[FRIAM] post you seem to have missed from FRIAM

[Prof David West]

Nick, and Frank,

Puritanism is one of those things that IS relative, in the sense that most everyone has a line that is not to be crossed, for no objective, rational, reason but just because "I don't want to." I won't use recreational drugs (e.g. cocaine), drink to excess, or read (well I have, but don't anymore) romance novels. We are all puritans sometimes.

May I ask you a question: may I characterize you as a "experenci-ologist," a philosopher/scientist of experience? If yes, can you give a precise definition of experience? Perhaps more interesting; can you give me reasons for excluding data points that seem to me to be experiential (mystical, drug, meditation, quantum stimuli, a long list of others) from consideration. 

"There are more things in heaven and Earth, dear Nick, / Than appear to be dreamt of in your philosophy of experiential monism." Even if you are adverse to personal experience of them, why is it not reasonable to expect some account of them or rationale for their exclusion?

davew



On Tue, Nov 19, 2019, at 5:39 PM, Nick Thompson 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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