[FRIAM] All hail confirmation bias!

Mon Jul 29 13:22:57 EDT 2019

Perforce, I am experiencing confusion.

Sensations are impinging on the organism, the organism "organizes and interprets" them and, in some mysterious way presents a "coherent formulation" of them to a specialized aspect of the organism which, in turn, meta-interprets them as "an experience."

Although the "experience" is in the foreground it is not dissociated from the "coherent formulation" which is context for the "experience;" nor is "experience" apart from the raw sensations which are context for the "coherent formulation." Indeed all is a whole.

For whatever reason, the organism has learned to "notice" consistencies, i.e. approximations of the "same whole" that "recur" with some regularity. (Notice the need to invent linear time here, without any justification except that in the step following we come to believe in time as a shared experience.)

Somewhere in the mists of prehistory another aspect of the organism "puts words" to the "experience" allowing multiple organisms to exchange words and discourse at great length as to whether or not they are sharing the same "experiences" and, if so, does such collective experiencing suggest a "provisional shared interpretation?"

Enter the skeptic.

The first thing I doubt is that word "provisional." I have been observing for a long time and I do not believe you are truly sincere about it - you use the verb "to be" far too frequently and with too much conviction to believe you. You are also way to comfortable equating the improbable with the impossible.

The next thing I doubt are your words. There is a whole treatise here, but I will simply point to Gladstone's essay on "color in the age of Homer" and numerous writings on the "truth" behind the fallacy of Sapir--Whorfism.

Then I doubt the "coherent formulation" noting that the construction of same is highly idiosyncratic and its "consistency" an artifact of laziness - "just send the old formulation along instead of making the effort to construct a new one from the data of the instant."

Then I doubt the sensations, especially their origin apart from the sensory element of the organism that claimed to have been impinged.

In parallel, of course, I have doubted the implicit "I" that is inescapable when  "words" come into the picture.

Ultimately I doubt whether the totality of the "provisionally shared interpretations" (including of course all of science) can definitively be differentiated from the result of God on an eternal (instead of 15 minute) DMT trip. 

The skeptic merely doubts. The mystic claims that EXPERIENCE is a possibility - unmediated by "I" or sensation, or coherent formulations or words or provisional shared interpretations. Is this the "hope" being "mocked?"

davew

On Mon, Jul 29, 2019, at 4:21 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> Dave,
> 
> "All is illusion" is exactly the kind of partial draught that I am 
> complaining about.  It clings to the very hope it mocks.  If skepticism 
> is what you desire, then there is no warrant to speak of anything 
> beyond experience, and experience is "of" nothing except  other 
> experiences.  So the only question becomes, To what extent is 
> experience organized.  Or is experience merely random.  If by "all is 
> illusion" you mean there are no consistencies in experience, then, of 
> course, you are welcome to that view, in the same way you are welcome 
> to the view that all the molecules in the lovely Dutch beer sitting in 
> front of you will instantaneously leap out of the glass,  roll across 
> the table, and jump into your mouth without any assistance from your 
> hands.   But I wouldn't bet on it.  If I wanted some of that beer, I 
> would reach for it. 
> 
> 
> Nick   
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
> Clark University
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Prof David West
> Sent: Monday, July 29, 2019 2:18 AM
> To: friam at redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] All hail confirmation bias!
> 
> Nick stated:
> 
> "I deplore a skepticism that drinks only 9/10ths of the potent, and 
> then puts the glass down, burps, and walks away with a smug look on its 
> face."
> 
> Excepting the mystic who recognizes that "ALL is illusion," has anyone 
> drunk the full potent?
> 
> davew
> 
> 
> On Sun, Jul 28, 2019, at 9:23 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> > While we're getting rid of concepts, let's just get rid of this 
> > foolish, unsubstantiated concept, "the world."  What sort of heuristic 
> > is THAT?
> > 
> > N
> > 
> > Nicholas S. Thompson
> > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University 
> > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Steven A 
> > Smith
> > Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2019 11:41 AM
> > To: friam at redfish.com
> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] All hail confirmation bias!
> > 
> > I KNEW that confirmation bias was a problem and NOW this confirms it!
> > 
> > I TOLEYA!
> > 
> > On 4/24/19 5:25 PM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:
> > > Our World Isn't Organized into Levels 
> > > https://philpapers.org/rec/POTOWI?ref=mail
> > >
> > >> In my view, our adherence to the levels concept in the face of the 
> > >> systematic problems plaguing it amounts to a failure to recognize 
> > >> structure we’re imposing on the world, to instead mistake this as 
> > >> structure we are reading off the world. Attachment to the concept 
> > >> of levels of organization has, I think, contributed to 
> > >> underestimation of the complexity and variability of our world, 
> > >> including the significance of causal interaction across scales. 
> > >> This has also inhibited our ability to see limitations to our 
> > >> heuristic and to imagine other contrasting heuristics, heuristics 
> > >> that may bear more in common with what our world turns out to 
> > >> actually be like. Let’s at least entertain the possibility that the invocation of levels can mislead scientific and philosophical investigations more than it informs them. I suggest that the onus is on advocates of levels of organization to demonstrate the well-foundedness and usefulness of this concept.
> > 
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