[FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

[Prof David West]

thanks Glen,

I totally agree with you about dead white guys. [Except I have had face-to-face conversations with a couple of them :) ] I reference them not as a source of answers but in an attempt to find some kind of conceptual bridge for a conversation. But that might be totally counterproductive as it tends to introduce a propensity for forking the conversation.

Engaging with contemporary scientists is hard when it comes to drug-induced data sets / experiences. I hope to make some connections with contemporary researchers at the ICPR conference I mentioned but the focus there seems to be psycho-medical and related to the oxytocin article you posted, and my direct interests tend to diverge from that.

Perhaps something more direct might be useful. Two things, the second is mostly to tease Nick.

1) I am fascinated by the field of scientific visualization, using imagery to present complex data sets. Recently I "observed" the precise moment of sperm-egg fertilization. A whole lot was going on inside the egg cell boundary immediately upon contact (not penetration) with the sperm. The visualization was of thousands (millions?) of discrete inter-cellular elements breaking free from existing structures, like DNA strands, proteins, molecules and moving about independently. I could see several "fields" that were a kind of "probability field." These fields constrained both the movement of the various elements and, most importantly, what structures would emerge from their recombination.  "Watching" the DNA strand 'dissolve" and "reform" was particularly interesting because it was totally unlike the "unzip into two strands, the zip-up a strand-half from each donor" visualization I have seen presented in animations explaining the process.  Instead I saw all kinds of "clumps" form and merge into larger/longer "clumps" then engage in an interesting hula/belly/undulation dance to rearrange the structure into a final form.  All of this "guided" by the very visible "probability fields;" more than one and color coded.

Now, if I were a cellular biologist could I make use of this vision?

Since I am not a cellular biologist and have no understanding of inter-cellular structures/dynamics/chemistry, nor any DNA knowledge, where did the imagery come from and why did it hang together so well?

Was this experience just an amusing bit of entertainment" Or, is there an insight of some sort lurking there?

2) En garde Nick. 

Quoting Huxley, paraphrasing C.D. Broad — "The function of the brain,  nervous system, and sense organs is, in the main, eliminative and not productive. Each person is at each moment capable of remembering all that has ever happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. This is Mind-At-Large.

But in so far as we are animals, our business is at all costs to survive. To make biological survival possible, Mind-At-Large,  has to be funneled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system. What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the surface of this particular planet."

Two personal experiences: 1) I tend to not notice when my glasses get cloudy from accumulation of dust and moisture until it is quite bad. I clean my glasses, put them on, and am amazed at how clear and detailed my perceptions are post-cleaning. A very dramatic difference. And, 2) the proper dose of a hallucinogen (and/or the right kind of meditation) and my perceptions of the world around me, using all my senses, are amazingly clear and detailed in the same way as my visual perception was changed by cleaning grime from my glasses.

I would contend that the drug (meditation) removed the muddying filter of my brain/nervous system/ sense organs just as the isopropyl alcohol removed the muddying filter of moisture-dust on my glasses.

I see the world as it "really" is.

Now the tease: I would contend that I am more Apollonian than thou because I value Life, and more of Life, more directly, than you do. It is not varied experience I seek, but a direct, clear, complete, apprehension and appreciation of Life Itself.

davew


On Thu, Mar 5, 2020, at 4:58 PM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:
> It's not pesky for me in the slightest. I'm *very* interested. I 
> haven't contributed because it's not clear I have anything to 
> contribute.
> 
> Maybe I can start with a criticism, though. It's unclear to me why you 
> (or anyone) would delicately flip through crumbling pages of philosophy 
> when there are fresh and juicy results from (interventionist) methods 
> right in front of us? The oxytocin post really *was* inspired by this 
> thread. But because you guys are talking about dead white men like 
> Peirce and James, it's unclear how the science relates. 
> 
> My skepticism goes even deeper (beyond dead white men) to why one would 
> think *anyone* (alive, dead, white or brown) might be able to *think* 
> up an explanation for how knowledge grows. I would like to, but cannot, 
> avoid the inference that this belief anyone (or any "school" of people) 
> can think up explanations stems from a bias toward *individualism*. My 
> snarky poke at "super intelligent god-people" in a post awhile back was 
> (misguidedly) intended to express this same skepticism. I worry that 
> poking around in old philosophy is simply an artifact of the mythology 
> surrounding the "mind" and Great Men 
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory>.
> 
> It seems to me like science works in *spite* of our biases to 
> individualism. So, if I want to understand knowledge, I have to stop 
> identifying ways of knowing through dead individuals and focus on the 
> flowing *field* of the collective scientists.
> 
> Of course, that doesn't mean we ignore the writings of the dead people. 
> But it means liberally slashing away anything that even smells obsolete.
> 
> Regardless of what you do post, don't interpret *my* lack of response 
> as disinterest or irritation, because it's not.
> 
> On 3/5/20 6:14 AM, Prof David West wrote:
> > And the key to my being a pest — is anyone else curious about these things?
> 
> 
> -- 
> ☣ uǝlƃ
> 
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