From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Mon Jul 25 2005 - 01:49:11 BST
Paul, Sam and all MOQers:
I'm hopelessly behind and had to ditch 100's of unread posts. Please let me
know if I missed anything particularly fabulous or horrible. But the lawn is
mowed and my conference paper is fixed up and sent, so I'll jump back in on
this thread, where Paul's work caught my eye...
Sam refered to Damasio's work:
...the collection of intellectual patterns which we call mind will defer to
a particular set of intellectual patterns associated with emotional
response. It is those intellectual patterns associated with emotional
response, viz the representations within the mind of visceral reactions,
which I don't think are adequately characterised by GPT. (I think they are
more adequately characterised by the language of emotional intelligence, aka
virtue language. I also think that the agglomeration of intellectual
patterns bears a remarkable resemblance to traditional teaching about the
soul, but that's a whole other story.)
Paul replied:
I think you are confusing emotion with the experience of intellectual
value. Both are aesthetic but they are, according to the MOQ, different
responses to Quality - separated by evolutionary development.
dmb says:
Now get ready for a big surprize. Are you sitting down? You better sit down
and hold on to your hat because... I agree with Paul on this point. I think
you're confusing emotion with a lot of things, Sam. And I'm quite baffled by
your use of the physiological explanations of a neurologist to support
theological notions about virtue and the soul. These are strange enough
bedfellows, but then there's the added problem of trying to fit this odd
mixture into the MOQ. For the sake of brevity I'll just say that it doesn't
work. I'd also point out that confusing emotion and intellect can be quite
disasterous. (I have a keen eye for the obvious, don't I?)
Sam said:
I don't think the whole web responds to Quality. I think there is a spider
in the middle of the web. (But a spider composed of the same substance as
the web)
Paul replied:
This is where I think you have to drop the "self-reweaving" idea then. You
seem to be trying to slip in the conventional idea of a mind or a self which
does the thinking.
dmb says:
You shuold sit down and get ready to be surprized because, like Paul, I see
the conventional self in Sam's thinking too. Do you suppose this SOM
perspective has slipped in by way of neurology or by way of theology? We
MOQers tend to associate SOM with scientific materialism above all, but I
think it can come from either direction. I used a Joseph Campbell quote in
my conference paper that gets at Sam's kind of theological SOMish self...
From Campbell's THOU ART THAT: Transforming Religous Metaphor:
"Already in the 8th century B.C., in the Chhandogya Upanisad, the key word
to such a meditation is announced; TAT TVAM ASI, "Thou art That", or "You
yourself are It!". The final sense of a religion such as Hinduism or
Buddhism is to bring about in the individual an experience, one way or
another, of his own IDENTITY with that mystery that is the mystery of all
being. ...it is the mystery also of many of our own Occidental mystics; and
many of these have been burned for having said as much. Westward of Iran, in
all three of the great traditions that have come to us from the Near Eastern
zone, namely Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, such concepts are unthinkable
and sheer heresy. God created the world. Creator and creature cannot be the
same, since, as Aristotle tells us, A is not-A. Our theology, therefore,
begins from the point of view of waking consciousness and Aristotelian
logic; whereas, on another level of consciousness - and this, the level to
which all religions must finally refer - the ultimate mystery transcends the
laws of dualistic logic, causality and space-time. Anyone who says, as Jesus
is reported to have said (John 10:30), 'I and the Father are One', is
declared in our tradition to have blasphemed. ...We in our traditon do not
recognize the possibility of such an experience of identity with the ground
of one's own being. What we accept, rather, is the achievement and
maintenance of a relationship to a personality concieved to be our Creator.
In other words, ours is a religion of RELATIONSHIP: a, the creature, RELATED
to X, the Creator (aRX). In the Orient, on the other hand, the appropriate
formula would be something more like the simple equation, a=X."
Sam said:
Perhaps the point is that where you see 'truth' as the presiding value of
the fourth level (and therefore the patterns of the intellectual level are
organised around that truth) I see truth as one form of integrity. In other
words, truth is a function of honesty; it is ontological not
epistemological.
Paul replied:
I think truth with respect to honesty (as in, "I'm telling the truth") is
not quite the same as e.g. mathematical, scientific or philosophical truth.
I agree that truth is better described as ontological rather than
epistemological in the sense that truth is a species of static quality.
dmb says:
Have a seat and grab a brown paper bag because I agree with Paul on this
too. In fact, Sam, I'd argue that you aren't offering a different definition
of truth here so much as switching topics. I'd argue that personal honesty
and integrity are just as important for scientists and philosophers as they
are for anyone else, maybe even more so, but Paul's work in this thread
simply isn't about moral rectitude or strength of character. I'd even go so
far as to suggest that your Euidemonic MOQ seems exclude intellectual
quality altogether by making a similar switch for the entire 4th level.
Ironically, I think this switch is itself immoral in the MOQ because it
asserts social values over intellectual values. I mean, it seems you want
the MOQ's fourth level to be replaced by Christian notion's of salvation and
the like...
Sam said:
Truth is not (as you rightly say) about correct reference from pattern to
external reality; it is rather, I would suggest, the product of autonomous
integrity. Thus it is the individual mind of integrity which represents the
organising element at the fourth level. And it is establishing and gaining
that integrity which is both enlightenment and the salvation of the soul.
What does it profit a man if he gain the whole social level (power, money,
fame) but lose touch with the fourth?
Paul replied:
Tell me more about "an individual mind of autonomous integrity." It is one
of those pleasant phrases (good for epitaphs and the like) which brings
forth nods of approval without bringing any clarity to the proceedings.
...The thing is, I think honour and integrity are celebrated virtues of the
social level, or at least, there is social integrity and intellectual
integrity so it doesn't suffice as the cleavage term we are looking for.
dmb says:
Put your head between your knees and breathe into the brown paper bag for a
while because I'm gonna disagree with Sam on this point too. In fact, I'd
say that establishing and gaining "the individual mind of integrity" is just
about the opposite of enlightenment. As it is explained so beautifully and
precisely by Campbell in the quote above, Western theology "begins from the
point of view of waking consciousness and Aristotelian logic; whereas, on
another level of consciousness - and this, the level to which all religions
must finally refer - the ultimate mystery transcends the laws of dualistic
logic, causality and space-time.". As a result, Western salvation is a
matter of bringing the creature into accord with the Creator, while Eastern
Enlightenment is a matter of seeing that thou art that. I think this
theological framework colors your interpretation of just about everything
including Paul's thoughts about the structure of our beliefs. I think you
insist there's a spider in the web because you can't quite shake these
SOMish dualisms in Western theology. Hope that makes sense to you.
P.S. Sam, glad you had a nice time in China and discovered that they have a
social level in the East, but it would've been nice to have you, and
everybody else, at the conference and to meet you in person. And I'm sure
you would have just loved my paper, FUN WITH BLASPHEMY. Ha! Shall I send you
a copy?
And what ever happened to Glove, who was expected but didn't make it?
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