Justifying Hallucinations as "Reality"

[clarkgoble]

12 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

NOTE THAT THE SIGGY IS A QUOTE FROM RORTY, I didn't say any of it.  Did you not realize that?

Yes. I am assuming you agree with it but don't necessarily agree with everything Rorty believes simply because you've said in the past you don't.

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I thought that was perfectly clear.   How does a rock get into my head except as a mental state?

But then that's explicitly a type of dualism. Not substance dualism but a dualism between the mental and world. There's the objects and the mental states about the objects only with the objects themselves being unspeakable. I don't understand why you then deny this duality and times and say I'm attributing things to you you don't believe.

So again, upon what basis do you justify that divide? Because clearly as an externalist I don't believe it. 

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KNOWLEDGE IS A MENTAL STATE, ALL WE CAN KNOW IS A MENTAL STATE- how could it NOT be??

There are two issues in that sentence. First is whether we only talk of human mental states and what constitutes a mental state. I can't answer your question before we become clear on that. If, as I believe, to be mental is just to be a sign, then I'd agree knowledge is a mental state but not necessarily a human mental state. To the second part I would distinguish between knowledge as a mental state and what is known.

That's where you then get upset because you made that divide between the mental and the non-mental and assert the non-mental is unknowable. But again this to me simply confuses the object and sign-vehicle of knowledge. (By sign-vehicle I simply mean the "mark" part of language - in this case typically the sentence versus the content of the sentence) 

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A mental state which is not human:  The mental state of a dog.  I cannot experience what it is like to be a dog, but I will not argue that dogs do not have mental states.

Again to repeat my point I also can not experience what it is like to be you. I just have my experiences. But the reason this is important is that if we can compare sentences between people we can compare signs between animals and humans and (and this is the key point for Peirce and myself) we can talk about future signs that are not necessarily human signs.

Edited May 3, 2017 by clarkgoble

[mfbukowski]

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For instance many people see experience as purely mental phenomena within the mind even if parts are ineffable

This

[mfbukowski]

How does a rock get into my head?

You said

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But then that's explicitly a type of dualism. Not substance dualism but a dualism between the mental and world. There's the objects and the mental states about the objects only with the objects themselves being unspeakable. I don't understand why you then deny this duality and times and say I'm attributing things to you you don't believe.

So again, upon what basis do you justify that divide? Because clearly as an externalist I don't believe it. 

 

This is a linguistic issue.   I must SPEAK of "a rock" AS IF it is a "thing in the world" but guess what - even this is a STATEMENT in HUMAN LANGUAGE.  I was speaking of the process.  That is why Rorty speaks of "causes which are not mental states"

I was challenging YOUR position by showing you the absurdity of the idea that "you experience a rock" as part of "reality" when what you are experiencing is the experience of what we in human language call "rocks"

I was speaking Cartesianese to a Cartesian.

I won't  do that any more.

If you think Rorty is a Cartesian I suggest you publish that in a reputable journal.  Here is a quote from Rorty about this

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Because you can look at something, close your eyes and have a memory image of it, it makes sense to say, "It used to be out there, but now it is in here, too," when talking about visual perception, Rorty said. But, he continued, the use of visual perception as a metaphor for knowledge led to a picture of an inner space—a "Cartesian theater"—inhabited by things called ideas, impressions and mental representations. This led to "bad" questions such as, "What is the relationship between what's out there and what's in here such that we can know what's really out there?" he said.

If we hadn't tried to use visual perception as a model for knowledge, we wouldn't have been saddled with the problem of inside versus outside, Rorty said. "This would have been all to the good because we wouldn't have had most of the problems of modern philosophy—or half the problems of ancient philosophy."

As he talked, Rorty gently paced at the front of the room and spoke with the precision and clarity that have earned him praise as an "ultra-lucid" philosopher.

Both metaphysics and epistemology could have been avoided had we thought of knowledge as a social skill, he said. "The only question about the nature of the mind is the question, 'How did human beings acquire an ability that no other organism has; namely, the ability to use language?'"

 

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/april13/rorty-041305.html

Yes I disagree with Rorty on his views on the contingency of the self, but that has no bearing here.

[mfbukowski]

Nevermind- got it

Edited May 3, 2017 by mfbukowski

[clarkgoble]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

I was challenging YOUR position by showing you the absurdity of the idea that "you experience a rock" as part of "reality" when what you are experiencing is the experience of what we in human language call "rocks"

I was speaking Cartesianese to a Cartesian.

Well except I'm not a Cartesian as I've tried to make abundantly clear. Pragmatism was founded by Peirce as anti-Cartesian. I've tried to be clear that representations are something reality creates and not something corresponding to what reality is.

To the point about Rorty, as I said, I wasn't clear where you differed so I was very confused. Thus my repeated questions on experience. Of course with regards to Rorty many have made the charge that Rorty's inner/outer distinction is a type of Cartesianism. I think that critique wrong with regards to Rorty but it just wasn't clear to me how you were using it due to the way you were answering my questions. (Lorenzo Fabbri is but one example of many -- so people have already published on this. And Putnam famously thinks Rorty's problem is being unable to shed the roots of his positivist where he started philosophically.) If your position is the same as Rorty then my response is easy. Reality is what produces stable s ntences independent of what any finite group thinks about them. Rorty's limited because he only wants to talk about the finite community now. Peirce doesn't.

The reason I think we should distinguish Peirce and and I believe Dewey's realism from the realism Rorty criticisms is the problem of the God's eye view. I fully agree it is unintelligible to say we can compare reality (world out there) and our thoughts. Contra what I take you to be saying I don't think this is necessary to have representations even if we reject the type of metaphysical realism based upon representationalism. That's because we don't make the comparison. The radical shift is to a theory of inquiry where reality acts. We can't speak of reality from a privileged view. We never make a comparison. Rather we speak what we're constrained to speak as reality acts on the community. So reality makes the representation. We do not make a comparison between reality and our sentences.

The argument I would make is simply that experience as Rorty conceives it (and that I'll now take you to be conceiving it) is different from how Peirce and I think Dewey take it. There are important methodological differences in what experience means. Thus my constant returning to that question of what experience is.

Where I think you and I likely agree (at least I hope we do) is that knowing and by extension knowledge is something we do. Where we differ is that I think this knowledge involves a kind of continuity between the knower (ourselves) and the known. Habits (which I defined above and which Dewey uses the same way Peirce does) are part of this experience and are tied to this continuity. So we don't have knowledge to experience. Rather knowing is part of the experience and is inseparable as are the known objects. So knowledge is what develops in experience as a result of reality acting upon us in experience.

The externalism I keep bringing up is key because the transcendent element that is in Descartes (the move from mind to non-mind) disappears. It's all in experience. To completely separate human mind from objects is just non-sensical. Our knowledge just is these habits - stabilities of beliefs and thus stabilities in actions and sentences related to those actions - and is true to the degree they're the same as final stabilities. 

Where I see Rorty differing from Peirce and Dewey is the role the "long run" plays in how reality develops with experience. It's this long run development of habits in experience that constitutes truth. Which is why the Peircean perspective simply isn't Cartesian. There's a correspondence but it's a correspondence between a habit (regularity of behavior) in us now and in this future long run. The Peircean critique of Rorty simply is that Rorty only wants to talk of the present. Rather than talk about truth (what will be) he wants to talk about just current statements. 

Edited May 3, 2017 by clarkgoble

[mfbukowski]

Representations are something reality creates?

I explained your misunderstanding of what you thought was my inner outer distinction as Rorty did, in his quote. Again he was using it as an example of how's the Cartesian error developed. 

I'll think about the rest.

There is no one true way to describe any of this, for me the problem is what communicates to Mormons.

As I said though some of this might work better for people conditioned by Cartesianism. Not for me though.

I am not even slightly a dualist. 

[mfbukowski]

It appears that Fabbri's critique is highly flawed

http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/the-domestication-of-derrida-rorty-pragmatism-and-deconstruction/

[clarkgoble]

8 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

It appears that Fabbri's critique is highly flawed

http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/the-domestication-of-derrida-rorty-pragmatism-and-deconstruction/

Right. That's why I said I don't believe that of Rorty. My point was just people have made these arguments before. There are reasons why people misread Rorty along those lines. Lots of people criticized Fabbri not just on Rorty but also on Derrida. Although I'd also be the first to admit my reading of Derrida isn't the same as how most - especially those tied to literary criticism - read him. I read him through a lens of Peirce. Although I think that's very defensible given his year of study on Peirce at a time most weren't familiar with him and how that affected On Grammatology. But it's definitely not the way most postmoderns read him. Or how Rorty reads him for that matter. (Although I honestly can't recall the details of how Rorty reads him anymore -- I stopped reading Rorty right around the time I started reading Derrida)

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Representations are something reality creates?

Right. It's not correspondence between mind and things but is a kind of discursive realism. Again, think of how Dewey uses the term realism applied to himself. He gets that from Peirce. Here's a good paper discussing the distinction with Rorty over at Arisbe. 

There are lots of ways to put this but roughly representation is something that is developing through discourse. Reality is thus not independent of thought - just independent of any particular thought. As I said I think the reason we're talking past one an other is because our views are so similar it's hard nailing down where they differ so we each get the other wrong. Reality generates representation and representation are only complete at the end of that discourse which of course never happens for us.

A different way of arguing for this is to say whatever knowledge is, the content of knowledge is a representation. Even if someone rejects knowledge as possible, then the content of knowledge claims are representations.  If you believe in knowledge even if non-Cartesian knowledge, then we should call what is known a representation. This is ultimately a semantic point that the Cartesians shouldn't get to control the word "representation."

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I explained your misunderstanding of what you thought was my inner outer distinction as Rorty did, in his quote. Again he was using it as an example of how's the Cartesian error developed. 

I think the problem is again explaining what we mean by experience. You're assuming these terms without explicating them. Since I'm not sure how you're using those terms, even when you appeal to a quote, it ends up not being helpful. Again I keep bringing up experience as that's a key place I think these figures and I expect you and I differ. It's also why I'm still not 100% sure what you mean when you quote Rorty since your understanding of Rorty here may be different from mine. (Which is of course not to say I'm reading Rorty correctly here as it's been a very long time since I studied him carefully)

Edited May 4, 2017 by clarkgoble

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

I think the problem is again explaining what we mean by experience. You're assuming these terms without explicating them. Since I'm not sure how you're using those terms, even when you appeal to a quote, it ends up not being helpful. Again I keep bringing up experience as that's a key place I think these figures and I expect you and I differ. It's also why I'm still not 100% sure what you mean when you quote Rorty since your understanding of Rorty here may be different from mine. (Which is of course not to say I'm reading Rorty correctly here as it's been a very long time since I studied him carefully)

Well ok I suppose that is a fair point.  But it's complicated.  I am halfway between Rorty and Dewey and I keep talking about Art for a reason.  For me Art is a paradigm for all human activity and creation- which is for me also a paradigm for a Human God as an organizer of reality as we know it.  In a sense God is the supreme Artist and this creation of his is a work of Art.  I did grad work in both Philosophy and Art History and nearly finished 2 masters before I realized I hated the politics of academia the more I got into it.  But this intersection of art and philosophy gave me much of my philosophy.

For Dewey as well Art is a paradigm for all of experience- as an interaction between the subject and human creation- my terms.  Of course as a Mormon I see all creation as Human Creation- creation by the Man of Holiness.

So most of the way I see "experience" comes from Dewey, not Rorty.  Most of it can be found in "Experience and Nature" and "Art and Experience"

There is a great quote from SEP that oddly nearly describes that, speaking of creator of a work of art- which I see also applies to the Creator of the Universe.  Interpret this passage as we finite humans being the "perceivers" and the "creator" as being God himself.  In interacting with a work of art, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dewey-aesthetics/

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The activities of the perceiver are comparable to those of the creator. Reception that is full perception, and not mere recognition, is a series of responsive acts resulting in fulfillment. In perception, consciousness becomes alive. Consciousness requires implicit involvement of motor response throughout the organism, which entails that the scene perceived be pervaded by emotion. Although this phase of experience involves surrender, this can only be done through controlled activity, not withdrawal. It is a “going-out” of energy which is also a “plunging” into the subject-matter.

 

Yes now after our discussion now that I know Peirce a little better, I can see there are similarities there with Dewey and I see Dewey now as a kind of half way point between Peirce and Rorty in many areas.

But I will continue with another quote from the SEP- the same article, describing Dewey's understanding of "experience"

 

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2.3 Having an Experience

This chapter is Dewey's most famous writing in aesthetics. Here he defines the important concept of “an experience.” “An experience” is one in which the material of experience is fulfilled or consummated, as for example when a problem is solved, or a game is played to its conclusion. Dewey contrasts this with inchoate experience in which we are distracted and do not complete our course of action. “An experience,” is also marked off from other experiences, containing within itself an individualizing quality. Dewey believes his talk of “an experience” is in accord with everyday usage, even though it is contrary to the way philosophers talk about experience. For Dewey, life is a collection of histories, each with their own plots, inceptions, conclusions, movements and rhythms. Each has a unique pervading quality.

Dewey then proceeds to offer a more dramatic sense of “an experience.” Two examples of this sort of “an experience” are a quarrel with a friend and that meal in Paris which seemed to capture all that food can be. In “an experience” every part flows freely into what follows, carrying with it what preceded without sacrificing its identity. The parts are phases of an enduring whole. Nor are there any holes or mechanical dead spots in an experience. Rather, there are pauses that define its quality and sum up what has been undergone.

Works of art are important examples of “an experience.” Here, separate elements are fused into a unity, although, rather than disappearing, their identity is enhanced. The unity of an experience, which is neither exclusively emotional, practical, nor intellectual, is determined by a single pervasive quality. Contra Locke and Hume, Dewey holds that the trains of ideas in thought are not just linked by association, but involve the development of an underlying quality. Conclusions in thought are similar to the consummating phase of “an experience.” Thinking has its own aesthetic quality. It differs from art only in that its material consists of abstract symbols rather than qualities. The experience of thinking satisfies us emotionally because it is internally integrated, and yet no intellectual activity is integrated in this way unless it has aesthetic quality. Thus, for Dewey, there is no clear separation between the aesthetic and the intellectual.....

The structure of “an experience” goes as follows. The subject undergoes something or some properties, these properties determine his or her doing something, and the process continues until the self and the object are mutually adapted, ending with felt harmony. This even holds for the thinker interacting with his or her ideas. When the doing and undergoing are joined in perception they gain meaning. Meaning, in turn, is given depth through incorporating past experience.

 

I see this "undergoing" to include even simple perception- again, like "blue" or other qualia.  I love that phrase in the first quote- "in perception, consciousness becomes alive".  Perception is the beginning of and the start of "an experience"

For me "experience" IS consciousness- the stream of "what's happening" to me and of course around me as well.

I speak of stubbing a toe in darkness as an example also- a "toe pain event" happens. That's all we know.  That thing which in language we call "my toe" -  We hobble around perhaps saying bad words  until we turn on the light, allowing other senses to help us resolve the problem- we see it was that dang toy that dang kid left where it wasn't supposed to be, .  We take action- rub the toe, perhaps, move the toy, and "resolve" the problem.

But in this whole process there is only interaction in terms of "the experience".  Anything outside the experience is transparent.  We are not being Cartesian thinking about the outside world interacting with our toe or the outside world being represented or a sign of anything- NONE of that happens.

All there is is the human experience of stubbing the toe.

As Rorty points out- it is when we start analyzing it AS an "interaction between my toe and the world" that we build into the problem some outside "world" when we dream up the problem in trying to speak about it.

So even my above description is inaccurate because it is in language.  We are not thinking "I stubbed my toe" even unless somebody asks.  We have a pain experience- at first that is all we know and all that matters.

Even saying "I stubbed my toe" CREATES the category of "toes" as a part of "me" and "something out there" which is not me and I am instantly a Cartesian because I used language to describe.

This was Rorty's- and my complaint- above because the language itself is Cartesian but linguistic representation IS NOT "things as they are"

The pure experience is wordless until we think in words or utter them as a "description of the world"

YES there is "interaction with the world" simply because that is the only way we can SAY it.  Maybe I kick the toy and the "world changes" in the "interaction"- but again these are verbal descriptions, not "things as they are"

This is why both Wittgenstein and Rorty among others are convinced that all philosophical problems are at their root, linguistic confusions and we should not attempt to discuss metaphysics

The course of this thread alone should be ample evidence of that.

 

Edited May 4, 2017 by mfbukowski

[clarkgoble]

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For me "experience" IS consciousness- the stream of "what's happening" to me and of course around me as well.

Right and this is why we're talking past one other that I've tried bringing up. To me the unconscious or subconscious is part of experience. That's where Derrida is very influential on me as a correction to how Heidegger deals with such matters. (Although elements are in Heidegger) This is admittedly one place that Dewey didn't quite embrace Peirce to quite the same degree. Dewey and James discuss the unconscious but more in a descriptive sense. Indeed relative to psychology this was a point Peirce and James disagreed strongly on. Although I believe Dewey is closer to Peirce than James on this point particularly relative to the aesthetics you bring up.

This isn't a minor point either since for an externalist that unconscious isn't just other mental processes going on in my brain but whole sign processes going on throughout the universe. Derrida makes great use of this in his phenomenology.

“For if psychology were restricted to phenomena of consciousness, the established of mental associations, the taking of habits, which is the very market place of psychology, would fall outside its boulevards” (CP 7.367). And habits (repetitive behaviors with respect to stimuli) are key to Peirce's philosophy.

Don't have time to say anything more right now. Hopefully later tonight.

Edited May 4, 2017 by clarkgoble

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

Right and this is why we're talking past one other that I've tried bringing up. To me the unconscious or subconscious is part of experience. That's where Derrida is very influential on me as a correction to how Heidegger deals with such matters. (Although elements are in Heidegger) This is admittedly one place that Dewey didn't quite embrace Peirce to quite the same degree. Dewey and James discuss the unconscious but more in a descriptive sense. Indeed relative to psychology this was a point Peirce and James disagreed strongly on. Although I believe Dewey is closer to Peirce than James on this point particularly relative to the aesthetics you bring up.

This isn't a minor point either since for an externalist that unconscious isn't just other mental processes going on in my brain but whole sign processes going on throughout the universe. Derrida makes great use of this in his phenomenology.

“For if psychology were restricted to phenomena of consciousness, the established of mental associations, the taking of habits, which is the very market place of psychology, would fall outside its boulevards” (CP 7.367). And habits (repetitive behaviors with respect to stimuli) are key to Peirce's philosophy.

Don't have time to say anything more right now. Hopefully later tonight.

I have no problem with that.

I have said that perhaps God is something like the Superego, or that at least that would be a rational interpretation of introspection.

But I do not believe that myself FWIW 

But it doesn't matter- it is the effect of the belief in our lives that matter.

It is the belief that Jesus died for our sins that allows us to feel forgiven. The facts are unknowable, but of course my opinion is that it actually happened. 

I also minored in physiological psych

I get Psych and don't need explanations

Edited May 4, 2017 by mfbukowski

[clarkgoble]

15 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I have no problem with that.

I have said that perhaps God is something like the Superego, or that at least that would be a rational interpretation of introspection.

That's more or less Peirce's view although obviously I don't share it. Although it is interesting to consider this "superego" (although I don't like the Freudian terms) relative to Orson Pratt's notion of the aether as the divine substance all divine beings share and what gives them their attributes.

I should add relative to art that I'm very persuaded by Peirce that reason is grounded by ethics and ethics by aesthetics. But while Peirce sees aesthetics as foundational he doesn't actually talk about his aesthetics much. Most assume it's closely related to Kant's but my guess is that Peirce just didn't trust most of the formalizations of aesthetics. He'll talk in Aristotilean terms about what aesthetics does but not what it is. As late as the early 20th century Peirce acknowledged he didn't have a good grasp on aesthetics.

My own experience is probably corrupted by too many discussions with artists which make me think they don't know much about aesthetics and that no one else does either. (The best way to become cynical about art is to talk to artists who think they understand art) So while personally I acknowledge the place of aesthetics I tend to find it very mysterious metaphysically. I'd go so far as to say it's related to something like Aristotle's summum bonum but am unable to say much beyond that.

 

Edited May 4, 2017 by clarkgoble

[USU78]

When I was working on my MA, I dreamed of developing a system of Mormon aesthetics. I do believe you two are dancing awfully close to one.

 

USU "No Aristotelean Unities, Please" 78

[mfbukowski]

5 hours ago, USU78 said:

When I was working on my MA, I dreamed of developing a system of Mormon aesthetics. I do believe you two are dancing awfully close to one.

 

USU "No Aristotelean Unities, Please" 78

We will usually create to fulfill emotional needs, and we even create philosophical systems for the same reason. If it's building a house to keep us dry or resolving a philosophical issue in our minds the motivation is pretty much the same. Ultimately it is often to fulfill some emotional need. And why does God create? To let his kids fill the measure of their creation and have what? Joy!

The entire purpose of life is to create and then have joy.

Edited May 5, 2017 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

17 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

That's more or less Peirce's view although obviously I don't share it. Although it is interesting to consider this "superego" (although I don't like the Freudian terms) relative to Orson Pratt's notion of the aether as the divine substance all divine beings share and what gives them their attributes.

I should add relative to art that I'm very persuaded by Peirce that reason is grounded by ethics and ethics by aesthetics. But while Peirce sees aesthetics as foundational he doesn't actually talk about his aesthetics much. Most assume it's closely related to Kant's but my guess is that Peirce just didn't trust most of the formalizations of aesthetics. He'll talk in Aristotilean terms about what aesthetics does but not what it is. As late as the early 20th century Peirce acknowledged he didn't have a good grasp on aesthetics.

My own experience is probably corrupted by too many discussions with artists which make me think they don't know much about aesthetics and that no one else does either. (The best way to become cynical about art is to talk to artists who think they understand art) So while personally I acknowledge the place of aesthetics I tend to find it very mysterious metaphysically. I'd go so far as to say it's related to something like Aristotle's summum bonum but am unable to say much beyond that.

 

I used to be in the gallery business- I had a building that was kind of divided into two spaces-  on one side I created a fairly avant garde  gallery and on the other a furniture design business doing custom furniture for the artsy set.  Each side kind of promoted the other, the art openings etc would get them in and sometimes they would actually buy the art- but most of the income derived from the design side.  It was kind of a loft building- my business was upstairs and I had some commercial tenants downstairs that actually made it work economically - and I lived in the back. I had poetry readings and other stuff like that too- it was lotsa fun.

BUT I could not deal with the artists.

I loved them as buddies and good friends, and we would have some good discussions about art but BUSINESS?  Fergitaboutit!!.

The absolute worst were the dancers- I hate to put it this way but they seemed to have absolutely nothing in the brain pan at all..

But it was fascinating to see how reality worked for these as individuals and even seeing trends in what they had chosen and the way they thought.

I have a nephew who does advertising and is an artist and is absolutely brilliant- and we have some amazing discussions about aesthetics, and I have a cousin who is an architect - absolutely brilliant guy- and we have actually discussed these points too- and they definitely get the aesthetics stuff and how it relates to a different way of seeing the world- but yes I would agree about most of their artist friends.  

There is a reason there is a stereotype about "starving artists"    Obviously some are super-rich especially those in the movie-biz and here in LA THOSE were the clients I was going after.  (I met Salvador Dali in the early '70's- very weird dude but very nice)

 But if you are looking for someone to talk to - avoid dancers, definitely.

 

 

[clarkgoble]

Suspect it depends upon the type of dancer. All the ballroom dancers I knew were pretty on the ball. Several had physics degrees. Even the contemporary dance people I've personally encountered seemed fine. It was the painters/sculptures who honestly seemed so ridiculously solipsistic. Whatever they felt right then was what truth was even though they believed something completely different just an hour or two earlier. I want to be careful since I don't claim to have known a large swath of artists. So I may just have had unusual encounters. But it sure made me cynical.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

Suspect it depends upon the type of dancer. All the ballroom dancers I knew were pretty on the ball. Several had physics degrees. Even the contemporary dance people I've personally encountered seemed fine. It was the painters/sculptures who honestly seemed so ridiculously solipsistic. Whatever they felt right then was what truth was even though they believed something completely different just an hour or two earlier. I want to be careful since I don't claim to have known a large swath of artists. So I may just have had unusual encounters. But it sure made me cynical.

Well I am not sure if you are talking about professional ballroom dancers or recreational ballroom dancers- big difference.

I was talking about folks totally immersed in dance, who came through college dance programs and are professional dancers, choreographers etc.  After all this is LA.

But who knows- maybe I am being totally prejudiced, but I have known several professional dancers and I could not have a real conversation with any of them beyond paying a bill or discussing the weather. 

[clarkgoble]

8 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Well I am not sure if you are talking about professional ballroom dancers or recreational ballroom dancers- big difference.

I was talking about folks totally immersed in dance, who came through college dance programs and are professional dancers, choreographers etc.  After all this is LA.

But who knows- maybe I am being totally prejudiced, but I have known several professional dancers and I could not have a real conversation with any of them beyond paying a bill or discussing the weather. 

Well competitive ballroom but not professional. I had several friends on the BYU Ballroom Dance Team. They worked with me down at Los Alamos National Laboratory. LA is probably different.

[mfbukowski]

12 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Well competitive ballroom but not professional. I had several friends on the BYU Ballroom Dance Team. They worked with me down at Los Alamos National Laboratory. LA is probably different.

LA-LA Land.  Can't get my wife out of here though.  I am a New Yorker in my heart of hearts.

[mfbukowski]

21 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

That's more or less Peirce's view although obviously I don't share it. Although it is interesting to consider this "superego" (although I don't like the Freudian terms) relative to Orson Pratt's notion of the aether as the divine substance all divine beings share and what gives them their attributes.

I should add relative to art that I'm very persuaded by Peirce that reason is grounded by ethics and ethics by aesthetics. But while Peirce sees aesthetics as foundational he doesn't actually talk about his aesthetics much. Most assume it's closely related to Kant's but my guess is that Peirce just didn't trust most of the formalizations of aesthetics. He'll talk in Aristotilean terms about what aesthetics does but not what it is. As late as the early 20th century Peirce acknowledged he didn't have a good grasp on aesthetics.

My own experience is probably corrupted by too many discussions with artists which make me think they don't know much about aesthetics and that no one else does either. (The best way to become cynical about art is to talk to artists who think they understand art) So while personally I acknowledge the place of aesthetics I tend to find it very mysterious metaphysically. I'd go so far as to say it's related to something like Aristotle's summum bonum but am unable to say much beyond that.

 

Just one more point- for LDS we know that the mind/body problem is not a problem since the spirit and body make up one "soul" in constant interaction and that spirit itself is matter.  To speak of an "interaction" between body and spirit is to introduce a dualism right there where none is warranted.  We just ARE both spirit and body- we really should just use the word "soul" much more

It's all the fault of the primary demonstration of the body being the glove and the hand being the spirit that animates the glove!  It's a vast Cartesian conspiracy !

But again that's another reason I like Rorty. (and others- I am sure Peirce would agree in different terms?)

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/april13/rorty-041305.html

It's odd that so many Mormons still subscribe to these dualisms.  

But of course we know that the mind/spirit/soul is more than the way we are conditioned by language- that is where I depart from Rorty, and then that goes also to his politics which hinges on the idea that we are socially programmed by language to the point of being unable to break free- even, I would argue that his "Ironist" is contradictory

I would include more of a view like Nagel's where he has more of a phenomenological view of consciousness as a point of view- the subject of first person sentences.  Third party physicalist descriptions of brain activity for example always leave out the phenomenological aspect of consciousness. 

Edited May 5, 2017 by mfbukowski

[clarkgoble]

30 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

It's odd that so many Mormons still subscribe to these dualisms.  

For a long time I blamed B. H. Roberts for coming up with the tripartite model where intelligence was Cartesian mind. But when you look carefully at his books like The Way, the Truth and the Life, or Seventy's Course in Theology he never goes full throated into true dualism. The way he discusses them though is close enough that I suspect many assume he means mind by intelligence rather than intelligence having mind. When you read him though he's very careful. "In other words the term Intelligence is descriptive of the thing to which it is applied. Therefore Intelligence (mind) or Intelligences (minds) thus conceived are conscious." He actually appeals not to Descartes but Fiske.

Still I put most the blame on Roberts for saying it in such a way that people took intelligence either as atoms of intelligence (Pratt) or immaterial minds. Widstoe adopts a more Pratt pantheistic view but allows energy to be intelligent. Then the JFS/BRM crowd pulled back and tended (as was common in the positivist spirit of the times) not to speculate to much beyond calling intelligence parts. So the only real place for this Cartesianism to have arisen was Roberts. It's certainly alien to Pratt's property dualism.

I think the other part is Mormons in the 20th century were caught up in the tendency to think in terms of substances. That was just part and parcel of the way language worked in America. However I've tended to come to see Joseph as adopting much more the Jewish senses of terms like nefesh, ruach, and neshama. (Some add the medieval Jewish notion of tzelem but I'm not sure I see that) which are more ways of being. I tend to see Joseph's talk of soul arising out of his understanding of Hebrew. 

Edited May 5, 2017 by clarkgoble

[mfbukowski]

42 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

For a long time I blamed B. H. Roberts for coming up with the tripartite model where intelligence was Cartesian mind. But when you look carefully at his books like The Way, the Truth and the Life, or Seventy's Course in Theology he never goes full throated into true dualism. The way he discusses them though is close enough that I suspect many assume he means mind by intelligence rather than intelligence having mind. When you read him though he's very careful. "In other words the term Intelligence is descriptive of the thing to which it is applied. Therefore Intelligence (mind) or Intelligences (minds) thus conceived are conscious." He actually appeals not to Descartes but Fiske.

Still I put most the blame on Roberts for saying it in such a way that people took intelligence either as atoms of intelligence (Pratt) or immaterial minds. Widstoe adopts a more Pratt pantheistic view but allows energy to be intelligent. Then the JFS/BRM crowd pulled back and tended (as was common in the positivist spirit of the times) not to speculate to much beyond calling intelligence parts. So the only real place for this Cartesianism to have arisen was Roberts. It's certainly alien to Pratt's property dualism.

I think the other part is Mormons in the 20th century were caught up in the tendency to think in terms of substances. That was just part and parcel of the way language worked in America. However I've tended to come to see Joseph as adopting much more the Jewish senses of terms like nefesh, ruach, and neshama. (Some add the medieval Jewish notion of tzelem but I'm not sure I see that) which are more ways of being. I tend to see Joseph's talk of soul arising out of his understanding of Hebrew. 

Yes I think you are right. Dualism still pervades our culture.

[USU78]

6 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

All the ballroom dancers I knew were pretty on the ball.

Oi weh

[mfbukowski]

5 hours ago, USU78 said:

Oi weh

Dang!  I totally missed it!!  

[USU78]

My unfinished thesis topic was to have been an attempt to synthesize, in the characters of Schiller's and Anouilh's heroins, Mary Stuart and Antigone, the romantic and the existentialist.  Schiller's aesthetic Nullpunkt (arrived at by negating or creating equalibrium between the sensual and the intellectual), out of which Spieltrieb arises (whether the drive impels one to create a life or a work of art), and le Neant, the nothingness out of which true freedom springs (and empowers the Maquis to spit into the face of their Nazi executioners rather than relent) were, it occurred to me when watching a production of Antigone, pretty much the same thing.  Mary Stuart marches to her execution just as Antigone does.

Here is Schiller on his two fundamental drives:

The first of these impulses, which I shall name the sensuous, proceeds from the physical existence of Man or from his sensuous nature, and is concerned with setting him within the bounds of time and turning him into matter; not with giving him matter, since that is the province of a free activity of the person, which matter receives and distinguishes from the persisting self.  By matter I here mean nothing but alteration, or reality which occupies time; consequently this impulse demands that there should be alteration, that time should have content.  This condition of merely occupied time is called sensation, and it is this alone through which physical existence proclaims itself.

The second of these impulses, which we may call the formal impulse, proceeds from Man's absolute existence or from his rational nature, and strives to set him at liberty, to bring harmony into the diversity of his manifestation, and to maintain his person throughout every change of circumstance.  As this person, being an absolute indivisible unity, can never be at variance with itself, since we are ourselves to all eternity, that impulse which insists on affirming the personality can never demand anything other than what it must demand to all eternity; it therefore decides forever as it decides for the moment, and enjoins for the moment what it enjoins forever.  Consequently, it embraces the whole time series, which is as much as to say it annuls time and change; it wishes the actual to be necessary and eternal, and the eternal and necessary to be actual; in other words, it aims at truth and right.

Schiller, Briefe zuer aesthetischen Erziehung des Menschen, Letter 12.

And Schiller proposes a solution to the following problem:

At first sight nothing appears more self-contradictory than the tendencies of these two impulses, one aiming at mutation and the other at immutability.  And yet it is these two impulses that exhaust the conception of humanity, and a third fundamental impulse, which should reconcile the two, is a quite inconceivable idea.

Schiller, Letter 13.

Where both qualities [thought and feeling] are united, Man will combine the greatness fullness of existence with the utmost self-dependence and freedom, and instead of abandoning himself with the whole infinity of its phenomena, and subject it o the unity of his reason.

Id.

The sensual impulse requires variation, requires time to have a content; the formal impulse requires the extinction of time and no variation.  Therefore the impulse in which both are combined (allow me to call it provisionally the play impulse [Spieltrieb], until I have justified the term), this play impulse would aim at the extinction of time in time and the reconciliation of becoming with absolute being, of variation with identity.

Schiller, Letter 14.

The object of the sensual impulse, expressed in a general concept, may be called life in the broadest sense of the word; a concept which expresses all material being and all that is immediately present in the senses.  The object of the formal impulse, expressed generally, may be called shape, both in the figurative and in the literal sense; a concept which includes all formal qualities of things and all their relations to the  intellectual faculties.  The object of the play impulse, conceived in general terms, can therefore be called living shape, a concept which serves to denote all aesthetic qualities of phenomena and, in a word, what we call Beauty[/o] in the widest sense of the term.

Schiller, Letter 15.

Reason says:  the Beautiful is not to be mere life, nor mere shape, but living shape, that is, Beauty, as it dictates to mankind the twofold law of absolute formality and absolute reality.  Consequently it also pronounces the sentence:  Man shall only play with Beauty, and he shall play only with Beauty.

For, to declare it once and for all, Man plays only when he is in the fullest sense of the word a man, and he is only wholly Man when he plays.

Id.

Through Beauty the sensuous man is led to form and to thought; through Beauty the spiritual man is brought back to matter and restored to the world of the senses.

Schiller, Letter 18.

I'll comment and expand further later.