Louis Claude de Saint-Martin and Plato: Where do our ideas come from?
22/07/2007 Filed in: Martinism
| Platonism
& Neoplatonism
Do ideas
originate in the brain, or from the input of the
senses, or are they independent of any individual
brain? Do we depend on external stimuli to form ideas,
or are we born with a set of ideas that just kick in
independently of our environment? Is consciousness the
product of nurture or nature? How interdependent are
our ideas and our consciousness?
These questions may seem very outdated today, as the debate appears to have been settled by the neurological argument, according to which the brain is the origin of our consciousness. The question has now shifted to how consciousness arises, which is a similar problem to how ideas are produced.
However, the hypothesis that the brain is not the origin of all our ideas, but merely a “transducer”, can still be made: can one discriminate between a brain that only analyses and translates a raw input into a given output and a brain that is the actual source of the same output? Read More...
These questions may seem very outdated today, as the debate appears to have been settled by the neurological argument, according to which the brain is the origin of our consciousness. The question has now shifted to how consciousness arises, which is a similar problem to how ideas are produced.
However, the hypothesis that the brain is not the origin of all our ideas, but merely a “transducer”, can still be made: can one discriminate between a brain that only analyses and translates a raw input into a given output and a brain that is the actual source of the same output? Read More...
8 steps from meditation to true contemplation
13/07/2007 Filed in: Personal
Development
The
scholarly approach I usually take on this
website and blog
would be meaningless if it didn’t translate into our
day-to-day lives. It should go without saying that
intellectual endeavour, spirituality, and everyday
life should balance each other out so that they
produce the most harmonious experience of the world
possible. So now that I have set a workable
theoretical background through other posts on this
blog, I will start addressing the more down-to-earth
concerns we may have, whether we are already
advanced in the spiritual career or not.
As I have spent some time describing the importance of desire and contemplation, I thought I would start with a short how-to approach to meditation and prayer that will help us engage in the “art of contemplation”, which is at the root of an infinite progression towards our ideal. Read More...
As I have spent some time describing the importance of desire and contemplation, I thought I would start with a short how-to approach to meditation and prayer that will help us engage in the “art of contemplation”, which is at the root of an infinite progression towards our ideal. Read More...
The Hesychast and the Ten Commandments - Third and Fourth Commandments
09/07/2007 Filed in: Church
Fathers & Mystics
For the
first and second parts of this series on Gregory
Palamas please go
here and
here,
respectively.
3. “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain” (Exod 20:7), swearing an oath falsely because of some worldly thing, or out of human fear, or shame, or for personal gain. For a false oath is denial of God.
[...]
4. One day of the week you shall ‘keep holy’ (Exod. 20:8). Read More...
3. “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain” (Exod 20:7), swearing an oath falsely because of some worldly thing, or out of human fear, or shame, or for personal gain. For a false oath is denial of God.
[...]
4. One day of the week you shall ‘keep holy’ (Exod. 20:8). Read More...