[MD] Parmenides the Taoist

[Case]

dmb says:
I also take pride in my sensitivity to bullshit. But in this case, Case, I
think one ought to be careful to distinguish between an unusual
interpretation on the one hand and old fashioned bullshit on the other.

[Case]
You gotta admit they are often hard to tell apart.

dmb says:
Yea, I know. My point was to explain WHY Parmenides doesn't sound like a 
Taoist unless one is dealing with the unusual interpretation offered by 
Wilber, Gallagher and Kingsley, each of whom arrives at this unusual 
interpretation independently of each other, by the way.

[Case]
Seems I am almost agreeing with you and almost disagreeing with Arlo. I
wonder were this could lead.

dmb says:
I think Plato, Parmenides and Buddha live at the same time. Lao Tsu was in 
there somewhere close in time too. 

[Case]
I believe it is called the Axial age. Zoroaster, Confucius and the unknown
prophet of Isaiah fall in there too. Nagarjuna is much later.

[dmb]
But that's not how Wilber works and he's not talking about a direct
influence as in who was reading the other guy's books or anything like that.
Wilber's "method" is to take all the biggest and most influential ideas and
temporarily, at least, assume they are true. He lays them all out on the
table, so to speak, steps back and asks himself, now what sort of system
would accomodate the greatest number of these "truths"? What sort of view
could make sense of them all, or at leasr as many as possible? Then once
they've been sorted out, with a few not quite making the cut, he finds a
place for them within the whole view and sets about criticizing the pieces
he's just installed. But instead of being skeptical about whether or not
they are "right", he shows how they are partial or incomplete. He uses the
assembled "truths" to supplement each other. Because of this approach, he's
concluded that some thinkers and some "truths" we more complete than others,
more developed than others and these figures become the stars of the show.
That's where the Plato-Nagarjuna comparsion comes in. The pieces he uses
come from East and West, religion and psychology, philosophy and physics.
Basically, its a global, evolutionary metaphysics much like the MOQ.

[Case]
As I said I have read a bit of Wilber. He touches some interesting bases but
from my point of view he is more interesting because of his errors in
judgment and misrepresentations than for anything positive he says. A simple
but fundamental example is his drawing of a distinction along the lines of
G. Spencer Browne. Wilber characterizes this as inside and outside and if
memory serves this is his first 'level' (could be a line or a color code
tho.) My problem is that such a distinction implies one side or the other
not inside and outside. This would be a minor point usually but in this case
not so much.

Beyond that the method itself of taking all this stuff and assuming it to be
true. Where is that considered a good idea? It is one thing to compare and
contrast ideas throughout history but to assume they are true...

Then to piece then together; picking this and throwing out that. This lack
of skepticism does little more than turn history into a Rorschach test.