From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Thu Nov 14 2002 - 06:00:05 GMT
Matt,
First, some one-liners:
Actually, I look on numbers (and other mathematical entities) as uniquely
*being* essence, not having it or not having it. Or, like God (according to
medieval theology), their essence is their existence, in that they are
neither subject nor object. The thinking of a mathematical entity is the
mathematical entity.
Everyone has a metaphysics in the sense that everyone has some sense of what
is real. It may not be articulated, and usually isn't, which makes the
metaphysician one who makes an effort at articulating it. That, at least, is
how I use the term.
Rorty, true, is not a nihilist. What I claim is that Rorty's metaphysics (in
the sense above) logically leads to nihilism, if one *does* ask if anything
is absolute. So as long as he doesn't, he is ok, in normal terms. The
difference between his (and your) attitude and mine is that I think that
reason supports the ironic mystical absolutism I'm trying to express. So if
I am right about this, then it becomes the "right thing to do" to, in
Shankara's phrase, learn to discriminate between the permanent and the
impermanent.
On the universals/particulars thing, what I am saying is that Rorty treats
universals as dependent on particulars, that he assumes that those who treat
them as essences are mistaking "just a word" for something actual. What I am
saying against this is that there is no "something actual" without the
universal. But (as opposed to the essentialists), the relation between the
two cannot be approached without recognizing the paradox at the heart of
awareness. So my underlying objection to Rorty(actually, I have more in mind
Daniel Dennett), is that he "solves" the paradox of awareness by ignoring
half of it. The "new category" I propose, which is neither new nor a
category, is Nishida's logic of contradictory identity. But as mentioned in
my post to Steve, the real issue is whether or not one sees the paradox as
such.. You say:
> I don't see why we can't be aware of time passing, particularly if we are
> spatio-temporal processes. But as philosophical questions, once again,
> they are probably best left alone. As scientific questions, maybe they
can
> be answered in some way. Granted, I don't think science would quite ask
> these questions, but I think science could come up with some ways we can
> get a handle on space and time.
I actually had to address this question, because I was a student of
Cognitive Science, and so was involved in trying to build models of human
cognition. Awareness is a vital part of human cognition, but it was always
left out. It is assumed that somehow awareness "just happens" when neural
systems get sufficiently complex (this assumption, note well, follows
necessarily from a prior metaphysical assumption of materialism). Then one
day I realized that it is logically impossible for any strictly
spatio-temporal process to be aware. The reasoning is as follows. We assume
that we see because photons striking the retina trigger a complex sequence
of neural activity. But we do not see photons, nor do we feel this activity.
We see trees and such. So how does this occur. The answer is that it can't
(that is, that the assumption is wrong). It can't, because every bit of
matter is separated in space and/or time from every other bit. The
"awareness" involved by one bit can only be signalled to another bit through
the same "size" awareness that the first bit got. Imagine that there is some
sort of ur-awareness involved when, say, an electron absorbs a photon. There
is no way that this bit of ur-awareness can be combined with any other bit,
because the supposedly combining bit can only receive one bit at a time --
and has no internal state to "ur-remember" earlier bits (otherwise it could
be reduced to smaller bits, and so the argument just repeats at that level.)
What this means is that awareness is something *completely other* than
neural spatio-temporal activity -- the latter just being one more thing that
we are aware *of*. It means that in some sense we are *not* strictly
spatio-temporal processes. Now science, IMO, is beginning to study this, but
it is physics that is doing it, not psychology or neuro-physiology. So since
we have reason to think that consciousness is non-local, and physics says
that there is non-locality at the heart of physical reality, well, why not
pay attention to what mystics have been saying all along, that spacetime is
contingent reality, not absolute. (This is not Berkeleyan idealism, by the
way, since it is not saying that a mind is creating everything. What the
mind is creating is the *form* of everything, including its thingness and
spatio-temporality. Of course, it is true that that doesn't seem to leave
much, but it does. "I see the tree" means that when I am awake, I turn
myself and the tree into spatio-temporal things, from non-spatio-temporal
whatevers that at a minimum have to lend themselves to being seen
spatio-temporally. What the tree is doing, I don't know.)
Now here it is a leap of faith to accepting what mystics also say, namely,
that the whole mish-mosh is Ultimately Meaningful, since it could be that
everything is fundamentally non-local but meaningless anyway. But it seems
to me that since they got through experience the fact of non-locality, which
we unawakened can only get to through ratiocination, maybe they should be
paid attention to on the rest as well.
But anyway, I would say that *as* a (cognitive) scientist, I saw that the
paradigm under which models were being built was faulty, that it was based
on an arbitrary assumption (the mind-brain identity hypothesis) and was
getting nowhere. So change the assumption and, what do you know, one can get
somewhere. It is no longer science, but that is understandable, since
science can only study static patterns, while awareness is that which
perceives static patterns, and that cannot be another decomposable static
pattern. So we are back to Philosophy, in Rorty's sense of the capital-P,
but one that rejects both essentialism and anti-essentialism, and both, and
neither (the Buddhist tetralemma -- Erin was mistaken about it needing three
Zen masters to change a light bulb. It takes four).
- Scott
----- Original Message -----
From: "Matt the Enraged Endorphin" <mpkundert@students.wisc.edu>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2002 12:15 PM
Subject: Re: MD Absolute Quality between ZMM and Lila
> Scott,
>
> Very interesting. I have a few comments on the parts before your long
> accout at the end.
>
> >Any thing lacks essence, since any thing depends on all other things. But
we
> >can see a thing, and think about it, and how is that possible if it is
> >empty?
>
> Just because a thing is relational (as anti-essentialists claim all things
> are) doesn't mean we can't think about it. For instance, I think about
the
> number 42 all day long. Numbers are the easiest thing to see as not
having
> an essence, as being pure relation. For essentialists trying to
understand
> anti-essentialism, the number 42 is a good thing to meditate on.
> Anti-essentialists claim that its better for us to think of all things as
> being like numbers i.e. relational. And just as I can think of the number
> 42 though it has no essence, why can't I think of humans or justice or
> protons without them having an essence?
>
> >If the alternative is Rortyian anti-essentialism, then, first, he is
kidding
> >himself if he claims he has no metaphysics (he holds with Darwinism and
with
> >the mind-brain identity hypothesis, both of which depend on a materialist
> >metaphysical position, and both of which happen to be wrong :), but
> >secondly, as Nagarjuna pointed out long ago, it leads one to nihilism.
>
> Granted, you may not like the alternative I'm offering, and possibly for
> some good reasons, but I'm still pretty much going to deny these two
things
> as good reasons. On metaphysics, to say that everyone has a metaphysics
> either begs the question or stretches the word "metaphysics" out into
> ubiquitous proportions (see my recent comments to Wim, for some related
> thoughts). On nihilism, that's a strawman position that nobody holds and
> wouldn't be hard to refute if anybody did hold it.
>
> >Or take the essentialist/anti-essentialist debate, though I prefer the
older
> >terms: universals and particulars. Rorty, in Philosphy and the Mirror of
> >Nature, takes aim at universals. But he neglects to recognize that
without
> >universals there would be no particulars. Without universals (concepts)
we
> >cannot be aware of a particular. And, without particulars, we cannot have
> >concepts, since concepts have to be about some set of particulars.
>
> This I find amazing on your part. You've already told me that what you
are
> "trying to do here and above is to say that you [Matt] are trying to force
> [emptyness] into standard philosophical categories, while I see it as
> trying to make new ones." I'll grant this. As a good ironist, I really
> want to learn new vocabularies that move beyond the old ones. But in this
> last passage you are trying to force the Rortyan position into an old set
> of philosophical categories, when the new ones are meant to move beyond
> them in some sense.
>
> Antiessentialists have nothing wrong with universals and particulars when
> universals are meant to refer to categories of cognition (which have no
> natural kinds, however). I think it would be safe to say that Rorty is a
> Kantian in this sense. He thinks that, sure, there's a particular dog
over
> there and that dog falls into certain "universal" categories such as
brown,
> short, four-legged, Fido, etc. and doesn't fall into others like black,
> tall, eight-legged, Rover, etc. The point is that I don't think Rorty has
> any trouble with particulars and universals, when they are taken in this
sense.
>
> >Now, you might say that you would rather drop the whole sterile debate,
but
> >you can only do so by *assuming* that awareness is not relevant to the
> >question, that is, by assuming that things (particulars) exist *as
things*
> >in the absence of awareness of them. It is awareness that creates things
as
> >things (and also space and time). But one cannot make sense of this
within
> >either a SOM vocabulary or an anti-essentialist vocabulary (since that
only
> >allows particulars). What one needs is the logic of contradictory
identity,
> >which is what a 'doctrine' of emptiness can supply.
>
> Ok, I will say I would rather drop the whole sterile debate, but I don't
> see how I would be assuming that awareness is not relevant to the question
> or how I would be assuming the things exist as things in the absence of
> awareness of them. This seeming idealism/realism trap (meaning you can
> have a Berkeleyan position where awareness creates things, a Realist
> position where the things are just there, or a Kantian hybrid (which can
> look realist and idealist) where the things and us coming together creates
> them) is one more sterile debate that pragmatists wish we could get on
from.
>
> >how, if we are spatio-temporal processes, can we be aware of time
passing?
>
> I don't see why we can't be aware of time passing, particularly if we are
> spatio-temporal processes. But as philosophical questions, once again,
> they are probably best left alone. As scientific questions, maybe they
can
> be answered in some way. Granted, I don't think science would quite ask
> these questions, but I think science could come up with some ways we can
> get a handle on space and time.
>
> Now, I find many of the mystic type things very interesting (like the part
> from Franklin Merrell-Wolff). As personal (read: private) belief systems,
> I find them attractive. The reason I find your position so intriguing
> Scott is because you claim you've found a way to reconcile absoluteness
> with irony. When it comes down to my private belief in ironism, though, I
> don't find your alternative to be that different in practice from mine on
> the one hand or as attractive in theory as mine on the other. But these
> are philosophical problems. At the end of the day I would hope that we
> could still be good believers in democracy (assuming that you do).
>
> I say this because, as an antiessentialist, just because I'm an
> antiessentialist doesn't mean that others can't be essentialists. In
fact,
> my ironism forbids me from claiming that one or another of these views is
> the Correct View. If one takes philosophy seriously, I would predict that
> you may never find a great answer that you never consider leaving by the
> wayside. This is the great irony that philosophy undergrads have to come
> to terms with when they enter college. I can't tell you how many
laypeople
> I've talked to who took a Philosophy 101 course expecting to find the
> Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. And the number of people
> majoring in Philosophy thinking the same thing are not that far behind.
>
> But while I think that reading philosophy can help you find a belief
> structure that fits you, I think it is less successful in everyday things,
> like writing a legal brief or a memo, or milking cows, or shooting down
> enemy aircraft, or debating legislation. I think philosophy can help
clear
> away conceptual debris so we can know what's acceptable in the public
arena
> and not, but I don't think it can actually help us in the public arena.
> For once we start allowing large parts of our belief structure into the
> public arena, we start to border on telling people what to think on
matters
> like the meaning of life and the question of spirituality, things liberal
> democracies would like to leave for the private realm. Do I think ironism
> is more appropriate for liberal democracies? Sure I do. I think that
> belief in absolutes would possibly predispose someone to thinking that his
> or her absolutes should be believed by everyone and the best tool for this
> happens to a government. But that's all I can say on behalf of ironism.
I
> can't say its the right thing to believe, I can only point out how it
might
> be better. Because when I enter into the public arena to argue with Platt
> about this or that policy, it doesn't matter that he's an essentialist and
> I'm an antiessentialist. It only matters that he's some sort of
> conservative and I'm some sort of liberal. And while I care more about
> people being liberals then antiessentialist, either way, Platt and I hold
> enough of our belief structure in common, namely our belief in democracy,
> that we don't need to debate where that belief came from. This is why in
> practice, I don't see much difference between your position, Scott, and
mine.
>
> In the end, one reason I find Rorty's position more attractive (and why I
> keep denying absolutes) is because I believe ironism with no absolutes to
> be more suitable to liberal democracies. But, like I've repeated like a
> broken record, this shouldn't stop us from debating the range of the
> welfare state and entering into the voting booth and registering our
votes,
> wherever that booth is located.
>
> Matt
>
>
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