Posted on 09/24/2003 11:25:56 PM PDT by betty boop
This shift of attention to the individual psyche marks a decisive, revolutionary break with the characteristic habits of thought of the ancient world, the cosmological consciousness, which conceived of man mainly in terms of his connections to units larger than the individual, and envisioned a cosmos filled with gods. For Plato’s life-long meditation on the psyche – the human soul -- was deeply implicated in his speculation on the nature of the divine, which radically departed from the Hellenic people’s myth of the gods. Psyche also was the basis of Plato’s life-long meditation on “the best possible” political order.
Platonic thought can probably best be understood as a kind of spiritual autobiography. Great philosopher that he was (perhaps the greatest), Plato was not a “system builder”; he did not propound any positivist doctrine on any subject at all.
This aspect of Platonic thought is difficult for the modern imagination to grasp; for when we moderns think of a “philosopher,” we think of an intellectual who investigates propositions about truth and draws conclusive answers about the objects of his investigation. The philosopher then assembles his insights into systematic form allegedly useful in telling us about the real nature of things. (Plato called this sort of thing “philodoxy,” – love of transitory opinion -- the specialty of the Sophists, his adversaries. He would not call it “philosophy” – love of wisdom. This issue, however, is beyond the scope of the present essay.)
Although Plato is usually classed as an Idealist, his own instinct in philosophizing was uncompromisingly Realist, in the sense that he knew that certain questions can never be “closed” in principle. For the truth of existence, of Reality, is the object of zetesis -- of a search or quest -- that cannot be completed by any human being in the time of his own existence. Rather, it is a quest engaging all mankind proceeding through countless generations. Plato could point out the way. But the student must engage in the quest by and for himself, and understand it as he experiences it, according to his love for divine things.
On that note, we turn now to the consideration of psyche proper. Plato conceived of the individual human being as psyche-in-soma: an eternal soul incarnated in finite bodily existence.
The soul has a characteristic structure, a hierarchy of dynamic forces: the rational element, whose ordering power is sophia, wisdom; the spirited, whose ordering power is andreia, or manly virtue/courage; and the appetitive, whose ordering power is to “feel the pull” of physis, or bodily nature. The well-ordered soul is the healthy integration of the three forces, giving each its proper role and function.
In addition to elaborating a hierarchy of forces in the soul, the Platonic meditation also elaborates its hierarchical “structure”: At psyche’s “summit” is nous, intellect; followed by the conscious mind – including feeling, sensation; and “at bottom,” the unconscious mind, with its root in the “depth” of the soul, in which the soul’s “ground of being” can be found.
I’ve used a lot of quotation marks in the above passage for a reason. To use language like this is to intend as reified objects what are really processes on-going in the soul. We aren’t speaking of “thing-like objects” here. Processes aren’t things at all. But they are real all the same.
With that caution in mind, we have, so far, a “force field” and a “structure” for the soul, and importantly, the suggestion that the soul ought to be well-ordered.
And so the question arises: By what criteria does the soul order itself? And why would it even want to order itself?
To answer such we questions, we have to remember that the Platonic speculation maintains the immortality of the soul. The soul coming into bodily existence, however, does not remember its pre-existence at all; for at its birth into the present existence, the “circuits of the brain” become “deranged,” so the soul cannot remember anything about its life prior to its birth in this one. So it comes as a shock to the soul to discover that its body will die someday. The anxiety is acute, for the soul does not yet realize that its life is not dependent on the body, and is not destroyed with the body.
It is here (The Republic) that Plato inserts a drama in which the soul must act, the Pamphylian myth.
In the myth, “dead souls” – that is, souls separated from the body at physical death – receive reward or punishment according to their conduct in life, the bad souls going to their suffering beneath the earth, the good souls to their blessed existence in heaven. Then, after a thousand years, all the dead souls are brought into the Judgment of Lachesis, the daughter of Ananke (Necessity). And there the dead souls must draw their several lots and choose their individual fate for their next period of incarnated existence:
| Ananke’s daughter, the maiden Lachesis, her word: Souls of a day! Beginning of a new cycle, for the mortal race, to end in death! The daemon will not be allotted to you; but you shall select the daemon. The first by the lot, shall the first select the life to which he will be bound by necessity. Arete has no master; and as a man honors or dishonors her, he will have her increased or diminished. The guilt is the chooser’s; God is guiltless. |
Now a soul that had just spent one thousand years in purgative punishment in the netherworld would be most anxious to choose his daemon rightly, lest at the conclusion of the next life, he find himself returned to the suffering below for another thousand years. On the other hand, the blessed souls do not necessarily make better choices than the purged souls. And they are just as liable to wind up in punishment in the next round if they do not choose wisely.
But choose they must, and thereby bind themselves to their fate over the next cycle of life and death. A soul’s only guide in the choice is the character it had acquired during its preceding life. The choice is free, but the wisdom to make a good choice may be deficient. Under the circumstances, the best course would be to make the best choice one can, and then follow Arete – Virtue. To “diminish her” – to dishonor her call to justice, temperance, courage, love of wisdom, zealous search for true being – is to incur culpable guilt. The daemon is there to warn the soul when it wanders from Arete, endeavoring to push the soul up into the light.
The daemon might be thought of as the mediator or agent of cosmic spiritual substance in the soul, a little spark of the divine in man. Plato’s symbol for the divine substance is the Agathon, the Good.
The Agathon is utterly transcendent, so immanent propositions about it cannot be constructed in principle. Yet the soul, in an act of transcendence, may have a vision of the Agathon, of its eternally divine goodness, purity, beauty, truth, and justice. Such experiences of transcendence inform the soul, building up its just order by fortifying the Arete in the soul.
Thus the soul is drawn upward into the light of the vision of the Agathon, and participates in the divine life so far as that is possible for a man.
It is important to bear in mind that the Agathon is not God. Though Plato often refers to the One God “Beyond” the world of created things, and “Beyond” the generations of the intracosmic gods (the gods of the Age or Chronos, subsequently replaced by the Olympians under the rulership of Zeus), and strongly suggests that the Logos of divine Nous is the ordering principle of the Cosmos, he does not elaborate. That elaboration had to wait for the Revelation of Christ.
For Plato, the vision of the Agathon was the basis of the idea of the human family, of a common shared humanity, of the idea of the brotherhood of mankind. As Eric Voegelin noted (Order and History, Vol. III, Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 1957), “The understanding of a universal humanity originates in the experience of transcendence; and the ineffable kinship of men under God revealed in the experience can immanently be expressed only in a myth of descent from a common mother or father….”
In this, Plato seems to anticipate St. Paul’s one body of Christ, interjecting the idea that, despite their differences, all men are equal as brothers in the sight of God.
For Plato, the daimon-mediated tensional suspense of the soul “in between” (metaxy) its cosmic ground in the “depth” of the soul and its extracosmic height in a transcendental “beyond” in the one God, was the site and sensorium of human spiritual reality. The form of the metaxy might be seen as a faint foreshadowing of the mediating process of Christ in the salvation and perfection of the soul, uniting souls to the Father through Himself, as declared by Christian revelation, most clearly in John’s Gospel.
It is possible to imagine that there are certain seed ideas in Plato that could not come into full bloom until Jesus Christ irrupted into human history four centuries after Plato’s death.
And man is unique among creatures, for he alone possess nous; and thus is capable of being drawn to the paradigm of divine Nous -- to the contemplation of divine things. Thus man is uniquely capable of ordering his soul according to the divine paradigm, in justice and in love. And by a process of transcendence, to attain wisdom, freedom, and true Being in the contemplation of the divine Idea, the Agathon.
You are going to have to help me out. I suspect I really don't know what you are getting at. Since the non-volitional creatures are precluded from doing anything except what is, "on the list," (that is, the set of automatic behavior instinct provides), only man is required and capable of discovering what is possible, and what the requirements of his life are and choosing how to apply what he learns to his own chosen goals and purposes.
For man, there is no list, only reality and his ability to observe, to reason about what he observes and thereby learn. But all this is not possible except to creatures who are free to choose. Within the limits of physical and logical possibility, for volitional beings, there are no limits and there is no finite list of possibilities.
Where are the limits being able to choose imposes on beings that would not be imposed on them if they could not choose?
I'm not arguing with your point, only trying to discover exactly what it is. I might agree with it if I knew what it was.
Hank
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by a non-volitional creature, or how you assume a creature, such as a cat is limited to automatic behavior. I don't see this at all.
From a higher dimension view the entire movie is seen at once - the entire 4D block. And within the dynamics of such a higher dimension, all of the events within the 4D are malleable. That is where I see free will being manifest to change the script, so to speak. But it is the dynamics of the higher dimension, the will of God, which allows the free will to actualize in 4D - i.e. change the course of events from our 4D view.
And following betty boop's proposal that one or more of the higher dimensions is an extra time dimension - what appears as a timeline to us in the 4D is actually a plane (or brane) and thus also malleable in the same fashion, e.g. superposition, non-locality, etc.
OTOH, time as a brane also explains many other phenomenon such non-locality, superposition, dark energy, acceleration of the universe, near death experiences, extra sensory perception, precognition, retro-cognition and so on.
I am very sure that you are correct about such research! However, they have also determined that gravity is a factor. There is not as much on that particular aspect as I had hoped, but when I read articles tied directly to NASA and space biology, it made sense why that would be so.
You should see what I pulled out of my gutter drains yesterday.
I googled for gravitational biology and got some hits although not a specific journal. Much of it seems to be space related. Plants are easily studied on earth because the gravitational field can be reversed (the plants can be grown upside-down). But mammalian studies are important for future space programs.
Richard Feynman, paraphrasing, said those who maintained they understood quantum mechanics hadn't studied it enough. I couldn't agree more and with particular reference to this citation. While the development of the probability wave distribution is completely deterministic, its resolution is completely mysterious. Not to mention that I exercise my free will multitudinous times on a daily basis. To assert that free will does not exist, if that is what's being asserted, is absurd and it is precisely the thing with which you and bb are being charged; i.e. an excuse for ignorance. My humble opinion ...
I'm glad you did. Your input was invited to that post because I knew I did not represent your position correctly, and it also needs to be here for the same reason.
OTOH, time as a brane also explains many other phenomenon such non-locality, superposition, dark energy, acceleration of the universe, near death experiences, extra sensory perception, precognition, retro-cognition and so on.
Amazing that something could explain so much! It is too bad I cannot accept it. How much easier it would make life. But alas, I do not accept it, and in fact, I do not believe there are actually "three" dimensions, in the usual sense, and time, is not for me, a dimension at all.
The three dimensions are only a means or method of dealing with positional relationships, and time is nothing more than one of the qualities which describe the relationships between changes in position, that is, motion.
While the, "loss of a firm cause/effect relationship," would never bother me, since that is not that nature of cause in the first place, and since reason and volition are actually confirmed by the true nature of cause, there is no real advantage to these invented extra dimensions. They might be useful devices for picturing certain mathematical relationships pertaining to some phenomena of physics, but to reify them into actual ontological existents is just more mistaken platonism.
Now, for those not familiar with the term "brane:"
Brane: Any of the extended objects that arise in String Theory. A one-brane is a string, a two-brane is a membrane, a three-brane has three extended dimensions, etc. More generally, a p-brane has p spatial dimensions.
This theory would be very difficult to beleive except for the overwhelming evidence and commoness of the "p-brane."
Hank
Another quibble: Time involves a bit more than changes in position. It involves changes, period. All changes occur over time. If something were regarded as motionless, for example, the sun, it would still be changing over time. (I know, it moves, but you could arrange your coordinate system so that it's in the center.)
Need to compare notes here, Phaedrus. Have I been charged with making an assertion anywhere that free will does not exist? Where? How so?
Just checking in....
Well it certainly isn't being asserted by me, although I never use the expression, "free will," I must have said (or implied) at least five or six times on this thread: within the constraints of logical and physical possibility and one's knowledge, one is completely free to choose, in fact, must choose all their actions in both thought and action. Please see my post #417
The little piece you quoted pertains to my argument that volition does not require an appeal to QM to be true. I was certainly not arguing for determinism, only that QM is not the way to argue against it.
...it is precisely the thing with which you and bb are being charged; i.e. an excuse for ignorance....
Wow! I didn't even know an, "accusation," was being made, and bb is going to be very surprised since she disagrees with almost everything I believe. Poor bb.
As for being ignorant, I certainly don't need any excuse for it. I'm ignorant by design, I am blatantly and openly ignorant, unashamed and defiant about it. The one thing I have learned in over three score years is that there are more things I don't know than there are that I do. How's that for ignorance. I would like to see somebody charge me with more ignorance than I charge me with.
However, that does not mean I do not know anything, and what I do know I know certainly, and know exactly how and why I know it. I suspect there is one thing you do not know, and that is what my position or philosophy is. If your interested, start here:
Hank
No. All motion is relative. In fact, there is nothing in the material universe that is ever absolutely static, especially when you consider anything's relationship to everything else in the universe. You might come close if you could find the center of the universe (if there is a center) and place there an object at absolute zero, and ... on second thought, there is no way to even imagine something that is completely static.
There is one thing you forgot in your hypothetical example of the sun and an adjusted coordinate system. We are dealing with real entities, and material entities have mass and all masses accelerate toward all other masses and no matter how you design your coordinate system, the sun always moves being pulled about by all the bodies revolving around it (even if ever so slightly). You get the idea.
Finally, all physical change requires motion. There is no physical change independent of actual physical motion.
However, I would be willing to entertain suggestions of physical changes that were possible without any physical motion whatsoever. Have any ideas?
Hank
Lots. First of all, I'm aware that everything is in motion. But it can be ignored for purposes of my response. Here's an example. Heat something up, then set it down on the ground, where it will be motionless with respect to the earth. As it sits there, it grows cool. That's a change. It occurs over time. (Again, I know the molecules are moving, but that's not an objection to my example of something that changes over time without moving.) And if we beat this "time is just motion" topic to death we'll destroy the thread, so I'll let you have the last word. It's not a really significant subject in the context of what the thread is all about.
Lots.
Good!
Heat something up, then set it down on the ground, where it will be motionless with respect to the earth. As it sits there, it grows cool. That's a change. It occurs over time. (Again, I know the molecules are moving, but that's not an objection to my example of something that changes over time without moving.)
But wait a minute, you cannot give me an example, then tell me what I must ignore. Heat is motion. It is not possible for something to "heat up" or "grow cooler" without motion, and motion that directly relates to the heating up or growing cooler.
The whole of thermodynamics depends on motion. In your example, heat is only the measure of the activity of the molecules in whatever you heated. If it cools down, it can only do so by a "deceleration" of the motion of the molecules, and that deceleration can only occur as the momentum of the individual molecules is transfered to molecules outside the heated body. Without motion, that transfer would not be possible.
And if we beat this "time is just motion" topic to death we'll destroy the thread, so I'll let you have the last word. It's not a really significant subject in the context of what the thread is all about.
As you wish, but I think it is quite relevant to the subject, because bb and AG both think time, especially as it relates to what they believe are "extra dimensions" is ultimately what makes possible (or not, if not possible) human volition. It is not my view, but the true nature of time definitely relates to that view.
Thanks for the interesting thoughts and comments.
Hank
Indeed, the logical conclusion of a strongly deterministic worldview is that nobody could be personally responsible - e.g. murderers, tyrants, terrorists.
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