[MD] What is SOM?

[david buchanan]

Krimel said to dmb:
... Well, I gave an account of that but no one thought it worthy of further mention. My point here is that at the point that the MoQ becomes pluralistic all of the pluralism is completely anthropocentric. It is a subjective account of experience.

dmb says:
Seriously. You think Pirsig spent all that time attacking SOM only to turn around and offer a "subjective account of experience"? I don't. Let me get at the levels and the issue of pluralism by way of your next comments...

Krimel said: 
You claim that mystical experience allows us access to some new set of data. What is that data, Dave? I think that data, and it is data that I have tried to be specific about, tells us something about the range of possible states of consciousness. It shows us that we can train ourselves to respond in ways that were not previously thought possible. For example, some people can learn to gain a measure of control over their autonomic processes. You seem to think that this mystical experience can be a guide into the realm of physics. I don't see how you can conclude at an entirely private experience of any kind can serve as a guide to a shared understanding of how static patterns are perceived and understood.

dmb replies:
No, I don't claim mystical experience gives us access to new data or that it can guide us in the realm of physics. I'm saying the experience is the data and it can guide us in the realm of mystical experience. The kind of data you've been specific about comes out of neurological studies. And its good to learn about brains and how they work. That kind of data certainly does help scientists to see that something unusual really does seem to be going on when people are in altered states. But I'm saying that the meaning and value of mystical experiences will never be found by looking at brains. This is where the pluralism comes in. In a nutshell, the various levels each make their own epistemological demands. One simply cannot observe a mystical experience they way one can observe a physical process. Experience is not an object that can be located in space. One of the reasons for going beyond traditional empiricism, in fact, grows out of an objection to the way it limits empirical data to the senses. It is sensory empiricism as opposed to radical empiricism. Traditionally, then, the standards of sensory empiricism (SOM) would reject mystical experience as "merely subjective" or, as you put it, "an entirely private experience" with no scientific value. But how is a mystical experience more private than any other? Lots of people have had them and they could compare notes. Is there really a good reason why these experiences can't be examined and tested in a formal way? Naturally, we can't expect the same kind of law-like axioms that we get in physics. We can't expect the same kind of precision. But that's what it means to be an epistemological pluralists. Different kinds of phenomenon need different kinds of science. Objectivity doesn't work very well for anthropology, let alone mysticism. 

Ooops. Dinner's ready. Gotta go. More later.

_________________________________________________________________
Get thousands of games on your PC, your mobile phone, and the web with Windows®.
http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/108588800/direct/01/