[MD] What is SOM?

[david buchanan]

dmb said to Krimel:
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 replied:
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.

dmb says:
Since I never claimed there was such a thing as brainless mysticism and since no sane person would say such a thing, your point is rather pointless. You've only disputed an assertion made by no one. And you've missed my point again. Well, at least this time you have admitted my point "might be partly true". Look at what you've done here. Your counter-assertion (that mystical states or any other states are brain states). That's a nearly perfect example of reductionism. In the MOQ's terms, you have reduced DQ to static biological quality here. This is a category error that converts epistemological pluralism back into SOM's monological gaze. It uses observational techniques where the interpretive arts and methodologies are needed. There are many ways to say it. Take your pick. But the basic idea is simply that mystical experience can't be investigated with the same tools and techniques that are used to investigate these brain states. They can illuminate each other and obviously there is some kind of correlation, but my objection is that you want to define one in terms of the other. Apparently, you want to define all states of consciousness in terms of brain states. That's pretty much the text book definition of reductionism - both now and fifty years ago.

Krimel said:
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 says:
Yes, and experience alters the brain too. Again, the problem is reducing one to the other. Einstein certainly had a brain but his equations didn't spring out of the soft tissue under his skull. You can't solve SOM's mind-body problem by reducing one to other. More, specifically, there is Pirsig's correction of Descartes. French language and culture exists, therefore I think, therefore I am. This is not a way to deny the brain's role in thought but rather a way to assert the role of the social level. The eye glasses handed to us by our culture largely determines our way of being, of seeing the world. Heidegger calls this being and language, he says, is the house of being. In the Merleau-Ponty article I told you about, this is called the lifeworld. (In German, I think, the word is "Lebenswelt") And then there was the da Vinci story, where he drew what he knew rather than what he saw. Again, there are many ways to say it. But the basic idea is that objectivity is a myth, one you seem to be relying on in making your case. You're reductionism is predicated on the natural attitude, the myth of the given, as if all experience can be reduced to biological processes, as if those processes were the simple fact of the matter. But all these philosophers are saying, no, that's not how it works. In the case of the MOQ, there is no direct connection between mind and matter. There is a third thing between them. Like I said, this is where the pluralism comes in. The various levels each make their own epistemological demands. One simply cannot observe a mystical
experience they way one can observe a physical process.

Krimel said:
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. 

dmb says:
Traditional sensory empiricism includes the ability to think about and remember sensory experience and so your point is irrelevant with respect to Radical Empiricism. What leads to believe that you understand Radical Empiricism? When I explain radical empiricism in my term papers at school they give me a big fat "A". But when I explain it to you there is deep confusion. What conclusion would you draw from these facts? That you should believe some anonymous dude in cyberspace over the academic professionals who actually teach radical empiricism? C'mon Krimel, how is that even plausible?  

Krimel continued:
..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 says:
Again, this is text book reductionism. Studying the nervous system is great if your aim is to learn about the nervous system, but saying that "ALL experience" is a biological process is like saying "ALL road trips" ARE a process of internal combustion. You can't define a road trip in terms of what motors do. This does not mean we ought to ignore or devalue the study of internal combustion engines. It simply means road trips can't be reduced to the burning of gasoline or any other mechanical process that it might involve. Road trips are about sex, drugs, rock-n-roll, pissing by the side of the road and eating bad fast food. They're about fresh scenery and meeting new people, not spark plugs.

Krimel said:
...Why do you keep claiming that science ignores this stuff when you know that it doesn't?

dmb says:
What I keep claiming is much more specific than that. It is your particular version of science that I find so objectionable. My target is the reductionism and the scientism and the naive realism that I find in your posts. But it is also true that your brand is not unique to you. Not at all. You're basically giving voice to educated common sense in these formulations. That's a great starting point. But that's also the worldview that Pirsig challenges. I realize that lots of people are thinking about these problems now, particularly among the philosophers that I've been interjecting. But the standard practices in science have hardly been altered by this, as the case of artificial intelligence. Remember how Hubert Dreyfus the Heideggerian had to go to those computer scientists and explain to them why there project could never work? As soon as the field was born, as soon as the term "artificial intelligence" was coined, the metaphysical assumptions on which it was founded had just become obsolete. As Dreyfus puts it, "they inherited a lemon". (I think James had already rendered it obsolete 50 years before that, but the point remains the same either way). And of course Dreyfus isn't telling them that they ignore this or that as if they close their eyes and pretend it doesn't matter. Instead, he tells them what I'm telling you. Those scientists are working with the same perceptual model you are. They're working with the same assumptions about brain states and the senses and the processes by which we take in the external world. The result is failure. So Dreyfus doesn't tell them to pay more attention to the stuff they already know but choose to disregard. They don't "ignore this stuff" in that sense. But there are some crucial factors involved in perception of which they were ignorant. This is where the cultural eye glasses come in, the lifeworld, our house of being, the third level of static patterns are all ways to reference this crucial factor. In the same way, you're not pretending its unimportant or intentionally dismissing it so much as you are simply unaware. These explanations still seem wrong or crazy or confused to you. But I'm telling you that there is a whole range of thinkers who've taken up this task. You have a century's worth of books to choose from so you certainly don't have to take my word for it. Ask Mr. Google about "the myth of the given" or "the correspondence theory of truth". Maybe there are papers by Dreyfus on computer science. That ought to give a geek a boner. 

Krimel said:
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 says:
Health benefits like chicken soup for the soul. That's perfect. Emotional kitsch at its worst. Heidegger takes up these sorts of issues in "The Question Concerning Technology". There he makes a case, much like Pirsig's, that SOM and the scientific world view have permeated the culture in such a way that that all of reality is seen in terms of objects existing for the sake of subjects. The result is the commodification of everything, including our spiritual lives. Millions literally pray for goods and services. Spiritual practices are assessed in terms of what benefits can accrue from them, etc, etc. Again, your view is far from unusual. But its objectionable in this context because the MOQ is a critique of and an alternative to that worldview. When I tell you that this is not a plausible alternative because the MOQ is a reaction against it in the first place, you act like I'm the one who is confused. That's okay. I'm a condescending ignoramus too.

 



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