[MD] Radical Empiricism and Psychological Nominalism

[118]

On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 7:03 AM, Matt Kundert
<pirsigaffliction at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
Hi Matt,


> Matt:
> I guess I still do not agree to your sense of "holism": what I take to
> be philosophical holism embodies the removal of the dividing line
> between two things, not siding with or removing one side.
>
> I also do not think that the notion of "rational inquiry" you use to say
> that holistic approaches have a hard time with it is the right way to
> take that notion, particularly if you want to talk about mysticism.
> Much like the vaunted Reason Versus Faith conundrum that vexes
> theology and popular religious debates, I think that it is misguided
> for both the religious and the non-religious to put the terms of the
> debate that way.  Unless one equates "rational" with "physics,"
> which I don't think we should do, there isn't much need to say that
> Buddhists have a hard time under the scope of rational inquiry.  If
> some meaning-filled endeavor is coming from human experience,
> something tells me it will be as rational and reasonable as any
> other.  If, as Pirsig suggests in ZMM, science is basically souped up
> finding-your-keys-in-the-morning, then every activity humans
> engage in is more or less rational.
>
> Matt

I agree that holism is a difficult one to approach.  For such a
concept to exist, we must first postulate that there is something to
be made whole.  This requires an imaginary division.  I can use the
Taoist Yin and Yang as another example to help explain.  The concept
of interplay between an Yin and Yang creates an imaginary dividing
line.  This of course does not really exist, but is used to explain a
concept.  We have a habit of breaking things up to explain them.

Human behavior as expressed is more or less rational.  This would be
to say, that it is rationality all the way down.  What is driving that
rational behavior could be considered to be irrational.  This would be
another imaginary dividing line.  Such concepts are useful when trying
to increase awareness.  They disappear when accomplished.

Science has become an attitude, much as needing experience has.  The
point is to change that attitude.  For this reason, I propose the
concept of balance.  Reason v Faith would be one of the things to
fall.

Cheers,
Mark
>
> Moq_Discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org/md/archives.html
>