Hi Scott,
As always you make me think and thus to act as a catalyst for clarity!! I
will rearrange your post to cite agreements first than any remaining issues.
Scott: And I say that maps that emphasize a non-mapped reality are of less
> value than maps that wonder about maps, and in general would prefer to
> drop the map/reality distinction, but not the maps/Quality distinction.
>
GARY'S RESPONSE: I believe that we are talking about the same thing. my
map/territory or map/reality can be re-labeled, as you have done, as
maps/Quality. I think that Quality is the right term for our forum. But in
a non-MOQ forum, the map/territory or map/reality labels are valid and
similar terms. Which is of course what you are saying: [Scott: ]"Way, way
back I said there is a territory: Quality. But Quality is
> featureless, formless, etc. Therefore it is unmappable. Everything else
> is a map, in the sense that it is a system of signs. A sign is a thing
> that leads us through itself to other things."
> Gary Jaron wrote:
>
> > But if all our
> > beliefs, ideas, theories, etc can be called maps- this is all the that
we
> > can know, then why is there not a territory? Isn't the making of maps,
our
> > attempts at describing the experience of living , all about referring to
a
> > territory , a thing external to our internal experience? Help me out
here,
> > I don't understand.
>
>
> Way, way back I said there is a territory: Quality. But Quality is
> featureless, formless, etc. Therefore it is unmappable. Everything else
> is a map, in the sense that it is a system of signs. A sign is a thing
> that leads us through itself to other things. But (and here I am passing
> on revelation, so to speak, ie, I can't prove this, but I think it is an
> idea worth contemplating), these other things are themselves signs,
> leading us ever onto further signs. You said it a while back: perception
> is a kind of thinking. Barfield calls it figuration. This implies that
> nothing exists except concepts. So, all is word-like, not thing-like.
> Add Quality to move us through the words, and you've got a Universe.
> There is nothing external to our experience "about which" we make
> concepts. Instead we make concepts in order to have experience. Or
> rather, "In the beginning was the Logos" -- concepts speak in us, making
> a temporary division into observer and observed.
>
> (The preceding is, I realize, not fully coherent, and is not intended to
> be contained within the MOQ.)
GARY'S RESPONSE: I like your Reform MOQ thinking! I don't beleive in
Solipism, which is the 'Nothing exists except concepts." It is correct that
if you are, metaphorically speaking, standing in one's mind, what I call
Q-Intellect, then everything appears to be only words/maps/concepts, all the
Internal Reality stuff. But, all one needs to do is recall: everything
existed before I was born and everything will exist after I die, hence there
is an "out there", a External Real.
I think that the forcing of an either/or choice between: "Instead we make
concepts in order to have experience." and the "our experience about which
we make concepts" , is a false A-Logic choice. Null-A logic recognizes that
we are describing a dynamic process of experience and concepts occuring in a
unending flow and both are happening at the same time. Each affecting the
other. Hence my often repeated phrase: People shape, and are shaped by,
ideas. It is a dynamic dialogue between us and reality/Qualtiy.
I like what you said and it is hard to make coherent. Coherentcy has to be,
by the nature of our thought processes and the nature of our language, a
linear sequential activity. We are dealing with a non-linear,
non-sequential, seemlees dynamic. Which is why I point to the map/quality
phrase to remind us that we think linerally and sequentially and Quality is
not 100% linear or sequential.
>
>
> > [Scott]> Now as to whether the mystic's knowledge is certain.
Merrell-Wolff
> > says
> >
> >>it is (the transcendent knowledge, remember, not the map). You say it
> >>isn't. How do you know? I don't know that it is. But I'll take
> >>Merrell-Wolff's word over yours. And that is because what he does
> >>describe and the way he explains it makes more sense than your
> >> metaphysics.
> >
> > GARY: Here you seem to point out the same thing. Transcendent knowledge
is
> > certain knowledge. Now, it is okay for him to believe this. It is okay
for
> > you to believe this. Hey, I believe a lot of what the Rabbi's taught,
not
> > all, but a good deal. I also believe what Pirsig wrote and Lao Tsu.
But,
> > real honesty leads me to say that belief does not make it true.
>
>
> [Scott:] Right here is where you have apparently been misreading me. This
"belief
> does not make it true" is, of course, correct for those stuck in
> relative consciousness. Merrell-Wolff's point is that when in
> transcendent consciousness there is no more "belief". there is only
> Truth. I depend on belief (rightly or wrongly). The mystic claims not
> to. So of course my putting my trust in mystics is a belief, not truth.
>
GARY'S RESPONSE: My point is that while in transcendent consciousness
there is no more belief. I see that the act of describing the experience
and the knowledged gained from transcendent consciousness is no longer an
act of and no longer an act in the state of transcendent consciousness.
Thus is a non-transcendent consciousness process. A process of making maps.
The act of understanding any Quality event is an act that takes place after
the event you are trying to understand. The event is dynamic and
simultaneous interaction. The process of understanding is a Q-intellect
activity of mental processing, a non-introception activity. I tend to
focus on processes and try to see that the process flows from one stage to
another. I deferentiate stages. I thus make static what is dynamic, but I
do so in trying to bring clarity.
In the moment of introception, the moment of transcendent conscious
connection with the Divine, there is "only Truth." This is a feeling, a
part of the experience of introception. That feeling is true for the one
who feels it, not necessarliy true when it has to be put into words. Or at
the very least not 100% TRUTH. There are other maps and other words by
other mystics.
Which is all another way to say from the web site: "Wolff emphasizes that
these propositions, like his philosophy as a whole, are conceptual symbols
of an ineffable Reality. Moreover, Wolff acknowledges that the Realizations
upon which his philosophy is based are not necessarily ultimate, and are
authoritative only for Wolff and anyone who has had similar Realizations. "
We are both orbiting around similar ideas of reality,
Gary
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 : Fri Oct 25 2002 - 16:06:16 BST