From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sat Nov 13 2004 - 23:00:46 GMT
Ham, Sam, Chuck, David, Marsha, Mel, Scott and all silent MOQers:
Ever hear the one about the schizophrenic Buddhist who sought to become TWO
with the cosmos?
David Morey's question:
Is there any use for the concept of transcendence in the MOQ? If not is this
an error in the MOQ? If not an error why not?
HAM replied:
The MOQ is indeed in error by failing to posit a transcendent reality, while
allowing us to infer one. ............transcending does not mean simply
encompassing higher and higher levels of physical reality, ad infinitum. It
signifies a different reality altogether. ...The whole point of metaphysics
is to answer what is the Essential Reality? What lies beyond existence?
...Quality does not transcend the physical world, which means that it is
contingent upon a subject-object duality. This is precisely why I continue
to insist that without a transcendent source the MOQ is inadequate as a
metaphysical theory.
dmb says:
I think there are two distinct meanings of the word 'transcendence' and that
confusing the two is at the root of a whole series of mistakes. Ham's
comments serve as an example of this confusion. I think Pirsig'
anti-theistic stance is a rejection of transcendence in that sense. He
rejects the anthropomorphic God that stands apart from nature. Instead,
there is DQ, which is transcendent in the sense that it is beyond our
ability to conceptualize or express in words. This sense of the word does
not refer to that which "lies beyond existence", but only the undefinable,
pre-intellectual, empirical reality. And these two ideas are at the heart of
the difference between East and West and they're at the center of our
debates concerning faith, theism, and mysticism...
THOU ART THAT, p47-8
"...there are two ways of interpreting the word 'transcendent'. One
signifies something that is out there and so transcends this place here. In
that sense, Yahweh is transcendent. Yahweh is, it might be said, a
supernatual fact, up there. The other way of reading the word 'transcendent'
is that of Kant in the CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON, as the ultimate mystery of
being that transcends all conceptualization, beyond thought, beyond
categories. That is the notion that is found in the Upanishads. In India...
there was some realizaton that the ultimate mystery is found in the mystery
of one's own being but that mystery is deeper than any individual's thinking
can go. This spiritual experience has been termed Gnosticism, from the Greek
gnosis, or knowledge, and it describes this intuitive realization of the
mystery that transcends speech. For that reason, the language we use in
speaking of religious mystery is that of metaphor."
dmb continues:
In theology, the difference between the two meanings was debated in terms of
man's relationship with God. Should it be thought of in terms of
RELATIONSHIP or in terms of INDENTITY? Eckhart, for exmaple, had a unitive
mystical experience that compelled him to conclude that INDENTITY was the
correct term, but, Pope John XXII censured it as false. This sort of thing
happens over and over again in the West. Those who dare to identify
themselves with God are generally considered heretics and some, like Jesus
himself, were killed for saying so. The dominant view in the West is one of
RELATIONSHIP, its all about "I and Thou" rather than "Thou Art That". The
position that God is to be found within has always existed as an underground
current in the West and the idea that man and nature are seperate from God
has been the dominant view. The religions of the West are religions of
exile, of trying to get back to the garden, of trying to earn a place in
paradise through a proper relationship with God, usually mediated through a
social institution and its functionaries.
Now step back from these two appraoches for a moment and recall Pirsig's
assertion that "all our intellectual descriptions are culturally derived",
that the myths, rituals and cosmology stories of the social level come
before any intellectual descriptions can be made. Now if we consider that
the theological positon in traditional christianity has maintained the idea
of a transcendent God in the sense that it is ontologically seperate and
then compare that kind of duality to the kind of duality we get in SOM, I
think we can see a continuity. We can see that mythological dualism led to
intellectual dualism. And I think it is no accident that Pirsig is rejecting
both SOM and theism in favor of philosophical mysticism, which does NOT
posit a transcendent God. Instead, the MOQ is a form of philosophical
mysticism, which says that "the reality of the world is intellectually
unknowable". Its also no co-incidence that mysticism is rejected by BOTH
traditional christianity AND scientific materialism. The MOQ is derived from
different cultural elements, from the American Indians, from the East, and
from the contrarians who inhabit that underground current in the West. The
MOQ uses these elements to avoid dualism of either kind and instead asserts
that reality is undivided and undefinable. This kind of transcendence does
not say the mystical reality is some other reality, only that it can't be
seen with the eyes. Its an experience that imparts "knowledge" of a
different sort. It is the realization that unity beyond words. We "seee"
that the ground of being and the ultimate center of our own being are One
and the same. Identity. I and the Father are One. As James Joyce might put
it, Ham Christ, Sam Christ, Scott Christ, David Christ. The idea that jesus
was "God's ONLY begotten son", puts us all in exile, in a state of
existential orphanhood. So I think it is not only incorrect, but also
extremely harmful. For the most part, Western theism is a soul-murdering
distraction from the truth. It prohibits and denies precisely what is needed
most, which is not a relationship with a transcendent being, but the
knowledge of one's place in this world. And this< i suppose, finally brings
us to Sam's point. Its from the "worst thing about 9/11" thread...
Sam said:
My point is that the standard MoQ has no locus of value corresponding to
people as such, therefore people (whether they exist or not in the MoQ) are
of only indirect concern - what is of value is the IDEA. ...as I read the
rejection of the isolated ego self, it could represent just as easily the
third level social patterns imposed on an individual. There seems no
distinction made in the MoQ between, eg, someone we would all agree was
ego-bound (Saddam Hussein?)and someone who was fully actualised in a Jungian
sense (or 'enlightened', whichever language works). In each case the
'person' is an illusion. As you know, I think this is a mistake - and I
think the 9/11 point brings it out.
dmb says:
I can tell by the way you've frame the question, Sam, that you have mistaken
idea of the isloated ego self. We are not talking about relative amounts of
pride or humility. Its not about egotisitical people. Its about the West's
concept of the individual as the starting point of reality, which begins
fully with Descartes, which also marks the beginng of SOM. Its a
metaphysical construct that asserts our normal waking consciousness as the
only form of consciousness - as far as knowledge of reality goes. The MOQ
does not deny that people exist, which would be quite absurd, it only denies
that the normal waking consciousness is primary in any metaphysical sense.
That sense of the self is considered to be illusory for at least two
reasons. The first being that one's ultimate identity has nothing to do with
the social roles we play, the feelings we feel or the thoughts we think. The
second reason is that all these secondary roles, feeling and thoughts are
constantly changing. Our individual persoal identities, the ones that go
with normal waking consciousness, change constantly throughout a lifetime
and depend upon the cultural and even the geographical circumstances. And
the idea of rejecting the isolated ego self is not to reject these things,
but to open them up, to make them reflections of the underlying dynamic
reality rather than take them as the starting point of reality. In the MOQ,
the pre-intellectual reality is dynamic and undivided, but subjects and
objects are a static division, an intellectual construct. Its a damn good
one, but as a metaphysical propositons go, it has some serious flaws. It
works to a point, but ultimately subjects (isolated ego, the little
self,)and objects disappear and give way to a larger, deeper sense of self,
the big Self.
With Pirsig's emphasis on the role of the contrarian, of the lone wolf, on
biography as a driving force in history, I wonder how anyone could question
the existence of people in the MOQ. I've tried to provide a patient and
courteous explanation here, Sam, but I don't want to give you the wrong
impression. I find your assertions, that the MOQ might condone genocide and
that it might doubt the existence of people, entirely laughable. I mean,
what OTHER world is described by the MOQ, except the one we all know so
well? If there are no people, then who are you asking? If Pirsig is
unconcerned with genocide, why does he spend so much time explaining the
forces behind it? And the whole thrust of these BIZZARE interpretations is
that the MOQ is wildly immoral. Since the whole point and purpose of the MOQ
is to re-assert morality in the biggest way, so that morality is the very
structure of the universe, your assertions, Sam, are both hateful and
irrational.
More later,
dmb
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