Okay. So you are saying it's not something you can do?
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Do you believe in the mystical?
- Thread starter Gambit
- Start date
Ah! I must have missed it... damn. I'm always missing these things.
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
Nope. I'm saying that it is not possible to know that something is unexplainable. That is the claim bearing the burden of proof.
If the positive claim is inherent ignorance, that would present a problem.
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
Exactly.
You want a problem?
The problem is that the positive claim, "it is not possible to know that something is unexplainable," is an expression of its own ignorance.
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
Is this going somewhere?
Obviously not.
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
It's just semantics, the claim I was addressing remains a positive claim; That some things are unexplainable.
It is a knowledge claim.
It needs to be demonstrated.
You originally stated in response to Roger talking about mystical experience has to be experience, not explained.....
To which Roger then asked...
To which you replied...
To which you now say...
So, are you saying now that you cannot explain the experience of blue to a blind person, that they actually have to have an experience of it? Do you now conceed to his original point? Which was....
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Gambit
Well-Known Member
I don't think any explanation will be forthcoming, because It's not possible to explain the qualitative in terms of the quantitative.
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
No idea what you are taking issue with I'm afraid. Of course I can explain blue to a blind person - maybe not an explanation you see as satisfactory, but an explanation nevertheless.
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
So what? Blue is a color, a wavelength of light. THAT is an explanation. Or did you mean to ask for a complete explanation that would satisfy YOU?
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
I already did.
I think you guys have confused yourselves and have forgotten that I was asked for an explanation - not a complete explanation.
Orbit
I'm a planet
The reason you can't do this is because it can't be done. As someone else said, you can't reduce the qualitative to the quantitative.
roger1440
I do stuff
If you were to ask me what rabbit tastes like I would have to compare it to something that is familiar to you. Probably I would say,”it tastes like chicken.” It would be necessary for me to use some type of common ground; otherwise there would be no communication. Note the root of the word communication is the word common. Even though rabbit is like chicken, it’s also unlike chicken. Language does have its limitations. Explaining a mystical experience is outside the boundaries of language. The only way to fully understand the experience, one must experience it themselves, just like rabbit.
roger1440
I do stuff
Mysticism Defined by William James
1. Ineffability - The handiest of the marks by which I classify a state of mind as mystical is negative. The subject of it immediately says that it defies expression, that no adequate report of its contents can be given in words.
Mysticism Defined by William James
1. Ineffability - The handiest of the marks by which I classify a state of mind as mystical is negative. The subject of it immediately says that it defies expression, that no adequate report of its contents can be given in words.
Mysticism Defined by William James
Gambit
Well-Known Member
You cannot explain the subjective in terms of the objective. That's what.
You have already voted that you believe in the mystical, thereby implying that you believe there is something that is so mysterious that it defies any attempt at a complete explanation.
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Bunyip
pro scapegoat
Sure I can.
No, not at all. That was not the definition of 'mystical' you used in the OP.