[MD] now it comes

[Krimel]

Krimel said to dmb:
"...The world of experience and of consciousness is continuous; not
discrete." You disagree with this?

dmb replies:
It would be an understatement to say I disagree. My overall impression is
that you taken the central distinction and run it through a food processor.
Somehow, it's inside out and backwards at the same time. It's a convoluted
version of the sentence you were trying to find in SOME PROBLEMS OF
PHILOSOPHY.

[Krimel]
Odd that you claim to disagree with that statement but spend to bulk of this
post arguing in favor of the point it makes. Do we have such a small number
of fundamental disagreements that you need to manufacture them? Surely you
know that James "stream of consciousness" is completely an argument about
the continuous nature of consciousness. If you want to add pure to
experience no problem. 

[dmb]
"There must always be a discrepancy between concepts and reality, because
the former are static and discontinuous while the latter is dynamic and
flowing."
This is radical empiricism condensed into a single sentence. At the same
time it is also the most concise statement of the difference between static
and Dynamic. If you get this part right, understanding will rain down in
buckets. 

[Krimel]
Ballsy move here. Please, if you will, find that quote in "Some Problems..."
It isn't in my copy. In fact, search for it on the net and you will find all
of the references trace back to Pirsig not James.

[dmb]
The distinction between concepts and reality is the distinction between
static patterns and dynamic quality. The difference is that one is
discontinuous and the other is continuous. The line drawn between them is
conceptual, for example. That concept, that line between them is what makes
them discontinuous. This conceptual distinction separates them from each
other. This is the nature of all concepts and that's how they deserve the
name "discontinuous" or "static" of "defined". 

[Krimel]
If you want to pick nits, which is I guess the only way to find a
disagreement here, James says perception is continuous and concepts are
discontinuous. It is the difference between having and experience and
reflecting on an experience.

[dmb]
Reality, on the other hand, is not discontinuous. It is continuous and
flowing and dynamic. This is not to say that concepts are unreal. The idea
here is essentially to contrast conceptual experience and pre-conceptual
experience, conceptual understandings and direct experience. There are a
number of terms for this and they all get this idea across: the cutting edge
of experience, the immediate flux of life, the primary empirical reality,
the undifferentiated aesthetic continuum, undivided experience, pure
experience, the dynamic edge of experience, etc.. 

[Krimel]
I prefer to us the one James uses in Some Problems...: perception. But in
all cases this is clearly a psychological rather than a philosophical one.
At point James highlights by referring his readers back to his chapters on
both perception and conception in "Principles..."

[dmb]
The idea is simply that in the ongoing process of experience there is always
a moment of awareness before experience cut up into pieces by our habits of
thought. 

[Kriomel]
Actually that is why awareness is not ever pre-conceptual. In fact awareness
is what fragments the unity of James, pure experience.

[dmb]
That's why we describe that moment in terms like "the pre-intellectual
cutting edge of awareness". Intellect chops things into discontinuous pieces
while direct experience itself is prior to that. Thus the pre-intellectual
reality is continuous and flowing while concepts are discontinuous and
static.

[Krimel]
It think what scares you about psychology is it would force you to
acknowledge that perception or the pre-intellectual is a illusion of unity.
James is clear that perception is build of sensation and sensation comes to
use through discrete energy pathways. They are parallel streams that are
processed into a "whole" that when reflected upon breaks down into piece.

[dmb]
In order to agree with your sentence, I'd have to make some changes.

"...The world of experience and of consciousness is continuous; not
discrete."  becomes...
"...The world of pure experience is contrasted with conceptual awareness.
The former is continuous and the latter is discrete." You disagree with
this?

[Krimel]
I disagree that there is a meaningful distinction between the two but if it
make you feel better, no I don't disagree with it.

Krimel said:
...I am past caring what you say about what James says. I have been asking
you to demonstrate the "cash value" of your convictions.  ...You continue to
miss the whole question. I am not asking you to clarify James' or anyone
else's position on some bit of metaphysical arcania. I don't care who said
what and I care ever less who you think said what.  ...The issue I am asking
about is the notion of concepts arising from and being secondary to
percepts. Are you saying this is or is not what James claims?

dmb says:
It sounds like a put-down rather than a real question, but I ask you in all
seriousness. What is it you don't get about the difference between
"conceptual" and "pre-conceptual". That's all we're talking about here.  

[Krimel]
What I don't get is the difference between perceptual and pre-conceptual.
Nor do I see how you can deny that sensation and feelings (both
fundamentally biological processes) precede perception.