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why are people so resistant towards the idea of a universal metaphysics?
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>>25207915
Their ego gets invested in their particular school being the ultimate truth, so being told that this is just an approximation of a greater whole or truth can feel to the immature like a personal attack on the very core of their identity, which is the origin of their hatred in response.
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>>25207970
So: hylics, using sophistry, resist the idea of a universal metaphysics as explained by Guenon. Where did Guenon explain his idea of universal metaphysics? Who are the “hylics?” Are they an organised group? and what kind of sophistry do they use to resist universal metaphysics, and why?
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>>25207915
>>25207970
Rope around the neck, as tight as it goes.
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>>25208070
> So: hylics, using sophistry, resist the idea of a universal metaphysics as explained by Guenon.
Precisely.
>Where did Guenon explain his idea of universal metaphysics?
Throughout his published books, which are great reading material and are worth owning hard copies of, although you can easily find free PDFs of them online on google or libgen.
The metaphysical core of his work is his so-called ‘Metaphysics trilogy’ meant to be read in order
1) Man & His Becoming According to the Vedanta
2) The Symbolism of the Cross
3) The Multiple States of the Being
If you are serious about reading through those, it’s best to start with his first book “Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines” where he systematically defines the terms and concepts he uses in later groups. Throughout his other books though there is other material supporting his central thesis such as his books on symbolism convincingly cite a universal metaphysics reflected throughout various symbolisms.
Guenon is not the only exponent of a universal metaphysics, he is just perhaps the most influential and most widely respected. Guenon is really the only author in metaphysics/religion where even today you can easily find a bevy of people from disparate religions in disparate countries who still nonetheless identify as Guenonians who subscribe to his worldview while remaining Christian, Muslim, Hindus etc. If you go on X roughly half or more of the posts about him are not in English, a good amount of the discussion about him is in Arabic and Turkish.
>Who are the “hylics?”
Technically its a term for gnosticism that refers to the lowest spiritual grade or humans who have basically zero aptitude for spiritual matters, but its been repurposed as an amusing generic pejorative for anyone who says foolish things or advocates foolish beliefs about religion/metaphysics even if strictly speaking they may be capable of some spiritual insight and thus perhaps not a literal hylic but the next grade up.
>Are they an organised group?
No, although there may be small independent cells or friend groups organized around similar interests
>and what kind of sophistry do they use to resist universal metaphysics,
False equivalencies, strawmen, red herrings, non-sequiturs, ad hominems, the usual bag of tricks.
>and why?
The motives are different for each person. Some major categories of people who oppose Guenonian Traditionalism or similar Universal Metaphysics include: committed materialists, Neitzcheans, and people who are attached to dogmatically viewing one religion as true and attacking everything else (on /lit/ you see this most often with Christians and Buddhists who repeat the same sort of behaviors about this)
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>>25208118
I’m an advanced level aspirant with multiple confirmed siddhis
Attaining these miraculous digits praising Guenon (pbuh) was done by myself unintentionally as a spontaneous manifestation of my high level of attainment.
https://warosu.org/lit/thread/20222071#p20222222
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>>25208420
something a hylic would say
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>>25208458
The woo woo bullshit you are into are not serious metaphysics.
>During a seance in 1908, Guenon believed that Jacques de Molay (1243-1314 AD), the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, contacted him with instructions to re-establish the Order of the Temple, supplying him with a direct source of initiation.
>Sources: William Rory Dikson: Rene Guenon and Traditionalism in Handbook of Islamic Sects and Movements
>& Mark Sedgwick: Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century
The lack of logic used here >>25208173
is in the same spirit of perennial philosophy (pulled out of your ass).
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>>25208555
Dickerson’s book is just quoting Sedgewick’s statement in his book without citing any new or original information, and in either case there is zero documentation that Guenon himself ever claimed that or said it was true, its just a hearsay rumor based on conflating several things like conflating being briefly involved with a group with endorsing as true every claim it ever made. Sedgewick never cites any actual documentation that Guenon himself endorsed that claim.
Guenon himself in his own books explicitly rejects the possibility of seances as being in principle implausible and against traditional metaphysics and there is zero documentation that he ever claimed anything contrary to this. The one instance we have of Guenon on the record he is explicitly ruling out what you are accusing him, so that is just more typical rumor-mongering pearl-clutching ad hominem bullshit that hylics like to resort to when they have zero valid arguments.
You are trying to act like a Karen and basically police other people for discussing Guenon on the basis of made-up false rumors that Guenon himself debunks in his own words. You can’t get much more pathetic than that.
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>>25208569
> It's not real philosophy, nor is it serious theology
Metaphysics, in its universal sense, is not a branch of philosophy nor a refinement of theology, but the principial knowledge from which both derive their limited legitimacy. What is properly called philosophy proceeds discursively and remains confined to the domain of reason, which is itself only an individual faculty conditioned by form and distinction. Theology, for its part, expresses truths of a supra-individual order, yet it does so under the veil of dogmatic formulation and symbolic representation, necessarily adapted to the requirements of a given tradition and its adherents. In both cases, there is an element of truth, but also an inevitable restriction, since neither discursive reasoning nor exoteric formulation can exhaust what pertains to the unconditioned. Universal metaphysics alone concerns itself with principles as such, that is to say with that which is independent of all relativity and which determines, without being determined, every order of manifestation.
It follows that metaphysics neither contradicts philosophy nor opposes theology, but situates them in their exact place by restoring the continuity that links the contingent to the absolute. Where philosophy seeks unity through abstraction, metaphysics affirms it by identity; where theology posits transcendence through affirmation and negation, metaphysics knows it directly in the mode of intellectual intuition. This knowledge is not constructed, nor is it inferred, for it proceeds from the very nature of the intellect when it is no longer confined within individual limitations but participates in the universal order. Thus the apparent divergences between doctrines are resolved at their principial source, where all determinations are contained in a state of undivided possibility. To know metaphysics is therefore not to elaborate a system, but to recognize what is always already the case, and in that recognition the partial truths of philosophy and theology are not abolished but reintegrated into a totality that exceeds them without remainder.
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>>25208567
>Guenon himself debunks in his own words
Denial is not debunking.
>Metaphysics, in its universal sense, is not a branch of philosophy nor a refinement of theology...
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy, and "universal sense" is not synonymous with your own personal delusions.
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>>25208584
> holy jeetslop
Hinduism is a repository of primordial Hyperborean gnosis that has been a treasure of Indo-Aryans since antediluvian times, there are traces of this visible in how the descriptions of the star and sun/moon movements at Mount Meru in the Mahabharata and in the Vedas are consistent with what one observes when standing at and nearby the North Pole. The primordial Aryan gnosis in the Upanishads goes all the way back to these ancient masters living in near-polar longitudes in Hyperborea before the Younger Dryas made it uninhabitable and they migrated southwards before dispersing over the next 12,000-15,000 years and give rise through their progeny to the Europeans, Iranians and Indians. Some of these sub-groups retain more of this ancient Aryan gnosis in the modern day than others.
When one learns to discern metaphysical principles beyond the form that expounds them, one can see beyond the foreign, and sometimes unsettling or opaque forms of the Hindu religion to discern the profound principles beyond the form. As a western man of European descent, studying eastern metaphysics is an act of reprariation, a return home to the source from which the Aryans drew their primordial wisdom, an ancient memory reawakens within one’s blood, an intuitive direct realization that transcends all moralizing and dogmas.
With that said, from a strictly Guenonian perspective, every traditional religious form that retains initiatory lineages teaching traditional methods of liberation is complete-in-itself as a valid means of re-integrating with the universal principle including non-Aryan ones like Sufi Islam, although one can benefit by studying the literature of multiple traditions even while following one, and many a white man finds to their surprise that once they learn to discern the principles themselves they find they have an immediate affinity with the eastern forms that expound a liberating and glorious Hyperborean Gnosis, the mere knowledge of which is like divine ambrosia.
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>>25207915
I think its a deeply ignorant way of looking at philosophical traditions and how they historically evolved.
Most non-indian philosophers selected by the perrenialists can genealogically be traced back to the same Platonic tradition, so of course their ideas are going to be similar. This covers essentially all Christian branches, which mostly stem from Plotinus into Augustine/Origen into the rest of Christianity, and Islamic branches mostly through the 'Theology of Aristotle' text foundational to Islamic philosophy and later Sufism that was actually a summary of Plotinus' Enneads again.
The Indian traditions are in turn all based on the conceptual basis elaborated by the Upanishads, which then branch off into the various schools of Advaita/Buddhism/Jainism, which all reject/reinterpet parts of it in different ways.
Whether there is some near-eastern connection between both these traditions is not clear, but assuming there isnt, that essentially means you just got two philosophical traditions with kinda sorta similar ideas about transcendental unity as long as you kinda squint and ignore the differences and translate the philosophical jargon of each tradition favorably enough.
You then kinda mush those two specific traditions together and pick and choose a little bit and then claim there is some fundamental core universal to all philosophy (ignoring of course, all philosophy that does not fit that mold) and voila you got a universal metaphysics.
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>>25208582
>>25208711
I think Islam handles it perfectly there is an unknowable, secret, hidden knowledge. But Sufism handles it terribly breaking into groups of 5,000 to 10,000 members to acquire hidden knowledge is against the principles of obtaining knowledge. Real knowledge should be spread, diffused and shared not behind a charlatan. Develop your intellect and pursue abstract thought but skip the middle man and go straight to god. This hierarchy of holy men are not holy in the slightest. An average sufi teacher costs 5 grand a year and you promote it! You don't need holy men to learn and you don't need their skin, or voice, or prayers they're equal to you.
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>>25208718
who says they have to be genealogically connected, and do you know what you're talking about even? moreover, whether greek, christian, egyptian or indic, they're all different cultural HERMENEUTICS. the substance is the same. different hermeneutics and symbols, same metaphysics, same methodologies (via negative = netti netti, for instance). it's dead simple when you make that discovery. I am referring to you saying 'squint and they look the same'. you're just hearing words, not understanding what they're actually saying.
it's lazy and unthinking
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>>25210508
I am saying they mostly are genealogically related, not that they have to be.
My problem with perrenialism is pretending there is something profound about this core shared between all these schools when of course they do because the majority share a genealogical, traceable textual tradition.
Arguably the only noteworthy thing is that (parts of) the Indian tradition and the Platonic tradition independently arrived at very similar conclusions, although the same could be done for atomism, with the Epicurians and the Vaisheshika, but these shared philosophical insights are usually kind of ignored by perennialists.
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>>25208718
This. I think if you're a, how shall I put this, 'spiritual seeker' then they will look pretty similar. But then again you do not need to read philosophy, eastern or western, to think 'the universe is one, I am only a drop in the ocean, I should practice loving-kindness'. A lot of the time it's just a bit of pretentiousness to spice up what is really a narcissistic form of self-help. I would say the same about the gnostics, the occultists, all of those fags should be banned to /his/.
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>>25208582
>Metaphysics, in its universal sense, is not a branch of philosophy nor a refinement of theology, but the principial knowledge from which both derive their limited legitimacy
Bullshit, it's *primarily* philosophy. This is just postmodernist word-fumbling.
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>>25207915
Process-Relationalism is the true metaphysics that unifies all the modern sciences and domains of knowledge under a common interpretive framework.
Change is the nature of all things and the metaphysical nature of change is expressed in one way as the fundamental theorem of calculus. The dynamic between integration and differentiation described is mirrored by a philosophical romance between being and becoming.
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>>25210515
>My problem with perrenialism is pretending there is something profound about this core shared between all these schools when of course they do because the majority share a genealogical, traceable textual tradition.
that is the problem, though. you're stating this, BUT you aren't aware of what it is that the 'core' is itself. you are not meant to believe that the 'core' being 'profound' is purely on account of their philosophical outputs' similarity and parallels. because then it would be just that, belief. which is religion, not metaphysics. you're meant to understand the core itself. and you don't need to do any comparative work in order to come to that truth, just the right methodologies.
>the same could be done for atomism, with the Epicurians and the Vaisheshika, but these shared philosophical insights are usually kind of ignored by perennialists
no, because that is not the point. atomism as a 'doctrine of ultimate philosophy' does not share its respective terms and range with perennial METAPHYSICS. since atomism is a PHYSICS. under atomistic discourse, what is beyond physics (i.e. that which can be spoken about metaphysically) is hopelessly, definitely obscure. atomism won't give you an account (viz. λόγος) of coming-into-being and passing-away, for instance. what it will do is generate data ABOUT coming-into-being and passing-away, which DESCRIBES it, but won't EXPLAIN it. the reason being, again, that it simply does not share its respective terms and range with metaphysics. people just don't understand this. and you certainly don't. it's the same exact story with particle physics.
I suggest you give Coomaraswamy's article 'On the Pertinence of Philosophy' a read if you want to understand the issue a little bit better, it ain't that long
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>>25210873
the single question that breaks process philosophy:
>becoming WHAT?
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>>25208173
Where did you receive initiation?
>>25208711
Love seeing a meme I made pop up here. Used to run an Instagram page "Evolian_Dialectics". It was a very spiritually immature period but one that was necessary. It feels as if a lifetime has passed since then.
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>>25208949
A sheikh that asks for money in exchange for knowledge is no true sheikh.
>You don't need holy men to learn and you don't need their skin, or voice, or prayers they're equal to you.
Perhaps it may seem this way from the outside. Then when you meet a true teacher, it is as if you are gazing on a ray of the Divine itself, manifest as a human being. Their mannerisms, their movements, their speech, all carrying with it a grace that is blissful to merely witness. An eye contact that is both primordially terrifying in its capacity to penetrate your ego, yet so tender, so loving, a love that is freed from any material entanglements. Over time, you realize the teacher is not there to teach a doctrine. They are there to simply Be, and by their Being, they become a symbol of the path itself, a center of gravity pulling you ever closer to God to the degree in which you open your own heart to the very Love in which they transmit. That is the point of initiation, that is the point of a spiritual guide. Anyone can learn a doctrine and parrot it's dogma. That's not what a spiritual guide teaches. They teach something that cannot actually be taught.
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>>25211470
>it is as if you are gazing on a ray of the Divine itself, manifest as a human being. Their mannerisms, their movements, their speech, all carrying with it a grace that is blissful to merely witness. An eye contact that is both primordially terrifying in its capacity to penetrate your ego, yet so tender, so loving…
Get a load of this fag.
>They teach something that cannot actually be taught.
Hahahahahahahaha
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>>25211455
I think that everyone interested in esotericism has an Evola phase sooner or later. Even if I didn't like his worldview, I think that what he did published within the UR group was one of the best modern resource for studying these subjects.
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>>25211542
>The online Traditionalist fears this question the most,
???
Nobody fears that question, is it primarily Guenon-readers who are the most helpful and willing to help people out with information and recommendations on such questions.
The 4 main schools of Tibetan Buddhism all have a presence in most large western countries, and with a little digging you can find a teacher from one of them to initiate you, even chatgpt will spit out a list of teachers/branches in your country that offer initiations.
Multiple Sufi order also have official branches in western countries with their own centers with teachers that will initiate you, the most common of which is the Nashqbandi.
Tantric Hinduism isn’t present in the west and recruiting in an organizational capacity like Buddhism is but you can still seek out and find initiation by individual teachers who are in the west, for example there is a Sri Vidya Temple in New York, and Sthanesthwar Timsalsena’s foundation offers initiation into Sarvamnaya after completing a course of studies, those are both non-dual Tantric traditions that are fully open to initiating westerners. One can also travel to Nepal/India and be initiated into these tantric doctrines there as well.
There are also things like Chan Buddhism and Sikhism which are also present in the west and give initiations.
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>>25210759
>What do I need to read to become this kind of alt woke?
Notice how a post talking about Europeans studying Aryan metaphysics gets accused of being ‘alt woke’, a shameless substitution for the lately much-mocked “woke right”, a favorite term of Jews trying to berate white westerners for not supporting ZOG. You see the same instinctual hostility manifested at the slightest suggestion of someone leaving the plantation to explore non-Abrahamic Aryan spiritual traditions.
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>>25211542
It depends, firstly, on which tradition you're already rooted in. If you are Christian, it will be difficult and I have no advice to offer, for it was something I sought and could not find. It is unfortunate that Christendom put many of their mystics to death over the course of several inquisitions and the end result is that the esoteric dimension of Christianity is more or less absent, or at least highly elusive, in the modern day.
Other user who responded has relatively good advice if you want to go the Buddhist/Hindu route.
Sufism is likely your best option though. There are tariqas all over the West. It is also true that "fake sheikhs" have proliferated alongside New Ageism. The biggest problem that a new aspirant will encounter in this regard is discerning this because you being new on the path, you will not be able to tell immediately. However, what Sufism has passed down over the centuries is primarily the Dhikr rite, usually coupled with a daily Wird. Dhikr is something that you should practice under the guidance of a sheikh, and even if the sheikh isn't fully legitimized, Dhikr is something that has so many correspondences with other mystical orders that you will at least have a starting point.
For example, whether a true sheikh or a fake sheikh tells you "500 repititions of LailahaillaLlah", the end result is the essentially the same: you will be invoking that Name daily, contemplating on its inner essence, opening up deeper levels of the Heart. Ideally, your sheikh will then help you assimilate the fruits of that labor in a deeper way.
Also, if they are asking for money, they are a fraud.
There is a certain aura that an authentic sheikh has, one that feels intoxicating to be in the presence. This often causes the ego to recoil and put up walls. This only adds to the confusion of the aspirant initially. Trust in God, trust in the Heart, be sincere with your intentions. It doesn't make logical sense, but doing these things as you seek a teacher will put you in the right place.
>>25211558
>The online Traditionalist fears this question the most
He has a point. I've been invited to many of these so-called "Traditionalist" online communities that usually congregate on Discord servers. In every case, it is brilliant and intelligent individuals that cannot get over the Western tendency to systematize everything. Being so concerned with the extraneous details surrounding Truth, they end up splintering it, constantly debating over topics that are by their nature incapable of being resolved in the domain of logic.
I am unsure if you are OP. But if this is you:
>>25208173
I am not here to call into question whatever gifts may have been transmitted to you. But I must admit it's strange that an individual who calls themselves an "advanced" in the path is concerned with presenting their spiritual state in this way.
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>>25211542
Oh, and one last word of advice. When you get there, forget everything you have ever read. You can "keep" the essentials. But there comes a time when you must let go of your former supports. This includes the work of Guenon and he himself hinted at this many times. It is paradoxical, but that which oriented you in the proper direction can threaten to destroy the compass if you cling to it like a doctrine. I wish this was told to me earlier in the path. Guenon for some of us was so profoundly influential that it becomes an attachment. But eventually, an aspirant must put the books down, those books which aided in advancement but eventually created an illusory "image" of what authentic spirituality is and should be, an image that was constructed from outside. It is but another trick of the ego in a shockingly advanced form.
This is not to say you stop studying or never read Guenon after receiving initiation. You should continue to do those things, and the words will pop off the page in a way they hadn't before. What I'm saying is you must let go of the associations that gathered around such works, as they are yet another barrier.
Peace to your heart and wishing you all the best in your aspirations.
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>>25211470
I think this is the state men might have perceived prophet Muhammed but it is only an illusion or the highest form of friendship. I think there are folk heroes that live amongst the world but the Sufi leader is a sociable, extrovert person that profits off his charisma it isn't the only sign of virtue just a purely social virtue with hundreds of different virtue signs that compose this world. Choosing one sign of virtue is blinding yourself from all else that's is why books are needed to acquire all the types. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses in Islam and the guy is blinding you.
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>>25211446
This question requires an account of the history of becoming.
The very early universe was too hot or dense for even atoms to form, and interactions were very simple because of it. Around 400,000 years after the big bang the universe had expanded and cooled enough for atoms to form, which made possible the formation of stars and galaxies. This was a creative threshold where the universe radically changed to allow for vastly more possibilities. The first stars forged the heavier elements of which rocky planets like Earth are mostly comprised of, which made possible for the emergence of life and all its possibilities. This in turn allowed for the emergence of consciousness and all its possibilities.
The trend is clear: the universe is a creative process that grasps beyond its immediate realizations towards novel possibilities wherever it can. It has a famous trend of "increasing complexity" which means "the significance of elements to each other." It is a community of co-creators comprised of all types of entities: an ecosystem. The universe is not a deterministic machine, as it continually produces what was previously impossible for it to realize.
Every human impulse to create, explore, discover and love is an extension of the primordial creative impulse of the universe. Human curiosity isn't a fluke of evolution that has mere "fitness value," it comes from the deepest nature of existence.
The most primordial of relationships is that od integration and differentiation - cumulative and instantaneous change. To imagine their full significance from a human perspective requires a bit of anthropomorphicization - to imagine them as eternal lovers. They are mutually necessary - for the purpose of each other, finding dialectical fulfillment in each other.
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>>25212062
>>25210873
Retroactively refuted by the illustrious sheikh Abd al-Wāḥid Yaḥiā (pbuh) and Parmenides (pbuh)
>Indeed there is an exact correspondence between a world where everything seems to be in a state of mere ‘becoming’, leaving no place for the changeless and the permanent, and the state of mind of men who find all reality in this ‘becoming’, thus implicitly denying true knowledge as well as the object of that knowledge, namely transcendent and universal principles. One can go even further and say that it amounts to the negation of all real knowledge whatsoever, even of a relative order, since, as we have shown above, the relative is unintelligible and impossible without the absolute, the contingent without the necessary, change without the unchanging, and multiplicity without unity; ‘relativism’ is self-contradictory, for, in seeking to reduce everything to change, one logically arrives at a denial of the very existence of change; this was fundamentally the meaning of the famous arguments of Zeno of Elea
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>>25208711
jaideep vance followed the principles of hyperborean gnosis when he decided to put a mary statue at the center of his statue collection because he expected mary to give him more izzat than ganeesh. usha doesnt expect as much izzat from mary, and the kids will chose their statue collections when theyre grown
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>>25212249
Traditional metaphysics also refutes the more extreme types of process philosophy (there is only change and zero stable identity/continuity) on the basis of our own immediate lived experience, which is ironic since process philosophy often rhetorically relies on claims of explaining experience more meaningfully.
…
Across several strands of classical Indian and related philosophical thought, a recurring line of reasoning maintains that the very intelligibility of changing experience presupposes a continuously present and non-altering principle of awareness. In Advaita Vedānta, Śaṅkara and later Advaitins argue that the succession of mental states cannot be coherently accounted for unless there is a single, self-revealing consciousness that remains identical across all modifications of thought. The underlying pressure of the argument is often framed in a reductio-like form: if awareness itself were subject to the same flux as its contents, then no relation of “before” and “after” could be secured, since the supposed knower of earlier and later states would itself dissolve into discontinuity. In such a scenario, memory, recognition, and even the judgment that change has occurred would become unintelligible, because there would be no stable principle that could unify distinct cognitive moments as belonging to a single experiential stream. A structurally similar point appears in Sāṃkhya-Yoga, where Patañjali’s tradition maintains that puruṣa, as pure witnessing consciousness, must remain unaffected by the modifications of citta, for otherwise the very distinction between mental fluctuation and its awareness would collapse, rendering liberation and even ordinary discernment incoherent.
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>>25212302
A related but more metaphysically expansive articulation is found in nondual Kashmir Śaiva thought, where Abhinavagupta and allied authors describe consciousness as prakāśa, self-luminous manifestation, inseparable from its power of manifestation yet not reducible to any particular manifested form. Here the implicit reductio is directed against the idea that discrete cognitive events could illuminate themselves without a continuously present field of manifestation, for if each thought were entirely self-contained and self-aware only in its own moment, there would be no basis for the synthesis of experience into a unified awareness of succession, and thus no coherent account of the felt continuity of consciousness. In Neoplatonic philosophy, especially in Plotinus, a parallel structure emerges in the claim that temporal succession and discursive thought require grounding in the timeless activity of Nous, since otherwise the intelligibility of change would be dispersed into irrecoverable multiplicity. Finally, in Suhrawardī’s Illuminationist philosophy, knowledge is understood as the presence of light to itself, and a comparable reductio is employed against the denial of such self-manifesting luminosity: if cognition were not grounded in an ever-present illuminating reality, then neither the appearance of objects nor their ordered succession could be accounted for, since what is entirely without light cannot be the condition for the disclosure of anything at all.
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>>25212249
Zeno's paradox is resolved with calculus. An infinite number of subdivisions can have a finite sum. Motion is modeled not as a sequence of completed "stages," but a continuous function.
“Becoming” (instantaneous change) is intelligible only because there is a stable structure. This structure of the "power of the past," the integration of history up to the present moment. This integration is not unchanging; each new moment adds to it.
A process philosophy that considers only instantaneous change without its dialectical relation to cumulative change is just as false as being-in-itself.
Modern physics was born from calculus, and calculus is indispensable in both quantum mechanics and relativity. It should come as no surprise that calculus describes a more fundamental reality than either - the nature of change itself.
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>>25212305
The fundamental theorem of calculus also described the architecture of conscious perception. Our experience of the present moment (sense-experience) is the differential mode. Our experience of temporal duration is narrative in nature and is the integral mode (stories of cumulative change over time.) Neither of these two perspectives is more "real" or prior to each other - they are mutually necessary.
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>>25212307
To maintain coherence in the understanding of becoming, it is first necessary to distinguish what belongs to formal representation from what pertains to principial reality. The resolution of Zeno-like difficulties by means of infinitesimal calculus, while valid within the order of quantitative analysis, does not in any way touch the question that these paradoxes implicitly raise. A sum of indefinitely divisible terms, however precisely defined, remains a construction of thought within the domain of number and extension, and therefore cannot account for motion itself as a lived or ontological fact. What is thereby achieved is not an explanation of change but the translation of change into a homogeneous schema in which discontinuities are simply re-described in terms of limits. The paradox is thus displaced rather than resolved, for it continues to presuppose that what is essentially successive can be adequately captured by an aggregation of static determinations, none of which contains within itself the principle of passage.
In a similar manner, the idea that becoming is intelligible only through cumulative structure, or that the integration of successive states constitutes a sufficient account of continuity, remains confined to the same quantitative order. To posit a “power of the past” as something progressively accumulated is still to remain within the domain of succession, and therefore within that which is precisely in need of explanation. No sum of successive moments, however refined its formal expression, can yield what it presupposes in order to be understood, namely the unity that makes succession intelligible as such. From this standpoint, it is equally inadequate to regard the success of mathematical physics as evidence that calculative representation reveals the nature of change itself. The efficacy of such methods pertains solely to prediction and measurement, which depend upon abstraction from qualitative reality, not upon access to its principle. What is thereby described is not becoming in its essence but a symbolic transcription of its quantitative aspect, and to confuse the transcription with what it represents is to invert the order in which knowledge must proceed from principle to manifestation rather than from manifestation to principle.
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>>25212322
You are missing the point: using mathematical analogies like differentiation and integration as descriptive metaphors for experience as a kind of response or argument does not actually address the logical pressure behind the claim that a continuously present, self-revealing awareness is required for the intelligibility of succession. Instead, it redescribes succession in structural terms without clarifying what makes any structure present to itself as a unified field of appearance, the very possibility of which has already been shown to be unintelligible without a continuously present awareness or luminous principle which does not change *as such*.
The core argument is not that experience must be temporally unchanging in its content, but that any account of temporal distinction presupposes a non-temporal condition of disclosure. When one says that the “differential mode” corresponds to momentary sense-experience and the “integral mode” corresponds to narrative synthesis, both are still modes of being known.
The dialectical pressure then becomes: what accounts for the unity in which these modes are jointly apprehended as modes at all?
If you reply that they are mutually necessary perspectives within experience, this still leaves unexplained the fact that both perspectives are simultaneously present to a single field of awareness.
Without that irreducible unity, the distinction between “mode,” “perspective,” and “relation” itself loses its grounding, since all of them presuppose a non-fragmented locus of manifestation in which differentiation and synthesis can both appear as such.
From this perspective, the logical issue is not that the mathematical analogy is false, but that it is categorially insufficient. It explains how one may model temporal structuring within experience, but not how experience is given as a unified, self-present reality (such as our lived experience actually in fact is) in which such structuring is intelligible.
This is implicitly relocating the problem into representational form while leaving untouched the question of what makes representation, succession, and synthesis jointly manifest, which was actually the whole purpose of the argument you were replying to in the first place.
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>>25212325
>>25212351
Continuity is not constructed from disconnected snapshots glued together afterward; it is defined in terms of structure of change itself. A function being continuous at a point already encodes the idea that no "jump" occurs there in any neighborhood of arbitrarily small scale. This is not a post hoc translation of motion into stasis, it is a characterization of what it means for change to be smooth.
The claim that summing successive moments can never yield unity presupposes that unity must be something extra, unable to be derived from structure. A trajectory in classical mechanics is not a pile of instants, it is a solution to differential equations that bind all instants together in lawlike structure.
Integration (cumulative change) and differentiation (instantaneous change) are both required for intelligibility; they make each other intelligible. This is the "irreducible unity" you are looking for. Experience is an ongoing integration process, not a static state of "being jointly present." Memory, prediction, attention and senses continuously update your self-model. The sense of "unity" we experience is the stabilized output of these dynamic interactions, not evidence of some extra-temporal point of disclosure.
The fundamental theorem of calculus is insufficient in itself for unity in the broad sense, what is needed is to integrate the history of the entire universe, and it is only recently that we have been able to do this with any clarity. A description of such an integration is given here: >>25212062
The picture also describes a very similar concept from George Allen's "Whitehead's Radically Temporalist Metaphysics" where he attempts to reconcile Whitehead's philosophy by removing the atemporal elements and replacing them with temporal elements. "The Ultimate Community" is the "tapestry of existence," a community of co-creators. It can also be imagined as the concept of ecosystem extended to the metaphysical (Ecosystems ecology is inherently process-relational.) It is a sense of universal kinship, almost animistic in flavor (as all entities are co-creators regardless of being conscious or aconscious, living or nonliving, real or imaginary.) The universe as self-creating "art," an unbounded creative process.
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>>25212307
No, you can't resolve a logical paradox with calculus. Finity never equals infinity no matter how much math jargon you dress it up in, they are by definition mutually exclusive. In the first place, logic is prior to math. You can't do math without fundamentally presupposing logical truths, why does 1+1=2 for example? Because it has an identity, because it can't equal 2 and 3 at the same time, and because 1+1=2 either is true or it is not true. So if this construct we use to map reality, with it's internally consistent rules, doesn't follow logic, and thus, doesn't actually reflect reality, then it might as well be schizobabble. The fact people evoke calculus or quantum mechanics like magic incantations in order to explain away logical contradictions is just proof that these fields of study have become pseudo-mystical cults, and scientists/mathematicians the priests.