Plants are not Dasein

Last night we went for a barbecue at Amida's. It was a nice Memorial Day party, with a laid-back group of Anglos, Africans and Latinos. Imagine an exuberant subtropical garden with dashes of reddish lights coming from behind the vegetation. Uttered words linger in Babelian, fused with the beats of late-60's rock music. There is a curated selection of imported beers with vegetarian hamburgers and other tidbits. The main attraction? Ami's garden.

Ami was kind to give us a "mini-tour". Flashlight in hand, he walked us through the winding straights of his garden -more like an urban forest amidst Miami's Little Havana, as it appears from the outside. At each stop of the way he would nimbly lean over and show the given specimen. He'd explain its Latin root and go over provenance, care, growth process, local climate conditions, aesthetic preference, etc. Meanwhile he compared the banal, the exotic and the endangered. You could tell that he knew his plants. Suddenly the garden had become a wonderful, rich-in-detail, reservoir of pure "in-itself" beingness.

What's first, plants or Dasein?

Emergence: A star is born

Here is my sketch of the emergence* of a star from t1 ---> t4. At each step of the way, the star gets bigger and brighter. Emergence becomes obvious at t4, when a new process (nucleosynthesis) gives rise to new elements not present before (after t3, the star would by itself get smaller and brighter). Why does this happen? The approximate picture we have is based on quantum mechanics and relativity.
________________ 
*I've been trying to present a sketchy picture of emergence, to get out of the reductionist physicalist model that talking about consciousness is just talking about brains. If you want to understand the problem of freedom vis-a-vis predeterminism, you have to look no further than this problem. I suggested to you that the mind can be seen as irreducible to physical processes. Under this picture, the mind is still caused by the brain, but exhibits properties that are non-reductive, such as intentionality.

Post you comment here

Who said students cannot crack the mysteries of the universe?

The news is here.

Midterm Exam

Our midterm has 2 parts: Identification of terms (just writing down the meaning of the term) and one brief essay question. For the essay question, pick a theme or subtheme amongst all that we've studied in class. Prepare it. For the test, be prepared to write down a brief mini-essay (sort of one page) in which you will bring the facts of the matter + your personal opinion.

For the terms: here is the list for the Midterm Exam.

If you have any questions, post them here.

Dhyana's mystery

Rethinking our last class: pris de conscience!

 Elizabeth Magill, Lower Lough, 2006.

There are a few things I want to come back to. One is Rosa's question of the value of samadhi and the questions on what meditation is good for (if I recall correctly). First, keep in mind that Yoga is a methodology, a HOW TO manual for spirituality. This is not a set of formulas one debates trying to find apriori reasons. It's more knowing-as-doing, doing-as-feeling.

To find out about Yoga's validity one has to try it.*

There are at least two ways of looking at this: You don't accept a whole model but take some of its parts, or you reinterpret the parts. I propose the latter. Let me address some of these concepts as I see them:

 Elizabeth Magill, Parlous Land, 2006.

1. Reincarnation is repetition. Is repetition the same throughout? The idea is that (R)eality is a ground of reverberating intensity. If that ground is difference (perpetual differentiation) then repetition cannot be of the same, but only of the different, i.e, the renewal of the different.

2. Purification is pris de conscience! (i.e., taking charge). As in quantum physics where the observation alters the result of the experiment, purification takes one's disturbing one's -ongoing- movie. 

 Jeff Wall, After Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, 1999.

We live at a par of our unfolding. So, as the moving-picture plays, there is a possibility to see it -AS IF- we were outside it. This position of "being-outside" as "being-inside" means that you can interact with yourself. This is what the yogis call niyama.

You have two options: (a) like so many people, you live inside the movie and just let the movie play (doing nothing), or (b) you choose to possibly change aspects of your own story as it unfolds.  

3. Attachment is as difficult as it is obvious. We are amidst a raja vortex of forces. We're matter, only in a high state of complexity. And matter craves matter. Yet, MIND being an emergent property of matter, can sort of detach itself from matter. This is the difference between sattvas and tamas.

Elizabeth Magill, Oncoming, 2006. 

4. Attainments. Now comes the big one: What is samadhi? Riding with the wind.

Finding oneself (being-one-with- ______). Of course, that is too general to make sense. What's key is that this finding of oneself needs to have a goal. Pursuing the goal is a way to do it. **

We must not forget Patanjali's caveat about samadhi which is a point he shares with Nietzsche's own idea of rapture: "... the path to one's own heaven always leads through the voluptuousness of one's own hell."

This is why Patanjali is so careful about attachments. If the voyage into the horizon of the infinite fills us with a "thrill," this is because something is glimpsed in samadhi which is in excess of the human, something that is "too much." A voyage into the eye of the maelstrom: Nobody can do it for you.

5. Dhyana asks: Why not thinking about non-thinking?

See you tomorrow with more nonsense.
______________
*Only then, as the French say, en connaissance de cause one can say it's not good. But, is chess (as good as it is) good for everybody? **In keeping with Buddhism's central teaching of pluralism that there are many ways to heaven, we can say that Yoga is another way.

Is pseudo-talk worse than bad-talk?

A propos of clean & dirty:

Art-writing is loaded with so much shit that it takes over political babbling. What is it? Tropes of banality are displayed along with descriptive bits to conflate fact and fiction. Soon rhetorical inflation grows to the point of fatuous, pathological farce. 

More @ Miami Bourbaki.

What's the matter? Evidence doesn't matter

@ Miami Bourbaki: 

The time has come and the chosen families get ready for the moment of ecstasy: What do I wear to the Olympus? Are there naked people in heaven? To whom I leave the house and the beamer? Should I take my cell phone just in case I can make one last call to my stubbornly sinful girlfriend on earth?

Patanjali sutras (excerpts and comments)

Chapter 1: SAMADHI

I,8: Unreal cognition is the knowing of the unreal, possessing a form not its own.
Comment: Removal of wrong impressions. Egoism, attachment, aversion and love of life are afflictions.Nescience (adidya) affects the purusha. Mind is not identified with purusha, but with its opposing principle: pakriti. The purusha is not mind, but pure absolute consciousness.

I,30: Disease, languor, indecision, carelessness, sloth, sensuality, mistaken notion, missing the point, instability, these causing distractions are obstacles.
Comment: Disease is the disturbance of the equilibrium of the humors. Languor is the indisposition of the mind to work. Indecision is the notion touching both sides of the question. Carelessness is want of resort to the means of trance. Sloth is inertia of the mind and body upon heaviness. Sensuality is the desire upon objects. The self is confused with the activity of its instrument (buddhi) and the other operative psychic faculties. This is the cause of pain, confusion and the frustration of life. Yoga seeks to provide disciplines and techniques of inner control whereby liberation of this spiritual reality from its confinement can be brought about.

I,33: By cultivating habits of friendliness, compassion, complacency and detachment towards happiness, misery virtue and vice, the mind becomes pure.

I,34: Optionally, by the expulsion and retention of breath. Retention is Pranayama, the lengthening of the duration of the stay of the air inside the lungs.

I,36: Or by meditating according to one’s predilection.

Comment: When the mind becomes free from memories or verbal convention, of trance-consciousness, devoid of the options of inferential and verbal cognition, the object makes its appearance in the mind in its own nature. The transformation is called “Distinct” (nirvitarka).

3: Distinctive (wordless) thought transformation is that in which the mind shines as the object alone, (with the cessation of memory), and is as it were devoid of its own nature.

Chapter 2: ON THE PRACTICE OF YOGA

II,1: Purificatory action, study and making God the motive of action, IS the Yoga of action.
Comment: Yoga is a practice in the sphere of living creatures. It cannot be attained by one not be willing to change (purificatory action).

II,3: The afflictions are Nescience, Egoism, Attachment, Aversion and Love of Life.
Comment: Nescience is unrreal cognition (i.e., taking the unreal for the real). That is to say, confusing the root of the problem and its solution.

II,7: Attachment is the sequential attraction to pleasure.
Comment: Yama (or restraint) is a curb or bridle; a way of indicating spiritual control which the self needs to cure the aimless wandering about in the meaningless world of change. We as humans are diverted by a variety of stimuli in every direction. If one abandones inner control, if one cannot resist the variety of attractions and repulsions one feels daily, one is driven back-and-forth between opposites. There is a need for restraint amidst a world of idle distraction: The desire to possess, the thirst for pleasures and its means, preceded by a remembrance of the pleasures in one who has enjoyed it

II,28: The means of the destruction of ignorance is by continued practice of discriminating judgment.
Comment: This means to divide. One must learn to isolate the primordial principles, primal nature and spirit from one another, so that the spirit can exist in its own radiance.

II,52: The consequence of this regulation of breathing is stated: Then the covering that veils the light is destroyed.

II, 53: The mind is now ready for inner concentration.
Comment: After posture and breathing comes the third and last of the specifically Yogic processes by which the entire man is prepared for the development of a higher mental consciousness leading to the liberation experience.

II,54: Withdrawal is the alienation of the senses from their proper objects and their consequent functioning according to the activities of the mind.
Comment: This process entails a cutting off of the distractions of the mind from the dispersion of the senses.

CHAPTER 3: ON ATTAINMENTS

III,1: Concentration is the steadfastness of the mind.
Comment: Dharana, the mind and a total fixation on a single object. In this phase the person is brought to an absolute unity. The focus of attention can be the space between the eyebrows, the tip of the nose, or the tongue, the lotus of the heart, the navel, or some other object. This forces the mind to be fixed, seated as it were in total stillness.It means becoming fast in the navel, the lotus of the heart, the light in the brain, the fore-part of the nose, the fore-part of the tongue or by means of the modifications only in any other object only.

III,19: Of the notions, the knowledge of other minds.

III,24: The knowledge of the subtle, the veiled, the remote, by directing light of higher sense-activity toward them.

III,30: By mastering of Samana comes effulgence.

III,45. The perfection of the body consists in beauty, grace, strenght and adamantine hardness.

III,47. Thence comes quickness as of mind, un-instrumental perception and mastery over pradhana.
Comment: Meaning power to control over all the modifications of the pakriti.

III,49. The seed of bondage having been destroyed by desirelessness even for that, comes absolute independence.

III,50. When the presiding-deities invite, there should be no attachment and no smile of satisfaction, contact with undesirable being again possible.
Comment: This is the moment when everything can be lost or everything gained; it is the moment when the superior powers are themselves to be rejected, even as the visions and ecstatic experiences of the saints are to be rejected since they are manifestations of the divine but do not themselves constitute the divine experience. To rest in these accomplishments is ultimately no better and possibly worse than the activities he or she came from initially.

Raja Yoga

Photo: (Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa)

1- Raja Yoga is concerned with the mind, its modifications and its control. There are five states of the mind - Kshipta, Mudha, Vikshipta, Ekagra and Niruddha.

The mind is always running in various directions; its rays are scattered. This is the Kshipta state. Sometimes it is self-forgetful, it is full of foolishness (Mudha). When one tries to practice concentration, the mind seems to get concentrated but gets distracted often. This is Vikshipta. But with prolonged and repeated practice of concentration again and again, and repeating Lord's Name, it becomes one-pointed. This is called the Ekagra state. Later on, it is fully controlled (Niruddha).

It is ready to be dissolved in the Supreme Purusha, when one gets into Samadhi. 2- Raja Yoga is an exact science. It aims at controlling all thought-waves or mental modifications. 3- The 8 limbs are: Yama: Self-restraint, Niyama: Commitments to practice, such as study and devotion, Āsana: The integration of mind and body through physical activity, Pranayama: Regulation of breath leading to integration of mind and body, Pratyahara: Abstraction of the senses, withdrawal of the senses of perception from their objects, Dharana: Concentration, one-pointedness of mind and Dhayana: Meditation (quiet activity leading to samadhi), Samadhi: The quiet state of blissful awareness, superconscious state.

For those of you interested in fallacies

Here is an interesting list of fallacies by Dr. Michael Labossiere. Click the different ones and look at the examples.

The aporia of gain: A footnote to yesterday's class

Good class! Hard questions coming from all over. One would like to be as smart to answer all questions satisfactorily at the snap of one's fingers. But as a French rapper would say: N'est pas possible, sommes faillibles.

1- We didn't have time to address meditation and what is good for. We'll catch up.

2- To Emily's great question: What is "gain" good for? There is good and bad gain. Then, there's epiphenomenal gain. Madoff's is bad gain. Why? It cashes in by objectifying people (that was his intention all along). Now, how do we play "gain"? Better yet, when do we "gain"? Let's problematize: Gain, in itself, is empty (for it to be gain it has to be "in relation to" and "for someone").

Do I always gain when -I think- I gain? Certainly not. I can gain in the economic exchange and loose in the long run. Example: Wall Street's idea of financial capitalism, which seemed to destroy the very idea of what a good investment is in Classical Economy (i.e., bankers playing against the solvency of their own banks).

So, when do I "really" gain?

It's here that yajna comes in as sovereignty (which points to just a different exchange; only a virtuous one). The best gain is to give it up. This is when studying for a test and yet failing comes in (or meaning well with an action and yet, being misunderstood). Failing is loosing (a form of un-gain), but only if we see it from the POV of exchange economy. Studying for the test is what one should do to responsibly pass it. Now the duty is fulfilled. Yet, there is no gain = 0. According to Janinism the fulfillment of duty and un-gain are incompatible. One must go behind avidya (illusions).

3- To Facundo's questionable "friend." Parfois, for the sake of time and energy you have to call a spade a spade. I'll approach it from ahimsa's perspective. There is right and wrong: It's axiomatic. You bet that causing unnecessary suffering is wrong. Why? The best you can muster is that it violates ahimsa, which can be seen as symmetry (Golden Rule)

4- A bit on Realism and Anti realism, Materialism, etc.

(a) Realism: There are entities independent of our minds.

(b)Anti realism denies (a).

(c) Irrealism: Entities exist but not as in (a) but as ways to describe the world. This view is also known as conceptualism.

(d) Materialism: There is only matter (even consciousness is matter, i.e, neurons). There is close kin to materialism:

Metaphysical Naturalism (e) There is nothing but natural things, forces, and causes of the kind studied by the natural sciences. So, there are no supernatural thing, force or cause, such as they are described in various religions, as well as any form of teleology (purpose).

5- I wanted to stress the three most important philosophical schools within the Vedanta tradition. Advaita, Dvaita and Vishishtadvaita.

(a) Advaita Vedanta: Teaches that the manifest creation, the soul and God are identical, which is form of monism. This is how Shankara presents it: Just as particles in physics consists of continually moving fields of energy, so the sages of Vedanta recognized energy in the form of consciousness. We perceive the universe by means of gross senses, because of our limited ego-limited body. What is really real and unchanging is the ever-changing manifest world of names and shapes. Shankara's best example is the piece of rope that in the dark is taken for a snake: Anxiety, repugnance are induced by the snake that exists only in one's mind. Once the rope is recognized as a rope it cannot be turned back into a snake. The initial error involves not only ignorance  but superimposition (vikshepa) of a notion that has nothing to do with "what is." That is, we live with this idea of the snake (manifest world) on the rope (Brahman). Shankara puts it this way: "May this one sentence proclaim the essence of a thousand books: Brahman alone is real. The world is appearance, the Self is nothing but Brahman."   

(b) Dvaita: (in Sanskrit it means duality). The human body is separate from the creator god.  Although Madhva's Dualism acknowledges two principles, it holds that the sentient is rigorously and eternally dependent on the other (Vishnu/God). Interesting that for Madhva there is a hell

(c) Vishistadvaita: Defended by Ramanuja: A non-dualistic ontology (things appear "distinct" but are not really separate). Therefore, Brahman alone exists, but is characterised by multiplicity.

6- For our discussion of ahimsa and our treatment of animals.

Did I forget something? Say it if you want.

The Cup

This is your cup -- the cup assigned
to you from the beginning.
Nay, My child, I know how much
of that dark drink is your own brew
Of fault and passion, ages long ago,
In the deep years of yesterday, I know.

This is your road -- a painful road and drear.
I made the stones that never give you rest.
I set your friend in plesant ways and clear,
And he shall come like you, unto My breast.
But you, My child, must travel here.

This is your task. It has no joy nor grace,
But it is not meant for any other hand,
And in My universe hath measured place,
Take it. I do not bid you understand.
I bid you close your eyes to see My face.-- Swami Vivekananda.

Lost and found

 Rob Hornstra's photo for the book cover of 101 Billionaires (2008)

Thanks to Xian, for reminding me of the photo above. We lost it (along with other posts) during the blogger's weekend blackout. If it works as a cipher, go ahead!

If you're interested in the photography of Hornstra, click here.

Sorry for the delay

Hi, kids. Something happened to Blogger (the blog platform). It was off the air all day yesterday. We lost the last two posts, including my linked Bourbaki page (on Duchamp's Fountain). They say they are working on it.

I'm waiting until later today (Friday) to post the homework for comments.

When did this urinal become a work of art?

Good first class, kids. Thanks for the company!

I just finished a post on Bourbaki a topic that relates to our conversation yesterday. The topic here is Marcel Duchamp's Fountain. It is related because, in general, to talk about something in general is to talk about what that something is in particular. So, what is the difference between a urinal and a work of art? Believe it or not, the questions takes us to the very act of creation, whether it's God or Beethoven or Beyonce.

Take the topic and spin it if you want. You're more than welcome to leave comments on Bourbaki.
:)