From: Valuemetaphysics@aol.com
Date: Mon Apr 26 2004 - 14:29:44 BST
Mark and all MOQers:
Mark said:
I don't understand what the metaphysical basis is for transpersonality and
the spiritual domain? For the MoQ, the metaphysical basis of everything
is Quality of course!
dmb says:
Wilber approaches the issues primarily by way of evolutionary psychology and
so does not begin with a metaphysical slice like Pirsig.
Mark 26-4-04: Thanks very much dmb. Pirsig begins with Quality, which is
empirical. The slicing comes later? Wilbur works the other way around; he gathers
all his data and then synthesises?
Wilber's project
synthesizes so much data from so many sources and he uses all that to paint
such a broad picture, that it effectively constitutes an evolutionary
metaphysical system.
Mark 26-4-04: This makes me contemplate and compare Wilbur with other
metaphysical systems i have studied. Aristotle's concentric progressions of
Form/matter, potential/actual appears first, and then Liebniz' Monadology. There are
others. I feel it is fair to suggest that Wilbur is engaging in the same method
- empirical observation, collating data, synthesising?
I should imagine Wilbur has been contemplated and compared with Hegel for
Hegel's epistemological methodology?
As is always the case with such comparisons, there are
differences. But what they have both done is attack scientific materialism
and not just with the usual postmodern tactics.
Mark 26-4-04: Three cheers for that. Quality is empirical and is hard to
dismiss? However, without a clearly identifiable metaphysical or ontological
basis, doesn't Wilbur's Evolutionary psychology open itself up to criticism?
They both restore the
interior domains that SOM had relegated to the JUST subjective. They both
expand the meaning of the phrase "empirical experience" by including more
than just sensory data. They attack the same problems, arrive at the same
conclusions and suggest similar solutions, but they are not so much alike
that Wilber has matched Pirsig move for move. And if Wilber asserts a
metaphysical starting point in the same way Pirsig does, I'm not aware of
it.
Mark 26-4-04: I can see Wilbur tries to expand the meaning of the phrase
"empirical experience," but i am not sure if he succeeds as well as Quality? I
will not attribute Quality to Pirsig, because Pirsig was asked what Quality is
and could not answer.
I feel we may attribute to Pirsig his enquiry into the relationship between
Quality and excellence. Excellence is empirical and forms the basis of
ontological and metaphysical enquiry? Differentiation emerges from an attempt to
identify ontologically 'what' is being excellent, (a motorcycle, a society, a Human
life) and metaphysically 'why' (Quality)?
Mark: The MoQ unifies art, morality and science by suggesting that Quality
is
the basis of everything. Thus, science is moral and artistic. So i see what
you are saying.
dmb says:
Right. The phrase, "truth is a species of the good", springs to mind. We can
make distinctions without shattering the world into bits and we can unify the
various species of good enough to say all of reality is Quality, yet without
turning the whole thing into incomprehensible mush. It allows science the
dignity of its own independence while also showing that it too is concerned
with morality and beauty in its own domain.
Mark 26-4-04: Wonderfully said.
Mark wondered:
If you can indicate what the metaphysical basis of transpersonality is i may
be better able to understand what transpersonal means, what the spiritual
realm means?
dmb says:
As said, its basis is not metaphysical. It is based on empirical experience.
Wiber's description from Sense and Soul:
"TRANSLOGICAL means transcending the logical, the rational, or the mental in
general. Formless mysticism, disclosed with the eye of contemplation, is
translogical; it sees beyond the eye of flesh and beyond the eye of mind and
instead stands open to the radiant Divine."
Mark 26-4-04: This is interesting. I feel translogical for Wilbur is what
Pirsig would describe as intuition?
and from THE ESSENTIAL KEN WILBER;
"So you can EXPERIENCE body, mind and spirit. All of those are EXPERIENTIAL.
So perhaps you can begin to understand why it is a catastrophe to reduce
experience to JUST THE BODY, to just bodily sensations feelings, emotions,
impulses and so on. This is a reductionist nightmare. It (SOM) denies the
higher experiential realities of the mind and spirit... The body, you see,
is basically narcissistic and egocentric. Bodily feeling ar just about YOUR
body, period. The body's sensations cannot take the role of other - that's a
mental capacity, and therefore the body's sensory awareness cannot enter
into care and compassion and ethical discourse and I-thou spirituality - all
of those demand a cognitive, mental, intellectual awareness. To the extent
you 'stay in your body' and are 'anti-intellectual', then you stay in the
orbit of your own narcissim. So that's the first mistake in the
'experiential vs. intellectual' prejudice - all of the experiential modes
are reduced to bodily experiences only, which is the essence of egocentrism.
...bodliy sensations and feelings and emotions are not transrational, they
are prerational. By staying in your body, you are not beyond the mind, you
are beneath it. You are not transcending, you are regressing - becoming more
and more narcissistic and ego centric, focusing on your own feelings. And
this, if anything, prevents actual spiritual experiences, because genuine
spirituality is 'bodymind dropped' - that is , you cease identifying
exclusively with both the feelings of the body and the thoughts of the
mind,"
Mark 26-4-04: I can see Wilbur's evolutionary metaphysics at work here.
Mark:
Well, there are many US Universities which have two halves; one for
academic study of Indian philosophy and one for meditation. If transpersonal
psychology has more in common with eastern views then there is a home for
it?
dmb says:
When it comes to exploring interior dimensions, the East is far ahead of the
West and Wilber has most certainly imported Eastern philosophy into his
work. And the overall mix puts him much closer to the Buddha than to Freud.
Hope that helps.
Mark 26-4-04: It has dmb, cheers.
I agree with you that a religion of the future would do well to concentrate
on it's very source, but then, it would become a mystic religion? In this
sense, its quite a bit different from anything by which current religious
institutions shape themselves?
All the best,
Mark
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