It's kind of funny that I've become so interested in religious experience, as I am the kind of person who lives mostly in her mind. I've been reading a book on the history of 'consciousness' (in New England). In the late 19th century some philosophers got into debates about whether thoughts are actually 'experienced' by the individual having them (and whether selves even exist). At least one of them thought that thought is not experienced directly but rather inferred from signs. If this is true, then am I experiencing anything most of the day when I sit and think and read? I've never thought that much about whether thoughts are experienced (and what does it mean to experience something anyway?). I like this book.
I have more to say about the idea of thoughts being experience or not, as it relates to religion, but right now I'm hungry. You're all spared. :)
4 comments:
I had a final exam in the American Studies department in undergrad, but the professors were such hippies they insisted on calling it "The Final Experience." I wanted to punch them both in the face.
great post. philosophy is the way to go. i'm inclined to think that speaking of our thoughts as things we experience is not particularly helpful. it seems to me to be the result of thinking of human beings as complex machines with little humans inside of them doing the pushing, pulling, and experiencing. but then we quickly get into a regress problem. if our thoughts are things we experience, then they must be experienced by somebody (i.e., by you or by me). In which case, though, we can just pose the original question in a different way and ask 'is my experience of my thoughts something i experience?' But if it is, we can then again ask 'is my experience of my experience of my thoughts something i experience?' etc etc.
It is sort of an interesting problem, though, when it comes to "religious experience" as a category. Of course, it is a nebulous term anyway, but often it refers to ecstatic experiences, visions, trances, conversion, possession, extreme emotional states, etc. in which an individual "encounters" something that they consider spiritual. So, would the actual "experience", say of a vision, be something "experienced?"
Sometimes those things seem to occur only in the mind, as a kind of "thought." Or are those, say, mental experiences different from thoughts in some way, because consciousness is altered? I suppose its one thing to talk about experiencing something physical and another to talk about thinking...
William James argued that the experience itself was something real, but that any meaning ascribed to it was a form of "over-belief." I guess I just wonder about how to explain "religious" experiences, because often people will ascribe to them a certain level of validity because its a kind of direct experience of something holy. However, if those experiences are really just another kind of inferred thought, then how are they to be evaluated?
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