[MD] The Trouble With Wilber

[Krimel]

dmb,

I asked you to provide some sort of example of what would constitute an
empirical study of mystical states. The best you can offer is this:

"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."

What is that supposed to mean? Trained in what? What are they studying? What
would it accomplish? Where are the new bits of information to be evaluated?
How has the scientific enterprise been expanded through these techniques?

As I have stated several times, something along the lines you hint at was
tried in the early days of the past century. Introspectionism was originated
by Wilhelm Wundt. James studied under Wundt early in his career and was his
rival for the title of father of modern psychology. Wundt's techniques
branched into to discrete areas. Fechner developed it into what became known
as psychophysics. Using these techniques the limits and thresholds of human
sensory abilities were mapped. 

Titchener, in what is generally regarded as a distortion of Wundt's methods,
began a school of research in the United States that did something like you
suggest. Practitioners went through extensive training at recognizing and
categorizing their self observations. The results of their efforts were just
about zilch. It was a confused mass of nonsense.

But hope springs eternal. Perhaps a revitalization of interior analysis
could proceed. What would it tell us? Your psychonaught goes through his
training. He attains oneness with the universe. What vocabulary would be
adequate to convey the results of this "research"? What conclusions could be
drawn from such singular phenomena? 

In short you have recommended nothing new, nothing that has not been tried
and nothing that has produced meaningful results. What refinements can you
suggest?

What is funny about the SNL example you give is what it reveals about your
lack of understanding of what science is and what it does. It amounts to
little more than "it doesn't 'feel' right, I don't feel special."

You persist in this "flatland' rubbish but have yet to say anything to
address my previous statements on this subject. Oh wait, there was a post
that demonstrated your total lack of knowledge of Abbott's book from which
Wilber lifted the title of his meaningless distortion.

But to address your final question: Do this make sense?

Seriously, Dave, not even a little bit.

Krimel

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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