[MD] Tit's

[Krimel]

dmb says:
I understand. The belief in an independent, orderly reality stretches from
Pythagorus to Einstein. I'm a little insulted that you think this view is
unknown to me. C'mon, its been going on for a couple dozen centuries. Don't
you think most normal adults know this already? And as I keep pointing out,
you are only re-asserting the SOM view; a reality independent of what you
think about it, to put it in your words. That's exactly what we mean by SOM.
That's just normal science and nobody thinks its weird or bizarre or stupid
to see things that way. But I do think you fail to see the flaws and limits,
to understand the critique offered in these postmodern days. You're
asserting the most recent, updated versions of a view that was established
in the 18th century, a view that has been seriously challenged by
philosophers for a hundred years. This doesn't mean that Pirsig rejects
science. Science was his first love but after a time he found it to be
inadequate because of the very "conviction" to which you've just confessed.
The explanations I offered last time with respect to language were meant to
explain one of the most widely recognized flaws in that view. But, again,
this doesn't mean that science isn't a wonderful, beautiful, valuable thing.
The data it produces is interpreted differently in the MOQ, but its
certainly not disregarded, rejected or ignored. The MOQ is a naturalistic,
atheistic and empirically based and evolutionary, all of which is more than
just compatible with science. In fact, if we carefully remove the SOM
reductionism from what you've said here about emergence, it would agree with
the MOQ entirely. 

[Krimel]
Ok, this is the same lame critique you have offered in the past. I think it
misses several points but I'll try to focus on the main ones. The only point
I have been addressing is the problem of metaphysical dualism. If you have a
problem with my interpretation of the MoQ versus SOM it is not a
metaphysical one. If you are saying that there is no external world
independent of my belief in it you are going to have to a better job of it.
You might add a little something about how this explains things better or
how it allows for a better explanation of the data that science produces. 

If you are saying is that all I can know is my own sense impressions and the
perceptions I construct from them, well that is what Pirsig says and I quite
agree with that. This does not prevent me from inferring that the world
around me exists outside myself and does not depend upon my thoughts to
continue on. The evidence of my life experience certainly point in that
direction but I swear I am listening if you can point out my confusion on
this. Or present some reasonable alternative explanation of even some basic
conflict in a scientific versus MoQ interpretation of the phenomenon of your
choice.

In addition to not being metaphysical some of the other problems you express
depend on what I regard as faulty views as to what subjects and objects are.
First of all it is wrong to speak of subjects. In my world there is only one
subject, me. In the process of growing up I came to accept the existence of
other minds. I believe others are essentially like me in many ways but I
experience of them subjectively as objects. They are me in the sense that
everything I experience is my own subjective experience but again my
experience forces me to infer that they do exist outside of my personal
experience of them. In fact for me reality is a subjective monism a world
constructed and represented entirely as ideas and patterns of experience.
>From this point of view my experience is the primary reality and out of
experience I am able to separate out subjects and objects, just as Pirsig
suggests.

Also as I have said many times there is no logic that can absolutely deliver
us from this solipsism. I explained early at length why I believe that we
emerge from the external world of objects and are composed of them. And I
flatly don't see how you can reconcile the MoQ as "naturalistic, atheistic
and empirically based and evolutionary" and at the same time deny the
existence of "a reality independent of what you think about it."

With regard to the postmodern critique of science I believe this begins with
Kuhn and gets blow out of proportion by others who followed his train of
thought. Kuhn was saying that science is not objective in the sense of being
purely logical or divorced from human emotions and aesthetics. He points out
that scientists and science are influenced by many of the same human foibles
that afflict other human enterprises. In this I don't think Kuhn was
invalidating the scientific enterprise. Rather I think he was making
important points about how that enterprise proceeds and how it can be
improved.

Pirsig restates a lot of Kuhn's points with a bit more venom and other
postmodernists have gone even farther. But I think many of the critically
important features of science remain unscathed by any of these arguments;
its skepticism and provisional approach to knowledge for example. I don't
think Kuhn was saying that science should be written off only that it can be
improved by recognizing its own humanity and with that I agree.

dmb says:
Yes, there is a rightness. I know what you mean and agree with it too. But
maybe that feeling doesn't come from the SOM assumptions so much as the
empiricism, the precision, the clarity, the orderliness and the relative
lack of uncertainty. We can have all those things without SOM. Also, the MOQ
is a kind of Monism, but it also has a dualism in the static/Dynamic
distinction and the levels give it a kind of pluralism. These finer
distinctions are contained within the Monism. 

[Krimel]
This is the metaphysics of Taoism that the MoQ appropriates and is its best
feature. It states that the undefined reality is perceived through the union
of opposites. This is a critical point. Take any example of one of Lao Tsu's
opposites; light and darkness, good and bad, hot and cold, pleasure pain.
What these polarities show us is the range of options. The poles are the
extremes that bound a particular perception.

Like Taoist metaphysicians Pirsig claims that the most fundamental division
of the undefined is into its active and passive aspects. But surely you know
this and that this is not dualism or pluralism.

dmb says:
I fail to see why it makes any difference to call it the environment rather
than the objective reality or the independent reality. Isn't the
"transducer" the same thing as a subject? I understand that you're saying
its all about the energy passed from one to the other, but sir, both are
still involved and considered to be the basic arrangement of reality, no?
That's pretty fancy footwork, but you're still standing in the exact same
spot. 

[Krimel]
One of us is missing something here. A transducer is not the same thing as a
subject. A rock rolling down a hill is transducing potential energy into
kinetic energy. A television transduces electromagnetic energy into patterns
of light and sound. 

dmb says:
You're gonna have to get a little more subtle about things to see the flaws
with materialism. I mean, my thing in college was intellectual history,
particularly the period you mention here. You don't have to sell me on the
scientific revolution, the enlightenment or Modernity in general. Germ
theory alone has saved millions of lives. Nobody is saying we ought to take
it all back. But I think you have to look at this in terms of the philosophy
of science and in terms of epistemology rather than the history of science
or science per se. Again, the data it produces is not in dispute so much as
the metaphysical assumptions behind science, which determines how that data
is interpreted or understood. 

[Krimel]
The chief metaphysical assumptions of science as I understand them are:
monism, that the future will be mostly like the past, that the world is
orderly, that we can detect that order. What specifically is your bitch with
these?

In terms of epistemology, many have considered that in order to understand
what and how we can know things perhaps we ought to look what does the
knowing and how it develops and how it works. Why you think this is
irrelevant remains mysterious and amusing to me.

[dmb]
And if we use that model of inquiry to investigate the human world, there
are all kinds of problems, not least of all reductionism. (Skinner has
always struck me as the classic example.) 

[Krimel]
I think that's because you know butkus about Skinner. His approach was
reductionist and rigorous. He insisted that questions much be framed in a
meaningful, answerable and unambiguous fashion. He and the behaviorists
produced an enormously productive body of research. That body of research
has found application everywhere from the classroom to Madison Avenue. It
gives a very convincing account of a wide variety of behavior from gambling
to ritual. I will readily admit some of the limitations of this approach but
they are not where you think they are.

dmb says:
I'd say the inorganic level is extremely persistent rather than fixed or
invariant, but I won't quibble about that difference... [snip] 

You know, in the MOQ physical laws are more like extremely persistent
patterns of preference. By putting this in the place where causality used to
be, you get this picture that some kind of consciousness, some ability to
interpret the situation that reaches down into every part of the universe.

[Krimel]
I snipped most of what you said after this because it was too fraught with
problems too deal with in this already too lengthy post. But the point above
is an important one. If you look at what Pirsig is saying you can see that
he misses the point but not by much. What is a "persistent patterns of
preference" but an slightly mushy alliterative clause for "probability".
Pirsig like you tends to make arguments about outdated and outmoded ways of
thinking. Science over the last century did become increasing probabilistic.
Those inorganic patterns exhibit such strong patterns of preference that we
can call them lawlike which is to say their probability is very high. If
Pirsig's terms served to make sloppy thinking more rigorous I could buy into
the use of them. Unfortunately they tend to have the opposite effect and I
think probability offers much more precision, greater flexibility and a
broader range of applications.

I think it makes sense to speak of consciousness as an evolutionary
adaptation that allows us to estimate probability very very well with
obvious survival benefits. But I see no reason to see this ability reaching
down or reaching up or doing jumping jacks.

dmb says:
Well, I'd just point out that understanding things from the ground up is not
at all the same as reductionism. Reductionism is when emergent properties
are explained in terms of that from which they emerged. It reduces things
back down to the ground, so to speak. I'd say your materialistic monism does
exactly that. But why would the emergent phenomenon be less real or less
important than the background from which it emerged? Isn't that where we
find all the stuff we care about? There's a trillion cells in your body and
I'm betting you're fond of the way they stick together in an "organized"
way. Or would it not matter if those cells were spread out evenly across the
oceans? Nothing important would be lost, right? You'd just be kinda wet and
very, very thin. (like Obama)

[Krimel]
Ok but the form of reductionism that I subscribe to works from the ground up
and I think that is the general view within the sciences. I think your
obsession with physics "colonizing" comes from two sources. First, because
physics is taken as the archetype of science that philosopher discuss the
most. Your condemnation of all of science is what we call in the psych biz
the fundamental attribution bias. 

Cells sticking together into the form of plants and animals can definitely
be described in purely physical terms, so can the Battle of Waterloo. But
this kind of description would not be especially useful and so we use other
perspective and apply other methods to understand them. No one says that
emergent phenomena are less real than the phenomena that they emerge from.
And if they do say that I would say they are wrong. 

Second many people outside of physics both inside and outside of science
find the success of physics to be galling. Within the social sciences they
are jealous that the subject matter of physics is so much easier to work
with and its behavior is relatively more stabile. They are also jealous
because they either can't handle the math or can't find the right math to
use. 

dmb says:
That would be another case of reductionism. This time culture has been
reduced to biology. Seems obvious to me that bird songs and dog barks
resemble human language simply because that's the place from which it
emerged. We are still animals, after all. We can admit that animals are
expressive and communicative and still draw a line between that biological
function and the kind of language that humans do. Everyday I say to my dog,
"Dog, tell me a story." So far that little bitch has said so much as, "once
upon a time". 

[Krimel]
Odd of you to say this when you don't seem to find the study of humans
especially worthwhile. 

dmb says:
Well, its not clear to me why, in your view, the language debate is
misguided. And your complaints here seem almost entirely unrelated to my
claims. As I understand it, yes, language vastly enhances our perceptions
but that is not the opposite of saying language limits or determines our
perceptions. The extent of that enhanced ability is exactly the limit. 

[Krimel]
Perhaps we could agree that language serves to help us focus our joint
attention.

[dmb]
It determines the range of possibilities, the terms within which we must
think, the thoughts and conceptual categories through which we "see" the
world. Also, nobody said that language couldn't evolve or that it stays
fixed. C'mon, anybody whose ever read Shakespheare or the bible knows that
it changes and linguists have it figured in terms of percentages of the
language per century. If memory serves its just under 10%, unless you're
talking about obsessively preserved languages like Latin or Sanskrit.

[Krimel]
So just how limiting is it then? Who says we are unable to transcend those
limitations? After all isn't that exactly what science attempts to do? 

dmb says:
Man, you really tossed a softball over the plate there. Yes, the crippling
limitations of SOM have blinded you such that philosophical mysticism looks
to you like "vague nattering" about solitary, private experience. But if
people all over the world have had this experience and reported, in what
sense it that "private"? In what sense is it not real? 

[Krimel]
People the world over have dreams in sleep. Schizophrenics the world over
have hallucinations. No one says these experiences are not real. But many
would question what meaning can be derived from them.

Nevertheless, dreams, hallucinations and mystical experiences have all been
studied extensively by science. The very idea that they can't or haven't is
just misguided. You might argue that such studied are inadequate or that
they ignore some vital points or that they are poorly designed. But to make
such arguments you would have to take your head out of the clouds and
actually look at the research.