It seems to me that he might be getting at some different concept with “symbol” that I would get out of it. I kind of get that if you have a religion you might pave out a “learning curve” of insights and that the same objects would get resused at multiple levels. But what distinguishes a symbol from a non-symbol, can some symbols be better than others? (I think that “symbolic value” migth make sense in the sense of affording participatory transformation, but then symbolic value can vary)
The inextinguishablesness also seems a bit wonky. I get that if somebody reliably gets new and new insights it might make sense to treat it as ever-producing but I doubt whether they truly have this property. Like Plato is only finitely insightful, it seems plausible that one day when returing to the text it ceases to speak, that there would be diminishing returns or that the growth one gets from the reading is all of the readers insight and none of the writers. I am thinking how a river might be inexhaustible, it is hard to drink a river dry and because of the hydrocycle one can rely being able to drink daily. But weather patterns change and using the river to irrigate a too big of a field can actually dry up a river. If you have a water bottle with you then withholding from drinking means you get to drink more later. With a river spending more time drinking means more water total gotten.
Having a business that generates a profit can make for exponential growth. But that is a different thing than having infinite money. So in a similar sense “that one is above the line in transcendence” might be an important thing, but it is not a “I win” button.
Your point about inexhaustibility rings true to me, and reminds me of a broader question about anagoge (for personal development), engineering (for technological development), and science (for understanding the physical world); is it actually an infinite staircase going up (or deeper, in the case of scientific theories), or is there ‘completion’ (in the sense that pretty quickly we’ll be able to make the best possible spaceships, have the best possible wisdom, have the complete theory of everything, etc.)?
It feels really dangerous to have an orientation that presupposes growth, or puts all of the value on growth, in a universe that might actually be finite. But also it feels really dangerous to assume that you’ve grown all you can, and there’s nothing more to do, when in fact you just don’t see the next door!
It seems to me that he might be getting at some different concept with “symbol” that I would get out of it. I kind of get that if you have a religion you might pave out a “learning curve” of insights and that the same objects would get resused at multiple levels. But what distinguishes a symbol from a non-symbol, can some symbols be better than others? (I think that “symbolic value” migth make sense in the sense of affording participatory transformation, but then symbolic value can vary)
The inextinguishablesness also seems a bit wonky. I get that if somebody reliably gets new and new insights it might make sense to treat it as ever-producing but I doubt whether they truly have this property. Like Plato is only finitely insightful, it seems plausible that one day when returing to the text it ceases to speak, that there would be diminishing returns or that the growth one gets from the reading is all of the readers insight and none of the writers. I am thinking how a river might be inexhaustible, it is hard to drink a river dry and because of the hydrocycle one can rely being able to drink daily. But weather patterns change and using the river to irrigate a too big of a field can actually dry up a river. If you have a water bottle with you then withholding from drinking means you get to drink more later. With a river spending more time drinking means more water total gotten.
Having a business that generates a profit can make for exponential growth. But that is a different thing than having infinite money. So in a similar sense “that one is above the line in transcendence” might be an important thing, but it is not a “I win” button.
Your point about inexhaustibility rings true to me, and reminds me of a broader question about anagoge (for personal development), engineering (for technological development), and science (for understanding the physical world); is it actually an infinite staircase going up (or deeper, in the case of scientific theories), or is there ‘completion’ (in the sense that pretty quickly we’ll be able to make the best possible spaceships, have the best possible wisdom, have the complete theory of everything, etc.)?
It feels really dangerous to have an orientation that presupposes growth, or puts all of the value on growth, in a universe that might actually be finite. But also it feels really dangerous to assume that you’ve grown all you can, and there’s nothing more to do, when in fact you just don’t see the next door!