Thanks, prothero. I ran into the article you linked to yesterday, always thought it was well written. :-)

Thanks, prothero. I have been doing just that, reading Elizabeth Kraus's book The Metaphysics of Experience and focusing in on Whitehead's take on persistence, eternal and enduring objects. Here's a quote from Process and Reality you might find interesting:

“In the inescapable flux, there is something that abides; in the overwhelming permanence, there is an element that escapes into flux. Permanence can be snatched only out of flux; and the passing moment can find its adequate intensity only by its submission to permanence. Those who would disjoin the two elements can find no interpretation of patent facts.”

To me this sounds similar to the Buddhist notion of a middle way between the extremes of eternalism and nihilism. But instead of saying No! to both eternalism and nihilism, it says a qualified Yes to both in a kind of yin-yang'y way where they interpenetrate each other.

A 6-month-later followup to this thread, the answer to which might require familiarity with Buddhism. Is this accurate:

Buddhists say true existents have an unchanging essence.
Processists say true existents do NOT have an unchanging essence.

Though apparently opposed, they're actually pointing to the same thing:
Stuff doesn't have an unchanging essence. One just calls this stuff
non-existent and the other calls it existent, a matter of semantics.

Even if we don't find a sentient-being civilization to decimate, we could always trash the planet itself. ;-)

Sorry for being so silly in your thread. Carry on!

Sounds Star-Trekian!

Let's just make sure we don't go 'out there' with the drive to conquer and subjugate this time, okay?

So in the end, if we want to reduce this polarisation, it would seem necessary to come up with a societal project where more people can believe to be a part of. — ChatteringMonkey

Defending the planet against an alien (the ultimate immigrants) invasion? ;-)

I think we're (globally) in for a rough Fourth Turning ride for a while. One of the hallmarks of the time is polarization: us vs. them. And I agree with Jake that, at the root of self/other thinking is ... thinking itself.

Some people derive pleasure from remaining in a harmful situation. They spin it into a story of the nobility of suffering, or of the struggle of a human being to overcome horrible odds, or something even juicier for them. If this pleasure is pleasurable enough, it might prevent a person from leaving their burning box. Decorate your prison cell exquisitely ... and why would you ever want to leave, particularly if your 'destination' is unknown and potentially (far) less pleasurable than your cell?

God, what's that, I never mentioned any God ... but that's best left for another discussion. ;-)

But now back to the topic in hand. — Pattern-chaser

You mean our commentary on HZ's current view on consciousness? That's what I tried to do ... in a tangential kind of way, by suggesting another way of looking at the same(ish) thing. Not directly OT-related enough?

Another way to look at it is that there is one consciousness that flows through a vast multitude of individual brain-body-minds, like sunlight refracting through a set of different prisms. Each flow/refraction is unique, but they are all ultimately expressions of the same consciousness.

This might be too woo-woo for some here, but it resonates with me.

I really like the notion that an artist is a collective-level dreamer who shares his/her dreams with the collective: world, culture, society, tribe, etc.

Not in order of yumminess:

Petrushka, Stravinsky - because it's exquisite as music and as ballet
Matthäus-Passion, Bach - I have a strong personal connection to it
The Four Seasons, Vivaldi - one of my first classical loves
Kontra-Punkte, Stockhausen - best integral serial piece ever written
Erwartung, Schoenberg - horrorshow music, what's not to love?

Um, well, uhhhhh ... now that you put it that way, how could anyone disagree?

Just one question: Am I God? (Hence my avatar?) Because if I am, shame on me for doing such a mediocre job with das Universum!

Thank God for God ... without whose Godly unbroken observation of ALL, things would keep popping in and out of existence!

How do you know?

Now, where is that Wikipedia editor? — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Recorded.

It's a really interesting challenge, right: Follow the conductor's pacing and phrasing while simultaneously following your own internal pacing and phrasing. In other words, invest what you play with your musical personality/feel while adhering sufficiently to the collective flow/shape (conductor) to not undermine it.

By world you mean civilization I believe, because the world runs better than clockwork. — Vince

Yes, civilization, the world created by humans.

Music already runs on subjective time though, at the speed of the conductor,

Yes ... but I was imagining each musician playing subjectively with musical time. Crash and burn! ;-)

The funny thing to me, as a musician I feel like listening to music and playing it appears to slow down time.

Interesting. One of the things that fascinates me most about music is how time flows in/through it.

That's the very reason why we have clocks. — Vince

Imagine if the world ran on subjective/experienced time. Symphonies would fall apart halfway through. Email packets would arrive and assemble whenever they felt like it. Switzerland would go out of business.

From our (humans) point of view, there is a huge difference between subjective/experienced time and objective/clock time. One 360-degree sweep of the minute hand of a clock might seem long, short, or even non-existent to Person X, depending on what X was doing/thinking/feeling.

Is anyone on here a journalist writing for a major publication? — Anthony

Okay, I admit it: I'm a regular contributor to the Akashic Records.

The Wittgenstein bubble should have been blank.

No worries, it's just the Fourth Turning. Sit back and relax for another decade or so, weather the storm ... and all shall be reborn in another First Turning! The long view is the only view that will keep us sane.

He'd probably bust a gasket if he heard your Meh. ;-) I get the sense of a BIG ego operating here ... but of course I could be utterly wrong. I looked on Rate My Professors and his students seem to really like him, which is usually a good sign of a Mensch.

! ;-) I am a professor (well, an adjunct, does that count?) ... but not THAT professor! And my days of trying to stir things WAY up are long gone. (Thank Gog! It's so tiring to be in constant smarter-than-thou revolutionary mode!) Though I do still get a kick out of rocking the boat (gently).

Is Anti-PC the new PC?

Yes it’s an Advaita question. And yes, both the question and an appropriate answer to it are context-bound. And one more time yes, the disconnect in this thread between what I am trying to ask and what most people think I am asking is due in large part to all these different traditions, ideas, and worldviews having been thrown willy nilly into a big stone soup pot and swirled around.

I guess I’m trying to use western philosophical tools to investigate the nature of the eastern (particularly Vedic) concepts of paramartha or ultimate truth. But since I am so ignorant about western philosophical tools, my investigation keeps running around in circles!

The question conceals an error. — Dfpolis

So again, thinking about ontology in terms of 'essence' is not what 'reductionism' usually means. — Wayfarer

In non-dual circles it is often said that consciousness is the ultimate substrate, i.e. that everything is (made of) consciousness. When you ask a non-dualist "If everything is (made of) the same consciousness, why is there so much variety in the world?" the typical answer goes something like:

"The (apparent) variety is merely different names and forms of consciousness."

What I'm trying to get at in this thread is the viability of the above sentence. An elephant, a rock, and a memory of childhood ... can they all be reduced to being merely different names and forms of the same thing, consciousness? Or do objects possess an ultimate (essential) uniqueness that goes beyond this underlying sameness?

What's 'truer': X Y Z are the same, X Y Z are different ?

The question conceals an error. We do not know that there is any "fundamental building block(s)." — Dfpolis

So again, thinking about ontology in terms of 'essence' is not what 'reductionism' usually means. — Wayfarer

I feel like a guy who's walked into a room of sommeliers and asks: "Umm ... how do I get the cork out of this here bottle?" I apologize for not being more clear about what I'm trying to get at. (And I thought it was such a pellucid little question!) I'll try again. :-)

Some believe that everything is (made of) one and only one unchanging (non-)thing: consciousness. (This is the non-dual understanding of consciousness, not the conventional one.) When asked "If consciousness is all there is, why is there so much variety in the world?" these non-dualists will often say something like: "The apparent variety is merely different names and forms of consciousness."

This is what I'm trying to get at in this thread: Is it valid to say that an elephant and a rock and the feeling of looking at a sunset are all merely different names/forms of X (consciousness in this case)? Or do these things 'possess' some sort of essence/identity that make them ultimately unique, despite their all being sublated by consciousness?

I think that hit it. If you understand the above paragraph, you understand the reason I opened this thread. (Hopefully!)

1. "What you know can't hurt you."
2. "What you don't know can hurt you."

I agree with 2. A lot of our suffering comes from psycho-emotional stuff swirling around in our unconscious (beyond our field of internal awareness).

But I don't agree with 1. What we know about self and the world *can* hurt us, a great deal, particularly shortly after first coming to know it.

I'm saying that X consists of more than just Y, it consists of specific arrangements of Y. — VagabondSpectre

But every arrangement of Y consists solely of ... Y. No? (If an arrangement of Y is, in turn, a more deeply nested arrangement, this nested arrangement still consists solely of Y. And so on, all the way down.) Doesn't this propagate back all the way up so that it can be said that X consists solely of Y? And doesn't this equate to X is Y? Or X is in essence (ultimately) Y?

I know you were not intending to, but I want to interject and say that OCD can be a serious psychological disorder ... — darthbarracuda

Yes, you're right, I'll be more careful.

I was diagnosed with OCD 20 years ago. So when I refer to "my OCD" I know of what I speak. I like to talk about OCD with humor, but I might be in the minority on that. So your point is a good one.

Yes, mixing metaphors, that sounds right. But I'm not sure how else to get at what I'm trying to get at.

What is the essence of a marble statue?

1. Marble
2. Statue-ness
3. That which the statue depicts (bird in flight, mother and child, etc.)

To what extent is it valid to say, of *any* marble statue, that its essence is marble?

Likewise, to what extent is it valid to say of any human being that its essence is quarks and leptons? Or cells? Or energy? Or consciousness? (Or, if you're a Buddhist, anything at all?)

Apologies for dropping out of a conversation I started ... but the material started to go over my head at some point. I'm'a hafta read all the postings a few times and do some research to (possibly) catch up.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the thread. I was originally going to respond to each response, but that would be a little too OCD, even for me. So I just chose a few that rang a bell for me, I hope I didn't offend anyone by not responding to their msg.

And this is kind of what I'm trying to get at. If X consists solely of Y, does it make sense to say X *is* Y?
— rachMiel

Nope. — VagabondSpectre

You are saying that X consists solely of Y and X is Y are nontrivially different.

It's pretty clear what X consists of Y means.

So what does X is Y mean?

Let's say you've got two blocks of pure Carrara marble. One is carved into an exquisite sculpture by a master artist. The other is left untouched.

To what extent is it valid to say: They are simply different forms of marble. — rachMiel

I think it's true that they are two different forms or pieces of marble. All existents/objects are different from one another. With regards to resemblance, existents/objects are always on a degree/spectrum between similarity and difference and never identity. — numberjohnny5

To what extent is it 'valid' to say: Their forms are different, but in essence they are both just marble.

Wayfarer,

The OP was not clear ... or at least my intent behind it. Lemme try again:

To what extent can one reduce the 'essence' of an object to that of its fundamental parts?

(To paraphrase a well-known metaphor:) Let's say you have three solid gold rings. One is an old family heirloom, handed down through five generations. One is a simple flat band sold by a jewelry chain store. One is a striking piece of wild ring art made by a local craftsman.

To what extent are these three rings all just (different shapes of) gold?

I'd say that objects are identical to all the properties that comprise them. So the answer to your question is an identity relationship: X is Y. But bear in mind that all of the Ys are non-identical (i.e. nominalism), and the way they interact with each other makes X what it is. — numberjohnny5

Let's say you've got two blocks of pure Carrara marble. One is carved into an exquisite sculpture by a master artist. The other is left untouched.

To what extent is it valid to say: They are simply different forms of marble.

An apple would be a specific arrangement (or series of arrangements) of floom. It wouldn't be mere floom. — VagabondSpectre

And this is kind of what I'm trying to get at. If X consists solely of Y, does it make sense to say X *is* Y?

A diamond is carbon.
Michelangelo's David is marble.
A human being is quarks and leptons.