[ron] I think the interesting note that James strikes and Krimel mentions is that there are biological benefits to the feeling of well-being and that this as a counterpoint to truth is of a seriouse inquirey to explore.
[Krimel] I am glad to see you get this. Dave still seems puzzled. [ron] James sees no difference between drug use and the mystical expereince he equates them, but drug use overall is detramental to biological health, that diminishes the true-ness of natural religeos expereince which boils the question down to a choice, between "truth" and well being. [Krimel] Just to side track this a bit, I would like to object. Most drugs in and of themselves have relatively mild long term effects. Dale Pendell, wrote the "Pharmako" series (Pharmako... /Poeia, /Dynamis, /Gnosis or sedatives, stimulants and hallucinogens) It is a kind of epic three volume technical poem all about drugs and power plants. Here's a sample... just a little taste for you... If you like it, I can sell you more...: Come on, O rueful Syrians, and all you thick-smelling solanaceous plants; You cultivated-in-rows tobacco and coca plants; You maligned poppy plants and worshipped grapevine plants All forgotten plants, and fad plants: Come forth, you motley troop not a gentleman among you Not one that won't lie, cheat, or swindle a ride Come, all ye ruffians: Be fruitful, we have need of poison. Pendell emphasizes that all drugs are poisons which in the right dosages have beneficial effects. Tobacco and alcohol are drugs with some of the most devastating long term health effects. Marijuana, hallucinogens and opiates are far, far safer from a health perspective. What makes them biologically devastating is the legal prohibition which acts as a kind of federal price support system and produces far reaching harm to both individuals and our social systems. [ron] Krimel seems to imply that this is an either/or conclusion. That one either values truth or feeling good and that feeling good in no way involves "truth". But, isn't this what James is ultimately getting at? isn't what he is saying is that we arrive at and define truth terms via the feeling we derrive from certainty? That truth has meaning precisely because it makes us feel better? [Krimel] I think that first part is a misperception. I am like the Red Queen, who told Alice, "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." Usually they are gone by lunch time and I don't talk about them here. But yeah I think that is what James is getting at. Or maybe it is more like Hume, who said that reason is a slave to the passions. [ron] Pirsig in effect is saying the same thing about empricism and mysticism that they are the same sort of verification for the same reasons and that the two are married in immediate experience. The justifications differ but the end intent is the same. [Krimel] I think the function of reason, at its best, is to guide the passions or to override the passions. Mysticism as I understand Dave's view of it is just another form of slavery. I have been a regular attendee for years at seminars sponsored by the religion department at a local college. They have included a great many significant theologians from around the world. One of the things that gets mentioned often in assessing the truth value of their positions is that when we find that our conclusions are painful and hard to swallow, often that is an indicator that they are on the right track. If all that reason does is confirm our preconceptions or make us feel good, that ought to scare us. 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/
