Great stuff, Jayarava. I think you are right about the Romantic subject, and about the shiftiness of the Romantic notion of consciousness (popular still amongst certain philosophers and, as you say, a great many Buddhists) as that which can't be effed. What's odd about this ineffability claim is that it goes along with a weird certainty: consciousness is both ineffable and also, paradoxically, clear and distinct.
It strikes me that these Romantic notions of subjectivity have parallels with Western notions of the deity, in this combination of being ineffable, but somehow unarguably and unquestionably there and omnipresent. And it strikes me, similarly, that anxieties over Free Will are echoes of anxieties about a world without god: in other words, without the mysterious action of the otherworldly (God, freedom) within the worldly, goodness is impossible in the world.
Once, although playing lip-service to Buddhist critiques of selfhood, I thought of meditation as a kind of access to some higher kind of self. I wouldn't have put it like this, but I did. Now I like to think of meditation as a much more deconstructive process. An unmapping of experience rather than a mapping of experience. Unphenomenology, I like to call it.
Chinese views of persons: yes, I think there is much that is interesting here. I'm always struck by the way Chinese philosophy simply doesn't have a problem with many of the big issues of Western philosophy. God is not a big issue. Consciousness isn't. Free Will isn't. Indeed, most of the chapter headings in an introductory textbook on philosophy are simply not very great issues at all. Some Western philosophers might claim this is because Chinese thought hasn't really grasped the truly fundamental issues. But it might be, instead, that those are not fundamental issues, but simply contortions you have to perform to turn you boat round when you are too far up a certain kind of of metaphysical creek...
Hey Will, thanks for this positive comment. I'm still thinking through this stuff and I'm probably more tentative than it appears. I'm pleased that I managed to make sense.
Effing the ineffable - was that one of your blog posts? I see it's a book title by Roger Scruton. Must check it out. The same thing applies with "science can't explain everything" followed by a complete explanation of everything in supernatural terms. With no sense of irony what-so-ever. Maddening!
It is remarkable that the Chinese seem to have retained heaven and gods, but done away with a supreme being very early on. (The figure 1500BC is in my head, but I'm not sure why).
This little wedge opened up recently when I was trying to sort out how to translate vijñāna and I realised that it did not mean "consciousness" and that the idea of consciousness seemed to be entirely missing from early Buddhist texts. I've been hammering away at it for a while now.
I hope my other friend Elisa reads your comment, especially regards free will :-)
"Effiing the ineffable" was one of my posts: http://meaningness.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/effing-the-ineffable/ (although maybe you've seen the same phrase elsewhere!).
There is something in your essay, and in Metzinger, which I don't understand. It is they way you are talk about "myth" or "illusion." Clarifying it might be productive.
I'm mostly hostile to Romanticism, and would love to see a materialist account of consciousness, subjectivity, the self, qualia, or whatever. So I'm sympathetic to Metzinger's goals. On the other hand, I think that, for both philosophical and scientific reasons, the approach he takes can't work. And I'm wondering whether a lack of clarity around "illusion" may be a symptom of that.
Metzinger actually sets out a moderately detailed mechanistic account of what the self is, involving neural processing of higher-order representations. Then, in places, he says "the self is really this mechanism." But in other places, he says "you have no self, it's a myth, an illusion." So this seems like a contradiction, and perhaps trying to have his cake and eat it too. (And you seem to be doing this too.)
One possible resolution here is that "self" is polysemous, and he's applying different senses in different contexts. So he's saying that self1 is non-existent and self2 is a machine manipulating higher-order representations. (Self1 might be a non-physical spook.)
It might be productive to analyze the various different sense of the word "self" and see how they each operate in different contexts.
On the other hand, it seems likely that none of these senses are really workable. They fail to cut reality at the joints. The phenomena that (for whatever reason) are bundled together as "self" are actually heterogeneous, and a better descriptive account would partition phenomena quite differently.
Then it seems to me that the issue is not that the self is non-existent (illusory, mythical, merely a simulation). Existence and non-existence are red herring here. The point actually is that the category is vague, shifting, and perhaps not useful at all.
Of course the non-existence of the self qua entity is a vital point to make. Absolutely. If we do not start from there we go nowhere! It's only when we accept that the self qua entity doesn't exist that a space opens up to ask questions about the experience of selfhood, and in this case about the experience of subjectivity.
The entity "my self" is non-existent. What we think of as "my self" is an illusion. "My self" is in fact a process which we experience. Neither existent nor non-existence apply to experience.
How hard is this really?
In this essay I am addressing my remarks to those who take subjectivity, their own experience of subjectivity, as an absolute. Thus my rhetoric is somewhat different than if I was preaching to the converted. I'm preaching to the blockheads who call me a materialist.
Context. Context. Context.
> "On the other hand, I think that, for both philosophical and scientific reasons, the approach he takes can't work."
Well, sure it's an article of faith, I understand.
Hmm. I don't want to press the point, because I may be being dense, or it might be trivial. So feel free, obviously, to ignore what follows.
You write: "The entity 'my self' is nonexistent... 'my self' is in fact a process which we experience."
Would it be equivalent to write: "The self is a process, rather than an entity"?
If it is not equivalent, that would be interesting, and I would want to hear more about that!
If it is equivalent, would it not be clearer to leave existence and non-existence (and "illusion" and "myth") out of the discussion? (Because they confuse *me* at least!)
If this is the correct formulation, it would be highly interesting to explore the implications of the self being a process (rather than an entity). How is this important? That was not obvious from my reading of Metzinger. (But I have not read his big book, only his summary of it and his shorter book.)
My take on this is that the key fact of the matter is that "self" is volatile, vague and has no clear boundary in space or time. I.e., "nebulous" in my jargon. I suspect that describing the self as a process is a way of pointing at nebulosity. But it's not necessarily a very good one, because some processes are quite crisp and well-demarcated and defined.
You wrote: "Neither existence nor non-existence apply to experience."
However, you also said: "...a process which we experience." Is the process an experience, or something we experience? Or both? Or is this distinction meaningless?
I hope it doesn't seem that I'm picking nits here. I think these questions are actually rather critical to getting clear about this subject matter.
I've read *about* the Mercier and Sperber paper, but not yet read it. It had already sounded intriguing, so with your recommendation I've downloaded it for a future read.
Yes, frankly, it does seem as though you are nit-picking. You clearly understand the subject, but want to argue about semantics.
So in semantic terms, this is not a work of clarification; this is a work of rhetoric. I am trying to persuade a particular group of something, when at present they are unaware that alternatives are available. You are not a member of that group.
Semantically 'Self' is an entity in our language (and culture). To say anything else is counter-intuitive to a native English speaker. If I skip the steps in my argument other readers may not understand why I'm stating a counter-intuitive conclusion. Worse, having been indoctrinated into Buddhism, they may think they understand, when they merely consent.
The words 'illusion' and 'myth' are perfectly good English words. If in doubt consult the Oxford English Dictionary. Most of the connotations are relevant in my use of these terms. Lovely redolent words. Not at all vague, just rich in connotations.
So, you argue for a vague definition of self but are urgent and earnest about clarifying things? Sorry, but if you define self as "vague" and "nebulous" then you exclude the very possibility of clarity on the subject. You're up shit creek. A vague self is worse than no self at all!
I've written a shit load about how I understand experience. I refer you to my back catalogue.
Mercier and Sperber is a goldmine. I hope to offer a précis quite soon.
OK, thanks, this is helpful: "... this is not a work of clarification; this is a work of rhetoric. I am trying to persuade a particular group of something, when at present they are unaware that alternatives are available."
1. "intoxication with experience" - an interesting way to state the 2nd Noble Truth.
2. re: "We now know, from scientific investigation, that all of our actions are initiated unconsciously and the appearance of a decision in our awareness is timed to make it seem like we consciously willed the action to happen."
I understand dependent origination as an attempt to illustrate this very process.
Re 1. "Intoxication with experience" emerged when I was investigating the word "appamāda" from √mad 'to be intoxicated'. what I discovered that where there is any explanation what this means it always refers to the objects of the senses. Thus my long translation of appamāda became "not blind drunk on the objects of the senses". Pamāda is of course our usual state. Intoxicated and bewildered.
Re 2. I see what you're getting at but the former comes from recent neuroscience and the latter from Iron Age India. I'm not sure that this was the idea in the minds of early Buddhists. Though now that it has been articulated we will need to incorporate it into our thinking.
BTW For the Mercier and Sperber readers: the main article only covers pp.57-74. What follows is peer responses - expect a great deal of confirmation bias ;-)
Actually ready made peer responses are helpful for getting a sense of how experts in the field response. Something that is important to those of us who haven't got a background in this field and won't have read the massive bibliography! Which I confess I have not. The same procedure was used on Robin Dunbar's seminal article on cortex size and group size correlations.
Dear Jayarava, Though this jumps back to the beginning of your post--it seems unfortunate that there is a conflation of "science" and "materialism" and "objectivity" in opposition to similarly conflated "Buddhism" and "spiritual" and "subjectivity." This seems to result from a failure to distinguish science as epistemological method from science as materialist reductionism. This tendency seems to inform, for example, much of what Wallace writes on these topics. Oddly, there the strategy seems to be to attempt to displace "science as materialist reductionism" by calling in the quantum theorists. Fighting science with science as it were. But then the leap to the autonomy of the subject is taken as following from one interpretation of quantum physics which at least to my understanding confuses the "observation" of subatomic interactions with the "observation" of the world by ordinary run of the mill subjects. The application of the uncertainty principle at normal Newtonian levels seems at best problematically analogous. Looking forward to reading Mercier and Sperber essay--I've found everything by Sperber worth the time invested. best, Richard K. Payne
Yes. Basically we're dealing with some very unsophisticated thinking based on stereotypes. This despite the fact that most Westerners study some science in school!
Not sure if you've seen my attempt to show that Quantum Mechanics is not relevant to Buddhism? Erwin Schrödinger Didn't Have a Cat. "Problematically analogous" is about right. This argument by non-scientists is also a weird kind of appeal to authority when they dismiss the authority at the same time! I think people sense in QM something which reflects what I'm calling spirit in my essay die on Friday.
Mercier has some very interesting stuff on academia.edu. Sperber also, but less obviously attractive to my eye. Still the door has opened now.
"Buddhists only seem to have two categories: materialist and non-materialist."
Is there an alternative?
"Because I talk about science, I'm advocating materialism. It has become quite tedious"
I find it hard to believe most Buddhists would think you are advocating materialism just because you talk about science
"In other words there is no subject: you don't own or control your experience; you are not found in the parts or the sum of your experience; and there is no entity which is you."
Buddhism doesn't deny the existence of a subject - it denies the existence of a subject with intrinsic existence, independent of object.
The idea that you aren't found in the parts or sum of your experience seems to contradict the rest of what you're saying, and I'm not sure that it is a Buddhist idea - the Tathagata was not in the parts or sum of his experience, but is that true of ordinary beings?
As for the rest of the post, I'm not sure what it is, but it doesn't look Buddhist. Buddhism doesn't deny the existence of an individual, and it looks as though you're getting at the claim that consciousness doesn't exist, which is not at all Buddhist.
"We now know, from scientific investigation, that all of our actions are initiated unconsciously and the appearance of a decision in our awareness is timed to make it seem like we consciously willed the action to happen. Whence free will now? How do we even conceive of morality in this new light?"
There is evidence that suggests this, but I don't think this is considered to be anywhere near proven yet. I assume you're talking about libet's experiences. Nevertheless, I don't see how this challenges how we conceive of morality, in any significant way.
"I find it hard to believe most Buddhists would think you are advocating materialism just because you talk about science "
Do you?
"Buddhism doesn't deny the existence of a subject - it denies the existence of a subject with intrinsic existence, independent of object. "
Is that so?
"The idea that you aren't found in the parts or sum of your experience seems to contradict the rest of what you're saying, and I'm not sure that it is a Buddhist idea - the Tathagata was not in the parts or sum of his experience, but is that true of ordinary beings?"
You're not sure of much are you? The doctrine associated with khandhas is fairly universal.
"...and it looks as though you're getting at the claim that consciousness doesn't exist, which is not at all Buddhist."
No, I'm not.
"I assume you're talking about libet's experiences."
No. You assume wrong.
"Nevertheless, I don't see how this challenges how we conceive of morality, in any significant way."
Of course you don't.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
[Image]BUDDHISTS keep implying that I'm a materialist. I've tried expanding the discussion by pointing out alternatives and nuances, but it seems hopeless. Buddhists only seem to have two categories: materialist and non-materialist. All scientists are materialists. Because I talk about science, I'm advocating materialism. It has become quite tedious.
In response I've been thinking about subjectivity. We so often hear that the much vaunted objectivity of scientists is a myth. Yeah, we know. It's old news. This critique over-emphasises the role of the individual in science. Each scientist might bring an irreducible element of subjectivity to their observation and interpretation, but millions of scientists working together can sort out what is noise and what is signal. Objectivity is an emergent property of collective observation and criticism. Individuals certainly make contributions to science, but they almost always work in teams, and in concert with peers and critics. Scientists like nothing better than to prove a rival wrong, or at least criticise their sloppy use of statistics. And the success of this manner of working has produced breakthroughs that have changed the world, for better or worse. The infrastructure of the internet stands out as an monument to objectivity - virtually every branch of science is represented in some form.
The emphasis on the individual betrays the influence of Romanticism in these anti-science critiques. For the Romantic the individual--the subject--is at the forefront of their world. They resist making the subject an object of study because axiomatically the subject is indefinable and ineffable. To define and understand the subject would be to destroy the edifice of Romanticism entirely. Which I'd happily participate in.
How ironic, then, that so many Buddhists are crypto-Romantics since one of the main themes of Buddhist thought is the deconstruction of the subject. This takes many forms including an outright denial of the existence of a self. The early Buddhist critique of the self or perceiving subject is a little more subtle. It assumes that all experiences arise in dependence on conditions, and examines the claim of an existent self accordingly.
The five branches of experience (pañcaskandhāḥ) according to early Buddhism are: a body endowed with senses (rūpa), sensations (vedanā), names (samjñā), volitional responses (saṃskāra) and cognitions (vijñāna). When we take each of these in turn, or all at once, we do not discover any basis for an existent self. The classic formula is:
netam mama, nesohamasmi, na meso attā
this is not mine, I am not this, this is my not self.
In other words there is no subject: you don't own or control your experience; you are not found in the parts or the sum of your experience; and there is no entity which is you. What we experience as "I", or the first person perspective, is simply another aspect of the processes of experience. It is an experience we can have, but no more than this.
In an earlier essay these three statements were equated with the three target properties for a first-person perspective outlined by Thomas Metzinger (See First Person Perspective).
mineness - a sense of ownership, particularly over the body.
selfhood - the sense that "I am someone", and continuity through time.
centredness - the sense that "I am the centre of my own subjective self".
When experience is endowed with these three factors, then experience appears to be centred on a perceiving self. The Buddha's deconstruction of the self rests on the inability to find a definite basis for the permanent self - nothing in experience is able to be a basis for the existence of any permanent entity since experience is an ephemeral process. Experience is quick-sand on which no castle may be built.
Metzinger's approach is to show how each of these target properties can be altered or disrupted in specific ways, by brain damage for example. The way that the sense of self can be disrupted implies that the properties must be virtual rather than real. In other words Metzinger also argues the sense of self is not intrinsic to experience. We might think of selfhood as like a Kantian a priori. The three target properties are a priori structures that our organism uses to make sense of experience in the same way that time, space, and causality are. Our interpretations of experience rely on properties that are projected onto experience, which by itself is otherwise incomprehensible.
The intense experience of apparently being a self is a simulation--and every night it must be switched off and on again. The self is a myth, therefore what we think of as subjectivity is also a myth. All the beliefs we have about subjectivity are questionable. All the speculative philosophy about the nature of consciousness over centuries is based on reified subjectivity - making an experience into an entity. Subjectivity is simply what the brain presents to awareness in the absence of, or indifferently to, external stimuli. Subjectivity is a story, a myth, that informs our experience of the world, but has no basis in fact.
Romantics tend to play up the importance of our inner life. Dreams, for example, take on deep significance. Our unconscious urges, the Freudian Id, become reified into entities that enact a little psychodrama "inside our head". Romantic Buddhism emphasises the forms of ideology which posit a pure self covered in defilements just waiting to be freed from the constraints imposed by conditioning and society. The free individual is, in particular, spontaneous: their behaviour and utterances come bubbling up without being filtered through imposed frameworks like morality. In other words at the same time as attacking the myth of objectivity, Romantics affirm the various myths of subjectivity and reify the subject into a self. Romantic Buddhism is thus a total contradiction.
The Romantics were immune to the petty conceits of conventional morality. Some of the key figures of the Romantic movement were drug addicts. They eschewed conventional mores and sought to justify their hedonistic indulgence in the pleasures of the flesh. They sought to leave their bodies behind through ecstasy, and like many people in history sought short-cuts to the realm of spirit. Some Buddhists have, incomprehensibly, gone down this road as well.
It is quite true that objectivity has distinct limits, even when applied by millions of individuals working together. Yes, there have been a continuous stream of stunning insights into the world and how it works that have totally changed the way we live, but some things are, and may remain, beyond our understanding. The contrary holds for subjectivity. Subjectivity is not what it seems and is, and will increasing become, accessible to study. Subjectivity is not unlimited or ineffable - these are just stories we tell because we are intoxicated with experience. By the way the Buddha seemed to take a dim view of intoxication with experience. We are quite capable of conceiving of the subject as an object. Subjectivity is amenable to study.
A major aspect of the myth of subjectivity is the search for something we call "consciousness". The search for consciousness is first and foremost hampered by philosophy and philosophers. Consciousness has been the subject of wild speculation which mostly seems to take everyday hallucinations as real. If we were setting out to explore the phenomena of the mind today we would not, on the basis of anecdote and generalising from personal experience, invent a whole raft of wild speculative theories, each with their own jargon and then set about trying to prove one of them right. I suggest that the scientific study of consciousness needs to detach itself from centuries of metaphysical speculation however interesting and concentrate on making observations.
Let's not assume that the way we talk about consciousness has any basis in fact until we can show that it is so. Where is the evidence, for example, for a theatre of consciousness? We really only have personal anecdote! But, since the idea infects our intellectual landscape, we grow up with this as an unchallenged background assumption. If there is in fact no entity which might be called a subject in the brain or mind, then we need to start again and work out how to talk about the phenomena we can experience, including the experience of selfhood. The simple fact is that how experience seems to us, is not how it is. We should no more trust individual subjectivity than we trust individual objectivity. That we do trust it is a barrier to progress. For example we still spill huge amounts of ink and research funding on the fundamentally Christian notion of free will. Of course there are juridicial repercussions to doing away with the notion of free will, but recent research is showing that the question of freedom is badly phrased because of legacy arguments that have now lost their relevance (we're not longer interested in how God came to be so incompetent as to allow evil; Buddhists never were). Freedom is relative to a number of constraints. We now know, from scientific investigation, that all of our actions are initiated unconsciously and the appearance of a decision in our awareness is timed to make it seem like we consciously willed the action to happen. Whence free will now? How do we even conceive of morality in this new light?
I imagine that there will be great hostility to the downgrading of the individual to a biologically convenient fiction. Not only from libertarians, but from Romantics. We might be forced to admit that the Chinese view of a person, with it's emphasis on collectivity, relationships and obligations is more in tune with reality. Individual behaviour is not simply the product simply of psychology. Individuals are frequently responding to environmental factors, especially social cues. But Western society is founded on basis that individual liberty is a high good, if not the highest good. And if the individual is a fiction? Then what? There's certainly a lot at stake.
I could briefly mention Lynn Margulis's observations that we are not individuals but communities. We are colonies of symbiotic organisms, some tightly bound in our cells and some loosely bound in our bodies. For every human cell in this colony there are 100 bacterial cells without which we probably wouldn't survive. Bacteria mediate our physical interactions with the world! I might also cite the fact that the smallest viable unit of humanity is not the individual nor even the family. It must be the troop of several families, or even the clan of several troops, for our genes not to become overly recessive and kill us.
Individuality, the autonomy of a self, is another myth; another Romantic myth. We are emeshed in webs of dependency and obligation from the molecular to the societal level. The myth of individuality is central to the divide and conquer policy of NeoLiberalism, and to the transfer of wealth to the wealthy creating disastrous levels of economic inequality in nations and globally. At present the rogue individual is free to exploit the community to their own advantage. Such individuals are even admired and made the subject of movies. Survival of the fittest ought to refer to the community best able to cooperate, but it seems to have become affixed to the predator best able to kill it's prey (this is a kind of Romantic Victorian fiction about how nature operates that modern science has yet to eliminate). We're a social primate species which is evolutionarily successful through our ability to empathise and cooperate, so why do we admire rogue predators rather than successful team members? Something is deeply wrong with this picture!
Most people I meet have a crude, but effective, critique of materialism, though little appreciation of the sophisticated views of contemporary scientists and thus no way to really engage with what science is telling them about their world. I certainly value contact with people that don't fit this narrow mould but they are a minority. Almost no one I meet is aware of their Romantic conditioning or how it manoeuvres them towards particular conclusions about their experience of the world. Reifying the subject ought to be anathema to Buddhists. Ironically, it seems to be the norm.
~~oOo~~
posted by Jayarava Attwood at 07:00 on 19-Apr-2013
19 Comments
Close this window Jump to comment formGreat stuff, Jayarava. I think you are right about the Romantic subject, and about the shiftiness of the Romantic notion of consciousness (popular still amongst certain philosophers and, as you say, a great many Buddhists) as that which can't be effed. What's odd about this ineffability claim is that it goes along with a weird certainty: consciousness is both ineffable and also, paradoxically, clear and distinct.
It strikes me that these Romantic notions of subjectivity have parallels with Western notions of the deity, in this combination of being ineffable, but somehow unarguably and unquestionably there and omnipresent. And it strikes me, similarly, that anxieties over Free Will are echoes of anxieties about a world without god: in other words, without the mysterious action of the otherworldly (God, freedom) within the worldly, goodness is impossible in the world.
Once, although playing lip-service to Buddhist critiques of selfhood, I thought of meditation as a kind of access to some higher kind of self. I wouldn't have put it like this, but I did. Now I like to think of meditation as a much more deconstructive process. An unmapping of experience rather than a mapping of experience. Unphenomenology, I like to call it.
Chinese views of persons: yes, I think there is much that is interesting here. I'm always struck by the way Chinese philosophy simply doesn't have a problem with many of the big issues of Western philosophy. God is not a big issue. Consciousness isn't. Free Will isn't. Indeed, most of the chapter headings in an introductory textbook on philosophy are simply not very great issues at all. Some Western philosophers might claim this is because Chinese thought hasn't really grasped the truly fundamental issues. But it might be, instead, that those are not fundamental issues, but simply contortions you have to perform to turn you boat round when you are too far up a certain kind of of metaphysical creek...
Friday, April 19, 2013
Hey Will, thanks for this positive comment. I'm still thinking through this stuff and I'm probably more tentative than it appears. I'm pleased that I managed to make sense.
Effing the ineffable - was that one of your blog posts? I see it's a book title by Roger Scruton. Must check it out. The same thing applies with "science can't explain everything" followed by a complete explanation of everything in supernatural terms. With no sense of irony what-so-ever. Maddening!
It is remarkable that the Chinese seem to have retained heaven and gods, but done away with a supreme being very early on. (The figure 1500BC is in my head, but I'm not sure why).
This little wedge opened up recently when I was trying to sort out how to translate vijñāna and I realised that it did not mean "consciousness" and that the idea of consciousness seemed to be entirely missing from early Buddhist texts. I've been hammering away at it for a while now.
I hope my other friend Elisa reads your comment, especially regards free will :-)
Cheers
Jayarava
Friday, April 19, 2013
Hi Jayarava,
I liked this!
"Effiing the ineffable" was one of my posts: http://meaningness.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/effing-the-ineffable/ (although maybe you've seen the same phrase elsewhere!).
There is something in your essay, and in Metzinger, which I don't understand. It is they way you are talk about "myth" or "illusion." Clarifying it might be productive.
I'm mostly hostile to Romanticism, and would love to see a materialist account of consciousness, subjectivity, the self, qualia, or whatever. So I'm sympathetic to Metzinger's goals. On the other hand, I think that, for both philosophical and scientific reasons, the approach he takes can't work. And I'm wondering whether a lack of clarity around "illusion" may be a symptom of that.
Metzinger actually sets out a moderately detailed mechanistic account of what the self is, involving neural processing of higher-order representations. Then, in places, he says "the self is really this mechanism." But in other places, he says "you have no self, it's a myth, an illusion." So this seems like a contradiction, and perhaps trying to have his cake and eat it too. (And you seem to be doing this too.)
One possible resolution here is that "self" is polysemous, and he's applying different senses in different contexts. So he's saying that self1 is non-existent and self2 is a machine manipulating higher-order representations. (Self1 might be a non-physical spook.)
It might be productive to analyze the various different sense of the word "self" and see how they each operate in different contexts.
On the other hand, it seems likely that none of these senses are really workable. They fail to cut reality at the joints. The phenomena that (for whatever reason) are bundled together as "self" are actually heterogeneous, and a better descriptive account would partition phenomena quite differently.
Then it seems to me that the issue is not that the self is non-existent (illusory, mythical, merely a simulation). Existence and non-existence are red herring here. The point actually is that the category is vague, shifting, and perhaps not useful at all.
David
Friday, April 19, 2013
Hi David
Of course the non-existence of the self qua entity is a vital point to make. Absolutely. If we do not start from there we go nowhere! It's only when we accept that the self qua entity doesn't exist that a space opens up to ask questions about the experience of selfhood, and in this case about the experience of subjectivity.
The entity "my self" is non-existent.
What we think of as "my self" is an illusion.
"My self" is in fact a process which we experience.
Neither existent nor non-existence apply to experience.
How hard is this really?
In this essay I am addressing my remarks to those who take subjectivity, their own experience of subjectivity, as an absolute. Thus my rhetoric is somewhat different than if I was preaching to the converted. I'm preaching to the blockheads who call me a materialist.
Context. Context. Context.
> "On the other hand, I think that, for both philosophical and scientific reasons, the approach he takes can't work."
Well, sure it's an article of faith, I understand.
Friday, April 19, 2013
Has anyone read this article?
Mercier and Sperber 'Why Do Humans Reason? Arguments for an Argumentative Theory.' Behavioural and Brain Sciences (2011) 34, 57-111.
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Thanks for the reply!
Hmm. I don't want to press the point, because I may be being dense, or it might be trivial. So feel free, obviously, to ignore what follows.
You write: "The entity 'my self' is nonexistent... 'my self' is in fact a process which we experience."
Would it be equivalent to write: "The self is a process, rather than an entity"?
If it is not equivalent, that would be interesting, and I would want to hear more about that!
If it is equivalent, would it not be clearer to leave existence and non-existence (and "illusion" and "myth") out of the discussion? (Because they confuse *me* at least!)
If this is the correct formulation, it would be highly interesting to explore the implications of the self being a process (rather than an entity). How is this important? That was not obvious from my reading of Metzinger. (But I have not read his big book, only his summary of it and his shorter book.)
My take on this is that the key fact of the matter is that "self" is volatile, vague and has no clear boundary in space or time. I.e., "nebulous" in my jargon. I suspect that describing the self as a process is a way of pointing at nebulosity. But it's not necessarily a very good one, because some processes are quite crisp and well-demarcated and defined.
You wrote: "Neither existence nor non-existence apply to experience."
However, you also said: "...a process which we experience." Is the process an experience, or something we experience? Or both? Or is this distinction meaningless?
I hope it doesn't seem that I'm picking nits here. I think these questions are actually rather critical to getting clear about this subject matter.
I've read *about* the Mercier and Sperber paper, but not yet read it. It had already sounded intriguing, so with your recommendation I've downloaded it for a future read.
Thanks,
David
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Interesting article, Jayarava. Just downloaded it for later reading.
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Reasoning to win an argument. Interesting article, Jayarava. Just dowloaded it for later reading.
Saturday, April 20, 2013
David
Yes, frankly, it does seem as though you are nit-picking. You clearly understand the subject, but want to argue about semantics.
So in semantic terms, this is not a work of clarification; this is a work of rhetoric. I am trying to persuade a particular group of something, when at present they are unaware that alternatives are available. You are not a member of that group.
Semantically 'Self' is an entity in our language (and culture). To say anything else is counter-intuitive to a native English speaker. If I skip the steps in my argument other readers may not understand why I'm stating a counter-intuitive conclusion. Worse, having been indoctrinated into Buddhism, they may think they understand, when they merely consent.
The words 'illusion' and 'myth' are perfectly good English words. If in doubt consult the Oxford English Dictionary. Most of the connotations are relevant in my use of these terms. Lovely redolent words. Not at all vague, just rich in connotations.
So, you argue for a vague definition of self but are urgent and earnest about clarifying things? Sorry, but if you define self as "vague" and "nebulous" then you exclude the very possibility of clarity on the subject. You're up shit creek. A vague self is worse than no self at all!
I've written a shit load about how I understand experience. I refer you to my back catalogue.
Mercier and Sperber is a goldmine. I hope to offer a précis quite soon.
Saturday, April 20, 2013
OK, thanks, this is helpful: "... this is not a work of clarification; this is a work of rhetoric. I am trying to persuade a particular group of something, when at present they are unaware that alternatives are available."
I wish you great success in that project!
David
Sunday, April 21, 2013
The Mercier and Sperber looks fascinating. Thanks for the cite.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
1. "intoxication with experience" - an interesting way to state the 2nd Noble Truth.
2. re: "We now know, from scientific investigation, that all of our actions are initiated unconsciously and the appearance of a decision in our awareness is timed to make it seem like we consciously willed the action to happen."
I understand dependent origination as an attempt to illustrate this very process.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Hi Swanditch
Re 1. "Intoxication with experience" emerged when I was investigating the word "appamāda" from √mad 'to be intoxicated'. what I discovered that where there is any explanation what this means it always refers to the objects of the senses. Thus my long translation of appamāda became "not blind drunk on the objects of the senses". Pamāda is of course our usual state. Intoxicated and bewildered.
Re 2. I see what you're getting at but the former comes from recent neuroscience and the latter from Iron Age India. I'm not sure that this was the idea in the minds of early Buddhists. Though now that it has been articulated we will need to incorporate it into our thinking.
Monday, April 22, 2013
BTW For the Mercier and Sperber readers: the main article only covers pp.57-74. What follows is peer responses - expect a great deal of confirmation bias ;-)
Actually ready made peer responses are helpful for getting a sense of how experts in the field response. Something that is important to those of us who haven't got a background in this field and won't have read the massive bibliography! Which I confess I have not. The same procedure was used on Robin Dunbar's seminal article on cortex size and group size correlations.
J
Monday, April 22, 2013
Dear Jayarava, Though this jumps back to the beginning of your post--it seems unfortunate that there is a conflation of "science" and "materialism" and "objectivity" in opposition to similarly conflated "Buddhism" and "spiritual" and "subjectivity." This seems to result from a failure to distinguish science as epistemological method from science as materialist reductionism. This tendency seems to inform, for example, much of what Wallace writes on these topics. Oddly, there the strategy seems to be to attempt to displace "science as materialist reductionism" by calling in the quantum theorists. Fighting science with science as it were. But then the leap to the autonomy of the subject is taken as following from one interpretation of quantum physics which at least to my understanding confuses the "observation" of subatomic interactions with the "observation" of the world by ordinary run of the mill subjects. The application of the uncertainty principle at normal Newtonian levels seems at best problematically analogous.
Looking forward to reading Mercier and Sperber essay--I've found everything by Sperber worth the time invested.
best, Richard K. Payne
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Hi Richard
Yes. Basically we're dealing with some very unsophisticated thinking based on stereotypes. This despite the fact that most Westerners study some science in school!
Not sure if you've seen my attempt to show that Quantum Mechanics is not relevant to Buddhism? Erwin Schrödinger Didn't Have a Cat. "Problematically analogous" is about right. This argument by non-scientists is also a weird kind of appeal to authority when they dismiss the authority at the same time! I think people sense in QM something which reflects what I'm calling spirit in my essay die on Friday.
Mercier has some very interesting stuff on academia.edu. Sperber also, but less obviously attractive to my eye. Still the door has opened now.
Regards
Jayarava
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
"Buddhists only seem to have two categories: materialist and non-materialist."
Is there an alternative?
"Because I talk about science, I'm advocating materialism. It has become quite tedious"
I find it hard to believe most Buddhists would think you are advocating materialism just because you talk about science
"In other words there is no subject: you don't own or control your experience; you are not found in the parts or the sum of your experience; and there is no entity which is you."
Buddhism doesn't deny the existence of a subject - it denies the existence of a subject with intrinsic existence, independent of object.
The idea that you aren't found in the parts or sum of your experience seems to contradict the rest of what you're saying, and I'm not sure that it is a Buddhist idea - the Tathagata was not in the parts or sum of his experience, but is that true of ordinary beings?
As for the rest of the post, I'm not sure what it is, but it doesn't look Buddhist. Buddhism doesn't deny the existence of an individual, and it looks as though you're getting at the claim that consciousness doesn't exist, which is not at all Buddhist.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
"We now know, from scientific investigation, that all of our actions are initiated unconsciously and the appearance of a decision in our awareness is timed to make it seem like we consciously willed the action to happen. Whence free will now? How do we even conceive of morality in this new light?"
There is evidence that suggests this, but I don't think this is considered to be anywhere near proven yet. I assume you're talking about libet's experiences. Nevertheless, I don't see how this challenges how we conceive of morality, in any significant way.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
"Is there an alternative?"
Yes.
"I find it hard to believe most Buddhists would think you are advocating materialism just because you talk about science "
Do you?
"Buddhism doesn't deny the existence of a subject - it denies the existence of a subject with intrinsic existence, independent of object. "
Is that so?
"The idea that you aren't found in the parts or sum of your experience seems to contradict the rest of what you're saying, and I'm not sure that it is a Buddhist idea - the Tathagata was not in the parts or sum of his experience, but is that true of ordinary beings?"
You're not sure of much are you? The doctrine associated with khandhas is fairly universal.
"...and it looks as though you're getting at the claim that consciousness doesn't exist, which is not at all Buddhist."
No, I'm not.
"I assume you're talking about libet's experiences."
No. You assume wrong.
"Nevertheless, I don't see how this challenges how we conceive of morality, in any significant way."
Of course you don't.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014