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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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I originally repeated a simple, incontrovertible truth...
I think this sort of a statement is actually a difficulty in any discussion on this thread, and one of the reasons I ask myself why we are just catering to Largo's indomitable convictions.
I also do not think that science excludes art, there are many artistic works that are science or the result of scientific pursuits, even the more so if you consider an individual's reaction to the "piece of art." Certainly art does not exclude science.
But as is appropriate for our times, the tribal associations seem to be more important than the simple fact that humans do all these things, they spring from a common source. Looking at mind as a literary construction, or as the consequence of billions of years of evolution, or as some cosmic "incontrovertible truth," all these are ultimately a human perspective.
Ancient stories are told about sibling rivalries, the competition for the love and attention of parents among their children. Maybe some aspects of this heated discussion could examine the literary roots of that plot, and how it spills out into our lives.
Another theme that floats in the background here is one of redemption, of the righting of past wrongs we've committed, and the righteousness of our path into the light, perhaps here a cryptic evangelism for those paths.
The passion of the discussion is interesting, and perhaps the impassionate discussions of science are inappropriate for the thread.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 9, 2018 - 10:31am PT
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I originally repeated a simple, incontrovertible truth...
I think this sort of a statement is actually a difficulty in any discussion on this thread, and one of the reasons I ask myself why we are just catering to Largo's indomitable convictions.
Now let's look at this closely, for logical coherence and simple truth.
The "truth" mentioned earlier is that no one from a 3rd person vantage can observe the 1st person, phenomenological (subjective) experience of another person. That is, we cannot thieve our way into Ed's subjective bubble and directly feel his feelings, sensations, or directly experience his thoughts, memories, etc.
Ed counters that the above is in fact a "conviction," that is, "a firmly held belief or opinion," as opposed to fact. This implies that Ed or someone else CAN jump inside someone else's phenomenological experience and direct experience same. We have every reason to question Ed on this point.
This kind of waffling and dodging what every schoolboy knows as a basic truth (I cannot, for example, feel Ed's heartbeat or the sensation of the cloths on his body), but Ed presents this as though it were questionable, and not simply true.
Go figure...
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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maybe you could explain what "first person" and "third person" are, and why they might be relevant to this discussion.
the existence of these terms is yet another dichotomy which provide a way of discussing a perception we have regarding our minds, consciousness, etc. our perceptions, unexamined, lead us to all sorts of simple truths, and so it is here, too.
examining these terms, and how they came to be, their history in literature and science, could be enlightening.
declaring them immutable natural laws of "mind" is a much less interesting discussion.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Congrats to sycorax on an intelligent post on the subject.
Paul, my comments were a result of being irritated by put-downs of science/technology and cavalier uses of terms, expressions and concepts from math and physics.
Jan, this particular type of mathematical expansion (my creation) is fun to play with, but is of very little importance in the world of mathematics. However, I find it fascinating for its three-dimensional imagery, which is not predictable. I certainly didn't program that aspect. You might be on to something regarding archetypes. The math was a product of mind, hence the subconscious contributed in a manner that I might never understand.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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we cannot thieve our way into Ed's subjective bubble
That sounds like a good thing.
Later,
This implies that Ed or someone else CAN jump inside someone else's phenomenological experience and direct experience same.
Where is that implied?
If it did become possible, what difference would it make to you?
What do you make of Krista and Tatiana Hogan, who may be able to do what you claim is not possible?
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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When you read a sentence that Largo has posted you can see that there is a lot of thought going on in there and he draws from a lot of sources. Sometimes too much for the task at hand. But he is a writer by vocation. When I first read a sentence like the recent one that we are discussing, I usually have some kind of reaction to some part of what I think he is saying and I could easily reply. That is too easy and often just creates another reaction. So I try to put myself in his shoes, even though I don't know him, or at least step back and look at it differently. If I wrote that same sentence I would have gotten to it differently and it would probably have a different meaning to some degree. Which speaks to what just about everyone on this thread has said about language difficulties.
With that in mind I think that we can all agree that we are individuals, unique personalities with varied minds and similar brains. So even if we could have unfettered access to the workings of a mind or brain, by definition of individuality, it is one individual using another individuals apparatus. Now if you actually could become another individual, would you still retain your previous individuality? Then what?
And what about that Vulcan Mind Meld?
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Multiple personality disorder?
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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I'm not sure but I don't think they even call it multiple personally disorder anymore. I think it' s called fractured fairytales or something like that.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 9, 2018 - 02:07pm PT
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maybe you could explain what "first person" and "third person" are, and why they might be relevant to this discussion.
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In one sense, this is a baffling request, since most of us assume the other person has a direct, tangible sense - derived from direct experience - between a perspective ("point of view") that is directed at objects and phenomenon external to our persons ("objective"), and a perspective where we are observing internal, phenomenological content (subjective). Various psychiatric conditions are attributed to NOT knowing these distinctions, or being trapped in one or the other.
A simple definition is: 3rd person objective refers to a perspective concerning objects and events in the world that anyone can, in principle, observe. 1st person subjective refers to a perspective disclosing a given person's feelings and experiences which no one else can observe.
What's more, the difference between subjective and objective perspectives, as well as the difference between phenomenological (subjective) content and observable external objects and phenomenon, is taken as a matter of course by virtually all sober humans. When a friend asks, "How are you feeling?" then asks, "do you see that car over there?" we fluidly change perspectives without pause.
Since both of these perspectives are universally recognized aspects of mind, one wonders how either one would be "irrelevant" to this discussion.
Another thing underscores an apparent miscue on Ed's part. 1st person and 3rd person perspectives were not posited as "immutable natural laws of mind." What was said to be incontrovertible - a law, if you like - is that 1st person phenomenological experience itself is not observable from a 3rd person perspective.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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I've thought for a long time that the main points of contention on this thread are basically riffs on the age-old philosophical divide of rationalism vs. empiricism. Look them up if you are not familiar with the terms. The first claims that we really don't know that there is a world out there independent of our perceptions of it. The focus is on the subjective. The second assumes that there actually is a world out there, irrespective of the existence of one or more entities to perceive it. The focus is on the objective. That's it, in a nutshell. Humans have been talking about and taking sides on this for a thousand years and more.
Science, of course, takes the empiricist's side. The current scientific consensus is that mind is a product of evolution, period. The rest is details.
On the rationalist side, there doesn't seem to be a consensus from what I can tell. The rationalists on this thread would include Largo, MikeL, and TomCochrane. They each go with rationalism for entirely different reasons.
Just an observation.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 9, 2018 - 05:30pm PT
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https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/
My take on this is that rationalism-empiricism are two complimentary sides of one coin. When you get right down to the core of the subjective adventures you are objectively observing your own perceptual process, or attempting to. But this is not a thinking exercise.
And this is interesting: The current scientific consensus is that mind is a product of evolution, period.
The striking thing about this is the "is," that is, a causal explanation of what is believed to have sourced mind, is expected to fully explain mind - something that would never wash in other scientific fields. If I said that earth is a product of planet formation consequent to the big bang, and all else are "details," some might find this explanation lacking, and would want to know something about the earth itself, right now.
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murcy
Gym climber
sanfrancisco
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I dip into ST not so often these days, and into this thread even more rarely. But it really impresses me that one of the most intensely active threads on this site is about philosophy (something dear to me), and conducted at a very high level. You can't say that about many special-interest websites in other areas, right? Why?
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Many thanks for stopping by in text, murcy.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 9, 2018 - 05:53pm PT
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Back in my middle school days, I felt like a new person about every 6 months.
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Was your school teacher able to "see" what you felt like, or just the external, physical signs of same?
When you read the words, "phenomenological," they refer to what you felt like (among other things) back in middle school. The word does not refer to observed externals - what you looked like or how you behaved to your peers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfqLdOgoB98
This guy will probably piss you off but there's some gold in there if you've got some free time.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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A simple definition is: 3rd person objective refers to a perspective concerning objects and events in the world that anyone can, in principle, observe. 1st person subjective refers to a perspective disclosing a given person's feelings and experiences which no one else can observe.
which is a workable starting point. Of course you probably teach your budding writers to write about their experiences. And you follow that up with many good examples from the literary canon. And you have written that wonderful piece of how a story about an somewhat inconsequential shift of a hex in a crack became this amazing tale of climbing daring-do. The epiphany being that the way the shift "felt," the way you experienced the shift, was more like the hyperbolized camp fire story then the actual "dry facts."
Sounds like you have spent a lot of your professional life providing an observation window into your 1st person experience.
Not only that, but the dichotomy is readily understood by almost everyone. We often praise a writer (as sycorax did in her reference) for being able to "transport" us into a character, as Gilman did, the deepening insanity of a person.
By your definition, a necessarily third person accounting, as all writing is, allows us access to a believable first person experience. And not only that, but the characters are fictional, yet once again the skilled writer has us believing.
The "almost everyone" comment is important. As noted, there is a spectrum of people,
Various psychiatric conditions are attributed to NOT knowing these distinctions, or being trapped in one or the other. One can wonder what is the cause of the condition, to use the word "cause" in a way I hope is acceptable. Could it be physiological? Certainly behaviors appear to vary in animals from individual to individual, and one might try to understand this from an evolutionary standpoint.
But if there is a spectrum of perception between these two poles, first person and third person, what are we to make of it? Why would we accept the "statistically more representative" perception as "truth" in any way?
The relevance to this discussion is simply that you construct something by appealing to our "common experience," the "first person" and state that it is something that resists any scientific explanation as it exists in a realm quite outside of anything science explains.
Yet what you have done is constructed such a state. While such a state may exist for you, perhaps it does not exist for me, and you have no way of knowing.
But that is not what we would generally refer to as "mind."
Colloquially, we find it quite natural to "speak our minds."
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Was your school teacher able to "see" what you felt like
Yes. And they were not a telepath or psychic, just another human being.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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I admire all the splendid images John Gill posts, here. They are open to various interpretations.
The latest one made me think:
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Yountville
Gunman [kills four?] takes hostages at veterans home, won't answer police
They asked What's on your mind?
Edit:
EEG's probably won't be required
Weird headline of the day:
Standoff wraps up at Veterans Home in Yountville, hostages and gunman reported dead
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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thanks for mentioning Gilman's short story, which did take me to Wiki, and the link to the reprint of the story, which I read.
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