[MD] The Trouble With Wilber

[david buchanan]

DMB said:
...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?

David M replied:
..They clearly do exist as possibles, otherwise they could not become 
actual, but until they become actual they are only possible and may never 
gain actual status.

dmb says:
Sorry, but I just don't see how this realm of possibility follows from the 
existence of the actual. I see no reason at all to suppose any such "eternal 
objects", let alone a good reason. Without that, its just crypto-theological 
fantasy. Like I said, "The idea that possibilities are somehow out there 
waiting to become actual... Well, I think that's very, very goofy.

DM replied:
But we have a distinction. The impossible is not available.

dmb says:
Gee, ya think? I was really hoping for the impossible. (Another trivial 
point.) Does this distinction somehow rest on the existence of eternal 
objects? Of course not. You're backing absurdities with platitudes instead 
of reasons. This does not help.

DM said:
We can view the world from space, but we postulated its wholeness beyond our 
experience before we could imagine flying away from it. Pirsig draws our 
attention to experience, but he also suggests we need an intellectual level. 
Exploring the possible, imagination, the impossible and other postulates is 
essential.

dmb says:
Huh? Are you saying that intellectual activity, exploration, imagination and 
such are something other than experience? Are you talking about "experience" 
as if excludes anything outside of the range of your senses, and the 
transcendent is that which with you no longer have actual visual contact? 
Experience is transcended because there were postulations about the 
wholeness of the earth prior to photos from space? In this context, where i 
have been going on about the limits of sensory empiricism and the MOQ's 
expansion, these are very, very odd things to say. In any case, nobody is 
saying the future doesn't exist, or that evolution doesn't exist or that the 
imagination is unimportant.

But I just can't get past the assertion that possibilites are some kind of 
"eternal object" and that they exist in some other realm waiting to become 
actual. I don't don't see how a contemporary adult could accept such a goofy 
idea. I find it impossible to take such things seriously.

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