On 9/19/10 9:53 AM, "MarshaV" <[email protected]> wrote: > If you read 'reifying carrots' thread, most of my examples > of reification come from a Buddhist perspective. I think this > is quite appropriate when one considers the MoQ may > be considered a bridge between Western Science and > Eastern Insight. > > Wikipedia is not the sole source of information. There are > also many books available, and I read.
I dare say most of the people here read more and at a higher level than most of the general population. That being said, quantity and difficulty of the material does not necessarily and automatically translate into quality of interpretation of that material. But here is the real problem as I see it. Pirsig's marriage of Eastern and West philosophy relies on acceptance of the proposition that religious mystical experience is: 1. Transcendent, in the sense that it surpasses ordinary experience to a higher level. One more in touch with "reality" as it really is. He does not mean transcendent in the Kantian way. > 1 TRANSCENDENT > a : exceeding usual limits : surpassing > b : extending or lying beyond the limits of ordinary experience > c in Kantian philosophy : being beyond the limits of all possible experience > and knowledge 2. A more accurate, integrating, and useful account of reality "as a whole" than any other. Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to deny the reality of mystical experiences or the reports of those that have them. It just that the more I read and try to understand the nature of mystical experience the more skeptical I become of the good of this approach. This really should be another separate thread. But my most basic skepticism lies in this: What if mystical experiences are not a higher level of experience but a regressive, reduced, or more animalistic type experience? What if all Neanderthals were mystics? Just a thought. Dave 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/md/archives.html
