[MD] What is SOM?

[Krimel]

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. 

[Krimel]
As I have said many times before I don't think James was calling pure
experience a unity. I don't think "experience" of any kind is a unity. But I
would say that this is a researchable and answerable question. It is wrong I
would say, to specify that the reality, the world, or our experience of it
has to be a particular way. What sets science and empiricism a part from
dogma and rationalism is that they do not make statements.  They ask
questions.

[dmb]
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? 

[Krimel]
Right

[dmb]
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. 

[Krimel]
But that is the point, wouldn't you say. The sharing of an experience, "as
such", is always imperfect. We communicate by encoding our individual
experience symbolically is such a way that another can decode it
meaningfully and have a similar experience or gain some insight into our
experience. What science attempts to do is formalize and to remove noise
from the process. Or if you prefer science is the pursuit of unambiguous
metaphors.

[dmb]
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]
The fact that different areas of study use different methods is a point that
I think David M would say is highlighted by Dupree in the "Disorder of
Things." I think he has a valid point but overstates it. For example, surely
the methods of physics and history are very different. But my own
inclination is to see the similarly in structure and function between the
disciplines and to call that science. It is the pattern of inquiry and the
pattern of the goals that are critical to me. I see those patterns in the
"t"ruth, intellectual honesty, agreement on the nature of evidence and so
forth. I do have a postmodernist streak. What I see in looking at the
similarity of and difference between disciplines is the fractal, self
similarity of patterns. Knowledge has a certain structure that Pirsig
describes very well in his discussion of the slips of paper that guided his
thinking and resulted from it. In outline form this structure looks like
broccoli.

As I noted in my previous post I think the research criteria you would like
was actually present in the study I cited. I would like to comment on your
idea of have the subjects of any research study be involved in the design of
the study and the analysis of the result. It's a really bad idea. People no
matter how well trained are notoriously bad about interpreting their own
experiences. The effects of experimenter bias are exactly the kinds of
'values' science rightly tries to avoid. As both experimenter and subject
these biases would be likely to have a huge effect on the outcome of the
study.

I can think of a couple of examples where the approach you favor has been
tried with not so good results. The first were the structuralists who at
about the time of William James sought to use introspective methods to
identify units of thought and to construct a vocabulary that would allow us
to perhaps describe the color red in a way a blind person could understand.
They failed miserably and had little show for their efforts but long stream
of consciousness narratives where blue felt oily...

More recent examples might include John Lilly who experimented with sensory
deprivation, LSD and dolphins. He sometimes used himself as a subject and
sometimes did research incorporating all three of his areas of interest.
Lilly is fun to read but not very credible in the later stages of his
research. I think Leary may have also used himself as a subject but frankly
the fact that he did wound up detracting from the value of his earlier work
where he did not.

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. 

[Krimel]
Although I don't think anything in nature presents itself as self evident. I
would say that the claim that sensory experience precedes all others is
pretty darn close. I would say the immediate felt quality that you describe
results from sensory experience and the synthesis of multimodal experience
into a unity. I would heartily agree that this is a non-conscious process
influenced by our previous experience and shaped by our culture. But the
multimodal quality of per-intellectual experience conforms to what I
personally know phenomenologically, mystically, and intellectually. I think
James would agree with this. 

I really don't understand your insistence on the fundamental unity of
"primary empirical reality". What difference does it make to you if this
unity begins in sensation or results from perception? This is just my
impression but you seem to have elevated this assumption to the level of
dogma. You say it has to be understood in this way. Why? I suspect that even
within the perennial philosophy there is not universal agreement on this
point.

[dmb]
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]
This phrase "undifferentiated aesthetic continuum" gets tossed around in the
MoQ a lot but it doesn't really make much sense. If it is undifferentiated
how can it be a continuum? Does not continuum imply continuity between this
and that? I mean ,is it undifferentiated because it has smooth transitions?
Don't differentiation and continuation depend on the level of analysis or
the lack of analysis? Sure, it sounds good. But when you mix all the crayons
in the box together what you get is the "yucko" color. Surfing reality and
acting spontaneously are not exclusive to mystics or those with perfect
pitch. It is the fate of man.

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.

[Krimel]
Could you be specific about which evil metaphysical assumption you think
infect the west. One of the reasons I discount all of the prattle about SOM
is because I don't think it makes any sense at all. The dualism, the
discontinuity, the either or assumptions just haven't been part of my
thinking since the '70s. I do not think "objectivity" refers to "things" in
isolation existing in and of themselves as TiTs. I think it refers to the
consensus achievable by multiple observers. It is the overlap of experience
that is only possible when two or more gather in its name. Without the
presence of another mind, objectivity is not possible. Objectivity is not
given. It is negotiated. 

Often it seems to me you are fighting a fight that was over 20 years ago
rather like one of those Japanese soldiers that used to turn up on isolated
Pacific islands in the '60s still fighting WWII.