[MD] now it comes

[david buchanan]

dmb said to Krimel:

I think it's important to realize that words like "perception" and "experience" are terms that are also used by traditional SOM empiricists, sensory empiricists. In that case, it is assumed that we're talking about the perceptions and experiences of a subject who is set over against an objective, pre-existing reality. Since these radical empiricists are rejecting that premise, it has to be understood that they do NOT mean the feelings or sensations of a subject. It wouldn't make any logical sense to say that subjects are derived from subjective experience, would it? The notion that there is experience without a subject is going to seem quite strange to a SOMer but there is no way to make sense of these quotes unless you can grasp that notion.


Krimel replied:

... I don't see James saying anything like, experience is not happening to some particular person at some particular location.  ... I fear it also jibes with your romantic notion that 'the immediate flux of life' is "better" and not equivalent term for perception because it sounds all vague and touchy feel, new agey; or perhaps some irreducible concept. Whereas perception actually is a meaningful and specifiable term, we wouldn't want that since that would mean taking seriously the vast literature on the subject that in many respect originates with James. Least you start your usual rant about young and old James let me note that James cites his own Principles of Psychology throughout both Some Problems... and in Essays... The older James hardly seems to be repenting of his earlier work.


dmb says:

Well, this is what it really comes down to, isn't it? You don't see how James the psychologist differs from James the philosopher. And our disagreements flow from that fact. You're the psychologist but you don't believe that I'm really doing philosophy, right? My perspective is just vague, romantic, new-age nonsense whereas you use meaningful and specifiable terms. Okay, Mr. Know-it-all, strap yourself in and prepare to be surprised. Shocking as it may seem, you might actually learn something from little ole me. Wiki has made it very easy to demonstrate that you are mistaken:


"Sciousness, a term coined by William James in The Principles of Psychology, refers to consciousness separate from consciousness of self. James wrote:Instead of the stream of thought being one of con-sciousness, 'thinking its own existence along with whatever else it thinks'...it might better be called a stream of Sciousness pure and simple, thinking objects of some of which it makes what it calls a 'Me,' and only aware of its 'pure' Self in an abstract, hypothetic or conceptual way. Each 'section' of the stream would then be a bit of sciousness or knowledge of this sort, including and contemplating its 'me' and its 'not-me' as objects which work out their drama together, but not yet including or contemplating its own subjective being.[1]When James first introduced "sciousness" he held back from proposing it as a possible prime reality in The Principles of Psychology, warning that it "traverse[s] common sense."[2]. He allowed that he might return to a consideration of sciousness at the conclusion of the book, where he would "indulge in some metaphysical reflections," but it was not until two years later in his conclusion to the abridged edition of The Principles that he added:Neither common-sense, nor psychology so far as it has yet been written, has ever doubted that the states of consciousness which that science studies are immediate data of experience. "Things" have been doubted, but thoughts and feelings have never been doubted. The outer world, but never the inner world, has been denied. Everyone assumes that we have direct introspective acquaintance with our thinking activity as such, with our consciousness as something inward and contrasted with the outer objects which it knows. Yet I must confess that for my part I cannot feel sure of this conclusion. Whenever I try to become sensible of thinking activity as such, what I catch is come bodily fact, an impression coming from my brow, or head, or throat, or nose. It seems as if consciousness as an inner activity were rather a postulate than a sensibly given fact, the postulate, namely, of a knower as correlative to all this known; and as if "sciousness" might be a better word by which to describe it. But "sciousness postulated as a hypothesis" is a practically a very different thing from "states of consciousness apprehended with infallible certainty by an inner sense." For one thing, it throws the question of who the knower really is wide open….[3]Then thirteen years later, writing solely as a philosopher, James returned to his "parenthetical digression" of sciousness that "contradict[ed] the fundamental assumption of every philosophic school."[4] James had founded a new school of philosophy, called "radical empiricism," and nondual sciousness was its starting-point. He even wrote a note to himself to "apologize for my dualistic language, in the Principles."[5] James did not continue to use the word "sciousness" in later essays on radical empiricism, but the concept is clearly there as the "plain, unqualified …existence" he comes to call "pure experience," in which there is "no self-splitting…into consciousness and what the consciousness is of."[6]Pure experience sciousness was mostly attacked when first presented.[7] With some notable exceptions, such as Bergson, Dewey, and Whitehead, Western philosophers rejected James' view. That rejection continues to this day."

dmb continues:

See, it's not so much that I am "reluctant to use the terms percept and perception as more precise substitutes for the fuzzier terms used by Pirsig", as you put it. I'm saying you can't rightly understanding radical empiricism in terms of psychology. I think you're latching on to the term "perception" so that you can do exactly that. If this really is your background, then it's only natural that you'd want to have the debate on your turf, where you feel more comfortable. Unfortunately, that's exactly what keeps you from grasping the actual ideas in question. See, what happens is you're trying to understand a non-dualistic experience in terms of subject-object dualism. You're asserting SOM to oppose the rejection of SOM, which is like fighting chemotherapy with cancer. 

Want more proof? Check out this excerpt from a recent (flakey new-age) book review: 

Book review on "Sciousness" by Jonathan Bricklin (2007). Reviewed by David Lorimer, 2010 published in Network Review No 102
The word in the title of his book will be unfamiliar to readers, who will be surprised to learn that it comes from William James and refers to a quotation from his Principles of Psychology where he expresses the view that the stream of consciousness should be called 'Sciousness pure and simple', omitting the con-, meaning with and implying a false sense of separation. This book brings together an introductory essay by the editor, various papers by William James and an essay by Theodore Flournoy on radical empiricism. The editor notes that William James is the first modern-trained scientist to affirm the prime reality of non-dual experience, a fact that is also likely to come as a surprise as so little emphasis has been placed on this aspect of his thought. However, the editor and James himself make a convincing case for this proposition.
The book begins with a long poem - On Believing in Mind - by the third Zen patriarch about the nature of the Buddha mind, with lines such as 'The Ground of all Being contains all the opposites. From the One, all things originate. The wise man knows that all things are part of the One. The ignorant man sees differences everywhere.' This sets the scene for the introductory essay, where we learn almost immediately that James wrote 'The Witness' next to the word 'sciousness' in his own copy of The Principles; this concept will be familiar to students of the Upanishads. Briefly, sciousness is consciousness-without-self while consciousness is consciousness-with-self, implying a relationship between the knower and the known - but then, as the Zen koan would ask, who is the knower? A parallel thought is expressed in the two forms of Buddhist samadhi: nirvikalpa (without-bifurcated-thought-construction) and savikalpa (with-bifurcated-thought-construction). James even suggests that the phrase 'it thinks' (cf it rains) is a simple and accurate description of the state of affairs, adding that it is the stream of consciousness that creates the I, the thought is the thinker, hence Tat Tvam Asi. Bricklin proposes that to describe the feeling of self without reference to sciousness is like describing sound without silence.

Krimel said:

But let me restate my original questions:  Where is that quote Pirsig cites in Lila? Has he just confused his own notes on James with actual writing by James? Please note the recent brouhaha over Arlo's use of quotes. This seems far worse so I really would be grateful if you can find the actual quote.


dmb says:

It seems you must be very desperate to find fault. It's a scandal for Pirsig because YOU can't find the quote? C'mon, would you like to learn something or are you just here to play silly games? 

Seriously, Krimel. I haven't said much about the evidence provided to you here because I think you're capable of reading and thinking and drawing your own conclusions. Am I right to trust you that much? Do you see it? 


> 
> Given that "Pure experience in this state is but another name for feeling or
> sensation." (from Essays...) And that, "Instead of percept I shall often
> speak of sensation, feeling, intuition, and sometimes of sensible experience
> or of the immediate flow of conscious life." (From Some Problems...) Why are you reluctant to use the terms percept and perception as more precise substitutes for the fuzzier terms used by Pirsig?