John, Elliot, 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."
>> Glen wrote:
"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
des cribing 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?"
> Elliot wrote:
"The daoists describe the universe as an uncarved block. This block has no
qualitites, it is not wooden or three dimensional, it is metaphorical. The
actions of the mind carve the block up into "dog", "happyness" and
"Quality", into the myriad things. The MoQ is one such thing. In MoQ
terms, DQ is the carving and static patterns are the things made. being a
metaphysics is a weakness because it is still a static patern of thought,
using static patterns such as words to define itself. Words are not truth,
they help us understand the world but should not be confused with the world
itself."
Glen replies:
Why not describe the block, metaphorical as it is, as the set of all
qualities
instead of no qualities? The size and shape of the block are unknown.
While
it is useful to interpret our experience with static patterns, static
patterns
and experience remain distinct don't they? While I may not have a
concept/carving of happiness, I may still have an experience that others
might
describe as 'happiness'. I quite agree that words are not experience and
should not be confused with experience.
> Elliot wrote:
"John is not trying to suggest "that a system could be developed that would
be composed of experience instead of descriptions of experience". the word
"system" implies static pattern. No system can be developed, only riding
the
cutting edge of reality itself, seeing and understanding before words and
intellectual patterns, before metaphysics. MoQ is a great metaphysics
because it stresses experience (which is the purpose of mysticism), but by
being a metaphysics it makes itself not DQ but a static pattern. Thus
inorder to reach the heights of enlightenemnt, one must vomit out the MoQ
along with all the other distinctions of the mind. But before that point,
MoQ is a high quality static pattern (but not DQ itself)."
Glen replies:
I can understand an apprehension of the world before metaphysics and words
but assumedly any such mystical apprehension must have some kind of a
methodology in order to produce such a state correct? Is there a mysticism
without any methodology? Isn't that a system too? I think we agree that
while it's helpful to use the MoQ as a map to experience, we should not
let our map confuse us into not seeing a new mountain we're standing on.
Experience must rule our metaphysics, not the reverse.
> Elliot wrote:
"No, the goal of mystical experience is to get beyond language and thought,
to experience the quality event directly without following the objects and
subjects that arise, those are static patterns."
Glen replies:
The goal of the mystical experience is to get beyond thought? Or is it to
get beyond thoughts that can be communicated? How could we separate one
from
the other?
> Elliot wrote:
"First, if language limits why accept it as necissary? second, biological
patterns only limit our perception if one accepts that ALL that we
experience is of the 5 senses. But it is our lot as humans to struggle for
enlightenment. the five senses, like words, are an obstacle to
enlightenemnt, but they can be transcended. We do not know what all the
sources are from which we experience quality. and thridly, language doesnt
just limit our ability to convey experience but it limits our experience.
Rather than letting the world be what it is, we break it up into
categories. Thus an event becomes the idea "Dog" performing the act of
"Chasing" to "the ball". These distinctions are not reality, they are not
fundemental, they are a product of thought and language. One must forget
the names of the piles of sand and realize their unimportance to look up
and see the landscape. This is why any static patter of thought, even the
MoQ, is a burden to enlightenemnt and mysticism, because it becomes a tool
of reason used to carve up the world, which is not by its nature ever
divided."
Glen replies:
I see no reason why language is necessary to obtain experience. Do you
think it is possible to gain experience without a biological pattern with
which to experience? Why does language limit my ability to experience?
Certainly any communication to another about the event using language is
secondary but my individual experience of the event is not composed of
language but of experience. (Of course it changes again once it is past
and is recorded as a memory.) Again I wonder how the mystical experience
of enlightenment is different than an experience about which I cannot
communicate but only remember (and perhaps the memory is very different
than the actual experience).
Glen
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