Chaos
Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2017 3:44 pm
"In truth, first of all Chasm* came to be, and then broad-breasted Earth, the ever immovable seat of all the immortals who possess snowy Olympus’ peak and murky Tartarus in the depths of the broad-pathed earth, and Eros, who is the most beautiful among the immortal gods, the limb-melter—he overpowers the mind and the thoughtful counsel of all the gods and of all human beings in their breasts."
– Hesiod: Theogony, 116-122
Glenn W. Most, translator of this classic and most ancient text of our European civilization, adds a footnote:
As people who have read Polyharmonia might remember, I personally have suggested that the very idea of "chaos" – in a way we have come to associate the word – is wrong. Things can only be "chaotic", i.e. confused and without order, from the viewpoint of a separated individual. Where he thinks chaos rules, there actually persists an order more holistic and perfect that he can fit into his formal mind.
Metaphysically approached we can only come to conclusion that either every one of us is fundamentally insane and incapable of knowing anything even theoretically (which is an argument no one is actually able to keep in), or there must be order in everything, even though this order is much different – much more perfect – that is the purely kâma-manasic idea of order, which can only operate comfortably on temporal plane. But the universe is necessarily paratemporal (= transcending the human linear experience of time), which is a fact even to modern physics, let alone metaphysics.
There are quite a lot of cosmologies, both exoterical and at least claiming to be esoterical, which see chaos possible. How can one defend such a world-view without stumbling to impossible existence? Or in case you don't, what do you personally mean by "chaos"?
– Hesiod: Theogony, 116-122
Glenn W. Most, translator of this classic and most ancient text of our European civilization, adds a footnote:
Most wrote:* Usually translated as "Chaos"; but that suggests to us, misleadingly, a jumble of disordered matter, whereas Hesiod's term indicated instead a gap or opening.
As people who have read Polyharmonia might remember, I personally have suggested that the very idea of "chaos" – in a way we have come to associate the word – is wrong. Things can only be "chaotic", i.e. confused and without order, from the viewpoint of a separated individual. Where he thinks chaos rules, there actually persists an order more holistic and perfect that he can fit into his formal mind.
Metaphysically approached we can only come to conclusion that either every one of us is fundamentally insane and incapable of knowing anything even theoretically (which is an argument no one is actually able to keep in), or there must be order in everything, even though this order is much different – much more perfect – that is the purely kâma-manasic idea of order, which can only operate comfortably on temporal plane. But the universe is necessarily paratemporal (= transcending the human linear experience of time), which is a fact even to modern physics, let alone metaphysics.
There are quite a lot of cosmologies, both exoterical and at least claiming to be esoterical, which see chaos possible. How can one defend such a world-view without stumbling to impossible existence? Or in case you don't, what do you personally mean by "chaos"?