From: Valuemetaphysics@aol.com
Date: Sun Apr 25 2004 - 15:14:28 BST
Mark,
I wanted to add a supplement to dmb's cogent explanation of transpersonality
and the spiritual domain.
Mark: Hi Dave, Thanks for your help.
Your reaction--namely, nervousness--is the way that
both modernity and postmodernity typically react to "eastern stuff."
Mark: I love Eastern stuff Dave. I have great sympathy for Eastern stuff. My
nervousness with regard to transpersonality and the spiritual domain does not
involve a reaction to Eastern points of view. If it where not for my disbelief
in reincarnation i would probably be a Buddhist in all but name.
The problem breaks down somewhat like this: with the differentiation of the
three primary modes of being-in-the-world, namely, I, we, and it, or subjective,
intersubjective, and objective, or the three domains of knowledge, art,
morals, and science, each branch of knowledge is freed up from the claims of
all the others (what the MOQ calls the social level), and they are free to
explore and develop as they please.
Mark: I see. I don't understand what the metaphysical basis is for
transpersonality and the spiritual domain is? For the MoQ, the metaphysical basis of
everything is Quality of course!
however, the latter, science, has developed so much faster than the others, not only because its effects and
verification are visible , efficient, and "practical, but because it usurped
the proper place of the first two branches, even denied their existence.
Mark: The MoQ unifies art, morality and science by suggesting that Quality is
the basis of everything. Thus, science is moral and artistic. So i see what
you are saying.
as wilber typically puts it, the enlightenment was all about making maps of
reality, joyfully enacting the representational paradigm...but the vast
majority of these maps leave out the mapmaker. as kierkegaard said in
reference to hegel, the system is a great and grand and wonderful castle, but
it has not room for the philosopher who built it. or as habermas puts it,
the third branch of knowledge "colonized" the lifeworld of the individual and
the collective, materializing and economizing aesthetic and moral experience.
however, while habermas and critical theory in general has all but exhausted
the critique of modernity and reached the limits of postmodernity (which is
another way of saying the limits of REASON), they have nothing positive to
put
in its place, because they have not yet lifted that have been upheld for
centuries against the concrete, practical reality of individual levels of
consciousness that transcend reason, which brings me to mark's reaction.
Mark: The life world of the individual presupposes an individual, but the
self is an illusion as far as i am concerned. My nervousness regardes,
'individual levels of conciousness.'
I would put this as inceasing coherence in SQ-SQ tension, leading to intense
Coherence in mystic union. But the individual was not there to begin with, and
patterns are assimilated into Coherence in mystic union?
This is empirical, but the indication of it being real is patterned as a
sense of beauty.
as wilber shows to a much fuller degree than pirsiq, that nervousness, that
angst, that fear, uncertainty, etc., which the thought, even the mention, of
the transpersonal/transrational inspiries, is in fact not only the death
throws of reason, but the death throes of the ego.
Mark: If you can indicate what the metaphysical basis of transpersonality is
i may be better able to understand what transpersonal means, what the
spiritual realm means? The ego is a theory, and a poor one at that i think, so we
agree there!
what you have to see if
that the ego, the self-concept, personhood, etc., is really just one form of
awareness, a derivative one that comes after the fact, as pirsig demonstrates
with the hot stove experiement.
Mark: I do see that yes.
furthermore, this notion of personhood is
perfectly linked with the emergence of perspectival reason, which is where
our good old friend SOM first becomes possible.
Mark: Possible but not inevitable? I don't think there is perspectival
reasoning, because the person is assumed not reasoned. In fact, reasoning destroys
the arguments for self.
SOM is based on assumptions rationality cannot support adiquately?
again, this is what we call
modern cognition; remember, before modernity, the individual is not the
primary source of identity; you are a member of the tribe before you are a
person, properly speaking.
Mark: The leader of the tribe is differentiated by social betterness -
Quality. Intellectual Quality can challenge that authority with abstract symbolic
manipulations, but this does not necessarily imply individuality? A leader
differentiated by intellectual Quality is still differentiated by social Quality
and Organic Quality. The individual has to be reasoned for, and reason cannot
support it without metaphysical assumptions. The celebrity does not have to be
reasoned for, it exerts differentiation via social Quality?
so what am i saying? that reason and personhood
are the parents of SOM,
Mark: SOM is an idea supported by reason and used to delineate substances.
But reason doesn't have to be used to support SOM and delineate substances at
all? It was not in the East and not before Aristotle. Reason is primarily
concerned with the Good, that is, Quality.
My nervousness with transpersonal psychology and the spiritual domain is due
to not understanding the metaphysical basis for either of them?
I think i understand the metaphysical basis for rationality and consciousness
in MoQ terms, but not in Wilbur's terms?
and, even though they are the latest development in
the evolution of consciousness, the most recent static pattern of human
cognition, they believe that they are the ceiling of development, the end;
this is why habermas, critical theory, postmodernism, and contemporary
philosophy in general can go absolutely nowhere, can generate nothing
positive until they realize that their nervousness about transpersonal cognition,
mystical experience, AND EASTERN THOUGHT IN GENERAL, is merely a product of
forms of cognition whose partiality they have critiqued they hell out of.
Mark: That's all very well for them, but i already don't agree with them. I
have far more sympathy with Nagarjuna and the MoQ. The term transpersonal
psychology and spiritual domain are used allot but it is with these that i have the
problem.
Kant saw this, but he had the bias as well. so, to derrida's famous charge,
that western thought in general has sufferred from a "phallologophonocentric
bias" needs to supplemented by another: the rational bias, which does not
admit, and severely frowns upon, higher, transpersonal levels of awareness.
Mark: What is the metaphysical basis for transpersonal awareness? Are we
appealing to reports from spiritual explorers? Where are these levels coming from?
You see Dave, everyone can appeal to their experience of Quality, but i feel
transpersonal psychology and spiritual domain are patterned descriptions? That
is to say, they come with allot of bagage?
the problem , of course, is that the only people who think about these things
that have any attempt to change the course of collective thought are
philosophy professors, who work in a highly politically charged industry
where any adherence to transpersonality, spirituality, etc, is not only laughed at,
but is a quick and sure root to professional ruin.
Mark: Well, there are many US Universities which have two halves; one for
academic study of Indian philosophy and one for meditation. If transpersonal psych
ology has more in common with eastern views then there is a home for it?
therefore, only rogues
like wilber and pirsig are free from the slings and arrows of philosophology,
and their patient and passionate wisdom will hopefully permeate the palace of
postmodern philosophy, and maybe even politics too, though both, especially
the latter, are extremely unlikely.
Mark: This is a Western reaction? But the Eastern view has no problem, and
has not ever developed a problem with many of the issues dealt with here? I feel
that the MoQ strikes the right balance; it can and will be taught in
philosophy departments one day. (It already has to some extent.)
Tranpsersonal psychology is researched and i think it may be taught at
Liverpool John Moore's University, but in the psychology department.
but to wrap this up, when we talk about
the spiritual domain, what we're really saying is that real religious
experience is not about the exteriors, the customs, rites, historical truth
claims, etc. of any particular religion (the social level aspects), it's
about the individual experience, awareness, etc., and the religious forms are
merely a springboard towards individual development, to transcend the static
patterns.
Mark: I understand this Dave. But what is the metaphysical basis for the
spiritual domain? Or is this not a fair question?
another way of saying this is that real spirituality is about the
internal, rather than the external, and the reason you feel nervous about
this stuff is that we live in a social world that for the most part refused to
believe in internality in any form, which is precisely why we all feel so
self-alienated, depoliticized, dehumanized, etc., why we are, to put it
bluntly, a prozac nation. hope that clears some things up.
-Dave
Mark: Cheers. I really appreciate your time and patience in helping me out
with this. I feel i need more help understanding the empirical nature of
consciousness and how descriptions of it are given intellectually by Wilbur?
My description of consciousness is SQ-SQ tension responding to DQ. Higher
evolved patterns are held in more responsive tensions - value evolution. A simple
analogy would be a violin - it has it's own tension and can be raised to high
Quality tension when it is in tune.
The metaphysical basis for all this is Quality.
There is no spiritual domain or psychology involved here, and this is where i
am experiencing problems.
All the best,
Mark
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