Moxious, check out the four quadrant / AQAL model originally proposed by Ken Wilber. He proposes that reality can be broken down into four quadrants with two axes, the Interior-Exterior and Individual-Collective.
Upper left is Interior-Individual (intentional). Upper right Exterior-Individual (Behavioral). Lower left Interior-Collective (Cultural). And lower right Exterior Collective (Social).
The problem with your perspective is that the "scientific approach" you speak of isn't actually very scientific at all. Science, as far as I have seen you speak of it and it is most commonly viewed as today, is focused only on and limited to that which has simple location, ie. the Exterior realms. Is the existence of a shared, unspoken set of cultural norms, mores, beliefs, and contracts (LL/Cultural quadrant) only liberal use of the imagination? If not, why does sociology and the study of culture predicate the use of the term science and the study and experience of the direct human experience not? While it may be easy for some to discard the Interior, citing it as purely subjective and non-indicative of "reality", it's relatively easy to show the effects of LL/IC/Cultural shifts and movements on the objective, or exterior, realms. Which, when shown to directly impact the UR and LR quadrants, not only uni-directionally, but bi-drectionally, in itself basically proves the tangibility, breadth, and "realness" of the UL or what would most commonly be referred to as "subjective" experience/realm. I would hope I don't have to explain why. I mean, there's all kinds of ways to assert the legitimacy of the internal world, whereas the denial of - or to bring in a larger current context, the material reductionist, physicalist worldview - the subjective all comes down to "where is it? how can I see it? how can I measure it?" ie. simple location. Tell me where your love for your mother lives. Does your inability to do so negate the reality of that experience?
Which is all a roundabout way to say, how can you assume that importance only occurs on the level of the individual? We don't understand our place in the universe well at all, from most any perspective.
I can't say I fully understand what you've said here, frankly I don't see the relevance of the model or how it helps convey your question. I'll respond to the statements I could understand.
Culture can be unspoken but it is always communicated in some way, often including by spoken word. I don't think it is purely internal, though someone/a group left to their own devices would surely develop their own cultural norms. To put it coarsely that's just how human brains work. It relies to some degree on imagination but not at all on some ethereal connection to the plane of culture.
I don't get the next sentence but I think you're saying the scientific method is newer than sociology, I think that's true but I don't see how age has anything to do with it.
The next part I struggled through but it seems you're establishing the existence of subjective reality, which I'm not debating at all. I do disagree with the concept of an
immaterial subjective reality - subjective reality exists as a representation in our brain structure. Which leads into your next point, the location of a feeling. You're referring to phenomenological experience and how it can be reconciled with a material substrate. This is a thoroughly debated topic, usually focused on the sensation of pain and whether it is identical to the firing of 'c-fibers', i.e. the part of the human brain whose activity corresponds to the sensation of pain. There's a lot more to this than I can really explain well here but I'll make a few cursory points. The problem arises because you're crossing that boundary between external reality and internal reality, as you call them. The functionalist perspective provides clarity here, as when pain is seen as a function of the organism it's easier to recognize that while pain is
not necessarily identical with c-fibers firing, it
is identical with whatever mechanism in the organism serves to alert them to damage (or whatever the function of pain really is), which in the case of humans include c-fibers, of course only embedded in that organism. It seems obvious that c-fibers being induced to fire in a petri dish would cause no organism any pain.
All that to say that subjective experiences are as real as anything else, they are physical processes. The subjective experience
is the 'underlying' mechanism. My love for my mother is in my brain.
How can I assume that importance only occurs on the level of the individual? Because what is important to me may be completely trivial to you or vice versa. It's not even an assumption, it's an observation.
There are so many problems here I don't even know where to begin.
P.S. I enjoy picking on you for two reasons, Moxious. One, you seem to think very similarly to how I did three years ago, I feel a resonance and weirdly flavored companionship with you. And, I have a selfish desire to convince you otherwise - other than your current worldview - because I have a story I'd be saving you time and effort, and I would have loved to be where I am now years ago.
Come on, you can do it! I believe in you!
I'm glad that you're enjoying yourself, psy, I always enjoy our conversations, though I don't feel like you're picking on me lol. I think you'll have a hard time of convincing me, certainly you haven't made any arguments thus far I haven't heard before but the possibilities are endless 8)
