[MD] What is SOM?

[david buchanan]

Krimel said:
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.

dmb replies:
Since when is it dogmatic to make statements? The claim that science makes no statements is laughable. Science lays down laws. Its also pretty absurd to claim that radical empiricism isn't empirical. C'mon Krimel, you're not even trying. But more to the point, James describes pure experience in a single sentence. He says, "The instant field of the present is always experience in its 'pure' state, plain unqualified actuality, a simple THAT, as yet undifferentiated into thing and thought, and only virtually classifiable as objective fact or as someone's opinion." That's all it means to call it a unity. It is not yet rendered into parts. Think of that brain scientist who had a stroke and achieved Nirivana. Because one hemisphere was not functioning, she was temporarily unable to differentiate but could take in experience as a unity.

Krimel said:
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.

dmb says:
If you think about it, in the classic scientific method scientists do nothing but interpret their own experience. They carefully report the circumstances of the experiment and the results they witnessed so that others can duplicate the experiment and thus repeat the experience to see these results for themselves. In principle, the mystical experience can be handled in exactly the same way. The only difference is that mysticism is not a sensory experience. Traditional empiricism (SOM) dismisses this as merely subjective, just as you have done here. Despite your protests to the contrary, these assumption are implicitly contained in your assertions. This is just one of many examples. Here's another...

Krimel said:
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.

dmb says:
I understand that. Its common sense. Its traditional sensory empiricism. It seems self evident because that is the worldview we've inherited. But its also the obsolete model, the lemon that won't work for AI. And of course the MOQ rejects the the limits of sensory empiricism. 

Krimel said:
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 says:
If I repeat these explanations too often it is because you don't seem to understand what it means. I think your recent batch of questions and comments, for example, demonstrate a series of misconceptions. I can hardly demand that you accept it as dogma because can't really accept it or reject it unless you understand what it is first. At this point you're rejecting it because it sounds weird, it conflicts with what seems self-evident to you, it doesn't make sense to you. That's a lot to overcome. 

Krimel said:
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. 

dmb says:
A continuum has no breaks, no parts. To say the continuum is undifferentiated is redundant, really. One is a noun and the other describes it, but the both mean the same thing. James, as you just saw, describes pure experience as undifferentiated also. The fact that he mentions thought and things as not yet present is important too. He's talking about an experience in which subjects and objects have not yet been distinguished. This is what it means to say that subjects and objects are derived from Quality or to say that experience comes first and subjects and objects come later. This is what it means to say subjects and objects are concepts that follow from experience. By saying that subjects and objects are inferred from experience BY THE SUBJECT, you reverse this central idea. Instead of being an alternative to SOM, you've turned it into an endorsement of SOM, a re-statement of SOM.

Krimel said:
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.

dmb says:
I tried to explain SOM in terms of your own assumptions recently, when you listed them. I've tried to show where it is implied in your assertions. I've explained it in terms of sensory empiricism, the correspondence theory of truth, the myth of the given, and the postmodern view of language. You've smoked me right down to the filter on this one. (Apologies to Tom Waits) Would you say there is an external world to be perceived regardless of whether or not anyone was there to perceive it? That's what it means to believe in an objective reality. Would you say that the external world comes in to us through our senses and that we organize that sensory data into a picture of the world? That's what it means to be a subject in an objective world. Aren't you saying exactly this, but in greater detail? That's how it looks from here. 


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