<div dir="ltr">While Dear Professor Thomspon has, over the years, become good at understand the experience monist position, I feel he has yet to become great at it, and so I feel the urge to put on my William James Hat, and give more forceful answers to some of the queries the Ever-Enthusiastic Professor West has asked. William James's "Radical Empiricism" is, I believe, the quintessential experience monism, so channeling him is a good way to try to respond, even though I know I cannot be as eloquent as he was. I ask that these replies be read not as contradicting anything our generously eye-browed colleague offered, but rather be read as supplementing and extending upon the beginning he provided. <br clear="all"><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><div dir="ltr" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34)"><br></span></div></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div><div><div><div><div style="font-family:Arial"><font color="#0000ff">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?</font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><font face="Arial"><div><font face="Arial"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial">This is putting the cart before the horse. Is it not the case that, as you move through the world you experience things <i>as </i>whole, and experience other things <i>as</i> composite? Sometimes you may even experience something <i>as </i>being The Same Thing, despite experiencing it as whole one minute, and as composite the next minute. Each of these experiences is what it is, and we must at all costs resist the urge to deny that. It is tempting, for example, after one has learned to draw a chair - after having been taught to "see" the chair as a collection of shapes and colors, projected at particular angles - to retrospectively pretend that new way we have learned to experience the chair is how the chair must have come to us in the first instance. But the initial experience was what <i>it </i>was, and the later experience is what <i>it is</i>, and while the retrospective experience gets to be acknowledged for what <i>it</i> is (in its own turn), we must always keep in mind that the retrospective experience is not the original experience. There is no refuge to be found in <i>a priori</i> assertions that wholes-must-be-parts, that parts-must-be-wholes, or any other metaphysical claims. There is only an examination of the experiences - actual experiences - to determine what those particular experiences are or are not. </font></div><br></font><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div><div><div><div><div style="font-family:Arial"><font color="#0000ff"> 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?</font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><font face="Arial"><font color="#000000">This is an odd assertion. <i>SOME</i> experiences are composites, and they are composed of exactly the components present. It may be the case that </font></font>
<span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial">(</span><i style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial">in future experiences</i><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial">)</span> <font face="Arial"><font color="#000000">each person can break their experiences down up to some limit. But there is no reason <i>a priori</i> to assume that each person's limit will be the same, or that whatever residue one person is left with will match the residue another is left with (one person, for example, coming at the task with a background in traditions of western analytic philosophy, and another coming at the task with a background in monastic buddhist traditions, or a third having studied for decades under the tutelage of Timothy Leary). Given around 200 years of people in Psychology attempting, under various research conditions, to forge out agreement amongst themselves about the smallest elements introspectively identifiable in experience, it seems reasonable to conclude - at least tentatively - that no such "atomic" components exist in the sense implied. </font><br></font><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div style="font-family:Arial"><font color="#0000ff"><br></font></div></div></div><div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div><div><div><div><div style="font-family:Arial"><font color="#0000ff">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?</font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><font face="Arial"><font color="#000000">Of course experiences have durations! One may experience a slap on the back, or a song on the radio, or the slow decay of western civilization under the assault of whichever political group they happen to distrust. All of those experiences have a duration, but they all have quite different durations. </font></font><div><font face="Arial"><font color="#000000"><br></font></font></div><div><font face="Arial"><font color="#000000">I am not sure, however, what the reference to the film is. The closest I can come, myself, to making sense of it, suggests the thinking is once again backwards. There is wonderful research in the field of "psychophysics" showing that continuity vs impulse are experienced in different ways in different senses, and even in many different ways within a single "sense" depending on the circumstances. For example, if you make a device tap someone fast enough, it will eventually be experienced as a solid (i.e., non-tapping) touch. But the frequency at which this happens will depend on the part of the body being tapped (the upper back, for example, requiring a lower frequency for the transition than, say, the inside of the forearm). This is similar to what is seen with the "flicker fusion" frequency for movies, which can vary depending on the part of the eye being stimulated. But note that we view such experiments <i>without </i>the arrogatation common among the hard sciences and followers of scientism - where dualism is still commonplace - that any part of those experiments involves escaping experience itself. We are talking about the relationship between two experiences - the experience of the thumper <i>as</i> vibrating is contrasted with the experience of the thumper <i>as</i> providing solid touch, and there is no need to declared one of those experiences "correct" and the other "mistaken." </font></font></div><div><font face="Arial"><font color="#000000"><br></font></font></div><div><font face="Arial"><font color="#000000">When someone new to the discoveries of physics declares that all solidity and stillness are <i><u>illusions</u></i>, and that all "objects" are <i style="text-decoration-line:underline">really</i> mostly-empty-space that is constantly vibrating, they are missing the much more fundamental fact that the experience of solidity and the experience of stillness were exactly what they were, and continues to be what they are, perfectly validly in their own right, with no regard to the new information they have learned. A person rapping a well-constructed table with their knuckles and talking about how solidly it is build and how it doesn't rock, even with a strong push, is <i>not</i> mistaken<i> </i>about anything <i>they </i>are talking about, or at least, are not mistaken due to the equally true fact that other empirical efforts have concluded that atoms spaced out and constantly moving. </font></font><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div style="font-family:Arial"><font color="#0000ff"><br></font></div></div></div><div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div><div><div><div><div style="font-family:Arial"><font color="#0000ff">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?</font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div><div><div><div><div style="font-family:Arial"><font color="#0000ff"><br></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><font face="Arial"><font color="#000000">Things are experienced as potential all the time! Though some people report such experiences being quite rare, and strained, others report such experiences as common and effortless. To learn to play chess, or go, for example, is to learn to experience the potential position of the board, should you or your opponent move in particular ways.</font></font></div><div><font face="Arial"><font color="#000000"><br></font></font></div><div><font face="Arial"><font color="#000000">I cannot speak to the photograph-stutter-button question though. Do <i>you</i> experience things in that fashion? <br></font></font><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div style="font-family:Arial"><font color="#0000ff"><br></font></div></div></div><div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div><div><div><div><div style="font-family:Arial"><font color="#0000ff">4) Can <b>Experiences</b> be categorized? To borrow vocabulary (somewhat tortured( from Peter Sjostedt-Hughes' pentad of perception;</font></div></div></div></div></div><div style="font-family:Arial"><font color="#0000ff"><br></font></div></div></div></blockquote><font face="Arial"><font color="#000000">Of course experiences <i>can</i> be categorized, we engage in that activity all the time! Such judgments are <i>post hoc</i> to the experience that is being categorized, but that doesn't make it any less the case that once categorization has happened then it <i>has</i> happened. </font><br></font><div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div><div><div><div><ul><ul><li style="margin-left:15px;font-family:Arial"><font color="#0000ff"><b>Experience</b> grounded in/originating from the spatio-temporal environment (Sensed Experience)</font></li><li style="margin-left:15px;font-family:Arial"><font color="#0000ff"><b>Experience</b> of an atemporal quality, e.g., color or scent (Perceived Experience)</font></li><li style="margin-left:15px;font-family:Arial"><font color="#0000ff">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)</font></li><li style="margin-left:15px;font-family:Arial"><font color="#0000ff">An <b>Experience</b> that is partly caused by an internal physicality—e.g., synapses firing in the brain (Endo-Physical Experience)</font></li><li style="margin-left:15px;font-family:Arial"><font color="#0000ff"><b>Experiences</b> not grounded in/originating from the spatio-temporal environment, e.g., imaginations (Demeteption Experience)</font></li><li style="margin-left:15px;font-family:Arial"><font color="#0000ff">A sixth, of my own, a variation of Endo-Physical, where the internal physicality is "disrupted," e.g., by taking a drug.</font></li></ul></ul><div><font face="Arial" color="#000000">Are you asking if one can learn to categorize experience using these particular categories? If so, the answer is that most people could certainly learn to categorize their experience in this way, with various degrees of skill, and various degrees of satisfaction at the result. </font></div></div></div></div></div><div><font color="#0000ff" face="Arial"><br></font></div></div></div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div><div><div><div><div style="font-family:Arial"><font color="#0000ff">5) Does <b>Experience</b> 'exist' apart from an experiencer?</font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><font face="Arial"><div><font face="Arial"><br></font></div>Some experiences seem intimately connected to an experiencer. That is to say, the <i>experiencer</i> is part and parcel to the experience itself. Other experiences do not seem to have the experiencer as a part of them. I am assume that you ask this question because both kinds of experience are familiar to you.... but if you are familiar with the existence of both, then why do you ask? </font></div><div><font face="Arial"><br></font><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div><div><div><div><div style="font-family:Arial"><font color="#0000ff"> 5A) if not, how can we have "common experiences"</font></div></div></div></div></div><div style="font-family:Arial"><font color="#0000ff"><br></font></div></div></div></blockquote><font face="Arial"><font color="#000000">We have common experiences in exactly and completely, all the ways that we have common experiences. There is no mystical answer to the question, no metaphysical substructure to be uncovered. There is only a wide variety of common experiences that actually happen, in the ways that they actually happen. </font><br></font><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div style="font-family:Arial"><font color="#0000ff"><br></font></div></div></div><div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div><div><div><div><div style="font-family:Arial"><font color="#0000ff"> 5B) if yes, do we not have a faux monism, with two metaphysical things: experience and experiencer?</font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div><div><div><div><div style="font-family:Arial"><font color="#0000ff"><br></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><font face="Arial"><font color="#000000">The distinction you are trying to get at either arises <i>in</i> experience, or we are - to paraphrase Wittgenstein - spouting uninformed speculation about something it would be impossible to ever talk about coherently. It is the case that much of experience <i>as</i> being from a particular point of view. It is the case that much of experience includes ourselves <i>as </i>experiencing beings. It is the case that much of experience includes other beings <i>as</i> experiencing something themselves. It is only because those are familiar and common aspects of experiences, that these types of questions would even occur to us. Let's not forget the actual order of things, because putting the cart before the horse rarely gets you very far down the road. </font><br></font><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div style="font-family:Arial"><font color="#0000ff"><br></font></div></div></div><div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div><div><div><div><div style="font-family:Arial"><font color="#0000ff">6) Do <b>Experiences</b> persist? Perhaps as memories?</font></div></div></div></div></div><div style="font-family:Arial"><font color="#0000ff"><br></font></div></div></div></blockquote><font color="#000000" face="Arial">I hope this is not starting to sound repetitive, but it is true that we often experience things <i>as </i>memories. I suppose you are asking whether, for example, sitting on a couch and imagining the site of a childhood toy is "a persistence of the original experience of the toy" vice "a new experience that is a memory of the toy". I can tell you that when I engage in that activities now, I experience the childhood toy in the latter fashion. However, that doesn't mean that is the only way to experience the childhood toy, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that others experienced the toy more as a persistence of some sort. <br></font><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div style="font-family:Arial"><font color="#0000ff"><br></font></div></div></div><div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div><div><div><div><div style="font-family:Arial"><font color="#0000ff"> 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.</font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><div dir="ltr" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div></div></div><div dir="ltr"><a href="mailto:echarles@american.edu" target="_blank"></a></div></div></div></div></div></div>The difference is only and exactly whatever it is. The urge to search for some <i>a priori</i> schema by which such questions can be answered, to find some architectonic philosophy that will hold up the ground beneath our feet, is understandable! Having myself been raised (intellectually) within the continental traditions of dualism and stretching desperately for infallible assertions, I am quite sympathetic to such urges, and still sometimes feel pulled in that direction. Alas, that option is not available to the experience monist. We might even expect to find quite different answer to be common in different societies or at different ages. If those are our findings, we might want to adjust our language to talk about the distinction in a more nuanced manner. Whatever happens, we can only find the answers "out there" in the experiences themselves --- the particular experiences that are relevant to the questions being asked, wherever they be found. </div><div><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, Feb 8, 2023 at 10:51 PM Nicholas Thompson <<a href="mailto:thompnickson2@gmail.com" target="_blank">thompnickson2@gmail.com</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 dir="ltr">
<table cellspacing="3" cellpadding="0" border="0">
<tbody><tr>
<td style="padding:0in">
<table cellspacing="3" cellpadding="0" border="0">
<tbody><tr>
<td style="padding:0in">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span>to </span><span>friam</span><span> </span><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%"><span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span><img width="1" height="1"></span><span></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Dear David and other helpful persons, <span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Thanks again for your help here.<span> </span>Man! Do I look forward to your definitive
work on experience!<span> </span>All this
cogitation is exhausting me.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Your comment that I might dismiss your questions has an
edge that I didn’t see when you first made it.<span> </span>There is, perhaps, a sense in which I<b><i>
should</i></b> dismiss them.<span> </span><span> </span>The questions you ask have the feel of
metaphysics.<span> </span>You know, How many angels
can dance on the head of a pin?<span>
</span>Pragmatists try to dissolve metaphysical questions either into
non-questions or empirical questions. “After all, if the answer to the
question isn’t to find some angels and measure their feet, then what <b><i>are</i></b>
we talking about, eh?”<span> </span>Perhaps we might
devote our time to a more productive discussion?<span> </span>Notice that the whole notion of a
“productive” discussion itself reeks of pragmatism with its convergentist
aspirations.<span> </span><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">The only thing that can be positively asserted about
metaphysics – by which I mean that vast spongy fetid cloud of supposition that
surrounds and infects everything we explicitly believe -- is that it is
inevitable.<span> </span>Thus, though debating
metaphysics is useless, failing to own up to it is dishonest.<span> </span>Metaphysics is not something we propose;
it’s something we confess to. <span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">So, I feel obligated to go on and answer these questions,
even though their answers may indeed be unrelated to the proper thrust of “experience
monism”.<span> </span>Whatever metaphysics might be
offered to support my experience monism, <span> </span>it’s value will always be in its capacity to
root important concepts such as truth and reality, not in relations between
our experiences and some notional world-beyond-experience, but in relations
among experiences, themselves.<span> </span><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="padding:0in">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span><span> </span></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">The eloquence and perspicacity of Professor Thompson has convinced me to
become an Experience monist. In my naive sophomoric enthusiasm, I have set
about writing THE definitive work on Experience. But I have a few questions:</span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Comic Sans MS""><span></span></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS""><span> </span></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS""> 1A) If an Experience is is a composite- there must be
'atomic' Experience from which it is composed. Is it possible
to Experience and "atomic Experience" in isolation?<span></span></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt 0.25in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Any whole with different
properties can be analyzed into parts.<span>
</span>If your first experience of<span> </span>apple
pie your gramma took from her oven and sliced, then all of that is apple pie in
the first instance. As cinnamon is experienced in other contexts and apple pie
is eaten in other contexts, the experience of apple pie can be analyzed into
parts, meaning that one can begin to experience cinnamon as something apart
from the experience of apple pie. The analysis of any experience into component
experiences is as much a cognitive achievement as its unification.<span> </span><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS""><span> </span></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">2) Does an Experience have duration, or is each Experience akin to
a frame of a film and continuity simply an artifact of being presented at some
rate; e.g., 30 frames per nanosecond?<span></span></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt 0.25in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">I like, for the moment, to think
of experiences as successive lightning-like illuminations of a landscape of
associations.<span> </span>I would call these
associations “signs” if my grasp of semeiotics were not so protean. <span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt 0.25in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">You did not quite ask me, but I
must answer the question of time, or order of experiences.<span> </span>Peirce at one offers the quasi-neural notion
of the fading of nodes in the network of associations since each was last
illuminated.<span> </span>So parts of this landscape
of associations gets harder to illuminate as they are illuminated less
often.<span> </span><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt 0.25in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">But these questions seem like
candidates for empirical investigation using tachistiscopes, and that sort of
thing. <span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">3) Can Experiences 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?<span></span></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Potentiality and actuality are themselves cognitive
achievements and experiences in their own right.<b><i><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS""><span></span></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">4) Can Experiences be categorized? To borrow vocabulary (somewhat
tortured( from Peter Sjostedt-Hughes' pentad of perception;<span></span></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt 0.25in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Peters’s pentad doesn’t make a
whole lot of sense to me, laced as it is with apriorist dualist appeals to
physiology and an external world.<span> </span>I
think a disrupted experience is one that doesn’t fit well with existing
networks of association.<span> </span><b><i><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS""><span></span></span></i></b></p>
<ul style="margin-bottom:0in" type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">Experience
grounded in/originating from the spatio-temporal environment (Sensed
Experience)<span></span></span></i></b></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">Experience
of an atemporal quality, e.g., color or scent (Perceived Experience)<span></span></span></i></b></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">An
Experience partly caused by an external physicality—e.g., motion of
molecules partly causative of the Experience of heat (Ecto-Physical
Experience)<span></span></span></i></b></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">An Experience
that is partly caused by an internal physicality—e.g., synapses firing in
the brain (Endo-Physical Experience)<span></span></span></i></b></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">Experiences
not grounded in/originating from the spatio-temporal environment, e.g.,
imaginations (Demeteption Experience)<span></span></span></i></b></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 8pt;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">A sixth, of
my own, a variation of Endo-Physical, where the internal physicality is
"disrupted," e.g., by taking a drug.<span></span></span></i></b></li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">5) Does Experience 'exist' apart
from an experiencer?<span></span></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS""> </span></i></b><span>Sure, as mediated from speaker to speaker via signs.<span> </span>One experienced hunter says to another
experienced hunter, “I saw a deer down by the crick this afternoon” the second
hunter, unless he doesn’t speak the language, has a deer-by-crick experience.<span> </span>The second of those two people receives that
experience with a “George-told-me-that” qualifier attached to it. <span> </span>If you are raising the question, can there
ever be “generals,” I agree that that’s a heluva difficult question.<span> </span>But I think we monists have to answer the
question in the following way:<span> </span>As speakers
of a language we aspire, whenever we use a noun in a conversation with another speaker
of our language, to use that noun in the same way.<span> </span>We aspire to a time when the overlap of
associations that occur whenever the word is used will be 100 percent.<span> </span>Because of that aspiration, the asyntote of
usage is that 100 percent overlap, in the same way that the asyntote of inquiry
is the truth. <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS""><span> </span><span></span></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">5A) if not, how can we have "common experiences"<span></span></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS""> 5B) if yes, do we not have a faux monism, with two
metaphysical things: experience and experiencer?<span></span></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS""><span> </span></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">6) Do Experiences persist? Perhaps as memories?<span></span></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS""> 6A) If yes, what exactly is the difference between an
Experience-in-"memory" and one "being experienced?" Analogy
to a computer program executing and the same program stored on disk.<span></span></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span>I hope I answered
these questions above.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS""><span> </span></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">I would have asked Professor Thompson these questions, but I fear he
would have dismissed them as "tending not to edification."<span></span></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span>I feel thoroughly
edified.<span> </span></span><span style="font-family:"Comic Sans MS""><span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><i><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"">davew<span></span></span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Thanks, Dave.
Nick<span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span> </span></span></p>
</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" target="_blank">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><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>
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv<br>
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom <a href="https://bit.ly/virtualfriam" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://bit.ly/virtualfriam</a><br>
to (un)subscribe <a href="http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</a><br>
FRIAM-COMIC <a href="http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/</a><br>
archives: 5/2017 thru present <a href="https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/</a><br>
1/2003 thru 6/2021 <a href="http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/</a><br>
</div></blockquote></div>
-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .<br>
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv<br>
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom <a href="https://bit.ly/virtualfriam" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://bit.ly/virtualfriam</a><br>
to (un)subscribe <a href="http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</a><br>
FRIAM-COMIC <a href="http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/</a><br>
archives: 5/2017 thru present <a href="https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/</a><br>
1/2003 thru 6/2021 <a href="http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/</a><br>
</blockquote></div>