[Xmca-l] Re: Hegel on Action

[Greg Thompson]

Andy,

I must confess to being entirely confused by your suggestion that "matter
is everything outside of consciousness". It sounds like you are starting
the conversation by saying "there is matter on the one hand and there is
consciousness on the other hand and never the twain shall meet." Perhaps
that is an essential starting point for understanding activity, but I would
at least like to imagine it could be otherwise.

In my work I am trying to
​do this work of imagining
 how it could be otherwise. I'm trying to think of this another way
​, t​
o get a grip on things in some way that does not split the world in two
​ right at the get-go​
.
​
​I assume that for you this is an ontological commitment. You start by
assuming (asserting? realizing?) that there are two types of things in the
world - matter and consciousness. I'd rather not start there.​ Because this
involves a disagreement in our starting assumptions, I don't suspect we'll
get very far with that conversation (and we've dabbled in that conversation
before and indeed we haven't gotten anywhere).

So I thought I would ask a slightly different question: what is the nature
of gravity? Is it more like matter or more like consciousness (in that one
could imagine gravity being something "outside" of matter in the sense that
you are saying "consciousness" is outside of matter)? I know you are
committed to non-dualism in some sense and I'm just trying to figure out
how you reconcile all of this.

​In solidarity,​
-greg​


On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 12:11 AM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

> No, it would be spreading confusion, Greg.
>
> "Matter" in this context is everything outside of my consciousness.
> "Activity" in this context is human, social practice. Moving attention to
> the sub-atomic level, a field where we have no common sense, sensuous
> knowledge, does not help.
>
> Andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> http://home.mira.net/~andy
> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
> On 15/07/2017 2:31 PM, Greg Thompson wrote:
>
>> Andy,
>> Just musing here but I'm wondering if "matter" is anything more than
>> activity, particularly when considered at the sub-atomic level.
>> At that level, matter seems a lot more like the holding of relations in
>> some activity (not so different from the Notion?).
>> Or would that be taking things too far?
>> -greg
>>
>> On Fri, Jul 14, 2017 at 10:12 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net
>> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>>
>>     Anyone who got interested in that material about
>>     "Hegel on Action", here is my contribution.
>>
>>     https://www.academia.edu/33887830/Hegel_on_Action
>>     <https://www.academia.edu/33887830/Hegel_on_Action>
>>
>>     Andy
>>
>>
>>     --     ------------------------------------------------------------
>>     Andy Blunden
>>     http://home.mira.net/~andy <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy>
>>     http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
>>     <http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decis
>> ion-making>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
>> Assistant Professor
>> Department of Anthropology
>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
>> Brigham Young University
>> Provo, UT 84602
>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
>>
>
>


-- 
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson