Meditative methods are very, very useless for attaining 'practical useful knowledge', by which I mean understanding of physical behaviour, physical control of the environment and so on. This is the realm of science and technology.GrahamH wrote:You could be right about that. Thinking that you Know The Truth is likely to divert you from gaining knowledge (approximate models that actually work).Little Idiot wrote:...
(speculation warning! Looking at the big picture, applying the great hind-sight, maybe it was better that western thought believed truth unattainable so that science with its approximations and models could develop - it would possibly have never taken off in a metaphysical frame work where truth was attainable, but science could not claim to produce truth...)
If you think everything is void and not void, changing and not changing, mind but not your mind, conceptual and physical, how do you learn anything? It seems any new concept that might be embraced will necessitate a nullifying contradiction. Admitting that there might be questions we can't answer, that all knowledge is provisional and empiricism is the only means we have to check our knowledge is far, far more productive.
Meditative methods seek 'wisdom' by which I mean understanding the nature of the world the self and the absolute. They seek to control the inner life by understanding and controling the ego and mind.
To use an emperical analogy, a microscope is useless to an astronomer. We need the right tool for the job. Just as we dont do away with mircroscopes because they are useless to astronomers, (only one half of the whole story) we should not do away with meditation because it is useless for science (empericism's view) nor should we do away with microscopes because they will never help us understand the self (the idealist view).
A ballanced view, where all contributions to knowledge and wisdom are recognized, along with a realistic acceptence of the limitations of each is required, and acepting that such a synthesis is both possible and desireable are the very first two steps on the way to reaching it.
In my humble opinion.
IMHO the tools of metaphysics are any and all tools available for aquiring knowledge and wisdom.GrahamH wrote: I wonder what the metaphysically inclined think the tools of metaphysics are. It seems to me that our speculations beyond the empirical are entirely rooted in empirical concepts. There is talk of mind, consciousness, waves, particles, membranes, bangs, parallel worlds, immaterial people, other realms and so on. all taken from this world we experience. How do you approach a realm beyond the empirical when you don't even have concepts to transcend the empirical? Taking an emprical concept and imagining it divorced from empirical examination isn't going to get to "Truth", is it?
Emperical can not lead to truth, but truth if found can be reasonably expected to include the emperical.
The very first step on the road to the absoute is knowing where not to look. If we know not to look in time, we can understand why most of science will never produce truth - but science already knows this from within - this same knowledge has been reached by another route.
If Kant et-al say that truth cant be achieved by sensory methods of worldly enquiry, knowing a little of truth shows why this is so.
