Hi Sam, John B:
Sam, you wrote:
> Platt - I agreed with pretty much everything you said in your post of Nov
> 25; however, I think there may be some confusion over what counts as a
> 'transformative practice'. I do sympathise with John on this, but because
> it's been spelt out in a Wilber context, there may be a little
> misunderstanding over what it is (and the misunderstanding may be in me
> rather than anyone else). So if I spell out what I think is involved, there
> may be less disagreement - or, if it's still there, hopefully it will be
> clearer.
>
> What I take the talk about the need for a practice to be is to do with
> training in ways of seeing. Are you familiar with the image that can be seen
> as either an old woman or a young lady? It's been shown (and I'll track down
> the references when I can remember where they are!) that you can shape which
> image people actually see in that by 'training' them with similar pictures
> beforehand. And that it then can require an awful lot of discussion before
> you 'see' the alternative. My understanding of a 'transformative practice'
> is not in principle different from that sort of training - in other words,
> although (with a nod to the Emperor's new clothes) a beginner's eye is often
> superior to a trained eye, there are some things which simply cannot be seen
> without the requisite prior training.
>
> Now if we accept the superiority of the aesthetic over the intellectual, and
> of Quality over both, then it doesn't seem to be against the spirit of the
> MoQ to say that you need some form of practical training (call it an
> inculcation in social quality patterns) in order to be able to see with high
> Quality (ie closer to the cutting edge). Another way of talking about this
> would be to say that the holy person sees reality the most clearly (and an
> aspect of this quest is actually what drives the high-Quality aspects of
> formal scientific method). This comes back to what I said about the
> philosophy of love - that the major spiritual traditions are (amongst other
> things) ways of training people in different ways of seeing. And, in MoQ
> terms, that is a fundamentally moral activity - hence the language of John
> when he said:
> >
> In Wilber's view, the recovery of an ethical life involves transformations
> of consciousness. One has to grow or develop, to change one's perceptions,
> because the deeper and wider and more encompassing motivations are not just
> lying around to be seen by the senses or their extensions. A truly ethical
> life demands transformation, and that requires a praxis, a transformative
> practice.
>
> One final example: one of my favourite paintings is Picasso's "Weeping
> Woman". I don't think I would have been able to appreciate that before
> gaining a little emotional maturity myself (I flatter myself that I have a
> little (-: )
>
> Does that make it clearer (even if the disagreement is still there)?
Yes, indeed. I'm very familiar with the image of the old woman and the
young lady, being one of my favorite examples of the paradoxical nature
the world we see through our biological "spectacles" where attention
isolates one aspect of experience at a time. You explanation does
indeed make John's reasons for placing a high value on "praxis" much
clearer to me. Now it only remains for John to sanction your
explanation. If he does, I'm almost persuaded that his pursuit of self-
transformation with the help of a guide may work. What worries me is
the high failure rate. Didn't Pirsig go that route, even traveling to India to
seek transformation, only to return empty-handed?
> Lastly, you asked:
>
> > Finally, finally. A question for both Sam and John. You know the famous
> > (Platonic I believe) formulation of Truth, Goodness and Beauty. Do you
> > agree that those three "absolutes" are now subservient to Quality
> > which, with the coming of MOQ, is now the metaphysical top dog? Or
> > is it better to simply place Goodness at the top with Truth and Beauty
> > underneath? No big deal--just curious.
>
> I am at present unclear in my own mind as to where Goodness and Quality are
> distinguishable, and in either case I would tend to find the word 'God'
> readily substitutable for either of them. I don't think any of the Platonic
> trinity are 'absolute', so yes, in present day terms, they are subservient
> to Quality/God. (And before Wim or anyone else comes in on this, I don't
> think Quality/God can be exhaustively identified with any one religious
> tradition. But of course that's a whole other thread...)
Yes, I have often thought that Goodness is the same thing really as
Quality and that the two words can readily substitute for one another.
Also somewhere in the dim past there's a post from me where I
equated Good with God, referring to the childhood grace, "God is great
and God is Good." So we are definetely sympatico.
John has concerns about "reifying Quality." I assume this means
making Quality a concrete "thing" instead of an abstract "idea" although
through my spectacles ideas are just as concrete as things and thus
"reify" is meaningless. Pirsig says at the end of LILA, "Good is a noun."
I assume John objects to this but wonder, Sam, what you think about it.
>Oh yes, one other r thing. I love your quote from ZAMM about "One can
>then
> examine intellectual realities the same way he examines paintings in an art
> gallery", I'd forgotten that passage (it's been a while since I read it -
> time to go back again I think). That's the way I think Wittgenstein
> understood metaphysics (as akin to poetry aswell), but it is also how I
> understand the discipline of systematic theology (eg Aquinas) which, if I
> ever went back into academic seclusion, would be my field.
A minor point. The quote is from LILA (Chapter 8) rather than ZAMM.
You final sentence is intriquing. Sometime could you expand on what
"systematic theology" entails and its relation to the MOQ?
Platt
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