[MD] Mystics and Brains

[Case]

dmb says:
See, I would not dispute the idea that thinkers need brains and language 
requires a brain, but at the same time you are simply reasserting scientific

materialism here. As I keep saying, this is normal and rational, but not in 
this context. Since we are talking about a metaphysical system that wants to

get past this sort of thing. The notion that language and intellect can be 
reduced to brain activity is, in my opinion, soul-murdering bullshit. The 
MOQ was built to replace that empty, meaningless, ugly worldview. See, I'm 
trying to explain an alternative to this and so it is just about the last 
thing in the world that would persuade me. As I see it, the worldview that 
would reduce mystical experience to a brain-state is the problem we're 
trying to solve. Or so I thought.

[Case]
It seems to me what you describe here is a reversion to the Classic/Romantic
split of ZMM. A motorcycle is the possibility of wind in your hair and bugs
in your teeth and it is a thing of chrome and fire. I thought Pirsig
expressed rather eloquently how the motorcycle as also a fact of physics and
metallurgy and engineering. It can be understood as a thing of romance and
adventure. And yet here you say that such an understanding of ourselves
would be "soul destroying". 

Clarke's observation that a sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic is rapidly becoming a cliché. But I think it is
complemented by Pirsig's observations. Science rather than destroying souls
offers new forms for the soul's expression. We moderns live in a world
constructed almost entirely of ideas. Houses and cars cities and power
plants human ideas made manifest. Our children believe that Milk begins in
cartons and must have the function of breasts explained to them. 

The worldview that reduces mystical experience to brain states has expanded
human awareness into the stratosphere. We see ourselves from the God's eye
view of space and send text messages across the planet at the speed of
light. The same magic that enables blogging and YouTube is the destroyer of
souls? I think not.

dmb says:
See, that is just classic positivism. Experience is defined here in terms of

sensory experience and from that it follows that we can know something 
important about experience by studying the senses and the nervous system and

especially the brain. I think this view is seriously flawed. I think thid 
kind of reductionism is typical and normal, but again, we are talking 
metaphysics here. I'm not saying we should throw neurology out the window. 
Its fascinating and it saves lives too, but its not JUST about tissues and 
chemicals. And all that fancy explantion means very little compared to the 
experience itself.

[Case]
Of course it is not JUST nerves and chemistry. It is what arises from their
interaction. It is the emergence of whole new sets of possible relationships
that play by rules of their own. When you suggest that this emergence and
reduction are somehow ugly, you are just being a Romantic.

dmb says:
Well, there is something kind of magical about those moments of inspiration 
and insight, but that is not a mystical experience as i understand it. 
Apples and oranges.

[Case]
I had a colleague once who talked often about the difficulty of working in
an environment governed by "random sliding criteria". An example of RSC
comes from a Woody Allen movie where a woman at a party tells Woody, "I
finally achieved an orgasm and was feeling really good about it until I
found out it was the wrong kind."

Mysticism is fraught with RSC. 

dmb says:
Well, I'm not so sure that's true. But assuming it is, this would simply 
describe some of the details as to how and why this "religion" is just a 
bunch of social level moral codes and has very little to do with spiritual 
realizations or enlightenment. Personally, I don't think this would be 
anything to brag about. This is exactly why I'm opposed to theism. It 
confuses the divine with mere social decency, not unlike the Victorians. And

when we look at those social codes today they look quite insane and 
depraved. Stone your children to death for being sassy? Don't eat lobster? 
That's just crazy talk.

[Case]
Again, with the "just". We are talking about social and moral codes that
have allowed a culture to persist for more than 3000 years. The Jews have
been able to maintain their culture from China to Mexico in the face of
having no country of their own, hostility from their neighbors and organized
campaigns to exterminate them that span centuries. And you say this nothing
to brag about? Jewish contributions to science and culture across the ages
are far greater than their numbers and influence would suggest. When the
Jews first began formalizing their codes of ethics Europeans were still
banging rocks together and spinning tales of elves in deerskin.

dmb says:
Well, I think that's confused and that its important to sort out the various

functions. I would say that mysticism isn't supposed to have any biological 
or social functions. The MOQ claims there has been lots of confused thinking

and the key distinctions are designed to sort out these things.

[Case]
The fact of religion is a trans-cultural phenomenon almost demands that it
has biological and evolutionary significance and function.

Case said:
I maintained at that time that I accept the assumptions of science which I 
have since listed as:
>1. Nature is orderly.
>2. We can know nature.
>3. All phenomena have natural causes
>4. Nothing is self evident. Truth claims must be demonstrated objectively.
>5. Knowledge is derived from acquisition of experience.
>6. Knowledge is superior to ignorance.

dmb says:
These are the assumptions of science? Looks to me more like the conclusions 
of scientific materialism. When I think of science it is generally the 
scientific method and the process of peer review because the conclusions 
come and go.

[Case]
I have offered up a list and said, add to it or subtract from it. I offered
up a list of assumptions of the Perennial Philosophy and you ignored about
two out of three of them. Put up your own list or say which items on my list
or Platt's you would deny.

[dmb]
As Pirsig says in Lila, the MOQ does nothing to alter the data 
and has no quarrel with the method. But we are talking philosophy of 
science. I thought the topic here was about the metaphysical assumptions 
(SOM) behind all that. I mean, radical empiricism rejects those assumptions 
and expands the notion of what counts as valid empirical evidence so that we

are no longer limited to sensory experience. 

[Case]
Radical empiricism does no such thing. I have explained this already. James
came up with radical empiricism. He says that experience is a product of
natural processes and should be understood in terms of them. To the extent
that mysticism can be understood as experience he would say it can be
explained in terms of bodily functions regardless of whatever other meanings
one places on it.

[dmb]
This allows for the possibility that we can develop a science to study
unusual states of consciousness and other experiences that have do not come
to us through the senses per se. There are interesting correlations, but I
think neurology and such can't teach us everything we might like to know
about experiences of that type. I mean, isn't that approach kind of empty
and meaningless even for something as common as falling in love. The
chemistry and activity of the brain can be measured and we can see
correlations between that and the experience, but what does that really tell
us about love? Not a damn thing. It only tells us about brain activity and
chemistry. 

[Case]
You think understanding the role of love as an evolutionary agent for
producing stabile family relationships is empty? You think improvements in
birth control, the prevention of STDs and the analysis of pheromones to
produce exotic perfume detracts from the experience of love? Again this is
not reasoned philosophy this is Romantic whining.

[dmb]
It might be useful for medical science, but everybody knows that poets know
a lot more about love than does any brain surgeon. And so it is with
mystical experience. There is stuff going on in the brain and these things
can be measured, but the gal having the experience is going to know a lot
more about it than the technicians watching her brain waves slow down. They
are just watching the monitors and collecting the data the same as any other
scientists. 

[Case]
And the technicians have information about Ol' Gal here that she does not
have about herself. Access to dials and widgets that provide information
about one's physiology could only enhance one's experience. There are a host
of measurements about physiology that can with accuracy if not precision
assess the internal states of an individual. Rather than a bleak
dismissiveness I see this with awe and wonder. This is magic not mysticism.

[dmb]
I think the idea of developing a broader notion of the scientific method
would require the scientists in this area to have expertise in collecting
both kinds of data so that mystics could file reports with other mystics the
same way that physicists write papers for other physicist to scrutinize,
etc. I'm not saying this very well, but the idea is simply that
experimentation, the collection of data, the process of peer review and all
that can remain the same in essence even if we want to study states of
consciousness instead of brain states. We can't see states of consciousness
with the eye or with the scientific instruments that extend our senses, but
we ought not let that keep us from studying them.

[Case]
What is stopping studies of this sort? I submit it is a lack of fruitful
results. Or is it that the results do not point in the directions you would
like them to? I mentioned Blink a while back, it provides a nice survey of
modern research in this area.

What you seem to be describing above is introspectionism. James shows some
of this tendency. After all he coined the term stream of consciousness.
Introspectionists turned out volumes of drivel about the sensation of warmth
the weight of blue. There is precedent for studies of this sort. But their
potential usefulness is doubtful.

[dmb]
All my teachers would be happy, if I only had a brain.

[Case]
Yeah, I could be kinda human if I only had a heart.