[Buddha-l] Hindu Fundamentalism

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

StormyTet at aol.com schreef:

> In a message dated 8/6/2005 10:38:54 P.M. Central Daylight Time, 
> richard.p.hayes at comcast.net writes:
>
>     As soon as one begins to speak of any mode of consciousness as being
>     higher than any other, one has left the domain of science and entered
>     the domain of value judgement. 
>
> ST: This is one of Wilber's arguments, actually. Values is not in the 
> realm of material science (and this is a problem in our age --  
> powerful empirical science discounting or overshadowing the value of 
> other realms that deal with cultural and ethical issues). He argues 
> that there is a science to values and it can be seen most readily by 
> those who have practiced the injunction to meditate and then their 
> results are judged by those in the community -- in similar ways that 
> materialist scientists judge each others work (not to mention the peer 
> review in academia in general).  Of course the problem with this is 
> knowing that you have wise peers. A problem in this specific work that 
> he does not address, though I think he has addressed this issue 
> directly in other writings.  

Stormy,

there are two contexts associated with truth claims: the context of discovery and the context of justification. First one does a discovery then one has to convince others, with arguments, not with ceremonies or LSD. That's what we're now doing too. Science doesn't accept arguments ad hominem, so if you say Í'm right because I'm coming from a higher state of mind, or I'm a special person, that doesn't count. So it maybe very interesting to know how  mr. Wilber got so confused or how he got his 'higher wisdom', what counts is wether he can prove to normal people that he's right. 
And besides that: ethical questions are quite down to earth. I don't know about culture because I'm not sure what the word means. I read different things about it all the time.

Erik