You've said it a few times now, so I know it has some significance for you beyond just the words, but it is not giving me any direction for my thoughts. Can you be more precise? — MikeL
When I Google monism.... — MikeL
And I think h. sapiens can do that. I think h. sapiens can arrive at an understanding of truth that is NOT species-specific, but that would be discovered by any other sentient being. And furthermore, if evolutionary conditioning is so all-powerful, how come Hoffman's philosophy is able to see through it? What makes his approach different to any other wisdom tradition? They're the kinds of questions that are occurring to me. — Wayfarer
I'm a bit vague on how the term creativity is being used throughout this thread too. It seems to have some other meaning. — MikeL
But if, in the platonic tradition, we recognize non-spatial existence as the true basis of reality itself, we open up an entire realm of non-spatial existence to our inquiring minds. It lies within, or underneath all of physical existence, which, being non-physical, cannot be perceived by the senses, but only apprehended directly by the mind. From this perspective we can apprehend the existence of information at non-spatial, dimensionless points, and the unity of those points through the means of that information. — Metaphysician Undercover
...he also says 'atoms and molecules' are just as much icons as are any other kind of objects. In other words, he doesn't see atoms or molecules or any other kind of supposedly fundamental physical object as actually fundamental. What is actually fundamental, is conscious experience, and reality comprises entirely conscious agents. — Wayfarer
To be explicit, I’m using geometric points as representations of aware agents. — javra
The existence of things consists in their regular behavior. If an atom had no regular attractions and repulsions, if its mass was at one instant nothing, at another a ton, at another a negative quantity, if its motion instead of being continuous, consisted in a series of leaps from one place to another without passing through any intervening places, and if there were no definite relations between its different positions, velocities and directions of displacement, if it were at one time in one place and at another time in a dozen, such a disjointed plurality of phenomena would not make up any existing thing.
Not only substances, but events, too, are constituted by regularities. The flow of time, for example, in itself is a regularity. The original chaos, therefore, where there was no regularity, was in effect a state of mere indeterminacy, in which nothing existed or really happened.
Our conceptions of the first stages of the development, before time yet existed, must be as vague and figurative as the expressions of the first chapter of Genesis. Out of the womb of indeterminacy we must say that there would have come something by the principle of firstness, which we may call a flash. Then by the principle of habit there would have been a second flash. Though time would not yet have been, this second flash was in some sense after the first, because resulting from it.
Then there would have come other successions ever more and more closely connected, the habits and the tendency to take them ever strengthening themselves, until the events would have been bound together into something like a continuous flow.
We have no reason to think that even now time is quite perfectly continuous and uniform in its flow. The quasi-flow which would result would, however, differ essentially from time in this respect, that it would not necessarily be in a single stream. Different flashes might start different streams, between which there should be no relations of contemporaneity or succession. So one stream might branch into two, or two might coalesce.
But the further result of habit would inevitably be to separate utterly those that were long separated, and to make those which presented frequent common points coalesce into perfect union. Those that were completely separated would be so many different worlds which would know nothing of one another; so that the effect would be just what we actually observe.
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/guess/guess.htm
Abstractly tying this into evolution, I speculate that evolution can be boiled down to “preservation of identity”. — javra
An especially intriguing and curious twist in Peirce's evolutionism is that in Peirce's view evolution involves what he calls its “agápē-ism.” Peirce speaks of evolutionary love. According to Peirce, the most fundamental engine of the evolutionary process is not struggle, strife, greed, or competition. Rather it is nurturing love, in which an entity is prepared to sacrifice its own perfection for the sake of the wellbeing of its neighbor. This doctrine had a social significance for Peirce, who apparently had the intention of arguing against the morally repugnant but extremely popular socio-economic Darwinism of the late nineteenth century. The doctrine also had for Peirce a cosmic significance, which Peirce associated with the doctrine of the Gospel of John and with the mystical ideas of Swedenborg and Henry James. In Part IV of the third of Peirce's six papers in Popular Science Monthly, entitled “The Doctrine of Chances,” Peirce even argued that simply being logical presupposes the ethics of self-sacrifice: “He who would not sacrifice his own soul to save the whole world, is, as it seems to me, illogical in all his inferences, collectively.” To social Darwinism, and to the related sort of thinking that constituted for Herbert Spencer and others a supposed justification for the more rapacious practices of unbridled capitalism, Peirce referred in disgust as “The Gospel of Greed.” — Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy
Because this singularity is devoid of otherness, it is also devoid of boundaries via which it can gain a quantifiable identity and, therefore, can well be demarcated as a non-quantity whole. — javra
As I remember it, as was addressed in a by now ancient discussion on the old forum, we already agree that it is only once two or more geometric points hold presence that space itself holds presence. What I’m reaching at is that while a singular geometric point can be conceived to hold space-less presence, the presence of two or more points entails the co-dependent origination of space. — javra
Were we to grant both awareness and creative agency to these geometric points, not only would the presence of two or more points necessitate to co-existence of space but also of time: the creations of one point will occur either before, after, or simultaneous to the awareness/apprehension and/or creation of any other geometric point. — javra
Though mumbo jumbo to some, it can further be noted that base natures of people are (overly) selfish and elevated natures of people are (relatively speaking) selfless. This singular geometric point example is, in so many other words, a perfectly selfless being: the pinnacle of elevated nature as viewed from within space and time. — javra
You for instance focus on vagueness as an ultimate beginning; I instead will affirm that the ultimate beginning is unknowable by us *. — javra
You view the ultimate end as a materialist form of nothingness (to not confuse it with Eastern notions of emptiness, for example); — javra
I instead will affirm that the ultimate end—though its occurrence is contingent on the choices of all co-existing agents—is one of awareness unshackled from the limitations/constraints of space and time (even that which pertain to mind and its thoughts), and, hence, from the boundaries of selfhood (and otherness) … — javra
By saying “yup” in you previous post to me, I take it you agree that evolution can be partially simplified into a universal common denominator of “preservation of identity”. How do you propose that identity is established if not via awareness which, as awareness, identifies itself as same/identical to itself and different/non-identical to other? — javra
I don't think you should be so quick to assume a spatial separation between points, because there is another way we can go, and that is a temporal separation. — Metaphysician Undercover
The Heat Death is the finality of natural habit becoming eternally fixed. — apokrisis
Well the difference here is now that you are arguing for the bounding constraints to be caused transcendentally from without, whereas I say they arise emergently and immanently from within. — apokrisis
So you are still trying to play the game of theism wins — apokrisis
When transcendental theism comes up with facts about the detailed state of the Universe that are as remarkable, profound and challenging, then maybe metaphysics would take more notice of its attempted ontic contributions. — apokrisis
So quantum theory is far weirder than any theistic metaphysics in most people's eyes. Yet there is nothing hand-waving about it. — apokrisis
a theistic view which has produced nothing of note in a metaphysical sense these past 500 years. — apokrisis
The changes that 'transcendental theism' are concerned with, are first-person. — Wayfarer
I can paraphrase this from a different point of view: the ultimate end is the actualization of absolute order wherein a) all conflict vanishes and b) all imperfectly integral identities become an objectively perfect identity/unity. — javra
Physical entropy--to distinguish it from IT notions--is merely the process of taking paths of least resistance toward the grand finale of this absolute order--thereby being determinstically driven teleologically toward the final end of absolute order. Negentropy, were it to approach this grand final (which is itself metaphysically determinate as end) via its top-down causal abilities, would via its own freewill become more determined/determinate in its actions toward the requirements of actualizing this ultimate end - thereby itself becoming ever-more entropic (following paths of least resistance toward absolute coherence/unity/accord/etc. given contextual constraints). — javra
To me, purpose/telos is intrinsic/immanent to awareness. — javra
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.