Hi Andre [Platt mentioned] --
In NLP the term 'trance' is used very loosely. It refers
simply to an 'altered state of consciousness'. ...
I do not consider an altered state of consciousness "simple", nor would I
expect psycho-therapists to treat it lightly. Neuro-linguistic Programming
in new to me, and I had to look it up on the Internet to learn what it was
all about. Apparently, the NLP movement started in the '70s as the work of
two psychologists who ended up suing each other over patent rights, and is
currently being touted as "a way of achieving new states of consciousness
through neuroscience and ritual" by Philip H. Farber whose book is titled
"Meta-Magick". (It sounds a bit hokey to me.)
While it is doubtful that NLP can be considered a science, its emphasis on
"doing" as opposed to "verbalizing" (or rote learning) reminds me of John
Watson's Behaviorism which developed in the mid-20s and was popularized in
B.F. Skinner's "Walden Two". Behaviorists also were proponents of training
programs designed to "condition" desirable behavior in children, although
the link to hypno-therapy is more evident in NLP. (I helped to set up a
juvenile center for a college classmate who was a behavioral psychologist,
so I know something about Watson's methodology.)
NLP does not use it as a state of 'suspended animation'.
Added to this, and referring to Platt's post about 'culture
handing us a set of intellectual glasses', one can interpret this
as a collective hypnotic state (I think Pirsig actually uses
this term somewhere in ZMM), i.e. being hypnotised into
culture's definition/collective experience/ interpretation of
reality. In this sense I mean that I am walking around in a
hypnotised/trance-like state. ...
Yes, but behavioral conditioning of attitudes, phobias, and the like seems
more allied to Eastern mysticism than neuroscience or Western philosophy.
Which brings me to Pirsig's dismissal of metaphysics on the ground that it
is "too mystical". Platt quoted this familiar passage from LILA:
"The first are the philosophers of science, most particularly the group
known as logical positivists, who say that only the natural sciences can
legitimately investigate the nature of reality, and that metaphysics is
simply a collection of unprovable assertions that are unnecessary to the
scientific observation of reality. For a true understanding of reality,
metaphysics is too 'mystical.'"
Actually that's a gross distortion of what classical metaphysics is -- all
the worse for a philosopher seeking to advance a Metaphysics of Quality.
Compare this description of metaphysics from answers.com:
"Branch of philosophy that studies the ultimate structure and constitution
of reality - i.e., of that which is real, insofar as it is real. The term,
which means literally 'what comes after physics,' was used to refer to the
treatise by Aristotle on what he himself called 'first philosophy.' In the
history of Western philosophy, metaphysics has been understood in various
ways: as an inquiry into what basic categories of things there are (e.g.,
the mental and the physical); as the study of reality, as opposed to
appearance; as the study of the world as a whole; and as a theory of first
principles."
I ask you, what is "mystical" about this approach to understanding? Just
because metaphysics is not Science doesn't make it mystical. Nor is
metaphysics "anti-Science". Indeed, we got to Science along the path of
logic and intuitive reasoning laid out by Aristotle. This has been a sore
point with me since I started reading Pirsig.
Platt's point that the MoQ "says that reality is prior to conception and is
therefore immediate, intuitive, undeliberate and involuntary" is well taken.
What Pirsig calls "pre-intellectual experience" (but is really
value-sensibility) is not a trance state, not "altered consciousness", not
mystical contemplation. It is man's attempt to apply intellect and logic to
a fundamental understanding of reality -- in this instance, based on the
values that drive human behavior.
Thanks for your analysis of the SOM formulation as related to the NLP
concept.
Best regards,
Ham
Moq_Discuss mailing list
Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
Archives:
http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
