Goethe and his unique view of science and art and their interrelations
not a pure "natural philosopher" nor a pure empiricist; he defied these categories in his own time and his work continues to resist these strict alignments
everything factual is also and at the same time, theoretical
no experience can be detached from the network of ideas/concepts/ from which they are perceived, understood, enacted
Wenders' Wings of Desire explores and develops the interpentrative relations between the mortal and divine
that particular (the actualization of a person/life) represents or calls forth the whole, the divine
there is a space above, of objectivity, from which we can perceive the moment
the crux of this tension: there's always, always a choice between (a) remaining detached, non-judgemental, floating above, separate OR (b) being affected by the world, engaging, acting.
to take action, to risk hurt and suffering, but to be engaged, you need to individuate, to collapse into one perspective, one subjective space
there's something fundamentally tragic about individuation because its the choice that cuts off all others, that murders the other possible instantiations, so many unlived lives cut before conceived (or just after)
+beautiful overlaps with Pascal Mercier's Night Train to Lisbon: "Given that we can only live a small part of what there is in us -- what happens with the rest?"
(pulling together for me)There's something so very beautiful about that process of manifestation, that COMMITMENT to that one choice, that instantiation, and so in that special choice, the divine is called in
Consciousness seems to both hold the individual elements of consciousness and to be constituted in each of these elements
contents of consciousness seem to be held by a larger sense of self that contains the contents of consciousness
it seems binary, like we can turn it off and on, or it simply does turn off and on when we're not paying attention
consciousness has an eternalness to it
in meditation, you can get to a place where you can neutrally observe experience arising as elements of consciousness; there's a sense of an "I" paying attention to the ebb and flow of conscious experience
we have the sense that there's an "I" that experiences, that is the "one" that tastes the cup of coffee, for example; where in fact it is probably more accurate to say that taste simply arises...
+and the specificity of the nature of that tastes likely co-arises with your mood, the temperature in the room, the feeling of the couch under your (versus when you're rushing out the door finishing that last sip and taste is not even "present" without attention)
the self is arising in relation to that specific experience, but that tasting self is not the same "self" that "hears" the sounds of traffic outside
co-arising of feelings, emotions, thought elements during an experience that seems external and triggering of whatever emotion is actually not triggering at all
Buddhist insight: mutual co-arising is where it's at in real time experience; it's not that I hear a sound, I'm aware of the self, then I am annoyed at the sound, in some sort of sequential way; they all happen at once
BUT! There is a phenomenology that suggests a consciousness underlying all this experience, a larger "self"
+Unclear if Bryan is suggesting that this is an inevitable illusion, but an illusion all the same or if there's something "real" and important to understand about these whole-part relations (or both)
+seems to me that the illusion (the mirror and what's NOT behind it), in some part, is important for some convenient ways of getting about the world... but perhaps it also is ultimately at the root of all suffering and so understanding that this whole-part relation that we witness as "the self" is actually indeed illusory is at least an important step towards shifting our relation with suffering, and (for me) especially the suffering of others and how we relate to that
great analogy to the moment one is aware of being conscious and the motion-detecting light bulb that goes off when you open the door
every time you check (open the door), you find consciousness there
reading Goethe (+and listening to Leonard Cohen), watching Wings of Desire, meditating... all of these is like opening the door that was closed before
Yes, and...(or +)
I appreciate the clarifying distinction made by specifying interpenetration relations, they are not opposites, they're not only polarities, but they constitute one another in a specific type of relation (i.e., they interpenetrate on another, not just refer to, or stand in contrast to)
the discussion about the instantiation of one life, one self living each of the chosen (or not) decisions down the life branches calls to mind Pessoa's ideas of multiple selves:
"Each of us is several, is many, is a profusion of selves.
So that the self who disdains his surroundings is not the same
as the self who suffers or takes joy in them.
In the vast colony of our being there are many species of people
who think and fell in different ways."
Fernando Pessoa, Livro Do Desassossego
No, because...(or ?)
Remaining Questions
Why is the process of individuation beautiful?
So meta-cognition is how the brain has evolved to work (biologically and culturally, interactively), and so that pernicious sense of the singular self persists but we continue to wonder: (a) is it an illusion, and what parts are illusory compared to anything at all that the mind "produces", (b) if it's an illusion, is it one worth keeping for its instantiated beauty?, or (c) does the persisting illusion underlie our individual and collective baseline suffering?
The role of awe and its mechanisms: can understanding the experience of awe and transcendence, in the moment, illuminate elements of interpenetration that haven't been explored yet (see zettels below on intersubjectivity, etc)
What are the implications of understanding interpenetration processes as fundamentally socially constituted?
