From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Mon Feb 16 2004 - 16:18:19 GMT
Hi Paul, David B, David M,
Paul raises a valid point about how it's misleading to equate DQ with
Spirit and God because of the religious baggage those latter terms carry.
His most telling point: there's nothing supernatural about DQ. Nor is
there anything supernatural about mysticism. As an ancient Eastern mystic
put it, "Your everyday, ordinary awareness. That is the Tao."
> DM:
> I think the way that much religious thought opposes the limitations of the
> scientific rationalist view contains an awareness of DQ and the dependence
> of SQ (which is analysable) on DQ which is the source of all Being.
My own path to DQ depended a great deal on the "limitations of the
scientific nationalist view" quite apart from any religious thought. It's
apparent to anyone who traces the scientific assumption of causation to
its logical end that one eventually arrives at a cul de sac, a black box,
a dead end, a quantum field of nothingness. Here's how physicist Paul
Davies described the conundrum in his book, "The Mind of God:"
"All three arrangements are founded on the assumption of human
rationality; that it is legitimate to seek 'explanations' for things, and
the we truly understand something only when it is 'explained.' Yet it has
to be admitted that our concept of rational explanation probably derives
from our observations of the world and our evolutionary inheritance. Is it
clear that this provides adequate guidance when we are tangling with
ultimate questions? Might it not be the case that the reason for existence
has no explanation in the usual sense? This does not mean the universe is
is absurd or meaningless, only that an understanding of its existence and
properties lie outside the usual categories of rational human thought. We
have seen how application of the human reasoning in its most refined and
formalized sense--to mathematics--is nevertheless full of paradox and
uncertainty. Godel's theorem warns us that the axiomatic method of making
logical deductions from given assumptions cannot in general provide a
system which is both provable and consistent. There will always be truth
that lies beyond, that cannot reached from a finite collection of axioms.
In the end a rational explanation of the world in the sense of closed and
complete system of logical truths is almost certainly impossible. We are
barred from ultimate knowledge, from ultimate explanation, by the very
rules of reasoning that prompt us to seek an explanation in the first
place. If we wish to progress beyond, we have to embrace a different
concept of 'understanding' from that of rational explanation."
For me the "different concept of understanding " is mysticism which
reveals through experiential verification that the source of Being is your
everyday, ordinary awarenesss, the undefinable but natural aesthetic sense
that possesses all of us and that the MOQ refers to as Quality.
My point is that one can arrive at the mystic solution without necessarily
invoking anything religious or supernatural. I use the term "Spirit" to
refer to things that are indefinable but understood, the inexplicable
mysterious 'hidden" things like the ultimate nature of Truth, Goodness,
and Beauty that philosophers have struggled to grasp for centuries, that
mystics (and Pirsig) have discovered to be the most real of all.
Regards,
Platt
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