From: Russell Blackford (rblackford@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Jun 22 2001 - 18:22:28 MDT
Mike Lorrey said
>
>I think that a great number of us share a great joy and wonder at the
>universe and its varied phenomena. We don't think that understanding
>those phenomena 'kills the magic' like so many self described
>'spiritual' people complain. A number of us are quite creative artists,
>musicians, and writers (among other activities) who experience
>inspirational feelings on many occasions. As a younger man, I often felt
>closest to the 'sim sysop' when carving wide turns down a bowl of fresh
>powder snow, with the snow still falling and all sound suppressed by the
>environment. Today I usually get it when I write a particularly apt
>phrase or apply a particularly apt blend of color to some artwork. That
>sort of thing has nothing to do with religion, dogma, superstition, or
>any of that garbage, it just is.
I generally hate "me, too" posts, but... "me, too" (or at least "me,
analogously", since I'd use quite different examples from Mike's).
I suggested at one point on this list that there is no need for us to use
words such as "spiritual" and its cognates (I had in mind a comparison with
the word "sin", but did not mention this).
I suggested that the word could usually be replaced by "aesthetic" or
"deeply personal" or some other more precise one. Further, to the extent
that "spiritual" is shorthand for a whole cluster of aesthetic/ creative/
moral/deeply personal etc aspects of life, it misleadingly has an overtone
of the supernatural or paranormal in connection with these aspects.
Well, first, I don't want to filter out any of these things except the
paranormal and supernatural ones. Well... no, maybe not even them: each to
their own poison. But I positively value all these other experiences and
components of life which go under the heading of "spirituality".
Secondly, one response I had was that the word "spiritual"'s very vagueness
can be useful in some contexts. Well, if anyone finds that, I'm not going to
be a pest about the issue. Use whatever language you find useful by all
means.
However, I do say this, as clearly as I can: I understand transhumanist
philosophy to be based upon a scientific materialist account of the
universe, of human beings and the mind. Moreover, my own experience is that
the more precise language we use the better. In many (I won't claim all)
contexts, expressions of high regard for a "spiritual" dimension just play
into the hands of irrationalists and luddites, who so often dismiss anything
that resembles transhumanist thinking as "reductive materialism".
As a friend pointed out to me recently, our culture tends to downplay the
aesthetic dimension of life - art, beauty, creativity, etc - as unimportant,
ie we talk about matters of "mere" aesthetics. I actually believe that the
aesthetic dimension is of great importance. Perhaps the combination of this
importance and the tendency to think in terms of mere" aesthetics drives
people to search for more resonant words such "spiritual" and
"spirituality".
My friend also passed on a rumour that Virginia Postrel has a new book
coming out which may deal with some of this. If this is so, it will be very
interesting to see what Postrel has to say. Can anyone confirm or disconfirm
this?
Ascend!
Russell
==================
Russell Blackford
rblackford@hotmail.com
_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 08:08:15 MST