[MD] Betternes - 4 levels of!

[Ham Priday]

Hi Platt --



> I guess my friend that it all boils down to what we emphasize -- the words
> or the music, prose or poetry, intellect or intuition, pragmatism or 
> mysticism.
> When it comes to metaphysics, my inclination is towards the latter 
> although
> I realize the inherent contradiction therein. What I rely on to rescues me 
> is
> the conviction, confirmed by artists and  mystics, that true understanding 
> is
> not necessarily explicable.

My own conviction is that if "true understanding" is possible, it must also 
be explicable.  I don't claim to have all the answers, or to have discovered 
an open portal to absolute truth.  Nor will my thesis satisfy everybody. 
However, I do believe thinking people yearn for an understanding beyond the 
relational level, at least enough to confirm that their life on this planet 
counts for something more permanent than experiential existence.  Religion 
and mysticism purport to answer this human quest for the faithful. 
Philosophy and metaphysics attempt to approach it intellectually, with the 
aid of reason and logic.

Of the "critical thinkers" you have quoted, Davies is a cosmologist with a 
Christian bent, Pirsig is an English professor-turned-philosopher with an 
anthropological bent, and Ben Franklin was a bon vivant journalist and 
statesman.  I find it interesting that RMP chose to describe the 4th stage 
of his MoQ as "...where the term 'God' is completely dropped as a relic of 
an evil social suppression of intellectual and Dynamic freedom."  (Dan 
Glover apparently feels that it's only the "term" he was disparaging, not 
the concept.)

I can understand your skepticism, Platt.  You feel that to theorize about 
the ineffable by intellectual means is blowing in the wind, inasmuch as we 
can never test the theory.  At the same time, we are all endowed with 
discriminating sensibility and rationality, and if these faculties are the 
Creator's gift to us for a reason, might it not be to point to a solution 
within our grasp?  Judeo-Christians believe "man was created in the image of 
God."  I happen to believe that the values we realize are the essence of 
that transcendent source, that Value itself is our link to Absolute Essence. 
Inject that concept with a bit of intuitional insight, and you may just come 
up with a rationale that approximates the truth that is hidden from us.

How can we know if we don't at least try?

Thanks and best regards,
Ham