
Perennial philosophy - benbreen
https://aeon.co/essays/what-can-we-learn-from-the-perennial-philosophy-of-aldous-huxley
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dr_dshiv
The key point in the perennial philosophy is the idea of Oneness -- that there
is an ultimate oneness that is the source of all and the basis of the good.

Oneness is perennial because it is one of the most common aspects of a
mystical experience -- indeed, it is one of the primary factors in validated
measures of mystical experiences [1].

However, the concept of Oneness is uncomfortable -- so uncomfortable that it
didn't even show up in the Aeon article! (For a different view, see Wikipedia
[2])

Why is Oneness an uncomfortable concept? It is uncomfortable for theists,
because it puts an abstraction ("the ineffable oneness") higher than any
personality god ("god of Abraham"). Yet, even for atheists, it is an
uncomfortable idea. Why?Perhaps it seems so similar to monotheism, to claim
that the One is the origin of all things. While an atheist might accept that
the universe originated from a singularity (i.e., the big bang), it may be
uncomfortable to connect scientific ideas to spiritual awareness.

However, I think we should either reject spirituality as incompatable with
science or put more effort in rational attempts to integrate them.

[1] Hood Jr, R. W. (1975). The construction and preliminary validation of a
measure of reported mystical experience. Journal for the scientific study of
religion, 29-41.

[2]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_philosophy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_philosophy)

~~~
curo
> reject spirituality as incompatible with science or put more effort in
> rational attempts to integrate them

The paradox though is that scientific knowledge is knowledge acquired through
observation and reason, both of which must present themselves to an observer.
Specifically, it must present itself to an observer-beyond-quality (or present
themselves within a field of observation) because if we find an observer that
has qualities, those qualities would be perceived by something "earlier." That
is to say, if a measurement or argument is made then to whom (or in what) is
it made?

Science is always limited in scope. It can only describe that which is
observable (or deductions made from observation). You could extend science to
include philosophy (and consider even our discussion here as philosophy) and
then the limits of reason allow you only to define its own limits.

This argument has been made in some form or another by Schopenhauer,
Wittgenstein, Bohr, Godel, Susan Greenfield, Roger Penrose, and hundreds of
others. The One (or the Zero) is the only way to solve any problem of hard
consciousness, by allowing Knowingness itself to have modulations of
experience within itself.

The proper integration of science and spiritualism would seem to be that each
acknowledges the domain of the other. That is, if the discussion is about the
observable or rational, it's in the realm of science and made more
understandable by the methods and tools of science. If the discussion is about
That, quality-free substratum in which observations or deductions are made,
then it is an act of autotelic contemplation. That last statement is a bit
absurd. It means one can contemplate the original substratum of the Self by
just being without thinking, which is exactly what the various mystic
traditions have taught.

It would be a treasure if someone were to articulate this simply for a modern,
secular-minded audience, in a way that would convince them to keep quiet for a
few minutes and let the experience of "zero-ness" become self-evident. Even
this self-evidence appears in a substratum of course, but in that moment,
there's a blissful aha that would put a lot of these long essays and
discussions to rest.

~~~
dr_dshiv
That's good. This does seem to assume, a bit too strongly for my taste, that
spirituality is only contained in the nothing/non-thought.

For another model, I see the way science and spirituality were integrated in
the early days of the scientific revolution by folks like Kepler, Mersenne,
Kircher, Descartes, Leibniz, Hooke, Newton, etc.

All adopted a spiritual frame of (roughly) "there is a universal harmony" and
a scientific frame "I can articulate and understand this harmony through
empirical data and mathematical modeling". The spiritual side deeply motivated
them as individuals to conduct science. The data inevitably showed that their
original ideas of universal harmony weren't quite right -- but that there was
ample evidence for _the real_ universal harmony, which were taken as both
scientific and spiritual insights.

~~~
curo
Absolutely, it's certainly auspicious when your life work is an act of
devotion. And also it would be too strong for my taste as well to say devotion
and contemplation is only contained in some sort of nothing-apart-from-
something. To harmonize them would be to realize that nothing can be apart
from Nothing (and so all is allowed).

~~~
dr_dshiv
> nothing can be apart from Nothing

Clarify? There are mysteries in the one, such as the fact that if there is
something surrounded by nothing (like a black dot on a sheet of paper), that
is already a Twoness, not a Oneness.

~~~
curo
You can allow for conceptual twoness but both have to exist within the same
space. Space itself is said to pervade the sheet, the dot, the pencil, etc. So
if you take one more step back from space, then you say, in which common
substratum do space, time, constraints, etc exist? What pervades these like
space pervades the sheet and dot?

A panpsychist would say whatever this is, it must contain the most fundamental
building blocks from which we derive conscious experience. But you don't have
to go that far, you just have to sit still and inquire into that original zero
point that allows for your own individual (seemingly dualistic) subject
experience.

You could make an analogy (this is borrowed from Advaita): yes there are many
waves on an ocean, but the ocean itself is one. Conceptually there are many
waves but in reality there isn't anything such as a wave.

Similarly your own bubble of conscious experience is tied to local
instrumentation (your eyes, your brain, etc). But like bubbles in a basin of
soapy water, it's really not substantially apart.

If you think of matter probabilistically, you realize the best analog is just
"information" — every experience of this information arises from something. Of
course twoness in this information is a matter of fact, but it's easy enough
to say yes, these are abstractions of One. Or these are abstractions of Zero.

It's just a matter of language and what you prescribe to reality or what you
prescribe to conceptual illusion.

------
leto_ii
While 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.

------
Erlich_Bachman
The 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.

~~~
msla
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.

~~~
andybak
> 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.

~~~
msla
However, it seems like this is a discussion we're incapable of having here,
which comes to the same thing.

~~~
andybak
We seem to be having the discussion you state we're incapable of, right now.
;)

------
jfengel
_Modern civilisation, he writes, is ‘organised lovelessness’; advertising is
‘the organised effort to extend and intensify craving’; the 20th century is
‘The Age of Noise’._

Hoo boy. Huxley living in the 21st century would just _explode_.

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LatteLazy
Stoicism is true. All other philosophies are merely academic.

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sysbin
I’m a hard determinist and I’m finding this philosophy similar to religion.
It’s my first time reading about it but my impression is perennial philosophy
is for people trying to force meaning by clinging to a constructed belief
without the foundation of anything other than hopefulness. I understand the
logic of all knowledge builds from collective thought. But the idea there is
meaning just reflects wishful thinking.

~~~
catawbasam
So why bother writing your response? What was the point if it has no meaning?

