conservation
> and politics as soon as possible.  What do you reckon?
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Anthony.
>
>
> www.robertpirsig.org
>
>
> "[Santa Claus] and I think alike - and of course we are both, by our own
> accounts, fictional characters of a sort, though of a slightly different
> sort."  (Dennett, 1991, p.411)
>
>
> .
>
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