[MD] The Trouble With Wilber

[David M]

DMB

Try again

dmb said to David M:
 ...Its no different (mystical knowledge) from any other area of inquiry.

DM
> Nonsense, take science as a form of enquiry, this relies on the fact
that experiments can be repeated by others, and seen by others.
Mystics have no such luxury and so therefore it is more tricky to form 
agreement
about the knowledge mystics claim to possess. I would not say that this 
rules
mystical knowledge out of court, but it presents difficulties, which I think 
it
is nonsense to deny, as you seem to above with 'no different'. There are
differences, as well as similarities, and to deny this is simplification 
that stops
the real complex situation being properly assessed. Of course, you like to 
shut
down any conversation about anything difficult by saying: "I don't 
understand,
it's your fault you speaking fork tongue, it's a nonsequitor, this is plain 
contradiction,
etc".

> And I'd seriously like to know what you mean by "the sphere of the
> possible". Where did you get this notion? This is another chance to have a
> real conversation, if you're interested.

DM: An example: To write Hamlet, Shakespeare had to explore the sphere of 
all
possible Hamlets. Being who he was, Shakeaspeare had the capacity (due to 
his
SQlevels and DQ) to access certain possibilities for this play unavailable 
to other
writers. From the many possibilities he was able to consider he choose the 
best 2/3
possibilities to make actual and records on paper. These are the Hamlets we 
now have
along with his other plays. When alive, like most other writers, there were 
many possible
other great plays he never got round to making actual. The 'sphere of the 
possible' is my
preferred way to refer to the reality of the possibilities that any 
situation mames
available. This is what DQ is I'd suggest. The best philosophical use of 
this concept
to hep explain reality-experience is in Whitehead trying reading the Sneddon 
paper if
you're not up to Process and Reality. EG:

"The kind of creativity at issue for Whitehead is not ex nihilo, rather, it 
is a process of actualization of possibilities. Whitehead calls these 
possibilities 'eternal objects'. The eternal objects are deficient in 
actuality--they are real, but not actual or concrete in the sense that 
occasions are. They are the forms potentiality takes for the occasions When 
an occasion prehends past events, it feels a welter of diverse eternal 
objects. These data are thrown forward for future creativity. This has not 
just pushed the ex nihilo factor one step back--the eternal objects are 
eternal potentiality. Apart from actual occasions, these eternal objects 
reside, available for creativity, in what Whitehead names the 'primordial 
nature of god'. Each occasion is in contact with this primordial nature. 
This 'mingling' of potentiality with actuality provides both the full extent 
of potentiality for each occasion, as well as the drive or urge towards 
actualization."

Available at:

http://robertpirsig.org/SneddonThesis.htm



> P.S. I found Husserl's phenomenology to be one of the least interesting
> things I ever encountered in the philosophical world.

DM: Well, I'm impressed, exactly how much of Husserl's work and his
commentators (the dozens that make up the tradition of Continental
Philosophy) did you get through? Nothing there to interest you?
You are so cool and above the rest of us!