Radar's Apologia Pro Vita Sua

[Paladin]

That is what makes it fun.

You know, the more I learn, the more I agree with you.

 

[Thomas]

Hi all —

A valid point, however, remember when I said that we are inherently part of the landscape we survey? From that perspective there is still a certain sense of being, and being an integral part of what is happening.

I agree.

'Being' in my somewhat Thomist metaphysic is tripartite:
Being in itself: there is intrinsically something, something 'is', the Scholastics used the latin term esse to signify the is-ness of something.

Aside: I also adhere to the Eriugenian distinction that things are, or are not, depending upon whether they are perceptible to the intellect (which for Eriugena organises the data from the senses).

Being as itself: Almost synonymous with the above. The scholastics would say a being (esse) is, according to its act (actus). Being and act are inseparable, as the first act of the being is to be.

Being in relation: In the above two, being knows itself according to its act of being, and acts according to the being it is (be it a man, a tree, whatever).

This latter is not simply the product of a man happening to notice he's on a planet, etc., etc. Relating to other being is intrinsic to human nature, and not mere inquisitiveness, the drive is too strong and too sustained to be that. It is the gift of self to the other, and the reception of the other by the self.

What is left behind is the sense that " I am that" transcending into something akin to "thou art".

I still agree, although i would perhaps argue that for something to be left is the product of being-in-relation. If a memory is left, something has to be there to receive and record the memory?

To me, this becomes operationalized during a shift from ordinary consciousness which includes a conventional sense of self to being part of the immensity, so to speak.

I still agree. That shift is, top me, one of relation. The continual return to the question 'who am I?' and 'who art thou?'

Unless I'm mistaken this correlates with Wilber's pre/trans fallacy as well.

Sorry, don't know Wilbur.

Therefore, it is still contextually correct to say that "contemplation is happening". Or, so I would argue.

Agreed, but it would be, to me, a great sadness to say 'contemplation is happening' or 'being is happening' without wondering who or what contemplates ... or am I being too simple?

+++

See, I really do not percieve a "self". I like Hume's self as a-collection-of-remembered-sense-contents.

I'm not trying to be difficult here, but are we not over-complicating a simple idea. Hume's definition still requires an individual 'thing' to collect and store the 'contents', and the 'contents' collected and stored, no matter what their labels, are never quite like the thing that's collecting and storing them ... and intrinsic to that thing, prior to and in relation to the content received and stored, is a way of thinking or perceiving 'itself' which is unique, as it does not perceive anything else in quite the same way.

Didtto with consciousness. Can I point to this self or this consciousness? No...

Surely one can? The way we perceive 'my' consciousness is unique in regard to the way we perceive the consciousness of every other human being we meet?

+++

Contemplation is happening where there are billions of neurons composed of billions of atoms (quarks or whatever), information is being fed, and actions are being taken, autonomously and knowingly, I would say, not in a void (if I knew what a void is).

I agree (I think).

It seems to me that if there is contemplation happening, there requires subject and object.

Having introduced atoms, I would go on to say physical elements, compounds, a corpus, a creature ... Paladin said above "we are inherently part of the landscape we survey" and I quite agree, with a twofold proviso that there is still an eye, an 'I', and a landscape, a viewpoint that is coherent to itself, and that one cannot separate the mental and the physical, as if the mental faculty was some extraneous 'being' that is housed in a physical 'being'.

That is what Mahavira of the Jains said in 500 BC - Anekantavada (doctrine of non-exclusivity or multiple viewpoints).

Oh dear ... more research to do ... sorry I can't offer a more cognisant response.

"Anekāntavāda is one of the most important and fundamental doctrines of Jainism. It refers to the principles of pluralism and multiplicity of viewpoints, the notion that truth and reality are perceived differently from diverse points of view, and that no single point of view is the complete truth."

Can't argue with that.

Self is true only from a particular view-point.

Yes. But that point of view is, I would suggest, the key to the mystery.

Murleau-Ponty said: "True reflection presents me to myself not as idle and inaccessible subjectivity, but as identical with my presence in the world and to others, as I am now realizing it: I am all that I see, I am an intersubjective field, not despite my body and historical situation, but, on the contrary, by being this body and this situation, and though them, all the rest.” (Phenomenology of Perception)

 

[radarmark]

Very good reply, will cover as soon as I get my entry on time done.

See, I believe both Thomas and Paladin are assuming being. None of the arguments from Plato until now really proove the concept. Why, it is a metaphysical issue. Same for the concepts of self and consciousness.

It really goes back to time. Plato (and nearly every Western philosopher since him) postulated that time was dependent on space and being. It was either a relation (the modern view) or a digression from perfection (Forms) to world. And world merely a shadow of true forms.

I am just saying reverse those assumptions and postulates. "Time preceeds reality" (per Prigogine). "Becoming incompasses being" (Heraclitus and Whitehead).
This will be a very fun and profitable conversation.

Meanwhile try this Being and Becoming in Physics and Item 4 in Adventures in Unfashionable Philosophy (Felt; U of Notre Dame Press; 2010), which should get the discussion off on both a scientific and metaphysical big bang.

 

[wil]

First Cause
Second Cause
Third Case

Mind
Idea
Expression

Father
Son (Christ)
Holy Spirit

Super conscious
consciousness
manifestation

 

[Paladin]

Agreed, but it would be, to me, a great sadness to say 'contemplation is happening' or 'being is happening' without wondering who or what contemplates ... or am I being too simple?

What would be really sad is if you ever felt pressured to do otherwise, and no there is nothing simplistic about genuine inquiry. Indeed, this was the practice Nisargadatta Maharaj was given by his guru.
I think the conventional sense of subject and object are part of our life and part of our understanding. I also understand that in moments of meditation the line between subject and object can become blurred.
Mediation teachers often speak of this particular stage of meditation as one only those who have a stable ego organization can reach, thus as Engler (1984) argued, you have to be somebody before you are nobody.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Yes. But that point of view is, I would suggest, the key to the mystery.

Murleau-Ponty said: ..

That is second of the Sankara's realities, 'Pragmatic' (Vyavaharika). Philosophers play with words (Murleau-Pontry, etc.) - 'Shabda Jāla' (Maze of words).

 

[Thomas]

I think the conventional sense of subject and object are part of our life and part of our understanding.

Agreed.

I also understand that in moments of meditation the line between subject and object can become blurred.

Agreed. As I see it, that's part of the third definition of being, being-in-relation. In a 'Newtonian' way of thinking, the relation is always between two closed systems, what we're discussing here is, I suggest, an open system — a bit like the Quantum thingy about a particle and a wave.

I like your figures in a landscape analogy — we are part of the landscape, which coalesces into 'hard data' when we focus our attention on it. At its most basic this is forensic empiricism. But there are other ways of seeing.

 

[Thomas]

I am just saying reverse those assumptions and postulates ... "Becoming incompasses being" (Heraclitus and Whitehead).

I would say 'becoming' and 'being' are to each other as wave is to particle?

 

[radarmark]

I am working on an answer. Being and becoming are not really like the term "wavicle" (both wave and particle). You might check out Michal Heller's rap on ontology. The problem is that both time and location are, at the level of basic physics, not fixed or "local".

Heller, if you remember is the Jesuit who is a very important cosmologist, a rather high Vatican observatory staffer, a Pontifical Gregorian University theologian and professor of philosophy at the Pontifical Academy of Theology. Interesting guy, one of the few (along with D.R. Finkelstein, who interest is quantum logic) who really understands the issues of noncommutative algebras. Heller is to general relativists as Finkelstein is to quantum theorists. High praise, from me, I went to Ga Tech to have DRF as an advisor.

 

[radarmark]

Paladin post #33 on this thread:

Yes, I know, but it is the aspect of non-dualism and becoming that made me think specifically of Advaita. It seems that much of what you postulate is similar as far as the view of self is concerned. I recall lectures by Tony Parsons in which he argues that instead of "I am contemplating" it is more accurate to say that "contemplation is happening", thus removing the idea of a separate self, while maintaining the experience of consciousness/awareness.

Or am I missing your point altogether?

Adi Shankara and Gaudapada are, for me, the two most significant philosophers of Vendata. The notion of “self” they express is very close to Hume’s, Whitehead’s, Bohm’s, and mine. The notion of “I” as a separate entity continuing in time has no subject. Is it me at birth? Before birth? In my 20s? Now? When “I” am dead?

No, instead this “self” is a nexus of memories, thoughts, emotions and relexions (all the West considers “part of the self”) which is continually changing through spacetime.

Thomas post #35 on this thread:

Can I say then, that 'being' and 'becoming' are simultaneous? I don't view 'being' as a static entity, but as a dynamic continuum.

No, what or where is this being? If it is in time, it changes… period. It is then not being, but becoming.

To refer somewhat unfairly to Parsons, to say 'contemplation is happening' doesn't really adequately answer the question. Contemplation doesn't happen in a void ... ?

Why not? Can you point to it in spacetime? No? Then it occurs in a void… or at least not in spacetime (an therefore not empirical—falsifiable, or verifiable in any manner).

Paladin post #37 on this thread:

A valid point, however, remember when I said that we are inherently part of the landscape we survey? From that perspective there is still a certain sense of being, and being an integral part of what is happening. What is left behind is the sense that " I am that" transcending into something akin to "thou art". To me, this becomes operationalized during a shift from ordinary consciousness which includes a conventional sense of self to being part of the immensity, so to speak. Unless I'm mistaken this correlates with Wilber's pre/trans fallacy as well. Therefore, it is still contextually correct to say that "contemplation is happening". Or, so I would argue.

Pretty close, but I through out all sense or notion of being (I basically have never experienced either).

Aupmanyav post #39 on this thread:
Originally Posted by Thomas
To refer somewhat unfairly to Parsons, to say 'contemplation is happening' doesn't really adequately answer the question. Contemplation doesn't happen in a void ... ?

What is void and what is not? What is substance and what is not? This is a tricky question, and IMHO, science does not yet have the answer.

That is the point. Science does not have the answer. Void is that outside the Universe (so beyond science). Substance exists, but not as a hard and fast and point-to-able entity. But as a kind of electrical field (remember it is not nuclear by atomic forces, electro-magnetism, that allow us to experience solids) we hypothesize into a thing (substance or being).

Contemplation is happening where there are billions of neurons composed of billions of atoms (quarks or whatever), information is being fed, and actions are being taken, autonomously and knowingly, I would say, not in a void (if I knew what a void is).

Firing neurons, atoms, nuclei, quarks, information, action, decision; yep, all happening (in a prepared testbed like my typing and deciding what to type). It is here and now, in spacetime, hence it cannot be in a void. In this Universe voids do not exist.

Originally Posted by Paladin
From that perspective there is still a certain sense of being, and being an integral part of what is happening.

Perhaps, but why postulate it? It just adds unprovable complexity.

That is what Mahavira of the Jains said in 500 BC - Anekantavada (doctrine of non-exclusivity or multiple viewpoints ).

"Anekāntavāda is one of the most important and fundamental doctrines of Jainism. It refers to the principles of pluralism and multiplicity of viewpoints, the notion that truth and reality are perceived differently from diverse points of view, and that no single point of view is the complete truth."

Like the Dine (Navajo) word “daat’si” which means “yes and no”, “yes or no, but not both”, “yes”, “no”, “perhaps”, “possibly”.

See, reality is not a defined, pre-existing thing one can go out and pick up certainty or truth in. It (like quantum physics) is just a superposition of probabilities or possibilities that may come to pass, may be passing, or may have passed. This view-point does not admit “self” or “being” or “property”. Rather, it admits now and this moment and this experience which is up to us to make sense of in terms of the larger Anekāntavāda.

Self is true only from a particular view-point.

Thomas post #42 on this thread:

Originally Posted by Paladin
A valid point, however, remember when I said that we are inherently part of the landscape we survey? From that perspective there is still a certain sense of being, and being an integral part of what is happening.

I agree.

'Being' in my somewhat Thomist metaphysic is tripartite:
Being in itself: there is intrinsically something, something 'is', the Scholastics used the latin term esse to signify the is-ness of something.

“Esse” does nto really mean “being (or thing) in itself”. That phrase came much later. It means the character, the is-ness. Not the Is-ness of something. For instance, a child is hurtled from a car and impacts the truck that hit the car, to become goop and die. There is no something here (during this period). There is only dread (before), horror (during) and sadness (afterwards). Now we will all have different experiences of this set of events I describe, and different memories and different pre-hensions. So there is no “thing” in spacetime to apply “esse” to. There is only “esse”.

Aside: I also adhere to the Eriugenian distinction that things are, or are not, depending upon whether they are perceptible to the intellect (which for Eriugena organises the data from the senses).

Nope. Your or my death caused by a .45 to the brain is not perceptible to our intellect. Yet it exists, because we are dead. Sense-data is not enough (that has always been the shortcoming of Empiricists). We have “intellectual data” where we can “see” an atom or the Milky Way (as pictured in a grand axial view) without “seeing” it. And “sense data” is raw… there are thousands of inputs per second, we selectively pick and choose which we consciously experience and which we store away. And the “intellect” can store true data, which can later be corrupted by intellect.

Being as itself: Almost synonymous with the above. The scholastics would say a being (esse) is, according to its act (actus). Being and act are inseparable, as the first act of the being is to be.

Nope, the act and the perception-experience of the act is all there is. To be is not a requirement for acting. G!d is beyond spacetime… hence not a being (if a being does not have to be in spacetime it is not part of the Universe and this entire line of discussion is rediculous). G!d acts without being or be or acting.

On the other hand the action of a virtual particle (which we can measure as the Casimir force) is a function of the quantum of action, planck’s constant. There is no being there.

So if to “be” means being located within spacetime, there are actions without being even under your rules (G!d and the quantum).

As far as I have gotten so far. Still have half of Thomas' #42 and a couple of Paladin's follow ons to get to (tomorrow maybe?)