• Art48
    477
    “All compounded things are subject to decay. Strive with diligence” is one rendering of the last words of Buddha. This article focuses on the concept of a compounded thing, which also might be called a component object, or, more generally, a component entity.

    What is a component entity? It’s simply an entity which has components, i.e., parts. A car has parts: engine, tires, etc. Water has parts: two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. An entity which does not have parts is pure, simple, and homogeneous.

    Non-component entities include . . . what? Elementary particles? Elementary particles are now believed to be excitations in a quantum field.

    The idea of an excitation brings us to the concept of act. A component entity is, in a sense, an act: i.e., the act of its components maintaining the proper relation through time. For instance, the components of the word ARE are the letters A, R, and E. But rearrange the components and the word ARE ceases to exist and we have the word EAR. Completely disassemble a car and the car ceases to exist. In its place you have a heap, a heap of components which if properly joined together would form a car.

    As another example, take the components of your hand—your fingers, thumb, and palm. Curl fingers into palm and cover with thumb; you’ve made a fist. The dictionary says the word fist is a noun, an object, a thing. But rather than a noun, rather than being some thing, a fist is better pictured as an act, as something our hand does.

    So, any component entity may equally well be regarded as an act: the act of its components maintaining the proper relation through time. We can mentally divide a component entity into its components, and we can then mentally divide each component into its own components. Do we ever reach bottom? Do we ever arrive at something which has no parts, which is pure and simple and homogeneous?

    If we believe that we arrive at the same thing. That is, if we believe there is one “thing” (or principle, or entity) underlying all component objects, then we would have a monist worldview where some ultimate ground of existence exists which is pure, simple, homogeneous, and which is the foundation of all that exists.

    Ultimate ground of existence is one definition of God—not a person God who lives outside the universe (Our Father who are in heaven), but rather a God which is not a person and which underlies the entire universe, of which the universe is a manifestation.
  • Wayfarer
    22.4k
    We can mentally divide a component entity into its components, and we can then mentally divide each component into its own components. Do we ever reach bottom? Do we ever arrive at something which has no parts, which is pure and simple and homogeneous?Art48

    As you started the thread with reference to the Buddha, this is another verse from the early Buddhist texts that is apposite, an account of a brief talk given by the Buddha to the monks on the subject of the unconditioned"

    There is, monks, an unborn–unbecome–unmade–unfabricated. If there were not that unborn–unbecome–unmade–unfabricated, there would not be the case that escape from the born–become–made–fabricated would be discerned. But precisely because there is an unborn–unbecome–unmade–unfabricated, escape from the born–become–made–fabricated is discerned.Ud 8:3 Unbinding (3) (Nibbāna Sutta)

    (It has sometimes been argued that this verse is a Buddhist reference to the same 'wisdom uncreated' of the Judeo-Christian tradition, although Buddhists will vigorously contest that as they maintain a strict differentiation from the theistic traditions.)

    If you were to ask what the "unborn-unbecome-unmade" is, there is no easy answer to that, other than to point to the fact that coming to know it is the aim and culmination of the Buddhist path. It is not a concept or something amenable to conceptual or discursive analysis but becomes evident to the Buddhist aspirant as a consequence of 'unbinding', another name for Nirvāṇa, whereby identification to the illusory domain of craving has been anulled.

    In Western philosophy, I think the nearest equivalent is to be found in Plotinus and 'the One', which is likewise unconditioned and unmade. As a theme in traditional philosophy. the unmade or uncreated came to refer to the distinction between the compound, manifest, and created with the simple, indivisible and uncreated, customarily identified with God .

    My view is that there is no conceptual equivalent for the uncreated in the modern lexicon. The idea of the indivisible material unit, or atom, is long gone. I suppose you could, at a stretch, try and identify it with the idea of the quantum fluctuations which supposedly can be shown to give rise to the Universe, but there are many deep conceptual problems with that, as I understand it (such as, what gave rise to the Universe in which such quantum fluctuations exist in the first place?)
  • Art48
    477
    My view is that there is no conceptual equivalent for the uncreated in the modern lexicon.Wayfarer
    I've seen energy (which cannot be created or destroyed) used in that way but, of course, there are differences between that and Buddha's unborn and the One of Plotinus. The idea of one principle that underlies the universe is the object of science's search for a theory of everything. So, we have multiple concepts which, thought dissimilar, seem to point to a monist view of the universe.
  • 180 Proof
    15.3k
    The idea of an excitation brings us to the concept of act.Art48
    'Field excitations' are events, I think, not "acts" (i.e. intentional agency).

    God which is not a person and which underlies the entire universe, of which the universe is a manifestation.
    Brahman. Dao. Democritus' "void". Plotinus' "the one". Ein Sof. Spinoza's "substance" Schopenhauer's "the will" ... Meillassoux's "hyperchaos" ...

    So, we have multiple concepts which, thought dissimilar, seem to point to a monist view of the universe.Art48
    :up:

    (My immanentist idea, similiar to monist ontology, I describe as 'plural-aspect (dialectical) holism'.)
  • Art48
    477
    'Field excitations' are events, I think, not "acts" (i.e. intentional agency).180 Proof
    Good point. However, I don't mean act as intentional agency.
    An event can be seen as the act of the field.
    The field is doing something as opposed to when it's in the unexcited state.

    Brahman. Dao. Democritus' "void". Plotinus' "the one". Ein Sof. Spinoza's "substance" Schopenhauer's "the will" ... Meillassoux's "hyperchaos" ...
    I haven't seen Meillassoux's "hyperchaos" before. I'll have to look into it.
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