This and That

[c0de]

...first 'division of nature' as that which can be seen, and that which is not —

Are you sure? Wiki states the first division as: "That which creates and is not created"

From what i've read there, this dude was deemed heretical (unsurprisingly, considering some of his writings.) Still, apparently, he was seriously influential.

Thanks for bringing him up though, i'd never even heard of em.

If it is possible to assert relative awareness, one can also speculate absolute awareness, which is the same consciousness, in one instance operating under certain constraints.

hmmm... I think relative awareness would equal consciousness, because "absolute awareness" would have to be (by definition) outside spacetime.

You're right in that we can speculate on an absolute awareness, but I think we can't imagine it. We can't even really imagine a 5th dimension to spacetime, our brains being suited only to 3 dimensions... but to imagine anything outside of spacetime altogether is like.... ????

Eriugena was getting close to saying each finite consciousness 'creates' the Cosmos it sees,

Sounds very Kantian (due credit to Berkley as well).. although, Kant was basically working from an absolute-Newtonian mechanic, which is not relational.

Now there's a thought! Ride with me for a moment ...

Suppose 'I' exist because I am being observed by •, so the All collapses into a singularity, a rational and reflective singularity, a (my)self, and a self-observing (my)self.

Such a (my)self always remains a mystery to the observing (my)self, because stripped of its accidents and contingency, it ceases to be a 'self' as an object, a singularity ...

Thomas
(OMG ... so when the nuns at Sunday School told me 'He's watching everything you do' they were right! If He wasn't, I wouldn't be here! Lordy ... HE'S WATCHING ME RIGHT NOW! )

lolz !!! so i guess trees falling in empty forests make sounds after all !! heh heh

 

[Snoopy]

St Francis said "we are looking for that which is looking." Perhaps, they're on the same track which will never be filled in with concepts

“Reality, the truth, is not something abstract. For this reason iit cannot be grasped with words.”

- from Between Heaven and Earth by Michael Eido Luetchford.​

We can only point to the moon with all our words…


s.

 

[Snoopy]

A couple of quotes from the above book:

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”

- from Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot.​

“The place I really have to get to is a place I must already be at now.”

- Wittgenstein.


​

s.

 

[Snoopy]

Eriugena was getting close to saying each finite consciousness 'creates' the Cosmos it sees

I believe this to be true. The “Cosmos” that I perceive began creation at my birth and will continue until the contingencies that support my ongoing existence as a self (i.e. a process, a temporally finite event) cease. Then “that” Cosmos will also cease.

Now there's a thought! Ride with me for a moment ...

OK...

(OMG ... so when the nuns at Sunday School told me 'He's watching everything you do' they were right! If He wasn't, I wouldn't be here! Lordy ... HE'S WATCHING ME RIGHT NOW! )

Step into my shoes a min. The nuns were right.

“To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualised by myriad things*.”

* = The Cosmos.

- from Genjokoan by Dogen. ​

You can’t have a Cosmos without a Thomas-sized entity in it; as you are (currently) a part of it. It’s a transcendental CCTV sort of thing! (OK get back in your own footwear now…)

s.

 

[Thomas]

Hi C0de —

Are you sure? Wiki states the first division as: "That which creates and is not created"

That's the famous Fourfold Division of Nature. The two-fold one is prior, setting up the argument. And there's a five-fold. I can cite the texts if you like ...

From what i've read there, this dude was deemed heretical (unsurprisingly, considering some of his writings.) Still, apparently, he was seriously influential.

He was nowhere near as influential as he ought to have been. Someone described him as the last great Platonist in the West, and certainly his theology was a last attempt to synthesise Greek and Latin ideas ... he is rarely mentioned by later theologians, although a few significant names might well have been aware of his writings, Eckhart being one.

Now, he's emerging as someone worth looking at, and the German Idealists have clicked to some of his ideas, but he's still largely an unknown, I think.

He was considered too much a theologian for the philosophers; too much a philosopher for the theologians.

As ever, it was not so much he who was condemned, but certain ideas — notable pantheism — the argument now is, was he a pantheist or not. I think the consensus is no, so any condemnation does not properly apply to him.

Thanks for bringing him up though, i'd never even heard of em.

He's a bit of a hero ...

You're right in that we can speculate on an absolute awareness, but I think we can't imagine it. We can't even really imagine a 5th dimension to spacetime, our brains being suited only to 3 dimensions... but to imagine anything outside of spacetime altogether is like.... ????

Always the problem ... we can analogise, speculatively ...

Sounds very Kantian (due credit to Berkley as well).. although, Kant was basically working from an absolute-Newtonian mechanic, which is not relational.

so i guess trees falling in empty forests make sounds after all !! heh heh

My favourite: When a tree falls unseen in the forest ... do the other trees giggle?

God bless,

Thomas

 

[Thomas]

You can’t have a Cosmos without a Thomas-sized entity in it;

And I wouldn't want one without a Snoopy-like entity in it ... ah, big hugs!!

Seriously, thanks Snoopy ... stuff to dwell on there.

God bless all,

Thomas

 

[c0de]

Hi C0de —

That's the famous Fourfold Division of Nature. The two-fold one is prior, setting up the argument. And there's a five-fold. I can cite the texts if you like ...


He was nowhere near as influential as he ought to have been. Someone described him as the last great Platonist in the West, and certainly his theology was a last attempt to synthesise Greek and Latin ideas ... he is rarely mentioned by later theologians, although a few significant names might well have been aware of his writings, Eckhart being one.

Now, he's emerging as someone worth looking at, and the German Idealists have clicked to some of his ideas, but he's still largely an unknown, I think.

He was considered too much a theologian for the philosophers; too much a philosopher for the theologians.

As ever, it was not so much he who was condemned, but certain ideas — notable pantheism — the argument now is, was he a pantheist or not. I think the consensus is no, so any condemnation does not properly apply to him.

I should check out more of his stuff.

wiki just doesn't do justice to some folk.

My favourite: When a tree falls unseen in the forest ... do the other trees giggle?

lolz

stoopid trees, can't even stand still without fallin !

 

[Ciel]

My favourite: When a tree falls unseen in the forest ... do the other trees giggle?

No...... the inner core of the tree the "this", is one of compassion.
The "that" being part of all exterior would resonate and shimmer flutter.
Living in a forest I have often heard harmonic leafings but never giggles.

- c -

 

[Snoopy]

wiki just doesn't do justice to some folk.

I quite agree. I'm described as a fictional pet Beagle.

s.

 

[Snoopy]

I was reading a column on the Guardian / Comment is Free website -

Buddhism's alternative path | Jaya Graves | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

when I came across this:

"To appreciate the concept of universal truth one should look for reflections of the Buddhist metaphorical representation of primordial truth as "like the reflection of the moon upon the water," a luminous sphere coalescent with emptiness, in the intuitions of individuals ranging from Plotinus to Eriugina (sic), to Ibn Arabi, to Margurite Porete."

- posted by RH Joseph on 28 October 2010 at 7.05pm.
​

s.
​

 

[Snoopy]

a Snoopy-like entity

It's a bit larger than it should be...

s.

 

[c0de]

I quite agree. I'm described as a fictional pet Beagle.

s.

yea, but the best fictional pet beagel EVER

(and i dont even like dogs!!!)

 

[Thomas]

... Plotinus to Eriugina[/I] (sic), to Ibn Arabi, to Margurite Porete."

Hurrah! I'll track that down a bit.

Margurite Porete covered the same ground as Eckhart ... before Eckhart covered it!

Tragically, being a woman, she was burnt at the stake for heresy.

Hers is an 'interesting' case (I came across her in Denys Turner's book The Darkness of God). Apparently the prosecution party was unprecedented in number — for reasons not quite apparent, she offended everybody. Dominicans, Franciscans ... She refused to recant, and paid with her life.

Her book, the cause of all the furore, re-appeared some time later anonymously, and amazingly, was accepted! Go figure.

Thomas

 

[Thomas]

Hi Ciel —

Thanks for that. I think, the last time we exchanged, I was somewhat rude. Apologies.

I don't think I've ever registered 'harmonic leafings', although I am sure I have sensed moments when the breath is held ...

"Even the trees are sacred" says a sign along the way to the monasteries on Mount Athos ... true indeed .... but a shame it has to be signposted, and a shame, moreover, that in the West we seem to have forgotten that simple fact.

Everything is.

God bless.

Thomas

 

[Ciel]

Thomas, thank you.........
It is good to be on better footings

- c -