Formlessness><form as the uncaused, irreducible ontic fundamental

[Eugene I]

What you described by analogy is also known as metaphysical idealism-monism. No image or ideal content exists independent of consciousness and no consciousness exists independently of any other consciousness. Everyone agrees on that. We also agree on the bolded statement, and all we need is the ontic reality of that one meaning, i.e. that one ideal content of the image, to necessitate the Ontic Prime Trinity of formlessness-form and self-awareness. Any perceptions-conceptions within that One is just added bonus which may indeed reflect Reality but not metaphysically necessary.

Well, meanings are not ontic realities, they are simply contents (qualia) of our thoughts, there is nothing more to them. If we believe in the "ontic" realities of our meanings, that's exactly those "Santas" that we are creating in our imaginations and start believing in their realities. But meanings can certainly "reflect" the ontic realities, and that's the way consciousness attempts to understand itself thought thinking by manipulating such "reflection" meanings. This is how the Christian meanings/archetypes of Fatter-Spirit-Son and Buddhist meanings of Dharmakaya (formlessness), Sambhogakaya (awareness) and Nirmanakaya (form) reflected and pointed to the ontic reality of formlessness-form-awareness. The key differences between those reflections/meanings is that the Buddhist ones bear no meaning of personification.

Now, one important "Santa-illusion" to recognize is our "self" - that is the central key "Santa" that we typically believe is very real and is an "entity" at the core of our personalities, the "decision-maker", "actions-performer" and the subject of perceptions of external objects. That is the key illusion from which all egotism and selfishness grows with all psychological suffering associated with that. But in fact, no matter how hard we search the content of our conscious experience, we can not find any traces of such "self" except for a sense of self, which is nothing else than a meaning of a thought-feeling about self. So, the way to "deny yourself" is to simply realize the illusion in the belief of the reality of such self. Yet, we can still use the term "self" as a linguistic label for our individuated conscious activity. The sense of self developed in our ancestors as a survival mechanism as a result of natural selection, because a humanoid without a sense of self would have little chances of survival and procreation. However, once humanity developed into creatures with higher cognition, the sense of self and ego-complex developed around it became very counter-productive and in fact became the root cause of the majority of our problems and sufferings on the individual and collective level. This was clearly recognized in most Axial-age religions, including Christianity and Buddhism with the Christian "deny yourself" and Buddhist anatta (no-self) teachings and spiritual practices. The Christian approach is less radical, where instead of denying the reality of any self, it attempts to replace the Christ Self in place of the "human self" ("I am crucified with Christ, but I live; yet not I anymore, but Christ lives in me"), and this is one of the possible practical solutions to the problem of human selfishness, no question about that. Buddhism offers more radical approach and questions the independent reality corresponding to any sense or meaning of self/Self, thus opening the door to the ultimate liberation from any self-centeredness whatsoever (including Christ-centeredness). But it is understandable that taking more gradual approach to self-denial (rather than taking too radical one) may work better for many people. As practice shows, most people practicing Buddhism really struggle with its no-self approach, and for a good reason. So, since the meaning of "Self" remains so central to Christianity (and most other monotheistic traditions), it also brings the meaning of personification into its intellectual reflection of the formlessness-form-awareness.

[ScottRoberts]

We seem to have gone about 80% off-topic here. So let me try to bring it back:

Does anyone disagree, or partially agrees but would modify somewhat, with the claim that mumorphism is the ontological prime?

[Eugene I]

We seem to have gone about 80% off-topic here. So let me try to bring it back:

Does anyone disagree, or partially agrees but would modify somewhat, with the claim that mumorphism is the ontological prime?

Well, as any idea or concept, it can only be a pointer to the prime, since any idea can never describe the prime precisely and exhaustively or be exactly homomorphic to it, simply because the prime is not an idea. But as a pointer to the prime or a reflection of it it's pretty good, but still missing some important aspect I think. My preference would still remain with the Buddhist Trikaya - the unity of emptiness, awareness and form. The reason is that formlessness-form muomorphism neglects the important fundamental aspect of the prime - the awareness. Just like formlessness is inseparable from forms, awareness is also inseparable from formlessness and forms. The awareness is exactly what differentiates it from the Aristotelian Hylomorphism of matter; otherwise, without the awareness, it would be precisely matter. Perhaps it should be rephrased with muo-tri-morphism, or just tri-morphism? But in that case I would not see any difference from Trikaya apart from a purely linguistic one.

[AshvinP]

What you described by analogy is also known as metaphysical idealism-monism. No image or ideal content exists independent of consciousness and no consciousness exists independently of any other consciousness. Everyone agrees on that. We also agree on the bolded statement, and all we need is the ontic reality of that one meaning, i.e. that one ideal content of the image, to necessitate the Ontic Prime Trinity of formlessness-form and self-awareness. Any perceptions-conceptions within that One is just added bonus which may indeed reflect Reality but not metaphysically necessary.

Well, meanings are not ontic realities, they are simply contents (qualia) of our thoughts, there is nothing more to them.

So you are proposing that qualia can exist without any meaning, or the OP is separate from all qualia?

[Eugene I]

So you are proposing that qualia can exist without any meaning, or the OP is separate from all qualia?

Some conscious phenomena (such as sense perceptions for example) bear no meanings. For example, what is the meaning of a sound of wind? Meanings are only the qualia of thoughts (and the thoughts are a special kind of conscious phenomena that are able to bear meanings).
The OP is not separate from any qualia, including meanings of course.

We usually use meanings to represent or describe other aspects of reality different from meanings. For example, sense perceptions are forms bearing no meanings, but we use meanings to describe them and language (which is also a collection of meanings) to communicate them.

The question is whether the meanings correspond to some realities other than meanings, or they don't. For example, the meaning "sound of wind" that we can imagine using thought-imagination can correspond or reflect the actual sense perception of the sound of wind that we experience. On the other hand, the meanings "matter exists" or "Santa exists" "or "2x2=5" do not represent any realities, so we call them false meanings. So, all meanings are real (being the qualia of thoughts) and inseparable from the OP (being the forms of OP), however, not all of them are truthful (in a sense that not all of them truthfully reflect or represent other realities that they aim to describe or point to).

[AshvinP]

So you are proposing that qualia can exist without any meaning, or the OP is separate from all qualia?

Some conscious phenomena (such as sense perceptions for example) bear no meanings. For example, what is the meaning of a sound of wind? Meanings are only the qualia of thoughts (and the thoughts are a special kind of conscious phenomena that are able to bear meanings).
The OP is not separate from any qualia, including meanings of course.

We usually use meanings to represent or describe other aspects of reality different from meanings. For example, sense perceptions are forms bearing no meanings, but we use meanings to describe them and language (which is also a collection of meanings) to communicate them.

The question is whether the meanings correspond to some realities other than meanings, or they don't. For example, the meaning "sound of wind" that we can imagine using thought-imagination can correspond or reflect the actual sense perception of the sound of wind that we experience. On the other hand, the meanings "matter exists" or "Santa exists" "or "2x2=5" do not represent any realities, so we call them false meanings. So, all meanings are real (being the qualia of thoughts) and inseparable from the OP (being the forms of OP), however, not all of them are truthful (in a sense that not all of them truthfully reflect or represent other realities that they aim to describe or point to).

I disagree - sense perceptions must carry meaning under idealism. The phenomenon of wind is a good example - "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit." (John 3:8). The same Greek word pneuma is used for wind and Spirit because there was still a spiritual meaning experienced from the movement of wind. Modern humans have simply forgotten how to 'read' the world of sense perceptions, so we view it as independent, inert and meaningless. It's certainly possible for improper concepts to be attached to percepts by our thinking, but that fact also implies there are in reality proper concepts for every percept and it is our task to reunite them.

[Eugene I]

I disagree - sense perceptions must carry meaning under idealism. The phenomenon of wind is a good example - "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit." (John 3:8). The same Greek word pneuma is used for wind and Spirit because there was still a spiritual meaning experienced from the movement of wind. Modern humans have simply forgotten how to 'read' the world of sense perceptions, so we view it as independent, inert and meaningless. It's certainly possible for improper concepts to be attached to percepts by our thinking, but that fact also implies there are in reality proper concepts for every percept and it is our task to reunite them.

The atomic sense perception of a sound as you experience it has no meaning. That does not mean that you can not ascribe a meaning to it. Also, these perceptions may be causally related to other phenomena that bear meaning. For, example, if I make a musical sound, I created it with a meaning. However, if someone else hears this sound, they will just experience the sound as is and may not necessarily experience the meaning with which it was created (for example, if an animal hears that sound). Or, if a Creator makes the world that we perceive, he also created it with meanings and ideas, but we do not necessarily experience these meanings when we sensually perceive the world. I agree that it is hard to differentiate between the sense phenomena and meanings because, as a whole, the flow of conscious phenomena is very interdependent and interviewed and essentially inseparable. Yet, if we analytically differentiate the qualia of various phenomena (using out thought process of course), we see that, on the atomic level, the qualia of sound perceptions are meaningless by themselves, but still are related to the meanings with/from which they were produced, as well as the meaning that they cause upon perceptions.

But it is a matter of definition of what we call "meanings". If you want to extend the meaning of the term "meaning" to include all qualia, you can do it, no problem. In this case we would nee to call the qualia of thoughts using some other term to differentiate them from the qualia of sense perceptions, because they are qualitatively different. Just like qualia of sound perceptions are qualitatively different form the qualia of the visual ones, likewise the qualia of thoughts are different from those. So, fine, let's call all qualia as "meanings", and call the qualia of thoughts as "thought-qualia" (sounds awkward thought...).

[AshvinP]

I disagree - sense perceptions must carry meaning under idealism. The phenomenon of wind is a good example - "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit." (John 3:8). The same Greek word pneuma is used for wind and Spirit because there was still a spiritual meaning experienced from the movement of wind. Modern humans have simply forgotten how to 'read' the world of sense perceptions, so we view it as independent, inert and meaningless. It's certainly possible for improper concepts to be attached to percepts by our thinking, but that fact also implies there are in reality proper concepts for every percept and it is our task to reunite them.

The atomic sense perception of a sound as you experience it has no meaning. That does not mean that you can not ascribe a meaning to it. Also, these perceptions may be causally related to other phenomena that bear meaning. For, example, if I make a musical sound, I created it with a meaning. However, if someone else hears this sound, they will just experience the sound as is and may not necessarily experience the meaning with which it was created (for example, if an animal hears that sound). Or, if a Creator makes the world that we perceive, he also created it with meanings and ideas, but we do not necessarily experience these meanings when we sensually perceive the world. I agree that it is hard to differentiate between the sense phenomena and meanings because, as a whole, the flow of conscious phenomena is very interdependent and interviewed and essentially inseparable. Yet, if we analytically differentiate the qualia of various phenomena (using out thought process of course), we see that, on the atomic level, the qualia of sound perceptions are meaningless by themselves, but still are related to the meanings with/from which they were produced, as well as the meaning that they cause upon perceptions.

It is true 'atomic' sense perceptions are meaningless by themselves, but we never find them existing by themselves. They are always entangled with our thinking consciousness and therefore they always carry meaning. It is also true that we do not necessarily experience a sense perception with the proper meaning of that which is responsible for the perception, or we have become so dull to the world of perceptions that we are not aware of the meaning we experience, but the question is whether we can and sometimes do experience the proper meaning of perceptions?

[ScottRoberts]

Well, as any idea or concept, it can only be a pointer to the prime, since any idea can never describe the prime precisely and exhaustively or be exactly homomorphic to it, simply because the prime is not an idea. But as a pointer to the prime or a reflection of it it's pretty good, but still missing some important aspect I think. My preference would still remain with the Buddhist Trikaya - the unity of emptiness, awareness and form. The reason is that formlessness-form muomorphism neglects the important fundamental aspect of the prime - the awareness. Just like formlessness is inseparable from forms, awareness is also inseparable from formlessness and forms. The awareness is exactly what differentiates it from the Aristotelian Hylomorphism of matter; otherwise, without the awareness, it would be precisely matter. Perhaps it should be rephrased with muo-tri-morphism, or just tri-morphism? But in that case I would not see any difference from Trikaya apart from a purely linguistic one.

I agree, and in my TP essay made the same point, adding "self-awareness" to form and formlessness to make a triunity. I suspect you wouldn't agree with the "self-" part, though. My reasoning is that, to paraphrase Coleridge, formlessness' desire for expression is counteracted by forms' desire for stability, and these conflicting desires make the awareness aware that it is doing what it is doing. If that makes sense.

[Eugene I]

Oh, of course, everything is entangled with everything in this amazing "all-there-is" universe of consciousness. And we definitely can experience their associated meanings if we develop enough level of insight and sensitivity.