"Blessed is he whose beginning is before he came into being!"
Jesus - Gospel of Thomas - V 20
"The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us how our end will be." Jesus said, "Have you discovered, then, the beginning, that you look for the end? For where the beginning is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning; he will know the end and will not experience death."
Gospel of Thomas - V18
This refers to what in Taoism is 'our face before we were born'. If we can dive this deep we can overcome life and death, and this would be the Grail experience of total 'holiness'. In its proper meaning yoga is the 'art of union with reality',and this definition reveals what meditation is all about. It's about going back to the beginning, before we began to identify as a subject with a perspective.
. . . . — FrancisRay
In its proper meaning yoga is the 'art of union with reality',and this definition reveals what meditation is all about. It's about going back to the beginning, before we began to identify as a subject with a perspective. — FrancisRay
Nice ! That's what I'm basically try to say in this thread. Of course we need account for the fact that there are many of us, each of us the being of the 'same' world from a different 'point of view.' — plaque flag
I like to think that there's also a discursive path to some discursive analogue of that. I do think that analysis gets us far. But of course I value ineffable experiences that I also won't try to talk much about. — plaque flag
. The idea of the eternal now requires the idea that we can transcend the experience-experiencer duality. As you seem to say, if we cannot do this the idea makes no sense.
We never experience the pure present. There isn't time to experience it. But we can be in it. This explains how yogis can sit for weeks without moving. They are not experiencing the passing of time. — FrancisRay
This is part of Mach's showing how relatively permanent enties (including the ego) can be decomposed into elements which will turn out to be neither mind nor matter, prior to both, the raw ingredients of both. By dissolving primary qualities (as Kant also did), he goes beyond Hobbes and Locke. But unlike Kant he feels no need to hang these neutral elements on something obscure. This is probably because he wasn't religious in the same way. He also didn't need an afterlife. Digression, but Mach's minimal, understated 'spirituality' (if we still want to call it that) also speaks to me.Colours, sounds, and the odours of bodies are evanescent. But their tangibility, as a sort of constant nucleus, not readily susceptible of annihilation, remains behind; appearing as the vehicle of the more fugitive properties attached to it. Habit, thus, keeps our thought firmly attached to this central nucleus, even when we have begun to recognise that seeing hearing, smelling, and touching are intimately akin in character. A further consideration is, that owing to the singularly extensive development of mechanical physics a kind of higher reality is ascribed to the spatial and to the temporal than to colours, sounds, and odours; agreeably to which, the temporal and spatial links of colours, sounds, and odours appear to be more real than the colours, sounds and odours themselves. The physiology of the senses, however, demonstrates, that spaces and times may just as appropriately be called sensations as colours and sounds. — Mach
I suspect that many people come to this same realization. The same virtues that die with the old return with the young. The flame leaps from candle to candle. In Feuerbach, we find also that
Further, that complex of memories, moods, and feelings, joined to a particular body (the human body), which is called the "I" or "Ego," manifests itself as relatively permanent. I may be engaged upon this or that subject, I may be quiet and cheerful, excited and ill-humoured. Yet, pathological cases apart, enough durable features remain to identify the ego. Of course, the ego also is only of relative permanency.
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The ego is as little absolutely permanent as are bodies. That which we so much dread in death, the annihilation of our permanency, actually occurs in life in abundant measure. That which is most valued by us, remains preserved in countless copies, or, in cases of exceptional excellence, is even preserved of itself. In the best human being, however, there are individual traits, the loss of which neither he himself nor others need regret. Indeed, at times, death, viewed as a liberation from individuality, may even become a pleasant thought. Such reflections of course do not make physiological death any the easier to bear. — Mach
Not only the relation of bodies to the ego, but the ego itself also, gives rise to similar pseudo - problems, the character of which may be briefly indicated as follows:
Let us denote the above-mentioned elements by the letters A B C . . ., X L M . . ., a, b, c . . . Let those complexes of colours, sounds, and so forth, commonly called bodies, be denoted, for the sake of clearness, by A B C . .; the complex, known as our own body, which is a part of the former complexes distinguished by certain peculiarities, may be called K L M . . .; the complex composed of volitions, memory-images, and the rest, we shall represent by a b c . . . Usually, now, the complex a , c . . . K L M. . ., as making up the ego, is opposed to the complex A B C . . ., as making up the world of physical objects; sometimes also, a b c . . . is viewed as ego, and K L M . . . A B C . . . as world of physical objects. Now, at first blush, A B C . . . appears independent of the ego, and opposed to it as a separate existence. But this independence is only relative, and gives way upon closer inspection. Much, it is true, may change in the complex a b c . . . without much perceptible change being induced in A B C . . .; and vice versa. But many changes in a b c . . . do pass, by way of changes in K L M . . ., to A B C . . .; and vice versa. (As, for example, when powerful ideas burst forth into acts, or when our environment induces noticeable changes in our body.) At the same time the group K L M . . . appears to be more intimately connected with a b c . . . and with A B C . . ., than the latter with one another; and their relations find their expression in common thought and speech.
Precisely viewed, however, it appears that the group A B C . . . is always codetermined by K L M. A cube when seen close at hand, looks large; when seen at a distance, small; its appearance to the right eye differs from its appearance to the left; sometimes it appears double; with closed eyes it is invisible. The properties of one and the same body, therefore, appear modified by our own body; they appear conditioned by it. But where, now, is that same body, which appears so different? All that can be said is, that with different K L M different A B C . . . are associated.
A common and popular way of thinking and speaking is to contrast " appearance " with " reality." A pencil held in front of us in the air is seen by us as straight; dip it into the water, and we see it crooked. In the latter case we say that the pencil appears crooked, but is in reality straight. But what justifies us in declaring one fact rather than another to be the reality, and degrading the other to the level of appearance ? In both cases we have to do with facts which present us with different combinations of the elements, combinations which in the two cases are differently conditioned. Precisely because of its environment the pencil dipped in water is optically crooked; but it is tactually and metrically straight. An image in a concave or flat mirror is only visible, whereas under other and ordinary circumstances a tangible body as well corresponds to the visible image. A bright surface is brighter beside a dark surface than beside one brighter than itself. To be sure, our expectation is deceived when, not paying sufficient attention to the conditions, and substituting for one another different cases of the combination, we fall into the natural error of expecting what we are accustomed to, although the case may be an unusual one. The facts are not to blame for that. In these cases, to speak of " appearance " may have a practical meaning, but cannot have a scientific meaning. Similarly, the question which is often asked, whether the world is real or whether we merely dream it, is devoid of all scientific meaning. Even the wildest dream is a fact as much as any other. If our dreams were more regular, more connected, more stable, they would also have more practical importance for us. In our waking hours the relations of the elements to one another are immensely amplified in comparison with what they were in our dreams. We recognise the dream for what it is. When the process is reversed, the field of psychic vision is narrowed; the contrast is almost entirely lacking. Where there is no contrast, the distinction between dream and waking, between appearance and reality, is quite otiose and worthless. — Mach
The underlined part is more of Mach's spirituality, and I suspect that of many scientific and artistic types. I'm sure many of us here would love to contribute something worthy --- somehow push the conversation forward. Even if such a drive also includes petty-selfish elements, so be it. We are mud that breathes.That in this complex of elements, which fundamentally is only one, the boundaries of bodies and of the ego do not admit of being established in a manner definite and sufficient for all cases, has already been remarked. To bring together elements that are most intimately connected with pleasure and pain into one ideal mental-economical unity, the ego; this is a task of the highest importance for the intellect working in the service of the pain-avoiding, pleasure-seeking will. The delimitation of the ego, therefore, is instinctively effected, is rendered familiar, and possibly becomes fixed through heredity. Owing to their high practical importance, not only for the individual, but for the entire species, the composites " ego " and " body " instinctively make good their claims, and assert themselves with elementary force. In special cases, however, in which practical ends are not concerned, but where knowledge is an end in itself, the delimitation in question may prove to be insufficient, obstructive, and untenable.
Similarly, class-consciousness, class-prejudice, the feeling of nationality, and even the narrowest-minded local patriotism may have a high importance, for certain purposes. But such attitudes will not be shared by the broad-minded investigator, at least not in moments of research. All such egoistic views are adequate only for practical purposes. Of course, even the investigator may succumb to habit. Trifling pedantries and nonsensical discussions; the cunning appropriation of others' thoughts, with perfidious silence as to the sources; when the word of recognition must be given, the difficulty of swallowing one's defeat, and the too common eagerness at the same time to set the opponent's achievement in a false light: all this abundantly shows that the scientist and scholar have also the battle of existence to fight, that the ways even of science still lead to the mouth, and that the pure impulse towards knowledge is still an ideal in our present social conditions.
The primary fact is not the ego, but the elements (sensations). What was said on p. 21 as to the term " sensation " must be borne in mind. The elements constitute the I. s have the sensation green, signifies that the element green occurs in a given complex of other elements (sensations, memories). When I cease to have the sensation green, when I die, then the elements no longer occur in the ordinary, familiar association. That is all. Only an ideal mental-economical unity, not a real unity, has ceased to exist. The ego is not a definite, unalterable, sharply bounded unity. None of these attributes are important; for all vary even within the sphere of individual life; in fact their alteration is even sought after by the individual. Continuity alone is important. .. But continuity is only a means of preparing and conserving what is contained in the ego. This content, and not the ego, is the principal thing. This content, however, is not confined to the individual. With the exception of some insignificant and valueless personal memories, it remains presented in others even after the death of the individual. The elements that make up the consciousness of a given individual are firmly connected with one another, but with those of another individual they are only feebly connected, and the connexion is only casually apparent. Contents of consciousness, however, that are of universal significance, break through these limits of the individual, and, attached of course to individuals again, can enjoy a continued existence of an impersonal, superpersonal kind, independently of the personality by means of which they were developed. To contribute to this is the greatest happiness of the artist, the scientist, the inventor, the social reformer, etc.
If a knowledge of the connexion of the elements (sensations) does not suffice us, and we ask, Who possesses this connexion of sensations, Who experiences it ? then we have succumbed to the old habit of subsuming every element (every sensation) under some unanalysed complex, and we are falling back imperceptibly upon an older, lower, and more limited point of view.
Experience is flowing and 'horizonal.' I see the front of a house and have a sense of the unseen back of the house. I read the first few pages and have a vague sense of the many that follow. I 'get to know' someone, who I find interesting. Of course the 'now' itself is 'stretched' with anticatipation and memory, allowing me to appreciate music and understand a long sentence. Note that I constant expect expect expect, and that attention is drawn to violations of expectoration.The thing is given in experiences, and yet, it is not given; that is to say, the experience of it is givenness through presentations, through “appearings.” Each particular experience and similarly each connected, eventually closed sequence of experiences gives the experienced object in an essentially incomplete appearing, which is one-sided, many-sided, yet not all-sided, in accordance with everything that the thing “is.” Complete experience is something infinite. To require a complete experience of an object through an eventually closed act or, what amounts to the same thing, an eventually closed sequence of perceptions, which would intend the thing in a complete, definitive, and conclusive way is an absurdity; it is to require something which the essence of experience excludes.
The thing is not behind its appearances but something like their ideal unity, which is 'infinite' in that the object can continue to be examined by me or others who might arrive. The worldly object is experienced as experienceable-by-others-too. It's a relatively permanent possibility of perception, projected into the future and into considerations of alternate versions of the past.MODERN thought has realized considerable progress by reducing the existent to the series of appearances which manifest it. Its aim was to overcome a certain number of dualisms which have embarrassed philosophy and to replace them by the monism of the phenomenon. Has the attempt been successful? In the first place we certainly thus get rid of that dualism which in the existent opposes interior to exterior. There is no longer an exterior for the existent if one means by that a superficial covering which hides from sight the true nature of the object. And this true nature in turn, if it is to be the secret reality of the thing, which one can have a presentiment of or which one can suppose but can never reach because it is the "interior" of the object under consideration-this nature no longer exists. The appearances which manifest the existent are neither interior nor exterior; they are all equal, they all refer to other appearances, and none of them is privileged. Force, for example, is not a metaphysical conatus of an unknown kind which hides behind its effects (accelerations, deviations, etc.); it is the totality of these effects. Similarly an electric current does not have a secret reverse side; it is nothing but the totality of the physical-chemical actions which manifest it (electrolysis, the incandescence of a carbon filament, the displacement of the needle of a galvanometer, etc.). No one of these actions alone is sufficient to reveal it. But no action indicates anything which is behind itself; it indicates only itself and the total series. The obvious conclusion is that the dualism of being and appearance IS no longer entitled to any legal status within philosophy. The appearance refers to the total series of appearances and not to a hidden reality which could drain to itself all the being of the existent. And the appearance for its part is not an inconsistent manifestation of this being. To the extent that men had believed in noumenal realities, they have presented appearance as a pure negative. It was "that which is not being"; it had no other being than that of illusion and error. But even this being was borrowed, it was itself a pretense, and philosophers met with the greatest difficulty in maintaining cohesion and existence in the appearance so that it should not itself be reabsorbed in the depth of nonphenomenal being. But if we once get away from what Nietzsche called "the illusion of worlds-behind-the-scene," and if we no longer believe in the being-behind-the-appearance, then the appearance becomes full positivity; its essence is an "appearing" which is no longer opposed to being but on the contrary is the measure of it. For the being of an existent is exactly what it appears.
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Thus we arrive at the idea of the phenomenon such as we can find, for example in the "phenomenology" of Husserl or of Heidegger-the phenomenon or the relative-absolute. Relative the phenomenon remains, for "to appear" supposes in essence somebody to whom to appear. But it does not have the double relativity of Kant's Erscheinung. It does not point over its shoulder to a true being which would be, for it, absolute. What it is, it is absolutely, for it reveals itself as it is. The phenomenon can be studied and described as such, for it is absolutely indicative of itself. The appearance does not hide the essence, it reveals it; it is the essence. The essence of an existent is no longer a property sunk in the cavity of this existent; it is the manifest law which presides over the succession of its appearances, it is the principle of the series.
Waves on the ocean or sparks of the divine are common metaphors for our situation as individuals. — FrancisRay
“Dost thou reckon thyself only a puny form
When within thee the universe is folded?”
Baha’u’llah quoting Imam Ali,
the first Shia Imam — FrancisRay
I also believe in the value of analysis, since although it cannot take us all the way to an understanding it clearly signposts what it is we need to understand and disposes of philosophical problems. For a sceptic analysis is the only way forward, since they will not be inclined to do the practice. — FrancisRay
...he regarded only subjective realities as realities, as “truths” ... he saw everything else, everything natural, temporal, spatial and historical, merely as signs, as materials for parables...
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The “kingdom of heaven” is a state of the heart—not something to come “beyond the world” or “after death.” .. The “kingdom of God” is not something that men wait for: it had no yesterday and no day after tomorrow, it is not going to come at a “millennium”—it is an experience of the heart, it is everywhere and it is nowhere....
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This faith does not formulate itself—it simply lives, and so guards itself against formulae. ...It is only on the theory that no word is to be taken literally that this anti-realist is able to speak at all. Set down among Hindus he would have made use of the concepts of Sankhya, and among Chinese he would have employed those of Lao-tse—and in neither case would it have made any difference to him.—With a little freedom in the use of words, one might actually call Jesus a “free spirit”—he cares nothing for what is established: the word killeth, whatever is established killeth. The idea of “life” as an experience, as he alone conceives it, stands opposed to his mind to every sort of word, formula, law, belief and dogma...
I guess I find the discursive and 'the rest' to be pretty entangled. — plaque flag
Metaphysics has to reduce the many to the one, and if we assume the many is truly real this cannot be done. I think you'd have to admit that the incomprehension of philosophers suggests that they're missing a trick. . — FrancisRay
Of course the 'now' itself is 'stretched' with anticatipation and memory, allowing me to appreciate music and understand a long sentence. Note that I constant expect expect expect, and that attention is drawn to violations of expectoration — plaque flag
:up:I think there's a 'good' discursive part of philosophy, some of it basically so creative as to be visionary. This or that person somehow cuts through the general confusion with just the right metaphor, just the right revelation of false necessity as mere contingency, opening up the space. — plaque flag
Come on. Spit it out. :smile: — jgill
The problem, as I see it, is that then a revolutionary idea is drowned in a sea of words. Being a math guy and not a philosopher, to be concise is paramount (though some in my former profession violate that principle). — jgill
Aha. I can show you how to untangle it. It requires knowing only two or three vital facts. If you know that all metaphysical questions are undecidable then you're half way there. — FrancisRay
I am not a fan of Nietzsche. He's brilliant but seems to be floundering around in the dark. — FrancisRay
The clock still ticks but what is truly and ultimately real is unchanging. — FrancisRay
I feel you. Did you ever look into the famous TLP ? — plaque flag
6.5 If a question can be put at all, then it can also be answered.
Incompleteness in mathematics puts a kink in this. Is "this and that" provable? Will "yes" or "no" always suffice? — jgill
A right-hand glove could be put on a left hand if it could be turned round in four-dimensional space. — plaque flag
For the mystic time and change would not really exist and this is because they have seen beyond it. The clock still ticks but what is truly and ultimately real is unchanging. This would be Being, not the personal experience.of a being.
The word 'reflexivity' implies some sort of dualism so I'm not sure it's relevant here. I may be misunderstanding what you mean but it. — FrancisRay
My argument is that the idea of seeing beyond time to some sort of awareness or reality is incoherent. To be aware is to change. Pure anything , including pure timelessness, is not Being but the definition of death itself. — Joshs
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