[MD] Some Abominable Beliefs-Part 2

[david buchanan]

Case said:
The idea that there is some cosmically purposeful, acausal or first causal 
"consciousness" leads to nothing but muddy thinking. Once you accept the 
idea of purpose in the inanimate or in the supernatural you are left with 
the task of figuring out what it is and you are no longer constrained by 
anything but your imagination. You can say whatever weird thing you want and 
there is no standard for evaluating your statements, beyond: it sounds good 
or it feels right... This is as true of mysticism as it is of theism....

dmb says:
I'd agree with your complaints about "muddy thinking," "the supernatural," 
and the lack of "standards". That pretty well sums up my criticisms of 
theism. But I don't think we can rightly say the same thing about 
philosophical mysticism, especially the philosophical mysticism of the MOQ. 
As the name suggests, the "primary empirical reality" is not something one 
believes in or conjures up in the imagination. Its an experience. On the 
other end of the spectrum, there are enlightenment experiences, which is 
really a wide ranging category of experience. But these can be reported and 
analyzed just like anything else. I mean, THEE difference between mysticism 
and theism is the difference between experience and unrestrained 
metaphysical speculation. It the difference between knowing an experience 
and having faith in a belief. In fact, the mystics say that this experience 
can't rightly be expressed in words, as an intellectual proposition or a 
belief of any kind, that it can only be known through non-intelllectual 
means. This is what it means to say, "The name that can be named is not the 
true name." Lao Tzu

Case concluded:
I choose to value materialism and I choose to devalue theism and mysticism.

dmb says:
That's funny because Pirsig's work is all about attacking that view. That 
pretty well describes common sense reality among educated Westerners. 
Scientific materialism equates religion and mysticism and dismisses them 
both. That's the problem. The MOQ is an attempt to solve that problem, is a 
solution to that problem and you have simply chosen to value the problem 
over its solution. And of course I think a person could make such a choice 
only if they were operating with some rather substantial misunderstandings 
about what's going on with the MOQ. See, the metaphysics of substance is 
what you get when valid empirical data is limited to sensory experience, but 
Pirsig's system expands the notion of empiricism to include a wider range of 
experience so that mystical experience can no longer be dismissed quite so 
easily. The MOQ does not take sides in the war between science and religion 
so much as it expands rationality so that they both fit into a larger 
context.

dmb

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