Krimel: As for mysticism I have asked for three years for someone to say what it is and why it should be taken seriously, what distinguishes it from other kinds of spirituality? What kind of knowledge is it supposed to provide? Why that knowledge should be taken more seriously than other forms of knowledge? How are we to decide between the conflicting accounts of mystics? What make eastern mysticism "better" than western forms of spirituality? Frankly, I think the whole focus of spirituality is purely emotional. Not irrational but emotional and it is easy to confuse what feels right with what makes sense. If all you want is a good feeling why bother trying to justify it at all?
Ron: The focus on science is also purely emotional. It simply values a different set of criteria. The focus is on value, for that is what mysticism and science hold in common even though science is reluctant to admit it. Scientists are mystics. The point James is making is that primacy lies not in method but in meaning. Eastern forms of mysticism lean toward science, the inquirey of perception. Western forms tend toward paganistic dogmatic devotion and avoid inquirey and skepticism. How do we decide between conflicting scientists? All life is wanting a good feeling, justifying it is an attempt to understand this value. ________________________________ From: Krimel <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2009 12:22:33 PM Subject: Re: [MD] Reductionism >[Marsha] >Oh great wizard, what do you say concerning the statement below? If >science is concentrating on the brain exclusively for answers, they >will get answers related to the brain exclusively. > >[Krimel] >Ah fair princess and honest question deserves and honest answer. Although I >fear this is not truly an honest question here is my honest answer. > >Science does not concentrate, scientist do. Marsha: When you wrote, at 02:19 PM 6/27/2009, that all concepts were secondary, did you mean secondary to 'reality', or something else? [Krimel] Here I am following William James from "Some Problems in Philosophy" in which he presents the arguments in the clearest terms I have yet encountered. It all comes from Chapters VI and V which deal with percepts and concepts. But here read it for yourself: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=1051665 I think the biggest problem we have is in distinguishing a world that is completely independent of us from one of our own construction. I mean you can say what you want in terms of dependant arising and all that but experience was shown me that when loved ones die the beat goes on. The world is different because they were here and it is different when they are gone but it went on before them and it goes on without them. This is the world of experience; shit happening. It is a bleak nihilistic world forever just outside our grasp. It is the world of perception or sampling the continuous stream of a dynamic cosmos. Conception is our own internal reconstruction and orientation toward that other kind of experience. As James says concepts carve dynamic experience into static parts. Those part, concepts and ideas are derived from perception. They are secondary to perception and subject to it. As Piaget claims we are building conceptual schemas out of our perceptions. We do this by fitting new experiences into our conceptual frameworks or by changing our concepts to match our perceptions. This is what happened to Da Vinci in his different drawings of the human brain. [Marsha] Science, as a collection of scientists, builds on a previous set of analogies, analogy supported by analogy supported by analogy all the way down to no-thing. Or do you think there is some thing at the bottom??? Quarks and leptons for instance? - The answers reached are, more or less, guaranteed by the method and questions asked. [Krimel] Of course it is analogy on analogy. That's what a concept is. It is perception encoded. It is not a perception or a thing. It is the meaning we make of our perception. A concept is a construct that reduces our uncertainty about what will happen next and survives moment to moment based on how well it succeeds. As conceptual schemes like science or religion becomes publicly available as part of the intellectual level, individuals dip from this well of encoded experiences and drink their fill or spit it out. I think that physics over the past century and a half pursued Democritus down to the limits of perception. In taking us into the world of quarks and leptons it becomes entirely conceptual and for most of us this conceptual world make no sense at all. In the end the meaning I get from it is confirmation of the fundamental uncertainty of life and the probabilistic nature of our existence. [Marsha] (The way you chopped up this stream of posts makes it difficult to follow.) [Krimel] While my typing is sporadic at best, my formatting is compulsively meticulous. My posts are designed to be read from top to bottom without the presumption that anyone has read what preceded. The vagaries of the various ways these posts get presented to individual readers makes this an iffy process. >[Marsha] >Do you believe everything the scientific Popes, Cardinals and Bishops say? > >[Krimel] >Fair lady, tell the truth. This is not at all an honest question. Unlike >clerics, wizards do not ask for belief. They ask for engagement in the >battle to rein in the horsemen of the Apocolypse and the trial and error >quest for boons for the community. Marsha: It is an honest question to someone who uncritically supports science while belittling the slightest support for any kind of mystical experience. Thank goodness I can run you down the drain like cold water; it's really a mystical miracle. [Krimel] I don't think I am some blind follower of scientific dogma. I don't in fact think there is such a thing as scientific dogma. I suspect you read my posts that way because I don't think you really are asking the right questions about science and you have misconceptions about it and the whole process of conceptualization. As for mysticism I have asked for three years for someone to say what it is and why it should be taken seriously, what distinguishes it from other kinds of spirituality? What kind of knowledge is it supposed to provide? Why that knowledge should be taken more seriously than other forms of knowledge? How are we to decide between the conflicting accounts of mystics? What make eastern mysticism "better" than western forms of spirituality? Frankly, I think the whole focus of spirituality is purely emotional. Not irrational but emotional and it is easy to confuse what feels right with what makes sense. If all you want is a good feeling why bother trying to justify it at all? My ongoing complaint to that the MoQ draws from the metaphysical wellspring of Taoism. This is the metaphysics the Buddhists appropriated in Zen. This is the same metaphysics that can serve to undergird our understanding of science. It asks us to see the unity of experience as primarily composed of the dynamic/active and static/passive. What I find astounding is that some here, often you included, want to confine the MoQ to this kind of narrow stilted mystical path rather than incorporating it into the broader intellectual level. 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