QuantumTroll wrote:Hey Meta, I was wondering how you'd respond if I said that the idea I've described in this thread puts phenomenology in an empirical framework?
phenomenology is a empirical framework.
Ok, but usually it's not considered part of the same framework as, say, physics or neurobiology, but I put it in that context. This is high praise coming from me
Yes, but see the reason for that is those studies are not truly empirical in the original sense of the word. They are inductive but not empirical in Cartesian sense. In other words they reify reality according to statistical frameworks rather than allowing the data to dictate. Thus they are actually "metaphysics" in Heidegger's sense.
Therefore, the idea driving phenomenology is as sound as chemistry. Unfortunately, in practice I think it's more like alchemy, a good intention wrapped up in elaborate voodoo, unintentional misdirection, and ultimately failure. Given the sentence before the last, I think the previous sentence indicates that I do not really understand phenomenology, so I'd be pleased if you took it with a pinch of salt
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Its' quite odd how you seem to think that controlling the data and herding it into pigeon holes pre conceived for it is somehow more lose and objective and more true to "what is" than actually allowing the data to speak for itself.
Any empirical approach involves categorizing data and putting it in a contextual or theoretical framework.
No. Only the inductive kind. The original term meant "I experince this first hand, I've seen it myself" from the Greek
Episteme meaning first hand knowledge.
Data can only speak for itself when it is linked together with the rest of the cosmos.
No you are trying to say it can only speak when we tell it what to say. That's not true. It speaks for itself when you let the phenomena suggest the categories.
To put it another way: IF the mind is a phenomenon that works in a consistent way with the physical universe, THEN what I'm doing makes sense because it is putting the mind in the same picture with the rest of the physical universe. IF, on the other hand, the mind is extra special and has no place in a "scientific" or "reductionist" view, THEN I'm simply all wrong. You say to allow "the data to speak for itself", but data always requires interpretation. My way of interpreting data (basically categorizing and drawing connections) has historically worked pretty well.
Yes, data requires interpretation, but interpretation depends upon the categories you allow the data to fall into. If you select the categories in advance you only get the answers you want. If you allow the phenomena to suggest the categories then you see more possibilities.
The difference in data and phenomena is that data is already refined. Data is phenomena that has been sifted and refined and polished into "data," information that tells us what we want to hear. But Phenomena includes qualia and all kinds of things. So its' data in its raw state. You allow the categories to be suggest by the raw state of experience then you obviously more open to greater possibilities.
don't forget there are two kinds. I usually mean Heideggerian when I speak of it, but there is another kind and they overlap at least in my use of the term.
there's also phenom method and phenom attitude.
That's one of the reasons I brought this up. I knew you're a Heidegger fan and a phenomenologist, so I thought you'd have some insight here
. But as I explained a little later, I think Heidegger is a little off track.
you are not alone in that attitude. Of he was off track ultimately, with his politics. But Marcuse shared that phenomenological interest.
The experience of existence is not more fundamental than the stuff happening in our heads that is "making us exist". Thus this is more like Husserl's original realist phenomenology.
that's interesting. how does that relate to my arguments?
Very good question. I assume you mean your arguments for God as opposed to some argument in this thread, correct? Well, maybe you could tell me what you think of "realist phenomenology", which I take to be a kind of descriptive psychology that examines the essence of consciousness from a first-person point of view. I simply haven't read enough to feel like I could say anything concrete about it, but I want to hear your thoughts.
One of my God arguments, one that I have not used on boards since I first began on message boards (because it's too subtle for most people) is Gabriel Marcel's personal argument for the existence of God. Marcel argued that he found God in the human consciousness, he saw God in other people's personal natures. That's a first person perspective.
Marcel was the leading Christian existentialist of the 20th century.
I have been slowly coming a new position beyond God arguments. I'm now trying to formulate a way of stating my position. We don't need God arguments. It's not a matter of proving, it's a matter of developing consciousness.
