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

[Matt Kundert]

Hey, guess what I never received?  Case and DMB's response to my question!  
So, sorry for not replying sooner, I only found them in the archives.

My question was this to you, Case:

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 couldn't exactly get a handle on your answer, which was this: "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."

Yes, which?  I suspect you're answering that "the phenomena of life admit to 
as many kinds of explanation as we can think up," and adding that when we do 
this well "we are aware of the limits of the language we use."  From the 
standpoint that I think pragmatists (meaning, Pirsigians) should occupy, I'm 
not sure what limits there are except non-utility, so we'll see what 
happens.

You go on to laud science for "metaphors of extraordinary clarity, precision 
and beauty," which is a strange thing to say given that science is usually 
lauded, not for its metaphors, which are typically considered anathema, but 
simply for its clarity and precision.  You say that science "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."  On 
this score you're starting to sound like Dewey, but sounding like Dewey when 
we laud science has the down side of stretching "science" out to be the 
equivalent of something like "activity."

What Dewey thought was great about scientists was that they were 
experimental, but it isn't exactly clear that other activities aren't also 
experimental.  Dewey, in the end I think, didn't want the rest of culture to 
be "more scientific" because he thought everything should be described by 
physics, but because he thought _scientists_ (as opposed to the subject of 
science) displayed moral virtues that should be exemplified.  I can agree 
with the moral virtues, but I'm not so sure about the particular metaphors 
that science uses.  I can't see how they necessarily help much, how the 
vocabulary of physics or biology helps me much in deciding who to vote for 
or who I should give my money to (though in the case of stem cell research, 
it might).

Of course, you end by saying, "I would not say they are the only 
explanations or in all cases the best
explanation. In many contexts they are irrelevant."  Indeed, this is the 
point, which is DMB's point, which I've been trying to convince DMB that we 
agree on for some time.  When I brought up pragmatic bouncing between 
vocabularies, DMB registered this point by saying that, sure for two 
different ways to describe a physical event the bounce works, but for 
mysticism it would be "like trying to measure a work of art by its physical 
dimensions."  I agree with this point, however, because the point is that 
you _can_ describe the work of art by its physical dimensions--its just not 
very useful to do so.  The limit, the way in which we choose between 
vocabularies, is based on utility, the value we find in a vocabulary for the 
purpose in which we've designed, the purpose at hand.  For instance, say I 
were moving into a new house and I were arranging my stuff.  If someone 
who's helping me asks me to describe the painting and I say, "Well, it was 
painted in 1928 by a French surrealist and it says, 'This is not a pipe,' 
which means...," my friend may very well respond, "Yeah, that's nice, but I 
was wondering if it was going to fit on this wall over here."

That's why your addendum to "in many contexts scientific explanations are 
irrelevant" sets some people on edge: "But they can not be ignored certainly 
by any system of thought, philosophy or religion that wants to be taken 
seriously."  If they are irrelevant, they are irrelevant.  How does art 
history or criticism or appreciation _ignore_ scientific explanations?  
That, of course, is the obvious case.  It does ignore science, and that's 
perfectly fine.  What is up in the air are more muddy cases, such as 
mysticism.  Is science totally irrelevant to mysticism?

I think that depends.  If something under the heading of "mysticism" 
attempts to forward an assertion that is meant as a _competitor_ to an 
assertion coming out of the heading of "science," then yes, it matters.  
They would, after all, be in competition then.  William James' point in "The 
Will to Believe" was that religion, understood in a certain way, is _not_ a 
competitor with science, so there is nothing to choose from between them.  
(Of course, this "certain way" is one that's already purged the idea that 
the world was created in seven days, because to hold that _would_ put a 
religious explanation in competition with science.)  I think much the same 
way for mysticism.  What a mystic experiences _can_ be described 
neurologically.  If it couldn't, I'm not sure we could say that an 
experience had even occured.  What DMB would like to make certain is that we 
understand that there isn't much point in describing it neurologically 
because that has nothing to do with it _as_ a mystic experience.  And, in a 
certain way, I can agree with that.

I think that Pirsig's _only_ point in describing the idea of preconditional 
valuation, as a replacement for causation, was to show that it could be 
done.  I don't think Pirsig was suggesting that it would be beneficial to do 
so, I think Pirsig was making 1) a point about redescription and context and 
2) more directly a point that mirrors James' slogan "the trail of the human 
serpent is over all."  When you say that Pirsig legitimizes 
anthropomorphism, Pirsig should respond that if you've taken _anything_ from 
him, its that _that_ epithet has been misused by buyers-into of scientistic 
rhetoric, that the colder and more distant from human concerns a description 
or explanation gets, the better it must be just because Galileo was really 
successful in doing that for rocks.  Pirsig wants us to think twice before 
going all buck wild over physics.

The last thing I want to comment on is you saying that, "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."  This goes back to what limits there are on language.  Anybody who 
knows me well enough probably predicted that, when I read 
"representational," I would have a heart-attack.  I do think that is exactly 
the _wrong_ word we should use to describe what we are.  However, "metaphor" 
isn't so wrong, but I want to stress one thing: in Pirsig's picture of us, 
we are not "metaphorically minded beings" if that means we have metaphors on 
the brain a lot.  The sum total of our mind _is_ metaphors, "analogues upon 
analogues upon analogues."  In Lila terminology, as Paul Turner and I have 
to come to agree and stress the importance of, _we_ do not _have_ static 
patterns, our minds do not have metaphors, we _are_ static patterns--our 
minds _are_ metaphors.  And as long as the "discomfort" we feel in pushing 
metaphors is construed as "non-utility, low value," as opposed to how 
non-pragmatist wielders of the metaphor of representation construe it, as 
"poor representation or fit to antecedent object," then we have no problem.

Matt

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