[MD] Food for Thought

[Case]

Case said to dmb:
The realization that Thou art That sounds all fuzzy and profound but it 
really doesn't take much effort or thought to bring about the realization.

dmb says:
Hmmm. I thought it would be pretty much impossible to misunderstand, but 
apparently I was mistaken. See, one of the two major themes in all those 
quotes from all those various thinkers is that the realization CANNOT be 
understood intellectually. And here you are saying it doesn't take much 
thought to realize it? I mean, the whole point is that this realization 
can't be "thought" at all. This is why its called names like pre-linguistic,

pre-intellectual and non-rational. I mean, dude, you missed that point by a 
mile.

[Case]
So let me get this straight. You claim we are talking about something beyond
understanding, but you understand it and I don't. How conveeeeeenient! Sweet
job, being a mystic, you can drop any load of nonsense you want and respond
to anyone seeking clarification with, "but you just don't understand." 

Speaking the words, "I am the sum of my experiences," is one thing.
Integrating it into your experience, realizing it, takes a bit more work.

dmb says:
James is saying the same thing as Pirsig here. Again, thoughts and things 
are derived from the primary empirical reality in the same way that subjects

and objects are derived. Thoughts are subjective and things are objective. 
They are just using slightly different terms but the concept is the same. 
James' background as a psychologist does not alter this in the slightest. 
Here we are talking about the epistemology developed by James and adopted by

Pirsig. As I see it, your objection that I ought to read his empiricism as 
something other than empiricism is 100% bogus.

[Case]
Actually if this were true, Pirsig would be saying the same thing as James
not the other way around. But I am not sure it true that James says what you
would like him to mean. You seem to take from Pirsig that if all living
things died nothing would exist. From the pure flux of experience no
subjects could be inferred to compliment the objects. I don't think James
would agree. I think James is saying that living things are a product and
consequence of the physical world and that "consciousness" can be understood
as a process arising from this. In fact he makes this point about as clearly
as possible in the Principles of Psychology Vol. 1, when he says:

"That bald fact is that when the brain acts, a thought occurs."

He goes on at great length about this but you seem to have problems
digesting James, so small bites might be advisable.

dmb says:
Huh? I guess I don't know what you mean by "transcendental". As I understand

it, experience that is outside or beyond language is a transcendent 
experience in the sense that it transcends language. It goes beyond or comes

prior to thought.

[Case]
More nonsense induced mystery. Language transcends the inability to
communicate. How one can possibly expect to achieve an understanding of
experience without an understanding of brain physiology? Now that is indeed
a great mystery. Language is a direct product of brain processes. If
specific areas of the brain are disturbed, language ceases to be produced
and or understood. Concentrating or meditation on the non-rational or
nonlinguistic aspect of experience may indeed heighten aspects of perception
that are not normally called upon. 

This would be analogous to a blind person attending more naturally to the
nuances of auditory perception than sighted folks do. It is more a matter of
which aspects of experience are attended to than a matter of transcendence. 

But I see your problem. If you acknowledge that mysticism seeks
transcendence through attention to non-linguistic, pre-rational experience
that occurs prior to thought, you are really saying that mystical experience
is essentially a regression of consciousness not an expansion of it.

Thoughts and rationality emerge from non-linguistic cognition. There is a
sizable body of research on this subject, Dave. You might want to look into
it. It might help you wean you away from nonsense like the following:

dmb says:
Non-verbal cognition is still cognition and is not to be confused with the 
mystical experience. What you seem to be refering to isn't non-verbal or 
pre-intellectual so much as sub-vocal and un-selfconscious congnition. And 
its not that the MOQ is trying to assert the value of the Dynamic over the 
static so much as it's aimed at recognizing that DQ has been de-valued in 
the West. As Matthew Fox and so many others have pointed out, the West is 
alienated from its mystical roots. Pirsig calls this a blindspot. The MOQ's 
expansion of rationality and its radical empiricism are aimed at ending the 
exclusion of the Dynamic but not at excluding the static.

[Case]
When I say cognition, I refer to mental processes, brain activity. Some are
verbal some are nonverbal. If you are asserting that mystical experience is
not a function of brain states or if you see some subtlety to the term
cognition that escapes me, fine. Insert brain state for cognition.
Sensation, motor activity, perception, experience... do not occur in the
absence of brain activity.

Matthew Fox must be an oxymoron for you. Isn't he a Christian mystic? I
thought you said they didn't exist. But one could as easily assert that the
West had made the advances in human understanding that it has precisely
because it has transcend its own mystical tradition. Or it could be said
that mystical traditions are at our roots precisely because they are of more
primitive origin. Seeking a return to them is hardly an expansion of
rationality.

On the other hand noticing that rational thought is an expansion of
non-linguistic experience is a bit different. Rational, linguistic thought
enhances and expands social interaction. It is all about communication and
sharing of experiences. Without the presence and dependence upon others in
our social circumstance language and rational thought are largely
irrelevant. Language transforms the blindspot in the individual's eye into a
collective illumination.

dmb says:
Again, its not about making one superior to the other. The word "primary" in

the phrase "primary empirical reality" does not mean superior. It means 
basic, primative, fundamental, first in a sequence and that sort of thing. 
(If that's where you got the idea.) And the mystic prudence about sharing 
"information" is famous. They say you gotta see for your self, that it CAN'T

communicated and has to be experienced dierectly.

[Case]
So what are we to make of these mystic revelations? For the scientist they
are, after all, not uncommon. Many scientists have spoken of ideas that came
from dreams, thoughts that coalesce like seed crystals into larger
structures of thought. The point is not that scientists don't have them. It
is what they do with them that counts. 

Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz was the first to deduce the ring
structure of benzene. His account of this discovery goes like this:

"...I turned my chair toward the fire place and sank into a doze. Again the
atoms were flitting before my eyes. Smaller groups now kept modestly in the
background. My mind's eye sharpened by repeated visions of a similar sort,
now distinguished larger structures of varying forms. Long rows frequently
rose together, all in movement, winding and turning like serpents; and see!
what was that? One of the serpents seized its own tail and the form whirled
mockingly before my eyes. I came awake like a flash of lightning. This time
also I spent the remainder of the night working out the consequences of the
hypothesis."

Kekule did not say, "Aha, if you sit by a fire and meditate on snakes, you
will achieve an enlightened understanding of chemistry." No, he translated
his mystical understanding into something that could be shared with the
scientific community.

dmb says:
Arrived at the "Truth"? With a capital "T"? Huh? I didn't say any such 
thing. I don't even know what that is supposed to mean. As I understand it, 
there is no such thing as thee Truth.

[Case]
So out of this mystical incommunicable experience you get what? No truth
from it, no ability to share it, a warm fuzzy of no significance?

dmb says:
Again, you're missing the point by a mile. 

[Case]
A point so small is hard to target.

[dmb]
The perennial philosophy is expressed through many different belief systems.
Again, we find it in the core of all the world's great religions. I think
this is simply a result of the fact that people all over the world have had
mystical experiences. 

[Case]
One could also conclude from this that they are of evolutionary
significance. Religion serves biological and social functions that enhances
survival and ask relevant questions about the nature of those functions.

dmb says:
Well, that's exactly why Pirsig sought to expand rationality and waged an 
attack on scientific materialism. I would also argue, as Pirisg does, that 
this conclusion is based on certain metaphysical assumptions, assumptions 
that have been used to exclude mysticism from Western theology and from 
Western science.

[Case]
As I believe I have pointed out previously, it is these metaphysical
assumptions that are accepted as matters of faith. The chief difference
between the scientist and the mystic is the scientist's willingness to
scrutinizing and test her assumptions; to refine them and redefine them in
order to achieve further enlightenment and the expansion of rationality.

The mystic just seek more inexplicable experiences.

dmb says:
As I understand it, Westerners who describe their mystical experience in 
terms of an encounter with God (rather than in terms of an identity with 
God) are at a distinct advantage when it comes to avoiding torture and 
execution. 

[Case]
I think you miss the point entirely here. By externalizing and personalizing
God, the Jews were framing their experience with God and nature in terms of
personal and social relationships. They made very little effort to
rationalize this. And yet by doing so they evolved a culture that could with
stand conquest, captivity and Diaspora. By claiming a set of assumptions
that ceased to question the minutia of metaphysics they got on with life and
living.

Many in the first century, weary of Hellenistic philosophical wrangling
longed for direct answers to their questions of, "Why?" or "Why me?" and
sought personal answers and explanations of personal experience from a
personified God. The result was Christianity.

Again, it is much more fruitful to seek after the biological and social
functions of religion and mysticism that to take them as meaningful in and
of themselves.

[dmb]
See, we're not just talking about metaphysical assumptions here, but
cultural bias, hateful prejudice, suppression of that which comes naturally
to people all over the world. We're talking about centuries of religion
supported by cops and armies, institutional resistance. So, you are in
effect, comparing social level static quality with DQ. You are in effect
saying that there is no problem when DQ is interpreted as social level
static quality. This, my nerdy friend, is not just incorrect. Its evil.

[Case]
Several months ago science, theism and mysticism were proposed as offering
divergent metaphysical points of view regarding the "ultimate nature of
things." I said at that time that the point from which these three
approaches diverge is one of such uncertainty and that their claims so
divergent that it is impossible to assert the falsity of one approach from
the position of one of the others.

I maintained at that time that I accept the assumptions of science which I
have since listed as:

1. Nature is orderly.
2. We can know nature. 
3. All phenomena have natural causes
4. Nothing is self evident. Truth claims must be demonstrated objectively.
5. Knowledge is derived from acquisition of experience. 
6. Knowledge is superior to ignorance. 

I am not locked into this list. Platt put forth a longer list that I like as
well.

As far as I am concerned neither theism nor mysticism are based in the
rational pursuit of truth. The mystic seeks truth though him own experience
of at-one-ment with all things. The theist seeks atone-ment to conform to
divinely revealed expectation. The scientist just likes poking things and
making sense of what they do.

>From the point of view that I accept, pre-rationally and as a matter of
faith: that it makes sense to be rational; neither of the other two make
sense. You seem to think that the MoQ synthesizes the scientific and
mystical approaches leaving theism as odd man out. I would say that you
butcher Pirsig in the same way you butcher James.

I would claim that science can help us understand both mysticism and theism.
It offers a more complete view of experience than either other two
approaches. What Pirsig says is that the difference between these three
positions is essentially esthetic. 

What is it you value, my navel gazing friend? If you think science can be
more readily reconciled to mysticism than to theism, I suggest the fuzz in
your belly button has leaked from your ear.