[MD] Food for Thought

[david buchanan]

DM asked dmb:
How do you see the relationship between what is transcendent and what is 
available to be experienced? Does transcendence imply a reality beyond 
experience (loaded question of course, do you know how to disarm it)?

dmb says:
Reality beyond experience is ruled out by Radical Empiricism. This rule 
would exclude things like "God" and Kant's "Things-in-themselves" precisely 
because they "transcend". The transcendence Wilber and other philosophical 
mystics refer to is an experience that goes beyond conceptual elaborations. 
It is an experience that transcends normal consciousness and rational 
thought.

DM said:
I get the impression that your calls to base all beliefs on experience does 
not reflect the richness of this idea that James intended.

dmb replies:
I'm not trying to "reflect the richness" of James. I'm trying to explain the 
basic concepts of his Radical Empiricism.

DM said:
I think SA may hekp us here. We encounter a tree. Is there more to a tree 
than what we experience? Is there something in excess of our experience that 
we are aware of about the tree? Is the tree holding something back? Do we 
feel the trees silence? That the tree transcends what is exchanged in the 
limitations of experience. I'm answering my own question above now of 
course.

dmb says:
I can't make any sense of this nor do I see how it could have any relevance 
to Radical Empiricism, mysticism or the perennial philosophy. Seriously, 
what are you talking about?

DM said:
I guess we are given and open to each other is what this is getting at, when 
we meet we encounter Others and Things that have meaning for us, SQ must be 
seen in the context of rich qualities and values that exceed what can be 
conceptualised, DQ may be about change, but it is also contextualised by 
meaning, by how we re-spond to what is given in experience. The re-sponding 
allows 'what is' to emerge.

dmb says:
I don't think this reflects the MOQ at all. You are using terms like DQ and 
sq, but I honestly don't know what you are talking about. It doesn't even 
make sense according to the rules of logic and grammar. I mean, how does 
responding allow 'what is' to emerge. If it is 'what is', then hasn't it 
already emerged? If DQ is prior to and above conceptual elaborations, then 
what sense does it make to say that DQ is "contextualized by meaning"? What 
does it mean to say anything is "contextualized by meaning"? I have about 
five objections to every sentence in your paragraph so that this only begins 
to describe why I don't know what you're saying.

DM concluded:
This is all very well but does not do enough for me. ..The description of 
experience that MOQ begins needs to offer something more positive than a 
call to experience the pre-linguistic unity. I prefer a value oriented 
pragmatism as per William James, looking to improve how we live. Your talk 
of unity is too otherwordly for my liking, its like ceasing to exist, its 
smells of death and withdrawal. Is thou art that the death of DQ? where 
everything is familiar and there is nothing alive and new? Does MOQ exceed 
the perennial?

dmb says:
Pirsig says the MOQ unifies Pragmatism and Radical Empiricism "into a single 
fabric", so there is no good reason to think we can only have one or the 
other. On top of that, I can tell by you questions here that you still don't 
understand the basic concepts of philosophical mysticism. Thou art that is 
pretty much the opposite of the death of DQ. Sorry, but I do not get you and 
I'm pretty sure you don't get me either.

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