All: An ancient conundrum facing S/O science which assumes every event has a cause is the problem of First Cause. For example, what caused the Big Bang? If you think you know the answer then the question arises what caused the cause of the Big Bang. Then, what caused that? Quickly you are into infinite regress.
Among the many things that attracted me to the MOQ is Pirsig's answer to this perennial problem. In a little noted response to the question, "How could experience arise from a level of no experience?" Pirsig said in his annotations in Lila's Child: "Since experience is the starting point, it doesn't arise from a lower level of no experience. Logically speaking, a starting point that arises from something else is no longer a starting part." So what is science's starting point? Something like a "quantum fluctuation" that just happened (oops) to have caused the Big Bang. >From whence came the law governing quantum fluctuations? Science's answer, "Don't ask." By contrast, in the MOQ the starting point is boundless, timeless, causeless experience "which cannot be called either physical or psychical. It logically precedes that distinction." (Lila, 29) This leads me to conclude that the ground of being is perennial experience or, as some prefer, "cosmic consciousness," a conclusion backed by no less a scientific light than Erwin Schroedinger: "The external world and consciousness are one and the same thing." This leads me further to conclude that the brain, rather than being the seat of consciousness, is like the ears, eyes, nose, mouth, and skin - a sense organ accessing consciousness (experience), the cradle of existence suffusing the universe, immutable and eternal.. What do you think? Platt 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/
