[MD] expanded rationality

[Ant McWatt]

Marsha V stated June 1st:


> Greetings,
>
> First revision:
>
> Once one accepts the MoQ's fundamental truth that the world is nothing but Value, then 'expanded rationality' occurs when an individual transforms the natural tendency to reify self and world into the natural tendency to hold all static patterns of value to be hypothetical.
>
> What do you think?
>
>

Marsha, 

You seem to be talking more about 180 degrees enlightenment in the above paragraph.  I always thought "expanded rationality" _ as far as the MOQ is concerned - is more about reconciling the aesthetic and the spiritual within scientific orientated thought.  A new essay (by John McConnell) that is due to appear on robertpirsig.org during this month has an interesting take on this issue.  I've pasted a preview of some of John's essay below for your interest,

Best wishes,

Ant






Enhanced Rationality

 

          If we
accept the premise that rationality as we know it developed historically from a
deliberate and collective abdication of control of thought to the intellect,
then it follows that the repair of the resulting defect in rationality lies in
willfully seizing back the initiative and repossessing what we
relinquished.  That's a tall order!  We are, in effect, requiring our intellect to
"cut its own switch".  We are
asking nothing less than that it assist us to derive a concept of it that
brings its rule to an end.  We are
confronted with the formidable bootstrapping operation of compelling
rationality to construct radical reconstructive surgery upon itself.

 

          Let us
begin by assuming an altered perspective that places us conceptually outside of
that which we wish to construct.  Then
having constructed it, we may by a deliberate act of intuition enter into it and gain the advantage over intellect.

 

          First, we
need a new name for this new form of rationality, a name that characterizes it
metaphorically and evokes the imagery that will draw us into it.  That name is inspirationality[1].  To inspire means "to breathe
into".  Connotations of the root it
shares with the word "spirit" also pervade the word.  Hence, the word inspirationality suggests
the idea of rationality with the breath of life breathed into it; rationality
infused with spirit.

 

          The
"Prime Directive" of inspirationality is that it must
reintegrate "the Good" with "the True", thus closing the
wound that was wrought by Platonic thought. 
The contemporary philosopher Nelson Murdoch has observed, "The true
isn't True unless it's Good."  He would also doubtless affirm the
corollary:  "The good can't
be Good unless it's True." 
Good has two connotations,
both of which are valid in this context - ethical Good, or Right, and aesthetic Good, or Beauty.  The pivotal term Right can also mean True!
The very ambiguity of these terms should suggest their fundamental
inseparability.  Hence, an act that is
"wrong" or "ugly" cannot be the product of an inspirational
thought process.  To put it another way
(and to derive another term), success gained by a "dyspirational"
process cannot succeed.

 

          The
reintegration of True with Good is mediated through the
cultivation of the experience of Quality. 
We find ourselves somewhat retarded in that skill only because we have
neglected, or deliberately suppressed, the faculty of mind by which Quality is
perceived and experienced.

 

          Bergson
believed that intuition in the intelligent creature is a dim, vanishing
remnant of the instinctive mode. 
Nonetheless, he ascribed to it great importance and power.  In Introduction
to Metaphysics he constantly referred to it as the instrument by which we
may enter willfully into a primary empathetic knowledge of anything, a
knowledge, as it were, from within a
thing.  He had perhaps, therefore, come
to share my belief that we possess a submerged faculty of mind - call it
"intuition", "right-brain", "subconscious",
"Superconscious", or whatever you will - that is the beginning of
something, not the vanishing of it.  We
carry within us the "seedling" of a more advanced form of knowledge than either instinct or intellect.  Evolution never goes backward.  We cannot seek to return to "the good
old days" before the intellect emerged. 
We must see where the advancing front of life and consciousness are
going and willfully align our hearts and minds with it.









     [1]This name
was "given" to me; I did not invent it.  If I had, I would have spelled it with two r's
- "inspirrationality" - to make it less ambiguous.  But upon reflection, it is clear that the
ambiguity was deliberate.  It is intended
to convey a concept that is not clearly defined and has numerous connotations
of the related terms "inspiration" and
"inspirational".  So I have
recorded it as it was given, and in all subsequent essays of this series I
shall use it as given.  Its spelling and
the attendant confusion with "inspiration" shall stand, as directed.


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