This is a workup which I might edit later.
Irwin Lieb, formerly Chairman of the University of Texas at Austin Philosophy Department, and my professor, stated that the only individual is the entire Universe itself. We are only nominally individuals, he said.
Vedas: Soul of man is same as soul of universe
(Svetasvatara) Upanishad: He is not a male, He is not a female,He is not a neuter. He neither is nor is not. When He is sought He will take the form in which He is sought, and again He will not come in such a form. … It is indeed difficult to describe the Name of the Lord.
Buddhism: There is no soul; there is nothing permanent.
Christian Bible (Exodus): Tell them “I Am” sends you (to Moses)
Albert Einstein: Speed of light depends on the “observer”.
(How to resolve these)
Rabbinic: Man is in partnership with “maker of heaven” in the continuing work of creation
Compare Rig Veda 10.129 with Parmenides (see David Goldman)
Compare this to Gita/Vedas: For the Greeks, time is the demarcation of events. But in Hebrew time, it is the moment itself that remains imperceptible. As Kohelet 3:15 states: “That which is, already has been; and that which is to be has already been; and only God can find the fleeting moment.” From David Goldman
Soloveitchik, “Lonely Man of Faith”: at end, pgs. 59 on he succinctly characterizes the dilemma of modern man in terms that have a ring of truth. Could compare to Rougemont and Kierkegaard, e.g. Compare also with Bhagavad Gita’s characterization of “man of faith”, or, as Soloveitchik terms him, “Adam the second”. “Faith is born of the intrusion of eternity upon temporality….Faith is experienced not as a product of some emergent evolutionary process…”
So I guess this might mean, contrary to what I have thought, it isn’t a concomitant of consciousness? I don’t understand how eternity can be an an intrusion at all. I think the temporal is as likely as not designed to make eternity meaningful.
Goldman on Beethoven and the sublime: “The Sublime challenges us to conceive of something that transcends the way we process sense information. Because the Sublime demands our intellectual response, it evokes freedom: We are not the passive observer of fixed and limited phenomena, but the artist’s collaborator in the recreation of the art work. We must lift our spiritual level to engage it.”
Goldman applies Soloveitchik’s thesis here that “Man is in partnership with the “maker of heaven” in the continuing work of creation.”
The Jews were brought out of Egypt, bondage, crossed a river via a miracle. Americans were brought out of the Old World, escaping servitude, crossed an ocean, resumed their journey across the continent, seeking an ever escaping redemption.
On reading Milton Rothman’s “The Laws of Physics” and Bishop George Berkely’s theories on motion:
“There is motion only in relation between objects.”
Apply to understanding and knowledge.
Knowledge is always of the “other”; only in relation between objects.
Understanding, on the other hand, does not require multiplicity. See (Nous) Noesis, intuition. Understanding is reflexive, consciousness returning on itself, R.G. Collingwood. Only when multiplicity is dropped can understanding arise. Apply this to Goldman on Beethoven, above. Understanding is sublime, is the finest exemplar of true Freedom. It is transcendence. It is not a thing but a verb. It is merging of the soul of man with the “I Am” of Exodus. The state of passive observation of “fixed and limited phenomena” must be dropped, pass away. Only then can the “I Am” take the forefront. Only then can we truly exercise collaboration with Being, with the Art of a Beethoven, the Philosophy of a Soloveitchik or a LIeb.