[MD] Parmenides the Taoist

[david buchanan]

Case said:
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.

dmb says:
I'm not sure what the objection is here, but I can tell you that Wilber does 
not associate "inside and outside" with any holon or level of holons. 
According to Wilber there has been a great deal of unnecessary debate and 
confusion because so many thinkers have taken up one aspect or the other. 
Same thing with individuality and collectivity. He sorts this out by showing 
how every holon at every level has both an inside and an outside and 
everything also has both a collective and individual dimension. I think its 
interesting to notice the implications of this on the inorganic level. Both 
he and Pirsig ascribe something like an interior even to subatomic 
particles, attribute some small range of freedom even for so-called inert 
matter. At this level the known data upon which the laws of physics are 
based is not denied or dismissed but it is re-interpreted as exhibiting an 
"extremely persistent patterns of preference" rather than law-like 
behaviour. That is to say, even the unfolding of the physical universe is 
conceived as an evolutionary process rather than a mechanical operation.

Case said:
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...

dmb says:
That assumption is held temporarily. Like I said, some ideas are rejected, 
don't make the cut. On top of that, since we are talking about comparing the 
biggest and best ideas from all times and cultures, it seems rather foolish 
to assume they have nothing to offer. Also, this fits pretty well with the 
Pirsigian notion that there can't be any single exclusive truth. That's a 
positivist myth. Instead, he says, we should treat the various truths as we 
would paintings in a gallery. We might like some more than others or even 
have a favorite, but its silly to try to find out which one is the true one. 
Of course, as a kind of perennialist, my favorite aspect of this method of 
comparative philosophy is that we can detect patterns on this meta-level 
too. This level of abstraction allows us to notice the mystical core in the 
world's great religions, for example. This method let's us get past the 
cultural particularities and see that there are many ways to express or 
depict the same basic truths.

Case said:
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.

dmb says:
It seems to me that he employs a very sophisticated form of skepticism, one 
that's capable of holding many truths simultaneously. He doesn't sort them 
out on the basis of personal preference, of course. You must have him 
confused with Dr. Strawmann of Fantasia University. But even old, outmoded 
thought systems will fit into Wilber's model AS outmoded cognitive stages in 
our evolution. And he's perfectly capable of explaining how and why these 
previous worldviews are less developed so that their placement in the 
hierarchy fits and makes sense in that respect. He then serves up a picture 
of evolutionary relationships, just like the MOQ except with more detail. 
They both maintain that the older forms of being still serve their original 
function and so cannot be removed or ignored without causing a disaster. 
They both insist that all these previous forms remain with us, we depend on 
them and need to honor that fact in our contemporary systems of thought.

This big picture approach is also what allows us to re-examine figures like 
Parmenides. When we are allowed to read him next to Lao Tzu and Nagarjuna 
instead of, say, Aristotle or Aquinas he seems to be singing an entirely 
different tune. I don't know about you, must I think that sort of thing is 
super interesting. As Wilber points out, if Parmenides assertions are taken 
literally then he would appear to be a very confused dude. I suspect there 
has been way too much of that kind of misinterpretation; spiritual 
statements, when taken literally, are quite ridiculous. And its not just an 
academic problem insofar as this confusion is translated into militant 
fundamentalism, etc.. This is why we do not just ask IF this or that is 
true, but rather focus on discovering HOW its true, in what sense is it 
true. And for this sort of problem, Wilber brings in the levels and shows 
how post-rational, aperspectival logic is different from the mythic/rational 
level and how things can be badly mistranslated when we don't notice that 
these represent two totally different ways of thinking. I can't really do 
justice in a few paragraphs and the whole point is really just to show that 
Pirsig isn't the only one presenting an evolutionary hierarchy, that there 
is a reasonable basis for drawing such lines. But I also gotta say that this 
approach addresses the sorts of problems I find most interesting and which 
do seem to call for a solution insofar as they're at the root of real 
bloodshed and the less conspicuous forms of conflict too. I think this 
approach helps us sort out the wisdom from the nonsense, the mystical from 
the magical, the creative from the degenerate. It exposes the shallow, 
preposterous and regressive. And it helps us find little gems where we 
thought we'd already looked, like Parmenides' assertions.

dmb

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