<div dir="ltr"><div>David, <br></div><div><br></div><div>Thank you David for helping me think. I don't know about anybody else, but your questions certainly tend to my edification. I am going to take them for coffee and try to answer them, if only for my self.</div><div><br></div><div>You are VERY, VERY kind. <br></div><div><br></div><div>NIck <br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Feb 4, 2023 at 8:46 AM Prof David West <<a href="mailto:profwest@fastmail.fm">profwest@fastmail.fm</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div class="msg-7045858339599632403"><u></u><div><div style="font-family:Arial">The eloquence and perspicacity of Professor Thompson has convinced me to become an <b>Experience</b> monist. In my naive sophomoric enthusiasm I have set about writing THE definitive work on <b>Experience</b>. But I have a few questions ...<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial">1) Is an <b>Experience</b> a whole or a composite? I.e., (scent of cinnamon)—(heat of oven)—(grandmother's smile) OR (scent of cinnamon) + (heat of oven) + (grandmothers smile)? Another analogy a single photograph or a Photoshopped collage?<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial"> 1A) If an <b>Experience</b> is is a composite- there must be 'atomic' <b>Experience</b> from which it is composed. Is it possible to <b>Experience</b> and "atomic <b>Experience</b>" in isolation?<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial">2) Does an <b>Experience</b> have duration, or is each <b>Experience</b> akin to a frame of a film and continuity simply an artifact of being presented at some rate; e.g., 30 frames per nanosecond?<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial">3) Can <b>Experiences</b> be differentiated as "potential" and "actual?" To illustrate: I turn on the camera on my phone and images pass through the lens and appear on the screen, but a photograph does not come into existence until I press the shutter button. Does something similar happen with experience? They are potential until I "press the conscious awareness button" at which point they become actual?<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial">4) Can <b>Experiences</b> be categorized? To borrow vocabulary (somewhat tortured( from Peter Sjostedt-Hughes' pentad of perception;<br></div><ul><li style="font-family:Arial"><b>Experience</b> grounded in/originating from the spatio-temporal environment (Sensed Experience)<br></li><li style="font-family:Arial"><b>Experience</b> of an atemporal quality, e.g., color or scent (Perceived Experience)<br></li><li style="font-family:Arial">An <b>Experience</b> partly caused by an external physicality—e.g., motion of molecules partly causative of the <b>Experience</b> of heat (Ecto-Physical Experience)<br></li><li style="font-family:Arial">An <b>Experience</b> that is partly caused by an internal physicality—e.g., synapses firing in the brain (Endo-Physical Experience)<br></li><li style="font-family:Arial"><b>Experiences</b> not grounded in/originating from the spatio-temporal environment, e.g., imaginations (Demeteption Experience)<br></li><li style="font-family:Arial">A sixth, of my own, a variation of Endo-Physical, where the internal physicality is "disrupted," e.g., by taking a drug.<br></li></ul><div style="font-family:Arial">5) Does <b>Experience</b> 'exist' apart from an experiencer?<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial"> 5A) if not, how can we have "common experiences"<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial"> 5B) if yes, do we not have a faux monism, with two metaphysical things: experience and experiencer?<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial">6) Do <b>Experiences</b> persist? Perhaps as memories?<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial"> 6A) If yes, what exactly is the difference between an <b>Experience</b>-in-"memory" and one "being experienced?" Analogy to a computer program executing and the same program stored on disk.<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial">I would have asked Professor Thompson these questions, but I fear he would have dismissed them as "tending not to edification."<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial">davew<br></div><div style="font-family:Arial"><br></div><div style="font-family:Arial"><br></div></div>-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .<br>
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