From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Oct 31 2004 - 01:15:31 BST
Erin:
"Observable" things constitute just one kind of experience, sensory
experience. And traditionally, this is the only kind of experience that
really counts, but this is one of the limitations that Pirsig wants to
overcome with an expanded empiricism.
But think of Hamlet. One could weigh and measure its lenth, count the words
and such, but that's no good. If you want to experience Hamlet then you have
to read the play. (or attend a performance) You have to get into the
dialogue and characters and plot points. You have to enter into its
intersubjective space, where the motives of the characters and the meaning
of the words is understood even though these things are outside the text
itself. In other words, you're having a mental experience. That's how you
experience Hamlet and lots of other things. This experience can be reported
and varified by others who also read the book.
I don't know about ESP, but lets say a mystical experience is the prime
example of the next "level" of experience. This is akin to the mental
experience in that it is not of the senses, that it is an interior event, if
you will. But this can be repeated and varified by people who can "read" at
this level. This is more difficult because of the relative rarity of such
persons, but there are people who can achieve altered states reliably and
report them. Ken Wilber pulls these reports together and has already begun
the process of establishing something like an empirical spirtuality. There
have always been masters, gurus who are checking the progress of students in
this way, but Wilber hopes to make it scientific, for lack of a better word.
If I weren't such a blow-hard, I'd just say that sensory experience isn't
the ONLY kind of experience. And ironically, the reasons for excluding other
kinds of experience are metaphysical reasons, not ones based on experience.
Again I am going to play the MOQ skeptic,if somebody came in and claimed
they had ESP, it would not be described as empirical because there was no
observable evidence of their "experience" so why should I grant the
empirical label to your "experiences" of Quality when you have given no
observable evidence of it.
Erin
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