[MD] Reductionism

[MarshaV]

Greetings Krimel,


At 12:22 PM 6/28/2009, you wrote:
> >[Marsha]
> >Oh great wizard, what do you say concerning the statement below?  If
> >science is concentrating on the brain exclusively for answers, they
> >will get answers related to the brain exclusively.
> >
> >[Krimel]
> >Ah fair princess and honest question deserves and honest answer. Although I
> >fear this is not truly an honest question here is my honest answer.
> >
> >Science does not concentrate, scientist do.
>
>Marsha:
>When you wrote, at 02:19 PM 6/27/2009, that all concepts were
>secondary, did you mean secondary to 'reality', or something else?
>
>[Krimel]
>Here I am following William James from "Some Problems in Philosophy" in
>which he presents the arguments in the clearest terms I have yet
>encountered. It all comes from Chapters VI and V which deal with percepts
>and concepts. But here read it for yourself:
>
>http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=1051665

You didn't really answer my question, but I just ordered the 
book.  It is too uncomfortable for me to read that much from the 
screen, and I cannot seem to easily print it.



>I think the biggest problem we have is in distinguishing a world that is
>completely independent of us from one of our own construction. I mean you
>can say what you want in terms of dependant arising and all that but
>experience was shown me that when loved ones die the beat goes on. The world
>is different because they were here and it is different when they are gone
>but it went on before them and it goes on without them. This is the world of
>experience; shit happening. It is a bleak nihilistic world forever just
>outside our grasp. It is the world of perception or sampling the continuous
>stream of a dynamic cosmos.

I haven't the slightest idea what the above paragraph is 
illustrating.  Subject and object are mutually interdependent.  I do 
not conceive of the world as bleak.



>Conception is our own internal reconstruction and orientation toward that
>other kind of experience. As James says concepts carve dynamic experience
>into static parts. Those part, concepts and ideas are derived from
>perception. They are secondary to perception and subject to it. As Piaget
>claims we are building conceptual schemas out of our perceptions. We do this
>by fitting new experiences into our conceptual frameworks or by changing our
>concepts to match our perceptions. This is what happened to Da Vinci in his
>different drawings of the human brain.

I understand that placing RMP and the MoQ in a philosophical linage 
(American Pragmatists(William James)) is important for acceptance 
within the academic environment, but I feel under no obligation to 
surrender to the authority of William James' opinion.



>[Marsha]
>Science, as a collection of scientists, builds on a previous set of
>analogies, analogy supported by analogy supported by analogy all the
>way down to no-thing.  Or do you think there is some thing at the
>bottom???  Quarks and leptons for instance?  -  The answers reached
>are, more or less, guaranteed by the method and questions asked.
>
>[Krimel]
>Of course it is analogy on analogy. That's what a concept is. It is
>perception encoded. It is not a perception or a thing. It is the meaning we
>make of our perception. A concept is a construct that reduces our
>uncertainty about what will happen next and survives moment to moment based
>on how well it succeeds. As conceptual schemes like science or religion
>becomes publicly available as part of the intellectual level, individuals
>dip from this well of encoded experiences and drink their fill or spit it
>out.

I mainly wanted you to acknowledge that science was not knowledge 
directly corresponding to an external, independent world.  I think 
you did that.



>I think that physics over the past century and a half pursued Democritus
>down to the limits of perception. In taking us into the world of quarks and
>leptons it becomes entirely conceptual and for most of us this conceptual
>world make no sense at all. In the end the meaning I get from it is
>confirmation of the fundamental uncertainty of life and the probabilistic
>nature of our existence.

Okay.  (That wasn't being fresh, just acknowledging your interpretation.)



>[Marsha]
>(The way you chopped up this stream of posts makes it difficult to
>follow.)
>
>[Krimel]
>While my typing is sporadic at best, my formatting is compulsively
>meticulous. My posts are designed to be read from top to bottom without the
>presumption that anyone has read what preceded. The vagaries of the various
>ways these posts get presented to individual readers makes this an iffy
>process.

I appreciate your effort, but it does not always appear that way to 
me.  Sometimes less is more.  The eight pages to dmb did not seem 
aimed at clarification, but excessiveness.



> >[Marsha]
> >Do you believe everything the scientific Popes, Cardinals and Bishops say?
> >
> >[Krimel]
> >Fair lady, tell the truth. This is not at all an honest question. Unlike
> >clerics, wizards do not ask for belief. They ask for engagement in the
> >battle to rein in the horsemen of the Apocolypse and the trial and error
> >quest for boons for the community.
>
>Marsha:
>It is an honest question to someone who uncritically supports science
>while belittling the slightest support for any kind of mystical
>experience.  Thank goodness I can run you down the drain like cold
>water; it's really a mystical miracle.
>
>[Krimel]
>I don't think I am some blind follower of scientific dogma. I don't in fact
>think there is such a thing as scientific dogma. I suspect you read my posts
>that way because I don't think you really are asking the right questions
>about science and you have misconceptions about it and the whole process of
>conceptualization.

How long has Neuroscience been an area of study?  And you quote it 
like it is "the truth".  It is interesting, but it has not proven 
itself yet.  Another example, you mentioned in your post to John, 
"These are our ancestors memories of what it takes to survive. They 
are encoded in our genetic structure."  Where exactly in human 
genetic structure are these memories encoded?  It's common knowledge 
that genetic science has not lived up to its initial grandiose 
claims.  Things are far more interconnected and complicated than was 
ever imagined.

I think I am asking the correct questions.



>As for mysticism I have asked for three years for someone to say what it is
>and why it should be taken seriously, what distinguishes it from other kinds
>of spirituality? What kind of knowledge is it supposed to provide? Why that
>knowledge should be taken more seriously than other forms of knowledge? How
>are we to decide between the conflicting accounts of mystics? What make
>eastern mysticism "better" than western forms of spirituality? Frankly, I
>think the whole focus of spirituality is purely emotional. Not irrational
>but emotional and it is easy to confuse what feels right with what makes
>sense. If all you want is a good feeling why bother trying to justify it at
>all?

Mysticism is particular experience, and should be respected as 
such.  It is first-hand, non-conceptual experience, not generalized, 
journalized, objectified and academically cleaned 
information.  -  You know your questions cannot be intellectually 
answered, and that puts you intellectually at the advantage.  Nothing 
I could say would make sense, and that is beautiful, and you are 
beautiful.  I am sometime sure you know this too and are just yanking 
our chains.  So there!!!



>My ongoing complaint to that the MoQ draws from the metaphysical wellspring
>of Taoism. This is the metaphysics the Buddhists appropriated in Zen.

Has RMP stated this somewhere, or is this your personal 
interpretation?  From my reading, I think it's your own 
point-of-view.  Nagarjuna goes back a long time; he's not a Zen 
invention.


>This
>is the same metaphysics that can serve to undergird our understanding of
>science. It asks us to see the unity of experience as primarily composed of
>the dynamic/active and static/passive. What I find astounding is that some
>here, often you included, want to confine the MoQ to this kind of narrow
>stilted mystical path rather than incorporating it into the broader
>intellectual level.

I do appreciate the mystical path more because I understand that its 
basis in compassion and love.  Direct...  Firsthand...   Broad and 
deep...  And unconditional!!!  -  Science offers peddling little 
egotistical answers in comparison.  But I find science interesting 
too.  You know I do.




Marsha






_____________

"He who neglects the present moment throws away all he has."
   (Friedrich von Schiller)