2011.07.02 19:00 - Grounding and Fixing

The Guardian for this meeting was Pema Pera. The comments are by Pema Pera.

Hokon Cazalet: hey there zaldaan =)
Pema Pera: hi Hokon and Zaldaan!
Hokon Cazalet: hiya =)
Hokon Cazalet: how are you, you ever got my email reply yet?
Pema Pera: I'm fine!
Pema Pera: Let's see . . .
Hokon Cazalet: Yaaaaayyyyyyyy!
Pema Pera: my last email to you was on June 25 -- did you sent something since then?
Hokon Cazalet: yup
Pema Pera: ah yes, also June 25
Pema Pera: yes, and you described your plans -- looking forward to seeing how that all will work out!
Pema Pera: Zaldaan, Hokon is refering to studies in phenomenology
Pema Pera: a branch of philosophy
Hokon Cazalet: yup =)
Pema Pera: (an ongoing discussion we have, from time to time)
Pema Pera: what are your main interests, Zaldaan, if I may ask?
Pema Pera: (seems Zaldaan may be afk?)
Pema Pera: Hokon, you mentioned logic in one of your emails
Pema Pera: what do you see as the role of logic in phenomenology
Hokon Cazalet: he goes afk quite a bit, yes i did =)
Pema Pera: (like having an uncle in the room who is taking a nap :-)

We return to phenomenology.

Hokon Cazalet: two roles: logic can help to bring phenomenology back from the mysticism of Heidegger and put a cap on it's influence on postmodernism; and likewise, i hope phenomenology can ground logic or explain it's validities
Pema Pera: sounds good!
Pema Pera: on both terms
Hokon Cazalet: =)
Pema Pera: do you see a particular angle to start from?
Pema Pera: hi Calvino!
Calvino Rabeni: Good evening :)
Hokon Cazalet: hi calvino, and further, i guess a third one is expanding logic beyond analytical claims
Hokon Cazalet: where i'd start? probably an intentional analysis of logical judgments
Pema Pera: (we're talking about how logic could help in exploring Husserlian phenomenology)
Pema Pera: can you say more?
Hokon Cazalet: wekll maybe try to find a universal form to logical judgments
Pema Pera: one place to start would be with the role of evidence
Hokon Cazalet: brb sorry, oven
Pema Pera: empirical evidence as well as logical/mathematical evidence
--BELL--
Hokon Cazalet: back
Hokon Cazalet: pizza almost burned
Hokon Cazalet: lol
Hokon Cazalet notices its time for silence =)
Calvino Rabeni sniffs his environment
Calvino Rabeni: hmm, smoke
Pema Pera is happy to hear that "almost" presuming it didn't get really burned
Hokon Cazalet: hehe
Hokon Cazalet: yup its fine

Hokon returns to my question from before the bell

Hokon Cazalet: actually in regards to evidence, i wanna open up rational insight to analysis; i dont believe intuition as such, exists, that every judgment we make is discursive and makes use of reasoning (however poor it may be)
Hokon Cazalet: wanna try to do that with logic
Hokon Cazalet: in regards to logical judgmwents*
Pema Pera: the whole question of grounding is fascinating, and tricky
Hokon Cazalet: hehe yup
Pema Pera: where, if anywhere, do we stop?
Pema Pera: when we bite into an apple, we say "that is it", that's the evidence
Pema Pera: (normal people at least do :-)
Hokon Cazalet: im reading a book by Derrida regarding a criticism he makes of Husserl's phenomenology, suggesting there is no pure transcendental ego we can rest upon to gaze over all phenomena a priori
Hokon Cazalet: hehe =)
Hokon Cazalet: yeah the issue of regress is a serious one i think
Pema Pera: no transcendental ego as a thing or object or in that sense "ground" but that is not what Husserl had in mind
Hokon Cazalet: well it wasnt a thing or ousia, and i think derrida might be making that error
Hokon Cazalet: but ill see, i just began the book of his, ive found one error already derrida makes :Þ
Calvino Rabeni: that's a point worth clarifying, and often misunderstood
Hokon Cazalet: ive seen derrida do good critiques of heidegger, so thats why i got this book; hopefully he makes a good critique of husserl . . .
Hokon Cazalet: but in terms of grounding, i definitely believe in a transcendental ego being used to ground inquiry
Pema Pera: what I understand him to mean with the (rather unlucky choice of the words) transcendental ego, is nothing particularly mystical or mysterious -- rather just the awareness in which everything is given, when seen as polarized into a subject and object pole, with tr. ego the subject pole
Hokon Cazalet: that wont change for me =)
Hokon Cazalet: yup the subject-pole
Pema Pera: but not the shadow of the subject, such as the body or brain or viewing yourself as if a third person

I tried to point to the fact that the lived, felt, sensed subject is different from what we typically point to as a material placeholder for that felt subject.

Pema Pera: hi Susan!
Hokon Cazalet: its words from descartes ("ego" is latin for "I") and kant (transcendental means that which is anterior to sense-experience)
Hokon Cazalet: hi susan =)
Hokon Cazalet: kant did a bad job redefining words lol
iwandertoo Resident: waves :)
Hokon Cazalet: yeah not a shadow i agree
Pema Pera: Hi Steve!
Hokon Cazalet: hi stevenaia
stevenaia Michinaga: hi Pema, Cal, Hokon, susan
Pema Pera: Susan and Steve, we're talking about grounding, in the philosophical sense
Pema Pera: but also daily life sense
Pema Pera: we tend to want to lean on things
Pema Pera: rather than take full responsibility ourselves
Calvino Rabeni: Hi, Stevenaia :)
Pema Pera: so we lean on authority or habit or whatever
iwandertoo Resident: are there things best to lean on?
stevenaia Michinaga: it's nice when the align too
Hokon Cazalet: brb gotta cut pizza
Pema Pera: probably leaning is the problem, Susan :-)
iwandertoo Resident: a process of questioning maybe
iwandertoo Resident: :)
stevenaia Michinaga: *they
stevenaia Michinaga: hi Paradise
Pema Pera: hi Paradise!
iwandertoo Resident: waves
Calvino Rabeni: Yet I suspect we lean on ourselves to know who else to lean on
Calvino Rabeni: Good evening Paradise :)
--BELL--
Paradise Tennant: smiles Hiya stev .. pema .. cal susan ...hokon :)))

Steve then presented another innocent question:

stevenaia Michinaga: Can you give a quick definition of Groundedness, Pema?
Hokon Cazalet: back, with food =)
Pema Pera smiles
stevenaia Michinaga: smiles
stevenaia Michinaga: seems it would relate to mindfulness
Pema Pera: the best approach to groundlessness, in practice, that I know of
Pema Pera: is to notice where I tend to posit grounds for what is real
Pema Pera: and then to inspect them, and see where they fail
Pema Pera: and then to try to drop those
Pema Pera: often a very liberating experience
Pema Pera: wb Zaldaan!
Hokon Cazalet: wb =)
stevenaia Michinaga: and philosophy seems to relate to the applicability of that
Pema Pera: ideally yes
stevenaia Michinaga: it becomes "something", a framework, that takes form with time
stevenaia Michinaga: self understanding
stevenaia Michinaga: (at least for me)
Hokon Cazalet: existentialism is big on not defaulting upon an essential, pre-made self, but taking responsibility for your identity
Hokon Cazalet: (existentialism is a type of modern philosophy)
Pema Pera: yes, a framework that can be like a helpful scaffolding, or it can become like walls that prevent one from looking out
stevenaia Michinaga: nods, holes in framework are good things
Pema Pera: :-)
Pema Pera: we tend to become lazy, once we've found something good, and we want to paste it in, harden it, make it into a principle (or "ground")
Paradise Tennant: smiles ... the opposite of socks it seems :0
Pema Pera: but that takes the life out of it
Pema Pera smiles at Paradise
stevenaia Michinaga: socks?
Paradise Tennant: holes being a bad thing :)
Hokon Cazalet: =)
stevenaia Michinaga: lol
iwandertoo Resident: waves.....slipps away quietly
Hokon Cazalet: byebyes susan
stevenaia Michinaga: bye Susan
Paradise Tennant: sweet dreams susan :)
Pema Pera: bye Susan!

Steve added a philosophical twist to the occurrance of holes in various objects.

stevenaia Michinaga: more like the difference between shoes and sandals
Hokon Cazalet: =)
stevenaia Michinaga: the idea of self renewal is nice, Pema
Hokon Cazalet: =)
Pema Pera: I don't think we can trust something that is fixed, it has to be living and responsive
Hokon Cazalet: thats something i have thought about, the notion of a persistent self that always changes (like a river)
Pema Pera: yes, and words are problematic in trying to catch that notion :-)
Pema Pera: any words
Pema Pera: words having more or less fixed meanings already
stevenaia Michinaga: but, Hokon, it;s still a river
Hokon Cazalet: yeah, we're stuck using "metaphors" when referring to a deep enough level of conscuiousness (Husserl)
--BELL--
Hokon Cazalet: yup it is stevenaia, exactly why i picked that example (ok, its from heraclitus, an ancient greek thinker) =)
stevenaia Michinaga: I think pema is talking about getting out of the river
stevenaia Michinaga: nods
Pema Pera: not so much "out" but rather avoiding getting into a fixed notion of river
Hokon Cazalet: i suspect he is stevenaia
Pema Pera loves swimming in a river
stevenaia Michinaga: ooop, thought I saw the "bell thank you"
Paradise Tennant: smiles likes floating and feeling the waves :)
Calvino Rabeni: ... or a fixed notion of "out"
Hokon Cazalet: hehe calvino =)
Pema Pera wondering about fixes notions of "bell" :-)
Pema Pera: *fixed
stevenaia Michinaga: perhaps I mean we should stop swiming in one metaphor
Pema Pera: ah!
Paradise Tennant: smiles or at the very least strap on a life jacket :)
Hokon Cazalet: sush! dont anger heraclitus' spirit!
Hokon Cazalet: =P

Calvino pointed to a great poem, which would be hard to reproduce here, on the web:

Calvino Rabeni: http://www.britannica.com/bps/media-view/65064/0/0/0
Pema Pera: river hopping
Calvino Rabeni: A Theory of Everything
Calvino Rabeni: (water variety)
Hokon Cazalet sacrifices a slice of pizza to heraclitus, to keep time flowing
Paradise Tennant: smiles at hokon's sacrifice :)
Hokon Cazalet: =)
Pema Pera: fun page, Calvino!
Paradise Tennant: wonderful !
Pema Pera: was that the slightly burnt part, Hokon?
Hokon Cazalet: hehe
Hokon Cazalet: actually i like slightly burnt sometimes, crunky =)
Hokon Cazalet: crunchy*
Pema Pera: whenever we use words and concepts, we slightly burn ourselves (and othes)
Pema Pera: *others
Hokon Cazalet: im fire then lol
Paradise Tennant: smiles how do we communicate with out words in a nonflamable manner :)
Hokon Cazalet: =)
Calvino Rabeni: Body language
Paradise Tennant: smiles and waves at cal :)
Paradise Tennant: the water metaphor is an interesting one because it at once is resistance and support which ultimately you relax into ..
Calvino Rabeni nods
Calvino Rabeni: the wave is a going that is piled up around a not-going
Pema Pera: unflappable, unflamable
Paradise Tennant: almost forms a question mark .. like what ?
Hokon Cazalet: hehe paradise =)
--BELL--
Hokon Cazalet: your welcome =)
Pema Pera: thanks for the good banter!
Hokon Cazalet: Weeee! ^.^
Pema Pera: :-)
Pema Pera: and body language :)
Hokon Cazalet: hehe
Pema Pera: bfn

Time for me to take off.

Paradise Tennant: smiles enjoy lunch pema :)
stevenaia Michinaga: night Pema
Pema Pera: will do, Paradise!
Hokon Cazalet waves to pema
Calvino Rabeni: Take care, Pema
stevenaia Michinaga: or afternoon
Pema Pera: (12 noon here)
Calvino Rabeni: It's good to have friends of distinction
Paradise Tennant: indeed ! friends are the treasure of life :)
stevenaia Michinaga: :)
Hokon Cazalet: ☻
stevenaia Michinaga: hi zaldaan
Calvino Rabeni: Here's a nice musical number about the origin of language
Calvino Rabeni: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzS9LU6DjJ4
stevenaia Michinaga: night all
Hokon Cazalet: aw
Hokon Cazalet: goodnighty =)
Calvino Rabeni: sleep well Stevenaiay
Paradise Tennant: nite nite stev sweet dreams
Paradise Tennant: we have not had a poem go round in a long time .. any one game ?
Hokon Cazalet: maybe'
Hokon Cazalet: =)
Calvino Rabeni: I can dig it
--BELL--
Paradise Tennant: ok cal would you like to start ?
Calvino Rabeni: Yes, I have a visual image to start ...
Calvino Rabeni: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/phot...eat=directlink
Hokon Cazalet: lol
Calvino Rabeni: Just rest the book, the poems will fly out in their own feline way
Paradise Tennant: smiles :))))))
Calvino Rabeni: next line, anyone ? :)
Hokon Cazalet isnt good at poetry, does a lot of bad clichés =P
Paradise Tennant: one feline ear twitches .. a paw stretched out to ..
Calvino Rabeni: touch a tail that idly switches
Paradise Tennant: in time to dreams of fields and mesmerizing butterflies within a hair's breath of
Calvino Rabeni: rabbit holes and dragonflies
Paradise Tennant: oh to dream a cat's dream .... to understand ..the tiger's eye :)
--BELL--
Paradise Tennant: could change that last word to sighs :)
Hokon Cazalet: =)
Paradise Tennant: smiles
Paradise Tennant: that was fun thank you cal :)
Calvino Rabeni: :)
Calvino Rabeni notices the fading light, remembers he has a vehicle of heavy objects to unload before dark
Paradise Tennant: smiles thank you for the company and conversation :) namaste :) cal :)
Calvino Rabeni: _/!\_
Calvino Rabeni: Namaste, and semantic contentment to all a good night
Hokon Cazalet: =)
Hokon Cazalet: brb rl
Hokon Cazalet: vback
Paradise Tennant: smiles :) hokon are you getting sleepy or could you explain husserl to me :)
Hokon Cazalet: hehe what do you want to be explained =)
Hokon Cazalet: i ask cuz there's a lot to his ideas, alot of facets and detials
Paradise Tennant: hmm reading wiki 's page on him ..
Hokon Cazalet: =)
Paradise Tennant: there indeed are a lot of ideas
Hokon Cazalet: originally a mathematician, but got involved with psychology and philosophy, and eventually, attempted to create a new science: phenomenology
Paradise Tennant: From the Ideen onward, Husserl concentrated on the ideal, essential structures of consciousness. The metaphysical problem of establishing the material reality of what we perceive was of little interest to Husserl in spite of his being a transcendental idealist. Husserl proposed that the world of objects and ways in which we direct ourselves toward and perceive those objects is normally conceived of in what he called the "natural standpoint", which is characterized by a belief that objects materially exist and exhibit properties that we see as emanating from them. Husserl proposed a radical new phenomenological way of looking at objects by examining how we, in our many ways of being intentionally directed toward them, actually "constitute" them (to be distinguished from materially creating objects or objects merely being figments of the imagination); in the Phenomenological standpoint, the object ceases to be something simply "external" and ceases to be seen as providing indicators about what it is, and becom
Hokon Cazalet: =)
Hokon Cazalet: yup
Hokon Cazalet: Ideen being a book of his, published 1913 i believe
Paradise Tennant: a grouping of perceptual and functional aspects that imply one another under the idea of a particular object or "type". The notion of objects as real is not expelled by phenomenology, but "bracketed" as a way in which we regard objects instead of a feature that inheres in an object's essence founded in the relation between the object and the perceiver. In order to better understand the world of appearances and objects, phenomenology attempts to identify the invariant features of how objects are perceived and pushes attributions of reality into their role as an attribution about the things we perceive (or an assumption underlying how we perceive objects).
Paradise Tennant: smiles almost a text book to pab :) in a way ...
Hokon Cazalet: yeah, a big concept of his was intentionality - consciousness is always about something
Hokon Cazalet: hehe =-)
Hokon Cazalet: =)*
Paradise Tennant: such a long time ago
--BELL--
Zaldaan Sirnah: I don't like biographies much anymore. They have some place, but there's not much like reading an author and seeing how they think and explain.
Zaldaan Sirnah: I would very well replace many biographies with collections of writings from the author
Hokon Cazalet: well wiki does both =)
Zaldaan Sirnah: (assume we're discussing writings)
Paradise Tennant: smiles at zaldaan .. yes
Hokon Cazalet: yeah husserl's phenomenology, his writings about it
Zaldaan Sirnah: and then there are the subtle things which wouldn't be quoted, so one must read it for themselves to get those tidbits
Paradise Tennant: but auto biographies .. oh they are interesting .. and some biographies .. are interesting perspectives too
Hokon Cazalet: oh yeah, in the end zaldaan
Zaldaan Sirnah: afk! :)
Hokon Cazalet: basically, phenomenology was to be a first philosophy, foundational science that would underlie all others
Paradise Tennant: yes
Hokon Cazalet: i think it was originally his replacment for using psychology to explain logic, but as decades went on it's scope grew
Paradise Tennant: to true seeing ?
Hokon Cazalet: that phenomenology was to be a "first science" (in contrast to natural sciences), and phenomenology involved a radically new approach to viewing things, in their original pre-givenness
Hokon Cazalet: so yeah, true-seeing i guess in a sense =)
Hokon Cazalet: "To the things themselves!" - motto of early phenomenology =)
Paradise Tennant: smiles such a brain not to be allowed in library
Hokon Cazalet: what do you mean paradise? =)
Zaldaan Sirnah: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James
Zaldaan Sirnah: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Husserl
Zaldaan Sirnah: their wiki pics make me think of the other
Zaldaan Sirnah: I was sure as I saw more pics it would change.. and it did.
Paradise Tennant: Professor Husserl was denied the use of the library at Freiburg as a result of the anti-Jewish legislation the Nazis passed in April 1933.[28] It was rumoured that his former pupil and Nazi Party member, Martin Heidegger, informed Husserl that he was discharged, but Heidegger later denied this, labeling it as slander.[29]
Hokon Cazalet: hehe
Hokon Cazalet: yeah
Hokon Cazalet: husserl's student, heidegger became a nazi, a strong supporter of it
Hokon Cazalet: both were germans
Paradise Tennant: hmm sigh .. easy to criticize but not so easy to live at that time ..
Hokon Cazalet: well ive read one of heidegger's nazi-era works, he had bizarre notions of what nazism was; it didnt seem like he was for genocide
Hokon Cazalet: nor had any problems with jews
Paradise Tennant: genocide is a tough sell
Paradise Tennant: who was william james zaldaan ?
Hokon Cazalet: 19th century psychologist
Hokon Cazalet: dont know much about him though =(
Paradise Tennant: hmm interesting family too .. :) henry james' brother :)
--BELL--
Paradise Tennant: like his description of how truth and facts interweave do a dipping kind of dance
Paradise Tennant: Truths emerge from facts, but they dip forward into facts again and add to them; which facts again create or reveal new truth (the word is indifferent) and so on indefinitely. The 'facts' themselves meanwhile are not true. They simply are. Truth is the function of the beliefs that start and terminate among them
Paradise Tennant: ahhh sort of makes you blink ;))
Hokon Cazalet: hehe
Hokon Cazalet: yup
Paradise Tennant: thank you zaldaan I have never heard of him before :)
Hokon Cazalet: =)
Hokon Cazalet: he is a cool guy, he wrote some interesting stuff on spiritual experiences as well, never got around to reading his stuff though
Paradise Tennant: The investigation of mystical experience was constant throughout the life of James, leading him to experiment with chloral hydrate (1870), amyl nitrite (1875), nitrous oxide (1882), and even peyote (1896). James claimed that it was only when he was under the influence of nitrous oxide that he was able to understand Hegel.[21]
Paradise Tennant: smiles some works are better under the influence :)
Paradise Tennant: sigh I have family in town ...my tap tap tapping is keeping them awake so I must say thank you and good nite :)
Hokon Cazalet: lol hegel
Paradise Tennant: namaste my friends :)
Hokon Cazalet: aww byebyes
Hokon Cazalet: wb stevenaia
stevenaia Michinaga: give him another glass of wine
Paradise Tennant: lol he prone :) the room is dark and there is some wuffing going on lol
stevenaia Michinaga: night PAradise
Paradise Tennant: nite nite :)
Paradise Tennant: what would the world be with out grumpy brothers :)))
Paradise Tennant: nite nite
Hokon Cazalet: =)
--BELL--
stevenaia Michinaga: I think I'm sleeping , night
Hokon Cazalet waves