Is Rovelli 'Dragooning the Human Spirit'?

[Soul_of_Shu]

Following that, what purpose would it serve to concede that OP can be named, and in that sense closed? Philosophy is settled, case closed, no need to learn anything else, no need to try to push our limits?

In what sense is the premise of sentience and ideation being uncaused and irreducible implying any finality or closure? In this experience it allows ever-present origin of ever-evolving, ever-astonishing novelty of idea-construction. This I learned from Schroombäcker

[AshvinP]

But does anyone actually find deep meaning in the impermanence of the world and themselves?

The ethical foundation and teaching of Pyrrhon, Nagarjuna etc. philosophical skepticism is ataraxia and fuller presence in beauty and wonder of life. Metaphysical essentialism leads easily to dogmatism, identifying with an ideological belief system and "acrimonous" etc. unethical behaviour towards self and fellow people who don't share the same orthodoxy.

Yes. I agree.

Why would anyone find deep meaning in permanence of the world and themselves? It seems much too much like wishful thinking and a denial of death - a belief arising from fear, grasping, and other negative energies. As you say, it can lead easily to dogmatism and belief in only one way. It doesn't match any actual experience we have of the world where plants grow, flowers bloom only to fall to the ground, where every living thing is born and dies, where even mountains eventually drop into the sea.

This is like asking, 'why would anyone find deep meaning in existing at all'? Actually, let's back up and be clear that the history of all Western philosophy and spirituality has been precisely the history of "finding deep meaning in permanence of the world and themselves". That is reflected in all ancient mythologies and philosophical systems. So your question is literally, "why did Western humanity for 2,500 years before the modern age find deep meaning in the eternal"? You, me, SS, and most others here are products of that spiritual and cultural heritage, regardless of how much we may want to disown it. Every time you read, see, or hear a great work of Western art, contemplate a great Western philosophy, read a great work of Western literature, etc., you are partaking in that "deep meaning". That deep meaning was always found by enriching the transient physical by way of the eternal spiritual. As Goethe summed it up in one short phrase, "everything transient is but a parable."

Psycho-linguistic argument is not addressing the objective validity of the eternal. We can stack up fears, "negative energies", atrocities, all day from all sorts of worldviews, but that is exactly what BK refers to as "subjective preferences" of Rovelli instead of honest examination of Nature. And Barfield already addressed this in the quote I have posted and requoted many times now. It is like you guys are arguing against his criticism by doubling down on what he was criticizing - that "what is self-evident can be profitably ignored". Everything you are writing is piling on additional effort into the "dragooning of the human spirit". It's really a fascinating process to behold. All living things evolve in an inter-connected spiral of upwards striving rather than perish into "emptiness". No energy is ever lost, only refashioned. Not even the most ardent materialist can deny that simple fact of Nature.

[SanteriSatama]

But does anyone actually find deep meaning in the impermanence of the world and themselves?

The ethical foundation and teaching of Pyrrhon, Nagarjuna etc. philosophical skepticism is ataraxia and fuller presence in beauty and wonder of life. Metaphysical essentialism leads easily to dogmatism, identifying with an ideological belief system and "acrimonous" etc. unethical behaviour towards self and fellow people who don't share the same orthodoxy.

Yes. I agree.

Why would anyone find deep meaning in permanence of the world and themselves? It seems much too much like wishful thinking and a denial of death - a belief arising from fear, grasping, and other negative energies. As you say, it can lead easily to dogmatism and belief in only one way. It doesn't match any actual experience we have of the world where plants grow, flowers bloom only to fall to the ground, where every living thing is born and dies, where even mountains eventually drop into the sea.

A good antidote against eternalism is to imagine endless suffering. Whether we take incarnation as empirical claim of "what if" scenario, it can work well against fear of death.

[Eugene I]

It's far from satisfactory to me. The paths of the 'genius' and the 'apostle' are complementary in the sense that, when both are applied in an internally consistent manner and lead to the same conclusion, we get a particularly satisfying kind of reassurance that we are on to something. But switching between these two modes in the course of making a point is entirely akin to changing the rules of the game while it's being played: it's cheating. When Rovelli does this, he puts his subjective preferences ahead of an objective inquiry into nature, and abandons the post-Enlightenment epistemic values that he has been known to champion. We get Rovelli the mystic, the apostle, dressed in a lab coat. This is not okay, not only because it isn't honest—and by this I don't mean that Rovelli is being malicious or deliberately deceptive, just that he seems to be deceiving himself and inadvertently misleading his audience, which has come to expect level-headed objectivity from him—but also because it leads to a literally meaningless conclusion: that the world is made entirely of movement, although there supposedly is nothing that moves.

Again, this is where our thinking is caught between only two polar alternatives: either there is a "thing" ("entity", OP etc) that moves but by itself exists timelessly (eternalism), or there is nothing existing at all (nihilism). This is because the habitual way our intellect tends to imaginatively abstract and break the seeming world into self-existing "entities" ("things"). The "middle way" points to a way beyond such primitive dichotomy: the reality is not a "thing", but is is also not "nothing", so be open, do not try to frame the reality into your rigid concepts of "things" and "entities", but keep searching beyond those two imagined polarities.

[AshvinP]

It's far from satisfactory to me. The paths of the 'genius' and the 'apostle' are complementary in the sense that, when both are applied in an internally consistent manner and lead to the same conclusion, we get a particularly satisfying kind of reassurance that we are on to something. But switching between these two modes in the course of making a point is entirely akin to changing the rules of the game while it's being played: it's cheating. When Rovelli does this, he puts his subjective preferences ahead of an objective inquiry into nature, and abandons the post-Enlightenment epistemic values that he has been known to champion. We get Rovelli the mystic, the apostle, dressed in a lab coat. This is not okay, not only because it isn't honest—and by this I don't mean that Rovelli is being malicious or deliberately deceptive, just that he seems to be deceiving himself and inadvertently misleading his audience, which has come to expect level-headed objectivity from him—but also because it leads to a literally meaningless conclusion: that the world is made entirely of movement, although there supposedly is nothing that moves.

Again, this is where our thinking is caught between only two polar alternatives: either there is a "thing" ("entity", OP etc) that moves but by itself exists timelessly (eternalism), or there is nothing existing at all (nihilism). This is because the habitual way our intellect tends to imaginatively abstract and break the seeming world into self-existing "entities" ("things"). The "middle way" points to a way beyond such primitive dichotomy: the reality is not a "thing", but is is also not "nothing", so be open, do not try to frame the reality into your rigid concepts of "things" and "entities", but keep searching beyond those two imagined polarities.

Eugene... I think you are forgetting we are the ones who introduced you to essential polarity And it took a lot of time and effort for us to convince you of that, along with Tri-Unity of W-F-T (although I am still not sure if you accept the latter), but I am glad the former has taken root in your thought. Now you are beginning to understand how Eastern and Western spirituality fit together, rather than contradict each other or run parallel to each other.

I am not sure about BK, but I have never argued for essential "things". All that I write focuses on 'fractal' metamorphic process and refutation of modernity's obsession with static outer forms i.e. "things". Dana has also made that same point several times now on this thread. Process philosophy does not entail anti-essentialist position. We can have processual polar essences, and that is exactly what we do have. So let's stop burning this particular strawman.

[Eugene I]

Eugene... I think you are forgetting we are the ones who introduced you to essential polarity And it took a lot of time and effort for us to convince you of that, along with Tri-Unity of W-F-T (although I am still not sure if you accept the latter), but I am glad the former has taken root in your thought. Now you are beginning to understand how Eastern and Western spirituality fit together, rather than contradict each other or run parallel to each other.

I am not sure about BK, but I have never argued for essential "things". All that I write focuses on 'fractal' metamorphic process and refutation of modernity's obsession with static outer forms i.e. "things". Dana has also made that same point several times now on this thread. Process philosophy does not entail anti-essentialist position. We can have processual polar essences, and that is exactly what we do have. So let's stop burning this particular strawman.

I can only accept the Unity that includes not only W-F-T but also the "E" (conscious experiencing of every act/form of W, F and T) as a non-reduceable aspect of Reality. And that (call it Four-Unity, W-F-T-E) is exactly where the Eastern and Western spiritualities fit together (because the Eastern one is mostly about the discovery of the "E" part of it). Otherwise we are on the same page. I agree that what it involves is "processual polar essences" that are not "entities" or "things" but rather evolving processes of the W-F-T-E.

[SanteriSatama]

Following that, what purpose would it serve to concede that OP can be named, and in that sense closed? Philosophy is settled, case closed, no need to learn anything else, no need to try to push our limits?

In what sense is the premise of sentience and ideation being uncaused and irreducible implying any finality or closure? In this experience it allows ever-present origin of ever-evolving, ever-astonishing novelty of idea-construction. This I learned from Schroombäcker

Sounds good. But on the epistemological level of the game, various matrix hypothesis and unknown unknowns can't be a priori ruled out. Agreeing to agree would be closure of speculative discussion of hypotheticals, which can be fun.

[SanteriSatama]

No energy is ever lost, only refashioned. Not even the most ardent materialist can deny that simple fact of Nature.

Just to correct factual misconception of physicalist theories. 1st law of thermodynamics is violated by vacuum energy fluctuation, virtual particles and whatever you call them. CPT symmetry means, roughly speaking, that the sum of positive and negative energy is zero.

Of course the energy concept of physicalism is just a speculative variety of abstract math.

PS: The corner-stone of Western eternalism has been belief in mathematics as eternal and immutable. That went away with post-modern language games of formalism, and even more importantly, with undecidability of Halting Problem togetether with Curry-Howard correspondence of computable proof theories, which also intuitionists accept. Based on the dictum "A tree is known by it's fruits", Western eternalism has no ethical case to make.

[Eugene I]

Just to correct factual misconception of physicalist theories. 1st law of thermodynamics is violated by vacuum energy fluctuation, virtual particles and whatever you call them. CPT symmetry means, roughly speaking, that the sum of positive and negative energy is zero.

Of course the energy concept of physicalism is just a speculative variety of abstract math.

Right, the energy conservation law is simply a mathematical abstract property that is invariant with respect to temporal transformations (and, based on the Netter's theorem, is a simple consequence of the temporal symmetry of the base physical equations). Eternalism is a philosophical premise that assumes that the invariants (of physical or mathematical theories, or of our inner experiences) represent some existing "eternal entities or essences". It works in a similar way in math, physics and in psychology. We observe a certain abstract invariant in our stream of consciousness - the sense of self - and imagine that it represents some eternally and separately/independently existing "self"-entity.

Apparently, eternalism is not only a Western and a recent phenomenon based on the fact that Buddha was arguing against exactly that in India 2500 yrs ago.

[SanteriSatama]

Just to correct factual misconception of physicalist theories. 1st law of thermodynamics is violated by vacuum energy fluctuation, virtual particles and whatever you call them. CPT symmetry means, roughly speaking, that the sum of positive and negative energy is zero.

Of course the energy concept of physicalism is just a speculative variety of abstract math.

Right, the energy conservation law is simply a mathematical abstract property that is invariant with respect to temporal transformations (and, based on the Netter's theorem, is a simple consequence of the temporal symmetry of the base physical equations). Eternalism is a philosophical premise that assumes that the invariants (of physical or mathematical theories, or of our inner experiences) represent some existing "eternal entities or essences". It works in a similar way in math, physics and in psychology. We observe a certain abstract invariant in our stream of consciousness - the sense of self - and imagine that it represents some eternally and separately/independently existing "self"-entity.

Apparently, eternalism is not only a Western and a recent phenomenon based on the fact that Buddha was arguing against exactly that in India 2500 yrs ago.

Heraclitus: "Resting in change". Also Western philosophy ancient and modern is far from restricted to eternalism.

Impermanence also does not claim that some impermanent phenomonen could not be very big impermanence, even bigger than a universe, or that conditional invariance can't occur.

PS: I assume you meant Noether's theorem. The spelling is important, because the lagrangian might behave differently in Yes-ether context.