Jim Cross wrote: ↑Sun Jul 25, 2021 3:38 pm
SanteriSatama wrote: ↑Sun Jul 25, 2021 3:29 pm
AshvinP wrote: ↑Sun Jul 25, 2021 3:08 pm
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.