From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Jan 08 2005 - 17:41:49 GMT
Hi Chin:
You and I seem especially interested in intuition, so I've changed the
name of the thread and hope others will chime on on the subject.
> Chin earlier)What I believe is that this mystical experience does come from
> > the mind, in that it is intuitive.
>
> Platt)I also believe mystical experience is intuitive since it is what we
> experience before we put anything into words.
>
> Chin)Such as in DQ?
Yes.
> If you have read of this intuition, I would like to get a philosophical
> view of it since I have not devoted much time to it. All that I remember
> reading has only been a hint of what I would think intuition would mean.
> For a philosopher, it would mean knowing the color red, or a blind man
> knowing light(?)
I think that's right. I can't offer you a philosophical view of intuition
other the following few notes I've made on the subject over the years.
They represent only the tip of the iceberg so to speak, so please
consider them only as thought starters for possible future discussion.
Pirsig on Intuition:
"Intuition sometimes is an equivalent of Dynamic Quality. However, its also a
kind of biological instinct. Since Western philosophy confuses these two, the
MOQ avoids the term." (Annotations to Copleston Article)
Intuition at Front Edge of Experience
Intuition, the direct perception as felt on the pulses, is our sensory link to
Ultimate Value, the direct experience beyond words.
Reality is not a concept, it's an experience felt on the pulses by pure intuition.
In the broad sense, "experience" is simply synonymous with direct
apprehension, immediate givenness, intuition--sensory, mental, and spiritual.
Intuition sees values in the now moment. Perception makes identities (names)
with rudimentary links to the past. Concepts isolate common attributes and
make patterns (units), classes, and abstractions to hold past, present and
future.
Nature of Intuition
Saint Augustine 's answer to the riddle of time. "When I do not ask the
question, I know the answer." Thought cannot grasp, but intuition can.
Realize that all understanding depends on this "descent into ourselves."
Intuition is immediate insight into the nature of relations whereby we recognize
distinctions and identities, contradictions and entailments. Thus the mind
perceives that white is not black, that a circle is not a triangle, that three are
more than two, and equal to one and two. Such kinds of truths the mind
perceives at the first sight of the ideas together, by bare intuition, without the
intervention of any other idea. Susan Langor.
It is fruitless to answer ultimate questions using words and ideas. The answers
can only be hinted at through intuition.
Dynamic understanding cannot be captured by definitions. The Tao Te Ching
says, "He who speaks does not know. He who knows does not speak."
Things which are intellectually meaningless nevertheless have value. Pirsig.
Intuition Related to Aesthetics
Beauty is an intuitive perception, not an intellectual concept.
A painting is seen in toto first. The understanding begins with an intuition of
the whole presented feeling, just as in real life we make instant whole
judgments. A painting has an instant personality.
Beauty is our intuitive guide to truth. That which is the most beautiful is the
most real.
The author Louis L'Amore makes the point that all great artists rely on their
subconscious, i.e. intuition. He says to get a technique that will allow your
subconscious to go to work on what you're doing.
Penrose: His best work arose not from any deductive logical process but
from intuitions and insights into an indescribably beautiful Platonic
realm.
One of the central emotions of intuition and a major clue to the quality of the
revelation is a sense of esthetic pleasure. Something in true intuition elicits
the same response as a painting, a song, or the resolution of a well-told tale.
It has a certain symmetry and coherence, a sense of balance and inevitability. When an idea doesn't fit it is like a dab of the wrong color on a painting or the wrong dialogue in a play. It projects dissonance. When people are asked how they can distinguish the exceptional intuition from the mediocre, it is beauty that comes up consistently.
History of Intuition
Knowledge to ancient man seems to have been mainly intuition, and his
intuition told him that man, earth, planets and stars are interrelated. But his
knowledge hardly extended beyond intuition.
Bicameral mind, the switch from intuition to intellect, happened sometime
between the building of the pyramids in 2500 BC and the birth of Pythagoras
in 500 BC. Christianity was a revival of the mystic against the practicality of
the Romans and the Stoicism of Greeks as helpless in the face of natural
forces.
Why did ego-consciousness (rationality) develop? Because intuition, instinct
was too sure of itself, therefore lazy and repetitive. Man has achieved more in
3,000 years of bicameral consciousness than in the previous million years of
inner unity.
How to Take Advantage of Intuition
Greater faith in and more awareness of intuition improves the quality of intuition.
Confident thoughts along with the conviction that you deserve and expect not
only an answer but the best answer stirs intuition to positive action.
Intuition expresses itself not in words but in promptings. Such things tend to
disappear unless you write them down.
Instead of worshipping rationality, we should worship the beginning of
rationality, the idea that came out of nowhere that rationality was worth
fuller development. In other words, worship the out of nowhere thought,
the intuition, the impulse and then say WAIT before you decide to discard
it as having no useful value.
Hope you find something here, Chin, that will spark more of your ideas on
the subject.
Best,
Platt
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