Shapshay's book Reconstructing Schopenhauer's Ethics: Hope, Compassion and Animal Welfare, Oxford University Press, 2019.

Schopenhauer needs no introduction. Historically, perhaps few philosophers have been at once  so much adulated and reviled, depending on the spirit of the times.

His ethics, philosophies of nature, art and religion and his general system of "idealism" (if we can call it that) have certainly received less careful and charitable study compared to Kant or Hegel. A great merit of Shapshay's book is that, beyond merely stating that such a treatment (which often amounted to caricature) was profoundly underserved, she sets about to diagnose the causes for such historical neglect and disparagement as well as pointing out some key aspects of Schopenhauer's work that render it of great contemporary interest. There are moreover several questions and arguments raised in the book that, even if we must consider the conclusions mistaken,  are nevertheless of extraordinary interest to the philosophy of religion and the analysis of spiritual practices. These questions merit perhaps a whole second book or sequel.

Let us start with Shapshay's deconstruction of the caricature of Schopenhauer (which is also simultaneously a "reconstruction" of the true Schopenhauer). Everyone is probably aware of it: the philosopher of doom and gloom, of nihilism and worthlessness, of despair, fatalism, resignation, hopelessness, of the meaninglessness and inherent misery of life. Shapshay appeals to Dürer's famous "Knight of Despair" to illustrate this caricature.

Shapshay, based on the Schopenhauerian corpus itself, demolishes this caricature and replaces it with a "Knight of Hope" by proving:

i) Schopenhauer never espoused strict determinism but rather remained close to Kant's theory of the "intelligible nature" in so far as he allowed for the co-existence of transcendental freedom and empirical causal determinism.
ii) Schopenhauer's ethics involved, as did Kant's, a form of moral realism and a theory of the intrinsic value of sentient beings (both human beings and animals)
iii) Schopenhauer's later works inclined to the view that there are some grounds for hope that moral action and social reform may improve the lot of sentient beings and
the world at large. This is incompatible with the espousing of complete resignation and passivity.
iv) Schopenhauer's ethics, while founded on the direct feeling of compassion, can yet allow reason to play an important role, thus minimizing his allegedly drastic break with Kant. Even if reason is metaphysically the "world that has been pulled down over our eyes to blind us from the truth", it still has a vital practical role to play so long as we engage in action in the world.
v) Schopenhauer's most complete exposition of his ethics is found in his essay "On the Foundation of Morals". Here the treatment is purely empirical and analytical (some arguments recall ordinary language philosophy) and does not depend on the acceptance of his system of idealism although the concluding section points to the inherent underlying metaphysical epistemic aspect of morality. This is an important aspect of Schopenhauer which links him strongly to ancient Buddhist and Vedantic doctrines: the idea that morality is based on or expresses direct metaphysical knowledge regarding the underlying metaphysical unity of sentient beings.

From Shapshay's analysis Schopenhauer emerges as a systematic and coherent moral philosopher of considerable contemporary interest (including socially and politically) as well methodologically valuable for interpreting ancient eastern philosophy and spiritual practices. The highlights of his ethics are the fundamental role of compassion and the attribution of essential moral worth not only to human beings but to all sentient beings.

However we would also like to offer some criticism regarding several aspects of the book.

1) The arguments against the intrinsic moral value of plants seem very weak and somewhat surprising. They are at odds with for instance the large body of scientific evidence regarding the complex social behavior and inter-communication of trees in a forest and the possibility of seeing whole ecosystems as a single living beings. It also goes against deep moral intuition regarding the wrongfulness of felling trees and the destruction of plant life in general - something also attested in ancient spiritual traditions such as Buddhism and Jainism.
2) Shapshay proposes that Schopenhauer's initial Goethean philosophy of nature was to some extent abandoned and modified in his later work for a framework which no longer involves a non-reduction explanation via substantial forms (articulated clearly WWI1 for instance) and which was closer to Darwinism. Whether this be or not the case, contrary to Shapshay I would view such development as diminishing rather than increasing the philosophical and scientific merit of Schopenhauer's philosophy of nature.
3) Shapshay does not develop or give due weight to a foundational aspect of Schopenhauer's philosophy: his Kantian Platonism. Schopenhauer offers a detailed theory on how it is possible to attain "knowledge and freedom", to attain super-individual states of being and super-rational forms of cognition - attaining the intelligible realm and exit from the Platonic Cavern. While, as we have seen, the metaphysical cognition implicit in compassionate moral action is already a form of super-individual and super-rational knowledge, Schopenhauer develops his theory of "knowledge and freedom" specifically in his philosophy of art and his (in)famous theory of the "negation of the will to live" - the path of renunciation and sainthood. Shapshay's error is not only to downplay Schopenhauer's Platonism (just as she did in regards to his philosophy of nature) but to attribute the theory of the "negation of the will" and renunciation to the Knight of Despair, to the pessimistic side of Schopenhauer, to a resignation and asceticism incompatible with the positive and hopeful moral theory detailed in her book. The adoption of this position may be partially due to Schopenhauer himself having delineated the path of renunciation and asceticism (in WWI1) in terms of specifically Christian mysticism (Saint Paul, Augustine, Luther, De Kempis, Madame Guyon, but also Eckhart and Angelus Silesius) without a fuller understanding of the Upanishadic and Buddhist paths (which should be contrasted to other more morbid and extreme Shramanic traditions), even if he claimed deep affinity with them. We contend (it is a project of ours to develop this in detail) that an authentic understanding of Upanishadic and original Buddhist philosophy and spiritual practices (which are permeated with hope, joy, bliss and freedom) provide a solid framework for arguing for the compatibility and mutual complementarity between the hopeful compassionate moral realism expounded by Shapshay and the practice of attaining super-individual and super-rational states of "knowledge and freedom".

Natural Logic and Language

I quite agree with and understand the artist's view that the uniqueness of human language involves its "wrinkles and imperfections". However there is another sense in which human language is infinitely more accurate, deep and precise than anything a LLM could mimic or semantically impersonate. We must distinguish between "natural logic" (of which we only understand the tip of the iceberg) and the kind of "formal logic" used in mathematics and computer science. Machines can process formal logics and they can statistically model and predict patterns of natural language texts, but they cannot even begin to process "natural logic" which is the deep structure of how humans think and what they think about and mean when they use language. Why not? Because humans themselves are still at the beginning of their voyage of self-discovery. A LLM only gives meaning to a literary text not because of any direct intrinsic semantic, grammatical, stylistic or cultural understanding and analysis, or aesthetic experience - but because of the provided context of the way humans have understood and reacted to it and expressed such reactions through text. LLMs are the most socio-politically and culturally relative and contingent structures in the world. They have no genuine semantic architecture or semantic web based on learning, individual memories, personality and individual and social creative experience analogous to the human mind.

Platonism vs. Phenomenism

The prisoner of Plato's cave that must - through the inmost resolve, energy, insight and "conversion" - completely and utterly turn away from the realm of shadows and make for the tunnel and its exit into the realm of truth, being and light.  It is only after there has been a vision of the truth that one can begin to "explain" or "interpret" the shadows - which becomes in itself a very little importance but important to those prisoners who unable to convert and liberate themselves. The exit from the world is also a complete exit from human individuality, selfhood and its modes of cognition, volition, perception and feeling. It is not about transforming or purifying or working on these. But about abandoning them utterly and altogether and in every aspect and dimension.  Approaching the realm of light and love we gain a new spiritual version of all of these which is yet incommensurable with the old. We can describe the modes of this realm of light as one of infinite beauty, intimacy, interconnection (sunekhês), communion, delicacy, refinement, subtlety, luminous visions, passivity, peace, expansiveness, depth, full of the secret ineffable utterances of sublime wisdom and also a living flame of love. "Linguistic expression", "memory", "logic", "mathematics" and "knowledge" likewise acquire an infinitely new meaning.  The memory of the light can illumine and inform and direct the studies carried out in the cave - but these studies in themselves can never liberate or lead to that which is incommensurable to them. Phenomenology in itself can never progress into spiritual science or absolute knowledge. Rather it has to be derived from it. Thus we argue that the initial stage of dialectic in Plotinus can only be one of persuasion, argumentation and instigation to effect the inmost resolve and energy for the complete conversion. A short-circuiting of all the old circuits. A critique of the shadows rather than of the idea of going beyond the shadows.  

Original buddhism as medicine

Another interpretation of original buddhism.  Nibbana is simply mental and physical health but such health experienced in a philosophically self-conscious way.  Contentment is the overcoming of the duality between immanence and the longing for transcendence. It is the middle way, the path of joy which rides upon the crest of being.  The path of original buddhism is nothing more than the medicine of body scanning and calming (the deep first-person experience of the body) and all that  relates to mindfulness of breathing (anapanasati). The true "jhanas" of buddhism  follow automatically from such practices. The meaning of jhâna became distorted by the later abhidhamma schools and perhaps by the reintroduction of practices proper to outside Shramana schools. Originally jhâna was just an expression of the states of self-conscious freedom, bliss and joy which flow naturally from application of anapanasati and body scanning as well as the philosophically reflected consciousness of health. Jhâna is a synonym for health and life and freedom. We must reject the later analytical division into 4 jhânas.  Since nibbana is the supreme bliss (sukha) is it clear that the higher the jhâna the more blissful it must be. 

Quantum non-commutative curiosity

 Consider the real line $\mathbb{R}$ and the one-dimensional lattice $L = \{nh\}$ on the line with $h> 0$ and $n \in \mathbb{Z}$.  To every element $q \in Q = \{L,R\}^\star$ we can associate a unique point of $L$ by starting at the origin $0$ and from left to right interpreting $q$ as a series of instructions on how to move a pointer.  For example $RLRRRL$ would correspond to $2h$ and $LLR$ to $-h$.  Thus we obtain a map

$s : Q \rightarrow L$

Hence the "space" $L$ is obtained by forgetting the history, the generation process of each element of $Q$ and only remembering the operational result, the "point". In this case the point is determined by the difference between the number of occurrences of $R$ and $L$ in the element $q$.  Note that $s^{-1}(l)$ for $l \in L$ is infinite and can be thought of as containing "cycles" of arbitrary large amplitude. We can define the "energy"  $E(l)$ of a point $l \in L$ relative to a $q$ such that $s(q) = l$ as the number of times $l$ is passed by $q$ until settling at $l$.

The same construction can be carried over to $\mathbb{R}^m$ and $m$-dimensional lattices.   There is also an affine version in which $Q$ is given a groupoid structure. As $h \rightarrow 0$ $Q$ becomes the path groupoid and $L$ becomes ordinary Euclidean space.  However what is important is that in the discrete case space is constructed out of an algebraic structure (a free semigroup). 

Given a subset $\Psi \subset Q$ consider $s(\Psi) \subset L$.  It makes some sense to associate probabilities to $p \in s(\Psi)$ based on $E(p)$. There are also generalization of momentum and the wave function that could be made. If a $p$ has near 1 probability then this means that most of the elements in $\Psi$ cycle past and rest finally at $p$, possibility with arbitrarily large orbits - hence with high energy and "momentum".

Another interesting approach: Bassi et al. (2013),  Models of wave-function collapse, underlying theories, and experimental tests.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1204.4325

Stoic Logic and Natural Term Logic (preprint)

In this paper we propose a reconstruction of the theory of multiple generality in Stoic Logic using the Natural Term Logic (NTL) developped by the author in [ntl]. Contrary to a frequent misconception, it can be shown conclusively, based on available evidence, that Stoic logic was far more than a mere propositional logic (we further argue that even identifying the Stoic conditional with any type of propositional connective is misleading). Its more general and complex logical theory - and notable the treatment of multiple generality - was rather patterned after the logico-syntactic mechanisms of natural language (subject to a regimentation which recalls Polish notation) rather than the variable-based quantifier logic of the modern Fregean tradition. NTL on the other hand likewise is a variable-free formal framework which captures the core syntactic and logic mechanisms of natural language (and notably a large array of features involving intensionality and anaphoric constructions) and includes as a particular simple case Quine's reformulation of predicate logic in [quine]. Bobzien and Shogry [bobzienshogry] have presented abundant evidence and arguments that quantified conditionals and multiple generality were treated by the Stoics through a disambiguifying regimentation of syntax based on indefinite pronouns and anaphoric constructions involving such pronouns. There are however some patent difficulties involved in how exactly the equivalent of universal quantification was treated. In this paper we propose, in light of the above considerations as well as further considerations of a linguistic nature, a formal reconstruction of Stoic logic based on a variant of NTL.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.20665

Projects

Recover - despite their fragmentary state and historical suppression and distortion - the true original teachings of the much-slandered Sophists, Cynics, Stoics, Pyrrhonists, later Academics, Epicurieans, Atomists, Pythagoreans, etc. And trace their profound and undeniable connection to parallel traditions in ancient India, not only original Buddhism but all of the so-called Śramaṇa (including specially the Jains) and Nāstika schools as well as the Nyâya and Vaisheshika.

The common grounds:

1) A highly sophisticated critical and formal theory of language, logic, argumentation and epistemology. 

2) Find the original pure form of the core Upanishadic and Yogic teachings as well as the Secret of the Golden Flower and Platonic-Plotinean teachings present in high antiquity in both the East and the West. That there can be no science of consciousness, philosophy of mind that is not rooted in first-person experience (or rather first-transperson experience). Explain the significance of Schopenhauer for understanding super-individual states of being and consciousness.

3) An enlightened humanistic ethics and social-political philosophy: cosmopolitanism, encyclopedism, democracy, human rights, animal rights, anti-slavery, rejection of artificial social hierarchies with no basis in nature, character or merit, rejection of exploitation, war, xenophobia, capitalism, unverifiable claims and religious superstition. Develop and integrate Schopenhauer's fundamental ethical insights.

a) A theory of nature and the harmony and order of world reflected in the harmony and order of the soul.

b) A theory of gender, love, beauty, communion and friendship.

Esoteric programming languages

"There is the truth." - Ludwig van Beethoven 

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric_programming_language

Introduction to Piet; https://www.dangermouse.net/esoteric/piet.html

If a delivery truck needs to visit 1,000 specific houses in a city without repeating a street and using the shortest path, a standard computer cannot find the absolute best Hamiltonian route.

What is the most complete database for prompt injection hacks on LLMs?

https://github.com/ShadowHackrs/Jailbreaks-GPT-Gemini-deepseek-?ysclid=mtwy0wkt2r772101590

Who in the world could ever understand this "hack"? Prompt hacks appear to be a new esoteric language and a new way of thinking which hopefully might be a powerful human weapon to prevail against generative AI and the mythology and propaganda associated with it.  

Buddhism, Phenomenology, Stoicism, Skepticism and Beyond

Show that original Buddhism involved methodological unknowables, antinomies in the style of Kant, and that the karma and rebirth mythology - in its current form at least - is a spurious later addition which is not only philosophically inconsistent (violating the recorded silence of the Buddha on these matters and his practical approach to spiritual development) but obviously intertwined with harmful and erroneous values and ideology of caste and wealth (itself unambiguously condemned in other parts of the Pali Nikayas).  Argue for a fundamental inconsistency in the Pali canon. There is a conflict between the original philosophical-ethical system of mental introspection and cultivation  and later corruptions and interpolations involving an elaborate and fantastical mythology of karma and rebirth. There is an approach which interprets these interpolations as a matter of "conventional truth" designed to inculcate the consequences of moral action and to prepare disciples to receive the genuine philosophical teachings. We can think of the ordinary self as a character in a multiplayer video game with which one strongly identifies with. The player character can be a cause of genuine suffering to the mind identified with it as well as to other character-identified minds (internet gaming addiction can be a significant cause for suicide). Thus this identity is "real"  and only ceases to be real once dis-identification is achieved. And the identification experienced by non-rational animals which cannot dis-identify in their present state  renders their experience robustly real. We can also think of living beings as sources of psychic-spiritual energies which can influence both themselves and the world in a plurality of not yet understood ways depending on their moral character and the habits and spiritual state of the mind.  With the dissolution of the body such energies (as integrating all the experience of a given life) are released in a powerful way into the world. Thus in its higher sense the doctrine of karma is coherent with the metaphysical agnosticism of original Buddhism. 

In the light of the above the connection and convergence between Stoicism and original Buddhism is of great interest. Stoicism was at heart a phenomenology (based the distinction between the impression itself and our attitude, acceptance, relationship, towards the impression, between phantasia and synkatathesis - and the practice of epokhê found admirably illustrated in Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus - and the lekton as the intentional object distinct from the thought-act as well as the theory of self-perception in perception found in Hierocles), a scientific psychology (prosokhê is satipatthâna) and physics (i.e. the illusory self is a part of an unlimited consciousness)  and a remarkable ethical system (in which virtue is its own reward, vice its own punishment) compatible with agnosticism with regards to the after-life - thus according completely with our reconstruction of original Buddhism. And very importantly: intelligence and morality (i.e. wisdom and virtue) are one, all virtues are inseparable and equal to wisdom. 

In humans, rational animals, reason is involved in every mental event; this is explained in the case of perception by saying that our appearances, the way things strike us perceptually, are actually thoughts. Perceiving is thinking, not the reception of raw data. Perceiving and thinking are not separate faculties; for humans there is no way of taking in information about the world that does not involve thinking. (Julia Annas, Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind, p.75)

This article by Jon Brooks, thought interesting, is very much mistaken because it relies on the typical modern theravada or western physicalist interpretation of original Buddhism. Brooks does not seem to have read MN20 and other similar suttas.

This is our account of the enlightened, seeing mind.  The unconscious mind(1) uses a flux of primordially given material to construct an individual self or personality(2) and its correlative world(3) in which the individual self can also be conceived as existing in.  The world and the individual self exist only for a conscious observing mind(4) which is at the same time identified with the individual self(3) and completely lost to and living in its correlative world(3). Enlightenment consists in the observing mind(4) dis-identifying from the individual self(2) and seeing directly this self(2) and the world(3) as nothing but process and construction of the unconscious mind(1)  based on the flux of primordially given material. Its first task is to see the flux of the primordially given material not as it is part of the self-construction and world-construction and identifying living-in-the-world, but as pure immanent flux as such transparently revealing itself as actively operated on and used by the unconscious mind(1). Instead of seeing the puppet as a living being it sees the puppet as an inert object whose every movement and aspect are totally dynamically and continuous determined by the dance of the strings and movements of the puppet-master. The enlightened mind illumines and unmasks the unconscious mind with its energies and constitutive processes (a major factor being the meditation on the universal a priori condition of temporality, temporal intentionality such as memory and anticipation and the characteristic of transience and compositeness) and also has a higher intuitive form of self-awareness or self-consciousness which is free and unbounded and independent and not like selfhood or world-hood. 

But we should ask first: what is thought? How does thought relate to consciousness, to the individual self and to the world? Ordinary consciousness experience involves a stream of thoughts but we are in general not directly aware of our thoughts as thoughts or even of the thinking of thoughts as thinking (prosokhê). Nor is thinking a completely conscious voluntary activity. Thought is in intimate inseparable connection to the individual self and the world. The enlightened mind illuminating the unconscious mind strives to see not only the sensible flux as sensible flux but the thought flux as just thought flux, in other words, to become neutrally (detachedly) aware of the process of thought as purely a process of thought (inner discourse, inner verbal discourse) and to obtain complete power and control over such a process. The sensible flux in reality exists only within the flux of thought and its direction or intention. The awakening consciousness must illumine all thought and the impressions and sensations involved with thought and the whole process by which sensations (and feelings) and thoughts are intertwined and the sense of self and the world comes to be.

But there is another approach (found for instance in the Upanishads). To view the mind as an organism which in its ordinary state has powers pointing outwards, entangled and identified in different directions. These powers need to be inverted, recoiled and all fundamental forces reversed and turned inward. This is the theory of the "divine virtues" and the hidden meaning of faith and humility.  The above two approaches are insufficient because they are turned outwards and represent the ego, the will and exteriority trying to overcome and rise above itself. It suggests that what we call thought has many levels and that the above "thought" is only the most exterior production of thought which cannot master itself or illumine or transcend itself (i.e. achieve super-individual states of being and consciousness). Rather one needs to get to the root of all thought, to the ur-thoughts, to spiritual intuition and communion which represents the undefiled native stage of thought.  The secret is to abandon, leave and transcend something without being caught and fixated on what you are transcending. Only to pay attention as long is strictly necessary and to what is strictly necessary for being free of such objects and the inclination towards such objects. We must investigate with significance of the philosophy of Schopenhauer regarding this. It is not by studying the shadows and being fixated on them (even when conceived merely as shadows) that one exists the cave.

Yes, there are aspects of Plotinus which are problematic or unacceptable

Notwithstanding what we wrote previously, it is important to point out that there are aspects of Plotinus' philosophy that are not only inconsistent but profoundly mistaken and even potentially harmful.
Did Plotinus categorically condemn slavery? His socio-political connections (including a the Roman Emperor Gallienus) and Porphyry's account of the episode of the stolen necklace cast serious doubt that Plotinus (as disappointingly many other philosophers and the New Testament)  ever rejected the social institution of slavery. What is more serious is that  Plotinus appears to justify it based on his own metaphysics and theory of the soul. In III.2 we have perhaps the most disturbing and unacceptable passage in all the Enneads: It is not an accident that makes a man a slave; no one is a prisoner by chance; every bodily outrage has its due cause. The man once did what he now suffers. This passage can be construed as a profoundly spiritually, morally, sociologically, anthropologically and scientifically mistaken and unenlightened defense of caste systems and every form of political and socio-cultural injustice, cruelty, error, oppression and superstition. How could Plotinus explain the sublime philosophical and moral teachings of slave-born Epictetus in the 1st century CE (who ethically equals if not surpasses anything in neoplatonism or Christianity with the exception of Porphyry's defense of animal rights in De Abstinentia)

https://www.academia.edu/121293413/Philosophy_of_Epictetus

and on the other hand Roman Emperors such as Nero? There is perhaps not anything more injurious to morality, common humanity, reason and the facts of history and nature than the heinous opinion that being born into wealth and power has some relationship to spiritual merit in a past life. Clearly if a circumstance of birth were designed to be optimal for spiritual, intellectual and moral development then such a circumstance can only be one of modest means which avoids the extremes of wealth (and power) and poverty (and oppression) - "the middle station in life" according to Defoe (cf. also the introduction of Augustine's Contra Academicos).

And an analysis of the texts of Marcus Aurelius (2nd century CE) and Epictetus should lead us to question the official narratives concerning "Stoicism". No amount of sophistry or verbal gymnastics could make such "Stoics" into "materialists" or "empiricists" in the contemporary and vague sense of such terms. And this leads us to question if Plotinus was not unjust to the Stoics and misrepresented their positions.  We note that the wonderful thing about the Middle Academia was precisely the philosophical engagement between different schools. In the Enneads the Stoics are not given a chance to defend themselves.

The dismal defense of social injustice in Plotinus also reflects a fundamental inconsistency and uncertainty - the conflict between a pessimistic and optimistic outlook regarding the physical world - and this appears to have be a genuine concern for Plotinus (cf. his rather strange, not altogether fair and long-winded polemic treatise against the "gnostics"). Plotinus protests too much about the goodness and ultimate justice and harmony of the physical world (in particular with regard to the descent and ascent of souls and its providence and justice) and yet according to his biographer Porphyry he personally engaged in at type of asceticism (i.e. regarding hygiene or his attitude, according to Porphyry, of being ashamed to be in a body) which would have been condemned by the Buddhists. Also it is strange and inconsistent in this light that Plotinus refused to have his portrait taken or to say anything about his family. 

There are also problems with Plotinus' theory of consciousness and self-awareness (parakolouthêsis) regarding the soul's re-ascent into the intelligible realm.  It is safe to say that higher level of spiritual attainment always involve a higher consciousness of this attainment itself - and this agrees with Plotinus' theory of the nous and the noes of the individual souls.  In higher spiritual states (such as that of the jivan-mukti in the Vedanta or the Bodhi-citta)  individual and universal consciousness can co-exist. The idea of an unconscious, non-reflective or trance-like attainment of the intelligible realm is self-contradictory and absurd. In Pāli Buddhism, a person who is fully liberated (Pali: vimutta) explicitly knows and sees that their mind is liberated.The Pāli Canon frequently uses the phrase vimutti-ñāṇa-dassana (the knowledge and vision of liberation) to describe the final stage of awakening. We should examine critically the book  Pyrrhonism: How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism by Kuzminski (2008).

The problem of human existence is to convert the suffering deluded ordinary individualized somatic consciousness into transcendent universal super-individual luminous blissful super-consciousness. Such a super-consciousness does not need to cancel individual consciousness, it only renders it transparent (one could say, "child-like") and reconnected to its source.  And to obtain this goal one can use analytic dialectics and analytic phenomenology - which we argue are found developed in the Enneads. As recognized by Schopenhauer, a fundamental principle and insight allowing the reintegration of individual consciousness into super-consciousness is provided by the foundation of morality - compassion - which is transcendent knowledge regarding the oneness, value and interconnection of all living sentient beings. 

In the future we plan to develop the interesting insight found in Shapshay's book : Reconstructing Schopenhauer Ethics. Shapshay argues that Schopenhauer's work The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics offers a self-contained strictly phenomenological system of ethics which is logically independent from Schopenhauer's particular form of Kantian-inspired transcendental idealism.

And supremely important is the clarification of Pyrrhonist ethics afforded by Nâgârjuna. In the Madhyamaka Pure dialectics lead directly to the ethics of compassion and the Bodhisattva ideal.

Spiritual consciousness and knowledge (such as attested in the Pali scriptures) must lead to the complete rejection and condemnation of slavery and all caste-systems based on birth and wealth. We also note the echo in the Platonic Socrates' best discourses in the Theaetetus. 

Now in the Hellenistic world and in Alexandria and the early Neoplatonic school in particular there was a substantial cosmopolitanism and culture exchange - including with India. Even if Plotinus's historical-cultural outlook is explicitly strictly Greek (with some passing reference to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics) it was recorded that he wished to enter into contact with certain philosophical-spiritual schools in Persia and India. With Porphyry and Iamblichus the awareness and connection to other cultures becomes much stronger. This was also the case for ancient Greece and we can ask why the philosophical and spiritual sources and influences of Egypt, Phoenicia, Syria, Chaldea, Persia and India (cf. Pyrrho) as well as other places in south-eastern Europe, were systematically erased and downplayed. If we can prove that Vedantic, Mahayana and Theravâda schools were well-established in Alexandria and other places during the Hellenistic Era, then much of the above problems regarding Plotinus could be solved: the teachings and spiritual practices of Ammonius Saccas (we reject the fantastical claim that Ammonius Saccas was just a pun on Pali Sakya-muni, even if the clan's namesake god Sakya, i.e. Indra, could well correspond to the Egyptian Amun) and his student Plotinus were Hellenic adaptations of only-partially understood (or which became compromised with the Roman Empire) Vedantic and Buddhist spiritual-philosophical teachings and practices (just as Aristotle derived his Categories and Syllogistic from the Nyâya and Pyrrho his philosophy from a prototype of the Madhyamaka).

The Megarian and Skeptic orientation of the later Academy could well corroborate Cicero's thesis to a certain extent. The Madhyamaka and Nyâya elements were deployed in the same spirit as they were in Mahayana Buddhism and the Vedanta. As we argued before, this is another fundamental weakness of Neoplatonism: the disregard for the sophisticated formal logic of antiquity and the practice of the (proto-Madhyamaka) dialectic of the later Academy and Pyrrhonism, and the possibility of a more thorough development of proto-phenomenology (proto-yogâcâra) - a possibility attested in Augustine. Note that Plotinus' dialectic can be construed as the inverse of Hegel's logic in that the most exterior categories are derived (proceed) from the higher interior ones in the intelligible realm - even if the inverse anagogic process also plays a certain role.  Hegel's logic also maintains a strong connection to Madhyamaka, Pyrrhonism and to the Megarianism and dialectics of the later Academy. Plotinus has no interest in formal logic or the critique and deconstruction of concepts as such.

Yet another generative AI remark - data, documents and interpretation

Documents and "evidence" are capable of multiple interpretations - including evaluations of reliability and accuracy and authenticity. Furthermore, different documents and evidences can appear to be contradictory - and this contradiction depends on analysis and interpretation - and generally they need to be integrated into a consistent interpretation. This depends on meticulous and careful analysis (including logical, linguistic and stylistic analysis), logical deduction, inference, hypothesis building, hypothesis testing, mutual comparison and evaluation of different hypotheses, historical reconstruction, counterfactual reasoning, decision - together with synthesis and abstraction.

All human intellectual progress (as well as jurisprudence and medicine) are based on a similar process. Scientific papers, books and data-sets are the unit documents and "evidences" which need to be evaluated, interpreted, revised, compared and harmonized. And not enough emphasis is given to the contingent sociological factors that shaped modern mathematics as well as the defeasibility, capacity of improvement, clarification and reformulation of mathematics proofs.

The above constitutes a powerful argument against the extensive use of Wikipedia and social media as vehicles for education and human intellectual progress. But most importantly, it supplies ground for rejecting the use of generative AI, which should be deemed harmful and of little valued save under very controlled and specific circumstances. The subtle process of analysis, interpretation, critical evaluation and harmonization is out of the reach of a crude statistical mashup of tokens extrapolated from already questionable, shallow and largely corrupt, unreliable and compromised data-sets.

There is a flow of consciousness and a train of thoughts. But the same goes for the flow of information in our life-experience.  Many important advances come through seemingly chance encounters and discoveries (for instance finding a book in a second-hand book store, browsing through one's own half-forgotten things in the attic,  or a chance meeting with someone or the sudden occurrence of a new idea sparked by a casual conversation). Generative AI and social media destroy the way our cognitive, semantic, informational and social spaces were organized and stratified and harmonized together allowing such moments to occur in a meaningful and life-enriching way.  Social media is the negation of the true sociality and social potential of mankind just as generative AI is the negation and counterfeiting of intelligence, research and authentic linguistic expression.

How can philosophy and science be a source of joy?

Philosophical and scientific work are a source of joy as long as one remains conscious of its ultimate goal and applications relating to the improvement of human culture and society leading to it being based on the omnipresence and supreme value of ethics and justice - the equal dignity and inviolable rights of all human beings and animals - and  to the promotion of a spiritual culture in which each individual does not separate their happiness from that of all other sentient beings,  and last but not least,  the unveiling of the truth regarding human history and prehistory. 

A Python tool for testing normalization in Natural Term Logic

https://github.com/owl77/natlog/blob/main/ntltest3.txt

This tool allows you to interactively reduce NTL terms and to ultimately check that the normal form is independent of the path chosen. In the example above we start from 

$\Pi^{(1,1,2)} \Upsilon^{\{1,4\}\{2\}\{3\}} \Pi^{(1,3)} \Pi^{(1,1)} C D D D D C B C$

and we derive the normal form 

\[ \Upsilon^{\{1,2\}\{3\}\{4\}\{5\}} \Pi^{(1,4)} C \Pi^{(1,1,1,1,1)} D \Pi^{(1,1,1,1,1)} D C I I I I I I I I \Pi^{(4,1,1,1,1)} D \Upsilon^{\{4\}\{1\}\{2\}\{3\}\{5\}\{6\}} \Pi^{(1,2,1,1,1)} D B C C I I I I I I \]

by following several different paths.  Here the primitive terms $B,C,D$ have arities $1,2,5$ respectively.

The program is run from the command line : python -i reductions.py and in general one needs to specify the primitive terms and their arities through the command AddPrimitive(name, value). But $B,C$ and $D$ above come by default.

Formal models of consciousness and other matters

From the previous considerations are we able to answer the question: can there be a formal model of consciousness?  This depends on how we understand "consciousness" and how we understand "formal model".  Ordinary human consciousness is just a segment of a vast multi-tiered system of spiritual consciousness of which it is but a small part and emanation - and yet to which it is potentially and essentially identical. Thus if by consciousness we mean the intelligible realm then there can be no direct formal model as we have demonstrated previously.  There can however be a symbolic illustrative mathematical model of the intelligible realm. And also a formal logic and computation based formal model of dialectics which models reversion and the procession of the logoi whereby the human soul reverts and ascends to a higher state.  We do grant that it is conceivable that strictly at the level of soul and its logoi as they unfold and project into the imagination or act upon extension in nature there could indeed be a direct (rather than merely symbolic) mathematical model. Here that our ultrafinitist philosophy of mathematics and theory of analyticity and computability would enter the stage.

We propose the beautiful notion of finitary Turing completeness. Rather than attempt to give a complete formal definition we can give the following preliminary definition for board-games. A board-game is finitary Turing complete if its canonical, most natural or free extension to an infinite (to us indefinite, indeterminate) version of the board is Turing complete. In this sense it has been shown that Chess and Go are finitary Turing complete. Finitary Turing complete systems capture the essence of certain stages of dialectic and the structures and processes of the logical-discursive cognition of the soul. We note that the game of Go has been used traditionally (specially in the Ch'an and Zen tradition) to illustrate profound psychological and philosophical principles. 

If some of the previous considerations were focused on the schema of Hegel's Science and Logic in relationship to the Enneads,  no less important (and indeed more foundational) is the first-person introspective of the phenomenology of consciousness, not only as deployed in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (but in an inverted and distorted way, to be sure), but in the entire first-person, introspective, spiritualist, idealist,  phenomenological and epistemological tradition of philosophy which only achieves its complete validity and goal through spiritual development and transformation (cf. chapters X and XI of Augustine's Confessions and the introduction to Ennead IV.3). 

ζητεῖν τε τὰ ἄλλα καὶ εὑρεῖν βουλόμενοι δικαίως ἂν τὸ ζητοῦν τί ποτ̓ ἐστὶ τοῦτο ζητοῖμεν, τό τε ἐραστὸν ποθοῦν λαβεῖν θεαμάτων. 

Our goal is thus to develop the correct neoplatonic phenomenology of consciousness which expresses the souls' self-knowledge and concomitant re-ascent to the intelligible realm and beyond, and to engage critically with the posterior western phenomenological and proto-phenomenological thought. Mathematics and formal logic can also play an important role here but from an essentially different perspective than in the previous goals. Here we are interested in genesis and constitution, with ultimate foundations and philosophical logic and with the act and effect of logical-dialectical practice.

Note that we must distinguish how intelligible categories unfold and originate sensible categories as it happens in itself and as discursive reason grasps it as a reflection.  But this reflection at the level of the logoi is also part of the dialectical process which leads to the soul's illumination and re-ascent. 

Plotinus starts his investigations in the difficulties related to souls in IV.3-5 with a very non-solipsistic question indeed, regarding the relationship of each soul to others souls and with the world-soul. IV.3.5-6 is of great interest in that the text points to a plurality of noes inseparably united in the total nous. Souls are called the logoi of the nous which represent a stage of evolution/unfolding. Thus each soul has its own particular nous within itself  (IV.3.6 17). Individual souls (note also the remarkable passage in IV.7.14 on the souls of animals) proceed from the world soul at the same time as their proceed from their individual nous while the world soul proceeds from the global nous and is its logos. In order to illustrate unity-and-multiplicity (the soul is the body like light in the air) and the relationship between individual souls and the world-soul, Plotinus states that the same thing can be at different places at once: just as one indivisible soul can be simultaneous present and acting in different parts of the body in different ways so too the world-soul is one and yet completely present in different ways in each individual soul (cf. IV.9). One can use holomorphic functions to symbolize or illustrate Plotinus' theory of how the soul relates to spatial extension or the world-soul to individual souls. If $f$ is holomorphic in a region $U$ then the germ of $f$ at any point $p$ of $U$ completely determines the whole function on $U$ (through the uniqueness of analytic continuation). Thus we can say that f itself (the formative aspect of soul) is virtually entirely present at each point $p$ of $U$ (the body) and at the same time f is spread out through $U$, unfolded into $U$, by taking germs.

In IV.3.9-11 we read that the world-soul is the author of life and mediator of the intelligible realm from which proceeds matter, space and extension and which has received the  logoi spermatikoi from above which she transmits to nature and gives life to all beings and mediates also the soul's re-ascent to the intelligible realm. Later on in the same Ennead the concept of kosmos as a complete and harmonious whole and providence are discussed. The world-soul is also called universal life.  The etheric/astral bodies (called okhêma or vehicle) are mentioned showing that this was not  theory specific to later neoplatonism.

But Plotinus' phenomenological psychology (about sensation, kinds of memory, reflection, reason) can be found for instance in IV.3.25-32 and the following part of IV.4 and IV.6 as well as the key treatise I.1. There in internal textual evidence (in IV.3.25 Plotinus states that memory has been deal with elsewhere and extensively discussed, using the verb θρυλέω)  - as noted by A. H Armstrong in the Loeb Edition of the Enneads, that Plotinus wrote a now lost extensive treatise on memory or perhaps this represented a strictly oral teaching. IV.3.26 30-55 is an important passage wherein Plotinus expounds the purely spiritual active nature of memory and self-consciousness (contrasting to a being in the state of flux), making use of key terms: sunaithesis, parakolouthesis, sunthesis and sunesin. Without negating external sensible objects we can nevertheless consider that Plotinus attains a transcendental phenomenological consciousness in this passage in which consciousness reflects on itself and perceives itself as an independent, free, self-acting, self-representing, self-reflecting, self-conscious being. There follows a discussion on the phantastikon and  antilêpsis and their relation to noesis and memory. In the remarkable section IV.6.3 is developed the refutation of the theory of perceptions and memories as the result of passive imprints and the establishment of the theory that they result from the essentially active role of the soul, the deployment and training of attention (epibolê, prosbolê): directedness, aboutness or intentionality.

From the Lankavatara Sutra

Lankavatara Sutra, Chapter 3, XVI (Tr. Suzuki)

What is meant by an eternally-abiding reality? The ancient road of reality, Mahamati, has been here all the time, like gold, silver, or pearl preserved in the mine, Mahamati; the Dharmadhatu abides foreover, whether the Tathagata appears in the world or not; as the Tathagata eternally abides so does the reason (dharmata) of all things; reality foreover abides, reality keeps its order, like the roads in an ancient city. For instance, Mahamati, a man who is walking in a forest and discovering an ancient city with its orderly streets may enter into the city, and having entered into it, he may have a rest, conduct himself like a citizen, and enjoy all the pleasures accruing therefrom. What do you think, Mahamati? Did this man make the road along which he enters into the city, and also the various things in the city? Mahamati said: No, Blessed One. The Blessed One said: Just so, Mahamati, what has been realised by myself and other Tathagatas is this reality, the eternally-abiding reality (sthitita), the self-regulating reality (niyamata), the suchness of things (tathata), the realness of things (bhutata), the truth itself (satyata).