Arquivo para a ‘Noosfera’ Categoria
Infinity is not just “believing”
11
Apr
Having moral and religious concepts does not
always mean that we overcome fear, anguish and the difficulties of life, fervent prayers and preaching can cover up the truth, this keeps many people away from believing in happiness and eternal life.
When something from the infinite touches us in life, not only do we discover the truth, not only a belief in someone (something is to reify the eternal) who is already part of our existence, this invigorates us and makes us capable of helping the world of peace, of hope and true Love.
We know in our hearts that no one can truly probe and know our soul, however, someone peers into our interior, when we love and do something good for others, for ourselves and for humanity, something good invades our being and gives us serenity.
This strength that awakens within led great sages, masters and saints to discover something new that made them progress in true asceticism, they were capable of heroic attitudes, but curiously with less weight than it would be for men who do not know this Love.
When we truly live this dimension, even a certain type of routine and bureaucratic religiosity abandons us, we want to see the Other grow, we want to listen to them and love them as they are.
This way we overcome fear with positive attitudes towards the world and other people, so that what is really True, that is, the human and divine good within us, also manifests itself outside and there is no fear, no anguish because it is a True Good.
The opposite, the constant opposition to the Other, the feeling of always highlighting the difference and the arrogance of being superior in something we do well or better than others, although it seems true, brings with it a feeling that distances us from the Other and from humanity, It is not peace.
If we look at wars, we will always see this principle, seeing others as inferior and smaller than us, so they are not worthy of living, they “deserve” all the evil that is deep down within us and not in these people, the majority of whom are innocent, even if Within each people or nation there are people who would not be worthy of our good wishes, it is not by eliminating them that we build peace.
True peace among men is born from a serene heart, which understands the infinite, and which longs, even in the distant future, for a better life for all, without injustice and wars.
Substance and the essence of Being
04
Apr
Substance is an essential concept of both
metaphysics and ontology, although modernity wants to characterize it only as that which is material, etymology says sub instance, or from Latin it literally means “what is below”, but it can also be “ derived from”.
Dualism sees everything as opposition and affirmation, a primary substance is one that does not have the opposite disposition, for example, a man, a tree or an animal, its opposite does not exist, but it is not yet what designates Being, since these change, they are born with some original form and later modifying they are the foundation of something “derived”: an accident, a sub-instance of man, tree or some animal.
In the 17th century René Descartes proposed a division between body and mind, dividing substance into two categories: res extenso, which refers to physical matter, and res cogitans which refers to mind or thought, the simplified dualism as body and mind , in this century there were opposing ideas: the “atomist” monism of Leibniz and the natural monism of Spinoza.
In the 18th century, this idea underwent two reforms: Hume’s, who criticized the substance as something essential, being just an idea created by the human mind, to give meaning to experience, and Kant’s idealism, the substance is not a thing in itself, but a category of human understanding.
Still within the limits of Kantianism, there remain two possibilities of conceiving a being or an object, the immanent sense, which remains within the scope of possible experience, but acting only through the senses (concepts or cognitive principles) and the transcendent, which admits an immanent god , which permeates all reality and is not separated from matter.
The transcendent is then what takes the subject (hence it is called subjectivity) to the object (objectivity) allowing the concept or cognitive principle.
The idea of a person, or three people in the Christian case, is one that gives being (does not separate it from the object and experience) its transcendence and thus allows spiritual ascesis.
In the Christian case, I draw attention to the Resurrected Jesus who orders and roasts a fish and eats it, not out of necessity, but out of possibility, so he does not affect the substance although he conceives it.
The passage says (Luke 24, 40-43): “And saying this, Jesus showed them his hands and feet. But they still couldn’t believe it, because they were so happy and surprised. Then Jesus said, “Do you have anything to eat here?” They gave him a piece of roasted fish. He took it and ate it before them”, if he didn’t need it because he ate it, remember the last supper.
Me, the Other and the Hidden Third
03
Apr
The principle of uncertainty that came from
physics, starting with Heisenberg, at the beginning of the last century gradually put Physics in check, putting scientific determinism, logicism also in check due to Gödel’s paradox which determined that an axiological mathematical system or it is complete or consistent, and cannot be both at the same time, but a new scientific and ontological vision was emerging, Transdisciplinary Ontology.
In the week of July 13 to 17, 2008, the 9th. The Metanexus Institute’s annual conference, held in Madrid, Spain, between philosophers, biologists, physicists, cosmologists, neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, historians, educators, theologians and community leaders took place with the theme “Subject, self, and Soul: Transdisciplinary approaches to Personhood”, where Barsarab Nicolescu was invited to open the Conference.
In it Nicolescu will develop the idea of the hidden third, philosophy had already spoken of the Other through Lévinas, Ricoeur and the educator Martin Buber, who in the book “I-Thou” recognizes in the other something “divine”, but stops there as the others, stop at the edge of the concept of otherness.
Nicolescu went ahead, writes like Heisenberg a model for overcoming the subject x object dualism, characteristic of modernity: “: “We can never reach an exact and complete portrait of reality (Heisenberger, 1998, p. 258). The incompleteness of the laws of physics is present in Heisenberg, even if he makes no reference to Gödel’s theorems. For him, reality is given as “textures of different types of connections”, as an “infinite abundance”, without any ultimate foundation” (Nicolesceu, 2008)
Citing Heisenberg, Nicolescu states, citing Husserl, Heidegger, Gadamer and Cassirer (whom he knew personally), that it is necessary to suppress any rigid distinction between Subject and Object.
The idea of the hidden subject in Nicolescu is beyond the threshold I and the Other, it is in the conception that comes from physics that there is a third state in nature, the Third Included beyond Being and Non-Being, he calls them the Transdisciplinary-Object and Subject-Transdisciplinary, in quantum physics it was already clear that the analysis of an Object phenomenon must be transdisciplinary due to a then unknown state in nature, now also a Transdisciplinary Subject is described by Nicolescu (calls it TD-Subject) which reveals the Hidden Third.
Although the theme talks about the soul and even talks about spirituality, for a good biblical reading it is necessary to understand the unveiling of Jesus after his death (appearance is a limited term) which reveals itself in a surprising and divine way to the disciples, the Hidden Third is Himself.
In the passage of disciples who are walking to Emmaus and a Third walker infiltrates among them, when they see the breaking of bread they will soon remember their “conversation”: “Then one said to the other: “Wasn’t our hearts burning when he spoke to us along the way, and explained the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32).
Quantum physics, occult third and spirituality
02
Apr
Nicolescu Barsarab, in addition to formulating
the theory of the included third, substantiating through quantum physics that Aristotle’s principle of the excluded third, there is A or non-A being exclusive, however quantum physics had already revealed a third state T, as a combination between the state of “existence” and “non-existence” as a physical state, this Being existing or not as a third state allows us to speak of a Transdisciplinary Ontology.
Succinctly, Nicolescu (2002) developed is that instead of one reality waiting to be discovered using the scientific method, there are multiple levels of Reality (he capitalizes Reality and uses the letter T for transdisciplinarity) organized into two levels.
One level concerns Subjective Reality (TD-Subject), so called because it deals with the internal flow of perspectives and consciousness. Included are individual psychology and philosophy, family, community, society, history and political ideologies. The other level concerns Objective Reality (TD-Object), so called because it deals with the external flow of information, facts, statistics and empirical evidence.
Examples include economics (business and law), technology, science and medicine, ecology and environment, planetary (worldwide and global), and cosmic and universe (Nicolescu, 2002, 2016).
Each level of Reality is different, but “each level is what it is because all levels exist at the same level”, the existence of a single level of reality, the disciplinary closure of knowledge, Edgar Morin also warns about this, creates a new type of obscurantism, of disciplinary closure in areas of knowledge.
Arrábida Transdisciplinarity Charter says in its preamble: “Considering that the contemporary rupture between an increasingly cumulative knowledge and an increasingly impoverished inner being leads to the rise of a new obscurantism, whose consequences, on the individual and social level, are incalculable ”, and says in his third article: “Transdisciplinarity is complementary to the disciplinary approach; it makes new data emerge from the confrontation of the disciplines that articulate them together; offers us a new vision of the nature of reality” (Arrábida, 2014).
The opening to the subject is not just about idealistic subjectivity, it is the opening to Being itself and what Transdisciplinary Ontology proposes is to see it in the complexity that is revealed.
Nicolescu, B. (2002) Manifesto of transdisciplinarity. New York, NY: SUNY Press.
Nicolescu, B. (2016) The Hidden Third [W. Garvin, Trans.]. New York, NY: Quantum Prose, 2016.
Freitas, L., Morin, E., Nicolescu, B. (1994) Portugal, Convento da Arrábida, november, 16, 1994.
Pain and the Palliative Society
29
Mar
By reading several authors, but mainly by
understanding precisely the “pains” of modernity, Byung Chul Han wrote the Paleative Society: pain Today (Han, 2021) in which he decrees: “Pain is now a meaningless evil, which must be combated with painkillers. As a mere bodily affliction, it falls entirely outside the symbolic order.” (HAN, 2021, p. 41).
Among several authors, it is from Paul Valéry in his book and character Monsieur Teste, who embodies the modern and sensitive man who as meaningless and pure “bodily affliction”, “monsieur Teste remains silent in the face of pain. The pain steals his speech” (HAN, 2021, p. 43).
He will place the Christian mystic Teresa D’Ávila in contrast to this character, as a kind of counterfigure, “in her the pain is extremely eloquent. With pain begins the narrative. The Christian narrative verbalizes pain and also transforms the body of the mystic into a stage… it deepens the relationship with God… it produces an intimacy, an intensity.” (p. 44).
Freud also claims, “pain is a symptom that indicates a blockage in a person’s history. The patient, because of his block, is not in a position to move forward in the story” (p. 45).
Being a mere “bodily affliction”, pain became a thing, lost an ontological and in a certain way “eschatological” meaning (because it has a history with a beginning and an end), “meaningless pain is possible only in a bare life emptied of meaning , which no longer narrates.” (p. 46).
Modern man’s denial of the cross is not just contempt for the Other, it is the misunderstanding of its eschatological aspect, pain has entered our lives and will last until we can understand its meaning of “liberation”, of “purging” our evils. that are in our history, that are our sins, war is the misunderstanding of pain, the Other is eliminated as being to blame for our pain, of which each one of us is to blame.
Injustices have their own regulatory means, but marginality, crime, which arise in the midst of poverty, social difficulties are difficulties that deal with pain, there is always a way to remake a story, to start a life over, to eliminate it it’s the opposite.
Injustices have their own regulatory means, but marginality, crime, which arise in the midst of poverty, social difficulties are difficulties that deal with pain, there is always a way to remake a story, to start a life over, to eliminate it it’s the opposite.
The cross is the deepest meaning of what ails man, and from which he can free himself, hide or run away from the problem, which generally leads to greater pain: alcoholism, drugs, prostitution and what is already an evil of modern man: corruption at various levels.
The cross, the pride of Christians and the scandal of Gentiles, is also biblical: “he who wants to follow me, take up his cross and follow me (Mc 8, 34), a metaphor for victory and not defeat.
Han, Byung-Chul. (2021) The palliative Society: Pain Today. Transl. Daniel Steuer. USA: Polity Press.
Corpus Christi and spirituality
28
Mar
There are those who believe in transubstantiation
during the consecration of the host and wine during religious worship and those who think it is just something symbolic, others still believe the purest worship leads to salvation, and forget that it must be taken to the world , then there is the Eucharistic fulfillment among men and in the world.
It is not surprising that a faith is quite fideistic (without works) and another that is quite worldly (only works are enough), this occurs inside and outside churches for obvious reasons, there is the Eucharist, that is, communion within the church must be carried out in the soul to the world, becoming a “world soul”.
For both Plotinus and Augustine of Hippo, the “soul” was the vision of the One, that is, of true communion and it is not done without God and is not realized if it is not taken to substance, in fact it is curious that bread and wine They are not substances of nature, they are made by man from wheat and grapes, so they are only realized in the “world soul” by the action of men in society.
Although the day was established by Pope Urban IV, 1264, to be celebrated on the Thursday after Holy Trinity Sunday, before he became pope he met a girl named Juliana who dreamed of this Eucharistic feast.
However, it is little told in history that the holiday was declared after a “miracle” that occurred in a church in Bolsena, Italy, by a priest who doubted Juliana’s visions, at the time of consecration, a moment in the Catholic mass that raises the bread and wine, blood began to flow and stain the corporal (cloth) on the altar.
Most non-Catholic Christian churches or those with Orthodox and Eastern rites celebrate only a symbolic supper that resembles Jesus’ last supper. Luther in the Protestant reform no longer used the term transubstantiation but rather consubstantiation, wine and bread, which are corporeal of blood and flesh. of Christ, but one of the leaders of the reform Ulrico Zwingli convinced the “reformed” that it was only a symbolic Lord’s Supper as a memorial of his death and resurrection.
Whatever the professed faith, communion with the One who is God and with men, its realization in humanity cannot be done without a true communion “among” men, In Greco-Roman churches this is done with the foot washing ceremony, remembering that Jesus washed the feet of the apostles (John 13:1-17) (above painting in Saint Maria del Mar, Barcelona).
Silence and the resistance of the spirit
26
Mar
War is noisy not only in weapons and
bombs, but mainly in the chatter it generates in which it is impossible to have serenity, think and dialogue; the noisy aspect is a fundamental part of the insanity it represents.
The resistance of the spirit, we are following Edgar Morin’s line, is the possible “weapon” at this moment and perhaps in even worse futures, it means, in many moments, remaining silent, making a silence so profound that it questions the Other who does not give up on argue your reasons for war.
In the Plotinus philosophy, which deeply influenced Saint Augustine, although they are different thinkers, one Christian and the other just Stoic, silence is a stage of deep knowledge of reality, of the one, unity that encompasses everything without leaving itself.
For him when an aspirant to truth (which is truth in fact, not rational logic), he has to have the experience of unity, this experience is total and silent.
The Brazilian philosopher Giacóia Junior seeks in Espinoza’s quote to reflect on this perspective of the relationship between noise and silence when he states that “certainly the fate of humanity would be happier if it were equally within man’s power to both speak and remain silent. But experience teaches sufficiently and superabundantly that nothing is less in the power of men than their language (…) (cf. GIACOIA JUNIOR, 2014, P. 79).
To be faced with silence is to be faced with truth, and if language is the home of being, it is worth remembering that the Word became flesh (John 1:1) if it is not accepted in the biblical sense, it can be thought of as an ontogenic or Phylogenic, as Barthes states in his book The Rumor of Language, states that: “it is language that teaches the definition of man” and that it cannot be considered “a simple instrument, utilitarian or decorative, of thought. Man does not pre-exist language, neither phylogenetically nor ontogenetically” (BARTHES, 1988, p.185).
Thus truth is a Being, language is the dwelling of Being and silence is its apex.
BARTHES, R. 1998. O Rumor da língua (The Rumor of Language). Brazil, São Paulo: Brasiliense.
GIACOIA JUNIOR, O. (2014) Por mais horas silenciosas (For quieter hours”)in: NOVAES, Mutações. Brazil, São Paulo: Ed. SESC SP.
Truth and good works
22
Mar
There is no ontological truth where the unveiling
of being does not occur, and this depends on its deeper realization in contact with its essence and must bear fruit for life, for personal and social well-being and for those who believe for an eternity.
Sophists in ancient times created truths that could even be logical, but the objective was to gain power and benefit from those who had wealth and influence, and this has not been eliminated from everyday life until today, a large part of politics is the negotiation of public goods, fraud and for this they use non-truth, and this is not the monopoly of one group.
There is no way to maintain this logic without authoritarianism, the restriction of freedom and silencing the voices of those who suffer from greed for power and wealth, a large part of the current crisis comes from these values, even if they blame the media, they are also under control of these powers.
The media follow the ontic logic in the ontological difference, we briefly develop this issue of the way Heidegger and other followers of the different ontological currents see it, in the scope of interpretation and dialogue the logic cannot be ontic, it must follow the ontological truth that follows from fusion of horizons in the hermeneutic circle (see previous post).
Dualism and polarization follow the ontic truth, blaming the media that do nothing that they do not have under control in some way, which could even be algorithms, man himself, thus the dual ontic logic used is instrumental and in a certain way sophistical because it aims the power.
On Sunday, Holy Week begins for Christians, the ontological truth that was manifested as being in the person of Jesus had to be destroyed by the discourse of power, even the religious power of the time that could not believe that truth is the logic of Being and man, when he manifested his good works, almost always confronted power.
It is necessary to go against the current to reverse the logic of ease, of easy money through corruption, of power for power’s sake and of disservice to society.
The ontological truth
19
Mar
There is a difference between the logic that is based on purely human reason, and the ontological one based on the reality of Being and its existence, thus it is not a final truth, but an eschatological one, that is, it has a beginning and an end where existence is explained. .
In a purely philosophical way, ontic and ontological truth always refer differently, to the being in its being and to the being of the being, and the relationship between them is called ontological difference, little explored in philosophy and embedded in any theory that deals with of Being.
The relationship of latency between being and being and between presence and being makes it evident that the foundation of ontological difference is presence, according to Heidegger (pg. 102):
Unveiling of being is, however, always true of the being of the being, whether it is actually real or not. And vice versa, in the unveiling of beings there always lies an unveiling of their being. Ontic truth and ontological truth always refer, in different ways, to the being in its being and to the being of the being. They are essentially part of each other due to their relationship with the difference between being and being (ontological difference).
It is about unveiling because to reveal is to remove a layer of the veil, but finding another that equally covers the truth, human reason and science itself goes like this, based on Karl Popper’s falsifiability principle, he claims that the fact of a That an assertion can be shown to be false is one of the principles for establishing sound science.
There is a circular relationship between ontic truth and ontological truth resulting from this circular facticity of presence [which is one of Heidegger’s translations of Dasein] and this relates to beings understanding being, and relates to being understanding beings.
“With the differentiation, which is in itself clear, between ontic and ontological – ontic truth and ontological truth, we effectively have the different elements of a difference, but not the difference itself” (pg. .412), explicitly saying the relationship of things with beings, is different from the relationship between beings among themselves, there is an ontological truth that must be revealed for the relationship.
So, how do ontological and ontic truth, as well as ontological difference, contribute to showing the relational character of the self? Conflicts and relationships involve this Being that is relational, but its understanding seen as instrumental, reified or of interest is nothing.
Heidegger, M. (1984) Sobre a essência do fundamento. In: Heidegger: conferências e escritos filosóficos. Transl. de Ernildo Stein. Brazil. São Paulo: Abril Cultural (collection: Os Pensadores).
Infinity, peace and transformation
15
Mar
Ours of infinity, of even the paradox that represents the profound change that
occurs in astronomical phenomena such as black holes, where even quantum physics is questioned, leads us to a new worldview of matter and spirituality.
Edgar Morin speaks of “resistance of the spirit” due to the dramatic moment we are experiencing of civilizational crisis and the threat of escalating wars. Without a truly concrete call for peace, the risk of current conflicts escalating and new ones emerging is immense.
This resistance requires both personal and collective positioning, truly defending and living peace, practicing it in our daily relationships, alongside those who pass through our lives.
Peace depends on people who plant peace, says the biblical reading John 12:24: “truly, truly I say to you, unless the grain of wheat that falls into the earth dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but, if it dies, then it produces much fruit”, so it is necessary that those who truly desire it sow peace, but not in speech, but in everyday attitudes.
It does not mean that we do not desire changes, and that they are not necessary, also in this aspect the grain of wheat must fall into the earth and “die”, but this death seen precisely with what we desire: transformation, not disappearance or terminal death.
Looking at the infinite, the divine and the eternal is going beyond our materiality, our daily and human impulses, setting aside time for reading, contemplation, meditation and recharging our energies, a peaceful attitude depends on this human/divine balance.
Without a true and humanly reciprocated ascesis, we remain in what Peter Sloterdijk calls a “life of exercise”, we do the exercises to do so, but we do not have a human ascension (a true ascesis).
Increasing our inner life, transmitting it in relationships, this is true asceticism.
