[MD] The Quarterly Digest of dmb Delusions

[Krimel]

[dmb]
The notion that SOM is just some label I slap on stuff to avoid the issue,
for example, is completely ridiculous. Rejecting SOM is central to the MOQ
and to radical empiricism and yet you think you can offer critiques of this
stuff without understanding that part of it. It's just not so, and we both
know that you still have yet to grasp this issue. That's why it comes up so
much. 

[Krimel]
Inverso facto!
Until you grasp the fact that I do understand what you are saying and that
you are spinning things to match your preconceptions rather that building
you concepts from per-intellectual percepts, you will continue to seek
solace in labels and over simplified delusions.

[dmb]
Until then I shall continue to believe that you're just a bullshitter who's
playing some kind of game. You've never given me any reason to believe that
you understand the first thing about this business of philosophy. 

[Krimel]
ROFLMAO!
That's why I love you man.

[dmb]
My point?

The idea that James's or Pirsig's ideas are antiquated would dissolve the
moment you looked into it. 

[Krimel]
When you imply that James was motivated less by his psychological
understanding than by his use of it to study mediums and psychic phenomena
you are drinking the panpsychic bathwater.

[dmb]
...there is James's characterization of the two main schools of philosophy,
namely empiricism and rationalism. Rationalism is the top down,
tender-minded approach while empiricism is the bottom up, tough-minded
approach. As a radical empiricist, of course, he was far more sympathetic to
the latter.

[Krimel]
Would that you aligned your sympathies with his.

[dmb]
James is saying that both schools have had to make stuff up in order to get
from knower to known. In that sense, radical empiricism differs from both of
them.

[Krimel]
James is saying the gaps are conceptualized and not perceived. 

[dmb]
Well, it's true that people of faith have adopted James to support their
beliefs there are plenty of scholars who insist this is an abuse and/or
misunderstanding of James. The kind of faith that James endorses in his work
is faith of a highly qualified kind. Basically, he says that you have a
right to make a choice between two equally plausible beliefs IF the choice
cannot be decided on the basis of evidence and IF the choice cannot be
avoided.

[Krimel]
I think you are making choices that can be settled empirically or that ought
to be avoided.

[dmb]
This reminds of all the times you've complained about the MOQ not addressing
some piece of evolutionary science or another. I want to push back against
this kind of complaint. As I see it, that kind of criticism is mostly just a
result of inappropriate expectations or a basic misconception about the
scope and focus of the MOQ.

[Krimel]
You seriously think that anyone writing a book chapter on evolution in 1991
should be given a pass for ignoring Gould, Dawkins and Wilson? 

Only an apologist could extend that level of forgiveness.

[dmb] 
I think it's pretty safe to say that Pirsig is perfectly aware of the fact
that the theory of evolution continues to evolve. 

[Krimel]
Since he never gets past Mach or Tillich I think it's pretty safe to say he
didn't notice that it already had. 

[dmb]
This MOQ isn't supposed to be the last word on the theory, it simply agrees
the theory.

[Krimel]
But it doesn't.

"Then why does nature reverse this process? What on earth causes the
inorganic compounds to go the other way? It isn't the sun's energy. We just
saw what the sun's energy did. It has to be something else. What is it?"

The misunderstanding in these statements are so monumental as to discredit
all he says before and after in the chapter.

[dmb] 
To criticize the MOQ for its failure to address this or that recent
development in science always strikes me as oddly inappropriate, like
criticizing Gandhi because he was a Luddite who failed to anticipate
facebook. Sure, in some fantasy it would be nice if Mark Twain had a twitter
account but as a realistic way to assess their relative success or failure
it's very much beside the point.

[Krimel]
I think a metaphysics should be a conceptual scheme that allows us to filter
our inputs to produce effective outputs. It isn't about novelty or the
latest trends. It is about the capacity of the scheme to allow assimilation
of newness. In a world a accelerating change, uncertainty and DQ I don't
want to have to accommodate newness by rebuilding my conceptual continuity
from the ground-up every three months. I want to be able install upgrades
automatically. 

I think romantic luddites just want to piss and moan about the good old
days. 
"Awe gee, we miss those "better" times..."

[dmb]
Same with Taoism, actually. In ZAMM he says that his notion of Quality is
nothing for Taoism. It agrees with Taoism but the purpose of the MOQ is to
improve and expand our modes of rationality. And the use of everything from
Taoism to the Sophists is a  imed at that. He's trying to deepen some very
old, very silty channels, to freshen and revitalize some ancient, ancient
stuff.

[Krimel]
Actually he equates Quality and Tao and says Phaedrus did nothing for
either. ZMM is indeed a dredging of that ancient Chinese channel. It's a
shame him filled it back in with wistful dreams of "betterness" and
teleology in Lila.

[dmb]
I mean, think about the scope of the perennial philosophy, which says that
all the world's great religions have an esoteric, mystical core and at that
level they all agree with each other. That's how the MOQ can be a form of
philosophical mysticism and agree with Taoism and agree with Zen Buddhism
and agree with ... Well, you get the idea.

[Krimel]
I think when you look really hard for something you are likely to find it.
You are creating not agreement between this disparate cultural conceptions,
but the illusion of agreement. That is what fortune tellers do with tea
leaves after all. If you stare into the bottom of the cup long enough an
illusion of meaning will reveal itself and if you buy it, the illusion
become delusion and you get a really good feeling for your pains.

[dmb]
Well, one of the points of the rat study was to point out that the rat's
ability to find a biscuit in the corner does not constitute thinking.

[Krimel]
Still waiting on the reference for that one...

[dmb]
In the study on rats, three separate perceptions were too many. Their brains
could only connect two perceptions.

[Krimel]
While I'm waiting let me reiterate that chimpanzees can hold all three and
we can hold seven. Language results from that upgrade in the size of our
registers (technical term, look it up).

[dmb]
Well, babies are tuned to the environment like every other living thing but
this is biological, not social. I think it's safe to say that socialization
takes place after we're born.

[Krimel]
Babies are born into a social environment. They are indeed tuned to that
environment but the socialization that tuned them took place in the vast
tracts of time before they were born.

[dmb]
The infant is not only without concepts altogether, even their perceptions
are an incoherent jumble. So blooming and buzzing is this confusion -
literal confusion...

[Krimel]
Infants have all kinds of built in concepts that organize their perceptions
from the first moments of birth. They already even have preferences. They
prefer faces. They can imitate faces. They prefer voices to other sounds.
They can visual discriminate a thing they have sucked from a thing they have
not suck depending on it texture. Not only to they have separate senses they
can integrate them. And they do this fresh out of the oven. 

[dmb]
...that brain studies show that infants will sometimes smell colors or taste
sounds until they learn to get their sensory channels sorted out "right".

[Krimel]
I'm not saying this is flat out wrong but I am sure not taking your word for
it or what you make of it. You need another citation.

[dmb]
There is even evidence to suggest that our awareness is somewhat plastic and
shaped by culture to some degree even at this basic level.

[Krimel]
Indeed our awareness is VERY not somewhat plastic and plastic is the
preferred term. But lots of things influence that molding of that plastic
from the culture we live in to a sharp blow to the head or even a stroke...

[dmb]
There was a story about a dear-mute who lived to the age of 26 before he had
a sudden revelation: every thing has a name. He didn't even realize there
was such a thing as sound, didn't understand that he was deaf. Sadly, he
just assumed he was stupid. He thought he was supposed to know what was
going on just from seeing it, not realizing everyone else was listening to
words instead of just watching hands and mouths move...

[Krimel]
And he "thought" all of this without language, huh?

[dmb]
Chalmers... Wished I noticed him earlier. 1996 would have been a good
time...

[Krimel]
Seriously? 
You have been ranting about consciousness all these years and not heard of
Chalmers. Wow, how about Dennett, Searle, Pinker, Churchland, McGuinn,
Jackson, Nagel, Blackmore? 
Ever seen the Matrix? 
Holy shit why do I bother?

I went through that stuff a few years ago and I flatly don't have time right
now so I won't. Having said that I am now listening to John Joseph
Campbell's class lectures on Philosophy of Mind from the UC-Berkeley
collection at iTunes.

Broaden your horizons Dave. Stop apologizing and move out of your comfort
zone.

[dmb]
It's fair because both sides always have a 50-50 chance. It is certain that
one or the other will win will the toss. The outcome is not random so much
as unbiased.

[Krimel]
We know this rationally but it becomes increasingly hard to swallow when
we've just thrown 99 heads in a row. Pattern recognition kicks in and we
cast about for different kind of explanation. 

We are NOT fundamentally rational beings. 
We are heuristic beings.

As Damasio put it:
"We are not thinking machines. We are feeling machines that think."