Roger and all,
I am probably coming in late with an approach that has already been done to
death, but never mind. I've been reading Ken Wilber, specifically Eye to
Eye, and what he says does make sense to me. If he is right, then the debate
on evolution has been fatally flawed by a pervasive category error. My
skimming of the posts on this topic suggests this is the case.
Wilber proposes, in continuity with the mystic tradition, that there is a
spectrum of human consciousness, Each of us, if he is right, has access to
three modes of knowing. There is empiric, or scientifiic, knowledge, in
which we use our senses to ascertain what is, and if these observations are
quantified through measurement, we have the basis for science. We also
participate in a mental or rational world, which allows us to communicate
using language, to develop logic and mathematics, and to discuss topics such
as the meaning of 'Hamlet', that cannot be measured, have no location in
space or time, and hence cannot be dealt with at the empirical or scientific
level. Thirdly, there is, he asserts, a contemplative or spiritual
knowledge, that provides illumination or meaning, which is not measurable or
able to be described in terms of our senses, hence is inaccessible to
science, nor is it describable in rational language, except through paradox,
so is similarly beyond the capacity of language to express with any
adequacy.
Wilber further asserts that each level of knowing is validated in exactly
the same way. He asserts that each level has an instrumental or injunctive
strand, which in essence says "If you want to know this, do this." So in
science, I observe and measure, but usually within a highly structured
context which must first be learned. In the rational world, we must learn
language before we can debate propositions, and then we must study the
discipline we choose to debate, whether this be mathematics or literary
criticism. Any one who refuses to do so may have opinions on any topic, but
these are rightly ignored. Just so in the contemplative realm, some
practice, usually a form of meditation, is required to generate the
knowledge which leads to illumination or meaning.
Each level also has an illuminative or apprehensive strand, in which
carrying out the required instrumental practices leads to insight, varying
with each of the three levels. Since, in Elaine de Beauport's fine phrase,
"we speak to the cognitive intelligence", it is possible to report empiric
insight to another person who shares our language. We can also report
rational insight to those who share our language and have sufficient grasp
of the discipline involved to understand our meaning. However, spiritual
insight is less easily communicated with language, and certainly cannot be
obtained through language alone.
Finally, there is a communal strand to each level of knowing. This is where
our individual insight is tested in the community of those who have carried
out the necessary injunctions to validate their assessment of our reported
experience. In science, the results of an experiment are published to
provide others in the field the opportunity to replicate, or refute, the
proposed new knowledge. In the rational field, debate of various kinds
refines the arguments and seeks a consensus on what insights are indeed
valid. (Surely that is what happens when this forum operates at its best.)
And at the contemplative level, insights derived from the practice of
meditation are tested against the understanding of the teacher or master, or
the spiritual tradition.
So the first important point is that knowledge is not all of a piece, and
Pirsig in rejecting the dominant Scientism of his day saw this was so.
Scientism asserts that only the knowledge acquired through the senses , and
hence measurable, is valid. It is an utter nonsense, but still widely
believed. Pirsig correctly grasped that what the senses perceive is itself
shaped by the values underlying the scientific endeavour. Description and
measurement arise out of our more fundamental perception of quality or
value. However, Pirsig fails to take seriously the third, or contemplative,
level of knowledge, and so remains trapped within the limitations of the
rational level, and hence fails to offer any substantial improvement on the
subject - object polarity that bedevils that level. His dynamic - static
division is a different way of slicing the cake, but ultimately ends up
offering us no more meaning than the other.
The second important point is that all three levels of knowing require
similar inputs. Each requires we do certain things, find what is to be seen,
and check that finding against the accumulated wisdom in the field, the
appropriate community of knowledge.
The third important point is that these three realms of understanding are
not of equal consequence. They are hierarchical. Scientific knowledge is
almost useless in resolving issues of value. It has almost nothing to say
about quality. But equally intellectual knowledge, rational debate, offers
no satisfactory resolution to questions of meaning. No amount of talk will
lead to illumination. (Much of the recent debate in this forum on socialism,
for example, seems mired at this level.)
The fourth important point that follows, is that arguments between the
levels are futile. This is what Wilber describes as a category error. For
example, no amount of facts can ultimately decide a moral issue. (The "How
do I get from an 'is' to an 'ought' ?"dilemma.) I suggest that the
intractability of the evolution debate arises from this sot of argument.
The ongoing debate on evolution on this forum has been an intellectual
debate. That is fine, but it limits the potential outcomes. In particular,
it has seen the debate mired in competing perceptions of meaning, and all
too often we have not done our homework in terms of really mastering the
discipline we are debating. So we keep coming back to what Pirsig meant by
.... , what Steven Jay Gould means by .... , and so on. This is all good
educational stuff, and often good fun, but it does not lead to illumination
or meaning. For that we must enter the third level of knowing, and that
demands extensive training and discipline, and usually can't provide a neat
verbal summary of what is real.
Now, while an intellectual input such as this is limited in its potential
for illumination, there is one further aspect of what Wilber offers that is,
I think, quite valuable . This occurs on p167 of Eye to Eye, and I will
quote it at some length. Wilber is discussing what he calls an 'analog law'
, "the idea that every event and principle on a lower level is merely a
reduced version or a reflection downward or a lesser degree of those events
and principles found on higher levels". He suggests that Whitehead took just
this position. "He [Whitehead] took the notion of junior dimensions being
essentially reduced versions of senior ones, and completely turned the
typical approach to reality on its head. He said that if you want to know
the general principles of existence, you must start at the top and use the
highest occasions to illumine the lowest, not the other way around, which of
course is the common reductionist reflex. So he said you could learn more
about the world from biology than you could from physics; and so he
introduced the organismic viewpoint which has revolutionized philosophy. And
he said you could learn more from social psychology than from biology, and
then introduced the notion of things being a society of occasions - the
notion of compound individuality. Naturally, he held that the apex of
exemplary pattern was God, and it was in God, the ultimate compound
individual, that you would ground any laws or patterns found reflected in
reduced versions in the lower dimensions of psychology, then biology, then
physics. The idea, which was brilliant in its statement, was that you first
look to the higher levels for the general principles of existence, and then,
by subtraction, you see how far down the hierarchy they extend. You don't
start at the bottom and try to move up by addition of the lower parts,
because some of the higher parts simply don't show up very well, or at all,
on the lower rungs. Perhaps his favourite examples were creativity and
love - God, for Whitehead, was especially love and creativity. But in the
lower dimensions, the creativity gets reduced, appearing in humans as a
modicum of free will but being almost entirely lost by the time you get to
atomic particles... So Whitehead, by looking to illuminate the lower by the
higher, and not vice versa, could make creativity the general principle, and
then understand determinism as a partial restriction or reduction of primary
creativity. If, on the other hand, you start at the bottom, then you have to
figure out a way to get free will and creativity out of rocks, and it just
won't work."
There is much I would like to say about this, but this post is already long.
Suffice to say, then, that if we were to adopt this approach, then the
meaning of quality is to be found at the highest level, where language is an
inadequate vehicle of communication, and intellect an inappropriate medium
for the search. This ties in with a number of recent strands of discussion
in this forum, including where God fits in, and if there is an emerging
level beyond intellect. And the experts would not be those most skilled in
intellectual debate, but those who have put in the hard yards in a
meditative practice, and tested their insights against other mystic
authorities. The resulting outcomes would appear paradoxical to the merely
intellectual mind, but would reconcile the deep divisions of that level, of
which the static / dynamic is just the latest in a long line. If anyone is
interested in following this idea further in relation to Pirsig, I would
suspect it could be fruitful.
John B
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