[MD] Experience, essentialism, physicalism

[Scott Roberts]

Matt,

Matt said:
I'm not sure it is physicalism, understood as I've followed Rorty in
defining it, that opposes what you suggest the mystics are saying.  I think
it is still the appearance/reality distinction that would divide us.
Because if you accept the usefulness of physics, biology, etc. in dealing
with the "natural," then you've accepted all there is to physicalism so
defined.

Scott:
You seem to be ignoring Rorty's word "every" in his definition. If accepting 
the usefulness of physics, biology, etc. in dealing with the "natural" is 
all there is to physicalism, then it is a useless word to describe someone 
philosophically. The question is whether there are events that have no 
physical component. I say that the physical is derived from consciousness, 
and so there can be conscious events in the absence of all physicality. A 
physicalist -- if the term is to have any philosophical use -- says that 
consciousness is derived from the physical, and so there can be physical 
events in the absence of consciousness.

Matt said:
  Any differences you may have in the functioning of physics or
biology or evolution is either a scientific difference, one that can be
resolved by the activities of science, or a philosophical difference which
is the gloss we place on them.  The only philosophical difference I can see
is the desire to say that the supernatural _really is_ the reality behind
the natural.  But that conflict, between the use of the appearance/reality
distinction or not, doesn't touch whether or not I would reject mysticism
_unless_ mysticism is essentially based on the appearance/reality
distinction.  I'm inclined to say, with DMB, that mysticism is not drained
once we reject that distinction.  Whatever "the natural is a manifestation
of the supernatural" means after rejecting the appearance/reality
distinction can be discussed, and that would be the part of mysticism we
keep.  It would have to do with what that suggestion means, something like
what static patterns come out of Dynamic Quality will come to mean.

Scott:
Yes, the philosophical difference between you and Merrell-Wolff is that M-W 
says that there is something else that really is the reality behind the 
natural. However, he says that he Knows this (through Identity), so for him 
it is not, strictly speaking, a philosophical difference. It is a 
difference -- for him -- in moving from one "appearance" to another, so to 
speak. Or one could say from one reality to another. Hence if you see Pirsig 
as removing the A/R distinction from mysticism, I would see that as removing 
the only thing that matters in mysticism, namely self-transformation. So I 
would say that mysticism is drained of all that is important by removing the 
A/R distinction -- if that is what it is. After all, M-W would not say that 
the natural is not real. Just that the way we think about it (that is, in 
Cartesian terms) is contingent and, in a sense, false. When the self is 
transformed, so is nature. And a transformed self would reject physicalism 
as I think Rorty defined it.

Matt said:
So the way I would array the conflict you set up is that, between
essentialistic physicalism and essentialistic mysticism, to affirm one
_would_ be to deny the other.  And there would be no way to argumentatively
adjudicate between them (if for no other reason then we haven't found a
non-question-begging way to yet).  However, the conflict between pragmatism
and essentialism (of which both the physicalism and mysticism from above are
a subsection of) takes place at a higher level of abstraction, a place
further back in our confict-enabling assumptions.  A pragmatist's
physicalism can't come in conflict with an essentialist's mysticism because
the physicalism in question (along with the pragmatist's mysticism) has been
redescribed along different lines.  Once the pragmatist drops the
essentialist assertion, his non-essentialist assertion can't be described as
in conflict with an essentialist one because the entire conflict between
essentialist assertions is made possible by their _common essentialism_.
"It is all really X."  "No, it is all really Y."  They're arguing about what
it all _really_ is.  But antiessentialists aren't arguing about what it all
_really_ is.  They are just arguing what is the most efficacious thing for
us to say for specific purposes.  So if you want to argue that physics
doesn't predict the movements of rocks very well, you would be arguing with
the pragmatist, but not the pragmatist-cum-pragmatist, but the
pragmatist-cum-physicist.  You'd be arguing with a physicist about how
useful physics is.  And I don't think you want to do that (insofar as you
are not a physicist; if you are, you could, but it still wouldn't be on
essentialistic mysticism grounds).

Scott:
How, then, could an anti-essentialist argue for neo-Darwinism as an 
explanation for the existence of language and consciousness? If I say that 
physical reality derives from consciousness, does that make me automatically 
an essentialist, while saying the opposite (as a promoter of neo-Darwinism 
must) is somehow able to do this without being an essentialist?

Matt said:
So you may criticize Pirsig's take on mysticism, that you don't think he
handles the relationship between static patterns and DQ very well, but I
think that criticism may have a lot to do with the fact that Pirsig is
attempting to offer a non-appearance/reality distinction enabled mysticism.

Scott:
Actually, no. My criticism is that he privileges DQ over SQ, which I see as 
a step toward idolatry, which could be thought of as being overly 
essentialist about DQ.

Matt said:
Pirsig is trying to "naturalize" mysticism, as DMB has said, where
"naturalization" simply means "antiessentialism".  And you offer
essentialist criticisms of how Pirsig's drained a lot of the power from
mysticism because of his antiessentialism.  These may be appropriate, but
its not because Pirsig is a physicalist (as he is on my reading) or because
I'm a physicalist.  It is because both Pirsig and I are antiessentialists.

Scott:
I think he is draining power from mysticism because he doesn't want to get 
into natural/supernatural controversy. I don't mean to imply that he is 
being intellectually dishonest -- I guess he really thinks that mysticism 
can and should be "naturalized" in this way (though the bit about his 
daughter maybe being a reincarnated Chris makes me wonder). But as I see it, 
this can only be done by being highly selective of the mystical data.

Matt said:
Alright, given my above picture of how I see things being layed out, I would
counter you divisions of the playing field (from another post) with this
one:

Matt K, Ian, Arlo, DMB: antiessentialist, physicalist

Platt, Ham, Scott:  essentialist, nonphysicalist

While I know you take on many of pragmatism's attacks on traditional
philosophy, I still can't square your use of the appearance/reality
distinction.  And it seems the only major philosophical thing that divides
us.  But even if it is, then I wouldn't even be sure about calling you a
nonphysicalist unless you're prepared to say that physics doesn't help with
our way of life.

Scott:
I would say that the difference between us is that I pay attention to what 
mystics like FM-W, Bernadette Roberts, John Wren-Lewis, and Rudolf Steiner 
say, and you don't. From what they say (and from my own reflections on 
things like evolution, perception, and quantum reality), I philosophize, and 
what I come up with are various conclusions. One is that idealism of some 
form or other is a better way of thinking about things in general than 
materialism of some sort or other. I don't see how this makes me an 
essentialist (see above). Another conclusion is that short of 
self-transformation of the sort they talk about, one isn't capable of 
Knowing What is Really Going On. But this does not imply that one should 
deny the supernatural. It only implies that we are limited in our ability to 
think about it. This, I argue, makes me an anti-essentialist in your sense 
of the word. That is, because we are fallen (ignorant), we should be 
pragmatic. Otherwise we get drawn into error. The Buddhist tetralemma is a 
good guide to how one can avoid falling into error. Hence I see Ham, and 
Pirsig, and physicalists (as I understand the term) as people who have 
violated the tetralemma in one way or another.

Matt said:
And this last reason is why I thrust DMB, against his
current protestations, into camp as a physicalist.  I haven't seen any
reason not to consider him one based on his commitment to antiessentialism
and his desire to say that "I would also object to the notion that mystics
accept the supernatural, unless by 'supernatural' you mean 'extremely
natural'."  In my book, the only people who could be committed to
nonphysicalism here are essentialists because _nobody_ who was attracted to
Pirsig would be a scientific materialist (an essentialistic physicalist).
The only people left are quasi-idealists who want to assert something as
_more real_ than something else.

Scott:
See above about whether being a physicalist means saying "every" event has a 
physical component. If an anti-essentialist is one who says that phrases 
like "concsciousness is derived from the physical" (or vice versa) shouldn't 
be said (since it implies one is more fundamental than the other), then it 
seems to me that an anti-essentialist must be skeptical about Darwinism, 
about the belief that the mental is only brain function, and not say that 
the biological develops out of the physical, the social out of the 
biological, and the intellectual out of the social. In other words, Rorty 
and Pirsig would be essentialists. If they are not, then why can't a 
quasi-idealist such as myself be an anti-essentialist?

I actually do not consider the supernatural to be "more real" than the 
natural, except in the sense that there is always consciousness (and quality 
and intellect) but physical reality is contingent. What I say is that the 
natural is an expression of consciousness, and that consciousness always has 
some expression or other. Further, the expression and the expressed are 
mutually dependent, so though the physical is contingent and consciousness 
is not, expression (manifestation) is also not contingent -- that is, there 
is no such thing as unexpressed reality. And for that reason, I also don't 
define myself as an essentialist or as an anti-essentialist, but here I am 
changing the meaning of the words somewhat, that is, in the sense in which 
essence is contrasted with existence, and where the latter is seen as "just" 
particulars, which we then categorize with our language. But that's getting 
into a different area.

Matt said:
  Even with DMB's desire to say that Pirsig
gives us super-strength idealism, I don't think he or Pirsig is a
quasi-idealist in this sense because they most assuredly should not be
saying one thing is more than real than something else.  Any "reductions"
made, either by use of physical explanations or Quality explanations (the
kind implied when DMB said Pirsig "'reduced' all of reality to different
kinds of quality"), are not _reductions_ down to the primal substance of the
way the World Really Is.  They are suggestions about how we talk for
particular purposes.

Scott:
My purpose in philosophizing is to aid in self-transformation, which is to 
say, I hold that mystical self-tranformation is a possibility. I see no way 
of saying this without falling into what you will regard as essentialism and 
making an A/R distinction. While I think the essentialism charge is 
spurious, as I see it a "naturalized" (non-A/R) mysticism is a mistake. 
Mainly, it would deny the reality of the eternal (the non-spatiotemporal) 
which is a given with mysticism (and, pari passu, I believe is required to 
deal with the quantum measurement problem and consciousness).

- Scott