Is Rovelli 'Dragooning the Human Spirit'?

[Soul_of_Shu]

What is "OP" short for? "Original Post" does not seem to make syntactic sense in the context.

Ontological primitive

Bergson prefers term "psychic states" with qualitative multiplicity, that seems preferable to semantically vague but formally singular "consciousness". And even better I like verbs of Finnish to nouns in either subject or object case. Reduction of a verb to a subject/object noun is just begging the question.

This is supposed to answer the question about the bird?

[Soul_of_Shu]

Bergson prefers term "psychic states" with qualitative multiplicity, that seems preferable to semantically vague but formally singular "consciousness".

Regardless, this refining of the meaning of consciousness doesn't make it any less a reduction to being an uncaused and irreducible ontological primitive.

[SanteriSatama]

This is supposed to answer the question about the bird?

I honestly failed to understand the question, or it's relevance. What is the mental image of a bird and it's reflection supposed to argue?

[SanteriSatama]

Bergson prefers term "psychic states" with qualitative multiplicity, that seems preferable to semantically vague but formally singular "consciousness".

Regardless, this refining of the meaning of consciousness doesn't make it any less a reduction to being an uncaused and irreducible ontological primitive.

Perhaps so, and I said I prefer Finnish asubjective verbs even better. The argument by example was that it is possible to speak without any grammatical and nominal presupposition of any ontological primitive.

[Soul_of_Shu]

This is supposed to answer the question about the bird?

I honestly failed to understand the question, or it's relevance. What is the mental image of a bird and it's reflection supposed to argue?

Allowing for some sense of selfhood, contra some sense of objectified other-than-self—reflection in windowpane—however illusory it may be, does that inter-relational dynamic not still occur absent any linguistic intervention?

[SanteriSatama]

Allowing for some sense of selfhood, contra some sense of objectified other-than-self—reflection in windowpane—however illusory it may be, does that inter-relational dynamic not still occur absent any linguistic intervention?

Well, absent any linguistic intervention we can't think and speak of self-relation as part-whole relation requiring both aspects (e.g. awareness-whole and thought-part / bodily awarenes -part / etc. ). It would be dishonest to try refer beyond any language as we are speaking. What possilbe non-linguistic relations and meanings and psychic states occur, we are now discussing such possibilities through linguistic filters. Not in absence of language flow.

Of course I'm not implying that language should be taken as ontological primitive, just bringing attention to the obviousness of language flowing in and together with duration. That said, we can't with absolute certainty make the logical deduction from self-relation occurring as codependent part-whole relation that naming the whole-aspect of self-relation as "awareness" makes it eternally permanent spatial substance.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Perhaps so, and I said I prefer Finnish asubjective verbs even better. The argument by example was that it is possible to speak without any grammatical and nominal presupposition of any ontological primitive.

Perhaps so, but is it possible to speak absent 'psychic states' with qualitative, meaningful multiplicity, which when speaking about ontology, implies a reduction to an ontological primitive ... allowing that there is no 'prior to' such states.

[AshvinP]

That is the mystical/animist approach.

I don't think you are sharing a communicative meaning for either of those words. Nagarjuna was not a "mystic", as BK said, he was the Gödel of his age who deconstructed rationalistic logicism and logicism case for substance metaphysics with tools of logic. The two basic levels of animism, 1) intersubjective relations and 2) asubjective multiperspectivism are not beyond language, hence not "mystical".

I said BK and Schopenhauer - I am leaving Nagarjuna out because way too many confusions come in when dealing with non-Western philosophies 2,000 years ago. I try to stick within the ambit of the culture/language I have inherited and thinkers in the modern age, because we are most familiar with their mode of consciousness, since it also our own. I do not want to project my own mode of consciousness back onto Nagarjuna or any other ancient thinker. Related to that, I have not read anything he wrote. Animism seems to me like a very broad category and more like a cultural ethos than formal philosophy, so I am fine leaving that out of the naïve realism criticism for now.

But the BK-Schopenhauer view is definitely mystical, a sort of secular mysticism which is pretty popular these days, and within the naïve realist methodology. As usual, it does not matter one bit what labels we use, only if we are understanding the approach correctly. Schopenhauer perceives willing activity in his bodily actions and he takes that to be the sole objective and universal Reality. Percepts of our personal willing activity have no superior noumenal value than percepts of a tree in our backyard simply because they appear to come from within instead of from without. So I call that also a form of naïve realism that he was engaged in.

meaning/qualia is fundamental.

Why would such basic phenomenological observation require monistic substance reduction, and how is that supposed to be criticism of Nagarjuna?

I am wondering if you have a position on the underlying criricism that there is naive realism when relational QM is transposed onto Reality?

I have plenty of criticism of details and mathematical foundation of RQM (etc. physicalist theories) and in general reductionism to any form of abstract spatial thinking, which I've stated in previous threads. However, those are not relevant to arguing in favour of substance metaphysics and against relational process ontology. Or relevant only in favour of relational process ontology, on which also scientific method rests, when correctly understood.

I am not criticizing Nagarjuna for the reasons stated above. I am not arguing for substance metaphysics, as I have also stated in many previous threads. There is nothing in process philosophy that requires an anti-essential position. Bergson was quintessential process philosopher and he still held to fundamental essences, as reflected in his last published book. Rovelli is not simply adopting process philosophy in Helgoland, he is commenting on fundamental ontology. At least that seems evident to me from the quotes which have been posted here, and BK seems to think so as well. I doubt BK got that wrong. The anti-essentialist ontological position stems from a failure to see that, what is not accessible to mere abstract intellect, can still fundamentally and objectively exist for all relational perspectives. That is 100% naïve realism - mistaking his own perceptive-cognitive limitations for the very essence (or "non-essence") of Reality.

[SanteriSatama]

Perhaps so, but is it possible to speak absent 'psychic states' with qualitative, meaningful multiplicity, which when speaking about ontology, implies a reduction to an ontological primitive ... allowing that there is no 'prior to' such states.

"Ontological primitive" stands for some singular noun - aka "monism". How does qualitative multiplicity - or non-quantitative pluralism - imply reduction to monism?

[SanteriSatama]

(...)

I don't feel it would be responsible and ethical to continue excluding non-European philosophies and discussing arguments from authority from a selection of Eurocentric philosophers, especially when the main purpose of the selective reading the list of authorities through filters of egoism appears to be to justify egoism.