[FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[uǝlƃ ☣]

I intend to respond to both Nick's and EricC's comments about "faith in convergence" at some point. But I've been caught up in other things. So, in the meantime, ...

"Irony and Outrage," part 2: Why Colbert got serious — and why Donald Trump isn't funny
https://www.salon.com/2019/12/08/irony-and-outrage-part-2-why-colbert-got-serious-and-why-donald-trump-isnt-funny/

There are 2 interesting tangents touching this thread:

1) Re: ineffability -- "But also that the mere logic of the humorous juxtaposition eludes him — the notion that you do not issue the argument, you create a juxtaposition that invites the audience to issue an argument."

I'll argue that the content of a (good) joke is *ineffable*. The whole purpose of the joke teller is to communicate something without actually *saying* it. If you explain a joke, it breaks the joke.

And 2) Re: limits to epistemology limiting ontology -- "That, to me, is illustrative of that broader point I try to make about how when a threat is salient to you, it becomes hard to enter the state of play, ..."

I *would* argue that pluralists will be more able to enter the "state of play" Goldthwaite describes (and I've described on this list a number of times as variations of "suspension of disbelief", "empathetic listening", and being willing to play games others set up) than monists. I think monists should TEND to be more committed to their way of thinking than pluralists ... more willing to believe their own or others' brain farts. At least in my case, being a pluralist means, in part, that I refuse to *commit* to ontological assertions of any kind. I'll play with various types of monism just as readily as I'll play with 3-tupleisms ... or 17-tupleisms. I think that's what makes me a simulant of passing competence. You just need to tell me *what* -ism you want to simulate.

As such, it seems that maybe Dave's got the cart before the horse. It's the failure of ontology that's mandating voids in epistemology. We should work toward robust *ways of knowing* and loosen up a bit on whatever it is we think we know. I say "would argue" of course because, being totally ignorant of philosophy, I'm probably just confused about everything.

On 12/10/19 12:43 PM, Prof David West wrote:
> Both your anecdotes support, my assertion that lots of things and lots of experiences are ineffable. This does not mean they are not "expressible" nor "communicable, merely that they cannot be expressed with words nor communicated using words.
> 
> Words fail! Indeed!
> 
> Entire languages fail. Entire epistemological philosophies fail.
> 
> You "rendered" the ineffable to your grand-daughter, but you did NOT render them to me with words. You you words to circumscribe and speak about an experience of a kind that you believe I might have first hand, equally ineffable, experience of and that your indirect words would move me to make a connection. At best, your words, your language, worked like a game of Charades or Pictionary as a means of limning the space wherein I might find my own experience of like kind.
> 
> A "mystic" engages an experience that is ineffable, and then utters thousands, book volumes worth, of words attempting to limn a space wherein you too might engage the same experience — or, if an optimist, might awaken in you a recognition of what you have already experienced. More Charades and Pictionary — spewing forth words ABOUT the experience; never expressing, in words or language, the experience itself.
> 
> At least some ineffable experiences can be expressed directly using a language of voltages and wave forms, (Neurotheology), but not words or mathematical symbols or such-based languages.
> 
> The question remains: why does a failure of epistemology mandate voids in ontology?
> 
> I love your etymological daffiness, I share it.
> 
> The definitions cited reflect an arrogance of the "enlightened" in the notion "too great for words." A lot of mystics make this, what I believe to be, error, attempting to grant an ontological status of REAL that does not follow from the simple fact that it cannot be expressed in words.
> 
> And another sidenote — something might be "ineffable" simply because you are not allowed to use a word, ala Carlin's seven dirty words, or the "N-Word" or the "C-Word."

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