I believe I have mentioned this before, but if you can find yourself a copy of Tallis' The Knowing Animal, I think you will very much enjoy it.

I think it is his best work, by far, and I have read quite a bit of him. — Manuel

I wrote to Tallis after getting one of his books, and he replied very positively. I will look out for that title! (Looking at the Amazon page, one of the reviews comes from James le Fanu, another UK writer from a medical background, who's book Why Us? also really impressed me, about 10 years ago, which is of a similar genre. )

:up:

I wrote to Tallis after getting one of his books, and he replied very positively. I will look out for that title! (Looking at the Amazon page, one of the reviews comes from James le Fanu, another UK writer from a medical background, who's book Why Us? also really impressed me, about 10 years ago, which is of a similar genre. ) — Wayfarer

I had never heard of Tallis until you mentioned him. I’m sure he has interesting ideas to offer, but he’s an ignoramus when it comes to poststructuralism. Reading the following nauseated me.

I was reminded of Roger when I read Intellectual Impostures by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont (henceforth S&B). Like Roger, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Lacan, Jean Baudrillard and Gilles Deleuze have the habit of using terms of which they have not the faintest understanding, in order to impress the impressionable. Unlike Roger, they did not grow out of it and, also unlike Roger, they were rewarded not with obscurity but with international fame and the adulation of seemingly intelligent academics the world over.

For many years, Lacan, Derrida, Kristeva et al got away with murder, confident that their readers would have only the slightest acquaintance with the areas of knowledge they expropriated to prop up their ideas and their reputation for scholarship, indeed for omniscience. Few if any real historians took note of Michel Foucault's eccentric periodisations; with a single exception, analytical philosophers did not think of Derrida as someone to engage in a debate about the contemporary significance of J.L. Austin and speech act theory; and for every ten thousand students who learned about Rousseau's ideas from popularisations of Derrida, there was hardly one who had read, and reflected upon, Rousseau's writings for herself.

Eventually the postmodern Theorists started to attract the attention of experts in the disciplines into which they had strayed. Linguists looked at their linguistics and found it littered with elementary errors. Derrida, for example, repeatedly confused the sign as a whole with the signifier and so have his many hundreds of thousands of obedient disciples. This error is one of the cornerstones of his work. Other linguists were amused by the Derrideans' ignorance of linguistics outside of Saussure -- this ignorance perhaps strengthening their confidence in their ability to pronounce on the whole of language. Historians have examined Foucault's egregious versions of the history of thought and have discovered that even the miniscule and eccentric empirical base upon which his broad sweep theories are poised is grossly at variance with the documentary evidence. His periodisation -- crucial to his vision of Western history and of man as `a recent invention' -- would, to take one small example, require Descartes to have lived sometime after he had died, in order to fit into the right episteme. Indeed, one does not have to be much of a scholar to demonstrate that Foucault's epistemes and the so-called ruptures epistemologiques separating them -- the central notions of the book (The Order of Things) that brought him his international fame -- correspond in no way to any historical reality

Yes, I can see you two wouldn't get along. Talis is a reactionary from the post-modernist pov, but then that probably applies to me also :yikes:

I will say, when I did my two-odd years of undergraduate philosophy, late 70s-early 80s, my exposure was pretty mainstream - Descartes, Hume, Rosseau, logical positivism, philosophy of science, are the ones I recall. I'm sure that there were classes on the post-moderns but at that time, in that university, I didn't come across them. Most of what I've subsequently learned about them, which is not much, I've gleaned from references here, although I saw a really interesting video, The Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real: the Register Theory of Lacan. That really resonated with me, but it's about all I know of Lacan.

And finally, I personally think there's an alternative term for what the paper calls 'lived experience', which helps to orientate the discussion more clearly in the context of the philosophical tradition. I wonder if there are any guesses as to what this word might be? — Wayfarer

Phenomenology?

What were you thinking?

Interesting OP.

[Edit: just realized this was 5 years ago.]

I rescuscitated the thread because the book that was based on the original Aeon essay is being published in April.

Oh - and the word I had in mind was 'being', athough both the essay and the book draw heavily on phenomenology.

:up:

↪Joshs Yes, I can see you two wouldn't get along. Talis is a reactionary from the post-modernist pov, but then that probably applies to me also :yikes: — Wayfarer

Please don’t be a reactionary. I highly recommend
Lee Braver’s ‘A Thing of this World’, in which he discusses and compares Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Foucault, Heidegger and Derrida. He is well known for translating the challenging prose of poststructuralist writings into clear and accessible concepts. Do me a favor and send the book to Tallis, too.

I’ll look into it! And Tallis wouldn’t know who I am - I emailed him after picking up a copy of Aping Mankind about 10 years ago, and got a reply, that’s all. I’m not overly familiar with all his output, but I know he’s critical of Darwinian materialism.

Still, what are your thoughts on using idealism as a rhetorical ploy, along the lines of Stephen Law's "Going Nuclear"? — wonderer1

This wouldn't be an isolated case, as there is a whole school of Buddhist thought whose basic approach is reductio ad absurdum:

The Prāsaṅgika view holds reductio ad absurdum of essentialist viewpoints to be the most valid method of demonstrating emptiness of inherent existence, and that conventional things do not have a naturally occurring conventional identity.[1] Further, the Prāsaṅgika argue that when initially attempting to find the correct object of understanding - which is a mere absence or mere negation of impossible modes of existence - one should not use positivist statements about the nature of reality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prasa%E1%B9%85gika_according_to_Tsongkhapa

Someone like Law would probably accuse the Prasangikas of "going nuclear", failing to see that there's no "ploy", rhetorical or otherwise.

I think it's sad that someone came up with the idea of accusing idealism as being a "rhetorical ploy". Such an accusation is a complete denial of lived experience.

Both Prasangikas and (some) idealists have one thing in common: they both hold that lived experience matters.

Your view reminds me of Madhyamaka Buddhism, but I doubt many scientists would take up a Buddhist philosophy to such a strong extent. — Leontiskos

Why do you think that is?
If they go so far as to venture into Buddhist philosophy at all, then why not do it properly? One would expect as much given their academic credentials.

The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience, Evan Thompson, Adam Frank, Marcelo Gleiser - published 5th March.

When we try to understand reality only through external physical things imagined from this outside position, we lose sight of the necessity of experience. This is the Blind Spot, which the authors show lies behind our scientific conundrums about time and the origin of the universe, quantum physics, life, AI and the mind, consciousness, and Earth as a planetary system

I wonder how this might apply to math research?

I can't see it as being relevant to pure mathematics. It's more about the tendency towards objectification and quantification dominating our worldview. It's basically a criticism of 'scientism'.

Possibly. But I suspect from observations over time that, for example, women seem to have an ability to categorize and perceive relationships that correlates with algebraic structures.
And there is an ongoing discussion concerning men vs women in regard to spatial perceptions.

From ChatGPT:

some studies have indicated that women tend to be more represented in certain areas of mathematics compared to others. For example, fields such as mathematical biology, mathematical education, statistics, and applied mathematics have seen relatively higher levels of female participation compared to more traditionally male-dominated areas like pure mathematics or theoretical physics.

I might have guessed math education, but not the others.

hmmm. I kind of see what you mean but I think it's tangential to their main point. There is a preview available via Amazon, that might cast a bit more light on the book's aim.

Science is based on human experience, it is a particular way of investigating and learning from human experience, so I can't see how it makes sense to say that science ignores human experience.

Science is based on someone's particular, ideologically driven idea of human experience (or how it should be).
It's yet another form of normativism.

:roll:

And finally, I personally think there's an alternative term for what the paper calls 'lived experience', which helps to orientate the discussion more clearly in the context of the philosophical tradition. I wonder if there are any guesses as to what this word might be? — Wayfarer

"Lived experience" sounds like a historical topic due to the word "Lived". What about "Having been lived"? And the "experience" is always someone's experience. There is no such thing as objective experience. Can one's own subjective experience have anything to do with the objective knowledge?

Can one's own subjective experience have anything to do with the objective knowledge? — Corvus

well, how can a subjective experience be compared to another without being in accordance to a standard of some kind? I think every subjective experience has something to do with objective knowledge...does the knowledge itself become or is/can be subjective when used from/obtained from a single subjective experiences alone?

You think whatever I say that you think.
You feel whatever I say that you feel.
You did whatever I say that you did.
Your intentions are whatever I say that your intentions are.

Listen to pretty much any scientist, and this is what they are telling you, directly, or at best less directly.

You think whatever I say that you think.
You feel whatever I say that you feel.
You did whatever I say that you did.
Your intentions are whatever I say that your intentions are.

Listen to pretty much any scientist, and this is what they are telling you, directly, or at best less directly. — baker

The irony of you projecting your own behavior on scientists...

I have read the words of a lot of scientists, many many words by many scientists, and this doesn't ring true to me in the least.

Possibly because you think like they do already. So you don't feel imposed upon. When scientists say "we", you feel included in that "we". Not everyone does, though.

The irony of you projecting your own behavior on scientists... — wonderer1

Copy-paste examples.

Possibly because you think like they do already. So you don't feel imposed upon. When scientists say "we", you feel included in that "we". Not everyone does, though. — baker

When scientists say "we think X", why are you interpreting that into "You think X, because you think what we tell you you think"? Surely you can just accept that scientists think X, and you disagree - scientists in general don't imagine nobody disagrees with them.

Copy-paste examples. — baker

Not worth my time. But you can look for all the times when people here have responded to you dismissively, and look at what you wrote that led to such a response.

You're just proving my point. Non-communication for the win!

on another note, worth grand discussion elsewhere but noting quick now, notice the female and male likeness in that choice of... art work / meme you chose to use here... :fire: :roll: :heart: what if she is burning the place down on purpose because bored or because mansplaining ? just a thought regarding intentions, who could be so bothered of them? (me... :snicker: ) i dont get how intentions and scientists agendas are clashing for you and yours and whats is displayed in this meme helps your take none. Try again, id like you to find a better picture.

When scientists say "we think X", why are you interpreting that into "You think X, because you think what we tell you you think"? — flannel jesus

Where do you get that from??

I'm talking about the use of you-language, you-messages.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-message

“You are such a slob. You just expect me to clean up after you.”
“You are always working. Work is more important to you than your family.”
“You are so frivolous. You just think money grows on trees.”
“You always leave your mess lying everywhere.”
“You don’t care about me or my feelings.”
“You didn’t text me like you said you would.”
“You embarrassed me at dinner the other night, like you always do.”
“You never tell me how you’re feeling.”

The speaker of such statements doesn't say, in first person singular, what he thinks, feels, intends, wants, but makes claims about the other person, esp. about their inner life.

People usually use you-language. It's a form of non-communication (while uttering words), a way of talking at the person or past the person, not to them.

Surely you can just accept that scientists think X, and you disagree - scientists in general don't imagine nobody disagrees with them.

Disagreeing with scientists potentially comes with a cost. Like the cost of disagreeing with a doctor, teacher, psychotherapist, boss, anyone who uses science in an argument against you in any way.