On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 11:27 AM, ARLO J BENSINGER JR <[email protected]>wrote:
> [Ham] > John believes that non-human nature precedes both. > [John] "Believes" might be too strong word in a metaphysical context. Let's just say I'm satisfied to use the idea till I find one more useful. From a position of deeper understanding, "non-human nature" is somewhat problematic. Where does one draw the line? The food that goes into and out of my body, the air that flows from trees and through my lungs are all part of my humanity to a degree. [Ham] > What's wrong with Descartes' own conclusion: "I think, therefore I am"? > Simply > that it does not acknowledge the otherness of which his thought consists. > [John] And even more disturbing, it doesn't acknowledge the otherness of which his *I* consists. This is my main problem with Descartes. In fact, Is this not the static deification of SOM? Taking his isolated self as the grounding for his thoughts and then dividing the world up into objects outside of himself? dirty rotten arrogant SOM-spreading frenchy [Arlo] > In order to "think", Descartes needed a language/culture. Once assimilated, > "self-evident" is biased. "Our intellectual description of nature is always > culturally derived" (Pirsig). > [John] That is true. Intellectual descriptions are inevitably culturally derived. But... In order to conceptualize self, the Other is of absolute, logical necessity. The apprehension of difference, contrast, similarity and definition is no doubt shaped by culture, language and intellect, but I'd say primarily it derives from an interactive relationship; first and foremost before language/culture gets its greedy paws on it. > [Ham] > But of course that's a logical truism, because nothing is more evident than > one's thinking. > > [Arlo] > I'd say Quality is. "Thinking" is an abstraction from the flow of > experience, > but since it derives from experience, I'd say that experience (Quality) > precedes "thinking", and hence is "more evident". Nothing is more evident > than > the Quality-moment of NOW. > [John] I think we're basically on the same page here, Arlo. What I called the interactive relationship is the same, I believe, as what you term, "the Quality-moment of NOW". I don't agree that things that "precede" are "more evident". In fact, I'd say usually the opposite. The deeper you have to dig, the less evident it is and the Quality that is in that moment of interaction between organism and environment has always been a very elusive bird. What is the main goal of Zen? Finding that elusive Quality moment of now and dwelling there. And those guys seem to have to really work to grasp it and few report reliable success. I guess if they all said it was easy, it wouldn't seem so valuable. I'm with Ham on this point; to me, nothing is more EVIDENT than my thinking > [Ham] > All this talk about a hierarchical reality evolving in time and producing > an > intellectual creature in the course of it is fraught with difficulty and > paradox. > [John] I'm with Ham on this point also. > > [Arlo] > Hardly. But in the end any "metaphysics" that ignores or contradicts or > denies > "evolving in time" is meaningless and irrelevant. [John] And a metaphysics that takes human perception of "time" as an absolute given is fraught with difficulty and paradox. Or what was that fellow Einstein ranting about? We can place time in its proper place without denying or contradicting it. 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/
