John, Glenn, Platt, 3WD, Bo, and all MOQists:
John said:
The question of Wilber and the MOQ raises three issues for me.
1 The rather stupid judgement that unless Wilber says exactly the same
things as Pirsig, and in the same terminology, he is just laughably wrong. I
am completely in agreement with David in this. There are none so blind as
those who will not see, and the narrow understanding of SOM betrayed by most
Wilber critics in this forum simply shows a virulent form of MOQ
fundamentalism is already growing. We have our saviour - everyone else go
away.
DMB says:
Right. To express an idea in different ways and in different terms is only
supposed to help. Its like looking at the same thing from various angles.
You only get a better view. That's why I find it so interesting and useful
to quote Wilber. It forces us to examine ideas without getting stuck on the
specific terms. Both P and W agree that subjects and objects are preceeded
by and are inferior to a more primary and essential reality. So what if they
call it by different names. A rose is a rose. I mean, how obtuse does a
person have to be to argue that a car is completely different than an
automobible. I hesitate to use the word "stupid", but it really is quite,
well... stupid.
John B said:
2 3WD's helpful contribution makes the point that Wilber "extends
"subjective" or internal values to all of reality from quarks to humans". I
think this is a weakness of Wilber's position, or perhaps it suffers from
the weakness that it is all too easily be distorted into a laughable
caricature. Platt's quote from Pirsig is helpful in this regard.
"I think the answer is that inorganic objects experience events but do
not react to them biologically, socially or intellectually. The react to
these experiences inorganically, according to the laws of physics."
DMB says:
That's a great example of two differing descriptions of the same idea.
Wilber expresses the rather remarkable notion that even subatomic particles
have some kind of internal reality, something your standard SOM view would
never allow. Likewise, Pirsig says inorganic objects react to their
experiences. How anyone can look at these two statements and fail see that
they are expressing the same idea is beyond me. Its obvious. And arguement
about the obvious is not very productive and its not much fun. (BO, please
notice that neither of them are rejecting the existence of subjects or
objects.) And if we're not here to discuss IDEAS, then what's it all about?
Forcing everyone to adopt the same TERMS? I think not.
John B said:
3 There is a big difference between what Wilber sets out to do and what
Pirsig sets out to do. Pirsig is quite explicit in his desire to write a
metaphysics in Lila. Despite the talk about showing and telling, and so on,
this is both the strength and weakness of his undertaking. He wants to
present a consistent mental construct for our experience of 'reality', and
so values clarity, economy, and so on, but also logic, definition, and other
'academic' tools. The problem with this is that in Wilber's aphorism,
metaphysics can be "thought without evidence".
DMB says:
Right. There are plenty of differences between the two thinkers, but IMO
they only compliment each other. For my taste, Wilber beats the hell out of
Pirsig when it comes to psychology, but Pirsig's explanation of recent
history is much cleaner. And even where they might disagee, its pretty damn
interesting. Its like watching two world heavy weights. They're both
excellent. Its just that they each have there own styles. To see past that
is a trivial matter, no?
John B said:
Wilber's approach is to take all the available systems of organising
'reality' that have some rigour about them, and assume that they must have
some 'truth' to them to have survived. He then attempts to find overarching
generalisations that allow us to put them into a larger structure so that
nothing important is omitted ( the major problem with science) and in this
attempt arrives at many conclusions that are indeed very similar to those of
Pirsig. However, the process is something like what Pirsig describes in his
discussion of Poincare in ZMM. Two different realms of investigation end up
arriving at a very similar place, but from very different starting points.
The analogy of the varying paths to the top of the mountain also fits.
DMB says:
Exactly. And the two paths are important too. They compliment each other.
Wilber, for example, doesn't use any "analytical knife" analogies, at least
as far as I know. Yet he slices and dices philosophers all the same. They
both travel the well worn paths, both refer to previous thinkers and both
find great values in the very same figures, James and Eckhart just to name a
couple. They veer off in different directions here and there but end up in
the same spot. And as Wilber said of Bertrand Russell and William James, if
those two guys can come to the same conclusion about something, then it must
be true.
John B said:
The discussion so far in this forum on this issue has been characterised by
narrow prejudice, rather than openness to 'truth'. I find it sad that
otherwise intelligent people have to resort to such low levels of argument
to support the MOQ. I do not see myself as a supporter of Pirsig, or Wilber.
I am intrigued by the commonality of their views, while wanting to honour
their differences. At the end of the day the MOQ will thrive or otherwise in
as much as it furthers our search to understand 'what is'. Name calling and
ignorant attacks on other views will not help to advance this one iota.
DMB says:
Yea, and I'd add that it often devolves into some kind of grudge match. It
seems like anything I say tends to be disputed just because I was the one to
say it. That's not exactly intellectual honesty at its best. What if I told
you that all this time I've been writing under a pseudonym and that my name
is really Robert Pirsig? Would you then be so quick to disagee with me? Go
ahead, tell me what my book is about. Apparently, you understand it better
than I do.
Thanks for your time,
guess who?
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:02:15 BST