Hi,
I don't agree (w)holy with what you say.
> That ancient rift between the spiritual and the
> physical worlds is what
> divides what we call Eastern and Western thought.
I would offer a re-interpretation of this almost
"cliche" version of East vs. West. What did the birth
of science as fostered by Descartes do? What was his
really deep insight? Method. And what is scientific
method? It was that you could offer up a "model" that
went against personal observation. If we go by
observation and our senses as the Western man is
supposedly castigated to, then the Sun revolves around
the earth. What was brilliant about Descartes was that
he showed how the world is not as it seems. That it is
"maya." And that you can make a hypothesis, gather
data, compare it and analyze it, and modify your
hypothesis. The BELIEF that the mind deceives is the
heart of "cogito ergo sum" and the heart of the
scientific mind. Kant then came along and labelled
what Descartes did. There is "phenomena", things as
they appear, and there is "noumena", the things in
themselves. Now, whether you label phenomena as
"physical" and noumena as "spiritual" is up to you.
But the West has a radical faith in the "non physical"
as all of science is based on the belief that the
senses deceive and thus you have the scientific
method. Descartes marks a addition to rational
thinking and introduces irrational thinking, or deep
scepticism.
Technology is the manifestation of this radical belief
in the "noumena". We use technology to do what
religion was supposed to do: "binds" us to the
noumena. The problem with technology is that it itself
is another "illusion" : that we can control
everything. But one thing for sure it can't control is
"freedom." And freedom is the heart of the human. And
that's where we get into all sorts of problems with
morality and I think Pirsig enters the picture.
> Neither side has the complete picture. In the West,
> the physical world
> has come to dominate our view of reality.
Wrong, I think, as defined above.
> The
> spiritual world is
> regarded as suspect or even dismissed completely as
> mumbo jumbo.
Western society is a master at controlling the
spiritual realm. It's problem is seeing where that
mastery ends: with the individual and his freedom.
> In the East (Hinduism), the opposite happened. It is
> the physical world
> that is regarded as a magical illusion (MAYA).
And it's too bad they didn't reach out into nature and
begin to control what they could.
best wishes,
angus
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