[Xmca-l] Re: Hegel on Action

Greg Thompson greg.a.thompson@gmail.com
Sat Jul 15 20:27:46 PDT 2017 

Yes, difficult indeed! (and you've been doing a fair bit of misinterpreting
as well - psychokinesis? As if!).
If you won't take my gravity question then can I bother you to ask for an
explanation of what you mean when you say that matter exists outside of
consciousness?
I'm sincerely trying to understand the position that you are setting out,
but lots of stumbling blocks along the way.
-greg


On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 7:01 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

> Communication is hard, isn't it? You have interpreted what I have said in
> the exact 100%  opposite of my meaning, Greg.
>
> The European Rationalists and Empiricists of the Enlightenment broke with
> the monism of the Catholic Church and proposed that matter existed outside
> of and independently of human consciousness but the nature of matter could
> be known by the respective programs of rationalism and empiricism. This is
> the view which guided the development of philosophy and science in the West
> and remains common sense to this day.
>
> *Hegel proposed a viable alternative to this ontology*
>
> But he did not do that by providing "new" definitions of matter and
> consciousness. He proposed a new monist starting point and reconstructed an
> entire world view beginning from that single concept which, in the spirit
> of his own times, he called "Spirit". I call it "Activity" and the article
> shows that this interpretation is true to Hegel's intention.
>
> So please, rather than imagining how matter and consciousness could
> somehow get mixed up with one another and we can discover psychokinesis and
> tell the future with dreams, be open to taking Activity as the substance of
> a world view.
>
> Andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> http://home.mira.net/~andy
> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
> On 16/07/2017 4:45 AM, Greg Thompson wrote:
>
>> 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
>> <mailto: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://home.mira.net/%7Eandy>
>>     http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
>>     <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>
>>         <mailto: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>
>>                    <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://home.mira.net/%7Eandy>
>>         http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decisi
>> on-making
>>         <http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-
>> decision-making>
>>                    <http://www.brill.com/product
>> s/book/origins-collective-decision-making
>>         <http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-
>> decision-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
>>         <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 <http://byu.academia.edu/Grego
>> ryThompson>
>>
>
>


-- 
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

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