Marsha said:
RMP's statement was "Quality is indivisible, undefinable and unknowable,." but
there was also that little comment about an "a logical absurdity."
dmb says:
Yes, exactly. The MOQ is a contradiction in terms precisely BECAUSE "Quality"
is unpatterned and "metaphysics" is nothing but patterns. To understand the
distinction between static and dynamic is to understand WHY he says it's a
logical absurdity. That little comment only underscores my point, which is
still apparently quite lost on you. That same point was expressed when I said...
dmb said:
Meditation is supposed to be about putting static patterns to sleep but that is
the last thing we want to do when discussing philosophical ideas. Metaphysics
isn't meditation. Metaphysics is all about precise ideas in a coherent system
of thought. Mystical experience and philosophical talk are two very different
things. It's a very bad idea to confuse these two things. It conflates the
static and the dynamic. How can you fail to see this? It's the central
distinction around which the MOQ is built.
Marsha replied:
I don't remember anyone designating you the arbitrator of what can be discussed
and what cannot be discussed, or how it must be discussed. I am interested in
the MoQ coming from an Eastern philosophical direction.
dmb says:
Wow. You missed the point again. It is Pirsig who says mystical reality and
philosophical talk are two very different things. That's WHY he says the MOQ is
a contradiction in terms. That's the point Pirsig was making in the quote we
are talking about. Would it help if someone else told you that Pirsig said
"Quality is indivisible, undefinable and unknowable in the sense that there is
a knower and a known, but a metaphysics can be none of these things. A
metaphysics must be divisible, definable and knowable, or there isn't any
metaphysics"? There is nothing wrong with approaching from the East but how in
the world do you figure that approach requires you to ignore textual evidence
from the actual author of the MOQ? That's a lame excuse, to say the least. And
never mind the fact that scholars have seen the connection between James's view
and Buddhism and they've published papers about that connection for about 100
years.
Marsha said:
Btw, you haven't yet acknowledged that James probably got his 'pure experience'
insights from reading the Vedic and Buddhist's texts while he was in his
twenties. I don't get that.
dmb says:
I don't think those Eastern texts had very much influence on James. His
father's mysticism, the influence of Emerson, his psychological research and
lots of particular philosophers he corresponded with all had a much stronger
influence. He not only wrote a very impressive book on psychology, he also
collected hundreds of accounts of various kinds of religious experience. In
"The Varieties of Religious Experience" the collected accounts of mystical
experiences appear in the most important concluding chapters. The whole book
leads up to that area and he was interested regardless of whether it came from
Christians or Buddhists. His approach was broader and more inclusive than
either of those. His doctrine of pure experience is the culmination of all that
and more. Like Pirsig, who equates Quality with pure experience, he's a
perennialist.
Marsha:
Your insults don't bother me, but they don't stand as anything meaningful
either.
dmb says:
Liar.
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