[MD] are theism and mysticism mutually exclusive notions?

[gav]

hey
--- Case <Case at iSpots.com> wrote:

> [gav]
> seeing things as composed of discrete parts is a
> rougher approximation - a poorer analogy - of how
> things are than seeing things as coherent integrated
> wholes. the latter view is better supported by the
> empirical eveidence.
> simple.
> 
> empirical evidence 1.: we experience reality as a
> coherent whole; not as a piecemeal jigsaw puzzle
> relative to different constituent parts.
> 
> [Case]
> Where are you getting this from? Clearly we see
> things as parts and as
> wholes. First of all our perception is divided in
> five senses which have to
> be integrated to make a whole. Secondly even if you
> only consider the
> dominant sense of vision were still see pieces that
> must be assembled into a
> whole. We perceive parts and create wholes out of
> them. 

no. we perceive wholes and create parts out of them.
the reverse view is SOM. undivided experience comes
first; then intellect divides it up. you can't know
you have seen a tree until after you have seen the
tree.
> 
> What analogy are you talking about? Empirical
> evidence is sensory data.

everything intellectual (ie utilising abstract
representation) is an analogy; some analogies are
really good and we call these true.

our senses - their putative operation, not the
phenomena themselves -  are 'concepts by postulation'
(northrop); they are dependent upon the particular
cultural mythos which informs the metaphysical
framework of the intellect; they are culturally
derived.

perception is pre-intellectual. the experience of
seeing the colour green is a different thing to the
intellectual descriptions of how the senses and
nervous system operate and interact in 4d space-time
(eg neurochemical, brainwaves etc).  this is the 'hard
problem of consciousness' (chalmers).  

 the phenomena of pre-intellectual perception, eg
'greenness' are, in northrops words, 'concepts by
intuition'. concepts by intuition are beyond doubt -
they are given directly; concepts by postulation are
relative and provisional.

 immediate experience is, necessarily, ontologically
prior to intellectualisation of it.




		
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