[MD] Experience, essentialism, physicalism

[Scott Roberts]

Matt,

Matt said:
Mmm, indeed, I have been ignoring Rorty's "every" in his definition.  I was
going "off book" as it were, but a couple of days ago I went back to look at
that particular essay and noticed that same thing.  So I've been ruminating
about that.  (It just goes to show how similarly we reason; I had the
strongest hunch you were going to mention it just insofar as its the place I
would first attack.)

But since I've been trying to make whatever-it-is-that-science-does
coextensive with physicalism, my inclination is indeed to follow out on the
consequences of the argument I've been making, that indeed there _is_
nothing philosophically interesting about physicalism.  That's why I've been
thrusting _everybody_ willy-nilly into the "physicalist" camp.  Because who
could deny physics's utility?  The pragmatist project is one of
philosophical therapy, removing the objects of consternation, making things
seem less and less philosophically interesting (where "philosophy", in this
case, is essentially taken to be an armchair, reflective enterprise about
the roots of reality--i.e., bad essentialistic metaphysics).  I remember
Rorty pointing out how physicalism/materialism _isn't_ an interesting
philosophical thesis once one becomes a pragmatist and ties off some
bleeding epistemological/metaphysical wounds.  (I think he did so in his
early "Mind-Body Identity, Privacy, and Categories" paper and in another
obscure, even earlier paper called "Empiricism, Extensionalism, and
Reductionism."  Once you take out reductionism, materialism is no longer
philosophically interesting.  Which means nothing for science and is bad
only for reductionists.)

Scott:
I disagree. The word "physicalist" remains useful to identify those whose 
"view of things in general" (VOTIG) allows them to regard neo-Darwinism as 
an adequate and coherent theory, and "non-physicalist" for someone who 
rejects it -- either (like me) because I find it inadequate and incoherent, 
or because it conflicts with some other postulate (like God as creator). 
Likewise for other theories, like Dennett's theory of consciousness, and 
Arlo's emergentism. I've complained before about Rorty that sometimes he 
says "the pragmatist holds that..." when it is more the case that "the 
nonreductive physicalist holds that...".

I seems to me that in attempting to make the word 'physicalist' 
philosophically uninteresting, that since my VOTIG is different from yours, 
that leaves you only one stick left to beat me with, and that is to label me 
as an essentialist. Since I try hard to avoid that error (one of the two 
ways of falling off the Buddhist Middle Way -- the other being 
anti-essentialist) I cry foul.

Matt said:
I don't know if you remember, but sometime last year or something, I wrote
some posts about consciousness in which I was very insouciant about where we
put it.  The effect is that, if you describe everything as
consciousness-dependent, you still have to account for the differences in
behavior between rocks and people.  You can do that.  I've been arguing in
variation for years, in agreement with you, that to have values is to have
consciousness, but that simply means that Pirsig's located a locus of
consciousness wherever there is a locus of value.  And then you still have
to account for the apparent behavioral difference between rocks and humans.
And so the physicalist, neo-Darwinian idea that "there can be physical
events in the absence of consciousness" just has to be redescribed to
account for whatever way a person has split the difference.  Because if you
hold that there are conscious events in the absence of physicality, and we
take both "conscious" and "physical" in their pre-redefined sense (so that
there is something like a mind thinking without a brain), then that looks
analogous to God as Prime Mover, where we posit something that is difficult
to say what would count as evidence for or against.  And I'm not sure we
need that posit.

Scott:
First, I should clarify that as far as I am concerned, since I have no 
personal experience of mind without a brain, all I hold philosophically is 
that there is no reason to assume that mind without a brain is impossible. 
Evidence for this is anecdotal, and I bracket that off when philosophizing. 
More on this below. And in my philosophizing there is even less of anything 
analogous to God as Prime Mover as there is in the MOQ with DQ leaving SQ in 
its wake.

On rocks and humans, a couple of points. One is that what one should be 
comparing a human to is not a rock but physical reality as a whole, which 
includes such niceties as quantum non-locality. The other is that the human 
in considering the human has, in addition to sense data, the ability to 
introspect. With a rock, and with physical reality as a whole, the human 
only has sense data.  To assume that that provides all there is to know 
about physical reality is to be a physicalist.

Scott said:
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:
I'm not exactly sure I understand you here, but let's start with
self-transformation.  If you take the wind out of the appearance/reality
distinction as you've done here (where it doesn't really matter if we call
it "moving from one 'appearance' to another" or "from one reality to
another"), it looks like the same thing pragmatists like Rorty say when they
talk about moving from one language game to another.  We'd be inclined to
say, under this context, that "when the self is transformed, so is nature."

Scott interrupts:
For a mystical wannabe like myself, yes, it is moving to a different 
vocabulary -- though I would make it stronger in saying it is moving to a 
different final vocabulary (a different VOTIG). For the mystic, however, no. 
The two common analogies used are that of "like the difference between 
dreaming and being awake" and "like acquiring sight when the normal is being 
blind". This is more than a change of vocabulary. Merrell-Wolff says in 
addition to perception and conception he acquired a new source of knowledge, 
which he calls introception with which he experiences, for example, thoughts 
that "would take many lifetimes to explicate in terms available to relative 
consciousness" (not an exact quote) if it could be done at all, and so 
forth. Such a difference is also involved in what Barfield calls moving from 
our current state of unconscious participation to final participation. In 
other words, the change is immensely more profound than, say, the change in 
nature in the transformation from the medieval world view through Descartes 
to the postmodern.


Matt said:
What you seem to be saying, though, is that you know a priori what a
transformed self would believe, that it only counts as "self-transformation"
if a person is transformed from a Cartesian into a Merrell-Wolffian, rather
than from, say, a Platonist to a pragmatist.  I can't attach any sense to
that except to reinflate the sails of the appearance/reality distinction,
but that eventually bounces you outside the bounds of conversation--which,
if I'm not mistaken, is what you'll agree.  That at a certain point, we are
dogmatists.  You trust Merrell-Wolff, I trust somebody else.  But taking
that road just leaves me in the position of having to shrug my shoulders and
wait for enlightenment to suddenly take me.  Which makes me wonder why you
(or, say, the mystic) enter in conversation at all, and what the point of
all the dialectical agility you so evidently display is.  You say it does
help with self-transformation, but I'm not sure how it would.  But the
moment of dogmatism is still a few paces away, so let me continue on down.

Scott:
Again, to clarify, I don't "know a priori" what a transformed self would 
believe. I only know a posteriori that I reject what physicalists believe 
(like neo-Darwinism), and that a posteriori knowledge has the usual 
uncertainty attached. However, because I reject physicalism, I can seriously 
consider what mystics say, to accept it as data, run it through a critique, 
bracket out the weird stuff (like Swedenborg's claiming to talk to dead 
people -- not denying it, but not taking it as given either), and in so 
doing work out details of my VOTIG.

I enter the conversation because Pirsig says things about mysticism which I 
consider suspect, in violation of the tetralemma. And because I think 
Pirsig's VOTIG -- in particular his emergentism -- shows an unwarranted 
attachment to a physicalism that the mystics I read (who survive my 
critique) deny. I wouldn't even try to enter the conversation with a 
Randian, for example, nor with a Christian fundamentalist, nor with a 
reductive physicalist (well -- I might if they show up here, as in my 
fruitless dialogue with Case).

Scott said:
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:
The idea is that you _can_ say that physical reality derives from
consciousness and still be an antiessentialist.  You'd just have to do it in
the manner that Pirsig, under a certain interpretation, does (a way I see
you as either expressing or flirting with).  This brings us 'round to the
discussion about Darwinism we've had intermittenly for the last several
years.  I don't know how to move that conversation forward.  I'm not sure
I'm sophisticated enough.  The position I've taken from Rorty and Dennett is
still that "consciousness" (as a demarcation point between us and rocks),
like everything else, is something that's created in a language-game.  That
being the case, there aren't any features of it that can't be explained by
an evolutionary tale about the creation of a way of speaking.  And then we
just move back and tell an evolutionary tale about the creation of language
itself.  I think we can more or less do those things.

Scott interrupts again:
Right, and I think that's what I am doing: spinning a different evolutionary 
tale than you are, where in mine consciousness is not something created in a 
language-game, rather that consciousness and semiosis are not separable, and 
not derivable, and so all there is are language games -- some human, most 
not -- rocks are, maybe, comparable to a letter of an alphabet of a grammar 
used in some non-human language game. The fact that some of my spinning is 
influenced by what some mystics say derives from the fact that my rejection 
of Darwin and Dennett allows what they say to be rational. Your acceptance 
of Darwin and Dennett means that some of the stuff that I accept is 
irrational, and so won't be included in your spinning.

Matt said:
The difference between us is still, I think, that you think there is
something ineffable about consciousness.  And arguing about that launches us
high into metaphilosophical territory, about how we tell when something is
ineffable or not, what we do about it, how we stay conversable, do we want
to stay conversable, etc.  You don't think consciousness can be explained at
all and so root it way back into the very fabric of reality.  I'm not sure
what our conversation would look like, how we talk--in this oxygen depleted
sector of the mountain--about why we should think one way or the other.

Scott:
Since I no longer expect to convert you to my way of thinking, all I am 
really trying to do at present is convince you that there is a way to be 
pragmatic and to listen to mystics, to be pragmatic and consider that minds 
without brains are possible, and so forth (in other words, I am rejecting 
your labelling me as essentialist). I do think that consciousness is 
ineffable, but so is just about everything of philosophical interest, value 
for instance. However, I do eff its ineffability to the extent of thinking 
of it in terms of the logic of contradictory identity. Now you would say 
that in my rooting consciousness into the very fabric of reality I am being 
essentialist. But I say that, since I lack the Knowledge through Identity of 
FM-W or Sri Aurobindo, all I am doing is spinning a different evolutionary 
tale than you are. Mine starts with consciousness, value, intellect, and 
semiosis, while yours starts with hydrogen, helium, and physical forces.

Nor would I say that FM-W is essentialist. Of course, as far as I really, 
really know, what he says may be fraudulent or delusional. Assuming that it 
isn't, then -- see above -- he is not just assuming consciousness as being 
at the root of things (like I do), but Knowing it. That is, it is no more 
essentialist for him than I am being essentialist by saying "I am 
conscious". I should also note that supposing he was a fraud or delusional, 
my evolutionary tale doesn't change, since it has grown out of a realization 
of the inadequacy and incoherence of your evolutionary tale that occurred 
before reading FM-W (I was not unaware of mystical alternatives, to be sure, 
but I had more or less naturalized them). Rather it is a case that because I 
have my evolutionary tale that I take FM-W and others seriously, and allow 
them to help me flesh it out.

Matt said:
I guess I'm not sure what these mystics could convince me of if its simply
about taking their word for it.  It almost seems like Pascal's wager.  If
you are an antiessentialist until the day you become transformed (and on
that day you transcend antiessentialism/essentialism because you Know What's
Really Going On, and until that day essentialism is the nonsense it is),
then what reason do I have for listening to the mystics?  I've come to
antiessentialism by a different route after all.  If they can't communicate
their knowledge of What's Really Going On, then why should I think
antiessentialism will get me closer to the day of transcendence?  How is
this not like "I'll believe in God just in case He's there"?  I'll act like
a perfect, conversational pragmatist until the day I'm self-transformed.
Antiessentialism is better--until you are enlightened and loosened the bonds
of fallen experience.

Scott:
Firstly, I've never heard of anyone converting because of Pascal's Wager. 
Where it serves (perhaps in modified form, i.e., without God or Heaven or 
Hell) is for the person who already has faith. Faith implies the possibility 
of doubt, and when doubt occurs, the faithful person may say -- the hell 
with doubting, I prefer to maintain my suspension of disbelief to all 
alternatives. Take me. It is certainly possible, since I lack Knowledge 
through Identity about it, that my evolutionary tale is a bunch of crap. But 
every other evolutionary tale that I am aware of is less reasonable to me 
than the one I have. So my only rational alternative to suspending disbelief 
in my tale is a radical skepticism, and I'm not interested in being a 
radical skeptic.

Matt said:
We have no reason, except for dogmatic trust, to think that the mystics will
get us closer to self-transformation because for them to give us reasons
would mean that we've become essentialists---thinking we've found a
discursive route to What's Really Going On when enlightenment is all about
stilling our discursive habit of thinking we Know What's Really Going On.
So we have to be antiessentialists, because it is better, and I can't help
but think that leaves us in a very willy-nilly position.  For instance,
what's going to happen to me if I don't start listening to the mystics?  I'm
going to stay fallen?  Which means I'm going to act just like you, an
antiessentialist (assuming for the sake of argument that we both act like
consistent antiessentialists).  I can't figure out how I'd be convinced to
suddenly think I have the possibility of being enlightened---except for the
totally random event of a mystical vision.  Then I'd be changed.  But before
that day, I don't have any reason to even desire a mystical vision except in
the same way I hope to wake up tomorrow with the ability to fly.

Scott:
I think I've answered these concerns above. It is not a matter of dogmatic 
trust. It is trust that is based on reason.

If you don't want to listen to mystics, then don't. The mystic would 
probably say (condescendingly) that you're not ready for it. I would say, 
you don't because you haven't yet seen how neo-Darwinism is inadequate and 
incoherent, and so mysticism is not something you're likely to listen to in 
a manner in which you'll get much out of it. (I will interject, though, that 
if you should want to spare it a glance, I recommend reading FM-W's chapter 
"A Mystical Unfoldment" in his "Philosophy of 
Consciousness-Without-An-Object", reprinted in "Experience and Philosophy".)

Matt said:
This brings us around to the shibboleth problem.  Why should I think the
mystics you tout are speaking the magic words and not some other ones?  And,
even more to the point, why should I think there are magic words to be
spoken at all?  I'd assume that you'd throw out the possibility of magic
words as being another piece of essentialism (as I would), but that still
leaves us waiting to fly.

Scott:
Why? Reason. Much of what goes under the banner of mysticism is esotericism 
of the Swedenborg sort. It can be bracketed off (neither denied nor 
accepted). Much may be written in a vocabulary the individual reader doesn't 
like. Bernadette Roberts, for example, started out as a Christian and 
remains one. Yet in her books there is a lot that makes sense to me, though 
I tend to recast it in non-theistic terms. In short, reading mystics is a 
matter of dialog between the reader and the text, just like any other text. 
What you are concerned with here is an old problem, readily dealt with by 
anyone who is aware of what Peter Berger calls the Heretical Imperative, in 
the book by that name, that one must make choices among and within all the 
revelations, and the tool for making those choices is rationalist critique. 
I would add Lessing's remark (quoted from memory, so not exact) that 
"revelation is not rational when revealed. Rather, it is revealed to become 
rational." Of course, only those words that can become rational should be 
considered candidates for revelation, and it is up to the reader to make 
that distinction.

Matt said:
This isn't to say that the mystics may not have words of wisdom to teach us.
  Not at all.  It isn't to say that my life wouldn't benefit from reading
them.  To be an intellectual is to be open and curious in search of life
wisdom.  But I don't, for typical antiessentialistic points we hold in
common, see why we need to posit a strange looking, dogmatic
appearance/reality distinction that plays no real part except to point out
that we all may wake up one day and believe something completely different
from what we did the day before--specifically that we Know What's Really
Going On.

To return to the original topic about physicalism and idealism, I'm not
sure, given my philosophically deflated definition of physicalism, why you'd
want to stylize yourself as an idealist.  And maybe you wouldn't in this
case.  It seems to me to be an essentialist mistake.  The scientific
materialists made the mistake of thinking science got at What's Really Going
On.  The inverse was the idealists who thought Spirit was What's Really
Going On.  Its all bouncing particles, no its all idea/spirit.  But if we
become antiessentialists, we leave that fruitless debate aside, don't we?
We simply suggest better and more fruitful ways of speaking for different
purposes, right?  So what is the philosophically useful way to describe
oneself as an idealist without becoming an essentialist, positing What's
Really Going On?

Scott:
We will leave the debate aside because we realize neither of us is going to 
convince the other, but the difference remains (though we might remove the 
capital letters). We have different VOTIG's, different evolutionary tales, 
and as I see it, the words 'physicalist' and 'idealist' still serve to 
characterize yours and mine respectively, while 'anti-essentialist' and 
'essentialist' do not.

- Scott