[FRIAM] post you seem to have missed from FRIAM

Tue Nov 19 11:47:32 EST 2019

Nick,

I was a baby and then a toddler during WWII but I feel much the same as you
do.  I do like fast cars, however.

Frank

-----------------------------------
Frank Wimberly

My memoir:
https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly

My scientific publications:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2

Phone (505) 670-9918

On Tue, Nov 19, 2019, 9:39 AM Nick Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net>
wrote:

> Hi, Dave,
>
>
>
> I had seen your post below before, but because you computer woke-folk
> won’t use HTML, I can never tell who’s talking to whom about what.  And
> also, this business of having two computers, neither of which work, is
> driving me ever crazier than I usually am.  I find myself typing a response
> on my new computer while moving the mouse connected to my old computer and
> wondering why nothing is happening.  So I stipulate that I have contributed
> more than my share to the disjointedness of the conversation.  Sorry for
> that.
>
>
>
> I will try and straighten things out a bit below.
>
>
>
> In the meantime allow me to cop to my puritanism with respect to anything
> that smacks of “experience enhancement”.  I can hear you all putting on
> your Trump-sincere-voice, shedding one crocodile tear each, and saying, in
> a chorus, “*Sad!”*  But there it is.  I am not one to be tempted by the
> giant roller-coaster at the fair, or by the vampire movie at the mall.  To
> me, life is enough of a roller-coaster without introducing* gratuitous*
> bumps.  Nor do I have a much of an interest in science fiction.  I come
> from the Silent Generation (Remember, I am THAT old!)  The sixties is the
> chasm across which you and I (and many of the other participants in this
> discussion) view one another.  In my Peircean moments, I view life as a
> stream of experiences that I am at pains to manage.  I grew up hearing
> about Hitler, killing camps, death and starvation of millions.   I didn’t
> have to imagine goblins; they were on the news every day.   To me, a quiet
> life is a miraculous achievement.  Anything that makes that stream of
> experience more difficult to manage is… well … annoying.  Drug experiences,
> extreme experiences of any kind, do not fill me with wonder.  If you take a
> large chunk of flint stone and bash it on an anvil it shatters into … well
> … *flints.  *Hitting the human mind with a drug-hammer, or a starvation
> hammer, a near-death hammer, or even a sleep-hammer is like that.  Yes, I
> suppose, it tells you something about the structure of the thing you are
> hitting, but I don’t suppose, with my Puritan mindset, that it tells me
> ANYTHING about the Universe.  Good LORD.  Why would it?
>
>
>
> I know that Prufrock was Ironic, but I still take some odd perverse
> pleasure in …
>
>
>
>                 I grow old, I grow old, I shall wear the bottoms of my
> trousers rolled. …
>
>                 Do I dare to eat a peach?
>
>                 I shall wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the
> beach.
>
>                 I have heard the mermaids singing each to each.
>
>                 I do not think that they will sing for me.
>
>
>
> Sometimes I feel like your crazy uncle at Thanksgiving*.  *Even though I
> was a little kid during WWII, I still feel like I *fought* for your
> sanity.  And now you find joy and wisdom in madness?!  I am a 50’s
> Apollonian in a nest of 70’s Dionysians.
>
> Yes.  I know.  *Sad! *
>
>
>
> *Nick *
>
>
>
> *PS:  *OK.  It’s time I read some Geertz first-hand.  Assign me
> something. Not too much, please.  N.
>
>
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Prof David West [mailto:profwest at fastmail.fm]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2019 8:14 AM
> To: nick thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net>
> Subject: post you seem to have missed from FRIAM
>
>
>
> Nick said:
>
>
>
> *"What struck me about them was how many of them held the view that
> reality was beyond experience: i.e., that our experience provided clues to
> reality, but the thing itself was beyond experience.  I never could
> convince them that that their belief in a reality beyond experience had to
> be based on … experience.  So, why not be monists, and talk about
> organizations of experience.  Ultimately, it was their dualism that
> confirmed me in my monism."*
>
>
>
> How about an assertion that there is A Reality beyond "ordinary"
> experience; with "ordinary experience" being the half-dozen or so overt
>
> *[NST==>what is a covert sensory experience? <==nst] *
>
> sensory inputs (sight, sound, balance, touch, taste, smell)  we typically
> associate with experience.
>
>
>
> Given a different set of inputs — e.g. emotions, hallucinations, visions,
> dreams — must we assume that we are still experiencing the same Reality as
> that experienced with overt sensory inputs; or, is the door open to an
> alternative Reality even if Reality-A and Reality-B have significant but
> not total congruence? We are still experiencing, so your experiential
> monism is intact, but Reality is dualist/pluralist.
>
> *[NST==>Well, to a monist there is, in your sense, no reality at all!
> Reality is an aspiration. Reality is what arises from the management of
> experience. Given our generational difference, I sometimes wonder if you
> don’t take for granted the reality that I am fighting for.  <==nst] *
>
>
>
> Or, suppose there are a set of inputs, of the same Reality, that are not
> included in the overt set (sight, taste, et. al.). Previously it was noted
> that the eye can detect a single photon (and we can "sense" other quantum
> level phenomena). You asserted that such sensory inputs would be "lost in
> the noise" of the functioning organism and hence are not "experienced." Is
> this not a case of a detectable/sensible Reality beyond experience?
>
>
>
> A corollary: can there be "experiences" — a set of stimulus-response pairs
> — not included in the overt senses, and not describable in ordinary
>
> *[NST==>What is extra-ordinary language? <==nst] *
>
> language? Obviously, I am talking about "mystical" experiences such as
> "being in the zone" or lower-case s, satori, or even upper-case s, Satori
> (aka enlightenment). It is important to note that these are
> stimulus-response events, not necessarily "experiences;" as experience, in
> ordinary language, necessarily implies an experience-r, and in the examples
> I am thinking about, there is no "I" and hence no experience-r.
>
>
>
> AND,
>
>
>
> *"By the way, Geertz is probably the locus classicus of the relativism I
> deplore."*
>
>
>
> Sir! Them's fightin words!!!
>
>
>
> But I forgive you, as you clearly misunderstand Geertz (one of my personal
> heroes). Nothing he says is "relativist." His observations and conclusions
> are, however, hermeneutic. Geertz merely points out a fact — there are no
> cross cultural universals (except one, that I will get to in just a
> moment), nor are there any "objective" criteria for asserting primacy or
> privilege of one culture over another. From this comes an indictment of
> ethnocentrism as one culture stating that "obviously" our values, our ways
> of doing things, our worldview, our customs ... are superior to yours,
> correct while yours are erroneous, etc.
>
>
>
> Hermeneuticism is NOT relativism.
>
>
>
> The one cultural universal: every culture (obviously not every individual
> in every culture) incorporates a belief in the "supernatural." In all but,
> maybe, 2-3, cultures the "supernatural" includes an alternative realm of
> existence (pre- and/or after-life or "other planes."  The, interpretations
> of this universal are multiple - pretty much one per culture/subculture.
>
>
>
> davew
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