This post discusses how choice arises from conflict, in the act of conflict resolution. The nature of this conflict, how conflict resolution leads to compromises in which one side goes dominant and the other subordinate, and how the dominant-subordinate structure is later reversed, producing a cyclic change, are interesting consequences of this idea. This also leads us to think of matter as the cause of inner conflict, and consciousness as the resolver of these conflicts. It helps us understand matter in a new way, as something that is always inconsistent rather than logically consistent. To describe matter as the substratum of conflict requires a fundamentally different way of thinking than…
A Random Walk Through Perception
I have recently received several questions about Sāñkhya. These include the differences between senses and organs, that between inert matter and a living body, how desires influence perception, how Sāñkhya elements could be understood in analogy to motion, and the relation between yoga and the control of senses and the mind. These are not tightly interconnected topics, but I found a way on how to weave the answers together into a progressive ‘random walk’.
Atomic Reality and the Crisis of Realism
It is commonplace for people to assert that quantum theory indicates a lack of objectivity or reality, when all it indicates is the failure of the classical conception of reality. In the classical conception, when you cut an apple, you get smaller pieces of apple. In this post, I will argue that the quantum conception of cutting an apple involves separating its taste from smell, from sight, from touch, etc. I will then discuss how this new type of cutting resolves quantum problems. Finally, I will discuss how this conception of atoms arrived at by cutting an object relates to the notion of atoms in Sāñkhya philosophy which are described…
