[FRIAM] [EXT] Re: A pluralistic model of the mind?

[Prof David West]

Last summer I spoke with God. The effects were profound and obvious to all. Many of the effects, measured with MRI and encephalographic devices, were quantifiable. I spoke of my experience, as best as I could, recognizing that whatever words I used told but part of the story. Other's experience of me changed as well - they uniformly and consistently experience me, not as the fun loving drunken whoring party guy, but only as the pious jackass that was the inevitable and most profound effect of my experience.

God is therefore real and extant?

But wait ...

I did not really speak with God. That word and all the other words, and the framing of the effects, piety replacing ribaldry, came after the fact, a post hoc rationalization/interpretation/articulation of "something." And, of course, the form of all those words and effects is but an artifact of the culture (and maybe the Jungian collective unconscious) within which I was raised.

There was "An Experience;" but even that label, those two words, is false-to-fact. What "Was" had no bounds, in time or space and, in fact continues (and predated) the implied bounded context inherent in the meaning of 'an experience'. There is an implied relation between the "Experience" and an ego, an "I:" 1) the "Experience" was apart from "I," 2) "I" was part of the "Experience," 3) "I" perceived/sensed the "Experience." None of these implied relations are accurate or complete, or even differentiable from each other.

There was a Real, Existing, Thing. "It" was effectual; in that patterns of brain waves and detectable activity in different parts of the brain before and after "It" are measurable and comparable. Behavior and experience — from the "inside" — was altered dramatically, in the sense of the "color," the filtering lens, the 'fit" of interpretations of individual experiences is dramatically altered. Experience — of others on the "outside" — is altered as well, although often not expressible beyond, "there's something different about you, can't put my finger on it, but ... "

Not only was the "Thing" effectual, it is, within statistical limits, possible to predict the nature and degree of the effects that ensue from "Thing-Occurrence." Moreover, it is possible to establish an "experimental context" whereby others can "experience" the "Thing" and thereby confirm the prediction of effects.

"Thing-Occurrence" ---> partially predictable, measurable (sometimes quantifiable) effects ---> "Thing is Real/Existing? 

Despite being, in every way ineffable — in that no words capture its totality and any words used, in any naturally occurring human language, are false-to-fact.

????

dave west


On Wed, Dec 11, 2019, at 6:10 AM, Eric Charles wrote:
> Ok.... I'm going to try to do a better take on the "ineffable" issue. I want to start by admitting that there is some sense in which ANYTHING I want to describe is never fully described by the words I use, in some reasonable use of the word "fully." If I see a turtle, and I tell you that I saw a turtle, I haven't provided you with a full description of exactly what the experience was like. So, I'm willing to admit that... but I'm not convinced there is anything deeper than that about Nick's inability to express his "feelings" to his granddaughter... and with that out of the way I will return to what I think is the broader issue.
> 
> Real / existing things have effects. That is what it is to be real / to exist. If someone wants to talk about something that exists but have no effects, they are wandering down an rabbit hole with no bottom, and might as well be talking about noiseless sounds or blue-less blue. 
> 
> The pragmatic maxim tells us: " Consider what effects... we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object." So anything we conceive of is, in some sense, a cluster of effects, and so everything "real" is _in principle_ conceivable. And to the extent anything can be expressed adequately - whether by words or any other means of expression - concepts can be expressed, and so anything real can be expressed.
> 
> However, i'm not sure the effability is really the important part. The bigger question was about epistemology and ontology. But the pragmatic maxim covers that as well. Things that have effects are _in principle_ we may presume there are many, many effects that we don't yet have the means to detect, but anything that has effects could, under some circumstances, be detectable. So the limits of what _is_ are the same as the limits of what can in principle be known. Postulation of things that are existing but which can't, under any circumstances, be known is internally contradictory. 
> 
> Was that a better reply? It felt more thorough at least...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----------
> Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
> Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist
> American University - Adjunct Instructor
> 
 <mailto:echarles at american.edu>
> 
> 
> On Tue, Dec 10, 2019 at 7:36 PM uǝlƃ ☣ <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I intend to respond to both Nick's and EricC's comments about "faith in convergence" at some point. But I've been caught up in other things. So, in the meantime, ...
>> 
>>  "Irony and Outrage," part 2: Why Colbert got serious — and why Donald Trump isn't funny
>> https://www.salon.com/2019/12/08/irony-and-outrage-part-2-why-colbert-got-serious-and-why-donald-trump-isnt-funny/
>> 
>>  There are 2 interesting tangents touching this thread:
>> 
>>  1) Re: ineffability -- "But also that the mere logic of the humorous juxtaposition eludes him — the notion that you do not issue the argument, you create a juxtaposition that invites the audience to issue an argument."
>> 
>>  I'll argue that the content of a (good) joke is *ineffable*. The whole purpose of the joke teller is to communicate something without actually *saying* it. If you explain a joke, it breaks the joke.
>> 
>>  And 2) Re: limits to epistemology limiting ontology -- "That, to me, is illustrative of that broader point I try to make about how when a threat is salient to you, it becomes hard to enter the state of play, ..."
>> 
>>  I *would* argue that pluralists will be more able to enter the "state of play" Goldthwaite describes (and I've described on this list a number of times as variations of "suspension of disbelief", "empathetic listening", and being willing to play games others set up) than monists. I think monists should TEND to be more committed to their way of thinking than pluralists ... more willing to believe their own or others' brain farts. At least in my case, being a pluralist means, in part, that I refuse to *commit* to ontological assertions of any kind. I'll play with various types of monism just as readily as I'll play with 3-tupleisms ... or 17-tupleisms. I think that's what makes me a simulant of passing competence. You just need to tell me *what* -ism you want to simulate.
>> 
>>  As such, it seems that maybe Dave's got the cart before the horse. It's the failure of ontology that's mandating voids in epistemology. We should work toward robust *ways of knowing* and loosen up a bit on whatever it is we think we know. I say "would argue" of course because, being totally ignorant of philosophy, I'm probably just confused about everything.
>> 
>>  On 12/10/19 12:43 PM, Prof David West wrote:
>>  > Both your anecdotes support, my assertion that lots of things and lots of experiences are ineffable. This does not mean they are not "expressible" nor "communicable, merely that they cannot be expressed with words nor communicated using words.
>>  > 
>>  > Words fail! Indeed!
>>  > 
>>  > Entire languages fail. Entire epistemological philosophies fail.
>>  > 
>>  > You "rendered" the ineffable to your grand-daughter, but you did NOT render them to me with words. You you words to circumscribe and speak about an experience of a kind that you believe I might have first hand, equally ineffable, experience of and that your indirect words would move me to make a connection. At best, your words, your language, worked like a game of Charades or Pictionary as a means of limning the space wherein I might find my own experience of like kind.
>>  > 
>>  > A "mystic" engages an experience that is ineffable, and then utters thousands, book volumes worth, of words attempting to limn a space wherein you too might engage the same experience — or, if an optimist, might awaken in you a recognition of what you have already experienced. More Charades and Pictionary — spewing forth words ABOUT the experience; never expressing, in words or language, the experience itself.
>>  > 
>>  > At least some ineffable experiences can be expressed directly using a language of voltages and wave forms, (Neurotheology), but not words or mathematical symbols or such-based languages.
>>  > 
>>  > The question remains: why does a failure of epistemology mandate voids in ontology?
>>  > 
>>  > I love your etymological daffiness, I share it.
>>  > 
>>  > The definitions cited reflect an arrogance of the "enlightened" in the notion "too great for words." A lot of mystics make this, what I believe to be, error, attempting to grant an ontological status of REAL that does not follow from the simple fact that it cannot be expressed in words.
>>  > 
>>  > And another sidenote — something might be "ineffable" simply because you are not allowed to use a word, ala Carlin's seven dirty words, or the "N-Word" or the "C-Word."
>> 
>>  -- 
>>  ☣ uǝlƃ
>> 
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