>===== Original Message From Diana McPartlin <moq_discuss@moq.org> =====
>
>I'm not convinced that Capra has characterized Eastern mysticism
>correctly. Enlightenment (or dynamic quality) is something that you can
>experience and perhaps describe to a certain extent, but you can't say
>precisely what it is. Buddhists shirk away from writing for fear of
>confusing the words with the real thing. (Of couse we need to use words
>to talk and that's okay as long as you don't forget that they are only
>tools.) I would say that yes, to be enlightened is to go with the flux,
>but it isn't also to not go with the flux? (are you still out there
>donny palmgren? your assistance is required here)
Hello, hello. Always nice to be needed. :)
I don't want to rain any more on anybody's parrade, but I do need to echo what
Diana says here. I read the *Tao of Physics* when I was a senior in high
school, soon after reading ZMM, and I was, at first, thrilled by it. I was
convinced by Capra that science and (Eastern) religion were fast approching
the same destination from oppisite dirrections. Cool!
But since then I've gone on to college and studied Eastern art and philosophy,
and I've had the opertunity to meet people of various Eastern "faiths" and
have even attended servases at Buddhist and Hindu temples. I've grown a lot
more skeptical about Mr. Capera's claims about Eastern thought.
There are, of corse some intresting parallels: The One and the "hollographic
universe," the koans and QM paradoxes... But I am now a thurough-going
believer in the Post-Modern proclamation that the truth/meaning is in the
context ("anti-essentialism" for those of you building your
philoso-vocabularies). Clearly the theories of physicists and the myths,
koans and fortune-telling of the East come out of completly diffrent contexts
and are presented in totaly different ways. The medium is the message.
One thing that we can see that Capra can't is the Soc/IntPoV distinction.
IntPoVs (I'm going to say) relly on the analytic knife, S-O thinking. And
they value percision, comunicability, logical consistancy, etc. This is why
i've said that IntPoVs (as S-O thinking) are unique to what we call in general
"The West." All these Eastern thoughts, myths, religions... function as
SocPoVs. They tend to be anti-S-O, they value poetic vaugueness over
percision, they don't make a big a-do about comunicability, and they also tend
to be anti-logical consistancy. This is why, when Pheadrus went to India w/
his analytic knife he got so frustrated. Hinduism, he found, made no
(intellectual) sense!
This creates a bit of a problem for the MoQ, and lead us to our topic of
"What's DQ?"
On the one hand, Pirsig defines DQ (more or less) as
freedom/inovation/flexability... Dynamic! We can see, in the "evolution" from
InOrg to Bio to Soc to Int, that each level is more flexable, free, and
changes more rapidly than the last. Science (as the Big Boy of IntPoVs) is
more Dynamic, for sure, than Buddhism or Hinduism. It's why our world changes
from generation to generation and theires goes relativly unchanged (unless by
our outside influnce) for centuries. The Greeks did it to us really. it's all
Talies' fault, darn it!
On the other hand, Pirsig also, sometimes, identifies DQ w/ the
"undifferentiated aesthetic continueum" -- pre-knife, pre S-O, reality. This
is certainly weird because the "evolution" of PoVs is moving away from the One
into greater and greater dyversity and greater and greater sub-sub divisions
of sandpiles. The ultimate gole of Taoism is to be as mindless as a rock.
(Boy, would they be depressed if they encountered on of Magnus'
Bio,Soc,Intellectual rocks! ;) ) Taoism and Zen, especially, are quite
anti-social, anti-technology, anti-scholastic, and anti-intellectual. All
that stuff leads you further away from at-one-ment and further into the S-O,
I-This thought trap.
That's a little bit far a field from the *Tao of Physics*... but I just wanted
to show that physics and Taoism are not half a simmiler, I think, as Capra
would have us think. And I'll echo what Diana said: I don't think the "flux"
of physics is the same as Pirsig's DQ or the Chinese "Tao." One of the big
identifying traits of New Age is that it mixes (and badly) psudo-science and
psudo-mysticism. I mean, Zen Quantum Mechanics? Come on.
But i will say, in Capra's defence, that in my book a good Intpov is one that
(dynamically) leads towards some direction of thought you may never have
traveled w/o it. *Tao of physics* was a big gateway book for me, and so for
that, I applaud it.
***
KEITH wrote: "I want to thank Donny for his "Maps and Metaphors" post of
10/2 and Anthony for his "Dynamic Quality" post of earlier today and
the
essay on the website. I enjoyed reading these
immensely--excellentwork!"
Thanks Keith! Anthony, I've only read half of your essay but I really like it
so far. Great work!
***
Since we're discussing defining the undefinable DQ and "can we ever escape the
language of SO-thinking?" I thought I'd leave you w/ a few quotes:
"The best things can not be said. They are beyond words. The second best
things are missunderstood, because they are metaphores but are taken
literally."
(Joseph Campbell paraphrasing Hinrich Zimmer)
Or, if you prefer...
"I know it's hard for you to see
The truth behind this mystery,
But if words could speak they'd mean even less
When the king is half undressed."
(Jellyfish)
TTFN (ta-ta for now)
Donny
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