/lit/ - Literature

>>16610425
>>16610570
>>16610668
Also, eternity of the soul is also from the presupposition of free will, free will implies self-mover. And, according to some of Plato's argument about self-movers, a true self-mover has to be eternal, since, naturally he can't have been caused to move for then she wouldn't be a true self-mover, but a moved mover.
You can fin this in Phaedrus and Laws, probably somewhere else too, Sophist addresses the non-dichotomy between rest and motion, which the Parmenides Instant also addresses.

>>16542797
He refutes and affirms both in his best dialogue: Sophist.

>>16535322
>The level of the Universal Soul in Neoplatonism, sometimes equated with the Demiurge or Being; corresponds in Vedantic terms to Prajapati or Hiranyagarbha, which is a 'cosmic entity' filling and forming the entirety of the physical cosmos and which is still subject to fear, ignorance etc. The higher, supreme form of Brahman, or Nirguna Brahman is different from this Demiurgic-being and is transcendent to it and the physical universe, this is coincidentally why Advaita is not "monism", which is another persistent mistake I have seen you make before. It's not given much attention in their writings because in Advaita Vedanta it's taken as a given that one has already set one's sights on a higher goal than a temporary merger with this still ignorant entity.
The Anima Mundi is not the third Hypostasis (reality not Christian person) of Soul, the 'Demiurge' is not Being rather Soul (third Hypostasis) however each Sphere has a 'Demiurge' so the "Demiurge of Wholes" is Demiurge as Intellect that completes Being as the One-Being (in the Intelligible Triad of Being-Zoe-Nous) which is the Manifest One-Triad out of the Unmanifest One-Triad.
We wouldn't even call the World Soul Ignorant, her contemplation is perfect, for she fulfills her nature and telos without flaw if I could be a star in death to be a part with her for Aeons, I'd be content, for that would be my telos—you just further distanced yourself from me.
Not even as a Child could we blame Dionysus and call it 'ignorance' in any bad way for leaning forward towards the waters to see his face, in pure innocent curious play—and in doing so becoming infinite ones. Even the Titans, in the extended myth who entices the divine child to leave the throne of God, are evil or ignorant, for it is their nature as gods of Difference to divide unto infinity.
Evil is to choose division over unity to such an extent that it crosses Necessity.

>>16491974
Letter 2 after Halcyon.

>Hasn't read Iamblichus or the ancient Egyptian texts.
If God (the One-Being/Nous) has Providence, and the One/Good is Providence and is manifest as Beauty and Love and Wisdom; which can be observed here (regardless of whether Gnosticism is supposedly true). Then, if the goal is to become like God and unite with the Good, how can we delude ourselves to abandon what God hasn't abandoned, that the aforementioned Hypostases are present in this world means that God is present in this world through Love, Providence, and Beauty, ought we then to be present in this world as these things? How can we be like God and abandon what he has not abandoned.
This is the Iamblichean revelation, foretold in the Republic's re-descent into the cave. It is this freely willed descent that is the true transcendence.
He ascends as he wills.
He descends as he wills.

The Mehen isn't evil.

>>16358655
The Chora is the Indefinite Dyad, and she is The One when beholding the triad as One, but it is Life (rhea) when observed as the act of emanation itself, this is the Contentless meta observer before the soul makes any distinctions as Indefinite Dyad, the pupil 'before' it sees. This is undivided multiplicity, where, in a way, this is the One when viewed as the potency of all things. She is realized as Life simultaneously as God is self-realized as Nous. But this triad pre-exist their differentiation as the One. This is how there's only the One yet only Being-Life-Intellect, because you can't truly divorce the manifest from the unmanifest.
The reality of Mone/Rest, Proodos/Change, and return/the Instant?. Demands their Ineffable existence as the One. This paradox of Triadic absolute simplicity collapses into the purely Ineffable. But it wouldn't be Ineffable if these three merely existed conceptually. Even if there's simultaneous true that the One is one, it is also true that the Unlimitedness is real and truly distinct from the Limited, likewise the 'Mixer' is not a quality of the Monad or Dyad (since these two alone only leads to atomism not harmony of opposites), thus there are three necessarily three and not only two distinct but Undivided Arches of Being.

Continuation of the thread on mono-poly theism >>16312435, which for some reason didn't get bumped with each reply.

>>16313122
>>16313195
They are not. They can't be separated (there is no such thing as separation since, specially in henads, there is always harmony - and therefore justice, beauty - which is an immediate effect of the Good).

>the One is all things by being nothing, he is every identity and no identity. The differencer and the uniter and individualizer.
yes and the successions are conditioned by its refulgence.

>unity in difference, what need of unity is there without true difference? In a way by denying difference.
I don't deny difference but the difference like you said is the very natural conditioning of the One upon all its successions.

>>16313122
I'm of course also one who doesn't deny body in the heavens, even if it won't be made out of matter or from down here, but of aither mater, then Soul matter, then finally we ascend beyond mind body dualism, not losing any part but the conflict between them becoming One. Plotinus himself speaks of Intelligible Matter, logically there is then Intelligibe Body, as Plato says in Phaedrus we ride our chariots beyond Olympus. We don't cast it aside to fly up with only our wings. For this is what the myth of Icarus is the warning for: our body, our chariot, is merely parts of our whole Soul that descended beneath self-hood, and all of what we were before our fall must rise up for us to be whole. As Damascius defended, the Soul's Nature is Change, which is Life (Zoë), which is the manifestation of the Indefinite Dyad (second Henad) in Intellect.

>>16164155
Plato solved the Heraclitus - Parmenides debate, it was solved for 1500 years until pure Platonism was illegalized.
People just too stupid to get past Theaetetus in order to read Sophist and Philebus.

>>16067032
I was obviously being hyperbolic.
The claim was more about Christian reformulations into less coherence because they panic when any form of the slightest hint of "subordinationism" might be implied, yet they have no problem subordinating the Spirit. I guess he needs to be DPd, according to them not me, I'd never blaspheme the hypothetical Eros-similar idea of a holy spirit.

the problem of both are summed up in this
>How could there be a number among the intelligible principles, either in the completely Unified, or, even more difficult, among the principles before the Unified? The number will be neither nine nor three.
But now let us examine the other difficulties, if they are sound or unsound. First of all, we say that there is no number in the intelligible, neither the number composed of like forms, nor the number composed of unlike forms. Nor, in general, is the nature of the distinct there, nor even the nature of the continuous. Nor is there any difference, nor otherness, nor even differentiation in the absolute Unified. What, then, could be the celebrated ennead in the intelligible? It only signifies complete perfection of the triad there, which, when we are unable to comprehend it by means of discursive thinking, we divide, and so divide in three its complete perfection, its all embracing nature, its leadership of every multiplicity, its generation of every triad that has ever been anywhere in any way, and its leadership of every procession to the lowest degree of reality, the unmixed [purity] of its generative nature, and its being more than all the things that are of this nature, or rather, [it is] the one unified meta-intuition of all such intuitions, and this, only in the manner of indication, as we attempt to conceive that triad.
What, then, is this triad? It is not three monads, as Iamblichus says, but it is only the immaterial form seen without the monads. But it is surely not the form, either (for what delimitation could there be in the Unified), but it is the One itself, which is the flower of the form. But it is not even this One, which by nature blooms on the One of the forms, as for example, the triad, nor is it the One that is together with all forms (for this belongs to the differentiated one, so that the one of that which is undergoing differentiation would no longer be the one of the undifferentiated triad). But the triad again signifies the beginning, middle, and end of the Unified, but these [degrees] are still unified. And the absolute One is not the arithmetic one, but it reveals the one simplicity of all things. And after the One, the dyad that is called indefinite is not the dyad that governed over two monads, but it was, revealed as the cause of all things that belonged to the One, and it was, from the point of view of both, the Father, empowered to generate all things. Moreover, in the third place, the Unified is as it were activity proceeding from power. And therefore it is from a monad of this kind and a dyad of this kind that Being is constituted as a triad having the Unified by nature, since, when it is turned toward the One it is a dyad, and therefore it is the paternal intellect.

>>15824757
>>15821918
>>15824847
>>15825117
Better, therefore, is what you ask of us, to point out to you the road to happiness and where its essence lies; for from this the truth shall be discovered and at the same time all doubts may be easily resolved. I say, then, that the man who
is conceived of as “divinised,” who once was united to the contemplation of the gods, afterwards came into possession of another soul adapted to the human form, and through this was born into the bond of necessity and fate.
Hence we must consider how one might be liberated and set free from these bonds. There is, indeed, no way other than the knowledge of the gods. For understanding the Good is the paradigm of well-being, just as obliviousness to the Good and deception concerning evil constitute the paradigm of evil things.
The one, therefore, is united with the divine, while the other, inferior, destiny is inseparable from the mortal; one measures the essences of intelligibles by sacred methods, while the other, abandoning its principles, gives itself over to the measuring of the corporeal paradigm; one is the knowledge of the Father, the other is a departure from him and an obliviousness to the divine Father who is prior to essence and is his own first principle, and the one preserves the true life, leading back to its father, while the other drags down the primordial man to that which is never fixed and always flowing. Know, then, that this is the first road to well-being, having for souls the intellectual plenitude of divine union. But the sacred and theurgic gift of well-being is called the gateway to the creator of all things, or the place or courtyard of the good. In the first place, it has the power to purify the soul, far more perfect than (the power) to purify the body; afterwards, it prepares the mind for the participation in and vision of the Good,
and for a release from everything which opposes it; and, at the last, for a union with the gods who are the givers of all things good. (1/2)

>>15813522
Nous is the proceeded returning.
Life that that reflects upon itself.
The Monad is before the distinction of Nous as himself, thus the Monad is not the One but only intellect can distinguish them; but likewise the Dyad, Life, the cause of difference is itself not distinguished from the Monad which isn't distinguished from the One. Thus Intellect in his act of self reflection as Monad and Dyad returns eternally to the One, thus always being One-Being.
Like the colors in white are truly there, they are indistinguishable from each other and the white. To say whether the colors are virtual or whether the white is virtually only One, is an unanswerable question. The One is both One and All, but each is not each other. For any so called mystic can confuse and mash all things together and call it a day.
The Monad is the One, yet the One is not just the Monad. The Monad is the Image of the One that the Intellect sees in himself.

>>15718357
Yes, it is the fundamental difference between Christianity and the rest of the world.
https://youtu.be/A96T7pc3wog