On The Contrast Between Appearance And Reality

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;134424 wrote:

Excuse me jumping in. I've been quite obsessed with this issue. It seems to me that man can only think in beings. ..

We have been trained to think in terms of "being". I would assert the world begins to look quite different when you practice thinking in terms of "becoming" as primary reality. I suppose it is a form of meditative discipline.

The world also begins to look quite different if you practice seeing "mind" as fundmental, inherent and pervausive in "reality". All the sudden everything comes alive as perceptive, interactive and striving as opposed to dead, inert, insensate and mechanical and deterministic.

I can tell you these changes in worldview have a profound effect on your attitude and how you see "reality and life". It is of course classical romantic idealism but it is a profoundly optimistic and inspiring view.
Even if not "true" and there is no overwhelming evidence to pronouce it "false", the smart man bets on the divine (the true, beautiful and the good).

@Fil Albuquerque,

numbers even One only make sense in a dual conception, in plurality...even to state One only makes sense if I can think its absence later on...therefore two...and so on...

@Pythagorean,

Reconstructo;134426 wrote:

Logic cannot be open ended, but words aren't logical, or rather they are only partially logical. .

It depends on who is using them :bigsmile:

Seriously, though, I think you are developing some very interesting insights, but it might be fair to say, also your own lexicon, or way of explaining them.

In the context of particular philosophical traditions words do have fairly circumscribed meanings, but in order to understand that meaning, one needs to be a part of that 'universe of discourse'. So if we were (for example) schooled in a particular tradition of philosophy, then the technical terms would have a certain type of consensual meaning which we would start from.

But we live in a world of chaos nowadays - 'chaos' in the sense of the disruption of continuity against a constant backdrop of change and the admixture of all kinds of ideas, meanings, and traditions. We don't notice this, because we have adapted to it. Chaos seems normal to us. But what you are describing in this thread, although I can definitely relate to some of the insights in it, is rather like an interference pattern between various waves in a tank, and to that extent, chaotic. This is an analogy for the collision, or the intersection, of a number of different perspectives (i.e. Ancient Greek, deconstructionist, relativistic).

It is interesting but, well, kaliedoscopic, in a way. I do think out of this ferment of ideas, something very interesting is emerging but at the moment I am hard pressed to say exactly what.

Please don't take this as a put-down - just a reflection.

---------- Post added 03-02-2010 at 05:07 PM ----------

prothero;134429 wrote:

We have been trained to think in terms of "being". I would assert the world begins to look quite different when you practice thinking in terms of "becoming" as primary reality. I suppose it is a form of meditative discipline.

Which is probably the most important discipline to have, in regards to this question. This is the ancient and original meaning of 'praxis'.

@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil. Albuquerque;134428 wrote:

Noumena is the negation of appearance. I don't know if I can argue for pure unification. I think man is a collision of the transcendental and the incidental. Noumena is a surrender to dualism, as you have noted. I think that Logos itself is the only unification that I can argue for. This is why the cross or plus sign is a perfect symbol for man. The triangle is a symbolic synonym for the plus sign. As its two lower angles meet up top. So living man is a cross or a triangle (symbolically) is reduced to lowest terms. Only "god" can be viewed as unity? the circle? the sphere w/ no outside?

The wise man is unified as perfect self-consciousness. He can view the Concept (himself) as Perfect Unity, but he must be outside of it to view it, as pure subjectivity. That's why Being is -1, or maybe "i" the imaginary number.
Or he can view pure negation as the "1."

@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil. Albuquerque;134425 wrote:

I do not know where you are with respect to the numinous, the divine, the sacred, god, etc.

I think at least part of our notions of such transcendent concepts includes notions of the eternal, the perfect, the changeless.

I of course am sympathetic to such intuitons.

If one sees what is commonly called the "real world, the material world, the objective world" as a sort of emmantion (albeit imperfect) of the "ideal world" (which is a very Platonic notion) then you can so to speak have perfection (the ideal) in the midst of the actual (change).

@jeeprs,

...so there is no NECESSITY when it comes to how

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;134434 wrote:

In the context of particular philosophical traditions words do have fairly circumscribed meanings, but in order to understand that meaning, one needs to be a part of that 'universe of discourse'. So if we were (for example) schooled in a particular tradition of philosophy, then the technical terms would have a certain type of consensual meaning which we would start from.

Yes, the meanings are fairly circumscribed, but therefore not exactly circumscribed. And as you say, this approximate meaning is dependent on a universe of discourse. Consensual meaning simply isn't digital, or perfect. Thus the Jungian symbol, the known suggesting the unknown. The non-digital element of logos is not transcendental as far as I can see, but temporal & empirical. Ratio is numinous because it's meaning is precise. Beauty is the splendor of Truth. Of course Logos is well-used in myth, and myth is certainly numinous, but that's where we move into Jungian territory, and empirical psychology. I like to stay near the pure transcendental. Number and continuity. Of course a Hegelian understanding of synthesis is necessary to sow it all together. And Kantian noumena insures it against "mysticism" or "superstition."

---------- Post added 03-02-2010 at 01:25 AM ----------

Fil. Albuquerque;134442 wrote:

...so there is no NECESSITY when it comes to how

The Logos desires the concept, or the synthesis. The one is numinous. Thinking is unification. Dialectic is the struggle of error to mirror being. Error only knows it mirrors being when it can no longer find an anti-thesis.
It's not just chance. The element of DESIRE is crucial.

---------- Post added 03-02-2010 at 01:27 AM ----------

jeeprs;134434 wrote:

It is interesting but, well, kaliedoscopic, in a way. I do think out of this ferment of ideas, something very interesting is emerging but at the moment I am hard pressed to say exactly what.

Please don't take this as a put-down - just a reflection.

--

No offense taken. In my mind it is a unified system of concepts. It's just hard to explain it. It all came together just recently....(I know I'm mixing the symbolic w/ the dialectic. Might be having too much fun

---------- Post added 03-02-2010 at 01:29 AM ----------

prothero;134440 wrote:

If one sees what is commonly called the "real world, the material world, the objective world" as a sort of emmantion (albeit imperfect) of the "ideal world" (which is a very Platonic notion) then you can so to speak have perfection (the ideal) in the midst of the actual (change).

That's it exactly! That's the Cross or the Triangle. The eternal (aka the transcendental) exists within Time, and Time is Logos....

And this Eternity is numinous....beautiful, holy (whole)

@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil. Albuquerque;134442 wrote:

...so there is no NECESSITY when it comes to how

I am not sure what you mean.
but
There is real and meaningful freedom in the world (as would be required for true creativity, which is ultimate principle) and with this comes real risk and real reward.
There is also a high degree of order and predictability as is necessary for freedom to have any value or utility.
but
The difference between no freedom and a little freedom is all the difference in the world. (in terms of meaning and creativity).

I have seen you defend hard determinism so this may not appeal to you but I think nothing in science, reason or experience forces a hard determinist (LaPlace style) only one possible future and only one possible past viewpoint) in fact modern science implies otherwise.

Remember for me, god is rational and ordering as well as creative agent God is the prime example of metaphysical principle not its sole exception.
Im tired, Im rambling, Im out for the night. Thank you and good night.

@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil. Albuquerque;134452 wrote:

If you "posit" the minus sign and then a one, and put them together...you get a plus sign. You have a trinity here. The 1, its negation, and the synthesis of both, which happens to look like a plus sign, or the cross that the incarnate Logos was affixed to in that grand old story.......
Note that the trinity is also one, as the logos(+).....

- 1 +

@Pythagorean,

you really should check out Amazon.com: The Theology of Arithmetic (9780933999725): Iambilichus, Robin Waterfield: Books

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;134491 wrote:

you really should check out Amazon.com: The Theology of Arithmetic (9780933999725): Iambilichus, Robin Waterfield: Books

Looks like my kind of book.

---------- Post added 03-02-2010 at 04:26 AM ----------

I considering the possibility that nous is pure negativity, except that Aristotle hints at a dualistic "nous" that smells like logos (which is indeed dualistic..i do know that much).

I just posted for my icon my current view of (tri-incidentally) the basic strcuture of thought, being, and transcendental idealism.

Considering this triangle as the representation of thought, the nous is a sort of knife that cuts qualia into objects. Nous is also necessary for abstraction, which is the negation of the accidental that makes essence manifest. I can see this notion of nous, as a cutter of qualia and also a tool for abstraction in Anaxagoras, Plato, and Plotinus, at least as described below. Aristotle seems to be talking of logos, which is the synthesis of nous, which is negative and digital, with qualia, which are transcendentally continuous and "positive" as experienced in space and time.

Nous is inescapable. Therefore we cannot truly think the infinite. For nous is the source of number and of word as essence rather than noise.

I'm no expert on these old school gents. I know some, but this is indeed a leap....still, it all clicks. If we are dealing with the transcendental and not the mystical, it must be accessible to conceptual analysis. Anything else is mysticism, which is fine but not my bag....

Quote:

Anaxagoras's nous was a mechanical ordering force that formed the world out of an original chaos. It began the development of the cosmos.
Plato described it as the immortal, rational part of the soul. It is a godlike kind of thinking in which the truths of conclusions are immediately known without having to understand the preliminary premises.
Plotinus described nous as one of the emanations from divine being.
Aristotle asserted that nous was the intellect, as distinguished from sense perception. He divided it into an active and passive nous. The passive is what receives intelligible forms, and the active is what illuminates the passive and makes potential knowledge into actual knowledge.

@Pythagorean,

Plotinus offered rational arguments for everything he taught. However it is very unlikely that many of his premises would be easily intelligible to the modern audience. Here is a snippet from McEvilly comparing Plotinus to the Buddhist Awakening of the Faith in the Mahayana:

Quote:

The force of nonenlightenment tends away from Suchness or pure Being and Subjectivity towards multiplicity and the alienation of subject and object; the permeation of enlightenment tends in the other direction. They perform, in other words, precisely the functions performed by Plotinus' forces of progression, or emanation, and regression, or return to the One. The force of nonenlightenment [or ignorance] obscures the self-identity of original Mind, fragments it into apparent subject and object, and progressively alienates subject from object until the subject is lost in a nightmare of chaotic multiplicity to which it is bound by its own apparent actions, as Plotinus' individual subject is bound to Nature by its own actions. The force of enlightenment involves the reintegration of subject and object until they are once more completely infolded.

Thomas McEvilly, The Shape of Ancient Thought, p575

This kind of teaching is very characteristic of both neo-platonism and Buddhism and is generally associated with a rather unwordly and renunciate attitude to life. So it contrasts strongly with the way in which the modern outlook implicitly assumes the reality of worldly existence.

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;134508 wrote:

Plotinus offered rational arguments for everything he taught. However it is very unlikely that many of his premises would be easily intelligible to the modern audience. Here is a snippet from McEvilly comparing Plotinus to the Buddhist Awakening of the Faith in the Mahayana: Thomas McEvilly, The Shape of Ancient Thought, p575

This kind of teaching is very characteristic of both neo-platonism and Buddhism and is generally associated with a rather unwordly and renunciate attitude to life. So it contrasts strongly with the way in which the modern outlook implicitly assumes the reality of worldly existence.

It seems to me that the understanding of nous as pure subjectivity is a bridge to non-dual understanding. To see that all distinctions are the impositions of a transcendental negativity is to utterly realize that all duality in conceptual terms is "illusion" or at least contingent.

The transcendental is not by any means what most folks think they want to talk about. Or read about. I agree. I suppose an important question from me to you is: do you think we are dealing with transcendentally imposed forms or something else?

It occurs to me that pure subjectivity is nothing but one of those maximum abstractions. Unless there is being, even if just imagined empty space, the subject is utterly inconceivable. Being and Negativity, or Space and Nous. Time is generated from these two, including concepts like "pure subjectivity."

@Pythagorean,

The point about nondualist wisdom is that it sounds very simple, and as a principle it is really quite simple, but the implications are very profound because it cuts through the basic premise of your existence, that is, your sense of 'me and mine'.

When you spell it out, it sounds outlandish or unthinkable, but it is actually not like that at all. And anyway, while you are a working citizen with possessions and jobs and all that, there is a limit to how deeply you can enter into this perspective, but you can start to prepare for it, consider it, and let it permeate your existence.

How it turns up in your experience, then, is definitely a feeling of greater communion with those around you and with life itself. It is very simple but quite definite. Of course, having acquired this sense, it now seems natural and normal, but I am sure my actual quality of mind was considerably worse in the past before I managed to incorporate this outlook.

This is the difference however between a working philosophy and an intellectual abstraction. Obviously I am an intellectual person (I hope anyway) because I like reading and discussing philosophical ideas, as we do here. But at the same time, the principle around which it revolves in my life is actually a living practice. This is why it has started to 'come alive' for me - now when I read spiritual philosophers such as Plotinus, I recognize what he is saying (to some degree, anyway, although there is much more to learn).

So I certainly recognise some of the ideas and insights that are coming up. Actually in the midst of all this global chaos, there really is a new awareness being born. OK it sounds New Age, but it really is a new age. It truly is an amazing time to be alive.

@prothero,

prothero;134453 wrote:

I am not sure what you mean.
but
There is real and meaningful freedom in the world (as would be required for true creativity, which is ultimate principle) and with this comes real risk and real reward.
There is also a high degree of order and predictability as is necessary for freedom to have any value or utility.
but
The difference between no freedom and a little freedom is all the difference in the world. (in terms of meaning and creativity).

I have seen you defend hard determinism so this may not appeal to you but I think nothing in science, reason or experience forces a hard determinist (LaPlace style) only one possible future and only one possible past viewpoint) in fact modern science implies otherwise.

Remember for me, god is rational and ordering as well as creative agent God is the prime example of metaphysical principle not its sole exception.
Im tired, Im rambling, Im out for the night. Thank you and good night.

---------- Post added 03-02-2010 at 09:40 AM ----------

@jeeprs,

Reconstructo wrote:

That's it exactly! That's the Cross or the Triangle. The eternal (aka the transcendental) exists within Time, and Time is Logos....

And this Eternity is numinous....beautiful, holy (whole)

Neo is the one!!!

@Zetherin,

Zetherin;134576 wrote:

Neo is the one!!!

@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil. Albuquerque;134579 wrote:

I'm sorry, I shall be more clear. The prophecy was revealed, Neo is the one! Morpheus told me.

@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil. Albuquerque;134579 wrote:

Aristotle wrote that sometimes nothing but ridicule is appropriate.

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