45 Matching Annotations
  1. Aug 2026
    1. as if the spirits

      Language/Metaphysics: focussing on the: "as if", are the spirits known to be not present? Are the Spirits actual objects that exist that are potentially just not there? What might preclude the spirits from being present? How do we know they are thus precluded

    2. It is you, Zixia, who has awakened me to the meaning ofthese lines! It is only with someone like you that I can begin to discuss the Odes.”

      Metaphysics(?): This means that the Virtuous is not all-knowing or instantly knows all the right answers right? It just means that the Virtuous is appropriately moved/contemplative in the face of uncertainty/questions. They are just sensitive to the right considerations

    3. Later ritual texts describethe “eight rows of dancers” as a ritual prerogative of the emperor;

      From the last 4 lines of the Pg3 in the introduction, Rituals mark Virtue, so a shift in ritual, I imagine, marks a shift in presentation of Virtue. However, under our Moral and Ritual monism this should not be possible right? Also, 2.2 is explicit so why would ritual be permitted to change?

    4. !us, in being a $lial son and good brother one is already taking part in govern-ment. What need is there, then, to speak of ‘participating in government’?

      Metaphysics(?):

      Governance is enmeshed with life in society This denies the gap Classical Greek life between the Public and Private lives of a citizen that Arendt asserts. Your Virtuousness, or lack thereof presents itself within the home as well as in public

    5. “!e Odes number several hundred, and yet can be judgedwith a single phrase: ‘Oh, they will not lead you astray

      Metaphysics: Moral Monism? The odes must all converge to a singular set of acceptable/virtuous actions right?

    6. !e Master said, “One who rules through the power of Virtue is analogous tothe Pole Star: it simply remains in its place and receives the homage of the myriadlesser stars.

      Metaphysics: So is Virtue just something like a "divine" or Heaven-ordained "role" for you? Your assumption/taking up of the role itself determines the good. You are not distinct from your role/what you do. Your positionality is indistinguishable from your degree of Virtue?

    7. superiors

      Metaphysics(?)/Language: What is the sence in which "superiors" is used, seems like a heave word. Do we mean a moral superiority? One gained via an access to the Virtues? Is this a metaphysical superiority by greater proximity to the Heavens? Or is this just a superiority of hierarchy? Older people have had greater time to reflect on the Virtues and thus, in expectation are morally superior as well and thus should be deferred to

    8. !e scopeof the rites was quite vast, including everything from grand state ceremo-nies to the proper way to sit or fasten one’s lapel—details that we mightthink of today as issues of etiquette. In return for such formal obedienceto Heaven in all matters great and small, the Zhou royal line was rewarded

      Metaphysics(?): Why is the heaven satiated by the rituals? Also this then requires some degree of ritual monism? So long as the Heaven is unchanging and rewards adherence to the rituals, are the rituals and their practice also disallowed from changing?

  2. Jul 2025
    1. Philip, Rey (Editor)1 Show affiliations 1. Theory of Ontological Consciousness Project Description This interdisciplinary essay explores a forgotten hypothesis at the intersection of physics, philosophy, and fiction: that consciousness is not a byproduct of matter, but its ontological foundation. Tracing this idea from Heraclitus and Plato to Schrödinger and Penrose, the article integrates metaphysical traditions with quantum models and critiques of materialist reductionism. It introduces the Theory of Ontological Consciousness (TOC) — a literary-philosophical framework proposing ψ̂–Φ interactions as the generative basis of spacetime and form. The essay also reinterprets empirical anomalies, such as those documented by the Global Consciousness Project, as potential signatures of an underlying field of universal consciousness.  For more on the Theory of Ontological Consciousness, visit www.toc-reality.org and follow new updates via Medium    -   https://medium.com/@philiprey.org

      Philip, Rey (Editor)1 Description This interdisciplinary essay explores a forgotten hypothesis at the intersection of physics, philosophy, and fiction: that consciousness is not a byproduct of matter, but its ontological foundation. Tracing this idea from Heraclitus and Plato to Schrödinger and Penrose, the article integrates metaphysical traditions with quantum models and critiques of materialist reductionism. It introduces the Theory of Ontological Consciousness (TOC) — a literary-philosophical framework proposing ψ̂–Φ interactions as the generative basis of spacetime and form. The essay also reinterprets empirical anomalies, such as those documented by the Global Consciousness Project, as potential signatures of an underlying field of universal consciousness. For more on the Theory of Ontological Consciousness, visit www.toc-reality.org and follow new updates via Medium - https://medium.com/@philiprey.org

  3. Nov 2024
  4. Feb 2024

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  5. Oct 2023
    1. the human mind will ever 00:00:59 give up metaphysical research is as little to be expected as that we should prefer to give up breathing all together to avoid inhaling impure air there will therefore always be 00:01:13 metaphysics in the world nay everyone especially every man of reflection will have it and for want of a recognized standard will shape it for himself after his own 00:01:24 pattern
      • for: Kant, quote, quote - metaphysics, quote - Kant, critique of pure reason, Dan Robinson, philosophy, quote - metaphysics - ubiquity

      • quote

        • the human mind will ever give up metaphysical research is as little to be expected
        • as that we should prefer to give up breathing all together to avoid inhaling impure air
        • there will therefore always be metaphysics in the world
        • nay everyone especially every man of reflection will have it and for want of a recognized standard will shape it for himself after his own pattern
      • author: Immanuel Kant
  6. Apr 2023
    1. Our strategies for changing the world are often inspired by a culture created by a physicalist metaphysics. That’s why I propose that metaphysics eats culture for breakfast. What we believe to be real and relevant is the most significant factor in the formation of culture, which in turn influences our thoughts and emotions, which in turn influence our values, which influence our institutions and political policies. The change has to happen at the deepest level if it’s going to have any significant impact on an issue as important as whether or not we go extinct.

      // Metaphysics eats culture for breakfast - a takeoff of a well-known business meme - culture eats strategy for breakfast - Beiner goes one level deeper and claims - metaphysics eats culture for breakfast - He justifies this via this argument - Our strategies for changing the world - are often inspired by - a culture created by a physicalist metaphysics. - That’s why I propose that metaphysics eats culture for breakfast. - What we believe to be real and relevant - is the most significant factor - in the formation of culture, - which in turn influences our thoughts and emotions, - which in turn influence our values, - which influence our institutions and political policies. - The change has to happen at the deepest level - if it’s going to have any significant impact - on an issue as important as whether or not we go extinct.

  7. Mar 2023
    1. Pythagoreans

      What is the manner of the Pythagoreans? When I did some research I found that "The Pythagoreans,...displayed an interest in metaphysics,...though they claimed to find its key in mathematical form rather than in any substance." Could this be why Rabelais describes a need to repeat and explore all the senses to make the main points stick, then go into prayer in the paragraph that follows.

      What is metaphysics? "The branch of philosophy that treats of first principles, includes ontology and cosmology, and is intimately connected with epistemology."

  8. Dec 2022
    1. Luhmann’s system is built entirely of physical, not digital,parts. With those parts of Luhmann’s system stripped away, deleted, andmorphed from physical form to metaphysical form, the critical essence ofthe Zettelkasten system has been demoted.

      Interesting parallelism here with the metaphysical actions of governments and specifically the actions of American soldiers' treatment of Luhmann in the prior section....

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  9. Jul 2022
  10. bafybeicuq2jxzrw7omddwzohl5szkqv6ayjiubjy3uopjh5c3cghxq6yoe.ipfs.dweb.link bafybeicuq2jxzrw7omddwzohl5szkqv6ayjiubjy3uopjh5c3cghxq6yoe.ipfs.dweb.link
    1. The very notion of thinking aboutlife (or evolution for that matter) as having a definite purpose or goal is already asymptom of a deeply rooted bias in favour of the constant and against change. Thereare voices that will immediately attack this view, blaming it for insinuating that lifehas no purpose at all. But a dialectic of such kind is empty of any credence if notentirely absurd. The view I propose here does not indeed accept that life is sub-jugated to a single purpose or principle but instead affirms life as having not onepurpose but infinitely multiple ones, not one goal but multiple goals and, moreover,the vast majority of these purposes and goals cannot be known a priori because theyare subject to continuous formative processes of becoming. This is why life as suchis open-ended.

      !- question : does evolution have a purpose? * Language is a constraint - it forces us to form questions that may not necessarily make sense, such as "how many angels exist on the head of a pin?" * To say that it has one, or even more than one purpose may itself be a meaningless assertion, as much as insinuating that it has no purpose. If one asks "Is the sound of a bell red or yellow? It is neither the case that it is red, yellow or any color. So arguing about the right and wrong of a quality that is nonsensical is itself nonsensical. * The self-annihilating questioning of Nagarjuna's tetralemma are relevant to shed insight into these deep questions.

  11. bafybeicho2xrqouoq4cvqev3l2p44rapi6vtmngfdt42emek5lyygbp3sy.ipfs.dweb.link bafybeicho2xrqouoq4cvqev3l2p44rapi6vtmngfdt42emek5lyygbp3sy.ipfs.dweb.link
    1. The thesis of this paper is that you can have your cake and eat it: it is possible todevelop an understanding of the mind that is both non-dual and analytic—in the sense ofbased on clearly defined, formal distinctions. To achieve that, we need to replace thevagueness of process metaphysics by the concreteness of what has been called actionontology (Heylighen, 2011; Turchin, 1993). That will allow us to “extend” the mind not justacross notebooks and social systems, but across the whole of nature and society

      Heylighen's program is to transition from vague process metaphysics to measurable "action ontology"

    2. us, they lead to the emergence of ever more sophisticated, meaningful and adaptive forms.This evolutionary worldview is very different from the lifeless, static picture of the clockworkuniverse, where inert pieces of matter follow predetermined trajectories. In such an evolving,interconnected world, mind no longer appears like an alien entity that cannot be explained byscientific principles, but rather as a natural emanation of the way networks of processes self-organize into goal-directed, adaptive systems.This is of course not a novel idea. It has been formulated by philosophers such asWhitehead, Bergson and Teilhard de Chardin under the label of process metaphysics(Rescher, 1996; Teilhard de Chardin, 1959; Whitehead, 1978). But analytically trainedphilosophers are understandably not very keen on these rather mystical and obscure theories,preferring the clear distinctions of logic and mathematics to these poetic and grandiloquentwritings. Therefore, analytic philosophy has tended to stay firmly rooted in the reductionistapproach of Newtonian science. The problem is that this leads it straight back into an implicitdualism, and its apparently unsolvable mind-body problem.

      Process metaphysics advocates the perspective that the Cartesian view of nature is incorrect. Rather than starting out with inert matter and deducing its interactions thereof, nature consists of processes

  12. Feb 2022
  13. plato.stanford.edu plato.stanford.edu
    1. Necessarily, for all x and all artifactual kinds K, x is a K only if x is the product of a largely successful intention that (Kx), where one intends (Kx) only if one has a substantive concept of the nature of Ks that largely matches that of some group of prior makers of Ks (if there are any) and intends to realize that concept by imposing K-relevant features on the object. (Thomasson 2003: 600)

      Artifact kinds are defined historically by clusters of human intentions

  14. Feb 2021
  15. Oct 2020
  16. Feb 2020
    1. Image Credit: Detail from "The School of Athens" by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (c. 1509–1511).

      Euclid's common notions appear to be grounds for many of Marx's arguments in Ch. 1, but also throughout the book.

      Near the beginning of Ch. 1 of the Elements Euclid lists them [PDF]:

      • Things that are equal to the same thing are also equal to one another (the Transitive property of a Euclidean relation).
      • If equals are added to equals, then the wholes are equal (Addition property of equality).
      • If equals are subtracted from equals, then the differences are equal (Subtraction property of equality).
      • Things that coincide with one another are equal to one another (Reflexive property).
      • The whole is greater than the part.

      Regarding the fifth, also see Aristotle, Metaphysics 8.6 [=1045a]; Topics 6.13 (=150a15-16);

      On the concept of the "whole-before-the-parts" (along with the "whole of the parts" and the "whole in the part"), also see Proclus, El. Theol., prop. 67.

  17. Apr 2019
  18. Feb 2019
  19. Jan 2019
    1. so "being " is used in various senses, but always with reference to one principle. For some things are said to "be" because they are substances; others because they are modifications of substance; others because they are a process towards substance, or destructions or privations or qualities of substance, or productive or generative of substance or of terms relating to substance, or negations of certain of these terms or of substance. (Hence we even say that not-being is not-being.)

      Being is always one. Multiplicity is always to be reduced to unity.

  20. Feb 2018
    1. First, in terms of science, it now appears that his metaphysics has withstood the test of time. While traditional scholars largely dismiss his holistic ontology prior to the Critique, innovations in the environmental and physical sciences have validated Kant's claims as realistic insights in the workings of nature. His evolutionary theory of the universe is now seen as “the essence of modern models” in cosmology (Coles 2001: 240), and his natural philosophy is seen as the last milestone of western philosophy prior to its “comedown” to skepticism (Hawking 2003, 166). In light of climate change, it stands to reason that Kant's grasp on biospherical dynamics and sustainable policies may well spur a philosophical return to Kant in the near future.
  21. Mar 2017
  22. Dec 2016
    1. Knowledge takes you back to God while you are in the world, but it does so in a very specific way because its emphasis is practical, not magical. It is not about metaphysics, learning all about the sixteen million levels and the cosmology of all of the universes. That is for people who think and do nothing. The person of Knowledge is not concerned with these things unless they have a specific relevance to his or her function in life, and even then they are a temporary expedient and nothing else. If you want to know about mystical cosmology, then perhaps a teacher will tell you about these things to get your attention while he or she gives you something far greater. Mystical cosmology does not get you through the day. It does not attend to you when you are alone and miserable in your thoughts. It is simply a broader range of speculation. It may be a reprieve from your personal difficulties, but it is not the key to your freedom.
  23. Sep 2013