[MD] What is SOM?

[Krimel]

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.

[Krimel]
My point is that you feel obligated to pay lip service to serious research
but then seek to dismiss it as unworthy of attention from the lofty heights
of your fantasy world. I have made no claim that there are such things as
brainless mystics but you seem hell bent on providing me with an example.

All I keep asking you to do is state honestly what you think mystical
experiences can tell us about our place in the world. Like Ham you instead
of answering you run and hide.

[dmb]
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]
I was been talking about emergence not reductionism. As I have said in the
past, I do think they are the flip sides of one another; but emergence is in
no way incompatible with the MoQ. Each level emerges from the one underneath
it. Emergence acknowledges that meaning and value, for example, can not be
understood in purely biological terms. This is not at all what I have said.
What I have said is the meaning and values can not be fully understood if
you ignore their biological roots. 

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. 

[Krimel]
You are working under mistaken assumptions here that I don't know what you
are talking about. Wow, Dave you mean my experiences in the world actually
determines how I think and what I do. What a revelation. Thank you so much.
That would explain why people have been arguing about the whole nature
versus nurture thing. What I have been saying is the two interact. Culture
is a component of the overall environment. It is the accumulation of the
experience of members of the culture. It is a big part of the learning
environment and plays a major role in shaping our perceptions. OK, so what?
How does that impact the fact that without a brain not amount of experience
would allow Einstein to develop an explanation of Brownian motion? The fact
is Einstein was the product of the interaction of his physiology with his
environment. Of course culture sets parameters on our experience. But so
does biology. How are these incompatible?

[dmb]
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]
All I have said is that static patterns at a lower level give rise to
conditions that allow emergence of a higher level. In the case of biology it
gives rise to the social level as a strategy for managing resources in the
environment that ensure the survival of our young. If you ignore the long
period of immaturity that each of us undergoes in childhood, you will not
understand why all humans cultures evolve strategies for devoting adult
resources to nurturing children. You will not see the importance of nuclear
and extended families. If you ignore the biologically determined need for
food and water you will not understand the importance of working to gather
food and water. 

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]
Wow you stuck in your thumb and pulled out a plum. What a good boy you are.
Since your grades certify you as a Jamesian scholar, perhaps you could
explain to a lowly anonymous cyberdude what James could have meant when he
say, in the third paragraph of "A World of Pure Experience":

"My description of things, accordingly, starts with the parts and makes of
the whole a being of the second order."

Is James, like the Dalai Lama and the Maharishi, nothing more than another
evil reductionist?

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. 

[Krimel]
All I am asking here is for you to give and example of an experience that is
not rooted in the nervous system. I have never said that our perceptions and
action are solely determined by the nervous system. I have said that
perception and consciousness are processes of and emerge from, the
biological substrate. You can't dismiss the fact that our senses respond to
certain wave lengths of light and sound, or that our nervous systems exploit
certain evolutionary traits like emotions and this heavily influences what
we value. 

Of course ignoring these things while paying lip service to them, lets you
wander off into whatever nonsensical speculation suits you. You are grounded
neither in experience nor in logic. You feel free to just ignore whatever
you like on bogus "metaphysical" grounds. 

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. 

[Krimel]
I don't think you have understood what I have said well enough to make these
kinds of claims. You are ranting against your "perception' of what I am
saying. Until you actually say something relevant to my position I will
ignore this kind of garbage. It is not as though we haven't been through
this before. 

[dmb]
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. 

[Krimel]
Assumptions about brain states and senses, at least the ones I have been
pursuing, have been wildly successful. They have provided extraordinary
insights into how we behave, how we think and feel, how we create value and
meaning in our lives and how we can make many those afflicted with mental
disorders much more at home in their own skins.

Even the world of artificial intelligence, which you are so obviously an
expert in, has not turned its tail and given up because some philosopher
doesn't like what they are doing. Far from it. The cognitive sciences are
rich interdisciplinary fields combining the work of psychologist,
neuroscientist, linguists and philosophers.

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.

[Krimel]
I leave the extended drivel of this paragraph in token of the hypocrisy of
your complaint against other's spewing drivel. The point I have repeatedly
asked you to address is what does your "enlightened" view of mystical
experience tell you? How does it build upon or supplant the insights derived
from a scientific understanding. 

It's ok, I have given up expecting a straight answer to a straight forward
question. But your floundering and fuming are a continuing source of
amusement.