[FRIAM] Acid epistemology - Eric Help!!!!

[Frank Wimberly]

For what it's worth, Freud experimented with cocaine.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Mon, Mar 9, 2020, 11:37 AM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dave,
>
>
>
> Oh, Damn.  I thought I had pretty much sorted this disagreement out, and
> now I am all confused again.  I am in doubt, and doubt is painful.  He that
> falls hardest, falls from his highest horse. Where do I stand (as a
> purported experience monist) EVER to deny your experience? OK. Calm down,
> Nick.  Let’s see where this comes out.
>
>
>
> First, let’s go back to unicorns.  You say (let’s say) that during one of
> your sessions you have encountered a unicorn.  You describe that unicorn in
> great detail, including the golden horn, the flowing white mane and tail,
> the restless silver-shod hooves, and (if you like) the golden haired damsel
> on his back.  (Frank Wimberly is gearing up his Freudian interpretation of
> my fantasy here as you read.) And you say that this apparition is
> accompanied in you with a feeling of great joy and peace.  Where could I
> possibly stand to deny you any of this?
>
>
>
> Now, feeling my way here, let’s divide what I propose to deny you into two
> parts.   Was the Unicorn real and was your feeling of well-being real?  As
> a dualist, I can deny you one without denying you the other.  The test of
> whether you really saw a UNICORN  is in the world outside of experience
> (w.e.t.f. that is) whereas the test of whether YOU SAW a unicorn is a
> matter entirely between you and your mind, a matter about which I could not
> possibly have any direct information.   Since dualists claim to have two
> sources of information about the world (their experience and ….God’s?) it’s
> possible for there to be a unicorn experience (I saw it, God, I saw it!)
> when in fact God knows there is no unicorn.  So a dualist can grant you
> your unicorn experience, with all its emotional glory, while not granting
> you the unicorn.  Not sure I have that out.
>
>
>
> Now, mind you, as an experience-monist, I am not tied to the notion that
> there can be no varieties of experience.  I am only tied to the notion that
> there is only one kind of stuff in the world, experience, and relations
> between experiences.  Glen, (I think) once pointed out to me that this is
> already TWO kinds of stuff, experiences and relations, and that I have
> already forsaken my monism.  Pressed on that point I would take the
> position that there are only relations among experiences, at which point
> perhaps Glen will ask me about the FIRST experience, and I will trot out my
> usual contempt for twisting our knickers about “first cases”.  I really
> REALLY don’t give a damn about when the first object was conscious of
> another object.  I won’t worry about that first case until we have worked
> out all the subsequent cases.  After all, given that there was, *ex
> hypothesi*, only one first case, why should I give a damn?  Why are
> extreme cases *iconic?*
>
>
>
> One of the dimensions along which experiences differ is in the degree to
> which they prove out in future experience.  If what you saw really as a
> unicorn, then it should be possible to go to the equine biology section of
> your local library and read up on them.  They might, perhaps, be very rare,
> like Nessie or the Ivory Billed Woodpecker, but there are ways of working
> these disagreements out, and we monists assert only that what we MEAN by
> saying that unicorns, Loch Ness Monsters, and Ivory Billed Woodpeckers are
> real, is that, in the fullness of time, the community of inquiry, those who
> care about the matter, will agree that they exist.  And if the bulk of
> contemporaneous evidence suggests that they DON’T exist, then I will
> cheerfully deny you your experience of a unicorn *in the limited sense
> that I confidently deny that what you saw actually was a unicorn.  *
>
>
>
> But can I also deny you your report that you SAW a unicorn.  Well,
> perhaps.  This is trickier.  What are the practicial consequences of saying
> that you have seen a unicorn?  Setting aside the non existence of unicorns,
> how could the community of inquiry come to a conclusion about whether you
> had, in fact, hallucinated one.  Is that solely between you and your
> “mind”?  Or do we have standing to deny even that you hallucinated one?   I
> think the answer is absolutely “Yes”.  Imagine that you’re the jury in a
> traffic accident case in which the accused driver claims to have swerved to
> avoid a unicorn.  Now, everybody in the courtroom has stipulated (ex
> hypothesi) that unicorns do not exist, so the only question before the
> court is whether I genuinely hallucinated one, or if I am claiming the
> hallucination in order to get a light sentence.  You can imagine the list
> of questions that the district attorney might ask me.  Am I in the habit of
> seeing mythical animals.  Interviewed at the scene, did I describe in
> detail (and with amazement) the animal? Did it run away, or did I try to
> approach it?  In short, did I do any or all of the things that an ordinary
> person might do if he encountered a large white horse, with silver hooves,
> and a golden horn, ridden by  a fair-haired damsel on a dark road in the
> middle of the night – other than swerve into my neighbors orchid
> conservatory?   If not, the community of inquiry would conclude that not
> only was a unicorn not what I say, but I was lying when I said I saw a
> unicorn.
>
>
>
> Can I also deny your feeling of joy and peace at the sight of your
> unicorn?  Well, maybe.  What are the practicial consequence of being in a
> state of joy and peace?  Etc.
>
>
>
> All the best,
>
>
>
> NIck
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Prof David West
> *Sent:* Monday, March 9, 2020 8:17 AM
> *To:* friam at redfish.com
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous
> conversation
>
>
>
> But Nick,
>
>
>
> I don't understand your unwillingness to acknowledge my experience(s).
>
>
>
> When I return from Amsterdam and provide you with a detailed trip report
> detailing all things bicycle (rules of the road, rider attitudes, bicycle
> culture, multi-level bicycle garages, exotic bikes, electro-bikes, utility
> bikes, bikes with bins on the front for small children and groceries, "deep
> inner peace" from riding many kilometers, feelings of being one with Nature
> in a way impossible inside a car, enhanced perception of body language
> nuances [essential for safety reasons] ... ) will you discount those
> stories the same way you discount a "Trip" report?
>
>
>
> Or, suppose I attend my next FriAM while under the influence; do you
> believe I will be less cogent and more stupid than I normally appear?
>
>
>
> How about an experiment where I play a poker tournament while under the
> influence of mescaline and another "sober." Want to bet in which one I will
> do better? If mescaline increases sensitivity and reduces the 'importance"
> of time, then its influence would increase my ability to detect "tells" and
> eliminate the, sometimes, crushing boredom I normally experience.
>
>
>
> When I post all kinds of notes (glen asked for some) and reports of
> findings from the ICPR conference showing both "no harm" and "measurable
> benefits" from hallucinogen use — will that be "evidence" or still, in some
> fashion, "faith?"
>
>
>
> Two caveats:
>
>
>
> 1) individual experience may vary. My brother, for instance, cannot stand,
> cannot deal with, any sense of lacking "control" whether that is induced by
> alcohol, or the one time he tried drugs;
>
>
>
> and, 2) it is quite possible that some drugs, like large doses of DMT, are
> pretty much sledgehammers. The experience is so pronounced — very much like
> being in a different Reality andnot  just an altered state of consciousness
> — that it may very well be a case of scrambled circuits. I am certain that
> "glue sniffing," for example, and similar means of "getting high" are
> exactly what you fear — John Henry size sledgehammers.  There is all kinds
> of physiological evidence of the harm.
>
>
>
> Time is something we all experience. Mescaline-Time-Experience is very
> different than Straight-Time-Experience. Is there value in
> comparing/contrasting/discussing those differences in order to enhance our
> common understanding of Time? I don't think it possible to truly understand
> Time if the only experience we allow into the discussion is either
> Straight-Time-Experience or Mescaline-Time-Experience.
>
>
>
> Mayhap your fear is "irrational" and my "faith" is rational?
>
>
>
> davew
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 8, 2020, at 5:41 PM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:
>
> But Dave, I don’t understand your *faith* that drugs are a Tao-ist
> butcher, rather than a sledgehammer.   Do you stipulate that feelings of
> well-being, wisdom, insight, etc. can be neurologically divorced from the
> facts thereof?  So, the presence of such feelings does not constitute
> sufficient evidence of the facts, right?  Now remember, I have stipulated
> to the value of the sledgehammer, and admitted that the position I am
> taking in this argument arises from in part an from a fear of having my
> brain sledged.  So “potential benefits of sledgehammering” are irrelevant
> to our PRESENT argument, unless, of course we want this whole vast,
> tortured, philosophical argument to boil down to the fact that you like
> being sledge-hammered and I don’t.  Apart from the fact that you LIKE
> taking drugs, what is the EVIDENCE that it constitutes a *method* of
> gathering knowledge less chaotic than electro-shock therapy.  How does
> sledging your clock with drugs *systematically* reveal something about *time?
> * Or are you ready to try ECT?
>
>
>
> I apologize for all the typos in my previous messages.  My macular pucker
> makes it hard sometimes to see the words as they are, but Bill Gates does
> not have macular pucker, so there is really no excuse.
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Prof David West
>
> *Sent:* Sunday, March 8, 2020 3:10 AM
>
> *To:* friam at redfish.com
>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous
> conversation
>
>
>
> Ignore the software thing — an example of cross-talk between two unrelated
> conversations that happens because so much of my neural network is still
> twisted-pair copper instead of LSD-Fiber.
>
>
>
> I clearly missed your sledgehammer metaphor. I think, however, it might
> reveal a fundamental difference in perspective. You seem to see the taking
> of a drug (and drugs are not the only or even the most important means
> available) as destructive of an orderly experience processor (an
> experience-randomizer); and I see such taking as "oiling the machinery to
> make it run more efficiently."
>
>
>
> But the key metaphor — one you admit is different in kind — from the
> others, is the Taoist butcher and you are correct that I am suggesting
> drugs (other means available) augment perception/awareness in very roughly
> a manner akin to the way that telescopes and microscopes augment our
> perception/awareness capabilities.
>
>
>
> The self-referential feedback loop you allude to is very real. But it
> takes us, not to Castenada-land, but to Buddha-land or to Wheeler(et.al.
> combining information and quantum theories)-land where the Universe is
> Experiencing Itself as experiencing itself (faith); or the Universe
> Computing Itself computing (supposedly, science).
>
>
>
> What you see as paradox, I see as confirmation. A metaphor that provides a
> perspective that facilitates bringing together fibers from multiple sources
> and finding the consistencies among them, so as to create threads, from
> which my tapestry.
>
>
>
> davew
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 7, 2020, at 6:35 PM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:
>
> Ok, so we need to get our metaphor’s straight, here.
>
>
>
> The sledge hammer is meant to be an experience-randomizer.  To the extent
> that sledge hammers do predictable things to clocks, it fails for me as a
> metaphor.  Once my Sledge Hammer has struck my clock, there should be no
> relation between the positions of the pieces of the clock before the blow
> and after.  But even granting its limitations, I don’t think my Sledge
> Hammer is an appropriate metaphor for your complaint about ordinary
> software.  I think you are talking about a bull-dozer.  Like a Sledge
> Hammer, a Bulldozer does not care for the structure of whatever it
> encounters; but unlike my Sledge Hammer, it imposes a highly predictable
> order of its own. Neither the Sledge Hammer nor the Bulldozer are like the
> Taoist Butcher, who clearly cares for .the structure of what he cuts.
>
>
>
> So, what we are arguing about can be construed as an argument about which
> metaphor is most aptly applied to taking drugs.  I am arguing for the
> Sledge Hammer.  Sledge Hammers have their uses.  I have always imagined
> that electroshock therapy is a kind of sledge hammer, although perhaps it
> is more like a bulldozer, returning the brain to factory settings.
> Bulldozers are very useful in that they create a structure on which other
> things can easily be built.  You might be arguing that drug-taking is a
> bull dozer.  Or you might be arguing that drug-taking is more like the
> Taoist butcher, in that it reveals the structure of what is already there.
> It is like a microscopist’s stain.  But to make that metaphor work, you
> have to grant to the drug, or to the person who administers it, the wisdom
> and experience of the butcher who has become so familiar with meat that he
> can, without thinking about it, see where the meat isn’t.   Now you are in
> Castenada territory, the territory of *faith*.
>
>
>
> Thanks, as always, Dave, for your generosity of spirit.  By the way, some
> keen-eyed observer may detect something seriously awry in my metaphorical
> proceeding above.  Presumably we both agree that the brain is a device that
> tells us something about something else, not about itself.  Dubious as I am
> that a sledge hammer can tell us anything about the structure of clocks, I
> am even MORE dubious that it can tell us anything about the structure of *time.
> *The Taoist Butcher metaphor seems to work in a different way.  To make
> it consistent, we would have to have the Taoist Butcher dissect HIMSELF in
> order to discover the structure of meat.
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nicholas Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>
> Clark University
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Prof David West
>
> *Sent:* Saturday, March 7, 2020 3:37 AM
>
> *To:* friam at redfish.com
>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous
> conversation
>
>
>
> Oooh fun ...
>
>
>
> *I also stipulate that hitting an alarm clock with a sledge hammer MIGHT
> reveal robust and enduring information about alarm clocks.*
>
>
>
> Let me twist this example a bit to make what I think might be a valid way
> to assert a "benefit" of drug-epistemology over sledge-hammer.
>
>
>
> I must start a bit afield with a quote from Plato and a Taoist koan:
>
>
>
> [First,] perceiving and bringing together under one Idea the scattered
> particulars, so that one makes clear the thing which he wishes to do...
> [Second,] the separation of the Idea into classes, by dividing it where the
> natural joints are, and not trying to break any part, after the manner of
> as a bad carver... I love these processes of division and bringing
> together, and if I think any other man is able to see things that can
> naturally be collected into one and divided into many, him I will follow as
> if he were as a god.
>
> - Plato
>
>
>
> "A Taoist butcher used but one knife his entire career without the need to
> sharpen it. At his retirement party the Emperor asked him about this
> extraordinary feat, The butcher stated, "Oh, I simply cut where the meat
> wasn't."
>
>
>
> Now this leads to a problem of decomposition - breaking up a large and
> complex problem into tractable sub-problems. Software engineering uses a
> sledgehammer epistemology of data structures and algorithms to accomplish
> this decomposition with results that are horrific. In contrast, a "vision"
> induced, daydreaming about biological cells and cellular organisms led to
> the insight that cells are differentiated from each other by what they do,
> not what they are. So software modularity might be based on behavior. Far
> superior results in myriad ways.
>
>
>
> If we take C.D.Broad and Huxley seriously, mescaline reveals "more of
> reality" than typically available to our conscious minds. I would assert
> and be willing to defend that at least that sort of drug-epistemology could
> enhance our ability to actually see "where the meat wasn't" and therefore
> enhance our ability to decompose large complicated systems (maybe even
> complex systems) in tractable sub-problems.
>
>
>
> * * * * * * *
>
>
>
> My vision was not based on a stain, nor was it of cells dividing - it was
> an inter-cellular dissolving and recombining of inter-cellular elements,
> proteins etc., into other inter-cellular elements such that when the cell
> did eventually divide its internals were radically different. What I "saw"
> would more likely inform a genetic engineer than someone investigating cell
> division stuff.
>
>
>
> * * * * * *
>
>
>
> Sorry for making you ill, but it is your interpretation that is at fault.
>
>
>
> You might remember the early days of Cinerama movies. They would start the
> movie showing a scene, like flying through the Grand canyon, then suddenly
> expand the displayed rectangle, the size of a traditional movie screen,
> into the full height and width of the Cinerama screen.
>
>
>
> It was still just a movie, but the experience of the movie was enhanced?
> with sensations of vertigo, movement, detail, etc.
>
>
>
> What Broad and Huxley suggest is that experience is "filtered" by the
> organism and that filtering reduces experience to the dimensions of a
> pre-Cinerama movie. Huxley then asserts that mescaline turns experience
> into Experience.
>
>
>
> We are all experience monists here, but some of us are making the claim
> that there can be, at minimum, quantitative differences among experiences
> (something akin to the increase in pixel density and 8 versus 64 bit
> representation of the color of each pixel) and, at least the possibility of
> qualitative differences, e.g. the vertigo of Cinerama.
>
>
>
> And, those differences are attainable via various means. Not just drugs.
>
>
>
> So my assertion of "Apollonian-er than thou" is a claim that I experience
> "life" in "Cinerama" and you in "cinema multiplex standard screen."
>
>
>
> davew
>
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 7, 2020, at 5:53 AM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:
>
> See Larding below.
>
>
>
> By the way:  my mail interface is taken to tucking some of my mail into a
> folder called "important" where, of course, I cannot see it.  So, if I
> appear to go missing, don't hesitate to write me an unimportant message
> telling me that there are important ones awaiting me.
>
>
>
> Of course I have  n o   I d e a  what distinguishes an important message
> from an unimportant one.
>
>
>
> As I said, see below:  Oh, and dave, what I wrote below is TESTY.  I don’t
> realty feel testy,  I don’t really feel qualified to be testy.  I think the
> rhetoric just got away with me.  It has happened before and you have
> promised it doesn’t’ bother you, so I am counting on your grace-under-fire
> again.
>
>
>
> Your friend ,
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> 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: Friday, March 6, 2020 2:00 AM
>
> To: friam at redfish.com
>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation
>
>
>
> 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?
>
> *[NST===>] I love this example.  Every stain produces a new image and some
> stains are more revealing than others, in that the models they facilitate
> are more robust and enduring in their predictions.  I stipulate that.  I
> also stipulate that hitting an alarm clock with a sledge hammer MIGHT
> reveal robust and enduring information about alarm clocks.  I just don’t
> think it’s likely.  And there is the possibility that the clock wont be
> very accurate thereafter.  That is the whole of my argument against drug
> -epistemology.  So if you are NOT arguing that drug-epistemology is somehow
> superior to sledge-hammer epistemology, then we agree and we don’t have to
> argue any more. *
>
>
>
> 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?
>
> *[NST===>] I like the metaphor with stains.  But just remember, if my
> memory serves me correctly, you don’t see jack shit when cells divide
> without the right stain.  All such observations are of the Peircean type/;
> “If I do this, then I will get that.” *
>
>
>
> 2) En garde Nick.
>
> *[NST===>] je me garde*
>
>
>
> 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.
>
> *[NST===>] Dave, even without my characteristic ill ease with dispositions
> (like gravity, for instance), this last sentence gives me the heebs.  And
> the Heaves.  It is either a definition of memory (=all that I experience as
> past at a moment) or it is non-sense.  Or some kind of balmy article of
> faith. *
>
>
>
> But in so far as we are animals, our business is at all costs to survive.
>
> *[NST===>] No.  No animal has ever survived.  No animal has ever tried to
> survive. No species has ever tried to survive.  This is all foolishness
> pressed on us by Spencer.  Even Darwin was leery of it.  (and no I cannot
> cite text)*
>
> 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."
>
> *[NST===>] I suppose one can make sense of this sort of talk by
> postulating a world outside of experience, but unless you postulate that
> this world beyond experience can in principle never affect experience, you
> end up with a contradiction because anything that effects experience in any
> way, however indirect,  is, by definition, experienced. *
>
>
>
> 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.
>
> *[NST===>] Well of course.  Cleaning glasses is a method that increases
> the predictive potential of your current visual experiences.  If your
> argument is only that there are experiences I have not had which will
> surprise me if I have them, I agree, so we don’t have to argue about that
> any more, right?*
>
> 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.
>
> *[NST===>] The innate school marm gives us little jolts of pleasure from
> time to time, usually in response to activities that please her.  One of
> those jolts is a “sense of clarity.”  If you break into her storeroom and
> steal her clarity candies, you will get the clarity-pleasure even while
> seeing muddily. *
>
>
>
> *Now I grant you it’s possible you will see something more clearly.  See
> above the sledgehammered clock argument.*
>
>
>
> 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.*[NST===>]Well, that remains to be
> seen, right.  It might be that the dust filters the light in such a way as
> to reveal structures that you cannot see through the cleaned glass.  The
> proof is in the pudding … i.e., the proving out.   *
>
>
>
> 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.
>
> *[NST===>] Similarly, let it be the case that I had a dozen clocks and you
> told me you had hit them all with a sledge hammer;  now, if you told me you
> had lied, and gave me back the 12th clock in perfect working order, I would
> value it a lot more for having thought I had lost it. *
>
>
>
> 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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>
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>
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>
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>
> >
>
>
>
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