Greetings John and all,
John wrote:
> To summarise, immediate experience is ultimately the source of all our
> knowledge, but we mediate this in words and concepts, and invent higher
> order explanatory systems, that are distanced from such immediate
> experience. The MOQ is one such system. That it points to immediate
> experience of quality is its great virtue; that it remains a metaphysics
is
> its great weakness.
Why do you think that being a metaphysics is a weakness of the MoQ? The MoQ
as a metaphysics is a map to quality, static and dynamic. By describing the
MoQ's being a metaphysics as a weakness are you trying to imply that a
system could be developed that would be composed of experience instead of
descriptions of experience?
John wrote:
> And as Pirsig notes about writing a metaphysics, it leaves a hangover. The
> excitement of trying to get a tidy system of ideas together is real, but
it
> is playing with ideas and concepts that lack immediacy.
Absolutely a map will always be a map.
John wrote:
> As I further argue in my essay, the mystic position leads to a very
special
> morality, what I would term an 'integral morality'. Whereas the assumption
> of many who contribute to this forum is that understanding the MOQ can
lead
> to better decision making, I reject that view. Not only does it not work
in
> practice, as we see time and again, but static structures cannot organise
> the dynamic.
If I describe as set as being undefined but containing other sets that are
defined; have I not described a system but not defined all of it? (The set
of dynamic quality is undefined, sets (static patterns) may be defined
within this set provided the entire set in never fully described.) I do not
see how a mystical experience is at odds with the MoQ. Special access to a
set in the overall super-set of dynamic quality, that others do not share
and which it may be impossible for me to convey, does not seem to me to be
prohibited by the MoQ.
John wrote:
> However I am increasingly aware of the limitations of language and
> thought. They are indeed poisoned fruit. They offer us the ability to plan
> and predict, and that is no small advantage. At the same time they
alienate
> and destroy our immediacy, and cause us to lose what is of most value.
Perhaps > it is possible to have both, but I am convinced that if this is so
> it is not that we can regain immediacy through taking more thought, but
> rather that thought can be returned to its rightful domain once immediacy
is
> once more central to our lives.
What would you replace language and thought with? Sure language limits our
ability convey experience but our biological patterns limits our ability to
experience it! Should we give up our sense of heat because it cannot
differentiate between 1000 and 2000 degrees? Are you suggesting you want to
use no maps, or that you need to a vacation from thinking about maps? While
I may enjoy hearing about and making maps, I think that it is important to
try and experience dynamic quality more directly than just talking and
thinking about it.
Smiles,
Glen
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