I would say it is the pure present we only experience as a fiction , and that, most primordially, the only thing we do experience is the tripartite structure of time. — Joshs
I mean the idea of something existing which cannot even in principle be perceived, something like 'things in themselves,' when it's also assumed they are only ever mediated by appearances -- by phenomena in the crude prephenomenological sense. — plaque flag
So are you saying that space is an illusion ? Along with time ? — plaque flag
FWIW, I think a certain kind of knowledge strives to transcend both time and space --to be valid or worthy at all times and places. But this is the only kind of negation of space and time I can make sense of. It's a negation of the relevance of where 'o clock for the divine thinking that is everywhen and all ways. — plaque flag
Okay. But this is not a metaphysical idea. In metaphysics the idea that time and space are truly real doesn't survive analysis. It is a difficult idea for sure, but not incomprehensible. Ive been quoting Kant, Leibnitz and Weyl, who all endorse the unreality of space-time. So did Erwin Schrodinger, and as far as I can make out modern physics seems to be arriving at the same conclusion. . — FrancisRay
but I favor an inclusive approach. It's all real. Confused daydreams are real, and they exist in the style of confused daydreams. All entities are semantically-inferentially linked in a single nexus. Language is directed at the one common world. — plaque flag
You’d like Deleuze’s approach. He distinguishes between the virtual and the actual. Both are real; the virtual is the problematic field within which actual events arise and disappear — Joshs
So I'm not against your approach, — plaque flag
but I favor an inclusive approach. It's all real. Confused daydreams are real, and they exist in the style of confused daydreams. All entities are semantically-inferentially linked in a single nexus. Language is directed at the one common world.
To be clear. it's not just my approach, it's the Perennial philosophy. — FrancisRay
This states that space-time phenomena - , which in Buddhism are dhamma or 'thing-events' ,- are conventionally real but ultimately unreal. — FrancisRay
Metaphysics has to reduce the many to the one, and if we assume the many is truly real this cannot be done. — FrancisRay
Understood. But, for me anyway, there's no authority beyond something like our own earnestly critical investigation of the matters themselves.
I'm not against that. Indeed, I agree with Hegel that the finite is 'unreal,' 'fictional,' [merely] conventional. Reality is one and continuous. I also like Ecclesiastes: all is hebel. Everything is 'empty.' See there how the great void shines.
I'd say metaphysics is a kind of grand science, and that it projects illuminating metaphors on the whole of reality. For instance: 'all is vanity [empty].' Or: 'all is one [connected, interdependent].' Of course people like to say that 'all is mind' or 'all is matter' too. Or that all is God creating and recognizing itself. Or that all is 'a tale of sound and fury signifying nothing.'
You mention 'truly real,' which is like 'really real.' I'm not against it, but the question for me is almost always one of meaning. What does is mean to call something 'real' ?
Agreed in respect of discursive philosophers. For practitioners their authority is direct experience and not speculation. — FrancisRay
This is interesting. Do you know where it says this in Ecclesiastes? It shows how easy it would be to interpret the Bible as endorsing the perennial philosophy. — FrancisRay
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ecclesiastes+1&version=NKJV“Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher;
“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”
3 What profit has a man from all his labor
In which he toils under the sun?
4 One generation passes away, and another generation comes;
But the earth abides forever.
5 The sun also rises, and the sun goes down,
And hastens to the place where it arose.
6 The wind goes toward the south,
And turns around to the north;
The wind whirls about continually,
And comes again on its circuit.
7 All the rivers run into the sea,
Yet the sea is not full;
To the place from which the rivers come,
There they return again.
8 All things are full of labor;
Man cannot express it.
The eye is not satisfied with seeing,
Nor the ear filled with hearing.
That which has been is what will be,
That which is done is what will be done,
And there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which it may be said,
“See, this is new”?
It has already been in ancient times before us.
11 There is no remembrance of former things,
Nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come
By those who will come after.
It ought to be a science of logic, but the views you mention show that few people approach it as such. The voidness of phenomena is a logical result, as Kant shows, but most of these other views fail under analysis and so are profoundly unscientific. — FrancisRay
To be truly real a phenomenon would have to be independent, irreducible, non-contingent and unchanging. — FrancisRay
But, as Schrodinger points out, as well as the myriad dependent phenomena there is the 'background on which they are painted'. This is what would be truly real. You could think of it as the information space necessary for an information theory, or the blank sheet of paper required for a Venn diagram and set theory, — FrancisRay
We may have to disagree here. I don't accept Kant's idea (or what is often taken to be his idea) that we are cut off from reality. — plaque flag
I think we are always already 'in' reality, seeing reality. Indeed the vanishing subject, in my view, is reality-from-a-point-of-view. '
But I do very much think that some perspectives (some conceptual articulations of reality) are richer and more adequate than others. I think we do agree on the value of some kind of scientific rational approach.
But it should maybe be mentioned that identifying true being with the unchanging is not obviously the way to go, however traditional. — plaque flag
But, for me, that seer would only be in a beautiful semi-discursive frame of mind. — plaque flag
Nor me. I feel this is his biggest mistake. It leads him to the view we can know nothing about ultimate reality, which is NOt a logical result. But the voidness of phenomena is a matter of analysis. — FrancisRay
But what are you when the subject disappears? This is the question that the perennial philosophy answers. This would be our 'end before our beginning' as spoken of by Jesus. . . — FrancisRay
Absolutely we agree on this. This is why I endorse the perennial philosophy, for which reality is not a perspective but a phenomenon, Reality would be our identity, not a perspective on something else. Kant shows that the ultimate is inconceivable and unsayable, as the OT story of the golden calf suggests. It would be knowable, however, as it is who we are. , — FrancisRay
Okay. But in this case how do you explain the odd fact that the mystics have the only metaphysical theory that works? — FrancisRay
All others are rejected by analysis. Also, meditation is said to be shallow if it does not go beyond mind. — FrancisRay
I think perhaps you underestimate just how deep it is possible to go. — FrancisRay
How so ? This voidness ? — plaque flag
In my view, 'pure' subjectivity is so radically transparent that it's really just the being of the world. I claim that the world has no other being. Or, at least, that we can't know of make sense of some other kind of being than our own (the world's ) perspectival kind.
But I'd be glad to hear more about this 'end before our beginning' as spoken of by Jesus.
t could be. And I could end up revising my beliefs. All I can do is sincerely think and be open and be critical, and so on. — plaque flag
Of course, how is simply recognizing the nature of being "mystical?" It's a loaded term for sure. But I'd say it fits in that we obviously have such a strong tendency NOT to see the world this way, making the turn a sort of "revaluation." — Count Timothy von Icarus
For the mystics reality and consciousness are the same phenomenon, and perhaps this is the idea you need to overcome the idea of pure subjectivity. They say the subject-object distinction is functional or conventional, and not ontological. — FrancisRay
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