From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Mon Nov 15 2004 - 02:01:27 GMT
Scott and all MOQers:
dmb says:
I'd like to take a look at the quotes from "Franklin Merrell-Wolff (all
taken from the chapter "A Mystical Unfoldment" from Philosophy of
Consciousness Without an Object, reprinted in Experience and Philosophy)"
and compare them to Pirsig's ideas. Why? Because you seem to be posting them
in order to differ from Pirsig, but I think they are very much on the same
page, because you seem to think Pirsig needs what FMW has, but I think he
already has that - and then some....
"I had attained an intellectual grasp of the vitally important fact that
transcendent consciousness differs from our ordinary consciousness in the
primary respect that that it is a state of consciousness wherein the
disjunction between the subject to consciousness and the object of
consciousness is destroyed."
dmb says:
Doesn't Pirsig say the same thing, that subjects and objects are an
intellectual construct and that immediate experience comes before this
distinction is made? You bet he does. "Pure experience cannot be called
either physical or psychical: it logically precedes this distinction."
(Lila, 29)That's all he means when he says its "pre-intellectual" awareness,
consciousness without subjects and objects. See? He's not saying that this
form of awareness is stupid or devoid of content or whatever it is that has
you objecting, he's just saying that the primary reality is undivided and
that subjects and objects are the illusions necessary for normal waking
consciousness, but which may be absent in a mystical experience, which
"cleanses the doors of perception", as Blake put it.
[The following is one of several effects noticed after his first Awakening.]
"3. There is a sense of enormous *depth penetration* with two phases barely
distinguishable during this first phase of insight. The first phase is
highly noetic but superconceptual. [Footnote: By "superconceptual" I mean
beyond the the form of all possible concepts that can be clothed in words.
However, the nature of this knowledge is nearer to that of our purest
concepts than it is to perceptual consciousness.] I had awareness of a kind
of thought of such an enormous degree of abstraction and universality that
it was barely discernible as being of noetic character. If we were to
regard our most abstract concepts as being of the nature of tangible
bodies, containing a hidden but substantial meaning, then this transcendent
thought would be of the nature of the meaning without the conceptual
embodiment. It is the compacted essence of thought, the "sentences" of
which would require entire lifetimes for their elaboration in objective
form and yet remain unexhausted at the conclusion of such effort. In my
relative consciousness, I knew that I KNEW in cosmical proportions.
However, no brain substance could be so refined as to be capable of
attunement to the grand cosmical tread of those Thoughts."
dmb says:
Superconceptual, the compacted essence of thought, each sentence of which
would require entire lifetimes to elaborate upon, knowledge of cosmological
proportions. I think its pretty clear that he is comparing the experience to
normal abstract thought and noraml analytical thinking, which would
correspond to Pirsig's intellectual static patterns, but he's only doing so
to describe how much this form of consciousness IS NOT LIKE normal waking
consciousness. He's drawing a stark line between the two and is in fact
painting a pretty good picture of what Pirsig described as the main idea in
philosophical mysticism, that the ultimate reality is beyond words and
concepts.
"It is not the more familiar analytic kind of intellection.
...But there is another kind of intellection in
which the concept is born spontaneously and has a curious identity with its
object. The Life-force either brings to birth in the mind the concepts
without conscious intellectual labor or moves in parallelism with such
birth. Subsequently, when these concepts are viewed analytically and
critically, I find them almost invariably peculiarly correct. In fact, they
generally suggest correlations that are remarkably clarifying and have
enabled me to check my insight with the recognition of others."
dmb says:
Doesn't this remind you of what happened to Pirsig in that teepee, where
"his mind turned to the contemplation of complex transcendental realities",
where he recieved the original insight, and then started latching it all
down in the usual laborous way with his slips of paper and research and
such? Sure it does. He learned something from this "superconceptual" realm
and the validity of this insight is on display in the two books we are all
here to discuss. And when I check his insights with others, it actually
works.
"Abstract ideas cease to be artificial derivatives from a particularized
expereince, but are transformed into a sort of universal substantiality."
dmb says:
I think we hear the same thing from Pirsig when he says that ideas are as
real as rocks and trees.
"I feel myself closer to universals than to the particulars given through
experience, the latter occupying an essentially derivative position and
being only of instrumental value, significant solely as implements for the
arousing of self-consciousness. As a consequence, my ultimate philosophic
outlook cannot be comprehended within the forms that assume time, the
subject-object relationship, and experience as original and irreducible
constants of consciousness or reality. At the same time, although I find
the Self to be an element of consciousness of more fundamental importance
than the foregoing three, yet in the end it, also, is reduced to a
derivative position in a more ultimate Reality."
dmb says:
Its more difficult to point to anything very specific, but I still see a
remarkable similarity in Pirsig's attitude toward truth (intellectual static
patterns) as ever evolving, ever changing, and as useful and good insofar as
they promote the larger and ongoing free force of life. The static patterns
are seen as servants of life and become sort of transparent to that purpose
instead of the cold hard facts of scientific objectivity.
Scott concluded:
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:
Hopefully my post in the "Empiricism" thread has already addressed your
charge of having a "limited empirical viewpoint". And I hope that same
explanation, the three eyes, has also made it clear that mysticism is not
excluded by my demand for empirical evidence. Hopefully its is now clear
that explaining mysticism itself, as well as the insights he gained during
such an experience, what the task that got Pirsig started in the first
place. This is what I mean when I say the MOQ already includes what you wish
to add. You're letting the words, labels, the jargon get in the way.
Clearly, if "Intellect" with a capital "I" is that which is "prior to
empirical reality", then surely it refers to what Pirsig would call DQ, the
primary empirical reality and can only be CONTRASTED to the 4th level of
static patterns. See? If you look at the ideas behind the words, it doesn't
matter what we call it. (Except, as is apparently necessary in your case,
when we have to sort out the confusion that such translations can cause.)
Take the following quote for example. You have Plotinus opposed to Pirsig
based on their differing uses of the word "intellect", but as the quote
posted by Dan shows, they are refering to entirely different things with
that word...
"It is precisely because that is nothing within the One that all things are
from it: in order that Being may be brought about, the source must be no
Being but Being's generator, in what is to be thought of as the primal act
of generation. Seeking nothing, possessing nothing, lacking nothing, the One
is perfect and, in our metaphor, has overflowed, and its exuberance has
produced the new: this product has turned again to its begetter and been
filled and has become its contemplator and so an Intellectual-Principle."
dmb continues:
Do you see that Plotinus is here describing what Pirsig would call DQ? He's
using the phrase intellectual-principle to describe it. And the thing that
Pirsig would describe as an intellectual principle is here described as the
"product that has turned again to its begetter". I think nearly everthing
you post could be interpreted to fit with the MOQ and I honestly think these
interpretaions that have the quotes in oppostion to Pirsig are just plain
wrong. We could go through them all one by one if you like, but I'm getting
a little weary. Instead, do me a favor will you? Read what I posted this
weekend. There were serveral different threads and topic involved, but they
are all inter-related and mutually supportive.
It seems to me that we are not so very far apart and get excited by many of
the same thinkers. But I'm totally frustrated at this idea that they do
anything other than illuminate what Pirsig is saying and vice versa. The
idea that you're using these same thinkers to criticize Pirsig's MOQ is just
killing me. Its upside down and backwards. Its like you've hauled in a ton
of evidence for the prosecution, but it only helps the defense.
And the defense doesn't necessarily rest its case at this point, but he sure
could use a nap. Thanks.
dmb
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