The principle of Open-Emptiness deals with ultimate facts, while the principle of Inclusive-Transcendence deals with ultimate values. The ultimate fact of matter is the ontological absence of inherent existence, which can be established inferentially by dialectical reason through analysis of dependent origination, as well as established as a direct perception through gnoseological wisdom. This absence …
Probative and Imaginative Modes of Engagement in Buddhism and Process Thought
At face value, Alfred North Whitehead's Process thought and the view of Madhyamaka Buddhists seem to characterize reality in diametrically opposed manners. Whitehead's view, that all events go through a process of "concrescence" culminating in a final satisfaction that passes into objective immortality, seems to contradict the Buddha's teaching that all conditioned things, which are …
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Self-Emancipation as Self-Abolition
The self-emancipation of the oppressed i.e. the proletariat, the feminine, and the open-empty self, is synonymous with their self-abolition, since each comes to know that affirmation of their own being entails an affirmation of the oppressors with which they form a dialectical couple i.e. the bourgeoisie, the masculine, and the conceited self, respectively. The logic …
On The Non-Difference Between Idealism and Materialism
Rather than being a genuine alternative to metaphysical materialism (the general notion that thinking is derivative of being), metaphysical idealism (the general notion that thinking and being are identical) is the fruition of a seed implicit in the original naïve realist assumption that the world actually exists "out there" independently of the observer, which itself …
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A Self-Emancipating Universe
As the most complete expression of holopoiesis, the creative evolution of the universe as a whole can be characterized as a non-linear yet progressive transition from an initial state of near-absolute heteronomy affected by externally related, differential mechanisms to an end state of near-absolute autonomy enjoyed between internally related, integrated organisms — an asymptotic movement …
The Empty Oversoul
Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are the true soul-searchers in that they are the only ones to have realized for themselves that the soul or self (or any equivalent) is unfindable, which is what it means to say that the self is empty. But this does not mean that there is no self. What is found is …
On Global Fictionalism
From a Madhyamaka Buddhist perspective, if all things are unreal and illusory because they are open-empty (i.e. without an ultimately real foundation), then ostensibly "true" propositions are actually, in a sense, "false." But because they are not entirely false (because otherwise this would assume the existence of a real truth posed in contrast to ostensible …
Transcendental Scotoma
Our eyes have a natural scotoma or "blind spot" where we can't actually take in visual information because of a lack of photoreceptive cells in the area where your optic nerve connects to your retina, the tissue that collects the information that gets processed by your brain after being transferred through the optic nerve. The …
Negative Dialectics and Dialogical Process Semantics (Cursory Notes)
In order to disclose the nature of the actual world (equivalent to the settled facts of the immediate past) as openly-empty (meaning, being empty or without an ultimate foundation) we deploy the method of negative dialectics whereby presuppositions of an inherently existent entity, process or relation that could serve as the ground of the actual …
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The Principle of Inclusive Transcendence
The Principle of Inclusive Transcendence is the governing principle that the manifold diversity of experiences which constitute a given, shared reality come together and coalesce into a new occasion that integrates the preceding ones as part of its own internal constitution and which is brought about by a novel act of creative synthesis, only to …
Holopoiesis 