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Perennial philosophy
- Erlich_Bachman 7y agoThe appearance of this bit of information in the Hacker News Collective Consciousness RAM is likely linked to a recent discussion about a recent article that attempts attempts to define consciousness and whether it exists in everything all the time or is localized somewhere in space ("Consciousness Isn’t Self-Centered"). Quote: Why do folks present this idea like it's new and radical? It's literally thousands of years old. Aldous Huxley wrote "The Perennial Philosophy" in 1945.
- msla 7y agoWhat's the point of this philosophy? What does believing it help one do or understand? That question is likely forbidden, in that philosophers don't seem to give reasons for their philosophies, but it's still important to ask, for the same reason it's always important to ask why someone is so enthusiastic about something.
- andybak 7y ago> That question is likely forbidden, in that philosophers don't seem to give reasons for their philosophies If there's any branch of human inquiry where no question is off limits then it's surely philosophy. Debate about the practical application of philosophy has been part of it's fabric for it's entire history. The Greeks certainly regarded it as something that should inform one's life choices and I'm pretty sure that is one of the main areas of focus in Existentialism.
- skissane 7y agoIndeed, metaphilosophy [1] is the branch of philosophy which studies the questions of "what is philosophy?" and "why bother doing philosophy?". So far from being some kind of "forbidden question", this is a question which many philosophers have considered and sought to answer. [1] https://www.iep.utm.edu/con-meta/ https://www.iep.utm.edu/con-meta/
- msla 7y agoHowever, it seems like this is a discussion we're incapable of having here, which comes to the same thing.
- andybak 7y agoWe seem to be having the discussion you state we're incapable of, right now. ;)
- Erlich_Bachman 7y agoI'm not an expert, but it seems that the utility comes from using the existence of consciousness as an assumption and presupposition of the continued following studies. Without this theory, science assumes no such thing, and ultimately ends up with a very difficult problem of defining where consciousness begins and where it ends. Existence of consciousness is obvious and intuitive to most people, it is rarely disputed (and such disputes yield no useful conclusions or thoughts when they take place), but if the starting point is that "some humans have consciousness, or a potential of a consciousness, and the rest of the world does not", then the problem of defining it seems very hard. Drawing a hard border between consciousness and dead matter seems hard to do while still being completely intellectually honest. If however, we just assume (as the perennial philosophy does) that consciousness (or at least potential of) is a self-evident property of reality and everything in it, we can view the problem of defining it as more of a question of where in the world is there "more" of this consciousness, where is it more concentrated, where did the potential of it most prominently manifest itself (places like human brains that host it or possibly similarly built computers in the future), and where is it "less" of it (like in a rock formation), then we can use this framework to more easily navigate this landscape.
- procgen 7y agoGiulio Tononi's Integrated Information Theory provides just such a framework for determining where consciousness 'most prominently manifests itself': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory
- dunkelheit 7y agoNot sure why you are being downvoted, because it is a valid and important question (even if stated in this somewhat adversarial manner). For me the promise of philosophy is in examining the deepest assumptions that we use to interpret our experiences and guide our thinking. This is a hard task because just like sea creatures that are surrounded by water their whole lives and thus don't notice it, we don't notice these assumptions and they remain hidden and non-obvious. Ultimately I feel that current philosophy falls short of this promise. It either descends into technicalities or regresses to a prescriptive "this is how you should think" manual. Probably I am not well-read enough.
- dr_dshiv 7y agoBecause philosophy can't itself prove all truths (Godel incompleteness), we must accept that the point of philosophy is better living. Once that is in place, philosophy can become much more valuable.
- cion 7y agoI don't understand the reference to Gödel. Do you mean the theorem that in every formal system capable of representing arithmetic there exist sentences "P" such that neither "P" nor "not P" are derivable in the system? It doesn't seem to me that from this it follows that "the point of philosophy is better living". It might be obvious, but I just don't see it.
- chrstphrhrt 7y agoI like to think of it as all formalisms are tautologies. Therefore we can go along with some common sense and fuzzy logic rather than having to prove every possible axiom, which isn't actually possible or would take unlimited time. It's analogous to the halting problem.
- dr_dshiv 7y agoI like this new "resonance theory of consciousness". That assumes that the nature of consciousness is inherent in the informational integration -- making consciousness a sort of harmony. Of course, that idea isn't new -- it's the same idea that Plato presented in the Phaedo and that the Pythagoreans held in 6th century Italy. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2019.00378/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2019.0037...
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- LatteLazy 7y agoStoicism is true. All other philosophies are merely academic.
- leto_ii 7y agoWhile I always appreciate Huxley's writing and attempts of finding unifying principles, I think at the end of the day the explanation is quite simple: the perennial philosophy exists simply because all of these religions originate in the human mind and in human interactions with others and the environment. Regardless of where/when people come about, our shared humanity is strong enough to lead us to have similar experiences and (somewhat) similar explanations for what we experience. On an unrelated note, I would like to recommend Huxley's Island as a nice outline of what a realistic utopia might look like.
- dr_dshiv 7y agoThe key point in the perennial philosophy is the idea of Oneness -- that there is an ultimate oneness that is the source of all and the basis of the good. Oneness is perennial because it is one of the most common aspects of a mystical experience -- indeed, it is one of the primary factors in validated measures of mystical experiences [1]. However, the concept of Oneness is uncomfortable -- so uncomfortable that it didn't even show up in the Aeon article! (For a different view, see Wikipedia [2]) Why is Oneness an uncomfortable concept? It is uncomfortable for theists, because it puts an abstraction ("the ineffable oneness") higher than any personality god ("god of Abraham"). Yet, even for atheists, it is an uncomfortable idea. Why?Perhaps it seems so similar to monotheism, to claim that the One is the origin of all things. While an atheist might accept that the universe originated from a singularity (i.e., the big bang), it may be uncomfortable to connect scientific ideas to spiritual awareness. However, I think we should either reject spirituality as incompatable with science or put more effort in rational attempts to integrate them. [1] Hood Jr, R. W. (1975). The construction and preliminary validation of a measure of reported mystical experience. Journal for the scientific study of religion, 29-41. [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_philosophy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_philosophy
- indigochill 7y ago>However, I think we should either reject spirituality as incompatable with science or put more effort in rational attempts to integrate them. By what principle do we determine that there isn't room for both even though they might not integrate at all?
- dr_dshiv 7y agoWell, if the maps cover the same territory, they should align, no?
- curo 7y ago> reject spirituality as incompatible with science or put more effort in rational attempts to integrate them The paradox though is that scientific knowledge is knowledge acquired through observation and reason, both of which must present themselves to an observer. Specifically, it must present itself to an observer-beyond-quality (or present themselves within a field of observation) because if we find an observer that has qualities, those qualities would be perceived by something "earlier." That is to say, if a measurement or argument is made then to whom (or in what) is it made? Science is always limited in scope. It can only describe that which is observable (or deductions made from observation). You could extend science to include philosophy (and consider even our discussion here as philosophy) and then the limits of reason allow you only to define its own limits. This argument has been made in some form or another by Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein, Bohr, Godel, Susan Greenfield, Roger Penrose, and hundreds of others. The One (or the Zero) is the only way to solve any problem of hard consciousness, by allowing Knowingness itself to have modulations of experience within itself. The proper integration of science and spiritualism would seem to be that each acknowledges the domain of the other. That is, if the discussion is about the observable or rational, it's in the realm of science and made more understandable by the methods and tools of science. If the discussion is about That, quality-free substratum in which observations or deductions are made, then it is an act of autotelic contemplation. That last statement is a bit absurd. It means one can contemplate the original substratum of the Self by just being without thinking, which is exactly what the various mystic traditions have taught. It would be a treasure if someone were to articulate this simply for a modern, secular-minded audience, in a way that would convince them to keep quiet for a few minutes and let the experience of "zero-ness" become self-evident. Even this self-evidence appears in a substratum of course, but in that moment, there's a blissful aha that would put a lot of these long essays and discussions to rest.
- sysbin 7y agoI’m a hard determinist and I’m finding this philosophy similar to religion. It’s my first time reading about it but my impression is perennial philosophy is for people trying to force meaning by clinging to a constructed belief without the foundation of anything other than hopefulness. I understand the logic of all knowledge builds from collective thought. But the idea there is meaning just reflects wishful thinking.
- catawbasam 7y agoSo why bother writing your response? What was the point if it has no meaning?
- jfengel 7y agoModern civilisation, he writes, is ‘organised lovelessness’; advertising is ‘the organised effort to extend and intensify craving’; the 20th century is ‘The Age of Noise’. Hoo boy. Huxley living in the 21st century would just explode.