[MD] John Carl's Critique of Pure Experience. Inst02

[John Carl]

On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 4:34 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>wrote:

>
> Joel Kreuger wrote:
> It is in concrete experience that the world as given, within the
> "aboriginal flow of feeling" that is the "much-at-onceness" of
> pre-conceptual phenomenal experience, that we discern the deeper features of
> reality—such as cause, continuity, self, substance, activity, time, novelty,
> and freedom. This "pre-philosophic" attitude through which we initially face
> the world is captured in James's development of the concept of "pure
> experience" as the foundation of his radical empiricism.
>
> John responded to Joel:
> So the deeper features of reality are discerned in the pre-phenomenal
> experience.  Cause is pre-phenomenal.  Self is pre-phenomenal.  Substance,
> activity, time, novelty and freedom are all "out there", waiting to be
> discovered and used.  It's just asinine.  Pirsig describes it that way
> exactly.
>
> dmb says:




> Since the purpose now is to get at the basic ideas in James's radical
> empiricism, I'm not so sure his article is the best we could do. But,
> especially since you've already done so much work on it, it's good enough.
>

John]

I think it worked well for me on the zen level as well.  That helped me, I
think.

dmb]


> In the sentences you're responding to here, please notice that Kreuger is
> doing what I do so often, which is to use a variety of terms to refer to the
> same basic notion. In this case, "pure experience" is also called "concrete
> experience", the "aboriginal flow of feeling", "much-at-onceness" and
> "preconceptual phenomenal experience". Each of these terms are just
> different ways to refer to the same thing.



John]

Yes, I did not get confused at the interchangability of those terms.  I just
don't understand any of them so they're all pretty much the same thing to
me.  Agreed.

dmb]


> Kreuger is saying that "the deeper features of reality" are discerned from
> this pure experience, but I would prefer to say they are derived from this
> preconceptual experience.



John]

Right, and neither makes any sense to me whatsoever.  But that's ok because
it's all "pre-sense" in your terms or "non-sense" in mine.

dmb]


> In terms of the MOQ, Kreuger would be saying that static patterns of
> quality are derived from Dynamic Quality. The static patterns are things
> like causation, self, substance and time. To put it in ordinary language,
> this is just a way of saying that these are concepts drawn from concrete
> experience.


John]

And it's perfectly understandable how that could be confusing, given that
"are derived from" is itself a staticy patterned bit of intellection along
the lines of "causation", "self", "other" and "time" and thus the agent
doing the deriving and the agent-derivative cannot be kept straight.   But
it's ok, cuz James just throws out logic in the end, right?  It doesn't fit
his metaphysic.

dmb]

One good way to think about this would be the contrast between the terms
> "phenomena" and "noumena", which mean "things that appear" and "things that
> are thought". This is very much like the contrast between perception and
> conception. These terms are generally used within SOM so one can find people
> like Kant (idealism) and Hume (empiricism) using them but they work pretty
> well anyway.


John]

Useful tools, as long as they are kept in their place.  Agreed.  (keep a
neat shopbench)

dmb]


> Sorry for getting so basic on you here,


John]

This is a joke, right?

dmb]

but I couldn't help but notice that you converted Kreuger's "preconceptual
> phenomenal experience" into "pre-phenomenal experience".


John]

Aha.  I should have differentiated the non-sense?  It's because I have a
hard time with James's use of "concept".

dmb]


> See, Kreuger is being a little redundant there because phenomenal
> experience is already contrasted with conceptual experience simply by virtue
> of the meaning of those terms.


John - waiting with baited breath]

And the meaning of those terms is....???

dmb]


> And since phenomenal experience is the first and most basic kind of
> experience, there is no such thing as a "pre-phenomenal experience".


John]

Ok then.  Got it now.  I was terming "phenomena" as the same as "concept" -
simply because I don't see a reason to draw the line in patterned brain
stimulation... but the "meta" aspect of thinking about "thinking about" -
turning brainwaves into discrete and reasonable units which to think with
and about, is what creates a concept.  I could buy that.  Is that about
right in your thinking?

There is one place I won't let go... and that's the differentiation between
conceptual and lingual, but I'll wait on that.  I'm sure it'll come up.

dmb]

That phrase basically would mean "pre-experiential experience" and so the
> phrase is nonsense in the same way that the phrase "preconceptual concepts"
> would make no sense. Not that you said any such thing.


John]

yeah but it was probably just as foolish to think that's what others were
saying... I figured there must be an explanation out there...


>
>
> John said:
> He (Kreuger) must be using "concept" differently than "brain wave pattern"
> the way I do.   Which I think is a shame, because you can really get hung up
> on words if you don't differentiate between word-concepts (known
> intellectual patterns) and thought-concepts. (content of consciousness)
>
> dmb says:
>
> Yea, I think that this whole thing will be a lot less confusing if you just
> agree to use the standard meaning of the word "concept".



John]

Sigh.  If only it were that simple Dave.
Wait a minute.... maybe it is.  I never bothered mr. wiki,  but this
would probably be a good time, eh?

A concept is a cognitive unit of *meaning*— an abstract
idea<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idea> or
a mental symbol sometimes defined as a "unit of knowledge," built from other
units which act as a concept's characteristics. A concept is typically
associated with a corresponding representation in
a language or symbology such as a word.

Ok, did you like the part about "typically associated" with a word?  I did.
 This looks pretty servicable to me.

So, the great secret to Pure Experience is this pre-conceptual aspect,
because in that dynamic moment before choice, there are no wrong paths...
I'm just winging it now.  We'll discuss utility later.

dmb]


> As I understand it, James, Pirsig, Kreuger and myself use the term in the
> ordinary way. It just means "idea" and ideas are so intimately tied in with
> language that one can hardly separate the two. (If semiotics has it right,
> words and concepts are two of the three aspects in the total system of
> meaning.) Think of the way concepts have meaning and value only insofar as
> they can be defined, for example. Definitions and concepts are very nearly
> the same thing. As far as our present purposes go, the distinction between
> word-concepts and thought-concepts would be irrelevant. Then again, I'm not
> really even sure what you mean by that.


John]

Think of it this way Dave, you sit your butt down on a hot stove.  Now there
is a word, "Ouch" which describes your experience very well. But there are
other cultures and other animals that share the concept of ouch, without
having the same word or even words at all.  This concept of ouch, which can
be thought (conceptualized!)  of as a patterned brain stimulation of nerve
action and autonomic system reaction and even some higher level learning
that comes with reflection, even in those beings without language this event
has passed into memory and conceptualization.

does that make my distinction between thought-concept and word-concept more
clear?  Animals don't have words, but they do have conceptualization.



>
> dmb says:
> Krueger's sentence means the same thing as James's and "experience" is the
> operative word in both of them. The empiricists says that all knowledge must
> be grounded in experience and the radical empiricists says the same thing,
> only he says it louder and more emphatically.



John]

Well you know the old aphorism, if your argument is weak, pound the
table and shout louder.


dmb]

James is simply saying that philosophers have no business talking about
> things that can't be known in experience.


John]

Makes a pretty small discussion list, everything in my personal experience,
like my toes and my kittens, that I can verify, makes for a rather boring
philosophy.  What about Quarks and leptons?  What about ideas and concepts?
 So much of reality is beyond my narrow experience.  But I can't talk about
any of it?  Why? What good is it?

dmb]


> James goes on to say that philosophers can't ignore ANY kind of experience,
> that they have to talk about whatever is known in experience. The radical
> empiricists literally goes so far as to say that experience and reality are
> the same thing. Or to put is as neatly as possible; experience IS reality.
> And yes, so-called subjective experience definitely counts as experience, as
> reality.
>

John]

Ok, reality is another word for experience.  That doesn't seem difficult.  I
don't see the point of "pure" experience anymore than I'd see the point of
 offering me "pure reality".  Unless you were some sort of drug dealer.



>
> Krueger wrote:
> James was suspicious of the idea that conceptual or propositional thought
> functions as the primitive—and thus irreducible—interface between self and
> world.   On this conceptualist or "intellectualist" line, as James refers to
> it, all thinking and experience involves concepts. No concepts, no
> experience.
>
> John replied:
> guess I must be an "intellectualist" because that's the way I define
> "concept" - any thought or experience or brainwave pattern.
>
> dmb says:
>
> This is where the inadequacy of Krueger's article really starts to show.
> Not that there's anything wrong with what he's saying but a different writer
> might have highlighted the implied attack on SOM here. I mean, James isn't
> just disputing the idea that conceptual thought functions as the "interface
> between self and world", as we see in the quotes from chapter 29 in Lila,
> he's also saying that "self" and "world" are concepts.
>

John]

Which is where Radical Empiricism gets its radical reputation, I spose.
 Everything is a concept.  No duh.



>
> Krueger said:
> James instead argues that the phenomenal content of embodied experience *as
> experienced* outstrips our capacity to conceptually or linguistically
> articulate it.
>
> John replied:
> He's saying the we experience a lot that we don't consciously experience?
> Ok, I got no problem with that.  Just don't call it a concrete foundation is
> all.
>
> dmb says:
> Yea, sort of. The idea here is simply that reality is too rich for words.
> Experience is so much bigger than our thoughts. When Krueger goes on to say
> "our experiences have a rich phenomenal content that is too fine-grained and
> sensuously detailed to lend itself to an exhaustive conceptual analysis",
> he's basically just repeating himself. But don't get me wrong. When one is
> trying to explain an unusual idea, repeating oneself in various ways with
> various terms is a very good thing. In ZAMM Pirsig expresses this same idea
> by way of sand. He says the world as we know it is just a handful of sand
> drawn from an endless beach. In Lila, he says there is always a discrepancy
> between concepts and reality. It all means the same thing. If just one of
> them works for you, the other ways of saying it will suddenly make a lot
> more sense.
>

John]

Well dang it, nobody has yet addressed my refutation of the inevitableness
of discrepancy between concept and reality.

John with the patience of the Saints



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