[FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

Thu Mar 5 09:14:17 EST 2020

Nick first, then rest of list,

I sense I might be making a pest of myself, if so, gently tell me to take my curiosities elsewhere.

Let me begin with a long quote from Huxley:

"Istigkeit — wasn't that the word Meister Eckhart like to use? Is-ness. The Being of Platonic philosophy except that Plaot seems to have made the enormous, the grotesque mistake of separating Being from becoming, and identifying it with the mathematical abstraction of the Idea. He could never, poor fellow, have seen a bunch of flowers shining with their own inner light and all but quivering under the pre3ssure of the significance with which they were charged; could never have perceived that what rose and iris and carnation so intensely signified was nothing more, and nothing less, than what they were — a transience that was yet eternal life, a perpetual perishing that was at the same time pure Being, a bundle of minute, unique particulars in which, by some unspeakable and yet self-evident paradox, was to be seen the divine source of all existence.

At ordinary times the eye concerns itself with with such problems as Where? — How Far — How situated in relation to What? In the mescalin experience the implied questions to which the eye responds are of another order. Place and distance cease to be of much interest. The mind does it's perceiving in terms of intensity of existence, profundity of significance, relationships within a pattern.

The mind was primarily concerned, not with measures and locations, but with being and meaning."

This is an experience report.

First question, would Peirce or any other "experience monist" deem it worth consideration / investigation / discussion / consensus understanding?

I could find similar statements about "Being" / "Is-ness" from a host of sources: Hegel and Heidegger; Bergson and Whitehead; dozens of alchemists, Lao Tzu, Buddha, ....

Is it worth the time and effort to attempt to "reconcile" all of these expressions to discover a consensus "meaning" and could we use Peirce's method to facilitate that discussion that coming to a consensus?

If we did so, does this attribute some sense of ontological status to "being/is-ness" as a thing.

And the key to my being a pest — is anyone else curious about these things?

davew

On Wed, Mar 4, 2020, at 7:51 PM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:
> Dave, 
> 
> How about: 
> 
> "I am familiar with X and can give a description of X that others will 
> recognize"?
> 
> Hmm!  That would seem to apply to unicorns.  Do I know unicorns?  
> 
> Naaaah!  I am going back to my pragmaticism.  To know something is just 
> to believe it very strongly.  Truth is irrelevant.  So, the fact that 
> you know that unicorns exist tells me absolutely nothing -- per se -- 
> about the existence of unicorns.  
> 
> So, I stipulate that acid experiences can give people firm beliefs and 
> therefore knowledge in the limited sense above.  
> 
> But what about "know-how".  It would seem to suggest another meaning.  
> We used to have a TV that would go funny.  I discovered that I could 
> fix it by slapping it upside of the head.  I knew HOW to fix the tv.  
> 
> To know how to achieve a goal is to believe in a procedure for fixing 
> something, to be able to convey that procedure to another person, AND 
> THAT PROCEDURE WORKS AS CONVEYED.  So you know me only if you can give 
> a description of me that would cause a third person to pick me out of a 
> crowd?  
> 
> That could apply to god or unicorns, right?  And does not imply the 
> existence of either. 
> 
> I dunno, dave.  This "knowledge" stuff is pretty confusing. 
> 
> N
> 
> Nicholas Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> Clark University
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>  
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Prof David West
> Sent: Wednesday, March 4, 2020 8:30 AM
> To: friam at redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation
> 
> Nick,
> 
> We assert "knowledge" all the time.
> 
> You "know" that is is Friday morning and you need to be on your way to 
> St. John's.
> Person X "knows" that Trump is an A __h_le.
> Everyone "knows' that the sun is 93 million (approximately, depending 
> on position in orbit) million miles away.
> I "know" the sky is blue today, for the first time in three weeks.
> 
> The other person is not the only one who believes in auras. I have seen 
> them (and not under the influence). I might have a very different 
> explanation and even a different perception, but that does not mean we 
> both "know" them to exist.
> 
> The problem with working understandings is their tendency to become 
> working definitions and simply exclude anything inconvenient from being 
> "known."
> 
> Can you think of a working understanding that would allow both of the 
> following sentences to be discussed on equal footing?
> 
> I know Nick.
> 
> I know God.
> 
> davew
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, Mar 3, 2020, at 5:28 PM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:
> > Two things, Dave,
> > 
> > Peirce had actually 4 ways of knowing.  Stubbornness, Authority, 
> > Reasonableness, Experience, which he tries to treat with equal 
> > respect, but his heart is obviously with the last.  (The Fixation of Belief).
> > You make me wonder about the relation tween Peirce and that Vedic text. 
> >  
> > 
> > 
> > But this begs the most fundamental question raised by your post.  What 
> > is knowledge, other than belief, and what is belief other than that 
> > upon which we are prepared to act?  There is one member of our group 
> > who, very much in the spirit of William James's altered states, wants 
> > to work on aura's  He has a tentative belief in aura's.  When through 
> > experiment and analysis he renders that belief "firm", does he then 
> > have knowledge.  Already he believes in the possibility of aura's.  We 
> > know that this is the case because of the effort he is willing to 
> > expend in their demonstration.  Does he have knowledge of the 
> > existence of auras?  Does he already know that aura's exist?
> > 
> > I think problems with the very idea of knowledge lie at the core of 
> > this discussion, and we need some sort of working understanding of 
> > what we mean by it, if we are to precede.
> > 
> > Nicholas Thompson
> > Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology Clark University 
> > ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> >  
> > 
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Prof David West
> > Sent: Tuesday, March 3, 2020 1:48 AM
> > To: friam at redfish.com
> > Subject: [FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation
> > 
> > Epistemology, loosely speaking, is the “theory of knowing.” What can we 
> > know; how do we know we know it; the difference between knowing that, 
> > knowing how, and knowing about; and, issues of the “truth” of what we 
> > know and/or justifications for thinking we know anything?
> > 
> > An associated issue concerns how we come to acquire knowledge. Two 
> > means of acquisition are commonly proposed: a priori (independent of 
> > experience) and a posteriori (by experience).
> > 
> > A Vedic text, Tattirtiya Aranyaka (900-600 BCE), lists four sources of 
> > knowledge, roughly translated as: tradition/scripture, perception, 
> > authority, and reasoning/inference. Of these the fourth and second seem 
> > to map onto a priori and a posteriori.
> > 
> > Scholasticism — exemplars include Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, and 
> > Thomas Aquinas — was concerned with integrating three of the Vedic 
> > sources of knowledge: tradition/scripture (Christian theology), 
> > authority (Aristotle and Plato), and reasoning/inference.
> > 
> > Modern epistemology (and Peirce) seems to be concerned with two of the 
> > sources: tradition/scripture (peer reviewed science journals) and 
> > reasoning/inference.
> > 
> > Claims to "know" something, in a naive sense of know, like "I know that 
> > I am," "I know that I am in love," "I had the most interesting 
> > experience at FriAM just now," mystical visions, kinesthetic “muscle 
> > memory,” chi imbalance, and, of course, hallucinogen induced altered 
> > states of consciousness.
> > 
> > Is it possible to construct a theory of knowledge that could extend to, 
> > incorporate, a wider range of experience and especially mystical and 
> > psychedelic experience? If it was possible, would it be of value? If 
> > possible and of value, what parameters could be set to limn the 
> > resulting philosophy?
> > 
> > davew
> > 
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> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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