Erin,
enoonan wrote:
> SCOTT:(There is, of course, some
>>hope for quantum models, since they appear to be non-local, but I
>>certainly don't expect an "explanation" of consciousness to come from
>>that or any other source. Rather, I assume everything else, including
>>quantum mechanics, is to be explained in terms of consciousness).
>>
>>
>
> ERIN: Wow,you are a zen master. I didn't even realize I was
> trying to get an explanation of consciousness until you pointed it
> out. Maybe you could expand more on how everything is to
> be explained in terms of consciousness.
> Kind of finish this sentence for me..
> Don't look for an explanation of consciousness ,instead
>
If I really were a Zen master, I suppose I'd finish it with "just sit",
or "get back to your koan, fool".
But I'm not. Unfortunately, I don't know how to finish it. I have had
some notion that physics might be the One, True psychology, that is,
that quantum mechanics might be an initial stab at a description (not an
explanation) of how the mind measures the non-spatio-temporal, and in
doing so, creates a spatio-temporal picture of it, which we call
physical reality. There are a number of objections to this, one being
that it is purely speculative (and, as Wilber notes, what if QM gets
overthrown by the next revolution in physics?). Also, it only describes
(if it does) our awareness of the inorganic. Another is that it doesn't
provide a clue to why we are in complete ignorance of the
non-spatio-temporal. And so on. Maybe it's just a good metaphor.
By the way, because I was cut off, I wasn't able to respond to a
question from you that I saw in the archives about where I got the
"differential mystic" notion from. It is from Robert Magliola's "Derrida
on the Mend". Nagarjuna is his main example of one, about whom there are
several books. One good take is in the long introduction of "The
Emptiness of Emptiness" by I forget who. A quick sense of the difference
between a differential mystic from a centric one is that the latter
emphasizes something like meditating on God's Love (John of the Cross is
a typical example), while the former is more concerned with removing
one's limiting beliefs, for example in one's own self-existence, or in
the idea of an independent, objective reality. Neither -- as paths --
should be considered superior to the other, unless they fall into their
respective traps: the differential into nihilism, the centric into idolatry.
- Scott
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