/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.13372920]

Tell me about Neo Platonism. Preferably the more mystic parts of it.

[Anonymous No.13372957]

I don't like people who like Family Guy so I won't help you.

[Anonymous No.13372976]

>>13372920
enlightenment and stuff

[Anonymous No.13372977]

>>13372920
Listen to this lecture series in its entirety.

[Anonymous No.13373018]

>>13372977
Nicely.

[Anonymous No.13374058]

>>13372920
that physical reality is less real than metaphysical reality.

[Anonymous No.13374168]

>>13374058
I'm stuck on the concept of "physical reality is just a (shitty) expression of the metaphysical reality" like a high school painting compared to the actual object. Someone said I said a lot of things that reminded him of neoplatonism, someone else said I should look into gnosticism and hermetics.

[Anonymous No.13374181]

>>13372920
Literlly read H.C. Andersen.
I'm not joking, the shadow, the little Mermaid,basically anything he wrote while he was in a dark pace are perfect examples of neoplatonic philosophy expressed through fiction.

[Anonymous No.13374193]

>>13372920
Iamblichus

[Anonymous No.13374200]

>>13372920
What's very interesting is how a majority of DMT users essentially come out from the experience echoing Platonic axioms: that material realm is an illusion, a shadow of a higher world, that geometry and number are wrapped into the fabric of reality, and so on. Apparently, on DMT you see an entire world of fractal geometry open up to you, which people believe is the "mathematical fabric" of reality brought to visibility. Interesting stuff. Plato just keeps winning, all these millenia later.

[Anonymous No.13374205]

>>13374200
>drug trips are indicative of anything

lol

[Anonymous No.13374211]

>>13372920
Why do people always say Neo-Platonic and not Platonic? What's the difference?

[Anonymous No.13374215]

>>13374205
>DUDE LITERALLY NOTHING BEYOND THE MATERIAL WORLD

[Anonymous No.13374222]

>>13374211
"Platonism" means "Plato's own doctrines, "Neoplatonism" is a particular way of interpreting Plato, one which expands upon his thought in significant ways

[Anonymous No.13374229]

>>13374215
Not only are you not addressing what he actually wrote, you're using the idea of "Basedboy" on a statement that has no connection to the idea.
Your post is bad and you should be ashamed.

[Anonymous No.13374236]

>Not only are you not addressing what he actually wrote, you're using the idea of "Basedboy" on a statement that has no connection to the idea.
>Your post is bad and you should be ashamed.

[Anonymous No.13374241]

>>13374200
meditating on acid caused me to see the world very differently, reading hermetic and neoplatonic literature years later was like reading my own thoughts put down on paper.

[Anonymous No.13374242]

>>13374205
Read into it more, seriously. It's not your ordinary "drug trip". I won't write in detail here on my thoughts, but when you research the specific features of the experience, it's not something you can easily hand-wave by speaking about the brain and it's ability to hallucinate. Just look into it. It's very interesting stuff, to say the least, and it has many overlaps with Platonic philosophy.

I'm not the guy who sent you a meme, by the way. >>13374215

[Anonymous No.13374249]

>>13374241
What did you see on acid?

[Anonymous No.13374256]

>>13374236
The worst part about your terrible fucking posts, is that you probably think you're clever.

[Anonymous No.13374259]

>The worst part about your terrible fucking posts, is that you probably think you're clever.

[Anonymous No.13374265]

>>13374256
I don't know if they are a group or if it is him alone, but I've seen him post on /tv/ and /v/ aswell, the same shit. Usually he is OP and posts something sarcastic that the board doesn't like with a wojak face, and when someone replies telling him he is retarded he greentexts it with another wojak. Truly a pathetic life

[Anonymous No.13374331]

>>13374249
it wasnt really a visual experience, i began to question what i am (am i my job? no, am i my family role? no, am i my body? not really, am i my brain in my body? not exactly) and the conclusion i came to was that the only thing that was truly ME was the present experience i was having. it was obvious from this that the same is true for everyone else as well, that there is no fundamental difference between THE THING THAT I AM (when we strip away extraneous things like my accrued experiences and developed opinions etc, which arent really ME but products of my experiences and mental processes) and THE THING THAT YOU ARE. From here I somehow became convinced that I was essentially a basic metaphysical entity or force that was projecting itself into these individual people who have become convinced of their individuality and ceased to see themselves as parts of the whole. (it was kind of like I remembered this, it seemed obvious though its hard for me to explain how I came to the idea in logical terms).

Im sure you can see the similarities to hermes experience with poimandres or the idea of The One in neoplatonism. Or indeed the whole 'lover of beauty in individuals -> lover of beauty in all things -> lover of beauty itself' thing in symposium (though at the time i was yet to read any of these)

[Anonymous No.13374392]

>>13374331
Very interesting, anon. I feel you. I'm into mystical stuff myself so I can grasp the notions you're putting forth. I've lately been trying to meditate more seriously, no longer for the purpose of reaching a peaceful state of mind but now for the more serious aim of "understanding my true nature", which would likely be similar to what you said: the experiential recognition of my ontological equality to everyone and everything else, and the illusion my attachments (name, body, species, family, job, etc) bring me to live under.

[Anonymous No.13374393]

>>13374331
you didn’t trace the origin of your Self far back enough. you are the *observer* of the experience, not the experience itself

[Anonymous No.13374400]

>>13374259
Sending loving-kindness your way, anon. It will all be okay.

[Anonymous No.13374402]

>You can't even define shit nigga like not at all
>Yo just go ask people questions and don't stop ever

[Anonymous No.13374406]

>>13374400
I wonder how many different s-o-y reaction images he has

[Anonymous No.13374421]

>>13374393
I think thats the conclusion I came to. Its hard for me to put it all into words since I wasnt thinking in language in the same way I normally do while this happened. The part in between rejecting the notion that I'm my brain and coming to understand The One was very non lingual and even after 2 years of trying most days to put it into words I still struggle with the specifics, and obviously by this point my memory of the event is highly imperfect. I think a lot of the thinkers I've read since also struggle with converting it to language.

[Anonymous No.13374441]

>>13374236
It'll be okay, anon. I hope you're doing well.

[Anonymous No.13374451]

>>13374392
I think most people who spend time really reflecting start to develop inklings in this direction honestly. I at first thought I had perhaps experienced a drug induced psychosis and never mentioned it to anyone since I had never heard anyone around me express even a vaguely similar concept, but since going to uni I've found that loads of people really understand what I'm saying and have been heading in the direction themselves. I really wonder how common the experience is, I doubt most people who come to the same ideas are that willing to express them for fear of ridicule or perhaps being seen as mentally ill.

[Anonymous No.13374469]

>>13374451
Notions like these have been reached time and time again by many differing thinkers of the world, so it's not at all a sign of dysfunction for you. But yeah, it really would be cool to hear of such metaphysical conceptions spoken of in a mainstream manner, instead of hearing about an omnipotent sky parent replacing any and all public discussions of metaphysics. Would help our world unite itself more too, given how unbelievably divided it happens to be right now. Blessings to you.

[Anonymous No.13374516]

>>13374469
Yeah, I think we're probably living in the first era for over a thousand years in the west where we can really encourage this kind of understanding without being burned as heretics or whatever. It definitely seems like a shift in thought on a large scale would be a desireable goal, though there are still some massive barriers we need to overcome. Our language is not great for metaphysics at all, our current system of living (education for a profession -> 9-5 job) leaves people with little free time where theyre willing to engage in head hurting mental exercise, the drug i personally used to attain this knowledge is a class a substance, e.t.c.
theres a lot of work to be done basically!! blessings to you too.

[Anonymous No.13374551]

>>13374222
Do we know that Plato would approve of the latter offshoot?

[Anonymous No.13374573]

>>13374331
good stuff, you are fundamentally correct. you are nothing but the registration of your nothingness, or at least, the incapacity of these labels to exhaust you.

[Anonymous No.13374723]

>>13374551
Plato was not a time traveller, afaik, so it’s pretty much impossible to know what he would say about a school of thought that emerged hundreds of years after his death. Neoplatonists, naturally, claim that their teaching is 100% certified authentic Platonism as passed down in Plato’s oral teachings. It’s basically impossible to confirm this claim, but it doesn’t really matter imo since Neoplatonism is interesting and worth studying regardless.

[Anonymous No.13375014]

>>13374723
>Plato was not a time traveller
He may as well have been, given the prescience and continued relevance of his doctrines. A true metaphysical madlad, through and through.

[Anonymous No.13375181]

Tell me more about Neon Platonism

[Anonymous No.13375198]

>>13372920
Watch Gregory Sadler's AMAs. He discusses it sometimes.

[Anonymous No.13375427]

Thanks for all the good replies, fuck all the reddit replies.

[Anonymous No.13375473]

>>13375181
Why does he wear the mask

[Anonymous No.13375514]

I feel pretty aligned with the more romantic aspects of Plato's philosophy and I think neo platonism is probably my thing. Does anyone have solid author recs as a starting point? Anything I can get my hands on reasonably.

[Anonymous No.13375515]

>>13374402
tfw ur retarded

[Anonymous No.13375578]

>>13372977
Link to download?

[Anonymous No.13375580]

>>13374205
>drug trips are categorically meaningless

[Anonymous No.13376330]

>>13375427
>reddit

[Anonymous No.13376355]

Neoplatonism got BTFO by Kant though.

[Anonymous No.13376362]

>>13376355
No one has ever BTFO anyone else

[Anonymous No.13377086]

>>13374168
physical reality is the easier to get. You see it everywhere: trees, rocks, clouds, fat people, thin people, animals, etc.
metaphysical reality is anything that exists that doesn't have a physical form.
Words and language exist, they have verifiable meaning with real-time results, even though they you can't "see" them.
We can see words on a page, but those are just symbols. Words on a page are just the physical aspect, the phenomenal appearance.
The MEANING of the words, the content of the words you grasp if you understand the language the symbols represent, is the noumenal/metaphysical aspect.
An primitive tribal warrior can have a library full of books, but unless he can decrypt the symbols on the books, those books will only ever be ornamental decorations for him.
Or to use another example, a DVD disc is just a shiny circular disk, an ornament, unless you have a dvd player that can understand the "language" the dvd is written in.

People who say the noumenal realm doesn't exist (i.e. materialists) have to explain how science/language is even possible. It's amusing because they USE language to try to destroy language.
For humans, the phenomenon of a human is his/her outward appearance, but the noumenon of this person is the soul/spirit.
There's disagreement on whether noumenon is Will, or whether it's Knowledge, i admit, they both have good points.
I tend to associate Knowledge with Spirit/Noumena ("noumena" is derived from "numina" which means "spirit") and then Will I associate with Soul.
Will/Soul is then the spirit trapped in the physical, whereas spirit doesn't have "a soul" since it doesn't have any physical encumbrances.
I think it was Evola that said purely physical matter is merely "dead" noumena, spirit that has died (or rather, souls that have died) although it's more of a temporary death, as spirit can't truly die, since it is eternal.
which is another important aspect to Noumenal/Spirit, it can't die. Ideas/Truth can't die, they exist forever. They can be suppressed, you can burn all the books in the world, you can try to distort the Truth with lies, but Truth doesn't go away, they'll show up again eventually.
Destroy all the tv's in the world, and destroy all knowledge of how to make tv's, but you still can't destroy the possibility of tv's, because that knowledge/spirit exists independently of this phenomenal/physical realm. Tv sets can be destroyed, but not the "science behind tvs that makes it work".
things in the phenomenal realm, all things physical, die. They live for a while too, sure, but they ultimately die.
things in the noumenal realm don't die, or change. Which is why platonists believe that noumenal realm is "true reality", and that phenomenal realm (which is what we live in) is just an illusion.

[Anonymous No.13377234]

>>13374200
>that material realm is an illusion, a shadow of a higher world

well, i´m not a drug user but i believe that there´s a higher dimension/s) (the so called branes and megabranes as postulated by string theorists)

[Anonymous No.13377422]

>>13374723
he was. hes a time traveller so he is and will be. plato was actually the end point of a potent magical tradition, not the start of it. he saved the world for another round. or tried to save, still we advanced materially and only dribbles of spiritual leaps here and there. jesus is an archetype of an apocalyptic time traveller which weve had a handful of, some forever erased in history.

[Anonymous No.13377440]

>>13377086
Thanks for your post, anon, I do appreciate it.

[Anonymous No.13377527]

>>13372957

How very shallow and pedantic of you, good sir.

[Anonymous No.13378065]

>>13374200

good post, disregard all of the DARE members in here. they don't seem to ever consider that even our sober reality is a construct, and not objective. where does reality end and a hallucination start?

[Anonymous No.13378073]

>>13377527
Thanks.

[Anonymous No.13378081]

>>13375514
How dense we talking?

Eric Perlman's Theophany, Gregory Shaw's book on Iamblichus, Ken Wheeler's writings on the dyad (available online), and everything Uzdavinys has ever written are excellent

[Anonymous No.13378175]

>>13376355
See, someone keeps saying this and yet it doesn't seem true. Could you substantiate this claim at all? I'm interested

[Anonymous No.13378397]

bump

[Anonymous No.13379431]

>>13378175
Not that poster but he is kinda right and kinda wrong. Post-Kantian metaphysics generally denies the role of noetic intuition generally although some backdoor the numinous in anyway and is more concerned with what we can know exists rather than what actually exists (metaphysics as metapsychology).

[Anonymous No.13379697]

>>13375578
here lazy nigger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9mEck2m7Tg&list=PLOAHEE5Zs-1QrFirFmFQF0fdvKBOJk4Zj

[Anonymous No.13379720]

>>13377086
Based.

[Anonymous No.13379735]

>>13372976
Is this Mexico?

[Anonymous No.13380029]

>undergrad philosophy lecture on Plato
>TA teaching the class starts talking about chairs