You make an interesting absolute assertion here. It seems that
asserting that we cannot directly experience "things" is not the same
as saying that we cannot have direct experience. "Things" are
representational constructs that arise from our after-the-fact
analysis. Related to this, Varela et al (in The Embodied Mind)
critique phenomenologists for trying to "recapture the richness of
experience" through a "discourse about that experience," (p.19) while
many others - Buddhists in particular - have cited that scientific
materialism has no framework for first-person explorations of
consciousness.
Sakyong Mipham echoes Whitehead's Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness
(and centuries of Buddhist teachings) by pointing out that "we're
always trying to project a concrete world onto a fluid process,
mistaking our ever-changing experience for a self." Instead of
attempting to conceptualize after-the-fact, many non-conceptual
practices are focused on direct experience - not on attempting to
impossible task of directly experiencing "things" but on letting go of
this compulsion to conceptualize. Mipham continues "Like the elements,
this kind of wisdom doesn't need to be propped up. It is a direct
experience of reality, empty and ungraspable."
Are you assuming an independent existence of "things" beyond our
conceptualization of them? Alternately, if all phenomena are converted
into sense-able processes through our embodied sense perceptions,
can't it be said that they co-arise with our perception of them?
Wouldn't this make the after-the-fact attempts to represent the
experience the true mediation process?
---
david mcconville
director, noospheric research division
http://www.elumenati.com
On Jan 24, 2010, at 6:30 AM, Simon Biggs wrote:
> Janelle Cugley wrote
>
> "why?"
> -------
> According to the Yasmin mailman one word emails are not encouraged –
> so
> perhaps I shouldn't reply to this email. However, it is a good
> question,
> even if the answer was apparent in my previous email.
>
> The idea of direct experience of things is impossible because we are
> all
> mediated, as soon as we are alive and in the world, becoming
> socialised,
> becoming human. Direct experience of things assumes a lack of
> mediation
> between that being experienced and that experiencing. It is possible
> to
> argue that the thing being experienced and that experiencing are
> part of the
> same thing; that existence is found in the interaction between
> things, the
> intertwined agencies of things. This can also be regarded as an
> instance
> mediation (even mediation itself, which is why I suggested that
> being human
> is being mediated). Heidegger, Derrida, Bolter and many others have
> rehearsed these arguments.
>
> I think the origin of this thread was in a discussion on simulation
> and the
> sense of the real – that is is possible to get closer to a pure
> experience
> of things through the use of more and more realistic simulations
> within more
> and more immersive environments. This appears to represent some sort
> of
> neo-modern, neo-romantic, yearning for a totalisation of experience
> and an
> erasure of difference between us (the experiencer) and other (the
> experienced). But this leaves out the question of the experience
> itself, and
> that is where it all gets complicated. If you erase difference then
> perhaps
> you erase experience, for they are likely the same thing.
>
> One simple way to conceptualise this is offered by semiotics, as the
> tri-partite structure of what is being described here resembles the
> tri-partite structure of the sign, as proposed by Saussure. Some
> would argue
> that our relationship with things is fundamentally concerned with,
> even an
> instance of, semiosis. That we are part of the sign-making process.
> As soon
> as recognition of and understanding of things begins then this process
> begins. Even if one takes a less extreme position about this the
> thorough
> mediation of the human remains evident.
>
> Best
>
> Simon
>
>
> Simon Biggs
>
> Research Professor
> edinburgh college of art
> s.biggs@eca.ac.uk
> www.eca.ac.uk
>
> Creative Interdisciplinary Research into CoLlaborative Environments
> CIRCLE research group
> www.eca.ac.uk/circle/
>
> simon@littlepig.org.uk
> www.littlepig.org.uk
> AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk
>
>
>
> From: Janelle Cugley <blueskythink@iprimus.com.au>
> Reply-To: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS <yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr>
> Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2010 19:57:16 +0800
> To: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS <yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr>
> Subject: Re: [Yasmin_discussions] Simulation, remediation
>
> why?
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Simon Biggs" <s.biggs@eca.ac.uk>
> To: "YASMIN DISCUSSIONS" <yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr>
> Sent: Saturday, January 23, 2010 7:37 PM
> Subject: Re: [Yasmin_discussions] Simulation, remediation
>
>
> The concept of remediation doesn't just apply to obvious media, such
> as TV,
> cinema or computers. It also applies to how humans are humanly
> remediated.
>> From when we are born we begin to learn language and other social
>> signifiers
> and processes of exchange. The process of social mediation is
> initiated from
> birth (it might even be possible to identify this process earlier in
> the
> life cycle). Social mediation is not static, just as other media are
> not
> static. The conventions around what things mean, and what their
> value might
> be, change - as do their processes and structures. This is a process
> of
> remediation. In this sense human is media.
>
> The idea that it is possible to experience anything directly, as the
> phenomenologists argued, is simply unsustainable.
>
> Best
>
> Simon
>
>
> Simon Biggs
>
> Research Professor
> edinburgh college of art
> s.biggs@eca.ac.uk
> www.eca.ac.uk
>
> Creative Interdisciplinary Research into CoLlaborative Environments
> CIRCLE research group
> www.eca.ac.uk/circle/
>
> simon@littlepig.org.uk
> www.littlepig.org.uk
> AIM/Skype: simonbiggsuk
>
>
>
> Edinburgh College of Art (eca) is a charity registered in Scotland,
> number SC009201
>
>
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