Hi Squad,
First of all - Greetings to all the newcomers! Peter and David, you have
both jumped right in with very perceptive posts. Welcome.
Things seem to be returning to normal now, and I need to revisit my original
question which had to do with defining mysticism and reality. It seems to
me that SOM is more than a dusty philosophical theory that nobody's ever
heard of. It appears to be the foundation upon which most of the western
world's fundamental belief system rests. This restates the obvious to us,
but I don't think it's at all obvious to others. As a person coming from
outside the humanities myself (computer engineering, btw) I'm afraid I look
in the mirror and see a blank stare when someone rattles off a list of
philosophers who were mystics. I'm sorry, but I've never heard of any of
them and I don't know what the difference is between a mystical philosopher
and a religious apologist.
I guess I'm asking (about the definition of mysticism) because it seems to
me that if we equate anything at all (like Zen Buddhism, for example) with
Dynamic Quality then we risk having the MOQ become known as a new religion;
and once that happens we're not going to be able to talk anybody out of it -
not those who will embrace it as such and not those in the philosophical
community who will use that appellation as a reason to dismiss it. Those in
the humanities know full well what a mystic is, but the man in the street,
and I'd venture to say, the scientist in the lab do not. If you mention
mysticism to them they will most likely think first of religion or perhaps
New Age metaphysics (another word that's been appropriated).
Several people over the past few days pointed out the fallacy of trying to
use the SOM mindset to learn anything about consciousness. I agree, but do
you think a hard-nosed scientist is going to modify the fundamental nature
of his experiments because of what he would undoubtedly see (from a
hard-nosed scientist-type point of view) as just another New Age religion?
I don't think so. IMHO, it's pretty dangerous for us to use these kinds of
analogies. Analogies have a way of becoming fixed in the collective
consciousness (read media here). They may start out as only a short-hand
for something, but pretty soon they end up becoming a fixed stereotype. As
was also previously pointed out by several, Pirsig talks about using the MOQ
as a bridge between eastern and western thinking paradigms, but he did not
say Dynamic Quality was Zen Buddhism. We already have that. He would only
be reinventing the wheel. There are differences - major ones between Zen,
Christianity, Islam, and any other religion you can name (and any other
philosophy as well) and the Metaphysics of Quality.
I tend to agree with Bodvar who has said we should promote the MOQ on its
own merits. It is a wonderful philosophy! It is beautiful and elegant, and
though I'm no expert, it has passed every test I've been able to think up
for it so far.
I want to celebrate the beauty and originality of the MOQ! I want to
dissect it in every way I can to be sure, first of all I understand it
completely, and second of all to be sure it's as airtight as I believe it to
be. Comparing and contrasting can be great tools for understanding the MOQ,
but I for one plan to dispense with analogies and study the subtlety of the
MOQ itself!
Wishing you happiness,
Mary
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