[MD] The Trouble With Wilber

[david buchanan]

David M said:
...The present is transcended by the future. DQ surprises, it is 
unpredictable, it is not the same again, it transcends what has gone before. 
I cannot see any other meaning for transcendent than this one, of course it 
appears in experience-reality, otherwise it would be some sort of 
other-world sphere that we had no contact with, another-world-in-itself. The 
concept of transcendence is the other side of the reality of openness. Our 
reality is open, new form continuously emerges, as if from nothing. This 
Nothing is the source of everything, therefore, to look at it another way, 
this Nothing has the potential of everything, everything that is possible. 
The Nothing is a fullness, the sphere of the possible, of all that is 
possible. Only a fraction of which will ever become actual.

dmb says:
First of all, you have been using the words "transcended" and "transcendent" 
in a very confusing way.  (especially considering the quasi-theological 
notions you've imported along with their use) The dictionary on my computer 
includes five definitions for the word "transcendent" and all but one 
defines it as beyond experience or beyond reality as we know it. Since you 
say "of course it appears in experience-reality" you must be using the word 
in its most general sense. So then you're only saying the future goes beyond 
the past. Expectations are surpassed by surprize. These sorts of statements 
are true, but they're also extremely trivial. Here are the five to help you 
see the central meaning...

1. beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience:
2. surpssing the ordinary; exceptional:
3. (of God) existing apart from and not subject to the limitations of the 
material universe.
4. (in scholastic philosophy) higher than or not included in any of 
Aristotle's ten categories.
5. (in Kantian philosophy) not realizable in experience.

I suppose number 2 would be the closest to your use but I'd argue that the 
future per se is pretty darn ordinary and one can only hope that it'll be 
surprizing or exceptional. The notion of transcendence as openness is odd 
for two major reasons. The first is that is simply not what the word means. 
Transcendent can be opposed to immanent and opposed to the ordinary but 
since when is it opposed to "closedness"? And its odd because the MOQ's 
first division is between static and dynamic and this language is so much 
clearer and well known to everyone here. If that's what you're getting at, 
why not say so? I mean, nobody here is making a case for a closed or static 
system and I don't know of any thinkers who do.

And all of that is simply an attempt to show some of the reasons why a 
person might be confused by your comments. I'd also complain about the 
notion that its useful to talk about the potentials and possibilities of 
everything. How can we even begin to know that? Aren't the possibilites 
really defined by one's range of vision? Doesn't it make more sense to think 
of options and choices on a more human level than to think of possibilites 
as some kind of embryonic reality waiting to be born? Yes, new forms emerge 
in the process of evolution but what reason do we have to think that these 
forms already existed in some other realm? The idea that possibilities are 
somehow out there waiting to become actual... Well, I think that's very, 
very goofy. I can see why Whitehead would be popular among theologians and 
the like but I'm skeptical. I'm interested in reading Sneddon's work simply 
because it relates to the MOQ, but based on the extract you dished up I'm 
skeptical about that too.

DM asked dmb:
Do we experience the world Dave? No, we experience rooms, a bit of sky, a 
bit of sea, some ground. There is no world here. The world is a fiction we 
add to experience to make sense of it. The world as a whole  is something 
beyond what we can experience (even space men cannot experience the front 
and back at the same time). ...

dmb says:
Oh, come on. Do you really suppose that I meant to say "planet" when I said 
the "world"? No, Dave. I think its safe to say that reality extends beyond 
our little rock. And if I advocate a global perspective I'm not saying that 
we can view the earth from space. Dreams, plans for the future and the even 
the farthest stars are part of our world. (Presently my world centers around 
a new iPod, with which I am deeply in love.) This is an epistemological 
issue. It is not astronomical claim, and one would have to be a real space 
case to take it that way (Rocket man, going around in circles.)

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