From: david buchanan (dmbuchanan@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat Nov 05 2005 - 03:43:04 GMT
Matt, Mike and all MOQers:
Matt said:
...I think characterizing DMB's charge against me as a "category mistake" is
exactly right. The problem I've been trying to raise about this is that
different vocabularies use different categories. A "category mistake" is
internal to a vocabulary. My claim is that a physicist's or physiologist's
vocabulary is different then the one the mystic uses. Neither the
physiologist who describes mystical experiences as nerve quiverings nor the
mystic who describes mystical experiences as becoming One with Reality can
claim the other is making a category mistake because each is using a
different set of categories. The only way of pressing that claim, of a
physiologist describing Oneness as neuron firings as making a category
mistake, is to claim that the vocabulary you are using is a vocabulary that
everyone _has_ to use (in other words, already uses whether they know it or
not).
dmb replies:
I guess I still don't understand the point or purpose of talking about
"vocabularies". It seems to me that you are using a Rortarian CONCLUSION as
a premise. It seems to be based on the conclusion that philosophy is dead
and all we can do is have different kinds of conversations. If you
absolutely insist on using this premise in our every exhange, you're really
gonna have to do a better job of getting the idea across because, even after
all this time, I only have the vaguest idea what it means.
Until then, if its within your capabilities, I'd ask you to either explain
it or give it up and instead use concepts that make sense to the average
person. For example, the idea that there's only one "way of pressing that
claim, of a physiologist describing Oneness as neuron firings as making a
category mistake, is to claim that the vocabulary you are using is a
vocabulary that everyone _has_ to use (in other words, already uses whether
they know it or not)". I honestly don't know what that means. I've asked
lots of question about these sorts of claims. Who has more than one
vocabulary, for example. How can a person use a vocabulary without knowing
it? Maybe you think that I'm just pulling you're leg or that I'm just being
difficult on purpose, but I'm telling you that this sort of talk sounds like
a bunch of nonsense to me.
Leaving the perennial jargon problem aside for the moment, here's how I
understand the problem...
Firstly, I do not see how the neurological explanation can be seen as
anything other than reductionist, which I thought you were opposed to. Can
you explain how such a description escapes from reductionism?
But here's the biggest problem as I understand it. This might be what you
are calling a category error, but I'm convinced that its a much more simple
error than that. (And the only kind of vocabulary I'm using here is common
sense American English.) Let's say the mystical experience, as it is
described by the one who experienced it, is description A and the same
event, when its put in physiological-neurological terms, is description B.
What's actually going on here is NOT two different ways to describe one
experience. What we have here are two differnet experiences. One is being
had by the mystic and the other is being had by a neurologist who is
observing the brain of the mystic. Even if we could somehow get the mystic
to be a scientist who could somehow observe the tissues of her brain even
while having a mystical experience, we would still be talking about a
multi-tasker. We would still be talking about two entirely different
experiences. It would be like trying to explain what its like to be in an
auto accident in terms of the properties of glass and steel and the damage
they can do to biological organisms upon impact. Every statement could be
true and correct in terms of glass, metal, bones and tissues, but it would
still do absoultely nothing in terms of describing what its like to be in a
car accident. The material description makes sense in terms of an objective
observer, but it doesn't even touch the experience itself.
See? Falling in love can be described in terms of hormones or in terms of
collasped ego boundries, in terms of chemistry or of psychology. But that
only describes certain mechanisms that seem to be associated with, or
correlated with the experience. Falling in love can be explained by the
chemist or the psychologist. But until he has fallen in love himself he
only knows about chemicals and psychological states and nothing at all about
love.
Tell me how these materialistic explanations escape from the dreaded
corrrespondance theory of truth. Are these not attempts to explain
experience in terms of objective causes?
And no. I'm am NOT trying to say that I've fallen in love with you. This is
just an example.
Matt said:
DMB has pressed the "blind spot" claim on me (as the surrogate for Western
philosophy as a whole), but the reason I said then that I don't think it
helps is the same reason I don't think pressing "category mistake" helps--it
begs the question. I can claim DMB has a blindspot or is making a category
mistake just as easily as he can. The reason is the vocabularies we are
using are too different. The problem with the "blind spot" epithet is that
we _all_ have blindspots. Having a blind spot is a function of using a
vocabulary. If you're looking forward, you're not looking backward.
When you go to look behind you, you're now not looking in front of you. A
vocabulary is able to function exactly because it means _this_ and not
_that_; it constrains what you "see." ...But that's from my perspective.
From DMB's perspective, there is a way to eliminate blind spots--Dynamic
Quality. That's the crux--the pre-intellectual experience.
dmb says:
Pressing the blindspot claim begs the question? What question does it beg?
And how? You know when I will believe that there is no blindspot? When you
give me some reason to believe that you actually can see the idea I've been
trying so desperately to get you to see. Like I said before, you don't have
to agree with it or like it or anything. I just what you to comprehend what
I'm trying to say. So far, I have seen no evidence of that. And naturally,
you would demean yourself by actually asking questions as to what I mean.
You keep insisting that it has to do with vocabulary and I keep telling you
that I don't know what that means. I know it sounds like a joke when I say
things like, "I only have one vocabulary" or "who can talk shop in more than
one shop?", but there's real point in saying stuff like that.
Until you can show me otherwise, it all just sounds like a way to weasel out
of everything, to avoid taking a recognizable position on anything. It seems
like a way to avoid the substance and the facts in the debate and instead
concentrate on factually empty, purely formal rules. To make matters worse,
these rules make no sense to me. I don't see the point of purpose of it. And
the lack of deviation from this "vocabulary" talk seems to entail a strange
sort of preformative contradiction. I mean, if you have an array of
vocabularies available and can select the right one for the right occasion,
then why oh why can't you use one that won't confuse and frustrate the hell
out of me. Why oh why don't use one that I can actually understand?
And finally, I think you want to give up on the conversation because you
know we've actually made enough progress that we can at least agree about
what it is we disagree about. I think you want to give up because we're too
close to the heart of the issue. It seems that you want to give up because
you're afraid of what might come after such progress. You're afraid that
we're way too close to the actual (gasp) substance of the issue.
More later.
dmb
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