Nick_A wrote: ↑Sat Oct 03, 2020 4:41 pm
I think you are right. The question is if the brain is the creator or the receiver of consciousness? The answer seems obvious but why is it rejected by so many? My guess is that to accept that our brains are receivers of consciousness we must assume there is a source of pure consciousness which raises the dreaded G word. For some reason the ability to admit the obvious is somehow insulting to the supremacy of Man within creation. To begin to question the distinction between consciousness and the contents of consciousness is somehow demeaning. But why? Is it really just misguided ego or an influence on our being we underestimate?
The truth is really rather obvious, as you say, but it is also very difficult to understand and believe. So people see the obvious but find it so difficult to believe they ignore it. This should not be true for professional scholars but it is. I regard modern consciousness studies as an academic scandal waiting to be noticed. The lack of scholarship is almost implausible,
But I feel change is coming. You can fool most people for some of time, but...
I hope you are right. It is popularly believed that science will disprove God. Yet I believe that science will prove the necessity of a conscious source for our universe and the universal laws which maintain it. The idea will be violently rejected but gradually the good sense of it may sink in and we can only wonder how it could change the world through contemplating the purpose of Man within a conscious universe.
Can you imagine the difference it would make for a person when they come to realize that all the traditional paths initiating with a conscious source come together at the 'Way" which leads to the source of perennial wisdom.
Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Oct 04, 2020 6:01 pm
Can you imagine the difference it would make for a person when they come to realize that all the traditional paths initiating with a conscious source come together at the 'Way" which leads to the source of perennial wisdom.
Society would be transformed. But I cannot see how it can happen until the philosophy department gets its act together.
Nick_A wrote: ↑Sun Oct 04, 2020 6:01 pm
Can you imagine the difference it would make for a person when they come to realize that all the traditional paths initiating with a conscious source come together at the 'Way" which leads to the source of perennial wisdom.
Society would be transformed. But I cannot see how it can happen until the philosophy department gets its act together.
Consider "the Transcendent Unity of Religions" by Frithjof Schuon.
It must be rejected for two basic reasons: it assumes a conscious source that attracts and contemplates the transcendent and secondly it admits the spiritual blindness of the exoteric level.
Frithjof Schuon, a scholar and an authority on Comparative
Religion and the Sophia Perennis, has written a book called
The Transcendent Unity Of Religions. As its title
indicates, the book is about the unity of religious wisdom.
And as the use of the definite article indicates, this unity
is unique. But it is essential to observe that this unity is
also transcendent, i.e., the unity is in the spirit and not
in the letter.
Schuon uses the terms esoteric and exoteric to distinguish
the transcendent spirit of religions from their diverse
formal expressions. A useful diagram can be made which helps
illustrate the essence of this idea
As Huston Smith writes in the Introduction to Schuon’s book,
“the defect in other versions of this
[esoteric/exoteric] distinction is that they claim unity in
religions too soon, at levels where, being exoteric, true
Unity does not pertain and can be posited only on pain of
Procrusteanism or vapidity.” Once we identify any
particular thought system, no matter how comprehensive, as
the truth, then we have excluded other thought
systems and denied the Truth its unity and its infinite
possibilities for expression. The unity of Truth must
therefore be a Transcendent Unity. “The fact that it
is transcendent,” Smith writes, “means that it
can be univocally described by none.” Thus, while
there is one and only one Truth, there are many expressions
of it.
Philosophy cannot be introduced when it isn't wanted. Philosophy must remember its original intent as a means to remember what has been forgotten
Nick_A wrote: ↑Mon Oct 05, 2020 1:54 pm
Consider "the Transcendent Unity of Religions" by Frithjof Schuon.
Yes. An excellent book
Philosophy cannot be introduced when it isn't wanted. Philosophy must remember its original intent as a means to remember what has been forgotten
Not sure I follow this comment. I am a metaphysician not a religious believer. I deal in logic and reason. Logic and reason tells me that philosophy robbed of the idea of Unity is hopeless. History is very definitely on my side.
It's fine if people choose to reject this view. But they should give a reason for doing so.
This philosophy states that all extreme metaphysics theories are false. Western thinkers have established they are all logically absurd. So what's the problem?
Nick_A wrote: ↑Mon Oct 05, 2020 1:54 pm
Consider "the Transcendent Unity of Religions" by Frithjof Schuon.
Yes. An excellent book
Philosophy cannot be introduced when it isn't wanted. Philosophy must remember its original intent as a means to remember what has been forgotten
Not sure I follow this comment. I am a metaphysician not a religious believer. I deal in logic and reason. Logic and reason tells me that philosophy robbed of the idea of Unity is hopeless. History is very definitely on my side.
It's fine if people choose to reject this view. But they should give a reason for doing so.
This philosophy states that all extreme metaphysics theories are false. Western thinkers have established they are all logically absurd. So what's the problem?
You will probably agree with Prof Jacob Needleman who explains philosophy as I understand it.
From his book "The Heart of Philosophy
Chapter 1
Introduction
Man cannot live without philosophy. This is not a figure of speech but a literal fact that will be demonstrated in this book. There is a yearning in the heart that is nourished only by real philosophy and without this nourishment man dies as surely as if he were deprived of food and air. But this part of the human psyche is not known or honored in our culture. When it does breakthrough to our awareness it is either ignored or treated as something else. It is given wrong names; it is not cared for; it is crushed. And eventually, it may withdraw altogether, never again to appear. When this happens man becomes a thing. No matter what he accomplishes or experiences, no matter what happiness he experiences or what service he performs, he has in fact lost his real possibility. He is dead.
……………………….The function of philosophy in human life is to help Man remember. It has no other task. And anything that calls itself philosophy which does not serve this function is simply not philosophy……………………………….
It seems that much of what we call philosophy serves to help people forget rather than remember our origin.
Nick_A wrote: ↑Mon Oct 05, 2020 4:33 pm
You will probably agree with Prof Jacob Needleman who explains philosophy as I understand it.
"……………………….The function of philosophy in human life is to help Man remember. It has no other task. And anything that calls itself philosophy which does not serve this function is simply not philosophy………………………………."
It seems that much of what we call philosophy serves to help people forget rather than remember our origin.
Yes. But personally I wouldn't stress this point since it is vague as to what it means where it is a new idea to someone. I feel the only sensible approach to philosophy is to shut up and calculate.
Nobody can be criticised for being unable to remember, but a failure to shut up and calculate is unscholarly and unprofessional.
Nick_A wrote: ↑Mon Oct 05, 2020 4:33 pm
You will probably agree with Prof Jacob Needleman who explains philosophy as I understand it.
"……………………….The function of philosophy in human life is to help Man remember. It has no other task. And anything that calls itself philosophy which does not serve this function is simply not philosophy………………………………."
It seems that much of what we call philosophy serves to help people forget rather than remember our origin.
Yes. But personally I wouldn't stress this point since it is vague as to what it means where it is a new idea to someone. I feel the only sensible approach to philosophy is to shut up and calculate.
Nobody can be criticised for being unable to remember, but a failure to shut up and calculate is unscholarly and unprofessional.
Does shut up and calculate not follow on from theoretical paradigm?
Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Oct 06, 2020 12:04 pm
Does shut up and calculate not follow on from theoretical paradigm?
Not sure what you mean here. I'd say it is the idea of getting rid of any theoretical paradigm, but I may be misundersanding the question.
I'm also confused Pete. Do you mean that a person can only have a theory they can verify through dualistic reason?
Sorry. I understand when scientists do experiments or observe from nature they presume some overall theory is more probable than other theories. For instance research into coronavirus is founded upon the germ theory of disease.Virus is germ and bacteria are germs. Following upon this paradigm, the germ theory of disease, scientists can collect statistics and presume germs include specific infectious disease germs one of which is coronavirus that causes covid-19.
There is nothing in the idea of scientific paradigms that is inconsistent with trying to falsify any interpretations of data i.e. shut up and calculate.
I don't understand what Nick's favoured paradigm of knowledge is, however he seems to have one. Neither do I know if Nick has calculated based on actual statistical evidence.
Nick_A wrote: ↑Wed Oct 07, 2020 1:44 am
I'm also confused Pete. Do you mean that a person can only have a theory they can verify through dualistic reason?
No this is not what I'm getting at. I just meant that philosophers should do the sums. Inasmuch as metaphysics is a science of logic this is all that is required. If we throw away all the theories that don't work we are left with the correct one.
I know this will sound implausible, but it is the case.
I don't understand what Nick's favoured paradigm of knowledge is, however he seems to have one. Neither do I know if Nick has calculated based on actual statistical evidence.
My paradigm of knowledge begins with top down deductive reason as opposed to inductive reason used by those trying to understand the meaning and purpose of our universe from the bottom up. Without this foundation of a God concept similar to the ONE described by Plotinus, I am not able to verify how it devolves into AM or creation through universal laws
In our attempt to reconcile the inner and outer world, however, we do come up against a very real difficulty, which must be faced. This difficulty is connected with the problem of reconciling different 'methods of knowing'.
Man has two ways of studying the universe. The first is by induction: he examines phenomena, classifies them, and attempts to infer laws and principles from them. This is the method generally used by science. The second is by deduction: having perceived or had revealed or discovered certain general laws and principles, he attempts to deduce the application of these laws in various studies and in life. This is the method generally used by religions.. The first method begins with 'facts' and attempts to reach 'laws'. The second method begins with 'laws' and attempts to reach 'facts'.
These two methods belong to the working of different human functions. The first is the method of the ordinary logical mind, which is permanently available to us. the second derives from a potential function in man, which is ordinarily inactive for lack of nervous energy of sufficient intensity, and which we may call higher mental function This function on rare occasions of its operation, reveals to man laws in action, he sees the whole phenomenal world as the product of laws.
All true formulations of universal laws derive recently or remotely from the working of this higher function, somewhere and in some man. At the same time, for the application and understanding of the laws revealed in the long stretches of time and culture when such revelation is not available, man has to rely on the ordinary logical mind."
Nick_A wrote: ↑Fri Sep 25, 2020 5:17 pm
A good article explaining biological animal evolution and its problems with morality. But the article doesn't include the human potential for conscious evolution in which objective morality is experienced rather than argued. So before writing of the relationship between biological and conscious evolution, I'd like to see if anyone else here has studied conscious evolution to avoid being the lone wolf where it isn't wanted..
I haven't read the article because I take it for granted it doesn't mention consciousness. Biologists have no use for it. They prefer to endorse Skinner and Watson. One day biology will become philosophically interesting but for now it's a tedious affair. Among the most intersting writing on biology I've come across is by physicist Erwin Schrodinger. I've never read an interesting biologist.
I don't understand what Nick's favoured paradigm of knowledge is, however he seems to have one. Neither do I know if Nick has calculated based on actual statistical evidence.
Nick replied:
My paradigm of knowledge begins with top down deductive reason as opposed to inductive reason used by those trying to understand the meaning and purpose of our universe from the bottom up. Without this foundation of a God concept similar to the ONE described by Plotinus, I am not able to verify how it devolves into AM or creation through universal laws
Deductive reason is okay as long as you understand your reasoning is that of a mere man. Moreover, deduction is even less reliable when it is unconfirmed by experiences.
I don't understand what Nick's favoured paradigm of knowledge is, however he seems to have one. Neither do I know if Nick has calculated based on actual statistical evidence.
Nick replied:
My paradigm of knowledge begins with top down deductive reason as opposed to inductive reason used by those trying to understand the meaning and purpose of our universe from the bottom up. Without this foundation of a God concept similar to the ONE described by Plotinus, I am not able to verify how it devolves into AM or creation through universal laws
Deductive reason is okay as long as you understand your reasoning is that of a mere man. Moreover, deduction is even less reliable when it is unconfirmed by experiences.
Statistical evidence is the way of inductive reason and essential in the world. Efforts to "know thyself" or to have the impartial experience of oneself, is the way of deductive reason which connects us to our source.
However we do have the scientific method to gain statistical evidence but who knows what it means to "know thyself" as opposed to imagining oneself? That is the problem. We don't know how to know beyond the superficial. Imagination gets in the way.