From: Scott Roberts (jse885@earthlink.net)
Date: Sun Nov 14 2004 - 18:57:19 GMT
DMB,
> Scott Roberts said:
> I regard "pure experience" as something of a myth, but see below.
> ...The other answer is to assume that it is somehow meaningful to speak of
> consciousness without an object and without a subject. Since this is how
> Franklin Merrell-Wolff describes his mystical experience, I consider him
> worth listening to on this question. If we accept this answer, then our
> inability to think of consciousness except in S/O terms just means that we
> are not finished in terms of the evolution of thinking. ...In my view,
the
> MOQ needs this sort of thinking to become coherent. It could be that what
> Pirsig and James mean by "pure experience" is what Merrell-Wolff means by
> "consciousness without S/O", so it just turns into a question of which
term
> one privileges,...
>
> dmb says:
> You're so close. Its frustrating to watch. Yes, of course Pirsig and
> Merrell-Wolff are talking about the same thing. I'm amazed that you don't
> quite see the connection.
[Scott:] I'm amazed that you are thinking in terms of me being "so close".
I've never denied that all mysticism is talking roughly about the same
(non)-thing. I read Huxley and Watts and Wilber long ago and accepted it.
But, thanks to Merrell-Wolff and Barfield and others, I've realized that
one needs to go beyond their limited view. It is not that they are wrong,
but that they -- and you -- need their horizons broadened. (My turn to
sound arrogant, but I see no other way to put it).
[DMB:] You seem to read all the right stuff, Scott, but
> you read it so badly. Are you one of those geniuses who can hide his
> dyslexia or what? But seriously, is there any meaningful difference
between
> Pirsig's pre-intellectual awareness and Wolff's consciousness without
> subject and object?
[Scott:] Yes. Merrell-Wolff would not talk about it as "pre-intellectual
awareness". See the quotes I gave in "Empiricism and its limitations". For
Merrell-Wolff (and in Plotinus and others) there is a pre-S/O Intellect,
which is missing in Pirsig.
[DMB:] > Are they not just different expessions of a unitary
> experience? You bet they are! Coleridge's descriptions reminded me very
much
> of Pirsig peyote experience too. Behind the differences in emphasis and
> such, it seems very clear to me that they and others are all talking about
> the same thing. And these descriptions match my own experience too. I'd
> never have thought to put it in terms of subjects and objects, but that's
> just a matter of style.
>
> "Pure experience cannot be called either physical or psychical: it
logically
> precedes this distinction." (Lila, 29)
>
> "He thought it was probably the light that infants see when their world
is
> still fresh and whole, before consciousness differentiates it into
> patterns." (Lila, 26)
>
> The idea here is that immediate reality, the experience we have before
> thoughts of subjects and objects or anything else emerges, is undivided.
[Scott:] Merrell-Wolff would not call that "experience".
[DMB:] And
> its not that subject/object thinking itself prevents us from seeing this.
It
> doesn't matter how well such things evolve, division is an inherent part
of
> language and thought as such. Any metaphysics will divide the undivided
and
> there's no getting around it. The static/Dynamic split divides reality
too.
>
> That's why we say DQ is beyond definition and yet we know it from
> experience. Its beyond word and thoughts, yet it is something we can
> experience and it something that can lead us to profound changes in the
way
> we look at the world and respond to life.
>
[Scott:] This ignores that division is an inherent part of all reality
(nirvana = samsara), not just in human S/O language and thought. The key
move that takes one beyond the limited picture of Watts et al is to see
thought (or Intellect) as creating reality through division, not just as a
human device for understanding reality, and that intellectual effort at
purifying itself is a valid path to Intellect.
- Scott
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