AshvinP wrote: ↑Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:51 pm
That would imply formlessness can exist without form, for ex. our thinking activity can exist without thoughts. We know from experience that is not possible. Also if time is not "truly real" how can we even speak of an ontic "origin" and one "prior to" another?
Ah, but you're assuming that what is formless has to exist in the same way as forms. But these forms do not really exist. There is endless discussion of this in the literature.
“Sometime I have said that there is a power in the soul that an alone be said to be free. Sometimes I have said that it is a refuge of the spirit and sometimes I have said that it is a light of the spirit. Sometimes I have said that it is a spark. But now I say that it is neither this nor that, and yet still it is a something which is as far above this or that as heaven is above earth. ….It is free of all names and is devoid of all forms, quite empty and free as god is empty and free within himself. It is so entirely one and simple, as God is one and simple, that no one can see inside it in a particular manner…If you could see this with my heart, then you would understand what it is I am saying : for it is true, and the truth itself tells it…. What I have told you is true, as truth itself is my witness and I pledge my soul on it.”
Meister Eckhart – Sermon 13
"He is devoid of form;
‘Tis your own form which is reflected back to you."
Jalaluddin Rumi
“As the spider weaves its thread out of its own mouth, plays with it and then withdraws it again into itself, so the eternal unchangeable Lord, who is without form, without attributes, who is absolute knowledge and absolute bliss, evolves the whole universe out of Himself, plays with it for a while, and again withdraws it into Himself.”
Srimad Bhagavatum
Clearly thinking activity cannot exist without thoughts. Not sure what you mean by this point.
In metaphysics the word 'prior' should not imply temporality. The issue is ontological, the question of what is prior to what in the manifestation of forms. A world of forms cannot arise from a form. For the nondual view the Ultimate is prior to the categories of thought, or 'beyond the coincidence of contradictories' as de Cusa puts it, so beyond form. Thus Spencer Brown, explaining the origin of forms in his
Laws of Forrm, , likens the Ultimate to a blank sheet of paper.
For a way into this idea consider Kant's formless 'thing in itself', which is defined as 'not a thing'. .