This is a really clear breakdown. Thank you for writing it up!
I’m struck by the symmetry between (a) these two Camps and (b) the two hemispheres of the brain as depicted by Iain McGilchrist. Including the way that one side can navigate the relationship between both sides while the other thinks the first is basically just bonkers!
It’s a strong enough analogy that I wonder if it’s causal. E.g., I expect someone from Camp 1 to have a much harder time “vibing”. I associate Camp 1 folk with rejection of ineffable insights, like “The Tao that can be said is not the true Tao” sounding to them like “the Tao” is just incoherent gibberish.
In which case the “What is this ‘qualia’ thing you’re talking about?” has an awful lot in common with the daughter’s arm phenomenon. The whole experience of seeing a rainbow, knowing it’s beautiful, and then witnessing the thought “Wow, what a beautiful rainbow!” would be hard to pin down because the only way to pin it down in Camp 1 is by modeling the experiential stream and then talking about the model. The idea that there could be a direct experience that is itself being modeled and is thus prior to any thoughts about it… just doesn’t make sense to the left hemisphere. It’s like talking about the Tao.
I don’t know how big a factor, if at all, this plays in the two camps thing. It’s just such a striking analogy that it seems worth bringing up.
This is a really clear breakdown. Thank you for writing it up!
I’m struck by the symmetry between (a) these two Camps and (b) the two hemispheres of the brain as depicted by Iain McGilchrist. Including the way that one side can navigate the relationship between both sides while the other thinks the first is basically just bonkers!
It’s a strong enough analogy that I wonder if it’s causal. E.g., I expect someone from Camp 1 to have a much harder time “vibing”. I associate Camp 1 folk with rejection of ineffable insights, like “The Tao that can be said is not the true Tao” sounding to them like “the Tao” is just incoherent gibberish.
In which case the “What is this ‘qualia’ thing you’re talking about?” has an awful lot in common with the daughter’s arm phenomenon. The whole experience of seeing a rainbow, knowing it’s beautiful, and then witnessing the thought “Wow, what a beautiful rainbow!” would be hard to pin down because the only way to pin it down in Camp 1 is by modeling the experiential stream and then talking about the model. The idea that there could be a direct experience that is itself being modeled and is thus prior to any thoughts about it… just doesn’t make sense to the left hemisphere. It’s like talking about the Tao.
I don’t know how big a factor, if at all, this plays in the two camps thing. It’s just such a striking analogy that it seems worth bringing up.
Could I ask you to please elaborate on what you mean by this?