Hello all,
I've been lurking for about a month and this is my first post. I'm quite
enjoying the discussion. I was intrigued to hear about Wilber, so many
speak so about him with reverence. I'm a third of the way through "A Brief
History" and to my surprise I'm struggling to get through it. I see flashes
of Pirsig in his philosophy, they are impossible to ignore. I also
appreciate his constant reference to the corpus of philosophic, acaddemic,
and scientific thought that has preceded his own philosophy-it's very
Pirsig. And while I see a lot of value in his thought, I'm having trouble
making sense of his constant references to Spirit and the Kosmos. I
unfortunately don't have the book with me, as I had certain examples
underlined that I wanted to include here. But the beauty of Pirsig is that
he can take you to a very philosophical understading of things in a way that
makes you think "How could I ever have seen it differently?" Now in
unpacking Pirsig we'll invariably find things with which we do not agree,
assumptions we are not sure that we are so comfortable making, but
ultimately I agree with his underlying philosophy, and he brought me to that
agreement by selling it to me and my mind that is imbedded in Western
thinking. He had to, as he did this to himself. So far, Wilber is just not
doing this for me, he is lsosing me in the mumbo-jumbo of the Spirit,
without even explaining to me what the Spirit is. So I feel like I'm taking
some valuable dsnippets from Wilber, but the overall message is lost on me.
It's an experience that I liken to watching the move of Zen that Pirsig so
intelligently squashed. I guess I'm just looking for some enlightenment on
this issue-no pun intended.
BJ Trach
>From: "Platt Holden" <pholden5@earthlink.net>
>Reply-To: moq_discuss@moq.org
>To: moq_discuss@moq.org
>Subject: RE: MD FW: Unconstructed Wilber quotes
>Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 15:20:04 -0500
>
>David B. wrote:
>
> > Platt: Wilber discusses subjects and objects precisely the same way
>Pirsig
> > does, they both have developed a view that transcends SOM. And Wilber's
> > insistence that we consider these "things" to have a "certain
>conventional
> > reality", I think, only reflects Pirsig's message about SOM and the MOQ
> > being two different sets of co-ordinates. MOre than that, Wilber's terms
>are
> > different, but I can even see the static/Dynamic split in his picture.
>There
> > are more levels, levels within them and even his static patterns, which
>he
> > calls holons, are more interesting and rich. Reading Wilber after all
>these
> > Pirsig discussions has been like putting meat on the bones. Its the same
> > thing, only more so. I owe you, and everyone else, for helping me get to
>the
> > point where I can really appreciate a guy like Wilber. So, thanks y'all!
>
>I didn't mean to badmouth Wilber in any way. He taught me more about
>philosophy than anyone else. He and Pirsig are kissing cousins for sure.
>But
>the basic split in his metaphysical quadrant is Interior-Exterior. To my
>knowledge only Pirsig makes Morality the ground of the whole metaphysical
>enchalada. Platt
>
>
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