2009.06.29 19:00 - Knowledge in multiple senses

The Guardian for this meeting was Threedee Shepherd. The comments are by Threedee Shepherd.

 Starts with a bit of chat about OpenSim

Adelene Dawner: Hi, Pem!
Pema Pera: Hi Adelene and Threedee!
Pema Pera: Good seeing you both again!
Threedee Shepherd: hi Pema
Pema Pera: how are things? busy working in SL?
Pema Pera: Hi Eos!
Threedee Shepherd: We are in a slight lull, which gives us time to do some development. We are exploring the use of OpenSims
Eos Amaterasu: Hi Pema, ThreeDee
Threedee Shepherd: Hi Eos
Pema Pera: which server do you use, I mean which grid?
Threedee Shepherd: My company has its own, using rented Virtual Private Server space
Pema Pera: ah, that is convenient
Pema Pera: but does that mean that only you and Adelene can access what you build there?
Threedee Shepherd: I think it is the best way to try things out because we have maximum control and flexibility. We use the OpenSimulator software
Adelene Dawner: We are able to allow others to make avs on our grid, though.
Threedee Shepherd: No, we currently have 8 full sims, rtwo of which are intended to be public
Pema Pera: yes, the flexibility of OpenSim is great, that's the reason we also used it for our astronomy simulations
Threedee Shepherd: Ans as Ade says, the other sims have approval of new accounts to allow others to visit
Eos Amaterasu wonders about green Squee
Threedee Shepherd: We are using one of the OSims to prototype The Neuroversity concept
Eos Amaterasu <^_^>
Pema Pera: interesting, Three!
Threedee Shepherd: The cost is minimal that way
Threedee Shepherd: Pema, is it just this particular time-session, or is attendance down at PaB?
Pema Pera: I think it fluctuates
Pema Pera: and it wouldn't surprise me if people travel more in the summer, enjoying more of RL instead of SL :-)
Threedee Shepherd: could be
Pema Pera: we've had a few really great sessions with more than a dozen people recently
Pema Pera: like Saturday morning, our theme session about Islam
Pema Pera: that evening we had quite a few people as well
Threedee Shepherd: What times are the well attended ones
Pema Pera: I'm not sure -- that seems to fluctuate too
Pema Pera: personally, I enjoy both kinds of sessions, with many attendants and with few
Pema Pera: somethings the best conversations happen with only two or three people present
Pema Pera: *sometimes
Pema Pera: and sometimes there are great conversations with 15 people :)

A clarification of how Husserl uses the concept of phenomenological engagement. This in turn leads to a broader discussion of the "higher level" of Space, Time and knowledge.
Except, at the time of the meeting Threedee did not yet understand the way in which higher level uses the words space, time and knowledge differs from Threedee's understanding of these words on the "everyday" lower level. As the conversation progresses it becomes clear to Threedee that there is this different "definition" of the same words occurring. The differences do not get clarified well in this session, which leads to a theme session about these ideas at this same time next Monday.


Threedee Shepherd: I am reading "The Meaning of the Body" by Mark Johnson and he has this quote that is interesting re PaB:
Threedee Shepherd: Husserl proposed a method of "suspending" one's practical engagement with everyday experience in order to allow the fundamental structures of experience to reveal themselves. I do not think we should try to suspend our practical embeddedness; rather, we should survey the patterns of this practical interaction.
Pema Pera: for me, the two say the same thing
Threedee Shepherd: This is Johnson of "Lakoff and Johnson"
Pema Pera: I think what Husserl intended was exactly that the author says in the second sentence
Pema Pera: it all depends what you mean with "suspending"
Eos Amaterasu: suspension allows the sense of survey
Pema Pera: yes, and thereby can lead to more deeply felt embedding, paradoxically
Eos Amaterasu: not interruption of embeddedness
Pema Pera: yes!
Threedee Shepherd: agreed. From one point of view, the 9-sec can be taken as a kind of suspending
Pema Pera: Husserl is often misunderstood, because he wrote in dry 19th century academic German . . . .
Pema Pera: yes, exactly, Three
Pema Pera: as a means to get more involved
Pema Pera: suspending the narrowmindedness that we tend to fall into, which obscures our wider embedding
Pema Pera: thanks for the quote, that's very interesting!
Eos Amaterasu: sometimes you hear a musician skip a beat, which then opens up space to get into the music further
Threedee Shepherd: another quote to clarify his position:
Pema Pera: nice observation, Eos!
Threedee Shepherd: When I speak of a "phenomenological" survey of image schemas, I the not mean the use of anything like the formal Husserlian method of "Transcendental reduction," but merely reflective interrogation of the contours of our lived experience.
Pema Pera: again, I think the author misunderstands what Husserl means with "transcendental" and what Husserl does when he applies the method
Threedee Shepherd: I do understand how you both accept and expand his statement, which leads to the question of how one can observe a pattern that one is a part of.
Pema Pera: "formal" is the style of writing, but the actual enagement advertised by Husserl is anything but :-)
Pema Pera: interesting question Three!
Eos Amaterasu: Yes, I think Husserl was talking about how to get into "reflection" itself
Eos Amaterasu: I like this quote:
Pema Pera: The first step is to drop the identification with "being part of"
Eos Amaterasu: The phenomenological reduction is at once a description and prescription of a technique that allows one to voluntarily sustain the awakening force of astonishment so that conceptual cognition can be carried throughout intentional analysis, thus bringing the “knowing� of astonishment into our everyday experience.
Threedee Shepherd: In fact there IS no pattern without the interactive "patterner" is there?
Pema Pera: yes, that is *much* better, it captures the spirit of Husserl, Eos!
Pema Pera: fair enough, Husserl
Pema Pera: sorry,
Pema Pera: Threedee
Pema Pera: hahaha
Pema Pera: but we don't have to identify with being a patterner solely
Eos Amaterasu: I think it's staying in that question, 3D
Pema Pera: I can be an astronomer yet step back from that to observe my role as astronomer
Eos Amaterasu: We are also patterned
Pema Pera: dropping what we have to see what we are
Pema Pera: yes, Eos, every role is
Threedee Shepherd: I am "coming" from the standpoint, that the knower is ALWAYS and inextricibly part of the known.
Pema Pera: how can you state something about "ALWAYS"?
Eos Amaterasu: Squee said something like that :-)
Pema Pera: as a hypothesis?
Pema Pera: in principle such a hypothesis is untestable :-)
Threedee Shepherd: would it have been different if I had said " that the knower is iinextricibly part of the known."
Eos Amaterasu: 3D, do you see the 9 secs as exploration of that?
Pema Pera: I would say "as a rule of thumb, for everyday experiences, it seems clear that the knower . . . etc
Threedee Shepherd: yes I do, Eos
Pema Pera: I'm always hesitant when hearing "always" (no pun intended)
Eos Amaterasu: I think "always" sometimes means "essentially"
Pema Pera: since that tends to preclude the possibility of surprise, of wonder, of finding something totally different
Adelene Dawner: Is it possible for there to be 'known' without a knower to know it?
Pema Pera: there may be knowledge, beyond the subject-object split of knower-known
Pema Pera: or something for which the label/pointer "knowledge" may be a reasonable choice
Threedee Shepherd: I am trying to avoid the subject object split of knower-kknown by the use of the word inextricibly
Pema Pera: In science, every manjor breakthrough consisted of finding exceptions to the "always" of a previous generation
Threedee Shepherd: I agree, always was a poor choice
Pema Pera: yes, and I basically agree, for practical purposes, Three -- it sounds like codependent arising
Threedee Shepherd: yes
Pema Pera: yes to the earlier sentence, :-)
Pema Pera: for me, one of the most surprising things in my life was the gradual discovery that knowledge can be seen as a dimension of reality, like space and time, rather than something residing in a brain or in a book
Pema Pera: perhaps THE most suprising thing . . . .
Threedee Shepherd: is thatr use of dimension meant as analogy or homology?
Pema Pera: I first began to see that clearly through Steven's Time, Space, Knowledge book
Pema Pera: dimension not as a mathematical way of counting, now, more like an inherent aspect of reality, on a footing similar to that of space and of time
Pema Pera: (which in turn have three and one dimensions, but that's a different use of the word dimension)
Eos Amaterasu: And by knowledge, do you mean awareness, or some kind of products of awareness?
Pema Pera: hmmmmm
Pema Pera: more than awareness
Pema Pera: awareness is to knowledge as motion is to time
Pema Pera: because of time there is the possibility of motion
Pema Pera: but without motion there is still time
Threedee Shepherd: what book is it you refer to?
Pema Pera: http://www.amazon.com/Time-Space-Kno...6329994&sr=1-1
Threedee Shepherd: Wait, please, if knowledge the same as some kinds of existance
Pema Pera: oops, sorry for typing during the 90 secs :-)
Pema Pera: got carried away (^_^)
Pema Pera: no, different from existance
Threedee Shepherd: *is
Pema Pera: space and time and cognition, you could say, could be seen as the fibers of reality, the stage of reality
Eos Amaterasu: things move in space, in time, in knowledge>?
Pema Pera: the thingness of things, the "as" of things (seeing them "as" a certain kind of thing), yes
Threedee Shepherd: space, time, the planet we call earth all existed before anything capable of cognition arose.
Pema Pera: we can move in the dimension of "as"
Pema Pera: seeing a chair "as" an instrument, as made of wood, as having a price, etc
Pema Pera: ah, Three, that's the crux!
Pema Pera: we tend to think that way
Eos Amaterasu: thingness
Pema Pera: the TSK (Time Space Knowledge) approach uses the hypothesis that cognition is inherent in reality . . .
Pema Pera: and the arising of cognition in human beings for example mere an expression
Threedee Shepherd: thingness IS. knowledge is ABOUT applied thingness, I suggest
Eos Amaterasu: it's a kind of Copernican revolution
Pema Pera: Being is cognizant, but not in a way that we would easily recognize
Eos Amaterasu: knowledge is not centered in us
Eos Amaterasu: we get centered by knowledge
Pema Pera: yes, indeed, Eos, very much so!
Threedee Shepherd: Why did you say Steven's, he is not the author of that book, or is that a pseudonym
Pema Pera: we lose pride of place, once again
Pema Pera: no, sorry, that was shorthand for:
Pema Pera: "Steven wrote the book, on behalf of his teacher, Tarthang Tulku, more than 30 years ago"
Eos Amaterasu: Cogntion, though "as-ing", created thingness - which bring us to 3Ds point earlier?
Pema Pera: yes, that's part of it
Eos Amaterasu: *Cognition, through as-ing, creates thing-ness....
Threedee Shepherd: Eos, I would say thing-ness PRECEDES cognition
Pema Pera: Copernicus: we're not the center of the Universe; Darwin: we're not the center of biology; TSK/dzogchen/zen: we're not the center of cognition.
Threedee Shepherd: Pema, no argument with that
Eos Amaterasu: I think Pema is saying that cognition, through "as-ing", creates what we experience as thingness
Pema Pera: yes
Threedee Shepherd: Or maybe yes, argument with the cognition extension
Eos Amaterasu: so there's no thingness before cognition (?)
Threedee Shepherd: No Eos, the other way around
Eos Amaterasu: :-)
Pema Pera: the view that there were things before cognition arose is what I consider to be a limited view -- a practical way to deal with the world, an approximation, like classical mechanics is an approximation to quantum mechanics, but incorrect in its ontology
Threedee Shepherd: There is not cognition without thing-ness to be cognizant of
Eos Amaterasu: that's true in most cases
Eos Amaterasu: interdependence of the two
Pema Pera: yes, the co-dependent arising
Threedee Shepherd: Pema, I wonder if we are using the word cognition the same way?
Eos Amaterasu: independent thingness is imputed
Pema Pera: but the usual view we have is that the universe is 13.7 billion years old, and it took at least a billion years or so for cognition to arise -- that is what I want to take issue with
Pema Pera: probably not, Three :-)
Pema Pera: although not very different either -- there is overlap
Threedee Shepherd: I understand cognition as being an act, a process, not a thing
Pema Pera: yes, and that kind of cognition is to "knowledge" like what motion is to "time"
Eos Amaterasu: Hmm.... that's where the 9 secs is interesting
Pema Pera: in the way that I use the word "knowledge" or you could say "the cognitive dimension of reality"
Pema Pera: space as the dimension of extensibility
Pema Pera: knowledge as the dimension of knowability
Pema Pera: how so, Eos?
Eos Amaterasu: Ah yes, the use of the word knowledge is special here
Threedee Shepherd: being/existance as the dimension of knowability, I would say
Eos Amaterasu: it doesn't mean a "body of knowledge", does it?
Pema Pera: well, a "body" like in the kayas, as in Nirmanakaya -- not the ordinary use of the word :-)
Eos Amaterasu: Re the 9 secs, or 90, you can experience the motion of awareness thru knowledge (to use that vocabulatry)
Pema Pera: btw, Threedee, you might be interested in a brief article I wrote with two biologists, twelve years ago, on this topic: http://www.ids.ias.edu/~piet/publ/wwh/wwh.html
Pema Pera: yes, Eos, nice connection!
Threedee Shepherd: PLEASE: I think I am lost, Pema and/or Eos, would you restate the gist of the discussion?
Pema Pera: physics views the world as a play of matter and energy on a stage of space and time
Threedee Shepherd: ok
Eos Amaterasu: I heard Pema suggesting that "knowledge" (in the sense he gives that term) is as fundamental as space and time
Pema Pera: TSK views the world as a play of space, time, and knowledge
Pema Pera: as players and stage
Pema Pera: yes, Eos
Pema Pera: alas, it is 12 noon here, and lunch is calling, for me here in Tokyo . . .
Pema Pera: shall we continue this some other time?
Threedee Shepherd: who/what are the players, and was there ever a time when the world was without players
Pema Pera: the players are space, time, and knowledge
Pema Pera: and no
Pema Pera: the stage is also space, time, knowledge
Pema Pera: time as we know it arises from the interplay
Pema Pera: or seems to arise :-)
Pema Pera: without ever really becoming "real" in terms of "existence"
Threedee Shepherd: Yes, let us continue and discuss what experiences lead to the concept of knowledge as an independent, force-l;ike essence
Pema Pera: yes, when?
Threedee Shepherd: I am not a morning person ;>
Pema Pera: a week from now?
Pema Pera: or earlier?
Threedee Shepherd: ok
Pema Pera: July 6?
Pema Pera: 7 pm?
Pema Pera: SLT
Threedee Shepherd: OK
Pema Pera: we've got a deal :-)
Eos Amaterasu: the play in multiple acts
Threedee Shepherd: Is there a difference between knowledge and information?
Pema Pera: I'll announce it as a theme session, if that's okay with you, THree
Threedee Shepherd: yes, a deal
Threedee Shepherd: sure
Pema Pera: who would like to be the moderators?
Pema Pera: Three and Eos?
Eos Amaterasu: Sure!
Pema Pera: (the two people starting off the dialogue for a while, before others join in)
Threedee Shepherd: we just discuss, without moderation, I suggest p[layfully.
Pema Pera: that's fine too.
Pema Pera: Okay!
Eos Amaterasu: yes, light touch
Pema Pera: see you then, if not earlier!
Pema Pera: bfn
Threedee Shepherd: enjoyo lunch
Eos Amaterasu: Bye, My bedtime :-)
Threedee Shepherd: nite
Eos Amaterasu: Bye 3D & Adeline & the green thingy :-)
Threedee Shepherd: Bye Eos