From: david buchanan (dmbuchanan@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat Aug 06 2005 - 04:08:36 BST
Ham and all MOQers:
Ham said:
>Since, according to Kaufman, awareness cannot exist in the absence of a
>duality, the inference is that Consciousness -- his Absolute Existence --
>is
>non-sentient. (Can "just being itself" possibly imply "feeling itself"?)
>Although the author's footnotes remind us that Consciousness is only "what
>we call that which exists, which can't be named, because naming is
>defining,
>and in defining it, it's not that," I find his concept of an insentient
>consciousness implausible and certainly paradoxical.
dmb says:
I'm only going on the brief quotes you've supplied, but Kaufman's position
looks very much like philosophical mysticism to me. He's saying that his
"Absolute Existence" can not be intellectually known or defined. Think about
the implausible concept this way; If Absolute Existence, like DQ, is
experience prior to our dualistic interpretations and is therefore beyond
all dualities, then it is also beyond the duality of sentience and
non-sentience. We can't rightly say it is one or the other. Yes, its
certainly paradoxical. Famously so.
Ham continued:
>To summarize, I think MoQers would find Kaufman's construction of the
>relational model of reality well worth reading vis-a-vis the Quality
>heirarchy, despite minimal discussion of Value in this thesis. Like the
>MoQ, Kaufman's reality is experiential rather than "phenomenal" and shows
>the influence of Taoist teachings. My disappointment with both authors is
>that -- whether Quality or Consciousness is the ultimate reality -- neither
>reality is sentient, and the reader is left with no hope of transcending
>finitude or participating in its absolute Oneness.
dmb says:
I can see why you'd bring Kaufman into it, but let me speak to your
disappointment. For starters, I think my reply to Marsha in the "Where is
the Zen" thread would be a good answer here. I would also point out that
nobody ever promised to provide you with the "hope of transcending finitude
or participating in its absolute Oneness". I only have a vague idea what
that means so let me answer vaguely. If you want to know what such things
can look like, I would suggest that you look to the story in ZAMM, rather
than the mechanics of the metaphysics. Don't forget that we are dealing here
with a work of art. Its a novel, an autobiography and a philosophy all at
the same time. There are reasons for that. Since you have a different life
and a different set of problems your story will be different than his, but
the story of self-transcendence is most definately in there. Its the climax
of the book. And Pirsig's journey is classic. He walked through hell and
lived to talk about it. He wrote a great book about it too. You should check
it out.
Thanks,
dmb
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