[MD] Food for Thought

[David M]

Hi DMB

> 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: If something transcends experience it belongs to a reality that is
ruled out? Yet you can transcend normal experience and become
sub-normal & then experience a mystical oneness. Well was was ruled
out in normal experience only to re-appear when you become sub-normal?
Do you have any idea what you're talking about?

>
> 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: Evasion.

> 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: Well I am happy to say that we are able to recognise that there is more
to a tree that what we can experience you seem to wet your pants at such an 
idea.
Try thinking about whether or not your wife transcends your experiences of 
her.

>
> 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.

DM: You notice what changes you, if there is no interaction there can be
no experience. Apart from being the heart of Pirsig's primacy of
values & quality, this is basic perceptual science.

 If it is 'what is', then hasn't it
> already emerged?

DM: I thought you didn't experience things-in-themselves?

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: If something had nomean would you experience it? Is not
experience always meaningful, does the Other not have to have a
meaning to be experienced>?

>
> 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.

DM: OK how does thou art that benefit DQ?


DM: I am just trying to question whether your views hang together, to me 
they
do not seem to, but keep trying.