Perennial philosophy
aeon.co
Perennial philosophy
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Re: Perennial philosophy
#2The appearance of this bit of information in the Hacker News Collective Consciousness RAM is likely linked to a recent discussion about a recent article that attempts attempts to define consciousness and whether it exists in everything all the time or is localized somewhere in space ("Consciousness Isn’t Self-Centered").
Quote: Why do folks present this idea like it's new and radical? It's literally thousands of years old. Aldous Huxley wrote "The Perennial Philosophy" in 1945.
Re: Perennial philosophy
#3[deleted]
Re: Perennial philosophy
#4The appearance of this bit of information in the Hacker News Collective Consciousness RAM is likely linked to a recent discussion about a recent article that attempts attempts to define consciousness and whether it exists in everything all the time or is localized somewhere in space ("Consciousness Isn’t Self-Centered"). Quote: Why do folks present this idea like it's new and radical? It's literally thousands of year…
What's the point of this philosophy? What does believing it help one do or understand? That question is likely forbidden, in that philosophers don't seem to give reasons for their philosophies, but it's still important to ask, for the same reason it's always important to ask why someone is so enthusiastic about something.
Re: Perennial philosophy
#5Stoicism is true. All other philosophies are merely academic.
Re: Perennial philosophy
#6The appearance of this bit of information in the Hacker News Collective Consciousness RAM is likely linked to a recent discussion about a recent article that attempts attempts to define consciousness and whether it exists in everything all the time or is localized somewhere in space ("Consciousness Isn’t Self-Centered"). Quote: Why do folks present this idea like it's new and radical? It's literally thousands of year…
What's the point of this philosophy? What does believing it help one do or understand? That question is likely forbidden, in that philosophers don't seem to give reasons for their philosophies, but it's still important to ask, for the same reason it's always important to ask why someone is so enthusiastic about something.
> That question is likely forbidden, in that philosophers don't seem to give reasons for their philosophies
If there's any branch of human inquiry where no question is off limits then it's surely philosophy. Debate about the practical application of philosophy has been part of it's fabric for it's entire history. The Greeks certainly regarded it as something that should inform one's life choices and I'm pretty sure that is one of the main areas of focus in Existentialism.
Re: Perennial philosophy
#7While I always appreciate Huxley's writing and attempts of finding unifying principles, I think at the end of the day the explanation is quite simple: the perennial philosophy exists simply because all of these religions originate in the human mind and in human interactions with others and the environment.
Regardless of where/when people come about, our shared humanity is strong enough to lead us to have similar experiences and (somewhat) similar explanations for what we experience.
On an unrelated note, I would like to recommend Huxley's Island as a nice outline of what a realistic utopia might look like.
Re: Perennial philosophy
#8The appearance of this bit of information in the Hacker News Collective Consciousness RAM is likely linked to a recent discussion about a recent article that attempts attempts to define consciousness and whether it exists in everything all the time or is localized somewhere in space ("Consciousness Isn’t Self-Centered"). Quote: Why do folks present this idea like it's new and radical? It's literally thousands of year…
What's the point of this philosophy? What does believing it help one do or understand? That question is likely forbidden, in that philosophers don't seem to give reasons for their philosophies, but it's still important to ask, for the same reason it's always important to ask why someone is so enthusiastic about something.
I'm not an expert, but it seems that the utility comes from using the existence of consciousness as an assumption and presupposition of the continued following studies.
Without this theory, science assumes no such thing, and ultimately ends up with a very difficult problem of defining where consciousness begins and where it ends.
Existence of consciousness is obvious and intuitive to most people, it is rarely disputed (and such disputes yield no useful conclusions or thoughts when they take place), but if the starting point is that "some humans have consciousness, or a potential of a consciousness, and the rest of the world does not", then the problem of defining it seems very hard. Drawing a hard border between consciousness and dead matter seems hard to do while still being completely intellectually honest.
If however, we just assume (as the perennial philosophy does) that consciousness (or at least potential of) is a self-evident property of reality and everything in it, we can view the problem of defining it as more of a question of where in the world is there "more" of this consciousness, where is it more concentrated, where did the potential of it most prominently manifest itself (places like human brains that host it or possibly similarly built computers in the future), and where is it "less" of it (like in a rock formation), then we can use this framework to more easily navigate this landscape.
Re: Perennial philosophy
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the point of this philosophy? What does believing it help one do or understand? That question is likely forbidden, in that philosophers don't seem to give reasons for their philosophies, but it's still important to ask, for the same reason it's always important to ask why someone is so enthusiastic about something.
> That question is likely forbidden, in that philosophers don't seem to give reasons for their philosophies If there's any branch of human inquiry where no question is off limits then it's surely philosophy. Debate about the practical application of philosophy has been part of it's fabric for it's entire history. The Greeks certainly regarded it as something that should inform one's life choices and I'm pretty sure t…
Indeed, metaphilosophy [1] is the branch of philosophy which studies the questions of "what is philosophy?" and "why bother doing philosophy?". So far from being some kind of "forbidden question", this is a question which many philosophers have considered and sought to answer.
Re: Perennial philosophy
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the point of this philosophy? What does believing it help one do or understand? That question is likely forbidden, in that philosophers don't seem to give reasons for their philosophies, but it's still important to ask, for the same reason it's always important to ask why someone is so enthusiastic about something.
> That question is likely forbidden, in that philosophers don't seem to give reasons for their philosophies If there's any branch of human inquiry where no question is off limits then it's surely philosophy. Debate about the practical application of philosophy has been part of it's fabric for it's entire history. The Greeks certainly regarded it as something that should inform one's life choices and I'm pretty sure t…
However, it seems like this is a discussion we're incapable of having here, which comes to the same thing.