[MD] The Trouble With Wilber

[david buchanan]

dmb said:
And an empirical study of mystical states would be no different in this 
regard either. Expanding what counts as valid empirical evidence beyond 
sensory experience does not alter the basic rules of science nor is it 
immune to the same problems.

Krimel replied:
So what would this expansion of evidence include? Please give us an example 
of what would constitute an empirical study of mystical states. I suggested 
the use of EEG and brain imaging. Did you have something else in mind?

dmb says:
I'd say that stuff like EEGs and brain imaging are just about the only 
reasonable way to study mystical states IF WE CONTINUE TO LIMIT SCIENCE TO 
SENSORY DATA. And if we insist on such a narrow empiricism it is extremely 
unlikely that we'll learn anything interesting about mysticism. As Wilber 
explains, the people who study mysticism have to conduct experiments in 
which they experience these modes of being and NOT people who study the 
brains of people who are in these states. This would not only make the data 
second hand knowledge, it would also be data about brain states and not 
mystical consciousness. This sort of scientist would need to be well trained 
and highly competent just like a physicist or biomedical researcher but 
they'd be skilled in their own area of study, of course. See, the usual 
notion of empirical science limits the range of what we can treat 
scientifically by insisting that sensory experience (which includes 
microscopes, telescopes, EEGs and all the other instruments with which we 
enhance or amplify the senses) has the effect of excluding a wide range of 
experience. The wish to include mystical experience is certainly not the 
only reason to reject the limits imposed by sensory empiricism but it is a 
prime example. As Pirsig says, this limitation is not scientifically based. 
Its the metaphysical assumptions behind the science rather than science 
itself. The metaphysics of substance is what leads us the think that the 
observation of physical processes will somehow reveal the nature of mystical 
experiences. That would be like trying to get at the nature of literary 
genius by measuring the brains of readers. It just won't work.

There was a skit on Saturday Night Live in which a man traded his children 
for some very large rocks. It was a great deal, he explained to their 
mother, because the rocks weighed so much more than the children. This is 
just about at the same level of confusion. We don't measure the value of our 
offspring by their weight because that would be absurd. We don't measure the 
value of our mystical experiences in terms of electro-chemical activity in 
the brain either. Yes, children have weight and density. Yes, brains exhibit 
their processes. The problem is that when we try to evaluate everything in 
terms of its physical state we have reduced everything to "substance".

And that's the problem with scientific materialism and the narrow brand of 
empiricism upon which it is based. In short, the problem is SOM or, as 
Wilber calls it, flatland reductionism.

Make sense?

dmb

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