origami_itto wrote:I find all of the traditions have something to offer in the way of perspective, if nothing else. Different humans faced with the same questions doing their best to work out the answers can expose a lot of the truth.
Different maps of the same territory. Breath, qi, pneuma, ether, etc
Our enquiry will begin by presenting what are commonly held to be in a special degree the natural attributes of soul. Now there are two points especially wherein that which is animate is held to differ from the inanimate, namely, motion and the act of sensation: and these are approximately the two characteristics of soul handed down to us by our predecessors.
Also it is not clear why the heaven revolves in a circle; seeing that circular motion is neither implied by the essence of soul (that form of movement being indeed merely accidental to it), nor due to the body: on the contrary it is rather the soul which causes the motion of the body.
Moreover, the soul is also the origin of motion from place to place, but not all living things have this power of locomotion.
But what is meant by constrained motions or states of rest of the soul it is not easy to explain, even though we give free play to fancy. Again, if its motion tends upward, it will be fire; if downward, earth; these being the motions proper to these natural bodies.
robert wrote:In De Anima Aristotle writes of the soul -Our enquiry will begin by presenting what are commonly held to be in a special degree the natural attributes of soul. Now there are two points especially wherein that which is animate is held to differ from the inanimate, namely, motion and the act of sensation: and these are approximately the two characteristics of soul handed down to us by our predecessors.
Also it is not clear why the heaven revolves in a circle; seeing that circular motion is neither implied by the essence of soul (that form of movement being indeed merely accidental to it), nor due to the body: on the contrary it is rather the soul which causes the motion of the body.
Moreover, the soul is also the origin of motion from place to place, but not all living things have this power of locomotion.
Aristotle writes that it is the soul which causes the motion of the body, and that some of his predecessors held this belief as well. This idea was around until Volta and Galvani demonstrated that electricity triggered movement in muscles. Volta and Galvani are born 100 years or more after the historical development of taijiquan. At the time that taijiquan was first developed it is likely that people in the west would have attributed movement of the human body to the soul. The Chinese attributed motion to qi. The views are not so different.
Again, if its motion tends upward, it will be fire; if downward, earth; these being the motions proper to these natural bodies.
Aristotle associates motion to the elements as we see the Chinese do, although it is common in Chinese alchemical literature to see upward motion associated with fire and downward with water. FWIW.
Bao wrote:robert wrote:In De Anima Aristotle writes of the soul -Our enquiry will begin by presenting what are commonly held to be in a special degree the natural attributes of soul. Now there are two points especially wherein that which is animate is held to differ from the inanimate, namely, motion and the act of sensation: and these are approximately the two characteristics of soul handed down to us by our predecessors.
Also it is not clear why the heaven revolves in a circle; seeing that circular motion is neither implied by the essence of soul (that form of movement being indeed merely accidental to it), nor due to the body: on the contrary it is rather the soul which causes the motion of the body.
Moreover, the soul is also the origin of motion from place to place, but not all living things have this power of locomotion.
Aristotle writes that it is the soul which causes the motion of the body, and that some of his predecessors held this belief as well. This idea was around until Volta and Galvani demonstrated that electricity triggered movement in muscles. Volta and Galvani are born 100 years or more after the historical development of taijiquan. At the time that taijiquan was first developed it is likely that people in the west would have attributed movement of the human body to the soul. The Chinese attributed motion to qi. The views are not so different.
Aristotle doesn't accept the "soul" in a religious meaning. He speaks about functions of the brain, body and nervous system, this is his interpretation of "soul". He says that soul doesn't exist without a body. In a religious meaning, the soul is not a bodily function or consequence, it belongs to another world or dimension. Similar to quantum theory. It doesn't exist according to physics. Physics and quantum theory don't match, and science haven't actually found any theory to bridge these two different "realities". The difference of course is that the "Quantum world" still belongs to the physical reality and can be measured, or confirmed by science. From a scientific standpoint Aristotle is correct and religion is just "theory" that cannot be confirmed, things that people for various reasons believe in.
I agree that in Chinese theory, especially in TCM, "Human Qi" is similar to the electricity and impulses that is passed from and to the brain and the nervous system, what "animates" the body. But then again, Qi is a much broader philosophical concept and "human Qi" is just one type of Qi, or one type of interpretations of Qi.Again, if its motion tends upward, it will be fire; if downward, earth; these being the motions proper to these natural bodies.
Aristotle associates motion to the elements as we see the Chinese do, although it is common in Chinese alchemical literature to see upward motion associated with fire and downward with water. FWIW.
This is something I haven't noticed before. Interesting.
Bao wrote:Aristotle doesn't accept the "soul" in a religious meaning. He speaks about functions of the brain, body and nervous system, this is his interpretation of "soul". He says that soul doesn't exist without a body.
There are two different characteristics by which the soul is principally defined ; firstly, motion from place to place and, secondly, thinking and judging and perceiving. Both thought and intelligence are commonly regarded as a kind of perception, since the soul in both of these judges and recognises something existent.
Thus, then, the part of the soul which we call intellect (and by intellect I mean that whereby the soul thinks and conceives) is nothing at all actually before it thinks. Hence, too, we cannot reasonably conceive it to be mixed with the body: for in that case it would acquire some particular quality, cold or heat, or would even have some organ, as the perceptive faculty has. But as a matter of fact it has none. Therefore it has been well said that the soul is a place of forms or ideas: except that this is not true of the whole soul, but only of the soul which can think, and again that the forms are there not in actuality, but potentially.
cloudz wrote:I lean towards Plato..
NeoPlatonism is pretty interesting.
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