[MD] Direct Experience

[gav]

greetings fellow travellers,

ham:
> I couldn't agree more.  If the only path to reality is
> mysticism, why waste 
> our time on a "logical absurdity"?  Because logic
> is a fun thing to do? 
> Because it makes us "feel good" to ponder the
> ineffable, to mastermind a 
> complex and misconceived hierarchical scheme of existential
> reality, even 
> though it's futile?  What wisdom can we draw from that?

what wisdom can be gained from any intellectual endeavour? a closer correspondence between the real and conceptual.

> 
> For a philosopher to posit things that we don't
> understand as "mystical" is 
> a cop out.

for a philosopher to admit that understanding is inherently mystical is honesty

> There's nothing mystical about self-awareness, if we
> acknowledge that it is 
> our primary reality.

really? sometimes the fact that of the world is enough to blow my mind.

  Selfness doesn't have to be an
> object, or an attribute 
> of physical existence, in order to be real.  To question
> the reality of the 
> Knower is itself illogical.  Without a Knower nothing would
> be known, 
> experienced, felt, or desired.  What is mystical about
> that?  Pirsig himself 
> said that Quality is our Reality.  Does this not imply that
> Value is what 
> the Knower knows before he thinks about it?   Isn't
> that what he means by 
> "pre-intellectual experience"?

the knower and the known are abstracted from 'knowing'.

> 
> There are some things we cannot know -- that much is
> certain.  And what we 
> cannot know falls outside the human domain of space/time
> experience. 

i disagree. 'know thyself' encompasses all reality

> Ultimate reality is neither a subject-object duality nor a
> differentiated 
> relational system.  It does not conform to the laws of
> nature or to man-made 
> logic.

it cannot not conform to nature. and the whole point of this list is to help logic conform to nature.

  Yet, it does not exclude the essential Knower or
> the value of his 
> reality. 

yes it does exclude the knower - see above. the value isn't his. he is of value

 If value-sensibility is our essence, then
> whatever is ultimate 
> reality is the absolute coalescence of these essential
> derivatives: 
> Sensibility and Value.  Essence is the 'not-other'.
>  There is no other than 
> what value-sensibility creates as experience.

cart before the horse.

> 
> You can call that "mystical", scoff at it as as
> "supernatural", or condemn 
> it as "theistic".
> Or you can accept it, as I have, as the most reasonable
> ontology on which to 
> base a
> metaphysical philosophy.

u presume the subject ham. and you can't do that without being shot down mate.



      Win a MacBook Air or iPod touch with Yahoo!7. http://au.docs.yahoo.com/homepageset