God on the brain

Comment by Jeff H on November 15, 2009 at 6:49pm

I'm sorry, but my personal experience is certainly not A Priori. I'm not agruing a theory. I have many "ouside in" occurances that can't be explained any other way. They are not defined by a previous "ideal". I didn't conceive of a voice that led me to where I could purchase my Grandmother's voice, and then prove it to fit my framework. It shocked the tar out of me! There's more then that, so the A Priori negation doesn't apply.

Some would say I'm a liar. Some would say I'm deluded. They would be A Priori, because the reality doesn't fit their framework, they have to find some explanation that does. I know the reality...I was there, and for many my family was too.

Comment by david thurman on November 15, 2009 at 9:16pm

Jeff I would never say your experiences are false. We can get a sense that experiences happen independent of us, we can perceive this as true and that isn't quite true. we live in a society and culture that feeds us from childhood of our perception of being separate as being correct, when it's clear that we are not separate from our environment around us. If the external environment, and internal are understood as symbiotic rather than separate then these experiences begin to take on a different meaning is all. I sure hope you don't think i'm beating you up, nor do I think I'm going to "Change" you, I think the life faith path you have is a good thing and works well for you. I am certain it's not healthy for me personally. that's hard to explain, but a sense of embodiment is actually the only healthy path for me actually. and I very much enjoy and embrace Jesus at the same time, just a little bit differently is all. :D You might say metaphorically he's very real to me...LOL...I like that confusing twist.

Comment by david thurman on November 15, 2009 at 9:44pm

Jeff, I've never given a framework to anyone here on my perceptions so here Goes. From a religious tendency or my emotional framework that encapsulates my experiences most clearly is what is called Panentheism, not pantheism, which is slightly different. I simply arrive at that experientially and it fits cognitively for me. It doesn't Jive with Traditional Christianity but I don't think it is inconsistent with the NT. I think it's a difficult view to clearly express clearly. From a strictly analytical view I'm very much about embodiment, again this is consistent with my emotional experiential side. Combine those two together and I simply see reality as symbiotic in nature, transcending infinitely. Am I that, I am a part of that, so the internal and external is not a separate but are intertwined, symbiotic, connected in all ways. So for me that concept of dualism is simply illusionary an arbitrary division based on the structures of our brains in how we perceive is all. I'm very much anti A priori reason as being valid at all, and i"m also not purely subjective there is no truth as well. A fine line but hey, what can I say.

Comment by Roman Kozlowski on November 16, 2009 at 1:43pm

In our efforts to define reality, the a priori should not be viewed as a totality in itself.

When we view knowledge independent of experience as ‘a priori’ and what is derived from experience is ‘a posteriori’. The important thing to remember is that these two classifications cut across each other.

The analytic would be coextensive with the a priori, and the synthetic with the a posteriori. For example, 5+7=12 is a priori, since it does not derive from experience, while it is synthetic because the concept of 12 is not already contained in the concepts of 5, 7 and addition. In this way mathematics is a priori synthetic.

Without such categories it is impossible to have any communicable experience at all. The knowing process involves on the one hand senses, which merely receive the impact of experience coming from without, and the understanding which ties these elements of sensation together. The understanding is to be distinguished from reason. Because of this, what then becomes too easy to deny is the possibility of pure experience because it is thereafter seen as merely passive taking in of impressions, unless indeed we are concerned with ineffable streams of consciousness.

As for space and time, well, without a priori notions of space and time, experience is impossible. In this respect space and time are somewhat akin to the categories. Experience is thus moulded by a priori concepts. But what gives rise to experience is also conditioned by things outside the mind. These sources of experience are ‘things in themselves’, or noumena, in contrast with appearances, or phenomena. With this understanding then, it becomes impossible to experience a thing in itself, since all experience occurs with the concurrence of space, time and the categories.

So in some sense it would be equally just as wrong to speak of an external world giving rise to ideas of sensation as noumena giving rise to phenomena.

We might say that we are all equal in so far as they are all rational, or endowed with reason; but unequal in regard to understanding: for this is active intelligence, in regard to which we are indeed notoriously unequal. In order to have experience in a way that can be formulated in judgements, there must be a unity of apperception. Clearly, isolated impressions are not enough, however rapid their succession. Instead of the staccato of empiricist sense-experience I favour some kind of continuity, because it is impossible to have experiences of anything eternal except through the framework of the categories, with their operation a necessary condition for such experience where the senses must also play their part.

Comment by david thurman on November 16, 2009 at 2:30pm

I"m going to have to reread your post again. Lakoff and Johnson are carefull in crafting a view of ebodiement so our percepton is since ancient greek times is a sense of reason in nature, It changed in modern times Frege and others where reason became deeply disembodied, IE the reason exists independent of human embodiment. this I think has been clearly shown as false. The nice thing is that this thread of thinking that has now been shown as false is a commonal thread in religion and is dominate in science to this day. It's a sense of reason being separate from us and infact reason in and of itself is embodied. I would point to set theory as an example of this.They strongly contend that emotions play a key role in our formation of understanding so reason along separate from us with no emotional component to it is false. They thread a very fine line between subjectivist and subjectivist, they deny correspondence theory as being valid and the say that subjectivist is also trapped by the same sense of disembodiment. I know i"m not writing it out clearly forgive me on that, this is a new topic and to articulate it for me is difficult. i do like Lakoff and Johnson a lot though they trap everyone in our biology, no one is free from it.

Comment by david thurman on November 16, 2009 at 2:31pm

I might add that set theory was created by a crazy guy, and you can't separate his crazy from set theory they go hand in hand...LOL...Cantor.

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