From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Nov 14 2004 - 21:43:13 GMT
MSH, Scott and all MOQers:
Mark Steven Heyman asked:
...isn't there something about mystical revelations that makes them
impossible to verify, by definition?
In the Copleston annotations, on Coleridge, Pirsig says:
"The MOQ denies this. (That Reason perceives truths which are incapable of
verification in sense-experience.) Reason grows out of experience and is
never independent from it.
Scott commented:
As an immediate counter-example, there is mathematics. Mathematics is
non-empirical reality. ...In sum, you can choose to stick to the limited
empirical viewpoint, with its limited view of mysticism, or you can choose
to
understand that Merrell-Wolff has rediscovered what Plotinus and others
mean by Intellect as prior to empirical reality. In my opinion, the MOQ can
be expanded into a more adequate philosophy by these kind of insights.
dmb says:
I think Mark's rational empiricism is two thirds of the way there and Scott
is extremely confused. First of all, I'd argue that the MOQ is already broad
enough and already includes "these kinds of insights". Also, the MOQ
expands empiricism way beyond the standard versions so that mystical
experience can count as a valid form of empirical evidence. This is what I
was getting at some weeks back with the concept of epistemological
pluralism. Remember that?
In any case, to take your counter-example for example, its clear that you
have not noticed what this expanded empiricism means. As MSH has pointed
out, mental experience counts as experience within rational empiricism.
Unlike the most narrow kind of empiricism, where only sensory exprience
counts, rational empiricism would most definately say that mathematical is
an entirely empirical reality. But for guys like Wilber and Pirsig, we can
add an eye of spirit to the eyes of the mind and of the flesh. All emphasis
and parenthemtical info is Ken Wilber's...
"As G.Spencer Brown said, its very like baking a pie; you follow the recipe
(the injunction), you bake the pie, and tehn you actually taste it. To the
question, 'What does pie taste like", we can only give the recipe to those
who inquire and let them taste it for themselves.
Likewise with the existence of Spirit: we CANNOT theoretically or verbally
or philosophicall or rationally or mentally describe the answer in any other
ultimately satisfactory fashion except to say; ENGAGE THE INJUNCTION. If you
want to KNOW this, you must DO this. Any other appraoch and we would be
trying to use the eye of the mind to see or state that which can be seen
only with the eye of contemplation, and thus we would have nothing but
metaphysics in the very worst sense - statements without evidence.
Thus; take up the injunction or paradigm of meditation; polish and practice
that cognitive tool until awareness learns to discern the incredibly subtle
phenomena of spiritual data; chech your observatons with others who have
done so, much as mathematicians will check their interior proofs with others
who have completed the injunctions; and thus confirm or reject your results.
And in the verification of that transcendental data, the existence of Spirit
will become radiantly clear - at least as clear as rocks are to the eye of
flesh and geometry is to the eye of the mind.
We have ssen that authentic spirituality is not the product of the eyye of
flesh and its sensory empiricism, not the eye of mind and its rational
empirisicm, but only, finally , the eye of contemplationn andk it spiritual
empirisim(religious experience, spiritual illumination, or satori, by
whatever name).
In the West, since Kant - and since the differentiations of modernity -
religion (and metaphysics in gernal) has fallen on hard times. I maintain
that it has done so precisely because it attempted to do with the eye ofthe
mind that which can only be done with the eye of contemplation. Becaseu the
mind could not actually deliver the metaphysical goods, and yet kept loudly
claiming that it could, somebody was bound to blow the whistle and demand
real evidence. Kant made the demand, and metaphysics collasped - and rightly
so, in its typical form."
In sum, a lot more counts as empirical when where talking about all three
eyss, see? Below, I've added some parenthetical info to Pirsig's comments to
show how they connect with Wilber's thoughts...
"When an American Indian goes into isolation and fasts in order to achieve a
vision, the vision he seeks in not a romantic understanding of the surface
beauty of the world. (Its not seen with the eye of flesh) Neither is it a
vision of the world's classic intellectual form. (Its not seen with the eye
of the mind) It is something else. Since this whole metaphysics had started
with an attempt to explain Indian mysticism (Seen with the eye of
contemplation.)Phaedrus finally abandoned this classic-romatic split as a
choice for the primary division of the MOQ. The division he finally setttled
was one he didn't really choose..."
And as we all know he settles upon static and Dynamic and the primary
division in the MOQ. This move is made, as Pirsig says, because the whole
thing got started as an attempt to explain mysticism, something SOM just
can't accept. Rational empiricism is limited in this same sense, but its two
thirds of the way there.
And that's why the Cyclops is such a monster.
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