David B, Platt,
I agree with Platt. This quote doesn't attempt to ground a
subject/object reality into a third category as Pirsig does. However,
since science is the hand-maiden of the SOM, perhaps David thinks
that rants against science, like the one below, are indicative of an
anti-S/O bias. In fact it is just an anti-O bias.
WILBER:
"With empirical science there can be little quarrel, but with scientism...
well, scientism is a different beast. And here we might as well start to
look at the bad news, which is the FAILURE TO INTEGRATE THE BIG THREE.
Consciousness, morals, and science had indeed been freed fromtheir magic and
their mythic indissociation; each domain was set loose with its own power
and its own truth and it own approach to the Kosmos, each of which had
something EQUALLY important to say."
Wilber desires an integration of consciousness, morals, and science, but
doesn't say what that is here. Indissociation is one of Wilber's made up
words.
WILBER:
"But by the end of the 18th century, the
rapid, indeed extraordinary developmnet of science began to throw the whole
system off balance. The advances of the it-domain began to eclipse, and then
actually DENY, the values and truths of the I and the we domans. The big
three began to collapse into the big one: empirical science, and science
alone, could pronounce on ultimate reality. Science, as we say, became
scientism, which means it didn't just pursue it own truths, it aggressively
denied that there were any other truths at all!"
While I agree that scientific results have a greater chance of being true
than other pursuits of truth, I would be interested to know what Wilber
thinks science is actually denying in the "I and the we domains". He doesn't
say, but if he is talking about things like ESP, alien abductions, and
Shirley McClaine's past lives, I think it's proper for empirical science to
seriously question these claims of truth. In fact, only a very small number
of scientists and critical thinkers bother to do so. Certainly the media
doesn't. If he is speaking to things like beauty, justice, and patriotism,
I think he would be overstating his case as to the influence of scientism.
WILBER:
"Only objective its with simple location were really real. The entire interior
dimensions were completely gutted, and the ghost in the machine began its
sad and lonely modern moan, a haunting cry made all the more
plaintive in that it had not even the power to attract attention."
Note the over-the-top belief that science has "completely gutted" the
"entire interior dimensions" followed by the sad-sack resentment of modern
man. I suppose rhetoric like this is the only way he feels he can attract
attention. Reasoned, level-headed thinking just won't do.
WILBER:
"When only objective its with simple location are really real, then the
mind itself is a tabula that is totally rasa, utterly blank until filled
with PICTURES or representations of the only reality there was: objective
and sensory nature. There is no real SPIRIT, there is no real MIND, there
is only empirical nature. No superconsciousness, no self-conscious, only
subconscious processes scurrying endlessly, meaninglessly, in a vast system
of interwoven its." Ken Wilber's A BRIEF HISTORY OF EVERYTHING pages 264-5.
The whole tabula rasa idea has been thrown out by modern biology. You'd
think that Wilber would know this, considering how brilliant and
knowledgable he thinks he is about everything (see the book title).
Like Pirsig, we see Wilber championing science when he sees it supporting
his own agenda (such as with some interpretations of quantum mechanics)
and misrepresenting it when it doesn't. Once he's knocked science down
a few rungs in the minds of his readers, he slips in dubious ideas about
"real SPIRIT" and "real MIND", which apparently can transcend matter into
the transrational, superconscious realm. I bet Shirley McClaine digs this
stuff.
Glenn
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