Nick, if you have not read Huxley, you should. It is a small book, well 
written, and very interesting. He is anti-idiosyncratic experiences.

Transcendental (oh how you hate that word) Humanists would assert that the only 
real experiences are those that are not idiosyncratic.

davew


On Tue, Mar 10, 2020, at 5:31 PM, [email protected] wrote:
> Glen,

> 

> Thanks. 

> 

> You often and rightly accuse me of overstating stuff, and I apologize if I am 
> about to do it again. But I think you are perhaps saying that there are no 
> idiosyncratic experiences? That an experience, to be an experience, has to be 
> repeated or shared or both. If so, I think I agree with you. And a very 
> strident position it would be if that were the position. I think many 
> humanists would assert that ONLY idiosyncratic experiences are real and that 
> it is upon the uniqueness of individual experience that we must focus. Hmmm! 

> 

> I feel that this thought is a genuine crowbar.

> 

> . It's that protocol that carries the knowledge, not the internal experiences 
> or the particular toolchain used to execute the protocol.

> 

> Can you pry some more things with it?

> 

> Nick

> 

> Nicholas Thompson

> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

> Clark University

> [email protected]

> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

> 

> 

> 


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of u?l? ?
> Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2020 9:19 AM
> To: FriAM <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Acid epistemology - Eric Help!!!!

> 

> Right. I'm not at all bored with your conversation. But, to me, what/how we 
> know things has more to do with *repeated* invocation of thoughts/behaviors, 
> not unitary experiences. Being as "episodic" as I am, any single experience 
> is useless, meaningless nonsense. But a repeated experience acquires meaning. 
> I'm that way with names, too. People tell me their names and I forget them 
> immediately ... even if I use their name repeatedly right after I learn it. 
> But if I meet that person twice, three times, etc., then their name (the word 
> "Bob" or whatever) takes on meaning ... becomes grounded to that person.

> 

> It seems so silly to talk about epistemology without requiring repeated 
> experiences. A one-off conversation with Brigham Young means nothing. But 
> repeated conversations means something. Granted, it's impossible to treat the 
> Nth experience accumulation without talking about how the 2nd experience 
> accumulates knowledge from the 1st experience. So, accounting for trust 
> transfer from your one-off conversation with BY to another person is 
> important. But what we're really after is the *accumulation*. Consideration 
> of the 1st experience is only in service to consideration of the 1000th or 
> the 10,000th.

> 

> I suppose we *could* get there by talking about how to predictably *force* 
> Nick to have the same experience you had (of unicorns or whatever). But, 
> again, to do that, we'd have to talk about the science ... controlled 
> manipulation of behavior that has been shown to channel people such that they 
> have some experience. Attributing too much causal influence of the drug (or 
> any particular tool in the toolkit) ignores/discounts the objective, which is 
> the method, the process, the protocol. It's that protocol that carries the 
> knowledge, not the internal experiences or the particular toolchain used to 
> execute the protocol.

> On 3/10/20 1:48 AM, Prof David West wrote:

> > I don't think bored is a correct term.

> >

> > More interested in examples and arguments-tied-to-examples that are less 
> > fanciful than unicorns.

> 

> --

> ☣ uǝlƃ

> 

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