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Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

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Prof David West

Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

Epistemology, loosely speaking, is the “theory of knowing.” What can we know; how do we know we know it; the difference between knowing that, knowing how, and knowing about; and, issues of the “truth” of what we know and/or justifications for thinking we know anything?

An associated issue concerns how we come to acquire knowledge. Two means of acquisition are commonly proposed: a priori (independent of experience) and a posteriori (by experience).

A Vedic text, Tattirtiya Aranyaka (900-600 BCE), lists four sources of knowledge, roughly translated as: tradition/scripture, perception, authority, and reasoning/inference. Of these the fourth and second seem to map onto a priori and a posteriori.

Scholasticism — exemplars include Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, and Thomas Aquinas — was concerned with integrating three of the Vedic sources of knowledge: tradition/scripture (Christian theology), authority (Aristotle and Plato), and reasoning/inference.

Modern epistemology (and Peirce) seems to be concerned with two of the sources: tradition/scripture (peer reviewed science journals) and reasoning/inference.

Claims to "know" something, in a naive sense of know, like "I know that I am," "I know that I am in love," "I had the most interesting experience at FriAM just now," mystical visions, kinesthetic “muscle memory,” chi imbalance, and, of course, hallucinogen induced altered states of consciousness.

Is it possible to construct a theory of knowledge that could extend to, incorporate, a wider range of experience and especially mystical and psychedelic experience? If it was possible, would it be of value? If possible and of value, what parameters could be set to limn the resulting philosophy?

davew

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

thompnickson2

Re: Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

Two things, Dave,

Peirce had actually 4 ways of knowing. Stubbornness, Authority, Reasonableness, Experience, which he tries to treat with equal respect, but his heart is obviously with the last. (The Fixation of Belief). You make me wonder about the relation tween Peirce and that Vedic text.

But this begs the most fundamental question raised by your post. What is knowledge, other than belief, and what is belief other than that upon which we are prepared to act? There is one member of our group who, very much in the spirit of William James's altered states, wants to work on aura's He has a tentative belief in aura's. When through experiment and analysis he renders that belief "firm", does he then have knowledge. Already he believes in the possibility of aura's. We know that this is the case because of the effort he is willing to expend in their demonstration. Does he have knowledge of the existence of auras? Does he already know that aura's exist?

I think problems with the very idea of knowledge lie at the core of this discussion, and we need some sort of working understanding of what we mean by it, if we are to precede.

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Tuesday, March 3, 2020 1:48 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

Epistemology, loosely speaking, is the “theory of knowing.” What can we know; how do we know we know it; the difference between knowing that, knowing how, and knowing about; and, issues of the “truth” of what we know and/or justifications for thinking we know anything?

An associated issue concerns how we come to acquire knowledge. Two means of acquisition are commonly proposed: a priori (independent of experience) and a posteriori (by experience).

A Vedic text, Tattirtiya Aranyaka (900-600 BCE), lists four sources of knowledge, roughly translated as: tradition/scripture, perception, authority, and reasoning/inference. Of these the fourth and second seem to map onto a priori and a posteriori.

Scholasticism — exemplars include Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, and Thomas Aquinas — was concerned with integrating three of the Vedic sources of knowledge: tradition/scripture (Christian theology), authority (Aristotle and Plato), and reasoning/inference.

Modern epistemology (and Peirce) seems to be concerned with two of the sources: tradition/scripture (peer reviewed science journals) and reasoning/inference.

Claims to "know" something, in a naive sense of know, like "I know that I am," "I know that I am in love," "I had the most interesting experience at FriAM just now," mystical visions, kinesthetic “muscle memory,” chi imbalance, and, of course, hallucinogen induced altered states of consciousness.

Is it possible to construct a theory of knowledge that could extend to, incorporate, a wider range of experience and especially mystical and psychedelic experience? If it was possible, would it be of value? If possible and of value, what parameters could be set to limn the resulting philosophy?

davew

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Frank Wimberly-2

Re: Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

When I was a sophomore at Berkeley majoring in philosophy I was taking history of philosophy. My TA was a PhD student who had graduated from Harvard. He asked the section, "What does it mean to say that you know something?" I raised my hand and said that it means that you believe it and it's true. He said, "Ah, an Aristotelian!"

---
Frank C. Wimberly
505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Tue, Mar 3, 2020, 9:28 AM <[hidden email]> wrote:

Two things, Dave,

Peirce had actually 4 ways of knowing. Stubbornness, Authority, Reasonableness, Experience, which he tries to treat with equal respect, but his heart is obviously with the last. (The Fixation of Belief). You make me wonder about the relation tween Peirce and that Vedic text.

But this begs the most fundamental question raised by your post. What is knowledge, other than belief, and what is belief other than that upon which we are prepared to act? There is one member of our group who, very much in the spirit of William James's altered states, wants to work on aura's He has a tentative belief in aura's. When through experiment and analysis he renders that belief "firm", does he then have knowledge. Already he believes in the possibility of aura's. We know that this is the case because of the effort he is willing to expend in their demonstration. Does he have knowledge of the existence of auras? Does he already know that aura's exist?

I think problems with the very idea of knowledge lie at the core of this discussion, and we need some sort of working understanding of what we mean by it, if we are to precede.

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Tuesday, March 3, 2020 1:48 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

Epistemology, loosely speaking, is the “theory of knowing.” What can we know; how do we know we know it; the difference between knowing that, knowing how, and knowing about; and, issues of the “truth” of what we know and/or justifications for thinking we know anything?

An associated issue concerns how we come to acquire knowledge. Two means of acquisition are commonly proposed: a priori (independent of experience) and a posteriori (by experience).

A Vedic text, Tattirtiya Aranyaka (900-600 BCE), lists four sources of knowledge, roughly translated as: tradition/scripture, perception, authority, and reasoning/inference. Of these the fourth and second seem to map onto a priori and a posteriori.

Scholasticism — exemplars include Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, and Thomas Aquinas — was concerned with integrating three of the Vedic sources of knowledge: tradition/scripture (Christian theology), authority (Aristotle and Plato), and reasoning/inference.

Modern epistemology (and Peirce) seems to be concerned with two of the sources: tradition/scripture (peer reviewed science journals) and reasoning/inference.

Claims to "know" something, in a naive sense of know, like "I know that I am," "I know that I am in love," "I had the most interesting experience at FriAM just now," mystical visions, kinesthetic “muscle memory,” chi imbalance, and, of course, hallucinogen induced altered states of consciousness.

Is it possible to construct a theory of knowledge that could extend to, incorporate, a wider range of experience and especially mystical and psychedelic experience? If it was possible, would it be of value? If possible and of value, what parameters could be set to limn the resulting philosophy?

davew

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Frank Wimberly-2

Re: Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

From the web:

Aristotle agrees with Plato that knowledge is of what is true and that this truth must be justified in a way which shows that it must be true, it is necessarily true.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Tue, Mar 3, 2020, 8:23 PM Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:

When I was a sophomore at Berkeley majoring in philosophy I was taking history of philosophy. My TA was a PhD student who had graduated from Harvard. He asked the section, "What does it mean to say that you know something?" I raised my hand and said that it means that you believe it and it's true. He said, "Ah, an Aristotelian!"

---
Frank C. Wimberly
505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Tue, Mar 3, 2020, 9:28 AM <[hidden email]> wrote:
Two things, Dave,

Peirce had actually 4 ways of knowing. Stubbornness, Authority, Reasonableness, Experience, which he tries to treat with equal respect, but his heart is obviously with the last. (The Fixation of Belief). You make me wonder about the relation tween Peirce and that Vedic text.

But this begs the most fundamental question raised by your post. What is knowledge, other than belief, and what is belief other than that upon which we are prepared to act? There is one member of our group who, very much in the spirit of William James's altered states, wants to work on aura's He has a tentative belief in aura's. When through experiment and analysis he renders that belief "firm", does he then have knowledge. Already he believes in the possibility of aura's. We know that this is the case because of the effort he is willing to expend in their demonstration. Does he have knowledge of the existence of auras? Does he already know that aura's exist?

I think problems with the very idea of knowledge lie at the core of this discussion, and we need some sort of working understanding of what we mean by it, if we are to precede.

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Tuesday, March 3, 2020 1:48 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

Epistemology, loosely speaking, is the “theory of knowing.” What can we know; how do we know we know it; the difference between knowing that, knowing how, and knowing about; and, issues of the “truth” of what we know and/or justifications for thinking we know anything?

An associated issue concerns how we come to acquire knowledge. Two means of acquisition are commonly proposed: a priori (independent of experience) and a posteriori (by experience).

A Vedic text, Tattirtiya Aranyaka (900-600 BCE), lists four sources of knowledge, roughly translated as: tradition/scripture, perception, authority, and reasoning/inference. Of these the fourth and second seem to map onto a priori and a posteriori.

Scholasticism — exemplars include Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, and Thomas Aquinas — was concerned with integrating three of the Vedic sources of knowledge: tradition/scripture (Christian theology), authority (Aristotle and Plato), and reasoning/inference.

Modern epistemology (and Peirce) seems to be concerned with two of the sources: tradition/scripture (peer reviewed science journals) and reasoning/inference.

Claims to "know" something, in a naive sense of know, like "I know that I am," "I know that I am in love," "I had the most interesting experience at FriAM just now," mystical visions, kinesthetic “muscle memory,” chi imbalance, and, of course, hallucinogen induced altered states of consciousness.

Is it possible to construct a theory of knowledge that could extend to, incorporate, a wider range of experience and especially mystical and psychedelic experience? If it was possible, would it be of value? If possible and of value, what parameters could be set to limn the resulting philosophy?

davew

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

thompnickson2

Re: Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

Which means, I think, that on his account, that no knowledge can be arrived at empirically.

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Tuesday, March 3, 2020 8:27 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

From the web:

Aristotle agrees with Plato that knowledge is of what is true and that this truth must be justified in a way which shows that it must be true, it is necessarily true.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Tue, Mar 3, 2020, 8:23 PM Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:

When I was a sophomore at Berkeley majoring in philosophy I was taking history of philosophy. My TA was a PhD student who had graduated from Harvard. He asked the section, "What does it mean to say that you know something?" I raised my hand and said that it means that you believe it and it's true. He said, "Ah, an Aristotelian!"
---
Frank C. Wimberly
505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Tue, Mar 3, 2020, 9:28 AM <[hidden email]> wrote:
Two things, Dave,

Peirce had actually 4 ways of knowing. Stubbornness, Authority, Reasonableness, Experience, which he tries to treat with equal respect, but his heart is obviously with the last. (The Fixation of Belief). You make me wonder about the relation tween Peirce and that Vedic text.

But this begs the most fundamental question raised by your post. What is knowledge, other than belief, and what is belief other than that upon which we are prepared to act? There is one member of our group who, very much in the spirit of William James's altered states, wants to work on aura's He has a tentative belief in aura's. When through experiment and analysis he renders that belief "firm", does he then have knowledge. Already he believes in the possibility of aura's. We know that this is the case because of the effort he is willing to expend in their demonstration. Does he have knowledge of the existence of auras? Does he already know that aura's exist?

I think problems with the very idea of knowledge lie at the core of this discussion, and we need some sort of working understanding of what we mean by it, if we are to precede.

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Tuesday, March 3, 2020 1:48 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

Epistemology, loosely speaking, is the “theory of knowing.” What can we know; how do we know we know it; the difference between knowing that, knowing how, and knowing about; and, issues of the “truth” of what we know and/or justifications for thinking we know anything?

An associated issue concerns how we come to acquire knowledge. Two means of acquisition are commonly proposed: a priori (independent of experience) and a posteriori (by experience).

A Vedic text, Tattirtiya Aranyaka (900-600 BCE), lists four sources of knowledge, roughly translated as: tradition/scripture, perception, authority, and reasoning/inference. Of these the fourth and second seem to map onto a priori and a posteriori.

Scholasticism — exemplars include Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, and Thomas Aquinas — was concerned with integrating three of the Vedic sources of knowledge: tradition/scripture (Christian theology), authority (Aristotle and Plato), and reasoning/inference.

Modern epistemology (and Peirce) seems to be concerned with two of the sources: tradition/scripture (peer reviewed science journals) and reasoning/inference.

Claims to "know" something, in a naive sense of know, like "I know that I am," "I know that I am in love," "I had the most interesting experience at FriAM just now," mystical visions, kinesthetic “muscle memory,” chi imbalance, and, of course, hallucinogen induced altered states of consciousness.

Is it possible to construct a theory of knowledge that could extend to, incorporate, a wider range of experience and especially mystical and psychedelic experience? If it was possible, would it be of value? If possible and of value, what parameters could be set to limn the resulting philosophy?

davew

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Prof David West

Re: Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

In reply to this post by Frank Wimberly-2

But we "know" that Plato and Aristotle were wrong.

There is no such thing as Truth.

The only way they could get away with thinking that there was is the fact that their awareness was extremely "coarse grained" and "local."

"There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

What philosophy is there that can dream of and account for "more things?"

davew

On Wed, Mar 4, 2020, at 4:26 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote:

From the web:

Aristotle agrees with Plato that knowledge is of what is true and that this truth must be justified in a way which shows that it must be true, it is necessarily true.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Tue, Mar 3, 2020, 8:23 PM Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:
When I was a sophomore at Berkeley majoring in philosophy I was taking history of philosophy. My TA was a PhD student who had graduated from Harvard. He asked the section, "What does it mean to say that you know something?" I raised my hand and said that it means that you believe it and it's true. He said, "Ah, an Aristotelian!"

---
Frank C. Wimberly
505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Tue, Mar 3, 2020, 9:28 AM <[hidden email]> wrote:
Two things, Dave,

Peirce had actually 4 ways of knowing. Stubbornness, Authority, Reasonableness, Experience, which he tries to treat with equal respect, but his heart is obviously with the last. (The Fixation of Belief). You make me wonder about the relation tween Peirce and that Vedic text.

But this begs the most fundamental question raised by your post. What is knowledge, other than belief, and what is belief other than that upon which we are prepared to act? There is one member of our group who, very much in the spirit of William James's altered states, wants to work on aura's He has a tentative belief in aura's. When through experiment and analysis he renders that belief "firm", does he then have knowledge. Already he believes in the possibility of aura's. We know that this is the case because of the effort he is willing to expend in their demonstration. Does he have knowledge of the existence of auras? Does he already know that aura's exist?

I think problems with the very idea of knowledge lie at the core of this discussion, and we need some sort of working understanding of what we mean by it, if we are to precede.

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Tuesday, March 3, 2020 1:48 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

Epistemology, loosely speaking, is the “theory of knowing.” What can we know; how do we know we know it; the difference between knowing that, knowing how, and knowing about; and, issues of the “truth” of what we know and/or justifications for thinking we know anything?

An associated issue concerns how we come to acquire knowledge. Two means of acquisition are commonly proposed: a priori (independent of experience) and a posteriori (by experience).

A Vedic text, Tattirtiya Aranyaka (900-600 BCE), lists four sources of knowledge, roughly translated as: tradition/scripture, perception, authority, and reasoning/inference. Of these the fourth and second seem to map onto a priori and a posteriori.

Scholasticism — exemplars include Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, and Thomas Aquinas — was concerned with integrating three of the Vedic sources of knowledge: tradition/scripture (Christian theology), authority (Aristotle and Plato), and reasoning/inference.

Modern epistemology (and Peirce) seems to be concerned with two of the sources: tradition/scripture (peer reviewed science journals) and reasoning/inference.

Claims to "know" something, in a naive sense of know, like "I know that I am," "I know that I am in love," "I had the most interesting experience at FriAM just now," mystical visions, kinesthetic “muscle memory,” chi imbalance, and, of course, hallucinogen induced altered states of consciousness.

Is it possible to construct a theory of knowledge that could extend to, incorporate, a wider range of experience and especially mystical and psychedelic experience? If it was possible, would it be of value? If possible and of value, what parameters could be set to limn the resulting philosophy?

davew

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Frank Wimberly-2

Re: Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

Nick,

I think you have a point. Those old Greeks seem to be saying that the set of true propositions are the analytic ones, although
they didn't use that word. How do.we know that birds fly? Because "birds" means small animals that fly.

But then Dave's objections come into play.

Frank

---
Frank C. Wimberly
505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NMtt

On Wed, Mar 4, 2020, 12:24 AM Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:

But we "know" that Plato and Aristotle were wrong.

There is no such thing as Truth.

The only way they could get away with thinking that there was is the fact that their awareness was extremely "coarse grained" and "local."

"There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

What philosophy is there that can dream of and account for "more things?"

davew

On Wed, Mar 4, 2020, at 4:26 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
From the web:

Aristotle agrees with Plato that knowledge is of what is true and that this truth must be justified in a way which shows that it must be true, it is necessarily true.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Tue, Mar 3, 2020, 8:23 PM Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:
When I was a sophomore at Berkeley majoring in philosophy I was taking history of philosophy. My TA was a PhD student who had graduated from Harvard. He asked the section, "What does it mean to say that you know something?" I raised my hand and said that it means that you believe it and it's true. He said, "Ah, an Aristotelian!"

---
Frank C. Wimberly
505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Tue, Mar 3, 2020, 9:28 AM <[hidden email]> wrote:
Two things, Dave,

Peirce had actually 4 ways of knowing. Stubbornness, Authority, Reasonableness, Experience, which he tries to treat with equal respect, but his heart is obviously with the last. (The Fixation of Belief). You make me wonder about the relation tween Peirce and that Vedic text.

But this begs the most fundamental question raised by your post. What is knowledge, other than belief, and what is belief other than that upon which we are prepared to act? There is one member of our group who, very much in the spirit of William James's altered states, wants to work on aura's He has a tentative belief in aura's. When through experiment and analysis he renders that belief "firm", does he then have knowledge. Already he believes in the possibility of aura's. We know that this is the case because of the effort he is willing to expend in their demonstration. Does he have knowledge of the existence of auras? Does he already know that aura's exist?

I think problems with the very idea of knowledge lie at the core of this discussion, and we need some sort of working understanding of what we mean by it, if we are to precede.

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Tuesday, March 3, 2020 1:48 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

Epistemology, loosely speaking, is the “theory of knowing.” What can we know; how do we know we know it; the difference between knowing that, knowing how, and knowing about; and, issues of the “truth” of what we know and/or justifications for thinking we know anything?

An associated issue concerns how we come to acquire knowledge. Two means of acquisition are commonly proposed: a priori (independent of experience) and a posteriori (by experience).

A Vedic text, Tattirtiya Aranyaka (900-600 BCE), lists four sources of knowledge, roughly translated as: tradition/scripture, perception, authority, and reasoning/inference. Of these the fourth and second seem to map onto a priori and a posteriori.

Scholasticism — exemplars include Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, and Thomas Aquinas — was concerned with integrating three of the Vedic sources of knowledge: tradition/scripture (Christian theology), authority (Aristotle and Plato), and reasoning/inference.

Modern epistemology (and Peirce) seems to be concerned with two of the sources: tradition/scripture (peer reviewed science journals) and reasoning/inference.

Claims to "know" something, in a naive sense of know, like "I know that I am," "I know that I am in love," "I had the most interesting experience at FriAM just now," mystical visions, kinesthetic “muscle memory,” chi imbalance, and, of course, hallucinogen induced altered states of consciousness.

Is it possible to construct a theory of knowledge that could extend to, incorporate, a wider range of experience and especially mystical and psychedelic experience? If it was possible, would it be of value? If possible and of value, what parameters could be set to limn the resulting philosophy?

davew

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Prof David West

Re: Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

In reply to this post by thompnickson2

Nick,

We assert "knowledge" all the time.

You "know" that is is Friday morning and you need to be on your way to St. John's.
Person X "knows" that Trump is an A __h_le.
Everyone "knows' that the sun is 93 million (approximately, depending on position in orbit) million miles away.
I "know" the sky is blue today, for the first time in three weeks.

The other person is not the only one who believes in auras. I have seen them (and not under the influence). I might have a very different explanation and even a different perception, but that does not mean we both "know" them to exist.

The problem with working understandings is their tendency to become working definitions and simply exclude anything inconvenient from being "known."

Can you think of a working understanding that would allow both of the following sentences to be discussed on equal footing?

I know Nick.

I know God.

davew

On Tue, Mar 3, 2020, at 5:28 PM, [hidden email] wrote:

> Two things, Dave,
>
> Peirce had actually 4 ways of knowing. Stubbornness, Authority,
> Reasonableness, Experience, which he tries to treat with equal respect,
> but his heart is obviously with the last. (The Fixation of Belief).
> You make me wonder about the relation tween Peirce and that Vedic text.
>
>
>
> But this begs the most fundamental question raised by your post. What
> is knowledge, other than belief, and what is belief other than that
> upon which we are prepared to act? There is one member of our group
> who, very much in the spirit of William James's altered states, wants
> to work on aura's He has a tentative belief in aura's. When through
> experiment and analysis he renders that belief "firm", does he then
> have knowledge. Already he believes in the possibility of aura's. We
> know that this is the case because of the effort he is willing to
> expend in their demonstration. Does he have knowledge of the existence
> of auras? Does he already know that aura's exist?
>
> I think problems with the very idea of knowledge lie at the core of
> this discussion, and we need some sort of working understanding of what
> we mean by it, if we are to precede.
>
> Nicholas Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> Clark University
> [hidden email]
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Prof David West
> Sent: Tuesday, March 3, 2020 1:48 AM
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: [FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation
>
> Epistemology, loosely speaking, is the “theory of knowing.” What can we
> know; how do we know we know it; the difference between knowing that,
> knowing how, and knowing about; and, issues of the “truth” of what we
> know and/or justifications for thinking we know anything?
>
> An associated issue concerns how we come to acquire knowledge. Two
> means of acquisition are commonly proposed: a priori (independent of
> experience) and a posteriori (by experience).
>
> A Vedic text, Tattirtiya Aranyaka (900-600 BCE), lists four sources of
> knowledge, roughly translated as: tradition/scripture, perception,
> authority, and reasoning/inference. Of these the fourth and second seem
> to map onto a priori and a posteriori.
>
> Scholasticism — exemplars include Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, and
> Thomas Aquinas — was concerned with integrating three of the Vedic
> sources of knowledge: tradition/scripture (Christian theology),
> authority (Aristotle and Plato), and reasoning/inference.
>
> Modern epistemology (and Peirce) seems to be concerned with two of the
> sources: tradition/scripture (peer reviewed science journals) and
> reasoning/inference.
>
> Claims to "know" something, in a naive sense of know, like "I know that
> I am," "I know that I am in love," "I had the most interesting
> experience at FriAM just now," mystical visions, kinesthetic “muscle
> memory,” chi imbalance, and, of course, hallucinogen induced altered
> states of consciousness.
>
> Is it possible to construct a theory of knowledge that could extend to,
> incorporate, a wider range of experience and especially mystical and
> psychedelic experience? If it was possible, would it be of value? If
> possible and of value, what parameters could be set to limn the
> resulting philosophy?
>
> davew
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe
> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>

Steve Smith

Re: Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

We all have the propensity (at different times) to conflate our greatest
hopes and worse fears with "Truth".

In the shadow of this we have various forms of ignorance: Simple lack
of knowledge of some phenomena or observation, through the full spectrum
to the most willful ignorance (or ignorant willfulness).

Your president seems to display the entire spectrum regularly and quite
publicly, though the two extrema seem more common. Perhaps that is just
perception because they are the more noticeable or memorable. Or does
this represent my "worst fears, and greatest hopes"?

On one end of the spectrum, complete misappropriation of terms (rarely
as charming as those wielded by Yogi Berra) and sentences starting with
"A lot of people don't know this but... " and on the other end,
assertions of will that are framed as observed fact: "Good border
control like building the southern wall would have prevented the Corona
Virus from coming in to our great country".

On 3/4/20 8:30 AM, Prof David West wrote:

> Nick,
>
> We assert "knowledge" all the time.
>
> You "know" that is is Friday morning and you need to be on your way to St. John's.
> Person X "knows" that Trump is an A __h_le.
> Everyone "knows' that the sun is 93 million (approximately, depending on position in orbit) million miles away.
> I "know" the sky is blue today, for the first time in three weeks.
>
> The other person is not the only one who believes in auras. I have seen them (and not under the influence). I might have a very different explanation and even a different perception, but that does not mean we both "know" them to exist.
>
> The problem with working understandings is their tendency to become working definitions and simply exclude anything inconvenient from being "known."
>
> Can you think of a working understanding that would allow both of the following sentences to be discussed on equal footing?
>
> I know Nick.
>
> I know God.
>
> davew
>
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 3, 2020, at 5:28 PM, [hidden email] wrote:
>> Two things, Dave,
>>
>> Peirce had actually 4 ways of knowing. Stubbornness, Authority,
>> Reasonableness, Experience, which he tries to treat with equal respect,
>> but his heart is obviously with the last. (The Fixation of Belief).
>> You make me wonder about the relation tween Peirce and that Vedic text.
>>
>>
>>
>> But this begs the most fundamental question raised by your post. What
>> is knowledge, other than belief, and what is belief other than that
>> upon which we are prepared to act? There is one member of our group
>> who, very much in the spirit of William James's altered states, wants
>> to work on aura's He has a tentative belief in aura's. When through
>> experiment and analysis he renders that belief "firm", does he then
>> have knowledge. Already he believes in the possibility of aura's. We
>> know that this is the case because of the effort he is willing to
>> expend in their demonstration. Does he have knowledge of the existence
>> of auras? Does he already know that aura's exist?
>>
>> I think problems with the very idea of knowledge lie at the core of
>> this discussion, and we need some sort of working understanding of what
>> we mean by it, if we are to precede.
>>
>> Nicholas Thompson
>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>> Clark University
>> [hidden email]
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Prof David West
>> Sent: Tuesday, March 3, 2020 1:48 AM
>> To: [hidden email]
>> Subject: [FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation
>>
>> Epistemology, loosely speaking, is the “theory of knowing.” What can we
>> know; how do we know we know it; the difference between knowing that,
>> knowing how, and knowing about; and, issues of the “truth” of what we
>> know and/or justifications for thinking we know anything?
>>
>> An associated issue concerns how we come to acquire knowledge. Two
>> means of acquisition are commonly proposed: a priori (independent of
>> experience) and a posteriori (by experience).
>>
>> A Vedic text, Tattirtiya Aranyaka (900-600 BCE), lists four sources of
>> knowledge, roughly translated as: tradition/scripture, perception,
>> authority, and reasoning/inference. Of these the fourth and second seem
>> to map onto a priori and a posteriori.
>>
>> Scholasticism — exemplars include Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, and
>> Thomas Aquinas — was concerned with integrating three of the Vedic
>> sources of knowledge: tradition/scripture (Christian theology),
>> authority (Aristotle and Plato), and reasoning/inference.
>>
>> Modern epistemology (and Peirce) seems to be concerned with two of the
>> sources: tradition/scripture (peer reviewed science journals) and
>> reasoning/inference.
>>
>> Claims to "know" something, in a naive sense of know, like "I know that
>> I am," "I know that I am in love," "I had the most interesting
>> experience at FriAM just now," mystical visions, kinesthetic “muscle
>> memory,” chi imbalance, and, of course, hallucinogen induced altered
>> states of consciousness.
>>
>> Is it possible to construct a theory of knowledge that could extend to,
>> incorporate, a wider range of experience and especially mystical and
>> psychedelic experience? If it was possible, would it be of value? If
>> possible and of value, what parameters could be set to limn the
>> resulting philosophy?
>>
>> davew
>>
>> ============================================================
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe
>> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>>
>>
>> ============================================================
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>

thompnickson2

Re: Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

In reply to this post by Prof David West

Dave,

How about:

"I am familiar with X and can give a description of X that others will recognize"?

Hmm! That would seem to apply to unicorns. Do I know unicorns?

Naaaah! I am going back to my pragmaticism. To know something is just to believe it very strongly. Truth is irrelevant. So, the fact that you know that unicorns exist tells me absolutely nothing -- per se -- about the existence of unicorns.

So, I stipulate that acid experiences can give people firm beliefs and therefore knowledge in the limited sense above.

But what about "know-how". It would seem to suggest another meaning. We used to have a TV that would go funny. I discovered that I could fix it by slapping it upside of the head. I knew HOW to fix the tv.

To know how to achieve a goal is to believe in a procedure for fixing something, to be able to convey that procedure to another person, AND THAT PROCEDURE WORKS AS CONVEYED. So you know me only if you can give a description of me that would cause a third person to pick me out of a crowd?

That could apply to god or unicorns, right? And does not imply the existence of either.

I dunno, dave. This "knowledge" stuff is pretty confusing.

N

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Wednesday, March 4, 2020 8:30 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

Nick,

We assert "knowledge" all the time.

You "know" that is is Friday morning and you need to be on your way to St. John's.
Person X "knows" that Trump is an A __h_le.
Everyone "knows' that the sun is 93 million (approximately, depending on position in orbit) million miles away.
I "know" the sky is blue today, for the first time in three weeks.

The other person is not the only one who believes in auras. I have seen them (and not under the influence). I might have a very different explanation and even a different perception, but that does not mean we both "know" them to exist.

The problem with working understandings is their tendency to become working definitions and simply exclude anything inconvenient from being "known."

Can you think of a working understanding that would allow both of the following sentences to be discussed on equal footing?

I know Nick.

I know God.

davew

On Tue, Mar 3, 2020, at 5:28 PM, [hidden email] wrote:

> Two things, Dave,
>
> Peirce had actually 4 ways of knowing. Stubbornness, Authority,
> Reasonableness, Experience, which he tries to treat with equal
> respect, but his heart is obviously with the last. (The Fixation of Belief).
> You make me wonder about the relation tween Peirce and that Vedic text.
>
>
>
> But this begs the most fundamental question raised by your post. What
> is knowledge, other than belief, and what is belief other than that
> upon which we are prepared to act? There is one member of our group
> who, very much in the spirit of William James's altered states, wants
> to work on aura's He has a tentative belief in aura's. When through
> experiment and analysis he renders that belief "firm", does he then
> have knowledge. Already he believes in the possibility of aura's. We
> know that this is the case because of the effort he is willing to
> expend in their demonstration. Does he have knowledge of the
> existence of auras? Does he already know that aura's exist?
>
> I think problems with the very idea of knowledge lie at the core of
> this discussion, and we need some sort of working understanding of
> what we mean by it, if we are to precede.
>
> Nicholas Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology Clark University
> [hidden email] https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Prof David West
> Sent: Tuesday, March 3, 2020 1:48 AM
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: [FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation
>
> Epistemology, loosely speaking, is the “theory of knowing.” What can we
> know; how do we know we know it; the difference between knowing that,
> knowing how, and knowing about; and, issues of the “truth” of what we
> know and/or justifications for thinking we know anything?
>
> An associated issue concerns how we come to acquire knowledge. Two
> means of acquisition are commonly proposed: a priori (independent of
> experience) and a posteriori (by experience).
>
> A Vedic text, Tattirtiya Aranyaka (900-600 BCE), lists four sources of
> knowledge, roughly translated as: tradition/scripture, perception,
> authority, and reasoning/inference. Of these the fourth and second seem
> to map onto a priori and a posteriori.
>
> Scholasticism — exemplars include Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, and
> Thomas Aquinas — was concerned with integrating three of the Vedic
> sources of knowledge: tradition/scripture (Christian theology),
> authority (Aristotle and Plato), and reasoning/inference.
>
> Modern epistemology (and Peirce) seems to be concerned with two of the
> sources: tradition/scripture (peer reviewed science journals) and
> reasoning/inference.
>
> Claims to "know" something, in a naive sense of know, like "I know that
> I am," "I know that I am in love," "I had the most interesting
> experience at FriAM just now," mystical visions, kinesthetic “muscle
> memory,” chi imbalance, and, of course, hallucinogen induced altered
> states of consciousness.
>
> Is it possible to construct a theory of knowledge that could extend to,
> incorporate, a wider range of experience and especially mystical and
> psychedelic experience? If it was possible, would it be of value? If
> possible and of value, what parameters could be set to limn the
> resulting philosophy?
>
> davew
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe
> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Prof David West

Re: Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

Nick first, then rest of list,

I sense I might be making a pest of myself, if so, gently tell me to take my curiosities elsewhere.

Let me begin with a long quote from Huxley:

"Istigkeit — wasn't that the word Meister Eckhart like to use? Is-ness. The Being of Platonic philosophy except that Plaot seems to have made the enormous, the grotesque mistake of separating Being from becoming, and identifying it with the mathematical abstraction of the Idea. He could never, poor fellow, have seen a bunch of flowers shining with their own inner light and all but quivering under the pre3ssure of the significance with which they were charged; could never have perceived that what rose and iris and carnation so intensely signified was nothing more, and nothing less, than what they were — a transience that was yet eternal life, a perpetual perishing that was at the same time pure Being, a bundle of minute, unique particulars in which, by some unspeakable and yet self-evident paradox, was to be seen the divine source of all existence.

At ordinary times the eye concerns itself with with such problems as Where? — How Far — How situated in relation to What? In the mescalin experience the implied questions to which the eye responds are of another order. Place and distance cease to be of much interest. The mind does it's perceiving in terms of intensity of existence, profundity of significance, relationships within a pattern.

The mind was primarily concerned, not with measures and locations, but with being and meaning."

This is an experience report.

First question, would Peirce or any other "experience monist" deem it worth consideration / investigation / discussion / consensus understanding?

I could find similar statements about "Being" / "Is-ness" from a host of sources: Hegel and Heidegger; Bergson and Whitehead; dozens of alchemists, Lao Tzu, Buddha, ....

Is it worth the time and effort to attempt to "reconcile" all of these expressions to discover a consensus "meaning" and could we use Peirce's method to facilitate that discussion that coming to a consensus?

If we did so, does this attribute some sense of ontological status to "being/is-ness" as a thing.

And the key to my being a pest — is anyone else curious about these things?

davew

On Wed, Mar 4, 2020, at 7:51 PM, [hidden email] wrote:

> Dave,
>
> How about:
>
> "I am familiar with X and can give a description of X that others will
> recognize"?
>
> Hmm! That would seem to apply to unicorns. Do I know unicorns?
>
> Naaaah! I am going back to my pragmaticism. To know something is just
> to believe it very strongly. Truth is irrelevant. So, the fact that
> you know that unicorns exist tells me absolutely nothing -- per se --
> about the existence of unicorns.
>
> So, I stipulate that acid experiences can give people firm beliefs and
> therefore knowledge in the limited sense above.
>
> But what about "know-how". It would seem to suggest another meaning.
> We used to have a TV that would go funny. I discovered that I could
> fix it by slapping it upside of the head. I knew HOW to fix the tv.
>
> To know how to achieve a goal is to believe in a procedure for fixing
> something, to be able to convey that procedure to another person, AND
> THAT PROCEDURE WORKS AS CONVEYED. So you know me only if you can give
> a description of me that would cause a third person to pick me out of a
> crowd?
>
> That could apply to god or unicorns, right? And does not imply the
> existence of either.
>
> I dunno, dave. This "knowledge" stuff is pretty confusing.
>
> N
>
> Nicholas Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> Clark University
> [hidden email]
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Prof David West
> Sent: Wednesday, March 4, 2020 8:30 AM
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation
>
> Nick,
>
> We assert "knowledge" all the time.
>
> You "know" that is is Friday morning and you need to be on your way to
> St. John's.
> Person X "knows" that Trump is an A __h_le.
> Everyone "knows' that the sun is 93 million (approximately, depending
> on position in orbit) million miles away.
> I "know" the sky is blue today, for the first time in three weeks.
>
> The other person is not the only one who believes in auras. I have seen
> them (and not under the influence). I might have a very different
> explanation and even a different perception, but that does not mean we
> both "know" them to exist.
>
> The problem with working understandings is their tendency to become
> working definitions and simply exclude anything inconvenient from being
> "known."
>
> Can you think of a working understanding that would allow both of the
> following sentences to be discussed on equal footing?
>
> I know Nick.
>
> I know God.
>
> davew
>
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 3, 2020, at 5:28 PM, [hidden email] wrote:
> > Two things, Dave,
> >
> > Peirce had actually 4 ways of knowing. Stubbornness, Authority,
> > Reasonableness, Experience, which he tries to treat with equal
> > respect, but his heart is obviously with the last. (The Fixation of Belief).
> > You make me wonder about the relation tween Peirce and that Vedic text.
> >
> >
> >
> > But this begs the most fundamental question raised by your post. What
> > is knowledge, other than belief, and what is belief other than that
> > upon which we are prepared to act? There is one member of our group
> > who, very much in the spirit of William James's altered states, wants
> > to work on aura's He has a tentative belief in aura's. When through
> > experiment and analysis he renders that belief "firm", does he then
> > have knowledge. Already he believes in the possibility of aura's. We
> > know that this is the case because of the effort he is willing to
> > expend in their demonstration. Does he have knowledge of the
> > existence of auras? Does he already know that aura's exist?
> >
> > I think problems with the very idea of knowledge lie at the core of
> > this discussion, and we need some sort of working understanding of
> > what we mean by it, if we are to precede.
> >
> > Nicholas Thompson
> > Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology Clark University
> > [hidden email] https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Prof David West
> > Sent: Tuesday, March 3, 2020 1:48 AM
> > To: [hidden email]
> > Subject: [FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation
> >
> > Epistemology, loosely speaking, is the “theory of knowing.” What can we
> > know; how do we know we know it; the difference between knowing that,
> > knowing how, and knowing about; and, issues of the “truth” of what we
> > know and/or justifications for thinking we know anything?
> >
> > An associated issue concerns how we come to acquire knowledge. Two
> > means of acquisition are commonly proposed: a priori (independent of
> > experience) and a posteriori (by experience).
> >
> > A Vedic text, Tattirtiya Aranyaka (900-600 BCE), lists four sources of
> > knowledge, roughly translated as: tradition/scripture, perception,
> > authority, and reasoning/inference. Of these the fourth and second seem
> > to map onto a priori and a posteriori.
> >
> > Scholasticism — exemplars include Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, and
> > Thomas Aquinas — was concerned with integrating three of the Vedic
> > sources of knowledge: tradition/scripture (Christian theology),
> > authority (Aristotle and Plato), and reasoning/inference.
> >
> > Modern epistemology (and Peirce) seems to be concerned with two of the
> > sources: tradition/scripture (peer reviewed science journals) and
> > reasoning/inference.
> >
> > Claims to "know" something, in a naive sense of know, like "I know that
> > I am," "I know that I am in love," "I had the most interesting
> > experience at FriAM just now," mystical visions, kinesthetic “muscle
> > memory,” chi imbalance, and, of course, hallucinogen induced altered
> > states of consciousness.
> >
> > Is it possible to construct a theory of knowledge that could extend to,
> > incorporate, a wider range of experience and especially mystical and
> > psychedelic experience? If it was possible, would it be of value? If
> > possible and of value, what parameters could be set to limn the
> > resulting philosophy?
> >
> > davew
> >
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe
> > http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
> >
> >
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
> >
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>

gepr

Re: Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

It's not pesky for me in the slightest. I'm *very* interested. I haven't contributed because it's not clear I have anything to contribute.

Maybe I can start with a criticism, though. It's unclear to me why you (or anyone) would delicately flip through crumbling pages of philosophy when there are fresh and juicy results from (interventionist) methods right in front of us? The oxytocin post really *was* inspired by this thread. But because you guys are talking about dead white men like Peirce and James, it's unclear how the science relates.

My skepticism goes even deeper (beyond dead white men) to why one would think *anyone* (alive, dead, white or brown) might be able to *think* up an explanation for how knowledge grows. I would like to, but cannot, avoid the inference that this belief anyone (or any "school" of people) can think up explanations stems from a bias toward *individualism*. My snarky poke at "super intelligent god-people" in a post awhile back was (misguidedly) intended to express this same skepticism. I worry that poking around in old philosophy is simply an artifact of the mythology surrounding the "mind" and Great Men <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory>.

It seems to me like science works in *spite* of our biases to individualism. So, if I want to understand knowledge, I have to stop identifying ways of knowing through dead individuals and focus on the flowing *field* of the collective scientists.

Of course, that doesn't mean we ignore the writings of the dead people. But it means liberally slashing away anything that even smells obsolete.

Regardless of what you do post, don't interpret *my* lack of response as disinterest or irritation, because it's not.

On 3/5/20 6:14 AM, Prof David West wrote:
> And the key to my being a pest — is anyone else curious about these things?

--
☣ uǝlƃ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

Frank Wimberly-2

Re: Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

Dave,

Was my memory of my then 7 year-old daughter confusing "oxytocin" and "oxymoron" an instance of trolling or the kind of experience you were alluding to in

"He could never, poor fellow, have seen a bunch of flowers shining with their own inner light and all but quivering under the pre3ssure of the significance with which they were charged; could never have perceived that what rose and iris and carnation so intensely signified was nothing more, and nothing less, than what they were — a transience that was yet eternal life, a perpetual perishing that was at the same time pure Being, a bundle of minute, unique particulars in which, by some unspeakable and yet self-evident paradox, was to be seen the divine source of all existence."

On Thu, Mar 5, 2020 at 8:59 AM uǝlƃ ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

It's not pesky for me in the slightest. I'm *very* interested. I haven't contributed because it's not clear I have anything to contribute.

Maybe I can start with a criticism, though. It's unclear to me why you (or anyone) would delicately flip through crumbling pages of philosophy when there are fresh and juicy results from (interventionist) methods right in front of us? The oxytocin post really *was* inspired by this thread. But because you guys are talking about dead white men like Peirce and James, it's unclear how the science relates.

My skepticism goes even deeper (beyond dead white men) to why one would think *anyone* (alive, dead, white or brown) might be able to *think* up an explanation for how knowledge grows. I would like to, but cannot, avoid the inference that this belief anyone (or any "school" of people) can think up explanations stems from a bias toward *individualism*. My snarky poke at "super intelligent god-people" in a post awhile back was (misguidedly) intended to express this same skepticism. I worry that poking around in old philosophy is simply an artifact of the mythology surrounding the "mind" and Great Men <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory>.

It seems to me like science works in *spite* of our biases to individualism. So, if I want to understand knowledge, I have to stop identifying ways of knowing through dead individuals and focus on the flowing *field* of the collective scientists.

Of course, that doesn't mean we ignore the writings of the dead people. But it means liberally slashing away anything that even smells obsolete.

Regardless of what you do post, don't interpret *my* lack of response as disinterest or irritation, because it's not.

On 3/5/20 6:14 AM, Prof David West wrote:
> And the key to my being a pest — is anyone else curious about these things?

--
☣ uǝlƃ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Frank Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz
Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918

Steve Smith

Re: Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

In reply to this post by gepr

Dave -

As for me, I'm not irritated with your keeping these discussions going.

I *am* irritated with the larger (cross-domain, national/global) discussion of "Truthiness" and the various bimodal fallacies introduced thereby.

Science and the Scientific Method, for example, have built into them a certain kind of contingency which is as absolute as Religion's *lack of contingency* (Absolute Truth). This leads Creationists/PseudoSciencers/AntiSciencers/FlatEarthers/Deniers to use the truism from science "It's just a theory" as a bludgeon to beat out a hole in the conversation to plop down their received-knowledge and/or made-up-shit into, as if it were made of the same stuff as what it is displacing.

Conversely (and I think this is where you are prone to harp), the Establishment (you pick your domain: Science, Religion, Politics, Society and subdomain:Physics/Chemistry/Biology, Ibrahamic/Vedic/Pagan/Animist, Red/White/Blue/Green/Purple, Authoritarian/Libertine/Egalitarian/Anarchic) vs radical/progressive views on the same subjects yields a whole other false-dichotomy.

Just because an established authority said it doesn't make it right.
Just because an established authority said it doesn't make it *wrong*.
Just because all scientific breakthroughs were presaged by "radical ideas" doesn't mean that all "radical ideas" represent incipient genius.

Yet I often hear these arguments (barely concealed?) in the larger discourse...

I will try to follow this up with some questions/observations about PostModernism and a reflection on the ways it has been "weaponized" by the unlikely? folks like Stephen Bannon?

- Steve

thompnickson2

Re: Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

Dave, et al.,

As long as any idea proposed is taken modestly seriously by the proposer, I am interested in it. You are not the only person at the table that speaks of experience beyond experience, so I definitely I have to take it seriously, no matter HOW crazy it drives me.

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Steven A Smith
Sent: Thursday, March 5, 2020 12:02 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

Dave -

As for me, I'm not irritated with your keeping these discussions going.

I *am* irritated with the larger (cross-domain, national/global) discussion of "Truthiness" and the various bimodal fallacies introduced thereby.

Just because an established authority said it doesn't make it right.
Just because an established authority said it doesn't make it *wrong*.
Just because all scientific breakthroughs were presaged by "radical ideas" doesn't mean that all "radical ideas" represent incipient genius.

Yet I often hear these arguments (barely concealed?) in the larger discourse...

I will try to follow this up with some questions/observations about PostModernism and a reflection on the ways it has been "weaponized" by the unlikely? folks like Stephen Bannon?

- Steve

thompnickson2

Re: Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

In reply to this post by gepr

Glen,

I write and think about Peirce, for instance, because his work connects several disparate threads in my own work which seemed unrelated until I read him. He unifies me. Talking to you guys helps me digest all of that.

Nick

Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of u?l? ?
Sent: Thursday, March 5, 2020 8:59 AM
To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

It's not pesky for me in the slightest. I'm *very* interested. I haven't contributed because it's not clear I have anything to contribute.

Maybe I can start with a criticism, though. It's unclear to me why you (or anyone) would delicately flip through crumbling pages of philosophy when there are fresh and juicy results from (interventionist) methods right in front of us? The oxytocin post really *was* inspired by this thread. But because you guys are talking about dead white men like Peirce and James, it's unclear how the science relates.

My skepticism goes even deeper (beyond dead white men) to why one would think *anyone* (alive, dead, white or brown) might be able to *think* up an explanation for how knowledge grows. I would like to, but cannot, avoid the inference that this belief anyone (or any "school" of people) can think up explanations stems from a bias toward *individualism*. My snarky poke at "super intelligent god-people" in a post awhile back was (misguidedly) intended to express this same skepticism. I worry that poking around in old philosophy is simply an artifact of the mythology surrounding the "mind" and Great Men <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory>.

It seems to me like science works in *spite* of our biases to individualism. So, if I want to understand knowledge, I have to stop identifying ways of knowing through dead individuals and focus on the flowing *field* of the collective scientists.

Of course, that doesn't mean we ignore the writings of the dead people. But it means liberally slashing away anything that even smells obsolete.

Regardless of what you do post, don't interpret *my* lack of response as disinterest or irritation, because it's not.

On 3/5/20 6:14 AM, Prof David West wrote:
> And the key to my being a pest — is anyone else curious about these things?

--
☣ uǝlƃ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Prof David West

Re: Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

In reply to this post by gepr

thanks Glen,

I totally agree with you about dead white guys. [Except I have had face-to-face conversations with a couple of them :) ] I reference them not as a source of answers but in an attempt to find some kind of conceptual bridge for a conversation. But that might be totally counterproductive as it tends to introduce a propensity for forking the conversation.

Engaging with contemporary scientists is hard when it comes to drug-induced data sets / experiences. I hope to make some connections with contemporary researchers at the ICPR conference I mentioned but the focus there seems to be psycho-medical and related to the oxytocin article you posted, and my direct interests tend to diverge from that.

Perhaps something more direct might be useful. Two things, the second is mostly to tease Nick.

1) I am fascinated by the field of scientific visualization, using imagery to present complex data sets. Recently I "observed" the precise moment of sperm-egg fertilization. A whole lot was going on inside the egg cell boundary immediately upon contact (not penetration) with the sperm. The visualization was of thousands (millions?) of discrete inter-cellular elements breaking free from existing structures, like DNA strands, proteins, molecules and moving about independently. I could see several "fields" that were a kind of "probability field." These fields constrained both the movement of the various elements and, most importantly, what structures would emerge from their recombination. "Watching" the DNA strand 'dissolve" and "reform" was particularly interesting because it was totally unlike the "unzip into two strands, the zip-up a strand-half from each donor" visualization I have seen presented in animations explaining the process. Instead I saw all kinds of "clumps" form and merge into larger/longer "clumps" then engage in an interesting hula/belly/undulation dance to rearrange the structure into a final form. All of this "guided" by the very visible "probability fields;" more than one and color coded.

Now, if I were a cellular biologist could I make use of this vision?

Since I am not a cellular biologist and have no understanding of inter-cellular structures/dynamics/chemistry, nor any DNA knowledge, where did the imagery come from and why did it hang together so well?

Was this experience just an amusing bit of entertainment" Or, is there an insight of some sort lurking there?

2) En garde Nick.

Quoting Huxley, paraphrasing C.D. Broad — "The function of the brain, nervous system, and sense organs is, in the main, eliminative and not productive. Each person is at each moment capable of remembering all that has ever happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. This is Mind-At-Large.

But in so far as we are animals, our business is at all costs to survive. To make biological survival possible, Mind-At-Large, has to be funneled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system. What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the surface of this particular planet."

Two personal experiences: 1) I tend to not notice when my glasses get cloudy from accumulation of dust and moisture until it is quite bad. I clean my glasses, put them on, and am amazed at how clear and detailed my perceptions are post-cleaning. A very dramatic difference. And, 2) the proper dose of a hallucinogen (and/or the right kind of meditation) and my perceptions of the world around me, using all my senses, are amazingly clear and detailed in the same way as my visual perception was changed by cleaning grime from my glasses.

I would contend that the drug (meditation) removed the muddying filter of my brain/nervous system/ sense organs just as the isopropyl alcohol removed the muddying filter of moisture-dust on my glasses.

I see the world as it "really" is.

Now the tease: I would contend that I am more Apollonian than thou because I value Life, and more of Life, more directly, than you do. It is not varied experience I seek, but a direct, clear, complete, apprehension and appreciation of Life Itself.

davew

On Thu, Mar 5, 2020, at 4:58 PM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:

> It's not pesky for me in the slightest. I'm *very* interested. I
> haven't contributed because it's not clear I have anything to
> contribute.
>
> Maybe I can start with a criticism, though. It's unclear to me why you
> (or anyone) would delicately flip through crumbling pages of philosophy
> when there are fresh and juicy results from (interventionist) methods
> right in front of us? The oxytocin post really *was* inspired by this
> thread. But because you guys are talking about dead white men like
> Peirce and James, it's unclear how the science relates.
>
> My skepticism goes even deeper (beyond dead white men) to why one would
> think *anyone* (alive, dead, white or brown) might be able to *think*
> up an explanation for how knowledge grows. I would like to, but cannot,
> avoid the inference that this belief anyone (or any "school" of people)
> can think up explanations stems from a bias toward *individualism*. My
> snarky poke at "super intelligent god-people" in a post awhile back was
> (misguidedly) intended to express this same skepticism. I worry that
> poking around in old philosophy is simply an artifact of the mythology
> surrounding the "mind" and Great Men
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory>.
>
> It seems to me like science works in *spite* of our biases to
> individualism. So, if I want to understand knowledge, I have to stop
> identifying ways of knowing through dead individuals and focus on the
> flowing *field* of the collective scientists.
>
> Of course, that doesn't mean we ignore the writings of the dead people.
> But it means liberally slashing away anything that even smells obsolete.
>
> Regardless of what you do post, don't interpret *my* lack of response
> as disinterest or irritation, because it's not.
>
> On 3/5/20 6:14 AM, Prof David West wrote:
> > And the key to my being a pest — is anyone else curious about these things?
>
>
> --
> ☣ uǝlƃ
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>

gepr

Re: Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

In reply to this post by thompnickson2

Interesting. I'm skeptical that it *unifies* your work so much as it *abstracts* your work into a fuzzy/vague thing that seems like it unifies your work. That's the risk with unification and what I call Grand Unified Models (GUMs). To produce an actual unification, you have to show the details for how the general model specializes into the fully operational particular models. If you can't do that *completely*, with no hand-waving, then it's not really a unification but an abstraction.

I'm not anti-abstraction. But I find it useful to contrast the two. The ideas you advocate here, which you claim are Peircian, seem *unapplicable* to any detailed work. I haven't read much of your writing and am unfamiliar with the work being unified. So, I could be laughably wrong, here. But one litmus test I use, if/when I start to obsess over any single/unitary thing (like you obsess over Peirce), is to do a what-if exercise and pretend that unitary thing doesn't exist. Try to remove all the tendrils of that thing from whatever I do/think. If, once I've done that, the things I do/think remain and don't crumble away, then maybe it's a necessary obsession.

It seems to me like we could get to what you want absent Peirce. His work is a nice-to-have, not a must-have. And in some situations, obsessing too much over nice-to-haves slows the travel to the destination.

On 3/5/20 7:39 PM, [hidden email] wrote:
> I write and think about Peirce, for instance, because his work connects several disparate threads in my own work which seemed unrelated until I read him. He unifies me. Talking to you guys helps me digest all of that.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

gepr

Re: Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

In reply to this post by Prof David West

I hate visualization in the same way I hate poetry. In my work, I'm constantly fighting the "kids" who want visualizations for everything. I tell them once they understand the data, then they're free to visualize it any way they see fit ... like your mom telling you to eat your vegetables before dessert.

A visualization takes lots of stuff (often high-dimensional data, but sometimes just lots of garbage that bears no resemblance to any kind of well-formed *space*) and funges it into an artistic thing that appeals to our (human) senses. It's like poetry in that some yahoo, maybe in the middle of eating a sandwich in New York City, goes into a fugue state, has some "high-dimensional" experience, then works like hell to put it into words. Then some other yahoo on the other side of the world, while doing gods know what, reads those words and has a different experience. How similar are the 2 experiences? Who knows?

Now, if you take identical twins, who grew up as siblings, in the same small town, went to the same schools, married similar people, etc. Then one of them writes a poem and the other one reads it, my guess is their experiences will be similar.

If a biologist writes a poem and another biologist reads the poem, my guess is they will have similar experiences. Any other configuration and all bets are off.

On 3/6/20 12:59 AM, Prof David West wrote:
> Now, if I were a cellular biologist could I make use of this vision?
>
> Since I am not a cellular biologist and have no understanding of inter-cellular structures/dynamics/chemistry, nor any DNA knowledge, where did the imagery come from and why did it hang together so well?
>
> Was this experience just an amusing bit of entertainment" Or, is there an insight of some sort lurking there?

--
☣ uǝlƃ

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

thompnickson2

Re: Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

In reply to this post by Prof David West

Hi, Dave,

I will take you on on Apollonian-er-than-thou claim after FRIAM to which I must now hie.

How are you handling covid19?

Nick
Nicholas Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
[hidden email]
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Friday, March 6, 2020 2:00 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

thanks Glen,

I totally agree with you about dead white guys. [Except I have had face-to-face conversations with a couple of them :) ] I reference them not as a source of answers but in an attempt to find some kind of conceptual bridge for a conversation. But that might be totally counterproductive as it tends to introduce a propensity for forking the conversation.

Engaging with contemporary scientists is hard when it comes to drug-induced data sets / experiences. I hope to make some connections with contemporary researchers at the ICPR conference I mentioned but the focus there seems to be psycho-medical and related to the oxytocin article you posted, and my direct interests tend to diverge from that.

Perhaps something more direct might be useful. Two things, the second is mostly to tease Nick.

1) I am fascinated by the field of scientific visualization, using imagery to present complex data sets. Recently I "observed" the precise moment of sperm-egg fertilization. A whole lot was going on inside the egg cell boundary immediately upon contact (not penetration) with the sperm. The visualization was of thousands (millions?) of discrete inter-cellular elements breaking free from existing structures, like DNA strands, proteins, molecules and moving about independently. I could see several "fields" that were a kind of "probability field." These fields constrained both the movement of the various elements and, most importantly, what structures would emerge from their recombination. "Watching" the DNA strand 'dissolve" and "reform" was particularly interesting because it was totally unlike the "unzip into two strands, the zip-up a strand-half from each donor" visualization I have seen presented in animations explaining the process. Instead I saw all kinds of "clumps" form and merge into larger/longer "clumps" then engage in an interesting hula/belly/undulation dance to rearrange the structure into a final form. All of this "guided" by the very visible "probability fields;" more than one and color coded.

Now, if I were a cellular biologist could I make use of this vision?

Since I am not a cellular biologist and have no understanding of inter-cellular structures/dynamics/chemistry, nor any DNA knowledge, where did the imagery come from and why did it hang together so well?

Was this experience just an amusing bit of entertainment" Or, is there an insight of some sort lurking there?

2) En garde Nick.

Quoting Huxley, paraphrasing C.D. Broad — "The function of the brain, nervous system, and sense organs is, in the main, eliminative and not productive. Each person is at each moment capable of remembering all that has ever happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. This is Mind-At-Large.

But in so far as we are animals, our business is at all costs to survive. To make biological survival possible, Mind-At-Large, has to be funneled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system. What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the surface of this particular planet."

Two personal experiences: 1) I tend to not notice when my glasses get cloudy from accumulation of dust and moisture until it is quite bad. I clean my glasses, put them on, and am amazed at how clear and detailed my perceptions are post-cleaning. A very dramatic difference. And, 2) the proper dose of a hallucinogen (and/or the right kind of meditation) and my perceptions of the world around me, using all my senses, are amazingly clear and detailed in the same way as my visual perception was changed by cleaning grime from my glasses.

I would contend that the drug (meditation) removed the muddying filter of my brain/nervous system/ sense organs just as the isopropyl alcohol removed the muddying filter of moisture-dust on my glasses.

I see the world as it "really" is.

Now the tease: I would contend that I am more Apollonian than thou because I value Life, and more of Life, more directly, than you do. It is not varied experience I seek, but a direct, clear, complete, apprehension and appreciation of Life Itself.

davew

On Thu, Mar 5, 2020, at 4:58 PM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:

> It's not pesky for me in the slightest. I'm *very* interested. I
> haven't contributed because it's not clear I have anything to
> contribute.
>
> Maybe I can start with a criticism, though. It's unclear to me why you
> (or anyone) would delicately flip through crumbling pages of
> philosophy when there are fresh and juicy results from
> (interventionist) methods right in front of us? The oxytocin post
> really *was* inspired by this thread. But because you guys are talking
> about dead white men like Peirce and James, it's unclear how the science relates.
>
> My skepticism goes even deeper (beyond dead white men) to why one
> would think *anyone* (alive, dead, white or brown) might be able to
> *think* up an explanation for how knowledge grows. I would like to,
> but cannot, avoid the inference that this belief anyone (or any
> "school" of people) can think up explanations stems from a bias toward
> *individualism*. My snarky poke at "super intelligent god-people" in a
> post awhile back was
> (misguidedly) intended to express this same skepticism. I worry that
> poking around in old philosophy is simply an artifact of the mythology
> surrounding the "mind" and Great Men
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory>.
>
> It seems to me like science works in *spite* of our biases to
> individualism. So, if I want to understand knowledge, I have to stop
> identifying ways of knowing through dead individuals and focus on the
> flowing *field* of the collective scientists.
>
> Of course, that doesn't mean we ignore the writings of the dead people.
> But it means liberally slashing away anything that even smells obsolete.
>
> Regardless of what you do post, don't interpret *my* lack of response
> as disinterest or irritation, because it's not.
>
> On 3/5/20 6:14 AM, Prof David West wrote:
> > And the key to my being a pest — is anyone else curious about these things?
>
>
> --
> ☣ uǝlƃ
>
> ============================================================
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>

============================================================
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============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

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