The Non-Imperative for a historical Book of Mormon

[Wade Englund]

7 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

I am not quite understanding this:

I personally would never ever use the word "fictional" to describe any part of the BOM.

I wouldn't either. I believe the people,  places, and things in the BoM actually existed and occurred. In other words, I view the BoM as non-fiction.

My argument is intended to demonstrate the value in holding such a belief as opposed to those who deny the historicity of BoM, and thus, by definition, view the BoM as fictional regardless what the "author(s)"may believe..

Perhaps there are better terms than fictional/non-fiction, but I use them so as to avoid the oft confounding complexities of speaking in terms of what is real or not.

And, while I agree with you that the emphasis ought not be on the historicity, but rather on the trans-formative power of the BoM, I believe there is justification for the BoM being presented as a historical document. and this in addition to the presumption that the people and places existed and the events actually occurred as described. My argument is intended to provide that justification. 

And, the compliment is well deserved. Over the last half decade, I have missed reading your salient posts.

 Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Ryan Dahle]

38 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I do not regard perceptions as unreliable- they are the only world we have that we can know anything about!!

You are still tying perceptions to "the world" and because I disconnect them from "the world" you think I am saying they are "not accurate" simply because you cling to the idea that they MUST represent the world for them to be "accurate"

You are misreading me, but that's okay. 

40 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Well I don't know about "to ourselves" but no I do not push a world view that triumphs over science and "objectivity" at all if objectivity is peer review.  Peer review creates reality as it is known to the peers.  Physicists create physics for physicists, biologists for biologists etc.

Each of these disciplines are peer-reviewed contexts that further mankind's ability to predict future experiences which will show progress in meeting the objectives in studying these experiences.  It is not necessary to believe in anything "beyond" our perceptions - like a world outside our perceptions- to achieve pragmatic success in repeating experiences ("replicating experiments") and moving forward in doing things like curing cancer etc.  "We put this stuff on what we experience as "the tumor' and it shrinks and dies".  Good!  do it again and again until they all die!!

Again, that's not really what I'm getting at. 

42 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Accuracy is impossible in that context because the perception must be checked against an invisible world- so all we have are perceptions!  PERCEPTIONS ARE reality for all we can know!  Drop the idea of correspondence!

You are missing my main points, but again, it's okay. 

I think you are right. Probably better to drop it. Thanks for the discussion. It has been thought provoking. 

[clarkgoble]

12 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

How can you act without perceiving?

My wife tells me I snore when I'm unconscious and not perceiving.

[CV75]

15 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

When I act it's not a perception. It's a behavior or comportment. So to reduce the world to perceptions is to miss a lot of what being human involves. 

 

Yes, we absolutely act on our perceptions, whether voluntarily, habitually or autonomically, and we only sometimes perceive our own and others’ behavior, whether unconsciously or consciously. Similarly, our behavior can alter our perceptions, but which is the most fundamental driver, behavior or perception?

With perception as the basis for human behavior, the world as we perceive and use it is not reduced at all but is rather created and glorified. To me this is the epitome or fulness of agency. Spiritually-speaking, perceiving the Light of Christ and the prompting, witness and sanctification from the Holy Ghost both drives and alters behavior and comprehension.

With behavior as the basis for human perception, the world is reduced to nothingness, as with the zygote. As it perceives, even if only on a programmatic chemical level, its behavior changes and it grows, and along with it, its world. Not that I remember at all... :)

I think Alma 32 helps with this: faith (and knowledge) is to perception as experimenting (and nourishing) is to behavior.

[mfbukowski]

16 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

When I act it's not a perception. It's a behavior or comportment. So to reduce the world to perceptions is to miss a lot of what being human involves.

 

Who EVER said it was?

We are talking epistemology here.

Category error.

One can even get knowledge from dreams if you want to go there!

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

My wife tells me I snore when I'm unconscious and not perceiving.

Are you then acting or being acted upon while snoring?  In what sense are you an actor while snoring?

Yet are you perceiving in dreams?

Semantic questions.

[clarkgoble]

23 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Are you then acting or being acted upon while snoring?  In what sense are you an actor while snoring?

Yet are you perceiving in dreams?

Can you ask that question without noting a distinction between acts and perceptions?

More or less the point I'm raising is Heidegger's where he notes some phenomena withdraws from awareness. When I am hammering the hammer and my movements withdraw and I just am attentive to the nail. A place people may notice this in everyday life is having a conversation while driving. You may not be consciously aware of driving anymore, just of the cars around you and the discussion. 

Of course all this really gets at is the issue of what a perception is since one might well simply say there are unconscious and conscious perceptions. Yet the underlying issue is that actions and responses aren't themselves perceptions. This ends up being a big issue in both cognitive science and AI research. Representationalism was the thesis that most of cognition was tied to representations and the rules relating to them. The more Heideggarian attack on these positions - particularly rule based AI - was that comportment couldn't be reduced to representations or perceptions. By and large I think the Heideggerian critique has won out. Although many people don't even realize the critique arises from Heidegger.

28 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Who EVER said it was?

We are talking epistemology here.

Category error.

The question is whether epistemology only relies on representations. That's not a category error unless you think it does which begs the question. The Heideggarian perspective is that representations are a secondary phenomena. These critiques are usually on the underlying Cartesian nature of a lot of epistemological arguments that misses the place of say embodiment in knowing.

We recognize for instance the difference between propositional knowledge (knowledge that) from skill knowledge (knowledge how). Yet the presumption of a lot of epistemology is really the remnant of the idea of dualism. That is that knowledge is disembodied. We can imagine ourselves as a knowing subject not part of the world. (I know you know these things - I'm more speaking to other readers) If we reject that dualism then, the argument goes, we can't separate how knowledge that from knowledge how.

For Heidegger this is wrapped up in the recognition that our understanding of objects and their properties arises not from representations but from use. I only understand a paintbrush as a paintbrush against a pre-existing body of practices, skills and so forth. So a paint brush is only a paint brush because I know how to paint. Indeed Heidegger goes so far as to argue that we only recognize objects as 'things' when these practices break down. The example I usually use when I taught this in school was using a mouse. When you use a mouse the mouse withdraws phenomenally. You no longer consciously notice it. You just concentrate on the screen and what you are doing. However if there's an electrical short in the mouse or a bug and the mouse no longer responds the way it is supposed to you notice the mouse as something separate from your practices. Heidegger argues that it precisely these breakdowns from bodily skills and practices that enable us to speak about epistemology.

Now one can of course reject Heidegger although I think the phenomena he describes is correct. The implication if what he describes is correct is that it simply isn't a category error to separate behavior from knowledge. That is representation or perception is inherently distorting and missing something key about both how we know as well as the world itself. 

Ironically from the Heideggarian perspective to think this is a category error is to fall prey to Cartesianism.

Edited March 28, 2019 by clarkgoble

[mfbukowski]

19 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Can you ask that question without noting a distinction between acts and perceptions?

More or less the point I'm raising is Heidegger's where he notes some phenomena withdraws from awareness. When I am hammering the hammer and my movements withdraw and I just am attentive to the nail. A place people may notice this in everyday life is having a conversation while driving. You may not be consciously aware of driving anymore, just of the cars around you and the discussion. 

Of course all this really gets at is the issue of what a perception is since one might well simply say there are unconscious and conscious perceptions. Yet the underlying issue is that actions and responses aren't themselves perceptions. This ends up being a big issue in both cognitive science and AI research. Representationalism was the thesis that most of cognition was tied to representations and the rules relating to them. The more Heideggarian attack on these positions - particularly rule based AI - was that comportment couldn't be reduced to representations or perceptions. By and large I think the Heideggerian critique has won out. Although many people don't even realize the critique arises from Heidegger.

The question is whether epistemology only relies on representations. That's not a category error unless you think it does which begs the question. The Heideggarian perspective is that representations are a secondary phenomena. These critiques are usually on the underlying Cartesian nature of a lot of epistemological arguments that misses the place of say embodiment in knowing.

We recognize for instance the difference between propositional knowledge (knowledge that) from skill knowledge (knowledge how). Yet the presumption of a lot of epistemology is really the remnant of the idea of dualism. That is that knowledge is disembodied. We can imagine ourselves as a knowing subject not part of the world. (I know you know these things - I'm more speaking to other readers) If we reject that dualism then, the argument goes, we can't separate how knowledge that from knowledge how.

For Heidegger this is wrapped up in the recognition that our understanding of objects and their properties arises not from representations but from use. I only understand a paintbrush as a paintbrush against a pre-existing body of practices, skills and so forth. So a paint brush is only a paint brush because I know how to paint. Indeed Heidegger goes so far as to argue that we only recognize objects as 'things' when these practices break down. The example I usually use when I taught this in school was using a mouse. When you use a mouse the mouse withdraws phenomenally. You no longer consciously notice it. You just concentrate on the screen and what you are doing. However if there's an electrical short in the mouse or a bug and the mouse no longer responds the way it is supposed to you notice the mouse as something separate from your practices. Heidegger argues that it precisely these breakdowns from bodily skills and practices that enable us to speak about epistemology.

Now one can of course reject Heidegger although I think the phenomena he describes is correct. The implication if what he describes is correct is that it simply isn't a category error to separate behavior from knowledge. That is representation or perception is inherently distorting and missing something key about both how we know as well as the world itself. 

Ironically from the Heideggarian perspective to think this is a category error is to fall prey to Cartesianism.

Thanks for the lesson on how to translate Heidegger.

[CV75]

4 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Can you ask that question without noting a distinction between acts and perceptions?

More or less the point I'm raising is Heidegger's where he notes some phenomena withdraws from awareness. When I am hammering the hammer and my movements withdraw and I just am attentive to the nail. A place people may notice this in everyday life is having a conversation while driving. You may not be consciously aware of driving anymore, just of the cars around you and the discussion. 

Of course all this really gets at is the issue of what a perception is since one might well simply say there are unconscious and conscious perceptions. Yet the underlying issue is that actions and responses aren't themselves perceptions. This ends up being a big issue in both cognitive science and AI research. Representationalism was the thesis that most of cognition was tied to representations and the rules relating to them. The more Heideggarian attack on these positions - particularly rule based AI - was that comportment couldn't be reduced to representations or perceptions. By and large I think the Heideggerian critique has won out. Although many people don't even realize the critique arises from Heidegger.

You may have have missed my post above, but since we can talk about actions and responses as not being perceptions, I think Alma 32 helps tie them together: faith (and knowledge) is to perception as experimenting (and nourishing) is to behavior. I've often thought that faith and knowledge are different forms of the same thing, with faith being perfect foreknowledge and perfect knowledge being perfected (completed) faith. The basis for behavior and knowledge (a manifestation of the process of "becoming") seems to be perception and faith (the process of "discovery"). We discover through perception and then change or "become" through applied discovery (behavior).

[clarkgoble]

5 hours ago, CV75 said:

You may have have missed my post above, but since we can talk about actions and responses as not being perceptions, I think Alma 32 helps tie them together: faith (and knowledge) is to perception as experimenting (and nourishing) is to behavior. I've often thought that faith and knowledge are different forms of the same thing, with faith being perfect foreknowledge and perfect knowledge being perfected (completed) faith. The basis for behavior and knowledge (a manifestation of the process of "becoming") seems to be perception and faith (the process of "discovery"). We discover through perception and then change or "become" through applied discovery (behavior).

I think how Alma discusses things and the Hebrew linguistic use in general lines up with Heidegger's insights quite closely. That said the focus in Alma 32 is on the prophet's words. So it is a focus on language even though the Hebrew conception of truth is in terms of how things show themselves to be the things they are.

I'm not so sure I'd say we discover through perception though. Rather we discover through use and through use we are able to perceive things.

[USU78]

14 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

I think how Alma discusses things and the Hebrew linguistic use in general lines up with Heidegger's insights quite closely. That said the focus in Alma 32 is on the prophet's words. So it is a focus on language even though the Hebrew conception of truth is in terms of how things show themselves to be the things they are.

I'm not so sure I'd say we discover through perception though. Rather we discover through use and through use we are able to perceive things.

I'm perceiving a pattern here, one that jives well with Fromm's Art of Loving. A developmental pattern. Perhaps an eternal progression pattern.

[Wade Englund]

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

I'm not so sure I'd say we discover through perception though. Rather we discover through use and through use we are able to perceive things.

Are you using the word "perception" in terms of sensory awareness, or are you using it in terms of conceptual awareness? If the later, these two brief video may be of some use:

 

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[clarkgoble]

10 hours ago, Wade Englund said:

Are you using the word "perception" in terms of sensory awareness, or are you using it in terms of conceptual awareness? If the later, these two brief video may be of some use:

I've been more or less picking at the idea that it's being used consistently. When I tend to use the term myself I mean it as conscious knowledge of things. That would include both senses and concepts. I tend to see it in terms of the phenomenological tradition. Overall while the term is used a lot, people tend to use it in slightly different ways depending upon the topic at hand. Given the way psychology and cognitive science work, typically the exact use depends upon the nature of the experiment in question. My experience is that even the question of awareness is tricky since our brain may be acting on data we're not aware it's acting upon.

Some argue a better way to deal with it is to talk about judgments rather than perceptions. However I tend to not believe that ends up helping much given that what a judgment is tends to also be problematic. Is a low level brain process that determines a sound is a danger and triggers a fight or flight response a judgment? In one sense yes. Yet often what people mean by judgment is something higher order. Yet higher order judgments themselves depend upon low level biases and processes. How we think we make a judgment often isn't the actual process.

To the videos - I typically read and respond here at work and I'm not able to watch videos. Also they just take too much time. I'll confess to not being a huge fan of Peterson although when he drops the Jung-like stuff and gets to psychology it's usually pretty straightforward mainstream psychology.

[mfbukowski]

22 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Can you ask that question without noting a distinction between acts and perceptions?

More or less the point I'm raising is Heidegger's where he notes some phenomena withdraws from awareness. When I am hammering the hammer and my movements withdraw and I just am attentive to the nail. A place people may notice this in everyday life is having a conversation while driving. You may not be consciously aware of driving anymore, just of the cars around you and the discussion. 

Of course all this really gets at is the issue of what a perception is since one might well simply say there are unconscious and conscious perceptions. Yet the underlying issue is that actions and responses aren't themselves perceptions. This ends up being a big issue in both cognitive science and AI research. Representationalism was the thesis that most of cognition was tied to representations and the rules relating to them. The more Heideggarian attack on these positions - particularly rule based AI - was that comportment couldn't be reduced to representations or perceptions. By and large I think the Heideggerian critique has won out. Although many people don't even realize the critique arises from Heidegger.

The question is whether epistemology only relies on representations. That's not a category error unless you think it does which begs the question. The Heideggarian perspective is that representations are a secondary phenomena. These critiques are usually on the underlying Cartesian nature of a lot of epistemological arguments that misses the place of say embodiment in knowing.

We recognize for instance the difference between propositional knowledge (knowledge that) from skill knowledge (knowledge how). Yet the presumption of a lot of epistemology is really the remnant of the idea of dualism. That is that knowledge is disembodied. We can imagine ourselves as a knowing subject not part of the world. (I know you know these things - I'm more speaking to other readers) If we reject that dualism then, the argument goes, we can't separate how knowledge that from knowledge how.

For Heidegger this is wrapped up in the recognition that our understanding of objects and their properties arises not from representations but from use. I only understand a paintbrush as a paintbrush against a pre-existing body of practices, skills and so forth. So a paint brush is only a paint brush because I know how to paint. Indeed Heidegger goes so far as to argue that we only recognize objects as 'things' when these practices break down. The example I usually use when I taught this in school was using a mouse. When you use a mouse the mouse withdraws phenomenally. You no longer consciously notice it. You just concentrate on the screen and what you are doing. However if there's an electrical short in the mouse or a bug and the mouse no longer responds the way it is supposed to you notice the mouse as something separate from your practices. Heidegger argues that it precisely these breakdowns from bodily skills and practices that enable us to speak about epistemology.

Now one can of course reject Heidegger although I think the phenomena he describes is correct. The implication if what he describes is correct is that it simply isn't a category error to separate behavior from knowledge. That is representation or perception is inherently distorting and missing something key about both how we know as well as the world itself. 

Ironically from the Heideggarian perspective to think this is a category error is to fall prey to Cartesianism.

Returning to this a couple of days later, I officially apologize for my snarky comment about translating Heidegger.

My point was simply this- and it is a "late Wittgensteinian" point all the way- that these distinctions seem to be simply semantic confusions which do not survive translation from die Deutsche Sprache to the English language.  

Essentially what I meant to convey is that it is impossible to slice and dice these ideas and distinctions between action and perception and besides all that, what we are slicing and dicing is like trying to machine melting butter to a thousandth of an inch.  It just ain't gonna happen and especially when there is the whole issue of TRANSLATION- which is impossible to such a fine degree- issues.

Contrast that with this very simple statement ABOUT Jamesian Radical Empiricism- which to me captures the problem as well as the solution- besides being from that wonderful scholarly source- Wikipedia-  that such analysis of language between two languages simply evolves to alphabet soup, not to mention having nothing to say about LDS theology:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_empiricism

Quote

 

Conclusion

James concludes that experience is full of connections and that these connections are part of what is actually experienced:

"Just so, I maintain, does a given undivided portion of experience, taken in one context of associates, play the part of a knower, of a state of mind, of 'consciousness'; while in a different context the same undivided bit of experience plays the part of a thing known, of an objective 'content.' In a word, in one group it figures as a thought, in another group as a thing. And, since it can figure in both groups simultaneously we have every right to speak of it as subjective and objective, both at once. (James 1912, Essay I)"

Context and importance[edit]

James put forth the doctrine because he thought ordinary empiricism, inspired by the advances in physical science, has or had the tendency to emphasize 'whirling particles' at the expense of the bigger picture: connections, causality, meaning. Both elements, James claims, are equally present in experience and both need to be accounted for.

The observation that our adherence to science seems to put us in a quandary is not exclusive to James. For example, Bertrand Russell notes the paradox in his Analysis of Matter (1927): we appeal to ordinary perception to arrive at our physical theories, yet those same theories seem to undermine that everyday perception, which is rich in meaning.

Radical empiricism relates to discussions about direct versus indirect realism as well as to early twentieth-century discussions against the idealism of influential philosophers like Josiah Royce. This is how neo-realists like William Pepperell Montague and Ralph Barton Perry interpreted James.

The conclusion that our worldview does not need transempirical support is also important in discussions about the adequacy of naturalistic descriptions of meaning and intentionality, which James attempts to provide, in contrast to phenomenological approaches or some forms of reductionism that claim that meaning is an illusion.

 

So slicing and dicing the virtually undefinable vagaries of one's stream of consciousness into nano-centimeters of definable moments is folly- and between two languages?  Fahgetaboutit! 

And what does this have to do with the Book of Mormon anyway?  The question here is I guess is "Is any of this real and in what sense" which is already a tremendously vague question.

I thought I was being terse and tremendously witty with my comment but now it just comes across as pure meaningless snark, and I apologize yet again for my monstrous ego, assuming that it would actually communicate anything but snark. 

[mfbukowski]

12 hours ago, USU78 said:

I'm perceiving a pattern here, one that jives well with Fromm's Art of Loving. A developmental pattern. Perhaps an eternal progression pattern.

Exactly and we are trying to define precisely which direction the roots of that little tree will grow.  Defining future growth of a plant is problematic.

[mfbukowski]

27 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

I've been more or less picking at the idea that it's being used consistently. When I tend to use the term myself I mean it as conscious knowledge of things. That would include both senses and concepts. I tend to see it in terms of the phenomenological tradition. Overall while the term is used a lot, people tend to use it in slightly different ways depending upon the topic at hand. Given the way psychology and cognitive science work, typically the exact use depends upon the nature of the experiment in question. My experience is that even the question of awareness is tricky since our brain may be acting on data we're not aware it's acting upon.

Some argue a better way to deal with it is to talk about judgments rather than perceptions. However I tend to not believe that ends up helping much given that what a judgment is tends to also be problematic. Is a low level brain process that determines a sound is a danger and triggers a fight or flight response a judgment? In one sense yes. Yet often what people mean by judgment is something higher order. Yet higher order judgments themselves depend upon low level biases and processes. How we think we make a judgment often isn't the actual process.

To the videos - I typically read and respond here at work and I'm not able to watch videos. Also they just take too much time. I'll confess to not being a huge fan of Peterson although when he drops the Jung-like stuff and gets to psychology it's usually pretty straightforward mainstream psychology.

Clark kindly squeezed me into this post which seems to cover some of the same territory.

https://www.timesandseasons.org/harchive/2017/08/guest-post-justifying-visions/index.html

(Still kissing up....    )

 

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

Returning to this a couple of days later, I officially apologize for my snarky comment about translating Heidegger.

My point was simply this- and it is a "late Wittgensteinian" point all the way- that these distinctions seem to be simply semantic confusions which do not survive translation from die Deutsche Sprache to the English language.  

Sorry, I didn't even realize you were being snarky. 

My response would be that if you read Heidegger as focusing in on the language you're doing Heidegger wrong. He's doing phenomenology. My problem with how Wittgenstein is typically used is that people get caught up in the language and neglect experience which is broader than language. I'd hasten to add I'm not accusing you of doing that. Just that while semantics matter when we debate these things, when we attune ourselves to experience and conduct the experience we can get past the foibles of language. I may not be able to use the right words to describe something, but in experience I can usually get at what's going on.

Much of my qualms with talking about perception were getting at that. When is a perception a perception. Is dreaming perceiving? Is snoring perceiving? Experience is in some ways an even worse term yet its breadth is pretty useful - further the externalist conception of experience that Heidegger and Peirce get at avoids the whole limit of consciousness.

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

Essentially what I meant to convey is that it is impossible to slice and dice these ideas and distinctions between action and perception and besides all that, what we are slicing and dicing is like trying to machine melting butter to a thousandth of an inch.  It just ain't gonna happen and especially when there is the whole issue of TRANSLATION- which is impossible to such a fine degree- issues.

I agree with you on this problem. I'm not sure I agree that it means we shouldn't make distinctions. Rather the issue is what sustains the distinction. I think the distinction between what we receive and what we do is a useful one even if it breaks down in various ways when pushed. For instance what comes to our awareness is always preprocessed. So in perceptions clearly there's an aspect of what we are doing to. Maybe it's not quite the way Kant put it in an idealized fashion. But something is pre-structuring our experience and not always in a consistent fashion. My sense is that's what you wish to emphasize. Yet at the same time there are things we are doing and we're not always doing them in a fashion we're aware of. I think that matters a lot too.

Where I differ is that I don't think we can just dismiss everything but our talk. I think some distinctions are very fruitful. And to use a term I know you don't like but I'd say they're stable in how they are fruitful.

Edited March 29, 2019 by clarkgoble

[mfbukowski]

13 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

I think how Alma discusses things and the Hebrew linguistic use in general lines up with Heidegger's insights quite closely. That said the focus in Alma 32 is on the prophet's words. So it is a focus on language even though the Hebrew conception of truth is in terms of how things show themselves to be the things they are.

I'm not so sure I'd say we discover through perception though. Rather we discover through use and through use we are able to perceive things.

Liked that last sentence.

They are too difficult to separate and define their boundaries.

That's why we combine them into the more vague word "experience".   That includes nuances, hunches, the hair on the back of your neck bristling when you hear a growl camping at night in the woods.

I recall sleeping out - sleeping bag on the ground- in Big Sur in my youth when I awoke suddenly to snarls and a huge crash somewhere above my head.  I was up on my feet and ready to run or fight or whatever- in nanoseconds!

Is that "discovering through perception"?  It is a full body instant reaction to possible danger.

Turned out it was two racoons fighting in the trees who fell into a snarling pile about ten feet from my head- and away they ran in two different directions.  Couldn't sleep the rest of the night- I was too shaken and creeped out at every little breeze through the trees!

So was that a "perception"- an "action"- a "comport" or .......   What The Fadoozle?? 

You can't slice it like that!  And if you tried, what predictable distinction would that provide that we might use to help us live better??

[mfbukowski]

20 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Sorry, I didn't even realize you were being snarky. 

 

Good, then I don't have to kiss up anymore!    👺

[mfbukowski]

22 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Sorry, I didn't even realize you were being snarky. 

 My response would be that if you read Heidegger as focusing in on the language you're doing Heidegger wrong. He's doing phenomenology. My problem with how Wittgenstein is typically used is that people get caught up in the language and neglect experience which is broader than language. I'd hasten to add I'm not accusing you of doing that. Just that while semantics matter when we debate these things, when we attune ourselves to experience and conduct the experience we can get past the foibles of language. I may not be able to use the right words to describe something, but in experience I can usually get at what's going on.

Much of my qualms with talking about perception were getting at that. When is a perception a perception. Is dreaming perceiving? Is snoring perceiving? Experience is in some ways an even worse term yet its breadth is pretty useful - further the externalist conception of experience that Heidegger and Peirce get at avoids the whole limit of consciousness.

No, it attempts to do the impossible and so becomes irrelevant.

Again I love the analogy of machining soft butter to the thousandth of an inch.

I had a client who was an engineer-  and looking at an investment based on over-analyzing the data,  he used to say "Oh!  They're just machining butter again- forget it!"

In other words, a useful conclusion from such ambiguity is impossible.

[CV75]

13 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

I think how Alma discusses things and the Hebrew linguistic use in general lines up with Heidegger's insights quite closely. That said the focus in Alma 32 is on the prophet's words. So it is a focus on language even though the Hebrew conception of truth is in terms of how things show themselves to be the things they are.

I'm not so sure I'd say we discover through perception though. Rather we discover through use and through use we are able to perceive things.

I think rather Alma 32 focuses on the word of God, which He imparts through others (verse 23; verses 26-27 specifically Alma) and upon which we are encouraged to experiment. Throughout the lesson, Alma refers to his preaching as “my word” and to the word of God as “the word.”

We cannot know the surety of the words spoken by His servants without perceiving the word of God that is in them, and “Ye cannot know of their surety at first…”. After the experiment, we see that the word of God (“the word”) will indeed “enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me.”

I see perception is an essential precursor to discovery, just as faith is the precursor to knowledge. Alma 32 describes the process of discovering knowledge through faith, or through enhanced perception (seeing that which is not seen without faith).

[CV75]

13 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Liked that last sentence.

They are too difficult to separate and define their boundaries.

That's why we combine them into the more vague word "experience".   That includes nuances, hunches, the hair on the back of your neck bristling when you hear a growl camping at night in the woods.

I recall sleeping out - sleeping bag on the ground- in Big Sur in my youth when I awoke suddenly to snarls and a huge crash somewhere above my head.  I was up on my feet and ready to run or fight or whatever- in nanoseconds!

Is that "discovering through perception"?  It is a full body instant reaction to possible danger.

Turned out it was two racoons fighting in the trees who fell into a snarling pile about ten feet from my head- and away they ran in two different directions.  Couldn't sleep the rest of the night- I was too shaken and creeped out at every little breeze through the trees!

So was that a "perception"- an "action"- a "comport" or .......   What The Fadoozle?? 

You can't slice it like that!  And if you tried, what predictable distinction would that provide that we might use to help us live better??

This is one reason i say that faith and knowledge are different forms of the same thing.

ETA: Similarly, "my word" and "the word' and the "word of God" are different forms of the same thing. But "my word" is to faith and perception as "the word of God" is to knowledge and "becoming."

Edited March 29, 2019 by CV75

[mfbukowski]

On 3/27/2019 at 1:57 PM, Wade Englund said:

This seems to be a great group to test my relevant hypothesis.

To me, the imperative of belief in the historicity of the Book of Mormon (or by extension the historicity of the mortal Christ or even whether the Godhead are non-fiction), has less to do with growth in faith and knowledge, and more to do with becoming (a point that is finding its way more often into General Conference talks of late--like Elder Oaks on the Godhead) .

By this I mean that, to an extent, spiritual faith can be inspired and strengthened and grow based on fictional characters, dreams, or figments of imagination, etc.   Carl Jung, by way of Dr. Jordan B Peterson,  underscore this notion in their discussions of various archetypes--heroes in particular, using fictional stories like Pinocchio, Star Wars, Harry Potter,  etc.(see for example HERE)

However, one cannot fully, in a non-fictional sense, become a fictional character. One can only fictionally become a fictional character. Thus, in terms of fully becoming in non-fictional terms, the archetypes of the CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER_DAY SAINTS, must be non-fictional.

Feel free to test and tear this hypothesis apart or bolster and magnify.

BTW, @mfbukowski is one of my heroes, as is also Stephen Smoot..

Thanks, -Wade ENglund-

Wade I have been thinking about this for a few days now and I would like to try a new approach to the problem that avoids metaphysics and makes the issue more practical I think-  I just hope I can get it into words.

We all have beliefs that frame the way we see the world which are based on the way we see the world.

Often those beliefs are not based on hard "facts" about the nature of the world, but are half inherited, half thought through and half not thought through so much.

We build our lives on such ideas, we set our goals and cornerstone beliefs on such rocks.

But some of them may or may not be "facts" and some of them may not be necessary to be facts.

Do we need it to be true that Moses actually hiked up that mountain and saw a burning bush to agree that it is wrong to murder people?

What if there was never such a person as Moses?  Is murder therefore OK?

The bottom line is "does it matter"?

Why does it matter or not matter?  That is a question we all must answer for ourselves.  

Is it easier to believe that we should not murder BECAUSE Moses was a "real man" who "really saw God in the burning bush" and received tablets written by God's own hand containing the 10 commandments?

Is it really necessary to believe that Jesus died literally for our sins in order to know that after all we have done to repent, our sins are forgiven after all we can do to fix them?   That we should forgive ourselves because we have done all we can to "erase" their effects?

Are the lessons in the Book of Mormon any less powerful in our lives if the people who experienced them never existed?

Is the parable of the prodigal son any less "true" because we do not have a photograph of the father in the story or his historical signature on parchment certifying that the story is "true"?

But wait!

Is it possible all these things "really did" happen???

Is it impossible that the did happen?

Inconclusive!   We cannot really know that they did or did not happen the way they appear in scripture!  Impossible!

So do we need to worry about whether or not they happened? 

Is our belief stronger by believing they did?   What is wrong with that in believing that they were "REAL" when such cannot be proven or disproven?

On the other hand even if Moses did not exist do we need that to know murder is wrong?

My point is that OUR personal point of view about historicity is not relevant to our beliefs- either way- about the principles we learn to build the foundations for our lives.  

So yes, if you want to believe they really happened- we don't know for sure anyway

If you want to not believe they really happened- we don't know anyway

If you don't care either way and yet affirm the principles taught, fine- we don't know for sure anyway!

Were the principles "inspired" by a "God"?  If you want to believe that, or not believe it, fine- we don't know for sure anyway!

The important thing is to understand the principles taught- not where the principles came from, and build our lives on these true principles which mankind has understood in their hearts forever.

If Jesus never uttered the words should we stop treating others as we want to be treated?

That is putting "facts" over principles mankind has learned over thousands of years for a peaceful and happy life.

I will support those principles regardless of historical facts every day

And the bottom line is that we already know "in our hearts" that murder is wrong and we should treat others the way we want to be treated- and these cannot be deduced from the way the world "really is"- we do not see these principles in action much in this world in which we live.

That is all the proof I need- they are already true in my heart, and were before I joined the church.

Edited March 29, 2019 by mfbukowski

[clarkgoble]

48 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

No, it attempts to do the impossible and so becomes irrelevant.

Again I love the analogy of machining soft butter to the thousandth of an inch.

I had a client who was an engineer-  and looking at an investment based on over-analyzing the data,  he used to say "Oh!  They're just machining butter again- forget it!"

In other words, a useful conclusion from such ambiguity is impossible.

Well this is where the pragmatic maxim matters. You have to ask how you would measure things. If you can't measure a difference then it's a difference without a difference. Where I think Peirce differs from some (such as say the logical positivists) is that he thinks it useful and fruitful to try and figure out differences even if right now we can't measure the difference in a reliable fashion. So, to use an example, Rorty does this in The Mirrors of Nature with certain questions about neurology. How do we tell the difference between a subjective account of pain and certain neurons firing. He notes that right now we can't and more or less just applies the pragmatic maxim. However I think one can go too far with that - such as the eliminative materialists like the Churchlands did.

[USU78]

3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Exactly and we are trying to define precisely which direction the roots of that little tree will grow.  Defining future growth of a plant is problematic.

Yup.  And the soul that is sufficiently "woke" to appreciate the deliciousness of the word becomes more and more like Him Who uttered it.