[MD] What is SOM?

[Krimel]

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]
Let's just say I don't think he succeeds in making experience a metaphysical
source of reality. When he says that subject and objects are derived from
primary experience it isn't as though experience is some kind of cosmic
Jello jiggling in a void and spinning off subjects and objects. But from the
very onset of the static levels the MoQ is anthrocentric. Its hierarchy
selectively and progressively casts out everything that is irrelevant to
humans and zeros in on their exclusive concerns right down to the individual
locus of experience. I tend to agree with Sneddon's thesis that what is
critical is that for both Pirsig and Whitehead and James reality is not a
thing, it is a process.


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. 

[Krimel]
Ok, but that's hardly revolutionary. It is barely even significant. The
experience of juggling can guide us in the realm of juggling experience. The
experience of knitting can guide us in the realm of knitting experience. The
experience of anything can guide us in the realm of the experience of
anything.

Is there supposed to be some philosophical illumination in there somewhere?
When the experience of knitting in the present get integrated with the
experience of knitting in the past, the body adapts. It integrated the
experience of the past and present and better more skillful knitting
results.

[dmb]
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. 

[Krimel]
That might be partly true. It was more than partly true 50 years ago. But
what was true then and true now is that in the absence of a brain mystical
experiences will not occur. Mystical states are brain states as are knitting
states and juggling states.

Values can be demonstrated to arise in the mammalian, emotion centers of the
brain. Oops, I almost started to tell you all that stuff you already know
about brain function. I would instead want to ask you why you think, based
on your vast understanding of neurophysiology, that it is irrelevant. How do
you account for the fact that ingesting certain chemicals clearly has a
direct neurophysiological impact, and alters the very quality of experience?
How do SSRs for example relieve depression? How does LSD induce mystical
states? How does increased dopamine reduce the symptoms of schizophrenia? 

Changes in the structure and composition of the brain alter the experience
of the brain's owner. This includes altering the brain's structure by
running a spike through the frontal lobe, pumping it full of alcohol, having
strokes or seizures, practicing a skill or smelling a rose.

[dmb]
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. 

[Krimel]
Again I think you are deeply confused with respect to radical empiricism.
What James wants to consider is not ESP, it is the other aspects of neural
function, a term he would not have used. He is talking about memory and
emotions and other aspects of ordinary experience that are more than the
five senses. This is not an invitation to ignore or devalue the study of the
nervous system where in ALL experience resides. Like consciousness
experience is not a thing, it is a process. It is a process that takes place
among the biological patterns of a nervous system.

[dmb]
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? 

[Krimel]
One more time... It is just wrong to say that science can not and does not
study private experience. Ever heard of an opinion poll? Even been to a
hospital and had a nurse ask you to rate your pain level from 1 to 10? Ever
been to the eye doctor and had your vision tested or an audiologist to test
your hearing? We can also if we choose put patients in an fMRI scanner and
correlate their subjective rating to physiological functioning. But you
claim to know all this. Why do you keep claiming that science ignores this
stuff when you know that it doesn't?

What science says about mystical experience and spiritual beliefs is that
they have great health benefits. They relieve stress. They result in better
health and longer life. Kinda like chicken soup for the soul. Was there
something else you would like to add, Dave?

[dmb]
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. 

[Krimel]
Certainly physics is ahead of the other sciences because it deals with
simpler more manageable subject matter. Chemistry deals with more complex
interactions, biology even more. When you get to the social sciences the
shear complexity can be a bit overwhelming but it is simply false to claim
that different kinds of science and scientific methods are not available to
deal with ever more complex problems. Science is very adaptable. After all
you can check out, mess with and see what happens to durn near anything you
can think of.

If objectivity in some form didn't work quite well in anthropology it would
disappear from the curriculum. The "mere subjectivity" that science is
alleged to seek to eliminate is not the internal thought processes or
experiences of the researcher. What science methodically attempts to limit
is the personal preferences of the researcher. It should not matter for
example if Newton wanted apples to fall up. It does not matter that Einstein
found chance repulsive or that Heisenberg and Bohr were terrified by quantum
mechanics.