Scott and all posters:
Thanks for the Barfield quotes. I think introducing that kind of detailed
info goes a long way toward explaining the MOQ, and the world in general.
Scott wrote:
Barfield calls this pre-intellectual kind of consciousness "original
participation", with the word "participation" being this experience of
the spiritual in perception. What has happened in the shift to
SO-Intellect is that this participation has "gone inside", into our
unconscious, so to speak. If it weren't there, we wouldn't be perceiving
anything at all. For the mystic, it has become conscious again, but not
in the same way -- and of course that is indescribable as well.
DMB says:
Scientific objectivity tends to see pre-intellectual worldviews as ignorant
and superstitious, but their complexity and richness is being re-discovered.
I recently read two books that focused on re-assessing the ancients. They
were THE ETERNAL HERMES: From Greek God to Alchemical Magus by Antoine
Faivre and Peter Kingsley's ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY, MYSTERY AND MAGIC:
Empedocles and the Pythagorean Tradition. And of course there's Ken Wilber's
work. Since all this stuff has "gone inside" it seems like its quite worth
knowing about. Its been transcended, but also included.
Scott wrote:
THe Greeks started the process, but it took 2000 years before it became
common to think "I am my mind", and until one does, one doesn't have
SO-intellect. The Greeks and the medievals were concerned mainly with
the appearance/reality distinction, not the mind/body distinction.
DMB says:
The timeline seems ok, but I wouldn't characterize the main concerns of the
ancients or medievals the way you do here. Wilber's terms, mythic and
rational, or Pirsig's, social and intellectual, characterize the
distinctions well.
Scott wrote
"Evolution of consciousness" is Barfield's phrase, which if you like can
be replaced with "evolution of awareness". As to the value of the S/O
divide, I agree and disagree. Agree since in the current stage, which
Barfield characterizes as "participation gone inside, into our
unconscious" (that's my paraphrase, not a direct quote from Barfield),
our consciousness is S/O consciousness -- it's all we (normally) have.
But I don't see it as valuable in itself. Rather, it is a necessary
stage to go through to final participation (Barfield's term again). What
we have here, as you may have gathered, is the Fall and a promised
Redemption.
DMB says:
The fall and a promised redemption. Hmmm. This demonstrates how mythic
thinking can be incorporated successfully into the intellectual level. Nice.
And I thinks its quite right SOM is a necessary stage. It has dis-integrated
the mythic world view, but that's what has to happen at the beginning of a
new phase or new level. Hopefully a new worldview that has been
re-integrated will emerge, one that goes beyond mere materialism, and the
limits of SOM will melt away.
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