A question that might be asked is whether this is true by definition --- whether we tend to understand 'Being' [the truly real ] precisely in terms of constant presence. If so, is this a bias ?
I'm of course not the first person to speculate in this way. I bring up a famous issue. Much of radicality of Being and Time is perhaps in its claim or suggestion (according to some) that being is time — plaque flag

Heidegger analyzes how Nietzsche’s Eternal return makes use of this notion of Being as constant presence to turn it against itself via time as a continual passing away. Eternal return of the same is the same by being Willed as always different from itself.

“…the answer Aristotle gave to the question of the
essential nature of time still governs Nietzsche's idea of
time. What is the situation in regard to time? In being,
present in time at the given moment is only that narrow
ridge of the momentary fugitive "now," rising out of the
"not yet now'' and falling away into the "no longer now”
Nietzsche conceives time metaphysically as a succession of punctual‘nows’.
“This passing away is conceived more precisely as the successive flowing away of the "now" out of the "not yet now" into the "no longer now."… Time persists, consists in passing. It is, in that it constantly is not. This is the representational idea of time that characterizes the concept of time' which is standard throughout the metaphysics of the West…. in all metaphysics from the beginning of Western thought, Being means being present, Being, if it is to be thought in the highest instance, must be thought as pure presence, that is, as the presence that persists, the abiding present, the steadily standing "now.

To modern metaphysics, the Being of beings appears as will.” In Nietzsche’s will to power, will is that which is present to itself as what is.
“Among the long established predicates of primal being are"eternity and independence of time. Eternal will
does not mean only a will that lasts eternally: it says that will is primal being only when it is eternal as will….The primal being of beings is the will, as the eternally recurrent willing of the eternal recurrence of the same. The eternal recurrence of the same is the supreme triumph of the metaphysics of the will that eternally wills its own willing.

What is in time is what recurs in the eternal return. Only because Nietzsche thinks of time in terms of the traditional metaphysical notion of ‘in-timeless’, the sequence of present nows, can he posit the eternal return as the endless presence (Being) of the willing of itself.
…will is primal being only when it is eternal as will. And it is that when, as will, it eternally wills the eternity
of willing. The will that is eternal in this sense no longer follows and depends on the temporal in what it wills,
or in its willing. It is independent of time. And so it can no longer be affronted by time.
The will is delivered from revulsion when it wills the constant recurrence of the same. Then the will
wills the eternity of what is willed. The will wills its own eternity. Will is primal being. The highest product of primal being is eternity. The primal being of beings is the will, as the eternally recurrent willing of the eternal recurrence of the same. The eternal recurrence of the same is the supreme triumph of the metaphysics of the will that eternally wills its own willing.

The eternal recurrence of the same is the supreme triumph of the metaphysics of the will that eternally wills its own willing.

I've looked into that book recently. Of course Heidegger is famously eccentric in his grasp of Nietzsche, but there is something to be said for even a semi-fictional Heidegger's Nietzsche as the prophet of eternal return. It's a truly glorious & disturbing myth. Close to Vico, and dear it seems to Joyce. The wheel is an ancient and profound symbol, and I think Nietzsche taps into that. He also forged something that's like a stone and a river at the same time.

I think the most charitable way to read it is as gazing on The Unchanging with adoration. Or feeling oneself in a sort of divine stasis, having temporarily become The Illuminated One — plaque flag

I think feeling is central to many of the modernizations of meditative practice. Non-judgemental , non-intending bare awareness of being is supposed to be connected with the feeling of unconditional, intrinsic, spontaneous compassion and benevolence, peace and fundamental warmth toward the phenomenal world, concern for the welfare of others beyond mere naive compassion, joy and of the mind, etc, and this is a kind of auto-affection or self-luminosity. It all rests on the supposition of a purely ‘neutral’ attention that can be separated off from any intentional objects being attended to.

Non-judgemental , non-intending bare awareness of being is connected with the feeling of unconditional, intrinsic, spontaneous compassion and benevolence, peace and fundamental warmth toward the phenomenal world, concern for the welfare of others beyond mere naive compassion, joy and of the mind, etc, and this is a kind of auto-affection or self-luminosity. — Joshs

:up:

That sounds right. I like Rahula's What The Buddha Taught, and I imagine the state you describe as the goal. This is a kind of auto-affection or self-luminosity. Feuerbach also, in his own words, sees and says this.

That sounds right. I like Rahula's What The Buddha Taught, and I imagine the state you describe as the goal. This is a kind of auto-affection or self-luminosity. Feuerbach also, in his own words, sees and says this. — plaque flag

But this thinking all rests on the supposition of a purely ‘neutral’ attention that can be separated off from any intentional objects being attended to. But there is no such thing as neutral attention. To attend to something is already to intend it, to desire, to will. Attending is a biasing.

The idea of the mind reposing, awake and alert, in the sheer ‘luminosity' of consciousness (its quality of non-reflective and open awareness), without attending exclusively to any particular object or content, is a form of desire and intentionality in that in simple self-reflexive awareness, it is at every moment relating to a new object (its own changing sense of non-objectifying awareness of the arising and passing away of temporary forms), and being affected, disturbed, by it. Disturbance, desire and dislocating becoming is prior to, that is, implicit but not noticed in ‘neutral' compassionate awareness. Becoming is the restless anxiety of desire, striving, motivation, and the ground of all attention, affect and valuation. Primordial awareness is from moment to moment a new way of being -affected-by the world, and thus, what ever else it is affectively in its particular and contingent experience of ‘now', a kind of uncanniness.

But this thinking all rests on the supposition of a purely ‘neutral’ attention that can be separated off from any intentional objects being attended to. But there is no such thing as neutral attention. To attend to something is already to intend it, to desire, to will. Attending is a biasing. — Joshs

I don't go out of my way to meditate, but I can report of my happy and at-ease states, which are fortunately pretty regular, that there's a leaping from stone to stone. So it's maybe that lack of stickiness or viscosity that matters. Or what a beatnik would call a hang-up. Again I roll in Hobbes.

Continual Successe in obtaining those things which a man from time to time desireth, that is to say, continual prospering, is that men call FELICITY; I mean the Felicity of this life. For there is no such thing as perpetual Tranquillity of mind, while we live here; because Life itself is but Motion, and can never be without Desire, nor without Feare, no more than without Sense.

It's almost like a melody, with a new note born to make up for the last note dying. Sartre writes about this in Nausea, with his redheaded hero listening to jazz, learning to let the notes die, so that that music can go on, seemingly a metaphor for life itself, which one must live by continually dying.

it is at every moment relating to a new object (its own changing sense of non-objectifying awareness of the arising and passing away of temporary forms), and being affected, disturbed, by it. Disturbance, desire and dislocating becoming is prior to, that is, implicit but not noticed in ‘neutral' compassionate awareness. — Joshs

That sounds right to me, tho I don't claim to be an expert on such matters. I do think life is noisy, muddy, and wobbly, even if we can smooth it over.

Yep. I'd go along with that.

Not to be difficult, but claiming that all metaphysical questions are undecidable seems to decide an important metaphysical question. — plaque flag

It is simply a fact. All selective conclusions about the world as a whole are undecidable. This is demonstrable and old news. Figuring out what it implies for the world is the entire secret of metaphysics. . . .

I like Emerson also. Nietzsche is a great thinker but Emerson is nearer the mark for me.

A question that might be asked is whether this is true by definition --- whether we tend to understand 'Being' [the truly real ] precisely in terms of constant presence. If so, is this a bias ? — plaque flag

Good point. But it;s not a definition. It;s a result of analysis. A fundamental theory must reduce space-time, motion and change.

Heraclitus points out that in the world of time there is constant change but does not suggest this is the fundamental nature of reality. Heraclitus and Parmenides are easy to reconcile. .

Much of the radicality of Being and Time is perhaps in its claim or suggestion (according to some) that being is time. This is maybe like Heraclitus making the Flux itself most real.

I have a boo here with the subtitle 'Buddhist Explorations in Consciousness and Time. Here the word 'and' is highly significant. I wouldn't agree that Heraclitus reified the flux.

My own view is that discursive philosophers really can't help looking for atemporal structure.

I feel the phrase 'atemporal structure is an oxymoron. How can one have a structure without time?

Wittgenstein tried to express the logical form of [the conceptual aspect of] the world....

I can never grasp why anyone reads Wittgenstein. ThePhilosophical Investigations reveal no grasp of the issues. Even his mentor Russell suspected he was a fool.

For the logical form of the conceptual aspect of the world you can't do better than George Spencer Brown in his Laws of Form. To investigate this issue means examining naive set theory and solving Russell's Paradox. This allows us to dive deeper than the conceptual aspect. .

. .

I’m aware that the classical understanding of the ultimately real is the eternally unchanging. 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

You'll find that your view does not allow you to make sense of metaphysics or consciousness. You call this unchanging reality the 'classical understanding', but in fact it's the understanding of anyone who dives deeply into consciousness even today. You're speaking of ordinary awareness, which as you say requires change and time.

But in a way you're right, it is a definition of death. Thus the prophet Mohammed advises, ;Die before your death', which all the realised masters advise. For a deeper view of consciousness and time one would have to explore beyond life and death. Those who succeed in this,endeavour, the Dalai Lama tells us, do not experience death.

. . .

Heraclitus points out that in the world of time there is constant change but does not suggest this is the fundamental nature of reality. Heraclitus and Parmenides are easy to reconcile. . — FrancisRay

We only have fragments to go on, and of course we don't take (at least I don't take) any jaw-flapping human for an authority, but there's this:

This world-order [kosmos], the same of all, no god nor man did create, but it ever was and is and will be: everliving fire, kindling in measures and being quenched in measures.

It is simply a fact. All selective conclusions about the world as a whole are undecidable. This is demonstrable and old news. Figuring out what it implies for the world is the entire secret of metaphysics. — FrancisRay

Not trying to be difficult, but the expectation in a context like ours is that one justify grand claims of that nature. I readily grant that adopting the role of the critical-discursive philosopher in the first place is optional. Most of us here live in free societies where the problem is people being too bored with the spiritual babble of strangers to be offended by anything more than the buttonholing itself, with the incommodious proselytizing form rather than the content. Those who know It are looking for peers rather than students: they want to enjoy the wealth of the situation with others. The desire for students is still too grasping. For me knowing 'It' doesn't involve some definite content but a general sense of freedom and a kind of playful ground state. I can 'basically understand life' without even being done improving myself and learning.

A fundamental theory must reduce space-time, motion and change. — FrancisRay

Not disagreeing, but Why ? Note that 'fundamental' is a metaphor that gestures to the ground, the soil, that upon which everything stands, typically unmoving, which is how we experience the earth beneath us, tho we know it hurtles through space.

I'm saying that the metaphor betrays the assumption of or instinct toward that which is unchanging, that which is static in the flux. Presumably this is connect with our flesh and its needs. We want fruit that doesn't go rotten. We don't want to rely on things which are subject to moths and rust. We flee death via an identification with the relatively immortal: the eternal truth, the eternal insight, the perennial philosophy. Note that I to seek durable (relatively atemporal) knowledge, but I take this to be one more thing worth explaining. Granted that I find myself seeking such knowledge, why do I (why do we) do so ?

I feel the phrase 'atemporal structure is an oxymoron. How can one have a structure without time? — FrancisRay

I'm not the one who denies time. Indeed, I'm insisted that being is time in some sense. I write of 'interpenetrating worldstreamings.' In this context, structure is something constant in the flux. For instance, physicists once talked of the conservation of energy. Or there's the tripartite 'care structure' of the stretch moment mentioned above, inspired by Husserl and Heidegger. So one can, in my view, have nothing at all without time.

But philosophers often sketch what stays the same through various changes, such as the shape of a river whose water is never the same (though of course this shape is only relatively stable.) The supreme and classic examples of timeless structure are of course mathematical.

Not trying to be difficult, but the expectation in a context like ours is that one justify grand claims of that nature. I readily grant that adopting the role of the critical-discursive philosopher in the first place is optional. Most of us here live in free societies where the problem is people being too bored with spiritual babble of strangers to be offended by anything more than the buttonholing itself, with the incommodious proselytizing form rather than the content. Too many fathers, not enough sons, that sort of thing. — plaque flag

Sorry to be dense, but I don't know what this means.

I don't nee to work hard to justify what I said. I was agreeing with just about every philosopher who ever lived. It is simply a fact that metaphysical questions are undecidable. This is the reason such questions are called antinomies. There's nothing mysterious about it and it's common knowledge. . . . . .

Not disagreeing, but Why ? — plaque flag

Because it's a matter of logic and experience. Kant famously makes the case. Even in modern astrophysics this is recognised, hence Victor Stenger's idea of creation from nothing.

.

I'm not the one who denies time. Indeed, I'm insisted that being is time in some sense. I write of 'interpenetrating worldstreamings.' In this context, structure is something constant in the flux. For instance, physicists once talked of the conservation of energy. Or there's the tripartite 'care structure' of the stretch moment mentioned above, inspired by Husserl and Heidegger. So one can, in my view, have nothing at all without time. — plaque flag

Exactly! And no-thing is precisely what we need as the ultimate for a systematic fundamental theory. Again, Kant proves this. At any rate, mysticism will make no sense to anyone who reifies time or space.

"Verily, if the reader can break down the power which the notion of extension has over his own mind, he will have gone a long way in preparing himself for the Awakening.

Franklin Merrell-Wolff – Pathways Through to Space

In the same vein, Meister Eckhart dismisses space-time phenomena as 'literally nothing'.
.

I don't nee to work hard to justify what I said. I was agreeing with just about every philosopher who ever lived. It is simply a fact that metaphysical questions are undecidable. This is the reason such questions are called antinomies. There's nothing mysterious about it and it's common knowledge. . . . — FrancisRay

This is not a philosophical way of doing business. I think for now we should take a break in the conversation. But no hard feelings. I just think it'll be counterproductive to proceed, given our apparently very different conceptions of what kind of conversation this forum is for.

This is not a philosophical way of doing business. I think for now we should take a break in the conversation. But no hard feelings. I just think it'll be counterproductive to proceed, given our apparently very different conceptions of what kind of conversation this forum is for. — plaque flag

I'd say it's the only way to do business.

I stated that metaphysical questions are undecidable. What else can this forum be for than exploring the facts? Are you suggesting this isn't a fact? It's been known for thousands of years.

I thought you were trying to untangle philosophy, in which case the facts are the place to start. . .

In being,
present in time at the given moment is only that narrow
ridge of the momentary fugitive "now," rising out of the
"not yet now'' and falling away into the "no longer now”

This is a result of thinking of the present moment as separate. Now is not fugitive, it is perennial. Future and past also are always now, else they have no existence at all.

Not to be difficult, but claiming that all metaphysical questions are undecidable seems to decide an important metaphysical question. — plaque flag

I don't see it as a metaphysical question, but a phenomenological one. It is a phenomenological fact that metaphysical questions are undecidable. The alternative would be to collapse metaphysics into phenomenology; in some respects, both Kant and Heidegger do this, but then metaphysics is no longer metaphysics, as traditionally conceived, and we have lost a valid distinction between avenues of investigation.

I don't say the undecidability of metaphysics disqualifies it, just as I would not say the ambiguity of poetry renders it pointless. metaphysics as traditionally conceived is a poetic and logical exercise of the imagination; it shows us what we can coherently imagination, but it cannot tell us anything about the world or the ultimate nature of reality, as it once purported to be able to.

I don't see it as a metaphysical question, but a phenomenological one. It is a phenomenological fact that metaphysical questions are undecidable. The alternative would be to collapse metaphysics into phenomenology; in some respects, both Kant and Heidegger do this, but then metaphysics is no longer metaphysics, as traditionally conceived, and we have lost a valid distinction between avenues of investigation. — Janus

I hear you, but for me there's no sharp boundary. My own phenomenology-inspired view rejects the idea that reality is hidden somehow 'outside' of a so-called subjectivity that is thought of as 'inside.'
Some think of phenomenology in terms of a study of this inside without a concern for the outside (and they have reasons for doing so), but this misses what I take to be its deepest insight --- that that inside/outside distinction is a kind of prejudice or habit which has only practical justification, if that --- arguably a misinterpretation of physical science, thinking the image is the core of reality rather than icing on top. Mach makes a similar point, without calling it phenomenology.

My own phenomenology-inspired view rejects the idea that reality is hidden somehow 'outside' of a so-called subjectivity that is thought of as 'inside.' — plaque flag

That is nothing like what I've been saying. Do you claim nothing exists outside of cognition? For me reality is vast. much vaster than human cogntion, so I see your position as a return to anthropcentrism and anthropomorphism, and as such it has little appeal for me. Different strokes, I guess.

I appreciate that you were very polite about it, but it seems a bit brutal to just stop talking without an explanation.

Could you just quote the words that caused your reaction? I was stunned by it and would genuinely like to know what I said that caused the problem.

I was being a little abrupt. Sorry about that.

Your tone has sometimes been, from my POV, too much on preachy / condescending side. I view us as doing something like science here. When you bash Wittgenstein (a primary influence on this thread), you sound a bit crankish (a bit envious-bitter maybe of the fame of the charismatic man .) And you speak of Russell thinking Wittgenstein was a fool, but that's contrary to the well known details of their story. I've read biographies of both. And this is not a matter of my sentimental attachment. If you recklessly speak contrary to the facts or tear down the 'mighty dead,' then that's a stumblingblock to your credibility. You ought to explain how all the other shrewd readers could be so silly as to get things so wrong.

Exactly! And no-thing is precisely what we need as the ultimate for a systematic fundamental theory. Again, Kant proves this. At any rate, mysticism will make no sense to anyone who reifies time or space. — FrancisRay

I'd say that the concepts of time and space are one thing, but that moving my arm around of seeing an object in experiential space is another thing. In the same way, there's the concept of red which a blind person can master, and there's seeing red. Existence has (even primarily) a 'transconceptual' or 'preconceptual' aspect. Feuerbach correctly made a big deal about this sensualism. The world is not just thought. Thought is merely something like its intelligible structure.

In the same vein, Meister Eckhart dismisses space-time phenomena as 'literally nothing'. — FrancisRay

But I'd say it's metaphorically nothing, unless that 'nothing' is supposed to point at the framework character of space and time.

From my POV, the nothingness of things is tied up in their value being conditional. dependent on our investment in them. Straw dogs. I like the phrase psychoanalytic Platonist.'

Before the grass-dogs [芻狗 chu gou] are set forth (at the sacrifice), they are deposited in a box or basket, and wrapt up with elegantly embroidered cloths, while the representative of the dead and the officer of prayer prepare themselves by fasting to present them. After they have been set forth, however, passers-by trample on their heads and backs, and the grass-cutters take and burn them in cooking. That is all they are good for.



Consider also (?) Buddha's last words: Transient are conditioned things. Try to accomplish your aim with diligence.

Or consider The Fire Sermon.

"Monks, the All is aflame. What All is aflame? The eye is aflame. Forms are aflame. Consciousness at the eye is aflame. Contact at the eye is aflame. And whatever there is that arises in dependence on contact at the eye — experienced as pleasure, pain or neither-pleasure-nor-pain — that too is aflame. Aflame with what? Aflame with the fire of passion, the fire of aversion, the fire of delusion. Aflame, I tell you, with birth, aging & death, with sorrows, lamentations, pains, distresses, & despairs.
...

"The intellect is aflame. Ideas are aflame. Consciousness at the intellect is aflame. Contact at the intellect is aflame. And whatever there is that arises in dependence on contact at the intellect — experienced as pleasure, pain or neither-pleasure-nor-pain — that too is aflame. Aflame with what? Aflame with the fire of passion, the fire of aversion, the fire of delusion. Aflame, I say, with birth, aging & death, with sorrows, lamentations, pains, distresses, & despairs.

"Seeing thus, the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones grows disenchanted with the eye, disenchanted with forms, disenchanted with consciousness at the eye, disenchanted with contact at the eye. And whatever there is that arises in dependence on contact at the eye, experienced as pleasure, pain or neither-pleasure-nor-pain: With that, too, he grows disenchanted.
...
"He grows disenchanted with the intellect, disenchanted with ideas, disenchanted with consciousness at the intellect, disenchanted with contact at the intellect. And whatever there is that arises in dependence on contact at the intellect, experienced as pleasure, pain or neither-pleasure-nor-pain: He grows disenchanted with that too. Disenchanted, he becomes dispassionate. Through dispassion, he is fully released. With full release, there is the knowledge, 'Fully released.' He discerns that 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.'"

Note that I'm not claiming to be a Buddhist. Instead I'm getting a more universal (perennial?) idea of transcendence in terms of detachment. The world becomes a spectacle. We get 'distance' on it. We find ourselves less 'immersed in the object.' Heidegger calls this 'falling immersion,' the way that everyday life sucks us into its flow.

Personally, I don't pretend to have some cure for life. Nothing beyond the usual possible quotations of wisdom literature, the same old worthy proverbs. And this is mere amelioration. Life has its terrible face and its beautiful face. As far as I can tell, there's not much more to be sought or had than the continual re-attainment of an always fragile state of grace or play. We always fall off the horse again, find ourselves petty and resentful, or just tormented by a health issue, or forced to deal with a dangerous situation where stress (tho never panic) is appropriate.

Do we agree on this ? Or do you find something that radically 'cures' life in what you call mysticism ?

Mill tries to explain how we could come to believe in paradoxical substance beyond the possibility of experience. It's maybe like Husserl's examination of our growing misunderstanding of Galileo's science in Crisis.

It may perhaps be said, that the preceding theory gives, indeed, some account of the idea of Permanent Existence which forms part of our conception of matter, but gives no explanation of our believing these permanent objects to be external, or out of ourselves. I apprehend, on the contrary, that the very idea of anything out of ourselves is derived solely from the knowledge experience gives us of the Permanent Possibilities. Our sensations we carry with us wherever we go, and they never exist where we are not; but when we change our place we do not carry away with us the Permanent Possibilities of Sensation: they remain until we return, or arise and cease under conditions with which our presence has in general nothing to do. And more than all—they are, and will be after we have ceased to feel, Permanent Possibilities of sensation to other beings than ourselves. Thus our actual sensations and the permanent possibilities of sensation, stand out in obtrusive contrast to one another: and when the idea of Cause has been acquired, and extended by generalization from the parts of our experience to its aggregate whole, nothing can be more natural than that the Permanent Possibilities should be classed by us as existences generically distinct from our sensations, but of which our sensations are the effect.
*

The same theory which accounts for our ascribing to an aggregate of possibilities of sensation, a permanent existence which our sensations themselves do not possess, and consequently a greater reality than belongs to our sensations, also explains our attributing greater objectivity to the Primary Qualities of bodies than to the Secondary. For the sensations which correspond to what are called the Primary Qualities (as soon at least as we come to apprehend them by two senses, the eye as well as the touch) are always present when any part of the group is so. But colours, tastes, smells, and the like, being, in comparison, fugacious, are not, in the same degree, conceived as being always there, even when nobody is present to perceive them. The sensations answering to the Secondary Qualities are only occasional, those to the Primary, constant. The Secondary, moreover, vary with different persons, and with the temporary sensibility of our organs; the Primary, when perceived at all, are, as far as we know, the same to all persons and at all times.
...
We have no conception of Mind itself, as distinguished from its conscious manifestations. We neither know nor can imagine it, except as represented by the succession of manifold feelings which metaphysicians call by the name of States or Modifications of Mind. It is nevertheless true that our notion of Mind, as well as of Matter, is the notion of a permanent something, contrasted with the perpetual flux of the sensations and other feelings or mental states which we refer to it; a something which we figure as remaining the same, while the particular feelings through which it reveals its existence, change. This attribute of Permanence, supposing that there were nothing else to be considered, would admit of the same explanation when predicated of Mind, as of Matter. The belief I entertain that my mind exists when it is not feeling, nor thinking, nor conscious of its own existence, resolves itself into the belief of a Permanent Possibility of these states. If I think of myself as in dreamless sleep, or in the sleep of death, and believe that I, or in other words my mind, is or will be existing through these states, though not in conscious feeling, the most scrupulous examination of my belief will not detect in it any fact actually believed, except that my capability of feeling is not, in that interval, permanently destroyed, and is suspended only because it does not meet with the combination of conditions which would call it into action: the moment it did meet with that combination it would revive, and remains, therefore, a Permanent Possibility.

It's nice that he dissolves the magic subject too.