[MD] Is it serious?

[Ham Priday]

On 5/23/09 at 12:44 PM Krimel writes:

> Since Marsha has gone to the beach I would like to step in
> for a second. I am sure she won't mind... At least until Tuesday
> ... Ham, she is being far to charitable, the purpose of technical
> terminology in philosophy is to highlight particular meanings of
> terms. Hamish is not that. It is either your inability to communicate
> in your mother tongue or your need to make your ideas sound
> more profound than they actually are.

It's remarkable that you can step in as a proxy for Marsha and not only 
assess the "charity" she has extended to me but the "misapprehensions" in a 
message she has yet to read.  (With this kind of prescience maybe you should 
consider working for the CIA!)

Since Marsha is one of the few who has read my book, she's conversant with 
the underlying theory of Essentialism and the words I use to articulate its 
fundamental concepts. This is not an easy read, and some of Marsha's 
difficulty may be a result of
eclecticism in her reading habits that extend from Eastern mysticism to New 
Age poetry and the MoQ.  I'm well aware that "technical terminology" serves 
as a tool to express
otherwise indefinable concepts, and I've made every effort to be consistent 
in my use of
terminology.  (As with my on-line thesis, I provide a glossary of special 
terms for reader reference.)  You must also realize that my MD posts are 
worded so as correspond with Pirsig's terminology, which can sometimes 
compound the communications problem.

[Ham, previously]:
> Was the world flat when they perceived it to be flat?  Actually,
> they didn't perceive flatness, they deduced it.  I don't perceive
> that Marsha is a "thinking self" like me, I assume it.  I do perceive
> the world as an "other" to my thinking self.  That is a self-evident
> fact to me, and I presume for you, also. ...

[Krimel]:
> This is a point Willblake2 misapprehends as well.  All perception is
> "illusion". It is an automatic structuring of sensation. It makes sense
> of our senses. It happens so fast that dmb wants to bypass sensation
> as the primary empirical reality. James seems to allow the function
> of perception into his radical empiricism but he never suggests that
> perception is anything other than the summation of sensation.
>
> Perception is the process of making meaning out of sensory data.
> It is the instant integration of present sensation with past
> experience....

I don't quarrel with the idea that perception (in the sense of 
"apprehension") and experiential existence are illusory.  Obviously 
metaphysical reality is not broken down into five kinds of sensory 
information nor limited to what what we perceive as "the present" 
embellished by what memory recalls of the past.  But it's an illusion that 
defines our very existence, and as such we would be foolish to disregard it.

> Calling the world flat or round is a slightly higher order of this
> more fundamental process. What you are talking about is not
> perception or inference. It is "common sense."  That is the way
> that people in a community interpret their sense in a common way.
>
> ...What makes the "Copernican Revolution" so significant for
> Kant and later Kuhn is that it caused a radical shift in the
> "common sense". It was nothing less than a worldwide and historic
> change in the way people interpreted and structured their sense data.
> It was a collective Gestalt shift from one system of illusion to another.

We don't just "call" the world flat or round, we apprehend it that way. 
Inference and  deduction are intellectual processes applied to sensory 
experience that make it conform to a "sensible" paradigm.  "Common sense" 
refers to the reasoning standard of the common man, not the Gestalt or 
Zeitgeist of a society.  Inasmuch as perception is individual awareness, any 
so-called "shift" in collective reasoning can only reflect the individual 
worldview.

[Ham]:
> I would say anything that is necessary for my survival is more
> than a "convenience."  It must be pretty "real", even if my life
> is an illusion.

[Krimel]:
> So are you saying that your "free will" is constrained by your
> biology or even by what you think is "real"?  My, my...

I think "constrained" is too strong a word.  As human beings we can be no 
more than what biology has afforded us.  That's a condition of our being, 
not a constraint.  Free Will, on the other hand, is the capacity to choose 
our actions within the conditional parameters of differentiated beingness.

[Ham]:
> Calling your self an "spov for Reality" is playing games with language.

[Krimel]:
> OMG, I spilt my coffee cracking up over that one. You invent your
> own private prayer language and want to accuse someone else of
> playing language games? You should get your own show on
> Comedy Central.

"Private prayer language"?  Apparently there is no limit to the hypocrisy 
you and Arlo will spew to mock an alternative view.

[Ham]:
> There is beauty in poetry, music, art, and nature.  But you're
> saying there's beauty in not knowing the truth.  Inasmuch as
> my quest is for Truth, I don't find ignorance beautiful.

[Krimel]:
> A fine example of blue pill thinking, if ever I heard one.
> I fear though, that the quest for Truth is folly; mainly because
> if we found it we do not have the tools to actually know it.
> This realization is what underlies the scientific method. We
> cannot "prove" anything in general terms. We can add weight
> to a general rule through repeated observations that support
> its truth value but we can never remove the possibility that
> what we understand as Truth is in fact error. This is a radical
> inversion of Greek philosophical methodology which began
> with general rules, axioms or ideal forms and rejected the
> messy world of experience as shadow.

The "messy world of experience" is the relational world we live in.  The 
tools we have enable us to discern the principles and dynamics of physical 
reality for pragmatic purposes.  Scientific knowledge has proven efficacious 
and reliable to this end.  Absolute Truth is inaccessible to man, and I 
agree that truth about a system in process can only be relative.  But the 
empirical method was never claimed to be a tool for discovering metaphysical 
Truth.

 [Ham]:
> It's a poetic thought, Marsha.  But, aside from the fact that it
> makes you feel good, what evidence do you have that thinking
> and talking this way is "better" than logic, deduction, or
> metaphysical intuition?  People who make "feeling good" their
> life goal generally wind up uninformed, overspent, and
> dependent.  (They make good left-wing liberals, though.)

[Krimel]:
> This is simply breathtaking. You really have got stones to use this
> argument. I have applied this to your "philosophy" many times and
> every time you ignore it or run away. I thought you missed the point
> completely. I guess this is a sign of progress that you understand it
> well enough to try to use it on someone else. But it certainly is just
> a baby step.
>
> Here is the most recent example from my unanswered post of 5/17:
> "Uncreated Essence is a myth you have constructed to cover over
> many of the gaping holes in your philosophy. It is a fiction that
> apparently serves to keep you happily blind to the huge holes in
> your conceptual continuity. Mostly you seem to be constructing a
> way of drawing a smiley face on emptiness and nihilism. But that's
> just the way this "negate" sees it."

Why the quotes surrounding your own criticism?  And exactly what is it you 
expect me to respond to?

Look, I happen to believe that everything is derived from an uncreated 
primary source.  Therefore Essence is hardly an anti-climactic "cover over" 
for what you see as "gaping holes" in my philosophy.  Essence is the central 
theme and foundation of Essentialism in the same way that DQ/sq is the 
foundation of Pirsig's philosophy.

> But let me just say that I agree completely with you when you say:
> "People who make "feeling good" their life goal generally wind up
> uninformed, overspent, and dependent."

Well, at least we have that in common.  (I'll wait to see if Marsha agrees.)

Thanks for the "critique according to Krimel".  I'm happy to be such "a rich 
source of humor" for you.

Regards,
Ham