2009.12.11 19:00 - The Limits of Empiricism

The Guardian for this meeting was genesis Zhangsun. The comments are by genesis Zhangsun.

Calvino Rabeni: :)
genesis Zhangsun: Hi again
Calvino Rabeni: Hi, Gen. How goes it?
genesis Zhangsun: it goes :)
genesis Zhangsun: you?
Calvino Rabeni: Cold and dark here - I enjoyed a bit of hibernation.
genesis Zhangsun: you took a nap?
Calvino Rabeni: Good translation - not quite asleep. It felt good to stay in the house though.
Calvino Rabeni: I read a few articles - by Pema, etc. and some of the logs.
genesis Zhangsun: which articles?
Calvino Rabeni: Exploring Actuality was the last one.
genesis Zhangsun: was that the title of it?
Calvino Rabeni: I went to the Pheno workshop today - trying to puzzle out my relationship to it.
Calvino Rabeni: Yes, I can give you the link if you like to the article
genesis Zhangsun: how is the pheno workshop going?
genesis Zhangsun: sure
genesis Zhangsun: a link would be appreciated :)
Calvino Rabeni: I just started with it - it seems they are at the very beginning or so of an instruction sequence
genesis Zhangsun: could you be more specific?
genesis Zhangsun: what sorts of concepts are being discussed?
Calvino Rabeni: Yes, they are working up to describing the epoche technique
Calvino Rabeni: Are you familiar with pheno - I am not really
Calvino Rabeni: http://www.ids.ias.edu/~piet/publ/Tu...tucsonIII.html
genesis Zhangsun: I have read a little
genesis Zhangsun: of Husserl and Heidegger
genesis Zhangsun: and currently I am reading lectures of a professor of philosophy and mathematics who was at MIT Gion Carlo Rota
genesis Zhangsun: he specialized in pheno
Calvino Rabeni: are you near MIT?
genesis Zhangsun: so what has been said about epocje?
--BELL--
genesis Zhangsun: no it was given to me by someone who was at MIT
Calvino Rabeni: We're not quite there yet - this stage is kind of hygenic.
Calvino Rabeni: You have to wash your mind of having concepts, in order to start with things in pheno
genesis Zhangsun: in what way :)
genesis Zhangsun: ah okay
Calvino Rabeni: You look around for a chair, and then pretend you don't really know what it is.
Calvino Rabeni: :)
genesis Zhangsun: lol and in your opinion how succesful has the cleansing been?
Calvino Rabeni: I consider it an impossibility from the start
Calvino Rabeni: However it is worth a try
Calvino Rabeni: I think it is a kind of idealistic thing
Calvino Rabeni: Kind of romantic in an intellectual kind of way
Calvino Rabeni: LIke, being a child again -
Calvino Rabeni: It has the feeling of an origin myth
Calvino Rabeni: like the Garden of Eden
genesis Zhangsun: do you see any connection between this "cleansing" approach and meditation practice?
Calvino Rabeni: Yes
genesis Zhangsun: how?
Calvino Rabeni: A lot of meditation has an idea of "bare awareness" in it.
Calvino Rabeni: And as a step towards it advise to cultivate the ability to take a stance of observation of thoughts and impressions
genesis Zhangsun: and have you yourself experienced this type of "bare awareness"
Calvino Rabeni: THe funny thing to me, is pheno acts - from what I can see - as if there were an empiricism about it - a kind of scientific detachment
Calvino Rabeni: And my opinion is premature, the instructor may have answers but is holding them back at this stage of the class
Calvino Rabeni: What do you think the Heidegger position would be?
genesis Zhangsun: who is the instructor?
Calvino Rabeni: (or, maybe, back to basics in the discussion?)
genesis Zhangsun: sorry?
genesis Zhangsun: back to basics about phenomenology?
Calvino Rabeni: Yes rather than dragging in Heidegger
Calvino Rabeni: Most of the talk was by Yo Haiku
genesis Zhangsun: either way is okay with me :)
genesis Zhangsun: Hey Alice
Calvino Rabeni: That article I cited was interesting - comparing science, phenomenology, and dzog chen
Calvino Rabeni: My question appeared to be premature, in the class today
Calvino Rabeni: Ah, there you are, Alice, Hi.
genesis Zhangsun: do you have a link to the article?
genesis Zhangsun: I don't remember reading it
Alice Draegonne: lol,yeah,how are you calvino
genesis Zhangsun: could you sum it up for us?
Calvino Rabeni: I will copy the link from earlier in the log, hold in.
--BELL--
Calvino Rabeni: alvino Rabeni: http://www.ids.ias.edu/~piet/publ/Tu...tucsonIII.html
Calvino Rabeni: http://www.ids.ias.edu/~piet/publ/TucsonIII/fig5.jpg
Calvino Rabeni: That is the diagram that sums up the idea of the article.
Calvino Rabeni: What is your view of pheno compared to meditation methods?
genesis Zhangsun: its a good question- there seem to be some similarities like nondualistic ways of approaching reality
genesis Zhangsun: but pheno unlike meditation/contemplation traditions doesn't go beyond one
genesis Zhangsun: and projectualizations
genesis Zhangsun: sorry cont. one's projects
genesis Zhangsun: out of order
genesis Zhangsun: where as buddhism and other traditions seem to be suggest that there is something pre-given beyond projectualization
Calvino Rabeni: Not sure what the word means, projectualization
genesis Zhangsun: its the word that I have become familiar with to describe what we usually do when we see the chair
genesis Zhangsun: usually we are projected our image of the chair on to the chair
genesis Zhangsun: never really seeing the chair
genesis Zhangsun: pheno seems to suggest that some greater perception, more complete perception is possible
genesis Zhangsun: via epoche
genesis Zhangsun: but it doesn't suggest the existence of things beyond what can be perceived
genesis Zhangsun: it is just my impression about pheno but it could be very incomplete, I am no expert
Calvino Rabeni: It has a feeling of, hmm, i don't means this in a negative way - but fundamentalism
genesis Zhangsun: what does? pheno?
Calvino Rabeni: Maybe this is just the beginning phase of its course of study
Calvino Rabeni: Yes
genesis Zhangsun: that is not my impression
Calvino Rabeni: Or maybe, a kind of austerity
Calvino Rabeni: In other words, we have many ways to know things - but it appears to say they are off-limits - taking a position of purity in some way
Calvino Rabeni: just an initial impression - I hope I'm mistaken in it
genesis Zhangsun: what have they said if "off limits"
Calvino Rabeni: The idea of observing phenomena seems inherently dualistic
genesis Zhangsun: *is
Calvino Rabeni: That there is nothing beyond appearance - as a discipline of epistemology, turned into an ontological stance perhaps?
--BELL--
genesis Zhangsun: well in some ways perhaps that is the reason that it is possible to bridge pheno and buddhism
Calvino Rabeni: My other impression - also I am happy to have disproved
Calvino Rabeni: is that pheno comes from a time in history where people hoped to pull many things
Calvino Rabeni: like philosophy and even spirituality, into the framework of science
Calvino Rabeni: and make it into an observational discipline.
Calvino Rabeni: In other words, to make phenomena an object of study and observation
Calvino Rabeni: It seems like an unnecessarily limited stance, ontologically
Calvino Rabeni: and I am trying to figure out why it is adopted as a method of epistemology
genesis Zhangsun: I don't much about the history around the time of phenomenology
Calvino Rabeni: (I mean, practice of knowlege)
genesis Zhangsun: could you set the stage a bit more for me
genesis Zhangsun: so it was around turn of the century or so
Calvino Rabeni: Around the 1890s or so, science appeared to be supreme
Calvino Rabeni: Some even thought most problems of reality were nearly solved
genesis Zhangsun: it still holds that status I would say
Calvino Rabeni: this was before quantum came along.
Calvino Rabeni: It had a stronger position at that time than now
genesis Zhangsun: yes perhaps but I think most of the public is still within a Cartesian mechanistic understanding of the world
Calvino Rabeni: So spiritualists and philosophers tried to integrate their interests, or bring it into the fold, of empiricism
genesis Zhangsun: most people don't have a clue about quantum physics
Calvino Rabeni: Partly to gain greater acceptance
Calvino Rabeni: partly perhaps, they believed also in empiricism.
genesis Zhangsun: I see phenomenology as a reaction against the Cartesian mechanistic world view
genesis Zhangsun: it is a critique of reductionism
genesis Zhangsun: Husserl was concerned about the way in which science was pursuing materialist reductionism
genesis Zhangsun: leaving little room for philosophy, theology
Calvino Rabeni: Sure, it is easy to see it as a critique of materialism
Calvino Rabeni: but not a critique of empiricism, because it appears to still aspire to that
Calvino Rabeni: and its intrinsic subject/object split
genesis Zhangsun: and you think empiricism is too narrow?
genesis Zhangsun: it leaves no room for...
Calvino Rabeni: which kind of casts doubt on whether pheno really strays very far from cartesianism
Calvino Rabeni: If you separate subject from object - even if the object is "phenomena" - you still have a detached, separate subject
genesis Zhangsun: ah I see so because it is limited to experience of the senses it leaves no room a reality beyond the senses
Calvino Rabeni: and I think a lot of the critique of cartesianism was about that
genesis Zhangsun: yes I think we are in agreement about that
Calvino Rabeni: Also as I think you point out, there are a lot of presuppositions built into the pheno stance, perhaps unconsciously
Calvino Rabeni: although advance pheno pratitioners may have a way to handle it
genesis Zhangsun: oh on the point about object and subject I don't think it assumes a detached seperate self necessarily but it is the only way in which to speak about experience
genesis Zhangsun: the limit of words
Calvino Rabeni: the stance of observation...
Calvino Rabeni: But words can be finessed
Calvino Rabeni: Can't really blame it on the words :)
Calvino Rabeni: Perhaps my point is one of how it is framed, for teaching.
genesis Zhangsun: well all language uses object-subject- interaction
Calvino Rabeni: No big deal
Calvino Rabeni: Speaking beyond that is what communication is all about
Calvino Rabeni: I think only intellectuals get hypnotized by focusing narrowly on the words
genesis Zhangsun: I can agree with that
Calvino Rabeni: Just kidding - I know they are powerful :)
Calvino Rabeni: I think if pheno sees beyond that, it could be expressed in language differently
--BELL--
genesis Zhangsun: perhaps this is why meditation is really about practice not about describing reality merely through words
Calvino Rabeni: In fact, I had a teacher who did this
genesis Zhangsun: yes there are some "realized" people out there
genesis Zhangsun: not necessarily "enlightened" but certainly "realized"
genesis Zhangsun: I think Rota- the lectures I am reading on pheno
genesis Zhangsun: I read his words and I see someone who is speaking beyond words
genesis Zhangsun: and knows it
genesis Zhangsun: and is attempting to describe exactly how he is doing it
Calvino Rabeni: Yes, the good communicators are speaking way past the words
Calvino Rabeni: They could say "cream puff" and it would mean the right thing
genesis Zhangsun: yes but few people can actually describe how they do it
Calvino Rabeni: That is really true, the precision is there also
genesis Zhangsun: interesting conversation Calvino
genesis Zhangsun: I have to get going
genesis Zhangsun: perhaps we can pick up here?
genesis Zhangsun: some time
Calvino Rabeni: :) yes, continue any time.
genesis Zhangsun: Heidegger understood I think this idea of going beyond language- he wrote a book I very much enjoyed on the subject- On the Way to Language
genesis Zhangsun: well take care :)
Calvino Rabeni: To be continued then...
genesis Zhangsun: bye!
Calvino Rabeni: Bye for now, Genesis :)
genesis Zhangsun: :)