From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Jan 02 2005 - 01:42:50 GMT
MSH, Sam, Ham, Paul and all:
"Philosophical mysticism, the idea that truth is indefinable and can be
apprehended only by non-rational means, has been with us since the
beginning of history." (Pirsig in ZAMM, p25)
Paul said to msh:
....... The MOQ is Pirsig's attempt to bring something which cannot be
arrived at rationally, but is readily experienced nonetheless, into a
rational framework. Just remember that rational does not mean SOM, so
don't criticise the MOQ for not starting with SOM assumptions such as a
fundamental internal/external category into which value must fit.
dmb chimes in:
Exactly. The same SOM assumptions that raise questions of internalisty and
externality are contained in the opinion that the mystical experience is a
private, subjective experience. The same infection is apparent when one asks
who is having the mystical experience. Or when the ineffable nature of the
mystical reality is asserted, when the mystic says that the primary reality
is prior to and beyond all definitions, the same mistaken assumptions will
lead one to see this as an evasion of the issue rather than the accurate and
central description that it is. On and on it goes. This is the blindspot. I
had planned to use Alan Watts' work to help break it down, and I still hope
to have time for that, but our own Paul Turner has been working on the same
problem in other threads and it would seem wasteful not to use it here.
Paul said to Ham:
What I am saying is that Dynamic Quality is sensed, therefore, prior to any
intellectual differentiations being made, pure sense data is Dynamic Quality
i.e., pure sense data is pure undifferentiated value. (And later said:) The
proposition is that there is something there, Northrop calls it a continuum,
and it is ultimately without stable differentiation but sensed nonetheless.
This is reality, it is where it all begins for everyone. It is what is
returned to on enlightenment.
dmb adds:
Yep, the Alpha and the Omega, that which is prior to and beyond all static
forms. And I'm not putting it in religious terms to be funny or to mock
anyone. As I understand it, despite the epistemological approach taken by
Paul here, we are most certainly talking about "religious" things when we
are talking about enlightenment. "Satori" was the answer Paul gave when
asked for an example of undifferentiated experience.
Paul said to Ham:
It is not so much that it (DQ) is the *source of* experience, rather that it
*is* pure experience. I see that you find it necessary to postulate
something that exists apart from experience. This is what is causing our
disagreement. You replace the reality that is known through mystical
experience with a hypothetical source of which there is no experience.
You are placing logical necessity over empirical experience because you
seem to reject the credibility of undifferentiated (i.e. mystic)
experience and its place in metaphysics. This is precisely the problem
with western metaphysics that the MOQ is trying to overcome and that
many eastern philosophies have resolved.
dmb says:
The blindspot that's caused the disagreement between between Sam and I has
also caused a disagreement between Paul and Ham. I think Westerners have to
work to overcome it. I have to say that even msh, who I seem to agree with
on all practical matters, still suffers from it too. In the West, those who
assert that the world is an illusion are considered crazy or worse. To the
Western mind, one has to be out of their mind to believe such a thing - at
least for a moment. Cause that's the trap. And in terms of experiencing the
pre-intellectual reality, losing one's mind is a terrible thing to waste.
Paul said:
The self/other dualism is contained within static quality where it is no
longer considered fundamental to the structure of reality/experience.
dmb adds:
Right, the self/other dualism is woven into a giant web of deductions, of
static patterns that are quite real and good from a static point of view.
The distinction between my face and your fist, for example, may be of
crucial importance when I want to point out that your momma is fat.
(Just in case they don't do momma jokes in England or elsewhere, I should
say that I'm kidding.)
But seriously, I think its that same Western tendency toward misconceptions
on this matter that lead people to think that the ego self is what gets
enlightened, the subjective self gets an instant PhD in everything, as if
the mystical experience were like a magical trip to the library of congress
where you could read everybook in the world and know all things in the world
in an instant. Or they get the idea that the self has to be extinguished
about halfway right and think it means retreating into a monastary, being a
milquetoast, pasty faced, humorless, personalityless boob. Not so. Denying
dualism is supposed to get us to stop looking at reality through concepts
for a moment. The little self, the subjects and objects we take for reality
itself are all such concepts. They are real AS concepts. Its hard to see,
but all of those concepts are the products of long chains of deductions we
make about the more primary reality. We first went through that chain as a
part of the maturation process and as adults we do it constantly without
effort all the time. Well, most of the time. But when the mind is quiet and
still...
dmb
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