RE: MD The MOQ and Mysticism 101

From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Sun Jan 09 2005 - 23:19:48 GMT

  • Next message: Phaedrus Wolff: "Re: MD The MOQ and Mysticism 101"

    Hi Scott, dmb, and all,

    scott:
    There is a sense in which what you say is correct,
    namely, that one cannot with intellect come up with a true
    description of Reality. And one cannot do so since intellect works by
    making distinctions. However, what you are saying in your
    philosophical mysticism is that Reality is the One, the
    "undifferentiated continuum", or DQ. I say that this leaves one last
    dualism to overcome, namely that between the One, on the one hand,
    and the so-called "illusion" (the world of distinctions) on the
    other.

    msh says:
    I think what Scott is saying here well expresses my own discomfort
    with Pirsig's monism. It's easy to see how one idea, or society, or
    organism might be "better" than another, once we are working in our
    everyday world of things: we simply compare stuff and make Quality
    decisions. But so far I haven't been able to understand the
    emergence of the "illusion" of differentiation in the first place.
    The magician has some kind of relationship with his audience, after
    all.

    In an earlier post I asked a question about corrective lenses, which
    I believe is getting at the same problem. If we agree that our
    visual sense data is improved (made more valuable) by wearing
    glasses, then what is the relationship between our eyes, the glasses,
    and DQ? If DQ creates the sense data, what is being corrected by our
    corrective lenses? If DQ is pre-selecting data based on value, then
    it seems that DQ is able to get a little help.

    scott:
    This can be -- not understood, but at least addressed -- by treating
    Reality as that which *creates reality by making distinctions*. All
    such small-r reality is impermanent, of course. But, the one is (and
    is not) the other. Your (and Pirsig's) philosophy just divides them.

    <snip>

    Yes, this is a persistent blind spot among people who talk about
    mysticism. It is rightfully aware that no symbol is the Reality, but
    misses that Reality consists of the continual creation and
    destruction of symbols.

    msh says:
    But this doesn't really answer the question either; it just pushes it
    further up the ontological ladder. For Scott, that which *creates
    reality by making distinctions* is Consciousness, with a capital C.
    Saying that Quality is Conscious, that it creates and destroys
    symbols, tells us nothing about how and why. It doesn't offer a
    mechanism or suggest a relationship. You're just giving the Magician
    a different name.

    Just my two cents, properly confused, as usual.

    Best to all.
    Mark Steven Heyman (msh)

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