Is Rovelli 'Dragooning the Human Spirit'?

[Eugene I]

There is nothing about relational spiritual activity which requires us to deny inherence and eternality. In fact, as has been explained now by BK (via response to Rovelli), Scott, and myself several times on this thread alone, there can be no relational activity without that which Grounds the relations. That is what Nagarjuna's "middle way" speaks to; that is what the essential "polarity" also speaks to, which we can verify in our own Thinking experience (there is always eternal formless 'that which Thinks' and impermanent thought-forms), as Scott said. The only reason to deny inherence and eternality to the "Self" and "meaning" is to make it seem like they are personal and ephemeral qualities which disappear at death. Otherwise, we would admit they must be inherent and eternal if we are to have any sort of consistent idealism (as opposed to dualism) which also accounts for our immanent experience.

Neither there is anything in relational spirituality which requires to affirm inherence and eternality.

I said it already earlier in this thread: the middle way of Buddha and Nagarjuna is not to deny the existence of formless as "That which thinks and experiences" (on the contrary, the recognition of the existence of the formless is the very foundation of the Buddhist spirituality). It is only to question and deny the inherent, eternal and independent (i.e. separate from formless) existence of the forms/ideas that are experienced by "That which thinks". And that is the foundation of the non-dualism, because as soon as we declare inherent and independent eternal existence of forms/ideas, we introduce an existential division (duality): we now have a multiplicity of "things" that exist eternally, inherently and independently of "That which thinks and experiences" them.

In short, there are only two alternatives here:
1. Only one Reality exists (W-F-T-E in idealism) which manifests in a multiplicity of forms and conscious experiences, each of them being inseparable from WFTE and having no inherent and independent from W-F-T-E existence of its own. This is a non-dual and monistic paradigm.
2. In addition to the reality of WFTE there are multiplicity of eternally, independently and inherently existing forms/ideas that WFTE experiences. This paradigm is dualistic (or more precisely, "multiplistic") because it splits the Reality into the WFTE as a "subject" that experiences and manipulates the multiplicity of independently existing "objects" (forms, ideas). So in such paradigm the "seeming" duality of subject><object becomes the actual/ontological divide.

So, you can see how eternalism inevitably entails in dualism, and that is why Buddha and Nagarjuna, both being fundamentally non-dualists, were criticizing the eternalism.

[Soul_of_Shu]

A ground or context is a relation among other relations. Whole and part are relations, and it does not follow from that relation that whole is eternal with inherent existence.

If sentience and ideation are not essentially immanent to relational participatory part><whole process of ever-evolving idea construction, is this not then tantamount to sentience and ideation being somehow derived from some mind-independent process? I'm not even seeing how some relational participatory process is not also an idea construct, dependent upon sentience being essential. Actually they seem co-essential.

[AshvinP]

There is nothing about relational spiritual activity which requires us to deny inherence and eternality. In fact, as has been explained now by BK (via response to Rovelli), Scott, and myself several times on this thread alone, there can be no relational activity without that which Grounds the relations. That is what Nagarjuna's "middle way" speaks to; that is what the essential "polarity" also speaks to, which we can verify in our own Thinking experience (there is always eternal formless 'that which Thinks' and impermanent thought-forms), as Scott said. The only reason to deny inherence and eternality to the "Self" and "meaning" is to make it seem like they are personal and ephemeral qualities which disappear at death. Otherwise, we would admit they must be inherent and eternal if we are to have any sort of consistent idealism (as opposed to dualism) which also accounts for our immanent experience.

Neither there is anything in relational spirituality which requires to affirm inherence and eternality.

I said it already earlier in this thread: the middle way of Buddha and Nagarjuna is not to deny the existence of formless as "That which thinks and experiences" (on the contrary, the recognition of the existence of the formless is the very foundation of the Buddhist spirituality). It is only to question and deny the inherent, eternal and independent (i.e. separate from formless) existence of the forms/ideas that are experienced by "That which thinks". And that is the foundation of the non-dualism, because as soon as we declare inherent and independent eternal existence of forms/ideas, we introduce an existential division (duality): we now have a multiplicity of "things" that exist eternally, inherently and independently of "That which thinks and experiences" them.
...
So, you can see how eternalism inevitably entails in dualism, and that is why Buddha and Nagarjuna, both being fundamentally non-dualists, were criticizing the eternalism.

You are creating all of these problems for yourself, because no one else has mentioned "independent eternal existence". You are adding "independent" even though we have told you a million times that polarity, by its very essence, denies independent existence. So why are you inserting these words and creating these problems? I think it is pretty obvious why - you want to leave yourself an escape hatch for the implications of eternal Thinking Self. By adding that in, you can continue thinking of them as personal qualities which do not survive death and therefore have no fundamental spiritual importance.

I will say this one more time. I hope you read it carefully, because I am not going to waste any more time than I already have repeating myself to you over and over. If you affirm that formless force is fundamental aspect of Reality, and all Reality is conscious activity, then you are affirming inherency (another word for "fundamental") and eternality of formless activity (Thinking). And that eternal formless activity cannot be separated from Self. There is no way around that. That is what it means for some aspect to be "fundamental" under idealism - it is eternal. There can be no beginning and end to these aspects under consistent idealism.

[Jim Cross]

A ground or context is a relation among other relations. Whole and part are relations, and it does not follow from that relation that whole is eternal with inherent existence.

If sentience and ideation are not essentially immanent to relational participatory part><whole process of ever-evolving idea construction, is this not then tantamount to sentience and ideation being somehow derived from some mind-independent process? I'm not even seeing how some relational participatory process is not also an idea construct, dependent upon sentience being essential. Actually they seem co-essential.

Emptiness is difficult to conceive. I sometimes hedge my bets about whether there is a fundamental substance to reality by admitting that there might be but there is no way for us to know what it is or even if exists. Effectively the question is irrelevant which may in the end what Nagarjuna is trying to accomplish by climbing the tree and sawing off the very branch he is sitting on. Other times, I imagine there might be some sort of primordial prakriti that is formless from which mind and matter get created. A great superposition of everything that can ever be.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Emptiness is difficult to conceive.

And why I conceive of emptifullness

[SanteriSatama]

A ground or context is a relation among other relations. Whole and part are relations, and it does not follow from that relation that whole is eternal with inherent existence.

If sentience and ideation are not essentially immanent to relational participatory part><whole process of ever-evolving idea construction, is this not then tantamount to sentience and ideation being somehow derived from some mind-independent process? I'm not even seeing how some relational participatory process is not also an idea construct, dependent upon sentience being essential. Actually they seem co-essential.

Linguistic expression is a complex aggregate of idea constructs etc. qualia. So what?

There can occur also psychic states where sense qualia are not present, as well as sense qualia without any form of central experiencer (as described by U.G Krishnamurti. Does a counter-example suffice to falsify a claim of this or that "eternal essence"? Or would it be enough to withhold belief in any eternally infinite essence/substance, because the particular examples and attestations of such are by definition empirically unverifiable?

The practical philosophy motivation here is to avoid falling too deep in the trap of spatial abstract thinking, e.g. "Mind/MAL is homogenous 3D space / Strange Loop (and/or similar other geometric abstractions)" and my/our belief in such abstraction is the (only) "true essence".

A definition is alwas also a limitation. Definitions can be useful tools of communitication and some abstract geometric imaginations can be fun and interesting to explore and experience also through variety of sense qualia, but in the status of "Eternal Essence" any definition creates arbitrary and unnecessary limitations against spiritual sovereignty.

[SanteriSatama]

A great superposition of everything that can ever be.

The Completeness axiom/theorem refuted by Incompletess theorem.

[Eugene I]

You are creating all of these problems for yourself, because no one else has mentioned "independent eternal existence". You are adding "independent" even though we have told you a million times that polarity, by its very essence, denies independent existence. So why are you inserting these words and creating these problems? I think it is pretty obvious why - you want to leave yourself an escape hatch for the implications of eternal Thinking Self. By adding that in, you can continue thinking of them as personal qualities which do not survive death and therefore have no fundamental spiritual importance.

I will say this one more time. I hope you read it carefully, because I am not going to waste any more time than I already have repeating myself to you over and over. If you affirm that formless force is fundamental aspect of Reality, and all Reality is conscious activity, then you are affirming inherency (another word for "fundamental") and eternality of formless activity (Thinking). And that eternal formless activity cannot be separated from Self. There is no way around that. That is what it means for some aspect to be "fundamental" under idealism - it is eternal. There can be no beginning and end to these aspects under consistent idealism.

First, instead of "eternal" I use the term "timeless" to mean that it exists beyond time and is not subject to transitional change (not impermanent). If you remember, I stressed it many times that formless aspect is also exactly timeless because it is permanent, not changeable and not conditional on any forms that it experiences. You can also call it "eternal", I have no problem with that, but to me "eternal" traditionally means "ever-lasting" within the dimension of time. However, I doubt the existence of the dimension of time altogether, because we actually never experience the dimension of time, we always and only experience the moment of NOW with ever-changing content of forms/ideas and with never-changing and ever-present "That which experiences" the forms. And the formless "That" is actually what survives death.

Now, you can also call WFTE as "Self", I have no problem with that either, but that would be just a linguistic tautology for the same Reality of WFTE. But, as we discussed before, the problem with such labeling is that people will confuse their sense of separate self with with the "Self" of the WFTE. If you examine it carefully, our personal sense of self is typically very specifically felt as a sense of separate self: we understand and perceive our own self as something other than and separate from other people and other objects. Such perception is both a foundation of psychological selfishness and of cognitive eternalism-dualism that separates the One Reality into multiplicity of eternally and independently existing subjects/selves and objects. It was not me who "introduced" the idea of independent existence of subjects and objects, it is actually how most people think and perceive the reality, and so the point of the Buddhist practice was exactly to dismantle and unroot such distorted perception of reality. So, the point of the Buddhist teaching of "no-self" was not to deny the oneness and existence of the One (WFTE=Self), but to deny the independent existence of multiple separate selves rooted in our psychological "sense of separate self".

So, once we settled with the timelessness of the WFTE and illusory nature of "separate independently existing self", the remaining question is whether the forms/ideas themselves have any timeless quality/aspect or not, and this is where the Platonic and non-Platonic versions of idealism diverge. Notice that we accept that the forms/ideas do not have any independent/separate existence, we now only consider whether they have timeless/eternal quality. The Buddhist answer to this is no: in Buddhism all forms/ideas/images/experiences are always impermanent and conditional upon each other, and what is permanent and non-conditional is only "That which experiences" these forms. But I get it: in your paradigm the ideas have "eternal" (permanent and non-conditional) quality/aspect while not having any separate/independent existence from WFTE. I personally do not adhere to only one of this alternatives and I'm open to both, simply because I have no way to prove or disprove either of them.

Oh, and just a suggestion: it would be nice and more productive if you would discuss the subject in a more non-personal way. Let's discuss the philosophy but not the personalities involved.

[Soul_of_Shu]

I sometimes hedge my bets about whether there is a fundamental substance to reality by admitting that there might be but there is no way for us to know what it is or even if exists. Effectively the question is irrelevant which may in the end what Nagarjuna is trying to accomplish by climbing the tree and sawing off the very branch he is sitting on. Other times, I imagine there might be some sort of primordial prakriti that is formless from which mind and matter get created. A great superposition of everything that can ever be.

Under idealism, any such substance/prakriti is a mind-dependent, mind-created idea construct, as is whatever Nagarjuna was conceiving. Of course, under idealism, so is idealism.

[SanteriSatama]

Under idealism, any such substance/prakriti is a mind-dependent, mind-created idea construct, as is whatever Nagarjuna was conceiving. Of course, under idealism, so is idealism.

Process philosophy can consider idealism/yogacara a good methodological choice without commitment to substance metaphysics.