Gary,
Gary Jaron wrote:
> Hi Scott and Bo,
> First Scott,
> I really liked Merrell-Wolff!!! Nirvana is Quality as Goal of Being! At
> least that is what I understand Wolff to be saying!
Well, that's not how I would put it. His first Realization he (later)
charcterized as Nirvana, or Pure Subjectivity (all objects, including
himself, realized as ephemeral). His second realization, which he first
called the High Indifference, then later "Consciousness without an
object and without a subject", showed that even Nirvana (as defined) is
still ever so subtly dualist. And note that the phrase High Indifference
suggests that Quality may not be the (ultimately) correct word for the
ultimate ground. I think that from our perspective it doesn't matter,
though.
> What one book of
> his would you recommend? I'm interested in reading more of his stuff.
"Experience and Philosophy" which is a re-issue of the two books he
published in his lifetime, "Pathways through to Space" and "Philosophy
of Consciousness without an Object". I think the two separately are out
of print, but if you have to choose between the two, the first is a
journal and commentary started right after his Awakening. The second is
a philosophical analysis, and includes a lengthy discussion of the
aphorisms.
>
> How does Barfield history of consciousness relate with Julian Jaynes
Jaynes was a materialist, and Barfield wasn't. So Jaynes gives an
"explanation" of the Homeric-age "thinking seeming to come from
'outside'" as one half of the brain talking to the other. Barfield
(whose work was 20 years earlier than Jaynes) has no need for this
fancy. Also, Barfield is able to bring in the religious import of the
evolution of consciousness, and shows how SOT is a stage, one of value
but dangerous if we don't go beyond it, while Jaynes is still a SOM-ite.
and 2)
> how does it relate with the emergence of mind/matter divide and the
> Observer/Observed divide? Is original participation before both of these?
Yes and no. There was some sense of individuality among the original
participators. Achilles, after all, sulked at being insulted, so he
obviously had some sense of self. What didn't exist was SOT, which
Barfield calls alpha-thinking, and which requires that original
participation be vanquished. In a footnote, he gives the example of
panic as a remnant in modern times of original participation. While in a
state of panic we can't observe with detachment that which is causing
the panic. (And note that the root of the word "panic" is the god Pan.)
So in the sense that one's mental life was incapable of being set off
against the rest of the world, the divide had not occurred.
But Barfield explains this much better than I can in an email.
Hope this helps.
- Scott
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:02:29 BST