[MD] Mystics and Brains -- Matt has a question

[Case]

Hi Matt,

I could not figure out how to split your questions up so let me answer
thusly:

The idea of teleology is that some future state determines present
circumstances. There is a purpose or some future state towards which we in
the present are compelled. I do not think this is a reasonable position. 

A mechanistic position would be that the future is determined by invariant
chains of past causes and effects.

I do not think either the future or the past can be described in these ways.
Determinism is not mechanical or teleological. It is statistical.

Pirsig's("A causes B" v. "B values precondition A") has several problems
first it legitimize anthropomorism as though in a "cause and effect"
relationship B likes A. As you say it may be pragmatic to think and speak of
your computer as if it were sentient. I certainly do that a lot when
interacting with artificial intelligence. But it would be a mistake take
this very seriously. I think we bounce vocabularies a lot. We are
representational, metaphorically minded beings. But many times we bounce
because we have pushed a metaphor farther than it is comfortable to push it.

The term Mind, like the term Consciousness, make me squeamish, I follow
James in that respect. At present I am attracted to the idea that Mind is
the result of all that stuff happening.

You asked, "Do you think that scientific explanations are the only kind of
valid explanations, or do you think that the phenomena of life admit to as
many kinds of explanation as we can think up and that the only way we choose
between them is experiential efficacy?"

I alluded to this above. Yes, we do it but at least when we do it well, we
are aware of the limits of the language we use. We do not push our metaphors
to the stress point. 

But in the end I think science offers up metaphors of extraordinary clarity,
precision and beauty. It offers them up and then questions them, seeks to
alter and transform them. I would suggest that these are the standards by
which all other metaphors are judged. 

I would not say they are the only explanations or in all cases the best
explanation. In many contexts they are irrelevant. But they can not be
ignored certainly by any system of thought, philosophy or religion that
wants to be taken seriously.



-----------------------------------------------------------
Hey Case,

I don't pay much attention at all these days, so I really only have a 
cursory understanding of what everybody's talking about.  But I noticed that

Ham dragged up an old essay of mine about mechanistic philosophy in relation

to the position you've been taking, which apparently everybody thinks is 
reductionistic or positivistic or materialistic, or whatever.  Since I'm 
often thought to be any number of those things comparitively, too, I thought

I'd ask you a question to help clarify if you're a degenerate like me or 
some other kind of degenerate.

In the essay that Ham found, it kind of suggests that we be able to bounce 
back and forth between "mechanistic explanations" and "teleological 
explanations" depending on situation.  Back in the day, a former poster that

some will remember, 3dwavedave, grilled me for a while privately as to what 
in the hell a "teleological explanation" was.  I had no idea then, and I 
have no idea now.  That's why its an old essay.  BUT: the idea that I still 
find true is that of bouncing back and forth between different vocabularies 
of explanation.  I take that to be central to the pragmatist position, one 
that is central to Pirsig's position if you take seriously his comments 
about the general utility of causal accounts vs. preconditional evaluative 
accounts ("A causes B" v. "B values precondition A")

So, granted that people are describing your position as reducing the mind 
(which in this case swallows up pretty much all the other little bits being 
thrown around, sensations, consciousness, mystical experiences, etc.) to 
brain activity, and that you've said something like this to cause them to 
react like this, what would you say to this proposition:

We can describe various phenomena (like sensations, thoughts, experiences, 
pain) as brain activity, but we can also describe them as activity that 
occurs in the mind.

The question:

Do you think that scientific explanations are the only kind of valid 
explanations, or do you think that the phenomena of life admit to as many 
kinds of explanation as we can think up and that the only way we choose 
between them is experiential efficacy?

The first is certainly positivistic and materialistic, the kind that Pirsig 
hated, but the second is properly called pragmatic.  The former is pure 
Platonic metaphysics, by suggesting that we've found in science the real 
method with which to cut past appearances to reality (past the appearance of

mystical experience to the reality of neurons), while the latter is entirely

anti-Platonic in point, by suggesting that life is a play of values, we 
value this for this and that for that--what we value lives, what we don't 
dies.

I suspect your answer will be down the latter's lines, but I thought I'd 
ask.

Matt

p.s. Talk of "foundations" sounds Platonic, and I'd probably try popping 
that bubble, too, but in a play of values, we can have so-called 
foundations, they just aren't the rigid kind that Plato and Descartes 
wanted.  Descartes wanted to find dry land in the middle of the 17th 
century's intellectual ocean, but the pragmatists teach us that the ocean is

infinite and that the ground beneath our feet is simply a raft we've 
constructed to stay afloat.  Instead of conceiving of philosophy like Plato 
did, as the search for the one, true Paradise Island, hopping from fake 
island to fake island in the mean time, pragmatists suggest we think of 
philosophy as the quest for better and better boats.

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