[MD] Flying Spagetti Monsters

[david buchanan]

Case said to dmb:
Protagoras is alleged to be the first to suggest that we need to turn to the 
subject for understanding. Since man is measure of all things perhaps we 
should learn a little bit more about man. I am just taking him up on his 
suggestion. It seems silly to try to measure things if you know nothing 
about your unit of measurement.

dmb says:
Turn to the subject for understanding? Unit of measurement? Huh? Okay, 
forget about Skinner, monkeys and all that other stuff for a moment. I'd 
like to hit the reset button here and sort of start over. What I'm trying to 
say is just that the Protagorian motto is an ancient version of radical 
empiricism, which says that all knowledge is derived from experience and 
that experiences can't be discounted or ignored in an account of "reality". 
Its says experience is all the reality we'll ever get. So the motto in 
question is not about measuring things, its about the limits of our reality.

See, I can't experience dog consciousness. I can't expect any answers from 
my dog about what she's thinking. I just know that she comes when I call her 
name and she gets excited when I promise her "crunchies". There is nothing 
wrong with making some assertions based on this behavior. I'm just saying 
that animal consciousness is not within our experience even if the behavior 
is.

Case also said:
It is clear that you know nothing about Skinner, if you think dropping his 
name will help you score with the ladies. It has been my experience that he 
acts more like Chick Repellant....

dmb says:
Yea, I know and expected that you do too. That's the piece of knowledge that 
makes the joke work. If Skinner helps your social life, you are in a world 
of hurt.

Case continued:
...If you think that the study of human behavior and the structure and 
function of the brain are irrelevant to an understanding of religious and 
mystical experience, or to the nature of consciousness, or to an 
understanding of the MoQ perhaps you should start with William James.

dmb says:
As I understand it, William James "invented" radical empiricism so your 
advice seems a bit odd here. I mean, my this point is based on James 
already. The assertion that brain states and observed behaviors are not 
relevant to this issue is based on the MOQ's assertion that human 
consciousness is NOT a feature of biological man, not a property of the 
organism but is instead a distinct level of reality. Yes, of course I 
realize that there have been attempts to get at experience by looking at the 
brain states that are correlated with it, but this is only a correlation. 
This approach is reductionistic and misleading. This is what I was trying to 
get at in pointing out the difference between dialogue between people and 
observations of exteriors. Let's take the famous book ZAMM for example. 
Let's say we want to evaluate this book. In this case, I'm simply saying 
that the book's physical dimensions, its width, length, weight and such is 
totally irrelevant to our evaluation. In order to get at the meaning of the 
book, in order to experience the book as such, you gotta read it. You gotta 
get "inside" the intellectual space and look at it with the mind's eye. See, 
radical empiricism says that no experience should be discounted or ignored, 
but that also leads to the notion that there are different kinds of 
experiences and that we need a plurality of epistemologies to evaluated 
them. This simply means that its inapropriate to measure consciouness with a 
yardstick. The mystical experience can't be detected by looking at brains or 
any other biological organ. There are correlations and that can be 
interesting, but I think a valid examination of such experience requires an 
entirely different method.

Case said:
Sorry, I was trying to pay proper obeisance oh Favored Son of Bob. Is 
"Chosen One" a title more to your liking?

dmb says:
Yea, Robert Pirsig was nice to me in liverpool and said that he likes my 
jokes and my rhetoric. Big deal. As far as titles go, Pirsig refered to me 
as his "bodyguard", but I've been going with "hack wannabe" for years and 
more recently I've claimed "neurotic jackass" as a moniker. I like to think 
that all these things are true, but you can call me dave or master of the 
universe as long as you gently whisper it in my ear - darling.

Wet sloppy kisses and homophobic A-frame hugs,

dmb

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