In a message dated 5/6/02 4:40:31 PM GMT Daylight Time, skutvik@online.no
writes:
<< Subj: RE: MD Wilber's SOM
Date: 5/6/02 4:40:31 PM GMT Daylight Time
From: skutvik@online.no
Sender: owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk
Reply-to: moq_discuss@moq.org
To: moq_discuss@moq.org
Platt, Glenn, DMB and All.
I was very pleased when someone (Platt) put Ken Wilber in his right
place - regarding the MOQ that is, and that is our concern here. After
John Beasley started to bring him in I was more than sure that Wilber
had nothing to do with the MOQ because John B has never understood
it. Even more pleased when Glenn declared himself in agreement with
Platt on Wilber because Glenn has acted a kind of MoQ critic ...with
critics like that :-)
But from before I had been disturbed by DMB joining the Wilber
bandwagon - this because I place David very high on my list, so my
emotions has been in great turmoil of late :-). Wilber may be the best of
the NewAger writers/thinkers but he is not saying what Pirsig says ...or
saying it better as I believe John B. wants us to think. He is
subject/object through and through.
On 5 May 2002 at 23:05, Glenn Bradford wrote:
(to David after DMB had said)
> >Glenn, Platt and y'all:
> >Platt said:
> >Thanks for confirming my claim. Wilber's "it-domain" is objective.
> >His "I and we domains" are subjective. Strictly old school divisions.
> >Glenn said:
> >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.
> >DMB says:
> >Hmmm. Very bizzare. You both seem oblivious to the obvious. Its hard
> >to take your objections seriously when it seems that you don't even
> >understand what you're reading, but I'll waste some time and provide
> >an answer anyway.
> No, it's not bizarre and it's not a product of our poor reading
> comprehension. Both Platt and I are pointing out that in the quote you
> offered yesterday, Wilber is arguing from a S/O viewpoint. There are
> subjectivist and objectivist positions from this viewpoint, and he
> took the subjectivists position, not some higher metaphysical ground.
> The quotes you offer today are different and actually support your
> contention. If you'd provided these quotes to begin with you'd not
> have wasted *our* time.
> >Glenn:
> >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.
> >DMB says:
> >If you think Wilber is over-the-top then so is Pirsig, because he
> >says essentially the same thing. "the metaphysics of
> >substance...regards both society and intellect (subjects) as
> >possessions of biology (objects). It says society AND intellect don't
> >have substance and therefore can't be real. It says biology is where
> >reality stops. Society and intellect are ephemeral POSSESSIONS of
> >reality." (Lila page 265.) And I suppose that Pirsig is equally a
> >sad-sack resenter too. "A scientific, intellectual culture had become
> >a culture of million of isolated people living and dying in little
> >cells of psychic solitary confinement, unable to talk to one another,
> >really, and unable to judge one another because scientifically
> >speaking it is impossible to do so." (page 283)
I don't know exactly what being over-the-top means but I guess it's
being "nutty". We all know that Pirsig is nutty about the MOQ and that
SOM is part of it and that is why a group of people finds it worth
discussing his ideas ...some even being a bit nutty about Pirsig. DMB
correctly quotes Pirsig pointing to the short-comings of the SOM which
he mysteriously calls a "metaphysics of substance" at this one instance.
Mysteriously because SOM is as much a metaphysics of "mind". It is a
metaphysics of a MIND/SUBSTANCE split for Chrissake!!!!!
Glenn:
> Yes, Pirsig is over-the-top about SOM just as Wilber is about
> scientism. And yes, both show a sad-sack resentment toward the modern
> scientific world. Thanks for the quotes supporting this opinion.
And this split does not bring Wilber over-the-top, he just wants the mind
part sanctified - like a million plus other well-meaning writers, but that
has nothing to do with the MOQ.
Bo
>>
Hello All...
Bo,
I agree.
Pirsig says nothing and everything.
Quality is like that - one cannot hold onto it.
On the other hand, a metaphysics which puts quality in the centre is rather
like Plotinus placing The One at the centre. Its where we come from and where
we are going.
What we do while detached from the one is within our hands to manipulate, and
if we contrast and compare Wilbur and Pirsig, we may appreciate that Pirsig,
once having said what he feels needs to be said, leaves it at that. Wilbur
will be publishing books for years to come i would venture, and his admirers
will have an increasing pallet of thinks to say, much of which will be
verbiage.
All the best,
Squonk.
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