This is a philosophy 101 test!

[Amulek]

On 6/20/2021 at 5:53 PM, mfbukowski said:

And all the BYU philosophy boys are phenomenologists who get this stuff, why isn't every post about explaining it?

I hope to come back to this thread when I have more time, but for now I just wanted to mention that I actually took Philosophy 101 from Mark Wrathall back when I was a freshman at BYU.

His class was markedly easier than this discussion.

But maybe that can be something of a contribution now: How would you go about explaining this to a Junior / Senior in high school? If you could make your argument more accessible, I believe it will likely have more staying power.

 

[Calm]

5 hours ago, CV75 said:

You may not be Ahab, but you may be Atlantic Mike LOL.

MosiahFree has been a member since 2012, don’t remember much posting or content (profile says 61 posts total), but don’t see them as a sock puppet at all.

Edited June 28, 2021 by Calm

[mfbukowski]

13 hours ago, MosiahFree said:

 

Objection 3: Your inclusion of interpretive acts as being part and parcel of experience indicates that advanced and deliberate cognitive functions are to be classified as experience. Doesn’t it seem counterintuitive to suggest that the activity of your composition of a message board post be considered the same class of thing as hearing your wife calling your name or feeling too hot sitting in the sun?

Thanks! Great suggestions!

While I am doing the interpretive act of reading your post, I will try to decide if it is "experience".

It is certainly "awareness" which was one of the one word possible synonyms I was considering as a substitute for "experience".

I have wanted the magic word to include an interpretive side and a non-interpretive connotation as well, but I might need to bifurcate the concept for clarity's sake.

This is a fairly crucial point, actually because I feel (- an experience itself!) that on one side all experience is interpretive, even if we are unaware of it - our very cognitive processes are interpretive when magically transform alleged "photons" into "red".  And learning math or riding a bike certainty includes experiences.

But on another level "experience" can also seem to be direct and unmediated-- surprise, and other reactions seem pre-linguistic, and I think religious experience is in that category. Maybe an additional word is needed.

Edit: Is a vision unmediated? Is a vision "through a glass darkly" or is it "face to face"?

Is thinking about this an "experience"? 

 Oy vey!!

Edited June 28, 2021 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

MosiahFree has been a member since 2012, don’t remember much posting or content (profile says 61 posts total), but don’t see them as a sock puppet at all.

No, he us certainly none of the above.

Edited June 28, 2021 by mfbukowski
Non charitable reply

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Amulek said:

I hope to come back to this thread when I have more time, but for now I just wanted to mention that I actually took Philosophy 101 from Mark Wrathall back when I was a freshman at BYU.

His class was markedly easier than this discussion.

But maybe that can be something of a contribution now: How would you go about explaining this to a Junior / Senior in high school? If you could make your argument more accessible, I believe it will likely have more staying power.

 

That's the plan! Help out if you want.

I was taught by Angela Davis.

Just a little different!

I see this as a community adventure.

Edited June 28, 2021 by mfbukowski

[Teancum]

21 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

I am not understanding - just after this comment- I sent you a link to an article:

The second quote above is the first line of the article which you said was a "good read"

What does that "good read" say?  IT EXPLAINS that religions speak in images and parables and paradoxes, and there is NO OTHER way to grasp the "REALITY" of religious discourse and yet religious discourse reveals a "genuine reality"

 

 

Ok I get what you are saying but I am not sure that I an agree that this method is reliable nor that it is in anyway bow must Latter day Saints approach their religious belief and knowledge and I Would include the leaders of the church.  I actually like this approach and would be pleased if I could attend an LDS congregation that approaches spiritual and religious knowledge in such a way.  Think about testimony meetings and how those could change. I am ok with uncertainly and avoiding  absolutes in the realm of religious experiences.  But I don't think this is really found amongst the Latter-day Saints for the most part.

[Calm]

Nvm

Edited June 28, 2021 by Calm

[Calm]

14 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Think about testimony meetings and how those could change. I am ok with uncertainly and avoiding  absolutes in the realm of religious experiences.  But I don't think this is really found amongst the Latter-day Saints for the most part.

In testimony meetings, we generally share narratives of our own experiences and draw morals/teachings from them. I remember when there was a push to view journal writing as creating our own personal scriptures. A friend created a program that printed up a patriarchal blessing in the same format as the scriptures including a strip of adhesive for inserting into the end of Doctrine and Covenants or anywhere else in the scriptures one chose.  Never could bring myself to attach mine as I change up scriptures overtime too much, but it is a tight enough fit it doesn’t fall out. 
 

If we can learn to view ourself as capable of generating scripture, I think it possible we could start looking at our testimonies as sharing parables from our lives. 

[CV75]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

Thanks! Great suggestions!

While I am doing the interpretive act of reading your post, I will try to decide if it is "experience".

It is certainly "awareness" which was one of the one word possible synonyms I was considering as a substitute for "experience".

I have wanted the magic word to include an interpretive side and a non-interpretive connotation as well, but I might need to bifurcate the concept for clarity's sake.

This is a fairly crucial point, actually because I feel (- an experience itself!) that on one side all experience is interpretive, even if we are unaware of it - our very cognitive processes are interpretive when magically transform alleged "photons" into "red".  And learning math or riding a bike certainty includes experiences.

But on another level "experience" can also seem to be direct and unmediated-- surprise, and other reactions seem pre-linguistic, and I think religious experience is in that category. Maybe an additional word is needed.

Edit: Is a vision unmediated? Is a vision "through a glass darkly" or is it "face to face"?

Is thinking about this an "experience"? 

 Oy vey!!

Why would it matter whether an experience is of one kind or the other ("registering" or "applying" / "acted upon" or "acting upon"))?  There are things we can / do control and things we cannot / do not; likewise there are things that can/do control us and things that cannot / do not. Some of these things experience and some do not (according to our experience). I think mastering our experience would expand our ability to act and scope of action.

[mfbukowski]

26 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Ok I get what you are saying but I am not sure that I an agree that this method is reliable nor that it is in anyway bow must Latter day Saints approach their religious belief and knowledge and I Would include the leaders of the church.  I actually like this approach and would be pleased if I could attend an LDS congregation that approaches spiritual and religious knowledge in such a way.  Think about testimony meetings and how those could change. I am ok with uncertainly and avoiding  absolutes in the realm of religious experiences.  But I don't think this is really found amongst the Latter-day Saints for the most part.

Good!! Communication established!

I joined the church BECAUSE of the philosophy- don't worry about human foibles and people who live with ideas a few hundred years old, it's not their fault!  Their thoughts are fossils from the past, but we live in a time of secular religion and to include the secularists we need to build bridges to secularism yet with theism as our base, AND THIS WAY OF SEEING PROVIDES THAT.

They have their truth for their community and we have ours, and there is no logical reason to pick one above the other EXCEPT for our experiences, and how they differ.

So try seeking experience in your "gut" and see them as valid as any other "gut" feeling you have, like falling in love, picking a political party, etc.

Religion is not about facts, it's about the gut.

God lives in your heart, and it's ok to see it that way, it is fully "logical" to render science to scientists and religion to God!

And be nice to the fossils, diamonds are pretty old too!  It's not their fault.

 

[mfbukowski]

28 minutes ago, CV75 said:

Why would it matter whether an experience is of one kind or the other ("registering" or "applying" / "acted upon" or "acting upon"))?  There are things we can / do control and things we cannot / do not; likewise there are things that can/do control us and things that cannot / do not. Some of these things experience and some do not (according to our experience). I think mastering our experience would expand our ability to act and scope of action.

Agree, gotta ponderize

 

 

[MosiahFree]

1 hour ago, CV75 said:

Why would it matter whether an experience is of one kind or the other ("registering" or "applying" / "acted upon" or "acting upon"))?  There are things we can / do control and things we cannot / do not; likewise there are things that can/do control us and things that cannot / do not. Some of these things experience and some do not (according to our experience). I think mastering our experience would expand our ability to act and scope of action.

Let me explain the situation like this.

If you took a copy of the ‘The Oxford Companion to Philosophy’ and turned to page 261, you would find an entry for “experience”. The definition has two senses of the word, the first being direct observation or perception by the senses. The second definition is restricted to debates in the field of epistemology (the area dedicated to the topic of knowledge) about the nature of human knowledge fundamentally being empirical or not. 

Now if you go back to the Original Post you will see the attached images from a book by a guy called Eugene Fontinell. Eugene is writing from the perspective of the pragmatic philosophical tradition (often called “American Philosophy”), which uses the word “experience” in philosophical ways that go above and beyond the two definitions provided by ‘The Oxford Companion to Philosophy’. He doesn’t want readers to get confused about what they are going to see if they see discussions of experience that don’t fit the common definition.

Within philosophy, it is acceptable to redefine words as long as you have appropriate reasons to do so and you make your definition clear. The hazard here is that the more expansive your new definition, the more likely that definition is going to bump into other areas of philosophical debate. Worst case scenario is that there is a snowball effect where your new definition crosses enough lines that automatically you become embroiled on multiple philosophical fronts and your entire project gets subsumed under that.

A possible example has to do with mathematics. What mfbukowski lays out is basically a definition of experience that includes mathematical reasoning, which looks like he is saying that mathematics is an empirical venture. Staking out such a position leaves you open to serious objections and one has to weigh their options on what exactly the kind of conflicts they want to get embroiled in.    
 

[CV75]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

Good!! Communication established!

I joined the church BECAUSE of the philosophy- don't worry about human foibles and people who live with ideas a few hundred years old, it's not their fault!  Their thoughts are fossils from the past, but we live in a time of secular religion and to include the secularists we need to build bridges to secularism yet with theism as our base, AND THIS WAY OF SEEING PROVIDES THAT.

They have their truth for their community and we have ours, and there is no logical reason to pick one above the other EXCEPT for our experiences, and how they differ.

So try seeking experience in your "gut" and see them as valid as any other "gut" feeling you have, like falling in love, picking a political party, etc.

Religion is not about facts, it's about the gut.

God lives in your heart, and it's ok to see it that way, it is fully "logical" to render science to scientists and religion to God!

And be nice to the fossils, diamonds are pretty old too!  It's not their fault.

 

The enteric nervous system – the so-called “second brain” – may turn out to be the “first brain” from which our modern brains evolved. I use this is a metaphor for the idea that while some might place one system over the over in prominence, the two are still mutually dependent in many ways. The more “primitive” enteric nervous system represents the “gut” or spiritual/religious resonance while the more evolved central nervous system represents the “brain” or scientific/secular working model. I think the right thought experiment might help people experience both, without rejecting either.

Edited June 28, 2021 by CV75

[CV75]

14 minutes ago, MosiahFree said:

Let me explain the situation like this.

If you took a copy of the ‘The Oxford Companion to Philosophy’ and turned to page 261, you would find an entry for “experience”. The definition has two senses of the word, the first being direct observation or perception by the senses. The second definition is restricted to debates in the field of epistemology (the area dedicated to the topic of knowledge) about the nature of human knowledge fundamentally being empirical or not. 

Now if you go back to the Original Post you will see the attached images from a book by a guy called Eugene Fontinell. Eugene is writing from the perspective of the pragmatic philosophical tradition (often called “American Philosophy”), which uses the word “experience” in philosophical ways that go above and beyond the two definitions provided by ‘The Oxford Companion to Philosophy’. He doesn’t want readers to get confused about what they are going to see if they see discussions of experience that don’t fit the common definition.

Within philosophy, it is acceptable to redefine words as long as you have appropriate reasons to do so and you make your definition clear. The hazard here is that the more expansive your new definition, the more likely that definition is going to bump into other areas of philosophical debate. Worst case scenario is that there is a snowball effect where your new definition crosses enough lines that automatically you become embroiled on multiple philosophical fronts and your entire project gets subsumed under that.

A possible example has to do with mathematics. What mfbukowski lays out is basically a definition of experience that includes mathematical reasoning, which looks like he is saying that mathematics is an empirical venture. Staking out such a position leaves you open to serious objections and one has to weigh their options on what exactly the kind of conflicts they want to get embroiled in.    
 

"Mental State" in Wikipedia seems to cover a lot of areas that fall under the umbrella of "experience," so perhaps that might be a useful term. Or redefine "experience" in terms of the descriptions for mental states to cover those who might object to using "mental" to refer to" spiritual" phenomena. 

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, MosiahFree said:

A possible example has to do with mathematics. What mfbukowski lays out is basically a definition of experience that includes mathematical reasoning, which looks like he is saying that mathematics is an empirical venture. Staking out such a position leaves you open to serious objections and one has to weigh their options on what exactly the kind of conflicts they want to get embroiled in.    

I don't consider math as empirical per se, but certainty the concept of numbering is what Kant meant by a synthetic analytic proposition.

I will again post a quote from Robert C Solomon, using the concept to show how our experience of a "house" is constructed from numerous experiences of the object from several angles.

Or think of a pyramid, a triangle from one side, 4 triangles if in rotation, or a square from directly above. Without all these different perspectives of a pyramid synthesized into one object, one would not have the full experience.

Similarly in math,first the experience of numbering- having different objects displayed,- must happen before one can understand numbers, the basis of math

Or again, the house.

This view would make virtually all OBJECTIVE experience interpretive, or synthetic, a view to which I am drawn.

I will save that for later. Truth an falsity are only possible in objective linguistic statements anyway. No loss to religious experience 

Edited June 29, 2021 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

38 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I don't consider math as empirical per se, but certainty the concept of numbering is what Kant meant by a synthetic analytic proposition.

I will again post a quote from Robert C Solomon, using the concept to show how our experience of a "house" is constructed from numerous experiences of the object from several angles.

Or think of a pyramid, a triangle from one side, 4 triangles if in rotation, or a square from directly above. Without all these different perspectives of a pyramid synthesized into one object, one would not have the full experience.

Similarly in math,first the experience of numbering- having different objects displayed,- must happen before one can understand numbers, the basis of math

Or again, the house.

This view would make virtually all OBJECTIVE experience interpretive, or synthetic, a view to which I am drawn.

I will save that for later. Truth an falsity are only possible in objective linguistic statements anyway. No loss to religious experience 

So it looks like my buddy Solomon AND Husserl and MosiahFree all think there are no unsynthesized experiences.

Hmmmm. What am I losing in the deal? Religious experience?

Hmmmm..... not really I guess...?

 

[mfbukowski]

@USU78

Great to see you, I know you will have some good contributions.

We definitely need some Deutsche Romantik Literatur 'round hier. 

 

[mfbukowski]

Here's the deal, sports fans-   can the "ineffable" also be "unmediated"?

Or perhaps better put- can 

So now this is a test on philosophical jargon. 

If you can't put something into words, does that mean it was or was not an "experience"?

I have done some research on the major philosophers I follow and I notice that virtually everyone believes that there is no such thing as "unmediated experience"

In other words- ALL experience is filtered through a human brain at least.  Obvious. Otherwise we would know and feel nothing.

But where does ineffable experience fit?   Can we have an experience we cannot describe?  I think that is another obvious yes.  If we cannot describe the experience does that mean it is direct and unfiltered ?

That is the position I was holding.  For me, ineffable = unmediated- certainly unmediated by language, if we cannot find the words!

But what about other senses?  If the experience "really was" not through the senses- any senses- how could be anything?

So I think we need to postulate something like  a sixth sense- what? that allows us to sense what cannot be put into words?  So how do we put that sense into words?

Actually I kind of like that option, and I don't actually care if it fits with other paradigms or not.

The more I think about it the more I like it.   Let's be really creative and call it "The Light of Christ". 

I have no problem calling that an "ineffable sense"   It's "the gut".   Not exactly elegantly philosophical but in the vernacular it works, imo.

Definitely need some Deutsche Romantik Literatur here.  English doesn't have much like that.  German's great because you can just string together words to form a new one!

 

 

 

Edited June 29, 2021 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

21 hours ago, MosiahFree said:

A possible example has to do with mathematics. What mfbukowski lays out is basically a definition of experience that includes mathematical reasoning, which looks like he is saying that mathematics is an empirical venture. Staking out such a position leaves you open to serious objections and one has to weigh their options on what exactly the kind of conflicts they want to get embroiled in.    

I never meant that, that way.  I think Kant makes a lot of sense on this point- many see math as "a priori" reasoning- meaning its logic is not based on experience- but is "pure logic"

It gets complicated, and I don't want to get into the complex arguments involved but I will point anyone who wants to get into it here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_priori_and_a_posteriori

Kant's point, with which I agree does not say that mathmatical logic is "indpendent of experience" but has created a category of knowledge known as "synthetic a priori" which states that though the statements of math are NOT based on experience, it is true that without sense experience we could not understand the principles of math.

So no, math is not an "empirical venture"  But the basic concepts are dependent upon sense experience.   One needs to learn, numbering, for example- from experience.

You cannot understand what "one" is as opposed to "two" unless you have the EXPERIENCE of being shown two objects.  His point is that one cannot learn this concept by logic alone

So though the REASONING is purely logial, experience lays the necessary groundwork for understanding the logic.

I am not saying at all that mathematial reasoning is "empirical".

[CV75]

14 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Here's the deal, sports fans-   can the "ineffable" also be "unmediated"?

Or perhaps better put- can 

So now this is a test on philosophical jargon. 

If you can't put something into words, does that mean it was or was not an "experience"?

I have done some research on the major philosophers I follow and I notice that virtually everyone believes that there is no such thing as "unmediated experience"

In other words- ALL experience is filtered through a human brain at least.  Obvious. Otherwise we would know and feel nothing.

But where does ineffable experience fit?   Can we have an experience we cannot describe?  I think that is another obvious yes.  If we cannot describe the experience does that mean it is direct and unfiltered ?

That is the position I was holding.  For me, ineffable = unmediated- certainly unmediated by language, if we cannot find the words!

But what about other senses?  If the experience "really was" not through the senses- any senses- how could be anything?

So I think we need to postulate something like  a sixth sense- what? that allows us to sense what cannot be put into words?  So how do we put that sense into words?

Actually I kind of like that option, and I don't actually care if it fits with other paradigms or not.

The more I think about it the more I like it.   Let's be really creative and call it "The Light of Christ". 

I have no problem calling that an "ineffable sense"   It's "the gut".   Not exactly elegantly philosophical but in the vernacular it works, imo.

Definitely need some Deutsche Romantik Literatur here.  English doesn't have much like that.  German's great because you can just string together words to form a new one!

 

 

 

How about "agnostoception" – the unknown sense? If anyone thinks we have only 5 senses, lookie here  : https://www.sensorytrust.org.uk/blog/how-many-senses-do-we-have

[mfbukowski]

On 6/27/2021 at 10:23 PM, MosiahFree said:

Excellent. So I have a two pronged process that I liken to training in boxing: bagwork and sparring. Writing and rewriting is like hitting a heavy bag with its emphasis on form, establishing muscle memory, and building endurance. Answering follow up questions is like sparring because it gives you room to improvise and think on your feet.

You’ve done an iteration of bagwork, now it is time to get you in the ring. The following challenges come from me and they were the initial questions and observations I had while reading your definition of experience. You can answer them however you want and have no conditions to try and follow, these are just to get you thinking more about the paragraph you are going to be rewriting. I won’t be following up on these questions or disputing anything you answer with. Jargon is allowed.

Objection 1: Your idea of experience seems to encompass every aspect of human existence. Doesn’t your description better fit with human ontology within philosophy proper as opposed to the word experience?

Objection 2: Is there anything that happens within the inner life of a person that doesn’t fall under the rubric of experience? What about a student who is solving a math problem by working through the steps her teacher taught her? Most would consider this something approaching the a priori, but your notion of experience would seem to deny that it is.

Objection 3: Your inclusion of interpretive acts as being part and parcel of experience indicates that advanced and deliberate cognitive functions are to be classified as experience. Doesn’t it seem counterintuitive to suggest that the activity of your composition of a message board post be considered the same class of thing as hearing your wife calling your name or feeling too hot sitting in the sun?

Once you’ve replied, I’ll post my non-philosophical assessment of your paragraph (i.e. matters pertaining to composition) and we can start on the first rewrite. If this process is irksome let me know. 
 

OK, as I look at these three objections, it seems that they all hinge on the same point- and the point is whether or not we want to include SOME interpretive events in the context of "experience"

I think learning a skill - as one progresses in say, playing the piano or learning math skills, there are "experiences" that help it all "fall together"- so that as an intepretive activity proceeds, other experiences intervene in the effort to learn the skill.  Another example would be geometry- one must know from experience what a "triangle" IS before the Pythagorean Theorem can be deduced by pure logic.  So too are the mathematics of physics- one needs data before the relations of the data may be deduced.

I see this as analogous to the Kantian synthetic a priori- which I have discussed above and will continue to do so as needed.

So too I believe, is religious experience.  One first needs to know what it is before one can see the "logical categories" upon which it functions.

One must have a cause to believe in which one thinks is "right" before one can test the principles of the cause.   A secular example might be global warming.  Once one believes that it is caused by humanity, then one can "receive" impressions and feelings about how to correct it.

Golden rule:  Requires living with neighbors on earth before one's sense tells us that if we want to be treated well, we must treat others well.

This is in fact a high school example I might use to teach the synthetic a priori idea of the categorical imperative- Kant's deduction of the golden rule.

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

So too with belief in God I would argue- one must first experience the awe of the universe before one can ascribe it to an intelligence beyond our own.

First is the experience, and then the "gut" reaction that nothing else I know can explain it except.....  (fill in interpretation of experience"

So if I have to use words to describe the ineffable- a losing proposition from the start-  I must conclude that there are no experiences which are not at least interpreted first by the heart- or "gut" before one can decide if that experience can be described - whether or not it is "ineffable".

So yes, there are no experiences which are independent of interpretation.   So even "ineffable" experiences ARE experiences- they just cannot be described.  One at least knows that "something's happening"!

So yes I will choose the door labeled "objection 1"  and see the interpretation of experience as analogous to the Kantian synthetic a priori- one must first have an AWARENESS EVENTof "something happening here- what it is ain't exactly clear"   - in a sense, an "experience" but not fully developed, not fully mediated or categorized yet- and ineffable.

We see it, but it is still through a glass darkly, the rest, as you sort of say, is within human philosophical ONTOGENESIS.

I like the direction that gives us toward "BECOMING" perfect, as Our Father is.

Them Catholics can be pretty smart about this stuff anyway... 

https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/you-say-ontology-i-say-ontogeny/

Quote

Onto-what? Ontogenesis, otherwise known as ontogeny, is the process of organic development in a living thing from a simple to a more complex state. The ontogeny of an organism is closely related to its ontology. Applied to ourselves, both areas of study address the question of what it means to be human. The Church is trying very hard to both participate in and help shape this discussion. Whether or not you have any patience with the “O” words yourself, the Church does, which is not only fascinating, but a very good thing.

 

Edited June 29, 2021 by mfbukowski

[MosiahFree]

On 6/24/2021 at 3:08 PM, mfbukowski said:

"Hey dude- what's happening"?

The answer is "experience"!   Heidegger: "Being in the world".   

I see experience as the sum total of what it is to be alive- it is what IS happening now in my life, and my interpretations and memories of everything which has happened, including every sense perception. It is awareness, and my stream of consciousness.   It includes my interpretations of feelings which I have tied to sensations.  It is my awareness of what is happening around me and how I interpret it.  It is what has been called "subjective" a term I do not like because it presupposes an "objective" view- but objectivity is more crowd perception- it is the "they" in "they say ....."   It is my awareness and "stream of consciousness"

Experience as I see it can include intake from speech - what I have heard or read, or undigested, pre-linguistic experience.  Imagine driving a mountain road and suddenly a gorgeous vista appears before us- the only utterance one can make is "Wow"!.   There are no words to explain or share it.

175 word count. We can axe the first part because it asks a question and also mentions a philosopher. We should also ditch the part about “subjective experience” vs “objective experience” because it is a distinction between two different kinds of experience in the middle of a purported definition of experience. That will have to come later.

Quote

 

I see experience as the sum total of what it is to be alive- it is what IS happening now in my life, and my interpretations and memories of everything which has happened, including every sense perception. It is awareness, and my stream of consciousness. It includes my interpretations of feelings which I have tied to sensations.  It is my awareness of what is happening around me and how I interpret it. It is my awareness and "stream of consciousness"

Experience as I see it can include intake from speech - what I have heard or read, or undigested, pre-linguistic experience.  Imagine driving a mountain road and suddenly a gorgeous vista appears before us- the only utterance one can make is "Wow"!.   There are no words to explain or share it.

 

130 word count. You repeat yourself a few times, especially when you mention interpretations; “my interpretations and memories of everything”, “includes my interpretations of feelings”, “what is happening around me and how I interpret it.”. 

Rewrite the paragraph again and try to remember to use fuller sentences and make sure each sentence builds upon the one previous to it. Keep conscious of the topic and watch for drifting into rabbit trails. Remember: (a) audience is high school seniors, (b) no name dropping philosophers, (c) no questions, not even the rhetorical variety, (d) 50 words minimum and 500 word maximum.
 

[MosiahFree]

8 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

OK, as I look at these three objections, it seems that they all hinge on the same point- and the point is whether or not we want to include SOME interpretive events in the context of "experience"

I think learning a skill - as one progresses in say, playing the piano or learning math skills, there are "experiences" that help it all "fall together"- so that as an intepretive activity proceeds, other experiences intervene in the effort to learn the skill.  Another example would be geometry- one must know from experience what a "triangle" IS before the Pythagorean Theorem can be deduced by pure logic.  So too are the mathematics of physics- one needs data before the relations of the data may be deduced.

I see this as analogous to the Kantian synthetic a priori- which I have discussed above and will continue to do so as needed.

(Bolding mine)

Be wary of the insider baseball here. If we look back the book you shared with us in your OP Eugene Fontinell remarks:

Quote

For the present purposes, a few key points will suffice. “Experience,” for the pragmatists, is not identical with the “experience” of classical empiricism stemming from David Hume and John Stuart Mill. The differences are described clearly and sharply by Dewey in a 1917 essay entitled ‘The Need For Recovery in Philosophy’.

Diligent readers are going to familiarize themselves with that essay of Dewey’s and in doing so are going to learn Dewey’s opinion of Kant’s project. The following comes from section II of the essay: 

Quote

 

Of course, not all empiricism prior to Hume and Kant was sensationalistic, pulverizing “experience” into isolated sensory qualities or simple ideas. It did not all follow Locke’s lead in regarding the entire content of generalization as the “workmanship of the understanding.” On the Continent, prior to Kant, philosophers were content to draw a line between empirical generalizations regarding matters of fact and necessary universals applying to truths of reason. But logical atomism was implicit even in this theory. Statements referring to empirical fact were mere quantitative summaries of particular instances. In the sensationalism which sprang from Hume (and which was left unquestioned by Kant as far as any strictly empirical element was concerned) the implicit particularism was made explicit. But the doctrine that sensations and ideas are so many separate existences was not derived from observation nor from experiment. It was a logical deduction from a prior unexamined concept of the nature of experience. From the same concept it followed that the appearance of stable objects and of general principles of connexion was but an appearance.

Kantianism, then, naturally invoked universal bonds to restore objectivity. But, in so doing, it accepted the particularism of experience and proceeded to supplement it from non-empirical sources. A sensory manifold being all which is really empirical in experience, a reason which transcends experience must provide synthesis. The net outcome might have suggested a correct account of experience. For we have only to forget the apparatus by which the net outcome is arrived at, to have before us the experience of the plain man—a diversity of ceaseless changes connected in all kinds of ways, static and dynamic. This conclusion would deal a deathblow to both empiricism and rationalism. For, making clear the non-empirical character of the alleged manifold of unconnected particulars, it would render unnecessary the appeal to functions of the understanding in order to connect them. With the downfall of the traditional notion of experience, the appeal to reason to supplement its defects becomes superfluous.

 

Setting out to do a project predicated on pragmatic philosophy and then introducing Kantian epistemic distinctions is going to be discordant and incongruent to readers familiar with both. 
 

[mfbukowski]

12 hours ago, MosiahFree said:

(Bolding mine)

Be wary of the insider baseball here. If we look back the book you shared with us in your OP Eugene Fontinell remarks:

Diligent readers are going to familiarize themselves with that essay of Dewey’s and in doing so are going to learn Dewey’s opinion of Kant’s project. The following comes from section II of the essay: 

Setting out to do a project predicated on pragmatic philosophy and then introducing Kantian epistemic distinctions is going to be discordant and incongruent to readers familiar with both. 
 

I did the italics.

I am not that concerned about the project being "predicated on pragmatic philosophy", - it is not a philosophy paper- the project as I see it is to provide a kind of justifiable way of seeing and understanding LDS scripture, and I think that any philosophy that does that is fine.  Yet throughout Mormormonism there is a VERY strong affinity toward pragmatic ideas, probably due to American culture

I had not read that Dewey essay though and that was interesting, and something of which I was not aware.   But if Dewey had problems with Kant, that I think raises a point extraneous to my objectives.

I like Kant because the synthetic a priori is a concept that practically any student of philosophy will find familiar and I think it IS a convincing argument for seeing statements like "Do unto others....etc."- the golden rule-  as being derived experientially and yet being a priori "true".   Maybe if you scan this article by President Kimball- clearly NOT a philosopher and yet a very well educated and wise man, and in my opinion, inspired by experiences of the Human Ideal- God- you will understand the milieu if you do not already.

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1978/09/absolute-truth?lang=eng

For LDS readers that is a good thing in that we can have our cake and eat it too in a sense because we can have "eternal truth" - a priori truth- that still is based on practical (pragmatic) experience.  And really my use of philosophy is to justify beliefs philosophically, not to use one particular outlook or movement IN philosophy in a doctrinaire way.

I am typically seen around here as the crazy "brain in a vat" guy who does not believe in "reality" or "truth", because it's all in your head"-  I thought that the Rorty quote- supposedly from "the lucid philosopher" that anyone can understand would help, but honestly I think it has almost made things worse.   Hence the "name dropping".  "Smart guys actually believe this!"

But regarding my definition of experience for a high school kid- maybe this will do?  

 “Experience” is the sum total of what it is to be conscious- it is one's stream of awareness of their interactions with the environment.  It is all they see as "real".

I will be busy for the next few days so my responses may be intermittent, but I really appreciate the help.

 

[MosiahFree]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

But regarding my definition of experience for a high school kid- maybe this will do?  

 “Experience” is the sum total of what it is to be conscious- it is one's stream of awareness of their interactions with the environment.  It is all they see as "real".

I will be busy for the next few days so my responses may be intermittent, but I really appreciate the help.

 

"Experience is the sum total of what it is to be conscious- it is one's stream of awareness of their interactions with the environment" is a keeper, I think that is the perfect first sentence. I think if you lead with something like this and follow it up with some carefully selected examples of what experience is, followed by some carefully selected examples of what experience isn't, and I think you'll have an intuitive and easy to understand opening paragraph.