Piet Hut on the epoche

[Don Salmon]

http://www.ids.ias.edu/~piet/publ/other/husserlcircle.html

Hi folks,

Piet Hut is a physicist at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies. Back in the late 1990s, I attended several “study groups” with him at a private home in Princeton.  Piet had studied “Time Space and Knowledge” with Tarthang Tulku, an interesting integration of dzogchen and phenomenology.  Piet got into trouble at one point at the Institute for bringing Eastern philosophy to bear on his work in physics, but somehow, he managed to keep going and I believe is still working there.  This essay is, I think, quite in sympathy with the ideas that Ron wrote about yesterday and that I mentioned in connection with my “3 step” approach to challenging materialism. Though y’all might be interested. 

Best,

Don

[William St. George]

Pure Consciousness, which is the Heart,

Includes all, and nothing is outside, or

A part from it.

That is the ultimate truth.

--Ramana Maharshi

Ron and Don--

Franklin Merrell-Wolff's Kosmology contains two "elements": consciousnes (Chit) and objects.  The objects can not exist without consciousness; but consciousness can exist without the objects.  Consciousness has absolute existence (Sat) and objects have relative existence.

Upon reflection the above seems entirely self-evident and entails no inference or induction.

Consciousness is always self-aware, that is, consciousness by its very nature does not need a Second to know it. 

Selecting from the history of Western philosophy it seems to me that two philosophers stand out as resembling FMW though it takes some perspicacity to notice this: Berkeley and Spinoza.

Berkeley's Kosmology contains also two elements: spirits and ideas.  Objects are known through perception and spirit is known in a different fashion.  The mind of God pervades everything.  By mind in Berkeley I would understand spirit plus object or idea.  Now Berkeley left things like this and did not later on add to his philosophy.  But I think you can see it as a kind of precursor to FMW.  Nicely it has no need of matter which Berkeley considered a reified abstraction or "misplaced concreteness". 

Spinoza's "there are not plural substances" is intriguing.  Likewise his intellectual love of God.  Spinoza is surely the most mystical of well kown philosopers.  After Spinoza and perhaps just as mystically inclined is Schopenhauer who held the Upanishads in very high regard.  From his "not plural substances" Spinoza gets extension and mind. 

The English language was developed by people in Northwestern Europe.  They were Christian.  Writers like Chaucer contributed.  Later on Spencer and Shakespeare. Etc.

Clearly Scholasticism is embedded in the Languge.  Etc.  Attempts to translate Sanskrit or Tamil or Chinese into English is an enormous challenge.  I seriously doubt that Atman can be translated without problems. 

To really know what Berkeley or Hume were about one would need to launch into an extensive study of the times: the science, the literature, etc.  A lifetime would be needed.  So we do a lot of guessing and speculation.  I am sure Spinoza used the style he did, with axioms and corollaries, to give his philosophy a style attractive to the times.  Wittgenstein did something similar. 

Nowdays to make something attractive it helps to toss in a bit of neurology.  A touch of quantum physics.  Etc.  That way it looks authentic. 

Yoga can be defined as the science of drawing awareness from attention and observation to concentration, meditation and contemplation to Samadhi.  According to some there are six types of samadhi.  Four with seed.  And two without seed.  The last two are a bit cryptic in my opinion as one seems likely.  Pure yoga is a kind of science and existed apart from both Hinduism and Buddhism originally.  Perhaps the Superconscious Mind simply dropped Yoga into the subconscious of some person over six thousand years ago.  No one knows.

So for me the West has had mystics and philosophers who came close to what we find in the East.  Meister Eckhart clearly was very Realized.  So I believe were many of the Greeks.  Christianity put a veil before the complete Truth.  Now we have modren science doing somewhat the same thing with emphasis on the mysterious matter. 

--j

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