No I don't think you can. You have to look for it, you can't pull it out of your ass :P — Agustino
For God to be a viewpoint, to be a distinct moment such that we can say "God is X view but not Y view, " removes the infinite-- God becomes limited rather than limitless. — TheWillowOfDarkness
What is incoherent in the view that I have outlined?But you have read the book and you have not managed to articulate any coherent and consistent alternative that I have noticed. — John
From everywhere is identical with from nowhere though.In relation to the idea that God's view must be from nowhere; I think this is wrongheaded, it must be from everywhere. — John
I disagree with your interpretation of this principle. I agree with this principle, in-so-far as it postulates that reality is fractal or holographic - the whole is found within each of the parts. But this doesn't mean that God has a personality the way you have a personality - that's just absurd. That's a very literalist, philosophical caveman like reading I think :PThis is the hermetic principle of "as above so below" — John
What do you mean how it is done? Do you expect an explanation for this like A goes here, B goes her, and together they form the process of unification, or what are you imagining?This process of unification is necessarily transcendental for us because we can never know how it is done — John
We have nothing to guide ourselves by except reason though. If you take some hallucinogen you may have a mystical experience, and yet you understand what caused that mystical experience, which was merely the effect of the drugs on the brain. If you start imagining that it wasn't the drugs, and it was something different, you're only deluding yourself. Reason is all we have in order to navigate the world. If you want to restrict our reliance on reason, then there is nothing beyond reason to hold us.It is the space of unknowing that surpasses dualistic reasoning, and allows the creative and mystical imagination and intuition to work. But I don't expect anyone to be convinced of this except by their own experience; argument will never do it. — John
What is incoherent in the view that I have outlined? — Agustino
Furthermore - experience is always from a point of view - a point of view always implies partiality, but God - being the Whole - can't have any partiality, and hence has no point of view, and it would indeed be incoherent for God to have one, for then God would be particular and empirical... — Agustino
From everywhere is identical with from nowhere though. — Agustino
But this doesn't mean that God has a personality the way you have a personality - that's just absurd. That's a very literalist, philosophical caveman like reading I think :P — Agustino
We have nothing to guide ourselves by except reason though. — Agustino
I was convinced long ago that the Ontological Argument has no teeth, so I don't find anything more in his philosophy than a very creative exercise in logical deduction from a set of definitions. — John
That God has infinite modes does not mean God is the modes. This is the point you are missing. God is not the modes (including experiences like ours). It's the infinite itself, Real and not any finite state (mode)-- or to borrow from conversation in another thread, the truth of the infinite set that is none of its members. — TheWillowOfDarkness
...God is an activity.I haven't said that God is the modes:[/quote}
— John
I have asked what He is over and above the activity ( the only activity we know) that is the modes. — John
Activity is not modes. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Is it the mode of your experience reading this post? — TheWillowOfDarkness
Your experience reading this post is certainly not the set of infinite modes. It's but one mode. Clearly, one mode is not infinite modes. — TheWillowOfDarkness
We can experience it too-- we may understand the infinite of becoming, that the infinite set never ends and the only constant is the formation of new modes. (it's just this is activity (of Substance) known, rather than us, a mode, being activity of Substance itself). — TheWillowOfDarkness
Substance doesn't get modified. Activity doesn't get modified. It's always the same. It never changes. — TheWillowOfDarkness
The constant formation of new modes is not known in the modes themselves. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Rather than abstraction, there is a grasping of the infinite itself. — TheWillowOfDarkness
( if constant is taken to mean 'unceasing over some period of time) — John
(If you mean by this that they are known only as phenomena, well yes, of course; but that would be to assert the phenomenal/noumenal distinction, a distinction which you explicitly deny. — John
Constant formation doesn't mean unceasing over some period of time. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Indeed, a constant change over a period of time is activity of mode-- it specifies particular modes, and where they begin and end. — TheWillowOfDarkness
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