[MD] What is SOM?

[david buchanan]

Krimel said to dmb:
We have been having this feud over Dreyfus and AI. I don't know what he says or why you think it matters. I will add that I don't know whether the IT folks will make an AI or not. But I think anyone who makes definitive statements about what is and is not possible with information systems just hasn't been paying attention...

dmb says:
If you don't know what he said or why it mattes then aren't you the one who's not paying attention? Besides, its not a matter of technical achievement. The problem with trying to duplicate intelligence in a computer will not be solved by better computers. The problem is their conception of the original intelligence. They're trying to duplicate something that doesn't exist in the first place. Basically, were talking about testing the Modern, SOM conception of human experience by trying to duplicate it. Dreyfus understood that it was an obsolete model and so predicted failure. He won that bet. So far. Its only been 50 years but if he's right, that model won't work in 500 years either. 

And I don't know that he rules out AI altogether, although I don't see how the Heideggerian model could be translated either. That's above my pay grade anyway. I think the basic idea is, however, computers don't have any embodied, pre-conceptual experience of the world, no language and is the basis on which everything can be intelligible.  

Krimel said:
I think the fact that the very experiments you think ought to be done are being done rather takes the edge off of your claim that science can't study mystical experience. A more serious problem seems to be your insistence that mystical experience is entitled to special treatment. Radical empiricism invites all kind of experience to the table but it's a round table all seated are on an equal footing.

dmb says:
I already explained how the experiment serves as an example of my claims in a separate post but let me take up the issue of "special treatment". If equal footing means that we ought not privilege one kind of experience over another then I agree. Dewey and James say a confusing, chaotic experience is just as "real" as any other experience. It really was confusing, it really was chaotic. It doesn't have to be intellectually meaningful or cognitively accurate to be a real experience. And you can see Pirsig in this insofar as confusing and chaotic are qualities of experience. In their own terms, they're saying quality is real too. But the "special treatment" issue involves the disciplined intellectual examination of mysticism. More specifically, we want to know what kind of scientific techniques are appropriate for exploring this category of experience, right? The methods developed in the physical sciences work well for studying physical phenomena, but look what happens when those tools are used to study mystical experience? You get data about brain states, the physical phenomena that are associated with the experience but never get at the experience as such. This is not a request for special treatment so much as the appropriate tools. You want to inquire into the experience itself, compare first-hand reports and such. I mean, the people gathering the data should be mystics. They should know a lot about what it like to be in these states, how to achieve them, how to describe them afterward in scholarly way. I can see how the brain state data could serve a role within a larger context, how they could be part of the team. That's what I mean by "epistemological pluralism". The methods and criteria for validity have to be adapted to the object of study. There are broad categories, of course, so you don't need to start a new science every day. We can see the outlines of this in the division between the sciences and the humanities, between physics and biology, between history and poetry. These disciplines are defined by their various methods almost as much as their content. And I think we could put all these into the four levels of the MOQ and basically get four different groups of methods and tools. Be nice is somebody worked that out in a formal way someday but its probably too big to see all at once.  

Krimel said:
Who elected "mystical experience" to the status of "primary reality"? On what basis do you claim it deserves this? Admitting mystical experience does not mean everything said about it gets taken at face value.

dmb says:
I think the phrase is "primary empirical reality". This is not a title that grants a privileged status, it is a descriptive term and its not especially flattering either. It is primary in the sense of being the first and most basic, like a primary culture, which they used to call a "primitive" culture. It is the immediately felt quality of the situation. I believe this claim is made of the basis of phenomenological observation, that is to say by paying very careful attention to experience. They say James could have been the father of American phenomenology but it just never took off here. The term characterizes the experience in a way that's so neutral its almost boring. I like "undifferentiated aesthetic continuum" better. That phrase conjures up a melted version of Fantasia, a liquid reality. But the moral code surely gives status to the dynamic and I don't disagree with the assertion that the MOQ is a mystical monism above all. The mystic is one who can surf on that immediate quality and act spontaneously, but the primary empirical reality is always already there for everybody whether they have tin ears or not. 

Krimel said: 
Scientific values are among the highest we have; honesty, the pursuit of knowledge, making that knowledge available to all. If that knowledge is abused who is to blame? Did Marconi give us Limbaugh? Is Edison responsible for Kenny G? Did Bell cause telemarketing? It is not the scientists who determine how knowledge will be used. If people are shallow materialists why are scientists more worthy of blame than businessmen, politicians, artists, priests or philosophers? 

dmb says:
I'm not blaming scientists. In fact the problem is the metaphysical assumptions that all Modern Western people have inherited. Its just that scientists are not immune to it and the common inheritance is a scientific worldview. Abuse is a separate issue. The problem is not the bad uses of knowledge. It is the basis of knowledge.

There is certainly nothing in the MOQ that would threaten science, honesty or the pursuit of knowledge. If you have friends who've come out against these causes, get new friends.




 



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