Liber Legis Contradiction?
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@mark0987 said
"I think the original ending of the verse far more thought provoking and brilliant though. It makes me think of sub atomic particles, or the so called 'god-particle' in physics."
It's surely the best - most vivid - example of the Book talking to an era beyond its immediate time. If it was intended to be "for all," it wouldn't do to have a passage incapable of even basic understanding to the vast majority of people in the world in 1904. Even for most scientists, the passage was beyond comprehension at the time.
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""The unfragmentary non-atomic fact of my universality""
versus
""The omnipresence of my body""
I was just thinking about this myself. Allow a pedant to explain...
"Non-atomic" can mean two things:
- It can mean that Nuit's universality is not confined to the material.
- It can mean that Nuit's universality excludes the material.
I think it was more than just a poetic choice.
Of course, the Book itself points (ahead of its time) to the idea that ultimately matter (atoms) are the result of vibrations in a field interacting, resisting and attracting - that there is ultimately no irreducible minimum "matter" as "atom" has traditionally implied. The rewording avoids the confusion that would have been created.
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I don't think it means either of those things. It means the same as "unfragmentary." That is, it is continuous, uninterrupted, not to be thought of as a collation of minute particles but, rather, as a whole. Not atoms, but a whole universe.
Ironically, atom comes from a Greek word (atomos) that means "undivided" - it was applied to submolecular components basic to each element on the theory that they could not be divided any further, that there could be nothing smaller. If that were taken literally, the meaning would be exactly the opposite: non-atomic would mean "not undividable," i.e., "dividable." But that's inconsistent with the context, and atoms (as the components of molecules) were understood in 1904, so I really think the message is, "I'm continuous, uninterrupted, inherently undivided," etc.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"It means the same as "unfragmentary." That is, it is continuous, uninterrupted, not to be thought of as a collation of minute particles but, rather, as a whole. Not atoms, but a whole universe."
Yes, I agree. To my mind, this would be the longer, more precise version of what I intended in "It can mean that Nuit's universality is not confined to the material." I was working toward a simple parallelism in presentation.
@Jim Eshelman said
"Ironically, atom comes from a Greek word (atomos) that means "undivided" - it was applied to submolecular components basic to each element on the theory that they could not be divided any further, that there could be nothing smaller. If that were taken literally, the meaning would be exactly the opposite: non-atomic would mean "not undividable," i.e., "dividable." But that's inconsistent with the context, and atoms (as the components of molecules) were understood in 1904, so I really think the message is, "I'm continuous, uninterrupted, inherently undivided," etc."
Well, I was attempting to describe the possibility of misinterpretation surrounding the word "non-atomic,"... But I submit to your far greater pedantic skill.
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Insufficient pedantry has rarely been someone's complaint about me <g>.
Yes, though - I see your point and approach.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"It's surely the best - most vivid - example of the Book talking to an era beyond its immediate time. If it was intended to be "for all," it wouldn't do to have a passage incapable of even basic understanding to the vast majority of people in the world in 1904. Even for most scientists, the passage was beyond comprehension at the time."
Oh, please. There’s nothing in The Book of the Law that reveals any new scientific information that wasn’t known at the time. People knew what “atoms” were in 1904…the idea of “atoms” has been around since Democritus, for crying out loud. “Non-atomic fact of my universality” sounds a little clunky and cumbersome, but it parses just fine.
To try to pretend that Liber AL actually contains some kind of new knowledge or that it predicts something about the future of science or whatnot is to read future ideas back into the Book.
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@Legis said
""Non-atomic" can mean two things:
- It can mean that Nuit's universality is not confined to the material.
- It can mean that Nuit's universality excludes the material."
Both of those readings are wrong. The verse makes no claim about the relationship of universality to materiality. Rather, the verse is saying that Nuit (as a symbol of Qabalistic Zero, since “she” is not a literal conscious agent) cannot be broken down (and hence, is not “atomic”).
If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. The existence of separate “things” is just a function of how our brains perceive the universe. The boundaries we draw that distinguish one “thing” from another are largely arbitrary: from one way of looking at it, there are no “things” at all in the universe. No-things, Nothing.
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"The existence of separate “things” is just a function of how our brains perceive the universe. The boundaries we draw that distinguish one “thing” from another are largely arbitrary: from one way of looking at it, there are no “things” at all in the universe. No-things, Nothing."
If the boundaries that we draw are largely arbitrary, how is it that one set of boundaries (yours) is correct while another is "wrong"?
If you take Nuit to be a only symbol of Qabbalistic Zero, then your version flies, I guess. If you take her as she is presented in the text (that is, as a conscious agent, whether literal or not) then either the original or the corrected version of the text does raise questions of how that agent manifests in the material world. Very similar to questions of how consciousness manifests in a material world.
Is it (consciousness)/She (Nuit) reducible to chemical reactions at an atomic level? Does it/She exist physically but sub-atomically, thus not affected by chemical changes but possibly by nuclear ones? Is it/She non-material and somehow existent outside but interleaved with the physical realm? Is it/She merely a construct of language and therefore only existent within a logical framework? How deep does the rabbit hole go when you try to prove that consciousness is only a construct of consciousness? Are the divisions between these "things" largely arbitrary and therefore unimportant?
In my humble estimation, it is questions like these that the text is meant to provoke. As with any holy book, it is the mind's attempt to navigate them that causes it to break its mundane bonds and seek spiritual enlightenment.
p.s. - It's good to see you're still alive, Los. Your two and a half months' silence had me a bit concerned.
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@Gnosomai Emauton said
"If the boundaries that we draw are largely arbitrary, how is it that one set of boundaries (yours) is correct while another is "wrong"?"
From the perspective of Nothing, no set of boundaries is "correct." Within a specific discursive framework, however, we can say that an answer is correct or incorrect in that particular framework.
For example, is that ball of light in the sky one single thing (one star) or is it actually billions of molecules or zillions of atoms? When I choose whether to think of it as "one star" or "billions of molecules," the issue is not that one statement is "correct" and the other is "incorrect." Each is a different way of looking at stuff that's actually there, and the issue is that each way might be more or less useful in a particular context.
So even though thinking of the sun as "one star" is in some sense arbitrary, it would be incorrect for me to deny the statement "there is one star in the solar system" because in the context in which that statement is made and evaluated, we're speaking within a specific discursive system.
"If you take Nuit to be a only symbol of Qabbalistic Zero, then your version flies, I guess."
You guess right.
"If you take her as she is presented in the text (that is, as a conscious agent, whether literal or not) then either the original or the corrected version of the text does raise questions of how that agent manifests in the material world."
She manifests through Hadit (and, by extension, through the core of each individual, which is represented by RHK). It's in the first line of the Book.
To elaborate a little more on that answer, what each one of us individually calls our “self” is, also, an arbitrary way to divide up stuff. The division of the flux of reality into “self” and “not self” (composed of all kinds of “things”) is what makes experience possible in the first place. According to the Book of the Law, this is the entire purpose of manifestation, for that totality (Nuit) to produce the illusion of separateness so as to enjoy experience. That’s why experience is called “love” in Thelema: every experience is the union of an aspect of possibility with one particular point-of-view that has been draped with the illusion of separateness.
The realization that “self” is an arbitrary dividing-up-of-things is what makes initiation possible: we can choose to perceive “self” in a way different from the way we typically do. In the same way that I can choose to perceive the sun as lots of molecules, so too can I perceive what I call my “self” as a body, a mind, and a “core individuality” (a “Khabs”) whose inclinations (“True Will”) can be frustrated by that body and mind.
From yet another perspective, the “core individuality” is itself divisible into parts. From yet another perspective, Nothing exists.
None of those statements is a claim about what is true: each is just a different way of looking at stuff that's really there.
"Very similar to questions of how consciousness manifests in a material world."
I have no idea what you're babbling about here or in the rest of your post. I fear you've conflated "Nuit" with "consciousness" and are feverishly playing with the contents of your own imagination.
Nuit is all things and all possibility. Consciousness is just one possible thing.
"It's good to see you're still alive, Los. Your two and a half months' silence had me a bit concerned."
Don't get used to seeing me. I've more or less resigned to stop posting here. My slightly-less-than-a-year tenure on these forums convinced me that the quality of discourse here is even lower than I had anticipated. Continuing to respond to most of what passes for "discussion" here would be a waste of my time.
I reserve the right, of course, to occasionally post whatever I feel like whenever I feel like it. I'm likely to be just as surprised as you.
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@Los said
"Each is a different way of looking at stuff that's actually there, and the issue is that each way might be more or less useful in a particular context. (emphasis mine)"
Has your time away caused a 180? This is the exact point that the two of us couldn't see eye to eye on three months ago and now you're tossing it in as common assumed truth. What changed?
@Los said
"I have no idea what you're babbling about here or in the rest of your post."
Well... I guess things haven't changed that much
. As usual, the feeling's mutual. Somehow one side of your mouth seems to say that no set of boundaries is "correct" (i.e. Nuit) while the other side corrects others for not utilizing your chosen framework (i.e. your particular Hadit).Lather, rinse, repeat.
Nevertheless... be well in your journeys, whether here or elsewhere.
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@Gnosomai Emauton said
"Has your time away caused a 180?"
Nope.
"This is the exact point that the two of us couldn't see eye to eye on three months ago"
No, it's not. Above on this thread, I'm discussing different ways to conceptualize physical reality and different discursive systems established by perspective. Months ago, our disagreement was about something entirely different: it was about factual claims made in the context of one specific discursive system, and you were arguing -- incorrectly -- for some version of "Everybody's opinion about this factual claim is correct, hurray! (Well, except for Los' opinion, of course)."
Your continued inability to grasp the subject under discussion, while unsurprising, is a nice illustration of the kinds of elementary errors constantly made on this forum.