Well, I never could wrap my head around this concept because everyone defines and characterizes it differently. I saw papers of people who quarrel about it saying that Aristotle never meant by it what people mean today. Anyway, for the time being I left this out in the context of a quick resume. In Sri Aurobindo there is a distinction between name and form. By ‘names’ he meant not just the words describing objects, but in its deeper sense, the powers, qualities, and characters (features and traits that distinguish one thing from another) of the form, and being caught up by our consciousness. In this sense, all ‘names’ are already latent and inherent in the nameless and timeless Absolute but are expressed in the temporal manifestation as qualities, powers, and characters of its forms. I don't know, however, how far this overlaps with the Aristotelian hylomorphism. Will go through your papers. Thanks.
1. Order. I know you and I don't quite see eye to eye (or I to I?) on this, but I still think there's a fundamental problem with essentially saying, "Ok, materialistic science does fine up till life appears and then the problem begins," rather than, "from the beginning of time, there is NOTHING that in a FUNDAMENTAL way that can be accounted for by a purely materialistic view. But perhaps we'll need agree to disagree until I can better organize the examples which i believe show this to be the case.
2. In support the limitations of the physicist approach in medicine. After 21 years of treatment for hypertension, it astonishes me how limited the understanding is of what doctors call "essential" hypertension (that is, the 90%+ cases of high blood pressure for which there is no known cause. You can eat a perfect, low salt, healthy fruit, vegetables, etc diet, get the perfect kinds of exercise (isometrics is now seen as the #1 exercise for lowering blood pressure), get perfect sleep, have a strong social support network, be the perfect weight and whatever else is recommended, and still have out of control blood pressure, and the doctor actually can only say, "I only can tell you what the drug companies tell me" (a real quote).
Considering this is a problem affecting 1/3 the world's population, and so little is known, it is rather astonishing. On the other hand, if we threw ourselves into the most advanced, most powerful mind body medicine, I think the results would be paradigm shattering (including reliable psi skills) within 5 years at the most. That is, with trillions of dollars of worldwide investment and investigation.
On 1: We could see it also only from the pragmatic perspective. Science could build (more or less fictitious) models of reality that saved appearances and made some predictions, without claiming those models to be “fundamental”. Even though they couldn’t account for nothing in a fundamental way, the purely materialistic view could, nevertheless, allow to make some things work. They simply worked allowing us to engineer something new, and one doesn’t care whether the model is “fundamental” or “explains” anything.
But the issue raised here is that in many respects, modern science stalled even from the pragmatic perspective. The new models, new predictions and new practical applications are exponentially decreasing toward a state of stagnation.
On 2: You see? It is a pragmatic and utilitarian approach. The motto is: "We don't care about what an illness is, we look for the drug that fixes it." In a sense, it worked, even though only to a limited degree. Didn't it? But even this is coming to an end.
As a neo-Aristotelian, I should ask, have you considered Robert Koon's variety of hylomorphism? Both invoke anti-materialism.
Consider these two links: https://robkoons.net/uploads/1/3/5/2/135276253/staunch_hylomorphism.pdf
https://www.newdualism.org/papers-Jul2020/Koons-AgainstEmergentIndividualism.pdf
Well, I never could wrap my head around this concept because everyone defines and characterizes it differently. I saw papers of people who quarrel about it saying that Aristotle never meant by it what people mean today. Anyway, for the time being I left this out in the context of a quick resume. In Sri Aurobindo there is a distinction between name and form. By ‘names’ he meant not just the words describing objects, but in its deeper sense, the powers, qualities, and characters (features and traits that distinguish one thing from another) of the form, and being caught up by our consciousness. In this sense, all ‘names’ are already latent and inherent in the nameless and timeless Absolute but are expressed in the temporal manifestation as qualities, powers, and characters of its forms. I don't know, however, how far this overlaps with the Aristotelian hylomorphism. Will go through your papers. Thanks.
Great summary, and two small issues:
1. Order. I know you and I don't quite see eye to eye (or I to I?) on this, but I still think there's a fundamental problem with essentially saying, "Ok, materialistic science does fine up till life appears and then the problem begins," rather than, "from the beginning of time, there is NOTHING that in a FUNDAMENTAL way that can be accounted for by a purely materialistic view. But perhaps we'll need agree to disagree until I can better organize the examples which i believe show this to be the case.
2. In support the limitations of the physicist approach in medicine. After 21 years of treatment for hypertension, it astonishes me how limited the understanding is of what doctors call "essential" hypertension (that is, the 90%+ cases of high blood pressure for which there is no known cause. You can eat a perfect, low salt, healthy fruit, vegetables, etc diet, get the perfect kinds of exercise (isometrics is now seen as the #1 exercise for lowering blood pressure), get perfect sleep, have a strong social support network, be the perfect weight and whatever else is recommended, and still have out of control blood pressure, and the doctor actually can only say, "I only can tell you what the drug companies tell me" (a real quote).
Considering this is a problem affecting 1/3 the world's population, and so little is known, it is rather astonishing. On the other hand, if we threw ourselves into the most advanced, most powerful mind body medicine, I think the results would be paradigm shattering (including reliable psi skills) within 5 years at the most. That is, with trillions of dollars of worldwide investment and investigation.
On 1: We could see it also only from the pragmatic perspective. Science could build (more or less fictitious) models of reality that saved appearances and made some predictions, without claiming those models to be “fundamental”. Even though they couldn’t account for nothing in a fundamental way, the purely materialistic view could, nevertheless, allow to make some things work. They simply worked allowing us to engineer something new, and one doesn’t care whether the model is “fundamental” or “explains” anything.
But the issue raised here is that in many respects, modern science stalled even from the pragmatic perspective. The new models, new predictions and new practical applications are exponentially decreasing toward a state of stagnation.
On 2: You see? It is a pragmatic and utilitarian approach. The motto is: "We don't care about what an illness is, we look for the drug that fixes it." In a sense, it worked, even though only to a limited degree. Didn't it? But even this is coming to an end.
Beautiful, and I agree with all points, well stated.
About another year, our courses should be running on automatic. I expect by spring 2025 Jan and I can devote full time to this. Will be fun!
Oh... yes, in my head I always subtract one instead of adding one. Thanks. :))
BTW, thank you for your subscription as well.
A too negative and simplistic assessment of science, right? Anyway, if you don't argue I can't comment.
I have no idea to which "explanation" you are referring to... but never mind. ;)
I'm sorry for being rude yesterday evening. I sent you and email if you want to know how i came on your blog.