Question for Scott About Mumorphism

[ScottRoberts]

A lot of this discussion went over my head, so forgive my philosophical baby talk, but in my simplistic reading it seems that Scott is talking about god as the conscious universe, and Neoplatonist is talking about the god as the absolute, that which created and sustains the universe.

I would say neoplatonist1 is a classical theist, as am I, except I reject the notion that God is unchanging, replacing that with saying that God is (as is all conscious activity) the mumorphism of permanence and change. And we both regard the universe as a contingent creation, sustained in existence by Divine power.

So a question @ScottRoberts , what makes you think that mind can sustain itself?

If by "mind" you mean "conscious activity", I consider it fundamental. All else is sustained by it.

Do you not think it’s possible that the source of everything has no polarity or properties at all, is just one undivided and unchanging whole?

Quite the contrary. I consider the undivided/divided polarity to be fundamental, as I describe in my Tetralemmic Polarity essay, and, like classical theists, consider God to be "simple" (it is equal to what we would call its properties(love, intellect, will, etc.), all of which in God are equal to each other).

[Simon Adams]

Isn’t there a sense in which you are talking about a duality between absolute and relative as if it’s the same as a duality between form and formlessness?

I think I get what you’re saying that in pure consciousness, you can have formlessness, and then when that ‘contains’ a form, the formless essential nature does not become something different. I guess the difference from my perspective does go back to how you see god, and about there being something more fundamental to him than mind. I would be happy to concede mind as the most fundamental substance (although language is iffy here), but god as the source, as the ground, is wholly undivided and anything that can be a form is not him. The consciousness which can contain the form must come from him, and all things are in a sense in him, but they are not him.

Anyway I have to start working and so will stop torturing you by trying to explain something so badly as to be illegible!

[ScottRoberts]

Isn’t there a sense in which you are talking about a duality between absolute and relative as if it’s the same as a duality between form and formlessness?

If one considers "formlessness" to be "absolute" in the sense that there is no going beyond it to something else, then I would note that a relation is just another name for "form", and the critical point in my Tetralemmic Polarity essay is that the two (absolute and relative) are one, not two. They are a tetralemmic polarity, not a duality.

I think I get what you’re saying that in pure consciousness, you can have formlessness, and then when that ‘contains’ a form, the formless essential nature does not become something different.

Well, I would deny that there is ever "pure consciousness" as distinct from "impure consciousness". There is always just consciousness, which always has a formless aspect and a form aspect. There is no undivided without the divided, and no divided without the undivided.

I guess the difference from my perspective does go back to how you see god, and about there being something more fundamental to him than mind. I would be happy to concede mind as the most fundamental substance (although language is iffy here), but god as the source, as the ground, is wholly undivided and anything that can be a form is not him. The consciousness which can contain the form must come from him, and all things are in a sense in him, but they are not him.

Well, this is where the other tetralemmic polarity comes in. Is God separable from its thoughts? Am I? In both cases I would say no. So as I am a thought of God I am God. But as I do not (for example) have the ability to create a thinking being, I am not God. So I am, yet am not God. Aristotelian logic cannot handle this, hence the need for nondualist logic.

[Simon Adams]

I guess the answer is that I don’t think god has thoughts as we would conceive of thoughts, he just knows. Thoughts happen in time for a start, but I suspect you would say time is an aspect of the contents of thought?

I think I can connect with your view if I take what you call god to be the universe, so that’s a fairly fundamental difference. I’m more of a Platonic Idealist Catholic

[ScottRoberts]

I guess the answer is that I don’t think god has thoughts as we would conceive of thoughts, he just knows.

For God, being simple, an act of knowing is an act of thinking is an act of loving, etc. Here is a mystic's description of divine thinking. Obviously, way beyond what we can think.

At the deepest level of discernible thought there is a thinking that flows of itself. In its purity it employs none of the concepts that could be captured in definable words. It is fluidic rather than granular. It never isolates a definitive divided part, but everlastingly interblends them all. Every thought includes the whole of Eternity, and yet there are distinguishable thoughts. The unbroken Eternal flows before the mind, yet is endlessly colored anew with unlimited possibility. There is no labor in this thought. It simply is. It is unrelated to all desiring, all images, and all symbols.

Thoughts happen in time for a start, but I suspect you would say time is an aspect of the contents of thought?

Perhaps. I would say that to think a thought creates the time in which it is thought, where this "time" I define as awareness of change in the "now".

I think I can connect with your view if I take what you call god to be the universe, so that’s a fairly fundamental difference. I’m more of a Platonic Idealist Catholic

I said above that I consider the universe to be contingent, so no more "God" than I am.

[Simon Adams]

For God, being simple, an act of knowing is an act of thinking is an act of loving, etc. Here is a mystic's description of divine thinking. Obviously, way beyond what we can think.

Yes I can accept that description. Clearly for god to have a plan in creation from outside of creation, to incarnate, to reveal, needs <something> that we can’t understand. Some descriptions of god as ‘simple’ do seem to limit god in ways that don’t make sense.

Perhaps. I would say that to think a thought creates the time in which it is thought, where this "time" I define as awareness of change in the "now".

It sounds like you’re kind of between my understanding and BK’s understanding. For BK he has ‘M@L’ as timeless, but also developing and evolving over time, which I find strange. However I agree with him that the universe and the life in it does evolve over time, instinctually. It has a telos, including things like the fine tuning, the fitness landscape of evolution etc, but seems to act habitually.

On the other hand you seem to have experienced/intuited/‘had revelation of’ a conception of god that’s more like mine, but I can’t see what the universe is in your view, without introducing a dualism. I guess I can’t quite grasp your tetralemmic polarity.

I said above that I consider the universe to be contingent, so no more "God" than I am.

Yes sorry I don’t mean to ignore what you say, it’s just that I have trouble grasping the relationship you have between god and the universe. I think I understand BK’s, and the best way I can imagine yours (at present) is as a bit like a kind of dream. I can’t quite fit it together, but then again, in my own understanding god’s nature is to some degree metaphorically boxed away as ‘unknowable’, except as a relationship/in contemplation/ritual or through revelation.

So I certainly can’t claim that mine is in any way clearer overall (and certainly doesn’t tick the ‘parsimonious’ box...).

[ScottRoberts]

On the other hand you seem to have experienced/intuited/‘had revelation of’ a conception of god that’s more like mine, but I can’t see what the universe is in your view, without introducing a dualism. I guess I can’t quite grasp your tetralemmic polarity.

No special experience on my part. I define physical reality (which is what I am assuming you mean by "the universe") as the contents of our sense perceptions. As these perceptions are well-ordered, and jibe with others', there is more "going on" than our own conscious activity. As an idealist, I assume that, since I don't consciously determine these contents, they are being determined by unknown (to me) non-physical spiritual processes. Which in turn might be influenced by more advanced spiritual beings, and so on, until one tops out with what can be called God. At least, that's how I imagine it, from what I have read in esoteric literature, like Steiner and the Seth books. But I figure I will just have to wait until I am more spiritually developed before I can have more confidence in its veracity.

I should probably say that this sort of speculation is separate from my working out of the concepts of tetralemmic polarity and mumorphism, which are just a means of thinking about the standard metaphysical problems of one/many, permanence/change, and so forth. It is just that I regard all that happens to be conscious activity, and that conscious activity is mumorphic.

[Simon Adams]

That’s clear thanks. I think I need some time to understand the ways different people have tried to fit things together, and to get to a point where I’m comfortable to say this is what I know, this is what I speculate as my best understanding, and this is what I have good reason to take on faith.

In some ways it’s like learning in two directions, one from god (via revelation) ‘downwards’ (or outwards), and the other from science ‘upwards’ (or inwards). From the science side I’ve found I can’t go any further without philosophy, and idealism seems to fit my understanding and the science closest. But it needs a LOT of effort to get through the history of philosophy! It does seem that Schelling, Kant and Hegel may be worth spending some time on, although I don’t think any of them quite fit for me.

However I do think I understand more where our views of god are different, in that I don’t see god as the most advanced being or even the greatest being. It’s a categorical difference.

I think this quote from Schelling sums it up quite well;

"As there is nothing before or outside of God he must contain within himself the ground of his existence. All philosophies say this, but they speak of this ground as a mere concept without making it something real and actual." (Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom, 1809)

These are also good;

Nature is visible spirit, spirit is invisible nature." (Ideen, "Introduction")

"Has creation a final goal? And if so, why was it not reached at once? Why was the consummation not realized from the beginning? To these questions there is but one answer: Because God is Life, and not merely Being." (Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom, 1809)