Philosophical Speculations

Soul_of_Shu wrote: ↑Fri Apr 09, 2021 8:48 pm

Cleric K wrote: ↑Fri Apr 09, 2021 8:01 pmIt's easier if we think of it as be-ing.

Is such uncaused, irreducible 'be-ing' non-aware? If so, at which point does awareness arise and how? Seems like just another iteration of the 'hard problem.'

We've been through this before. It's about the Feminine and Masculine. Reflection - awareness and will - be-ing. The goal is precisely to avoid the unnecessary hard problems by recognizing the irreducible poles of the given. The poles are clearly aspects of a unity and we can conceptualize it but the fact remains that we can't produce neither will, nor reflection from the concept of that unity. We must learn to work with the real poles.

j.joerg@posteo.de wrote: ↑Fri Apr 09, 2021 8:30 pm What I mean is that Being is a given. Obviously Being is rather than not. Isn it?
To me Being is nothing special, nothing supernatural or anything. It just is. And that's all about it.

There are nuances here. We can approach this experientially and intellectually.
- Intellectual way. What you are saying is intellectually sound: there is a Being that just IS.
- However this is not how we actually experience the Beingness. In our conscious experience we experience the presence of experiencing (be it experiencing of a content, or just experiencing of experiencing in the absence of any content) at any given moment (of ow). So we do not actually experience a "thing"/"entity" that exists, we only experience the presence of experiencing. Whether there is a "thing" that "does" such experiencing we actually don't know. It's only when we start thinking and objectifying that experience of presence we arrive at the Being as a "something", but that is only an assumption (which was, by the way, criticized by Buddha in his refutation of nihilism-eternalism dichotomy).

Also, Dana is right, neutral monism runs into the "hard problem of consciousness", exactly like materialism: if awareness is emergent from something non-aware, how is that possible at all?

Cleric K wrote: ↑Fri Apr 09, 2021 8:59 pm We've been through this before. It's about the Feminine and Masculine. Reflection - awareness and will - be-ing.

That's a nice metaphor. Although, if we know the beingness and awareness directly and experientially, we don't need ant metaphors for it. But if someone does not have such experiential gnosis, then the metaphors might be good as pointers.

Cleric K wrote: ↑Fri Apr 09, 2021 8:59 pm

Soul_of_Shu wrote: ↑Fri Apr 09, 2021 8:48 pm

Cleric K wrote: ↑Fri Apr 09, 2021 8:01 pmIt's easier if we think of it as be-ing.

Is such uncaused, irreducible 'be-ing' non-aware? If so, at which point does awareness arise and how? Seems like just another iteration of the 'hard problem.'

So we're going with a state of 'Reflection - awareness and will - be-ing.'

I'll take that as stating that uncaused, irreducible 'be-ing' is immanently aware, in which case awareness is equally uncaused and irreducible. And insofar as its ontological imperative is ideation, then it's another variation on idealism ... No?

Soul_of_Shu wrote: ↑Fri Apr 09, 2021 9:25 pm

Cleric K wrote: ↑Fri Apr 09, 2021 8:59 pm

Soul_of_Shu wrote: ↑Fri Apr 09, 2021 8:48 pm
Is such uncaused, irreducible 'be-ing' non-aware? If so, at which point does awareness arise and how? Seems like just another iteration of the 'hard problem.'

So we're going with a state of 'Reflection - awareness and will - be-ing.'

I'll take that as stating that uncaused, irreducible 'be-ing' is immanently aware, in which case awareness is equally uncaused and irreducible. And insofar as its ontological imperative is ideation, then it's another variation on idealism ... No?

Sounds right. Idea is always present. It is the meaning of awareness but also the goal of becoming. We experience ideas in reflections but we also seek the idea-being that can unify all ideas.

Cleric K wrote: ↑Fri Apr 09, 2021 9:44 pm Sounds right. Idea is always present. It is the meaning of awareness but also the goal of becoming. We experience ideas in reflections but we also seek the idea-being that can unify all ideas.

Existence is not an idea, it's the reality. But we can have an idea of it.

Soul_of_Shu wrote: ↑Fri Apr 09, 2021 9:25 pm I'll take that as stating that uncaused, irreducible 'be-ing' is immanently aware, in which case awareness is equally uncaused and irreducible. And insofar as its ontological imperative is ideation, then it's another variation on idealism ... No?

Right, but even with irreducibility of awareness there are still two possibilities:
- Idealism: OP is "matter-less" awareness-beingness with no irreducible material property.
- Dual property monism: both awareness and matter are irreducible properties of the OP, in other words, both awareness and matter are both irreducible and non-emerging "properties" of the OP (just like beingness and awareness are irreducible properties of the OP in idealism). That is different from neutral monism where both matter and consciousness are emergent (and that is why the OP is "neutral" - neither matter nor consciousness).

The dual property monism does not run into the "hard problem", but BK would argue that it is not parsimonious and the addition of the property of "matter" is unnecessary.

Eugene I wrote: ↑Fri Apr 09, 2021 10:04 pm

Cleric K wrote: ↑Fri Apr 09, 2021 9:44 pm Sounds right. Idea is always present. It is the meaning of awareness but also the goal of becoming. We experience ideas in reflections but we also seek the idea-being that can unify all ideas.

Existence is not an idea, it's the reality. But we can have an idea of it.

Do I need to requote our resolution from the formlesness-form thread? Because I will do it... don't test me!

Eugene I wrote: ↑Fri Apr 09, 2021 10:10 pm

Soul_of_Shu wrote: ↑Fri Apr 09, 2021 9:25 pm I'll take that as stating that uncaused, irreducible 'be-ing' is immanently aware, in which case awareness is equally uncaused and irreducible. And insofar as its ontological imperative is ideation, then it's another variation on idealism ... No?

Right, but even with irreducibility of awareness there are still two possibilities:
- Idealism: OP is "matter-less" awareness-beingness with no irreducible material property.
- Dual property monism: both awareness and matter are irreducible properties of the OP, in other words, both awareness and matter are both irreducible and non-emerging "properties" of the OP (just like beingness and awareness are irreducible properties of the OP in idealism). That is different from neutral monism where both matter and consciousness are emergent (and that is why the OP is "neutral" - neither matter nor consciousness).

The dual property monism does not run into the "hard problem", but BK would argue that it is not parsimonious and the addition of the property of "matter" is unnecessary.

Still, there seems a dual-aspect, or dialetical monism, that still has awareness/be-ing as the sole uncaused, irreducible state, with formlessness (subjective) and form (objective) being its dialetical aspects, so no need for the abstraction of some stuff of matter. And I'm not sure that in BK's model, positing 'dissociation' into the apparency of a subject><object dynamic isn't just another way of framing this. So dissociated or not, what those states have in common is paramount ... i.e. uncaused, irreducible be-ing/awareness

AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Apr 09, 2021 10:14 pm Do I need to requote our resolution from the formlesness-form thread? Because I will do it... don't test me!

I always said that Beingness is non-emergent, but I never agreed that ideas are non-emergent. Non-emergent nature of ideas is Platonism, which I do not subscribe to. So that's what I said again here - the idea of Being is emergent (we may have this idea, or we may not), but Beingness is always the non-emergent reality, because Beingness always IS.