Hi Struan, Roger, Bo, David B. and Group:
Struan makes a big deal of experience presupposing mind:
STRUAN:
� �Pure experience cannot be called either physical or psychical: it logically
precedes this distinction.� Yes, this is true, but �pure experience� still
presupposes a mind to have that experience and this does not in any way
detract from the fact that experience has not yet been divided into subjects
and objects. Again Pirsig tells us, � �subjects and objects are not the
starting point of experience.� And we can all go along with that; but what is
having this experience? Experience logically presupposes an experiencer
does it not?
Sturan throws up the straw man of all straw men. Of course experience
presupposes an experiencer in the divided SOM world of logic. And of
course, experience presupposes mind in the patterned SOM world of
thought. BUT:
�Thought is not a path to reality. It sets obstacles in that path because when
you try to use thought to approach something that is prior to thought your
thinking does not carry you toward that something. It carries you away from
it. To define something is to subordinate it to a tangle of intellectual
relationships. And when you do that you destroy real understanding.� (Lila,
Chap. 5)
It�s been hard to get the idea of �real understanding� through to Struan,
probably because of his being insulated in an academic circle of so-called
modern philosophers who, with the exception of Ken Wilber, dismiss mystic
experience with a smug smile that hides an abiding fear of being hooted out
of the club of entrenched scientific orthodoxy. Thus we see logical positivists
such as Ayer jumping and twisting through logical hoops in order to stay on
the right side of prevailing doctrine. All is relationship. Heavy, heavy. Who
among the scientific community will object to such a meaningless bromide
that does nothing to threaten their worldview?
DAVID B. wrote:
It�s hard to talk about this stuff, but it seems �experience� as a product of the
physical senses is very much a SOM conception and the MOQ�s sense of
�experience� is about an event that occurs before the senses are activated, if
you will.
Yes, the MOQ �sense of experience� is hard to talk about because it�s prior
to mind, prior to experiencers and prior to the presumptions and premises
that logical positivists such as Ayer hold dear. The MOQ �sense of
experience� is a MYSTIC sense, identified simply as a state of awareness by
many Eastern sages. Sri Ramana Maharshi expressed it thus:
"You must get rid of the idea that you are an ajnani (ignorant one) and have
yet to realize the Self. You are the Self. Was there ever a time when you
were not aware of the Self?"
What modern philosopher talks like that besides Wilber? None that I know of.
One of the best expressions of the MOQ�s �sense of experience� that I�ve
found is from a Western sage, Plotinus. Here is an excerpt from his writings
that helps explain the mystic understanding of which I speak:
�What is beyond the Intellectual-Principle (mind) we affirm to be the Good
radiating Beauty before it. So each in the solitude of himself beholds
(experiences) that solitary-dwelling Existence, the Apart, the Unmingled, the
Pure, that from Which all things depend, for Which all look and live and act
and know, the Source of Life and of Intellection and of Being. (Parens added.)
And as a prelude to Pirsig, a couple of thousand years ahead of the MOQ,
Plotinus wrote:
�The Good is that on which all else depends, toward which all Existences
aspire as to their source and their need, while itself is without need, sufficient
to itself, aspiring to no other, the measure and Term of all.�
If that doesn�t describe Pirisg�s Quality I have thoroughly misunderstood what
he means.
Now lest I be taken wrongly, I love logic in all its permutations because it has
given us in the Western world truly unbelievable material wealth and makes
philosophical discussion like those on this site so enjoyable. BUT, logic
(thought) is not a path to reality.
Perhaps the following quote from Paul Davies, author of �The Mind of God,�
�God and the New Physics,� and �The Cosmic Blueprint.� will help to make
the point I�m trying rather clumsily to get across.
"Although may metaphysical and theistic theories seem contrived or
childish, they are not obviously more absurd than the belief that the universe
exists, and exists in the form it does, reasonlessly. But in the end a rational
explanation for the world in the sense of a closed and complete system of
logical truths is almost certainly impossible. We are barred from ultimate
knowledge, from ultimate explanation, by the very rules of reasoning that
prompt us to seek an explanation in the first place. If we wish to progress
beyond, we have to embrace a different concept of "understanding" from that
or rational explanation."
That �different concept of understanding� and �real understanding� of the
MOQ comes not from dissecting it�s logic but from the aesthetic (Quality)
event of reading Zen and Lila wherein �. . .each in the solitude of himself
beholds the Apart, the Unmingled, the Pure . . . �
Anyway, as William James pointed out, there�s no difference between the
experience and the experiencer. He wrote:
�This paper and the seeing of it are two names for one indivisible fact.�
Doesn�t get any plainer than that.
Platt
P.S. The above was written before I read Roger�s superb post of 8 April which
I agree with completely. I think Roger, Bo, David B. and I arrive at precisely
the same conclusions from different but equally valid perspectives.
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