Is Rovelli 'Dragooning the Human Spirit'?

[ScottRoberts]

Madhyamaka is the Middle Way to avoid the extremes of essentialism and nihilism.

To avoid the extremes is to be impaled on the fourth horn of the tetralemma, "neither X nor not-X". To stay clear of all horns, view the extremes as the two poles of a polarity, mutually dependent while mutually opposing.

[ScottRoberts]

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.

One can resolve the Platonist/anti-Platonist debate by viewing any discernable form as a fragment of the One Ever-Expanding Form. My experience yesterday of a butterfly fluttering by is eternally a fragment of this Form. And as a bonus we get dependent co-origination.

[AshvinP]

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.

I have a question - if I were to say, let's agree with your framing, with all the words you use and the way you use them. What would the next philosophical or spiritual topic be? What is the burning question you have not answered, think it is possible to answer, and would like to explore? My suggestion for nicer and more productive dialogue is we (you and I) move on to that question right now, as we have spent many months on this one topic. I know SS would like to explore novel mathematical framework for ontology, and even though I disagree that is a great path to explore, and even if I agreed I would not comprehend it for a long time, I know there is at least one thing remaining in his process of understanding the riddles of the Cosmos. So please share yours. Thanks.

[SanteriSatama]

To avoid the extremes is to be impaled on the fourth horn of the tetralemma, "neither X nor not-X". To stay clear of all horns, view the extremes as the two poles of a polarity, mutually dependent while mutually opposing.

Ah, you read it that way. In Western tradition negation of "neither X nor not-X" is generally interpreted as LEM: that "for every proposition, either this proposition or its negation is true."

In the dynamic tetralemma "neither more nor less" becomes halting of a process, which enables notion of static states/models and equivalence relation in a given context.

To stay clear of the tetralemma as a whole would be attachment to simple negation, logical nihilism. I've interpreted "avoiding the extremes" as avoiding attention becoming fixated in and closed by e.g. Aristotelean logic or this or that selection of the dials of tetralemma. Taken as a whole tetralemma can be a fun and educational toy to play with, not a priori limiting how beginners mind plays or should play with the toy. Also, it's not the only toy in the game, there are also multivalue, fuzzy etc. logics. 2-pole polarity of structuralism is also a narrow cage to trap and fixate attention. Hegel's Aufhebung etc. post-structuralism tries to boot-strap out of that bog.

[SanteriSatama]

Nagarjuna, as we can observe, offers a link and bridge from the conclusions of axial age philosophy to post-modern era and post-structuralist and metamodern philosophy. It was not a coincidence that there were lots of comparisons between Derrida and Nagarjuna, or that deconstruction of QM and universalism of physics in the style of RQM picks up that thread.

For that reason, Vervaeke's glorious discussion of Socrates, an epitome of self-awareness without self-importance, might also fit this thread:

[Eugene I]

The "eternal" is that which encompasses all such experiential states. Those states would never unfold if it was not for the eternal aspect, which is the integration of all such states, because there would be nothing to integrate towards. I don't really care if it is called "timeless" or "eternal", even though the latter is traditionally used in philosophy, as long as we understand that it is the fundamentally real and meaningful aspect of Reality - the Center towards which all beings metamorphically progress. From my perspective, based on what you write here, you still have not internalized that understanding.

Yes, agreed, the "eternal" is that which encompasses all such experiential states. Which means that they all already and always have been integrated, and never been in fact separate from the timeless/formless. The problem is that the beings are deluded in believing that they are separate from the timeless/formless, so their evolutionary progression is heading towards this realization of the fundamental unity. I don't see any difference here between our views. The only question is why do you call this timeless/formless a "Center" if it is equally present everywhere?

When I say "Thinking" or "Ideating", I am speaking of the formless force of Reality that is eternal or timeless or whatever. That is not the same as the "forms/ideas" which is obviously the formative aspect. You cannot have formless force without formative force in any experience.

No disagreement from my side

[AshvinP]

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.

One can resolve the Platonist/anti-Platonist debate by viewing any discernable form as a fragment of the One Ever-Expanding Form. My experience yesterday of a butterfly fluttering by is eternally a fragment of this Form. And as a bonus we get dependent co-origination.

Excellent! I honestly keep forgetting about the One Ever-Expanding Form... it reminds me of this Wisdom:

"The whole birth or geniture, which is the heaven of all heavens, as also this world, which is in the body of the whole, as also the place of the earth and of all creatures, and whatever thou canst think on, all that together is God the Father, who hath neither beginning nor end; and wheresoever and upon whatsoever thou thinkest, even in the smallest circle that can be imagined, is the whole birth or geniture of God, perfectly, incessantly and irresistibly."
- Jacob Boehme

[Eugene I]

I have a question - if I were to say, let's agree with your framing, with all the words you use and the way you use them. What would the next philosophical or spiritual topic be? What is the burning question you have not answered, think it is possible to answer, and would like to explore? My suggestion for nicer and more productive dialogue is we (you and I) move on to that question right now, as we have spent many months on this one topic. I know SS would like to explore novel mathematical framework for ontology, and even though I disagree that is a great path to explore, and even if I agreed I would not comprehend it for a long time, I know there is at least one thing remaining in his process of understanding the riddles of the Cosmos. So please share yours. Thanks.

There is no end to philosophical and scientific enquiry, fortunately But to wrap-up the topic of formless-forms, I wanted to clarify the question in my previous post - how and why and in which sense you call the formless "the Center"?

[Eugene I]

One can resolve the Platonist/anti-Platonist debate by viewing any discernable form as a fragment of the One Ever-Expanding Form. My experience yesterday of a butterfly fluttering by is eternally a fragment of this Form. And as a bonus we get dependent co-origination.

Well, it looks to me a rather Platonist assertion rather than a resolution of Platonist/anti-Platonist debate. Such One Form is what was called the Divine Logos in the traditional Christian theology - the Divine Idea of all forms that are to unfold in the process of co-origination and evolution. I don't think anti-Platonists would agree with that.

[AshvinP]

I have a question - if I were to say, let's agree with your framing, with all the words you use and the way you use them. What would the next philosophical or spiritual topic be? What is the burning question you have not answered, think it is possible to answer, and would like to explore? My suggestion for nicer and more productive dialogue is we (you and I) move on to that question right now, as we have spent many months on this one topic. I know SS would like to explore novel mathematical framework for ontology, and even though I disagree that is a great path to explore, and even if I agreed I would not comprehend it for a long time, I know there is at least one thing remaining in his process of understanding the riddles of the Cosmos. So please share yours. Thanks.

There is no end to philosophical and scientific enquiry, fortunately But to wrap-up the topic of formless-forms, I wanted to clarify the question in my previous post - how and why and in which sense you call the formless "the Center"?

The sense in which it is the Source from which all springs and to which all returns. Keep in mind, though, that this process is eternal - it transcends temporality so there is no "final destination" (at least none that any human knows of yet). This image from Cleric's essay should help clarify some (again keeping in mind this image is just a low-resolution helpful symbol):