Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id IAA04768 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 5 Oct 2000 08:25:26 +0100 Message-ID: <A4400389479FD3118C9400508B0FF230041000@DELTA.newhouse.akzonobel.nl> From: "Gatherer, D. (Derek)" <D.Gatherer@organon.nhe.akzonobel.nl> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: mysticism Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 09:21:18 +0200 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Wade, I think you're still missing my point.
>we can, as sighted people, create a machine that
>reacts to light and supplies a pinch, or a poke, or even some pleasant
>input to the sense of touch, say, in the same way a photocell circuit can
>move a needle.
Yes, _we_ can. But that's because we have been 'seeing' for millions of
years, and studying sight scientifically for hundreds. But in the kingdom
of the blind, nobody has ever seen anything, except for the few who have had
the fleeting experiences of sight. So they have none of the technology you
describe. How then could _they_ interpret the occasional flash of 'sight'
as anything other than subjectivity and fevered imagination?
Try it from another angle: imagine an island where by another quirk of
genetics, the population can have 'mystical' experiences at will. Their
brains are all wired up wrongly by our standards. Over the millenia they
have developed a technology based on this just as we have based technologies
on the other senses. As well as radio and television, they have
'mystitransmission' allowing you to experience other people's mystical
experiences via 'mysti-cable' upon the appropriate subscription.
Fanciful? Of course, it's ludicrous. But in the kingdom of the blind,
television is ludicrous.
Tarot cards, crystal balls etc, I agree are not technologies of mysticism.
They do nothing. Magnetic helmets and psychotropic drugs do do something;
quite what, who knows?, but they are doing something to the brain that
favours something like a 'mystical experience'. Imagine such things
developed over millenia in the hands of people who already spontaneously
mysticise. They could say, to paraphrase your first paragraph:
>we can, as mysticating people, create a machine that
>reacts to mystical experience and supplies a pinch, or a poke, or even some
>pleasant input to the sense of sight, say, in the same way a
mystitransmission circuit can
>move a needle.
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