{"id":135,"date":"2010-01-15T23:14:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-15T23:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/2010\/01\/15\/135\/"},"modified":"2010-04-19T19:31:47","modified_gmt":"2010-04-20T00:31:47","slug":"135","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=135","title":{"rendered":"KEN WILBER and ZARTHUSTRA"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the spare moments at work, I sometimes surf the net for something interesting to read (not unusual in today\u2019s workplace). Today I was skimming thru a free PDF of the book \u201cNorman Einstein\u201d<\/a>, a criticism of integral philosopher Ken Wilber.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never been a huge fan of Wilber, although no one interested in modern philosophic speculation can discount him. Nonetheless, author Geoffrey Falk has attempted to de-bunk him, or at least expose Wilber\u2019s significant flaws. Wilber certainly does have a large and loyal following; if you are not one of them, then you probably won\u2019t care about 60 or 70% of what Falk writes about. He goes into great detail. Since I never took the bait from Wilber (given that it was clear to me right away that the guy had significant anger issues, and had not found inner peace), I didn\u2019t need to be let off the hook. <\/p>\n

However, there is an interesting article in the appendix on how Wilber misunderstands and misinterprets the ontological paradigms regarding the reality behind quantum physics as postulated by the late, great physicist Dr. David Bohm. I won\u2019t try here to explain what Dr. Bohm is getting at, except by contrast to the prevailing Copenhagen interpretation of quantum phenomenon. According to the Copenhagen disciples, \u201cweird things happen\u201d on the micro level. Get over it. There is no explanation. This is where physics ends. There\u2019s nothing more to be explained through research, as we can never dig any deeper due to inherent uncertainties and fuzziness in our ability to observe tiny energy interactions. <\/p>\n

Well, if that\u2019s true, then metaphysical speculation fans like Ken Wilber (and myself) would be quite disappointed. That\u2019s why David Bohm is so attractive to most of us. He comes up with some mathematically supportable if not yet empirically testable ideas on what might lie deeper than what we can detect. I\u2019ve read a bit about his paradigms, but to be honest I didn\u2019t really grasp them too well. But today, while reading about Wilber\u2019s problems with Bohm\u2019s ideas, I started \u201cgetting it\u201d. Well, up to a point, anyway. Mr. Falk did a pretty good job summarizing what Bohm was getting at, and why it is such a huge paradigm shift. <\/p>\n

And I really enjoyed it! This is what makes me happy \u2013 having an intellectual breakthru in my own old, misfiring grey matter. And I actually had a bit of this happiness today. I had the \u201cAH HA!\u201d moment, when I could see bigger things, have expanded visions of reality. The holography and implicate order paradigms regarding the reality in which quantum mechanics manifests itself are making a bit more sense. OK, these are not proven facts, just theories (as yet unprovable theories). But they are fun to explore with your mind. At least for me. <\/p>\n

For various reasons that I don\u2019t fully understand, Wilber doesn\u2019t think that Bohm was on the right track regarding \u201cmeta reality\u201d. But as I indicated, I don\u2019t really understand Wilber either. And to be honest, from what I know of Wilber, I don\u2019t want to.<\/p>\n

Another recent bit of intellectual searching during my break time involved Zarathustra<\/a>, the Persian prophet who more or less founded (or grounded) Zoroastrianism. Yes, he\u2019s the guy that Nietzsche was referring to the book \u201cThus Spoke Zarathustra\u201d. Well, actually Nietzsche was going off on a \u201cGod is dead\u201d tangent, and didn\u2019t really care that much about the real Zarathustra. But I do. Why? Because I\u2019m a big fan of the intellectual interpretation of Jesus as a Jewish apocalypticist. This to me is the most powerful way of understanding Jesus, the real Jesus. This makes a lot of puzzle pieces fall into place. <\/p>\n

So why is Zarathustra important to understanding Jesus? Well, Zarathustra seems to be the first historical instance of a prophet calling for belief in a single god; he may be the earliest historically verifiable voice favoring monotheism. Before him, religion was animistic, polytheistic, nature-based, and mediated by shamans who used magical procedures to make the \u201cforces of the universe\u201d cooperate with one\u2019s desire for good crops, more children, better fortune, etc. You didn\u2019t have an individual relationship with these forces; they didn\u2019t care much about you, and they didn\u2019t call you to moral and ethical responsibility. <\/p>\n

But Zarathustra, who lived around 1000 BCE or even earlier, may have planted the seed for the big change in the way people thought about both themselves and the \u201cgreat forces\u201d beyond their control. And that big change eventually manifested itself into the Jewish faith (via the influence of Zoroastrianism on the Jews during their exile in Persia), and later Christianity and Islam. But even better regarding Jesus \u2013 Zarathustra was also an apocalypticist<\/a>!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like he gave Jesus the blueprint for his own movement. Zarathustra called for an \u201cend of time\u201d to come in the future, whereby a human-like \u201csavior\u201d would mediate the purification of the world. Those who were good would be raised from the dead, while the evil ones would be swept aside. The Zoroastrian God (Ahura Mazda) would now be in control, and humans (the good humans, anyway) would live according to the ways of good — i.e., the Kingdom of God. <\/p>\n

Yes, there is pretty good evidence that Zarathustra was saying all of this more than 1000 years before Jesus adopted it as his own mission in life. That\u2019s another example of the kind of \u201cbig idea\u201d that I enjoy having.<\/p>\n

So yea, I do live a lot in my head. But I did do one thing today to re-connect with reality. I signed up for a donation to the Red Cross thru payroll deduction to help fund their relief efforts in Haiti. My donation was small; but I recall hearing Bill Clinton (a big fan of Ken Wilber, incidentally) say on the radio that whatever amount you can give will help. Perhaps I can wrap my mind around implicate orders and apocalyptic inspirations in the ancient Middle East. But as to how and why a God who has a relationship with us, as Jesus and Zarathustra seemed to believe, or an integral kosmic karma, as Ken Wilber might prefer, allows such terrible tragedy and suffering in this world . . . not much that I can say. Nor anyone else who cares. Thus DIDN\u2019T speak Zarathustra, Jesus, Ken Wilber . . . or me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the spare moments at work, I sometimes surf the net for something interesting to read (not unusual in today\u2019s workplace). Today I was skimming thru a free PDF of the book \u201cNorman Einstein\u201d, a criticism of integral philosopher Ken Wilber. I\u2019ve never been a huge fan of Wilber, although no one interested in modern […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1396,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions\/1396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}