Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
From: shaman@cix.compulink.co.uk (Leo Smith)
Subject: Re: Having to believe
Reply-To: shaman@cix.compulink.co.uk
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 20:51:36 +0000


Tagi@cup.portal.com (Tagi Mordred Nagashiva) writes (who else?) :-)

>Leo Smith writes:

>[much material omitted]

>...It is _always_ a matter of personal choice. It is a choice whether one
>believes or does not.


>Response:

>I disagree with this.  I think that this can only be said of the individual
>who has to some degree seized consciousness.


[.. much vintage tagi omitted..]


Yes: I agree that I should have said that it is ultimately possible
to vary ones beliefs consciously or unconsciously, and that such a
process is in fact normal and natural: I think that the recent habit
(in historical terms) of attempting to apply one model to all aspects
of human expereience which peaked AFAIAC in the late victorian age is
both ultimately not justifiable and not functionally optimum.

>Leo:

>There is also a further implication. This is what Castaneda referred
>to as 'having to believe'. I think that a more acceptable way to
>phrase that in this group would be to say that it is a necessary
>precondition of all human rational activity, that for the purposes of
>that activity at least, certain pre-rational assumptions are made.

>e.g. In order to 'do Science' a necessary precondition is the
>assumption of some separate and observable reality.


>Response:

>I agree with this as far as it goes.  Idealistically, Science is not
>simply a rational endeavor but engages the entirety of the scientist,
>from mental to emotional and physical bodies.


Mental emotional and physical bodies? You been readinf theosophical
stuff Tagi? That sounds to me like a pre-rational assumption you're
making there....

>It is only in our object- worshipping stage as a society that we
>begin to need assumptions for truth. Previously these truths were
>poetic and called 'myth'. Today, because we think we are 'reasonable'
>enough to limit our rational processes to pre-assumptive structures,
>we do in fact need them.

I think you are adding shades of meaning to my original statement
that I didn't want it to caarry. I agree with most of what you say,
but it doesn't necessarily contradict my assertion. That is if you
take the pre-rational assumption bit with very small (NOT CAPITAL)
leading letters. i.e. it is not necessary to assume that objective
reality is really there to do science, but you have to divide up your
experience into subjective and objective to do the science bit. You
have to deny the occult assertion that what you think and feel as
against what you physically do, has any effect on material reality.
Otherwise your theories make no sense, as the theory itslef would
effect material reality. (As in fact it does in modern physics, since
thinking is largely considered to be based on and involved with
electro-chemical process).

So although in the limit, even the positivist (I hope I am using the
word in the right way: perhaps realist is better) has to admit that
what he thinks about the world does indeed directly affect it, the
effect is small and can be ignored for _nearly all practical
purposes_.

BUT there are two points here: The first is that it cannot be
ignored in all cases, and the second is that this last statement -
this crack in the beautifully integrated structure of Realism, does
not invalidate Realism, but it moves it from the centre pillar of the
structure to being just another way of approaching problem solving.
As an engineer, I don't have a problem with that: Whatever works is
the engineering maxim. It is the logicians and 'pure' scientists who
seem to have an emotional problem with multiple realities...

>Leo:

>What Stegmuller seems to me to be saying - and I so agree - is that
>this assumption can never be proved: It can only be shown to be
>effective.


>Response:

>This is what much of the philosophy of science has come to assume:
>that 'knowledge' cannot be obtained by science and that its activity
>only substantiates a priori assumption. While I agree with the latter
>conclusion, I think that a qualification must be stipulated for the
>former.

Is that so? I am not sure that you will get agreement here. My
impression is that many people's attitude is that because science is
so stupendously effective it _must_ ipso facto represent a very close
mapping with an underlying reality. And that what Science is doing IS
actually revealing yet greater detail of that reality. I disagree:
but others here don't, I suspect.

>Assumptions are usually forged in lingual terms.

No: You are putting up an Aunt Sally here to have the fun of knocking
it down. I never said that any pre-rational assumption had to be in
lingual terms. Indeed they almost always aren't framed in words at
all. We may try to express them with words, but I think the concepts
are way beyond the words...or what do _You_ mean by lingual.


[... paragraph deleted because I didn't actually understand it, or
the point you were tring to make. ..]

>Our 'assumption' in this context may amount to an emotional approach,
>even an energetic 'attitude' rather than a lingual through-contruct.

I think I agree. But you are putting more structure on the matter of
experience by even talking about 'emotional' at this stage.


I prefere the minimalist approach: When I look at all 'my' knowledge,
it seems to me that whatever experience I have of the world is
generally organised AS IF I were a separte physical being in a
physical world of space time. However some experiences I have had
show that this knowledge CAN be organised on other basis' (what is
the plural of basis!) and that this re-organisation had pragmatic
value. Therefore I assume that the 'Realistic' model is not reality -
it is _A_ map of experience. To me, the ONLY reality is personal
experience. It seems 'irrational' to use any other starting
point....but most cosmologies do _NOT_ start here. In the beginning
was God/The Big Bang/Tao.....


>Leo:

>The real question for me is what is the effect of carrying over this
>assumption into HUMAN ACTIVITY THAT IS NOT SCIENCE. It seems to me
>that this assumption is being applied far beyond the context in which
>it is effective, because it seems that we are uncomfortable with a
>'multi-valued' reality. So on the one hand we have the realists
>saying 'It must be real, because it works' and the New Agers saying
>'But you have no rational justification for it, so we can choose
>any model we want'.


>Response:

>I think that Science should in no way be separated out from
>other aspects of life.  That it can and is shows how afar afield
>we are in terms of a 'science' which is valuable to people.

I don't think that follows. If you want - as I believe you do - to
extend the concept of science to be the understanding of all possible
models of all possible experience then I suppose that your goal is
laudable. I don't think it is pragmatic though. We start life in a
very multi-valued world. The experience (we have) of our parents is
almost like a different world from the world of school and the
playground: Different rules seem to apply. Only much later are the
realities integrated to form subsets of a larger set of unified
realities: Until then the experiences occupy almost discrete areas.

I think that is necessary and valid. If you wnat to call the
'meta-set' science OK. But as has been pointed out before, most
people don't, and it may confuse the isssues to do so.

>Leo:

>In conclusion: although we 'have to believe' in order to act...is it
>valid and/or effective to suspend belief at the cessation of the
>action? Can a man believe in material reality in the working day, as
>he designs a mechanical structure, yet see it all as Maya as he
>meditates, and be considered a rational and consistent man, or is he
>condemned to be considered a hypocrite and inconstant, because he
>varies his beliefs according to his purpose?


>Response:

>First, I'm in no way convinced that we HAVE to believe in order to
>act, except metaphorically.  Yes, if 'we' can do anything, then
>'we' must be having a self-concept.  If 'action' takes place, then
>there must be a model in which this 'action' may be said to happen at
>all.  But this is trivially true.

That was the way I meant it: but I don't think it is trivial. what we
think of as 'real' is as much a self-description as a
world-description. In fact it describes a relationship between us and
the world. Our idea of reality utterly underlies everything we are
and everything we do as human beings. I totally agree with what I
_think_ Castaneda was driving at in 'tales of power'. We don't really
exist without some self-consciousness and that implies as a necessary
part of the same process a degree of world consciousness. The
'flavour' of that model is our personality - our character. In order
for 'us' to function in a 'world' we have to have some feeling for
the boundaries of each - some pre-rational assumption, some basis for
discrimination. This is what I believe he means when he talks of the
'tonal'. He has wrapped that whole area of human experience up and
given it a name.

We can't operate without such a basis - or at least I do not aspire
to the dizzy heights of the 'Nagual' :-) BUT that does NOT mean that
the fact of the Tonal is trivial. If it were unalterable it would be.
If there was only one way to structure experience into a self-world
duality it WOULD be trivial: This is indeed the claim of the
realists (or rather they claim that the structure already exists: All
we do is to become aware of it), and DOES make my assertion trivial.
But as an anti-realist I assert that there are other ways to organise
experience. And that although at the deepest level the choices I have
are in some ways not mine, at every turn of the way, I have the power
to choose how I relate to my experience.

>It seems more important to me that there MAY be people (those who
>have so merged, harmonized with their environment) who do not need
>to formulate mental models in order to engage society.  I am thinking
>of people who go about in a sort of 'aware trance state', intuiting
>from short-term memory and metaphorical, contextual 'feelings' about
>things.  Such a person needs to know nothing.  They could be illiterate
>and yet function quite well.

Yes: This is a very Zen sort of thing. I would say that this is more
a question of having internalised a model to such an extent that you
are not cosnciously aware of it :-)

>Yet perhaps when knowledge structures (culture, for example) are engaged
>an individual would need to re-engage believing, but I'm not
>sure that just because we are human we must carry around little models
>in order to participate in the cosmic mystery.  In fact, most evidence
>I've gathered from mystical, magical and shamanic studies indicates
>precisely the OPPOSITE: that at the height of self-consciousness
>we no longer need the 'reality-filter'.  We have 'direct experience',
>a link-in with All.  Those who can engage this becoming-state are
>certainly the exception to the assumption above.

Well: There are several points there. Since I am responding off the
wall I will say that I am taking them in reverse order... but may
deviate ;-)

I totally agree that shamanism, mystical awareness etc. are states of
less structure. And that human beings can achieve them. BUT in order
to function in the normal sense we CAN'T walk around in states of
mystical union - or at least not without a bit of practice first. AND
if these states are any more than delusional, who is walking around
in what? You have taken a rather narrower definition of 'belief' than
I intended. Perhaps it is better as Castaneda does, to actually
create (or borrow from a foreign culture) terms to describe the
position. What you rae saying in your paragraph is analagous to
Castaneda saying that whilst the Tonal is everything we know, it is
not everything there is. There exists the Nagual, and there exists
ways of accessing it. That is just the same as saying that mystical
experience exists and there are methods to experience it.


No: All I am saying is that there exists a possibility of unifying
the mystical experience, the religious experience, in fact all
experience under one rather looser meta-structure. The way to do this
is to move from the primary assumption of ourselves as beings in a
world, and place experience itself as the starting point - and make
as few assumptions as possible, and be aware of those assumptions as
they are made.

I maintain that the end product of the intellectual process of that
is something like that described in 'Tales of Power' - you end up
with an understanding of humans as perceivers of perception. That is
the start and the finish point. That is really as far as one can
reasonably go. Whatever lies beyond that is not open to our
perception, and although it may be intuited from our perception, such
intuitions are always suspect and secondary. There has to be
something beyond our perception, but it must remain unknowable.

The end process of taking that meta-model to heart, is to devalue the
human model making process from a description of reality, to a
pragmatic approach to problem solving. The human and emotional
aspects of that philosophy are examined in a populist way in other of
Castaneda's copious outpourings.

But the fact remains: For you and I to communicate in the way that we
are (or are not!) doing now, we both have to proceed on the basis of
certain worldview models in which computers, modems, people,
countries etc. etc. all exist. If I did not believe that this message
would get through, there would be little point in posting it. I have
to believe that it will, and will have meaning, in order to proceed
with it.

Who knows what beliefs I will put in place tomorrow, or indeed may be
putting in place somewere else this very moment (:=) in order to
achieve somne completely different purpose?

Bye

Leo







Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta