Tom wrote to me and asked:

Since metaphysics leads nowhere given the too wide disparity of experience - is there another angle we can pose questions at on the forum?

With respect to other questions as far as I am concerned everything is fair game. "anything less than everything is not enough."

I don't know that I agree that the metaphysics leads nowhere but I too have a problem with the disparity of experience. Which is why I want to hear about experiences others have had. I am most interested in the factual reporting and phenomenal manifestations. The "What?" and "How?" of things.

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2000

Answers

"...metaphysics leads nowhere..." ??!!!

Sputter... *gag* Tom.

Mumm. Oh well. If you haven't experienced it, guess that could be one conclusion. Remember the one about five blind men touching an elephant?

Diane

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2000

But Diane, that leads us back to the old existential question. The blind men were subjectively describing their experience, but objectively, they were all in error. However, in the totallity of their experience, they were right.

So does metaphysics lead to nowhere, or is it an experiential journey rather than a destination?

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2000

You know it's almost more fun to say something shocking - normally I'm trying for insight as opposed to shock value (*gag* indeed!)

I like metaphysics. I'm just concluding that our terms of reference are so far afield that the constant clarification of terms takes all the value out of a discussion. So I'm wondering if there is a different avenue of discussion, not that a particular topic is unworthy so much as unworkable.

I'm of mixed feelings about "experience" in the sense that without experience it's all speculation, but without reflection and making sense of experience then there's nothing to share except subjective hallucination.

I remember the story of the blind men and the elephant, and I construed the moral as needing integrating/integrative explanations (as well as the usual cultural placing of visual sensing over tactility - rewrite the story for our culture by transposing the two representation systems and you'll describe not 5 blind men in a far off land with elephants, but the modern corporate office.).

I do believe in Antarctica and I've never been there, does that count?

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2000

Oh yeah - also another thing about experience and discussions. I find it's time for me to quit (as in I'm screwing up badly) when I find myself denying someone's experience, and also when I'm talking too far afield from my own experience.

Besides, its the making sense of the experience where the juice is for me - the implications and entailments...

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2000

Ken,

What are we but the sum total of our personal experiences: the culminations of the opportunities to learn (weve either taken or not) with a dash of elusive inexplicable spirt, which can just as easily form child prodigies or bag ladies.

The universe is a grand elephant.

...does metaphysics lead to nowhere, or is it an experiential journey rather than a destination?

In my world... its both... a journey and a destination. As to where it leads? Will let you know when I get there. *Grin*

Tom,

I'm just concluding that our terms of reference are so far afield that the constant clarification of terms takes all the value out of a discussion.

So, uh, should I quit posting? Or provide a glossary when I do?

Not quite sure what your upset is. For me, another lesson to the elephant story is it illustrates the collective need to compare and join the forces between different experiences. At least, if were going to make sense out of this crazy world. But then again, perhaps thats not the objective.

Diane

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2000

Diane - no, its the converse. I'm worried about me being too pedantic and dragging down the course of discussion.

To make sense of things with words I find I have to be able to picture what the word means, and then I want to connect that picture into some context - assimilate it as it were. When working with texts this is no problem, dictionaries and footnotes and references abound.

When talking over an issue with other people like we're doing on this forum I am concerned about bogging down the "flow" and co-opting the discussion by dwelling too much on definitions (for my benefit).

So it was more of a pre-emptive withdrawal before I got thinks bogged down. This strikes me as too valuable a coming together place for me to want to throw sand in the works.

When I am criticize someone, it's usually along a line of mocking of their avowed thought processes - you know, calling someone on an inconsistency in reasoning that shows that they can't be thinking something for the espoused reasons, because the espoused reasons don't hold water. It's never very subtle.

-- Anonymous, March 30, 2000

Ah, I see. Sort'a. *Smile*

For the moment I rather felt like an astronaut who'd just discovered they were at a gathering of the flat earth society.

I can see that we're coming from completely different "experiences" of reality. Will try to take that into account.

Personlly, I'm just not fluent in the terminology used in "Psychology Today" and for me, Maslow's Hierarcy Of Needs is rather two- dimensional, when it needs to become 3-D... or beyond.

Sorry for the confusion. Will attempt to re-adjust my dial accordingly.

Diane

-- Anonymous, March 30, 2000

"For the moment I rather felt like an astronaut who'd just discovered they were at a gathering of the flat earth society. "

Gee - I thought it was me being an evolutionist at a creationist Sunday luncheon... (humor intended!)

I can see that we're coming from completely different "experiences" of reality. Will try to take that into account.

Ditto.

"Personlly, I'm just not fluent in the terminology used in "Psychology Today" and for me, Maslow's Hierarcy Of Needs is rather two- dimensional, when it needs to become 3-D... or beyond. "

That's interesting. I always saw it as one-dimensional, sort of positing a set of basic needs, which once satisfied freed you up to work on "higher" things, which once satisfied free you up, etc. Something like that quote about philosophy being of little interest to a person with an empty belly.

What other dimensions and aspects come to mind for you and would flesh this out a little better?

-- Anonymous, March 30, 2000