Tadaikya
Tan tien
Taoism
Teleology
Telepathy
Theodicy
Theosphere
Threshold of consciousness
Thyrsus
Tier, 1 2 3 4 5 6
Time
Tongues of fire (Pentecostal)
Transcendental
Translogical
Transpersonal
Tree of life
Tummo
Turiya
Turiyatita
Tadaikya
Word definition: union, identification with the Absolute
Etymology: Tadaikya (Sanskrit) [from tat that, the Boundless + aikya oneness, harmony, identity from eka one]
Technical description: Oneness or unity with the Boundless or parabrahman, the frontierless, unknowable kosmic essence, which is never limited by any name but is commonly called tat (That). In the relations of the human being with the kosmic spirit, tadaikya signifies the reentrance of the higher human ego into its supernal source, atman, which in Buddhist philosophy is called assuming the dharmakaya, the equivalent of entering nirvana.
Phenomenological description: Non-local union.
Tan tien
Word definition: Dantian, dan t’ian, dan tien or tan t’ien is loosely translated as “elixir field,” “sea of qi,” or simply “energy center.” Dantian are the Qi Focus Flow Centers, important focal points for meditative and exercise techniques such as qigong, martial arts such as t’ai chi ch’uan, and in traditional Chinese medicine. (Wikipedia)
Etymology: Historically the first detailed description of the lower Dantian is in the Laozi zhongjing
Technical description: Traditionally, a dantian is considered to be a center of qi or life force energy. The dantian are important points of reference in neidan, qigong, neigong, tao yin, Taoist sexual practices, Reiki and other self-cultivation practices of exercise, breathing, and meditation, as well as in martial arts and in traditional Chinese medicine. The lower dantian is particularly important as the focal point of breathing technique as well as the centre of balance and gravity. Dantian are focal points for transmutation of the three treasures Jing, Qi and Shen. Qi can be seen as a substance when it is stored in the form of Essence or Jing, this can be refined by heating in these cauldrons into more rarefied states such as Qi which is insubstantial and further still into Shen which is more like the Western concept of Mind although it is more often translated as Spirit.
Taoist and Buddhist teachers often instruct their students to centre the mind in the navel or lower dantian. This is believed to aid control of thoughts and emotions. Acting from the dantian is considered to be related to higher states of awareness or samadhi.
The Taoist concept of dantian as energy centers is similar to the Indian yoga concept of chakras as key points where prana is stored (see also nadis). The major difference, however, is that Taoist dantian are the major energetic storage mechanisms whereas the yogic chakras are not so much storage centers, but energetic vortices which act as intake and output ports.. (Wikipedia)
Phenomenological description: Subtle energy centers.
Synonyms: Chakras.
The concept in mythology: The seven seals of the apocalypse. ( M.J.M.)
Taoism
Word definition: Taoism (/ˈtaʊɪzəm/), also known as Daoism (/ˈdaʊ-/), is a religious or philosophical tradition of Chinese origin which emphasizes living in harmony with the Tao (Chinese: 道; pinyin: Dào; literally: “the Way”, also romanized as Dao). The Tao is a fundamental idea in most Chinese philosophical schools; in Taoism, however, it denotes the principle that is the source, pattern and substance of everything that exists. Taoism differs from Confucianism by not emphasizing rigid rituals and social order. Taoist ethics vary depending on the particular school, but in general tend to emphasize wu wei (action without intention), “naturalness”, simplicity, spontaneity, and the Three Treasures: 慈 “compassion”, 儉 “frugality”, and 不敢為天下先 “humility”. (Wikipedia)
Etymology: religious system founded by Lao Tzu (b. 604 B.C.E.), 1838, from Chinese tao “way, path, right way (of life), reason” + -ism.
Technical description: Daoism, also spelled Taoism, indigenous religio-philosophical tradition that has shaped Chinese life for more than 2,000 years. In the broadest sense, a Daoist attitude toward life can be seen in the accepting and yielding, the joyful and carefree sides of the Chinese character, an attitude that offsets and complements the moral and duty-conscious, austere and purposeful character ascribed to Confucianism. Daoism is also characterized by a positive, active attitude toward the occult and the metaphysical (theories on the nature of reality), whereas the agnostic, pragmatic Confucian tradition considers these issues of only marginal importance, although the reality of such issues is, by most Confucians, not denied.
More strictly defined, Daoism includes: the ideas and attitudes peculiar to the Laozi (or Daodejing; “Classic of the Way of Power”), the Zhuangzi, the Liezi, and related writings; the Daoist religion, which is concerned with the ritual worship of the Dao; and those who identify themselves as Daoists.
Daoist thought permeates Chinese culture, including many aspects not usually considered Daoist. In Chinese religion, the Daoist tradition—often serving as a link between the Confucian tradition and folk tradition—has generally been more popular and spontaneous than the official (Confucian) state cult and less diffuse and shapeless than folk religion.
Daoist philosophy and religion have found their way into all Asian cultures influenced by China, especially those of Vietnam, Japan, and Korea. Various religious practices reminiscent of Daoism in such areas of Chinese cultural influence indicate early contacts with Chinese travelers and immigrants that have yet to be elucidated.
Both Western Sinologists and Chinese scholars themselves have distinguished—since Han times (206 bce–220 ce)—between a Daoist philosophy of the great mystics and their commentators (daojia) and a later Daoist religion (daojiao). This theory—no longer considered valid—was based on the view that the “ancient Daoism” of the mystics antedated the “later Neo-Daoist superstitions” that were misinterpretations of the mystics’ metaphorical images. The mystics, however, should be viewed against the background of the religious practices existing in their own times. Their ecstasies, for example, were closely related to the trances and spirit journeys of the early magicians and shamans (religious personages with healing and psychic transformation powers). Not only are the authors of the Daodejing, the Zhuangzi (book of “Master Chuang”), and the Liezi (book of “Master Lie”) not the actual and central founders of an earlier “pure” Daoism later degraded into superstitious practices but they can even be considered somewhat on the margin of older Daoist traditions. Therefore, because there has been a nearly continuous mutual influence between Daoists of different social classes—philosophers, ascetics, alchemists, and the priests of popular cults—the distinction between philosophical and religious Daoism in this article is made simply for the sake of descriptive convenience.
There is also a tendency among scholars today to draw a less rigid line between what is called Daoist and what is called Confucian. The two traditions share many of the same ideas about man, society, the ruler, heaven, and the universe—ideas that were not created by either school but that stem from a tradition prior to either Confucius or Laozi.
Viewed from this common tradition, orthodox Confucianism limited its field of interest to the creation of a moral and political system that fashioned society and the Chinese empire; whereas Daoism, inside the same worldview, represented more personal and metaphysical preoccupations.
In the case of Buddhism—a third tradition that influenced China—fundamental concepts such as the nonexistence of the individual ego and the illusory nature of the physical world are diametrically opposed to Daoism. In terms of overt individual and collective practices, however, competition between these two religions for influence among the people—a competition in which Confucianism had no need to participate because it had state patronage—resulted in mutual borrowings, numerous superficial similarities, and essentially Chinese developments inside Buddhism, such as the Chan (Japanese Zen) sect. In folk religion, since Song times (960–1279), Daoist and Buddhist elements have coexisted without clear distinctions in the minds of the worshippers. (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
The concept in mythology: The Way.
Citations: “Tao is the ultimate reality in which all attributes are united, it is heavy as a stone, light as a feather; it is the unity underlying plurality. It is that by losing of which men die; by getting of which men live. Whatever is done without it fails; whatever is done by means of it, succeeds. It has neither root nor stalk, leaf nor flower. Yet upon it depends the generation and the growth of the ten thousand things [the cosmos], each after its kind” (Kuan tzu, 49).
Teleology
Word definition: The doctrine that final causes exist.
The study of the evidences of design or purpose in nature.
The doctrine that phenomena are guided not only by mechanical forces but that they also move toward certain goals of self-realizationEtymology: “study of final causes,” 1740, from Modern Latin teleologia, coined 1728 by German philosopher Baron Christian von Wolff (1679-1754) from Greek teleos “entire, perfect, complete,” properly genitive of telos “end, goal, result” (see tele-), + -logia (see -logy).
Technical description: Teleology, (from Greek telos, “end,” and logos, “reason”), explanation by reference to some purpose, end, goal, or function. Traditionally, it was also described as final causality, in contrast with explanation solely in terms of efficient causes (the origin of a change or a state of rest in something). Human conduct, insofar as it is rational, is generally explained with reference to ends or goals pursued or alleged to be pursued, and humans have often understood the behaviour of other things in nature on the basis of that analogy, either as of themselves pursuing ends or goals or as designed to fulfill a purpose devised by a mind that transcends nature. The most-celebrated account of teleology was that given by Aristotle when he declared that a full explanation of anything must consider its final cause as well as its efficient, material, and formal causes (the latter two being the stuff out of which a thing is made and the form or pattern of a thing, respectively).
The philosophy of biology, like all of Western philosophy, began with the ancient Greeks. Although Plato (c. 428–c. 348 bc) was little interested in the subject, his student Aristotle (384–322), who for a time was a practicing biologist
With the rise of modern science in the 16th and 17th centuries, interest was directed to mechanistic explanations of natural phenomena, which appeal only to efficient causes; if teleological explanations were used, they took the form not of saying (as in Aristotelian teleology) that things develop toward the realization of ends internal to their own natures but of viewing biological organisms and their parts as complex machines in which each smaller part is minutely adapted to others and each performs a specific function that contributes (e.g., in the case of the eye) to the function or purpose of the whole (e.g., that of seeing). For the 18th-century Protestant Apologist William Paley and his followers, the machinelike nature of biological organisms could be explained only by positing a divine designer of all life. Paley’s teleology thus became the basis of the modern version of the teleological argument for the existence of God, also called the argument from design.
Immanuel Kant’s Kritik der Urtheilskraft (1790; Critique of Judgment) dealt at length with teleology. While acknowledging—and indeed exulting in—the wondrous appointments of nature, Kant cautioned that teleology can be, for human knowledge, only a regulative, or heuristic, principle and not a constitutive one—i.e., a guide to the conduct of inquiry rather than to the nature of reality. Accordingly, teleological language in the biological sciences is not to be taken literally; it is essentially a set of useful metaphors.
Paley’s teleology was undermined in the 19th century by the emergence of evolutionary theory, which was able to explain the machinelike nature of biological organisms as having come about entirely through efficient causation in a long process of natural selection. Despite apparently having made teleology conceptually unnecessary to biology, however, evolutionary theory did not result in the elimination of teleological language from the biological sciences. Darwinists as much as believers in divine design continued to speak of the function or purpose of the eye, for example. Was that fact an indication that some notion of function or purpose (or end or goal), one that could not be captured in Darwinian terms, remained essential to biology? Or was it merely a reflection of the usefulness of teleological language as a shorthand for referring to processes and relations that were greatly more complex?
Those who took the latter position, which was essentially that of Kant, attempted from the early 20th century to systematically eliminate teleological language from the biological sciences, with mixed success. One such approach advocated simply defining the notion of function in terms of Darwinian natural selection. Those who held the former view recognized that some notion of function or teleology generally was uniquely suitable to biology and not eliminable from it. Some theorists within this group argued that biological teleology could not be explained entirely in terms of natural selection because the former essentially involved references to normative concepts such as the “good” (of an organism or its parts), “benefit” (to an organism or its parts), or “harmony” (of a biological system). (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
Phenomenological description: The feeling of an underlying purpose.
Citations: In western philosophy, the term and concept of teleology originated in the writings of Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle’s Four Causes give special place to each thing’s telos or “final cause.” In this, he followed Plato in seeing purpose in both human and sub-human nature.
Platonic
In the Phaedo, Plato through Socrates argues that true explanations for any given physical phenomenon must be teleological. He bemoans those who fail to distinguish between a thing’s necessary and sufficient causes, which he identifies respectively as material and final causes (Phaedo 98–99):
Imagine not being able to distinguish the real cause, from that without which the cause would not be able to act, as a cause. It is what the majority appear to do, like people groping in the dark; they call it a cause, thus giving it a name that does not belong to it. That is why one man surrounds the earth with a vortex to make the heavens keep it in place, another makes the air support it like a wide lid. As for their capacity of being in the best place they could be at this very time, this they do not look for, nor do they believe it to have any divine force, but they believe that they will some time discover a stronger and more immortal Atlas to hold everything together more, and they do not believe that the truly good and ‘binding’ binds and holds them together.
— Plato, Phaedo 99
Plato here argues that, e.g., the materials that compose a body are necessary conditions for its moving or acting in a certain way, but that these materials cannot be the sufficient condition for its moving or acting as it does. For example (given in Phaedo 98), if Socrates is sitting in an Athenian prison, the elasticity of his tendons is what allows him to be sitting, and so a physical description of his tendons can be listed as necessary conditions or auxiliary causes of his act of sitting (Phaedo 99b; Timaeus 46c9–d4, 69e6). However, these are only necessary conditions of Socrates’ sitting. To give a physical description of Socrates’ body is to say that Socrates is sitting, but it does not give us any idea why it came to be that he was sitting in the first place. To say why he was sitting and not not sitting, we have to explain what it is about his sitting that is good, for all things brought about (i.e., all products of actions) are brought about because the actor saw some good in them. Thus, to give an explanation of something is to determine what about it is good. Its goodness is its actual cause—its purpose, telos or “reason for which” (Timaeus 27d8–29a).
Aristotelian
Similarly, Aristotle argued that Democritus was wrong to attempt to reduce all things to mere necessity, because doing so neglects the aim, order, and “final cause”, which brings about these necessary conditions:
Democritus, however, neglecting the final cause, reduces to necessity all the operations of nature. Now they are necessary, it is true, but yet they are for a final cause and for the sake of what is best in each case. Thus nothing prevents the teeth from being formed and being shed in this way; but it is not on account of these causes but on account of the end….
— Aristotle, Generation of Animals V.8, 789a8–b15
In the Physics Aristotle rejected Plato’s assumption that the universe was created by an intelligent designer using eternal forms as his model. For Aristotle, natural ends are produced by “natures” (principles of change internal to living things), and natures, Aristotle argued, do not deliberate:
“It is absurd to suppose that ends are not present [in nature] because we do not see an agent deliberating.”
— Aristotle, Physics 2.8, 199b27-9; see also Physics 2.5–6 where “natures” are contrasted with intelligence[
These Platonic and Aristotelian arguments ran counter to those presented earlier by Democritus and later by Lucretius, both of whom were supporters of what is now often called accidentalism:
Nothing in the body is made in order that we may use it. What happens to exist is the cause of its use.
— Lucretius, De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things), IV, 833; cf. 822–56.
(Wikipedia)
Supporting evidence: Contemporary philosophers and scientists are still discussing whether teleological axioms are useful or accurate in proposing modern philosophies and scientific theories. For instance, in 2012, Thomas Nagel proposed a non-Darwinian account of evolution that incorporates impersonal and natural teleological laws to explain the existence of life, consciousness, rationality, and objective value. (Wikipedia)
Literature: Books / Articles / Websites:
Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos, Oxford University Press: 2012.
Telepathy
Word definition: communication between minds by some means other than sensory perception.
Etymology: Word Origin & History: 1882, coined (along with telæsthesia) by English psychologist Frederic Myers (1843-1901), from tele- + -pathy. Telepathic is first recorded 1884. The noun telepath is a 1907 back-formation.
Technical description: Extra sensory perception.
See further: https://marinusjanmarijs.com/evidence-based-approach/14-research-areas/non-physical-perception-and-communication/telepathy/
Synonyms: Thought transference.
Supporting evidence: Parapsychological research.
Literature: Books / Articles / Websites:
Dean Radin: The conscious universe. 1997.
Dean Radin: Entangled minds. 2006.
Theodicy
Word definition: defense of God’s goodness and omnipotence in view of the existence of evil
Etymology: “vindication of divine justice,” 1771, from French théodicée, title of a 1710 work by Leibniz to prove the justice of God in a world with much moral and physical evil, from Greek theos “god” (from PIE root *dhes-, forming words for religious concepts) + dike “custom, usage; justice, right; court case”
Technical description: Theodicy in its most common form, is the attempt to answer the question of why a good God permits the manifestation of evil. Theodicy attempts to resolve the evidential problem of evil by reconciling the traditional divine characteristics of omnibenevolence, omnipotence, and omniscience, in either their absolute or relative form, with the occurrence of evil or suffering in the world. Unlike a defense, which tries to demonstrate that God’s existence is logically possible in the light of evil, a theodicy provides a framework which claims to make God’s existence probable. The term was coined in 1710 by German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz in his work, Théodicée, though various responses to the problem of evil had been previously proposed.” (Wikipedia)
See further: https://marinusjanmarijs.com/theodicy/the-theodicy/
Relevance of the concept: The theodicy is perhaps the most central question within theology.
Theosphere
Etymology: By Teilhard de Chardin.
Technical description: In the mystical philosophy of Teilhard de Chardin, we find the concept of the “Omega Point”. This point would be the highest point, the destination towards which consciousness is evolving, a state of totality, the culmination of Kosmic evolution. At this omega point, where everything comes together, the evolutionary unfolding, which has been more or less individual, will reach its goal and becomes collective.
The Theosphere however is the New Creation, Matter made Divine, this goes beyond the Omega point.
Phenomenological description: At the highest level (the theosphere, the divine, the supramental level), the divine force will now be fully activated, and this will increase the energy level of the involutionary force (which originates from this level) tremendously. ( M.J.M.)
Synonyms: Supramentalisation. Divanisation.
Cross-cultural comparisons: The Indian philosopher Aurobindo wrote about what he called Supramentalisation; the ultimate state; the purpose of the entire evolutionary process by which divinized evolutionary individuals transcended the human condition to become supramental beings. His idea was, that if a number of such humans reach this state, a collective and revolutionary change would take place.The concept in mythology: A new heaven and a new earth.
Literature: Books:
Teilhard de Chardin: “The phenomenon of Man”, 1959.
Aurobindo: “The life Divine”
Threshold of consciousness
Etymology: By Frederick Meyer.
Technical description: The border between unconsciousness and consciousness.
Phenomenological description: This border is crossed in two directions:
From consciousness to unconsciousness:
Memorising
Learning
Pattern storing
Automatic skills.
Subliminal perceptions,
Thoughts,
Habits,
Automatic reactions.
From unconsciousness to consciousness:
Psychoanalysis
Depth Psychology
Remembering
Making meaning,
Constructing identity,
Structuring reasoning.
ross connections: interconnections between the unconsciousness and consciousness.
Literature: Books / Articles / Websites:
Frederick W. H. Meyer: “Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death.”
Thyrsus
Etymology: 1590s, from Latinized form of Greek thyrsos, literally “stalk or stem of a plant,” The staff or spear, tipped with an ornament like a pine cone and sometimes twined with ivy and vine branches, borne by Dionysus and his votaries.
Technical description: A thyrsus /ˈθɜːrsəs/ or thyrsos /ˈθɜːrˌsɒs/ (Ancient Greek: θύρσος) was a wand or staff of giant fennel (Ferula communis) covered with ivy vines and leaves, sometimes wound with taeniae and topped with a pine cone or by a bunch of vine-leaves and grapes or ivy-leaves and berries.
Citations:
Plato writes in Phaedo:
I conceive that the founders of the mysteries had a real meaning and were not mere triflers when they intimated in a figure long ago that he who passes unsanctified and uninitiated into the world below will live in a slough, but that he who arrives there after initiation and purification will dwell with the gods. For “many,” as they say in the mysteries, “are the thyrsus bearers, but few are the mystics,”
Tier, 1 2 3 4 5 6
Word definition: one of a series of rows or ranks rising one behind or above another.
Etymology: 1560–70; earlier also tire, tyre, teare < Middle French, Old French tire, tiere order, row, rank < Germanic; compare Old English, Old Saxon tīr, Old High German zēri glory, adornment
Technical description:
First Tier: A phrase used to summarize the first six major levels of values development according to Clare Graves and Spiral Dynamics: Survival Sense, Kin Spirits, Power Gods, Truth Force, Strive Drive, and Human Bond.
First-Tier stages are characterized by a belief that “my values are the only correct values.”
This lies in contrast to Second-Tier levels of development (level 7+8), wherein individuals recognize the importance of all value systems. Integral Theory uses First Tier to refer to the first six degrees or levels of developmental altitude
(1+2+3+4+5+6).
Second Tier: Used to summarize the Flex Flow and Global View stages of value systems development from the Spiral Dynamics model. These stages are defined by their capacity to see the relative importance of all value systems, as opposed to First-Tier value systems, which declare their values to be the only correct values. Integral Theory uses Second Tier to refer to the 7th and 8th levels of developmental altitude
Third Tier: Conventionally, a tier is just an arbitrary grouping of stages.
Integral Theory often highlights three tiers: First Tier, which consists of the 9th, 10th, 11th, levels up to and including 12th level; Second Tier, which consists of altitude; and Third Tier, which includes all post 8th levels of development (9+10+11+12).
Fourth Tier: Enlightenment, post nirvana. Non-dual.
Fifth Tier: Post Enlightenment. The light-body.
Sixth Tier: Supramentalisation.
Relevance of the concept: Stages in a mystical developmental process.
The concept in mythology: The Phoenix.
Literature: Books / Articles / Websites:
Integral philosophy.
Time
Word definition: Time, a measured or measurable period, a continuum that lacks spatial dimensions. Time is of philosophical interest and is also the subject of mathematical and scientific investigation.
Etymology: Old English tima “limited space of time,” from Proto-Germanic *timon- “time” (source also of Old Norse timi “time, proper time,” Swedish timme “an hour”), from PIE *di-mon-, suffixed form of root *da- “to divide.”
Abstract sense of “time as an indefinite continuous duration” is recorded from late 14c.
Technical description: Time appears to be more puzzling than space because it seems to flow or pass or else people seem to advance through it. But the passage or advance seems to be unintelligible. The question of how many seconds per second time flows (or one advances through it) is obviously an absurd one, for it suggests that the flow or advance comprises a rate of change with respect to something else—to a sort of hypertime. But if this hypertime itself flows, then a hyper-hypertime is required, and so on, ad infinitum. Again, if the world is thought of as spread out in space-time, it might be asked whether human consciousness advances up a timelike direction of this world and, if so, how fast; whether future events pop into existence as the “now” reaches them or are there all along; and how such changes in space-time can be represented, since time is already within the picture. (Ordinary change can, of course, be represented in a space-time picture: for example, a particle at rest is represented by a straight line and an oscillating particle by a wavy line.)
In the face of these difficulties, philosophers tend to divide into two sorts: the “process philosophers” and the “philosophers of the manifold.” Process philosophers—such as Alfred North Whitehead, an Anglo-American mathematician, scientist. and metaphysician who died in 1947—hold that the flow of time (or human advance through it) is an important metaphysical fact. Like the French intuitionist Henri Bergson, they may hold that this flow can be grasped only by nonrational intuition. Bergson even held that the scientific concept of time as a dimension actually misrepresents reality. Philosophers of the manifold hold that the flow of time or human advance through time is an illusion. They argue, for example, that words such as past, future, and now, as well as the tenses of verbs, are indexical expressions that refer to the act of their own utterance. Hence, the alleged change of an event from being future to being past is an illusion. To say that the event is future is to assert that it is later than this utterance. Then later yet, when one says that it is in the past, he or she asserts that it is earlier than that other utterance. Past and future are not real predicates of events in this view; and change in respect of them is not a genuine change.
Again, although process philosophers think of the future as somehow open or indeterminate, whereas the past is unchangeable, fixed, determinate, philosophers of the manifold hold that it is as much nonsense to talk of changing the future as it is to talk of changing the past. If a person decides to point left rather than to point right, then pointing left is what the future was. Moreover, this thesis of the determinateness of the future, they argue, must not be confused with determinism, the theory that there are laws whereby later states of the universe may be deduced from earlier states (or vice versa). The philosophy of the manifold is neutral about this issue. Future events may well exist and yet not be connected in a sufficiently lawlike way with earlier ones.
One of the features of time that puzzled the Neoplatonist philosopher Augustine of Hippo, in the 5th century ce, was the difficulty of defining it. In one current of 20th-century philosophy of language, however (that influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein), no mystery was seen in this task. Learning to handle the word time involves a multiplicity of verbal skills, including the ability to handle such connected words as earlier, later, now, second, and hour. These verbal skills have to be picked up in very complex ways (partly by ostension), and it is not surprising that the meaning of the word time cannot be distilled into a neat verbal definition. (It is not, for example, an abbreviating word like bachelor.) (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
Relevance of the concept: Time is what we use a clock to measure. Information about time tells us the durations of events, and when they occur, and which events happen before which others, so time has a very significant role in the universe’s organization. Nevertheless, despite 2,500 years of investigation into the nature of time, there are many unresolved issues:
Here is a list of other issues, in no particular order:
•What time actually is;
•Whether time exists when nothing is changing;
•What kinds of time travel are possible;
•Why time exists at all;
•Why time has an arrow;
•How to correctly analyze the metaphor of time’s flow;
•Which features of our ordinary sense of the word “time” should be captured by the concept of time in physics;
•Whether contingent sentences about the future have truth-values now;
•When time will end;
•Whether tensed facts or tenseless facts are ontologically fundamental;
•What the proper formalism or logic is for capturing the special role that time plays in reasoning;
•Whether there are points of time;
•What neural mechanisms account for our experience of time;
•Whether time is objective or, instead, subjective and mind-dependent;
•How else time is related to mind;
•Whether there is a timeless substratum from which time emerges;
•Whether time is unreal either by being an illusion or by being wholly conventional;
•If time is not wholly conventional, then which aspects of time are conventional; and
•How to settle the disputes between advocates of McTaggart’s A-theory of time and his B-theory of time. From http://www.iep.utm.edu/time/
Theoretical physicist John wheeler’s thought experiment, of what is called: The delayed double split experiment”, postulated that a signal could go back in time.
(Wheeler’s delayed choice experiment is a thought experiment in quantum physics proposed by John Archibald Wheeler in 1978. The results Wheeler predicted have since been confirmed by actual experiment.)
Actual experiments
First experiment
The first experimental realization of a delayed-choice experiment was carried out by Carroll Alley, Oleg Jakubowicz, and William Wickes in 1984 at the University of Maryland, cited by John Wheeler in his autobiography. Wheeler gave a seminar on the delayed-choice idea at the U of M in 1979 that inspired Alley and Wickes, who knew Wheeler well from their days as students and faculty at Princeton University, to work with Jacubowicz to translate the gedanken-experiment (thought experiment) into a laboratory test. The experiment confirmed the quantum mechanical predictions for a photon’s behavior in an interferometer that is randomly reconfigured or not after the photon passes through the initial beam-splitter.
Most recent experiment
In 2007, the first “clean” experimental test of Wheeler’s ideas was performed in France by the team of Alain Aspect, Philippe Grangier, Jean-François Roch et al.
Additional experiments
In 2000, Yoon-Ho Kim, et al., reported success in their delayed choice quantum eraser experiment, a variation that combines Wheeler’s delayed choice experiment with a quantum eraser experiment, so that the choice to observe the photon or not is done after it hits the detector.
This experiment, with retro causality (Retrocausality or Backwards causation is a concept of cause and effect where the effect precedes its cause in time, however the distinction between cause and effect is not made at the most fundamental level within the field of physics.) calls forth an interesting question: Is it not only possible to send a single signal back in time, but information like for example Morse code.
If that was possible than this would lead to an information revolution of an enormous magnitude, to be able to receive information from the future.
One could say but that is impossible. However when John Bell was interviewed about his famous Bell’s theorem, which proved that non-locality did exist, he claimed that it would be impossible to use this to “transmit” information.
But as Anton Zeilinger did indicate, this principle of non-locality is now used in quantum cryptography to transmit complex information. ( M.J.M.)
The concept in mythology: Personified at least since 1509 as an aged man carrying a scythe and an hour-glass.
Tongues of fire (Pentecostal)
Etymology: In ancient Greek, pentekoste meant “fiftieth day”—that is, the fiftieth day after Easter (counting Easter itself).
Technical description: When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. Acts 2-1
Phenomenological description: Collective mystical experience.
Synonyms: Kundalini flames.
The concept in mythology: Divine fire.
Transcendental
Word definition: Transcendent, surpassing, or superior.
Being beyond ordinary or common experience, thought, or belief; supernatural.
Etymology: Word Origin & History: 1660s, from Medieval Latin transcendentalis, from Latin transcendentem (see transcendent)
Technical description:
1. Philosophy
- Concerned with the a priori or intuitive basis of knowledge as independent of experience.
- Asserting a fundamental irrationality or supernatural element in experience.
- Surpassing all others; superior.
- Beyond common thought or experience; mystical or supernatural.
Phenomenological description:
Synonyms: Surpassing, mystical.
Translogical
Word definition: Beyond logic.
Technical description: Intuition, inspiration, revelation, union, identity.
Phenomenological description: Direct knowing.
Synonyms: Intuition, inspiration, revelation.
Relevance of the concept: Non-algorithmic knowledge.
Transpersonal
Word definition: Beyond the personal.
Etymology: First recorded in 1905–10; trans- + personal
Technical description: Transpersonal psychology is a sub-field or “school” of psychology that integrates the spiritual and transcendent aspects of the human experience with the framework of modern psychology. It is also possible to define it as a “spiritual psychology”. The transpersonal is defined as “experiences in which the sense of identity or self extends beyond (trans) the individual or personal to encompass wider aspects of humankind, life, psyche or cosmos”. It has also been defined as “development beyond conventional, personal or individual levels”.
Issues considered in transpersonal psychology include spiritual self-development, self beyond the ego, peak experiences, mystical experiences, systemic trance, spiritual crises, spiritual evolution, religious conversion, altered states of consciousness, spiritual practices, and other sublime and/or unusually expanded experiences of living. The discipline attempts to describe and integrate spiritual experience within modern psychological theory and to formulate new theory to encompass such experience.
Transpersonal psychology has made several contributions to the academic field, and the studies of human development, consciousness and spirituality. Transpersonal psychology has also made contributions to the fields of psychotherapy and psychiatry.
Phenomenological description: Lajoie and Shapiro reviewed forty definitions of transpersonal psychology that had appeared in academic literature over the period from 1968 to 1991. They found that five key themes in particular featured prominently in these definitions: states of consciousness; higher or ultimate potential; beyond the ego or personal self; transcendence; and the spiritual. Based upon this study the authors proposed the following definition of transpersonal psychology: Transpersonal Psychology is concerned with the study of humanity’s highest potential, and with the recognition, understanding, and realization of unitive, spiritual, and transcendent states of consciousness. (Wikipedia)
Relevance of the concept: Higher levels of development.
Tree of life
Word definition: The tree of knowledge, connecting to heaven and the underworld, and the tree of life, connecting all forms of creation, are both forms of the world tree or cosmic tree, and are portrayed in various religions and philosophies as the same tree.
Technical description: The tree of life first appears in Genesis 2:9 and 3:22-24 as the source of eternal life in the Garden of Eden, from which access is revoked when man is driven from the garden. It then reappears in the last book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation, and most predominantly in the last chapter of that book (Chapter 22) as a part of the new garden of paradise. Access is then no longer forbidden, for those who “wash their robes” (or as the textual variant in the King James Version has it, “they that do his commandments”) “have right to the tree of life” (v.14). A similar statement appears in Rev 2:7, where the tree of life is promised as a reward to those who overcome. Revelation 22 begins with a reference to the “pure river of water of life” which proceeds “out of the throne of God”. The river seems to feed two trees of life, one “on either side of the river” which “bear twelve manner of fruits” “and the leaves of the tree were for healing of the nations” (v.1-2). Or this may indicate that the tree of life is a vine that grows on both sides of the river, as John 15:1 would hint at.
Pope Benedict XVI has said that “the Cross is the true tree of life.” Saint Bonaventure taught that the medicinal fruit of the tree of life is Christ himself. Saint Albert the Great taught that the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ, is the Fruit of the Tree of Life. Augustine of Hippo said that the tree of life is Christ:
All these things stood for something other than what they were, but all the same they were themselves bodily realities. And when the narrator mentioned them he was not employing figurative language, but giving an explicit account of things which had a forward reference that was figurative. So then the tree of life also was Christ… and indeed God did not wish the man to live in Paradise without the mysteries of spiritual things being presented to him in bodily form. So then in the other trees he was provided with nourishment, in this one with a sacrament… He is rightly called whatever came before him in order to signify him.
Phenomenological description: This tree represents the structure of the soul (microcosm) and of the universe (macrocosm). Bewerken
Synonyms: Yggdrasil
Cross-cultural comparisons: World tree, also called cosmic tree, centre of the world, a widespread motif in many myths and folktales among various preliterate peoples, especially in Asia, Australia, and North America, by which they understand the human and profane condition in relation to the divine and sacred realm. Two main forms are known and both employ the notion of the world tree as centre. In the one, the tree is the vertical centre binding together heaven and earth; in the other, the tree is the source of life at the horizontal centre of the earth. Adopting biblical terminology, the former may be called the tree of knowledge; the latter, the tree of life.
In the vertical, tree-of-knowledge tradition, the tree extends between earth and heaven. It is the vital connection between the world of the gods and the human world. Oracles and judgments or other prophetic activities are performed at its base.
In the horizontal, tree-of-life tradition, the tree is planted at the centre of the world and is protected by supernatural guardians. It is the source of terrestrial fertility and life. Human life is descended from it; its fruit confers everlasting life; and if it were cut down, all fecundity would cease. The tree of life occurs most commonly in quest romances in which the hero seeks the tree and must overcome a variety of obstacles on his way.
(Encyclopaedia Britannica)
The concept in mythology: The tree of life is a widespread myth (mytheme) or archetype in the world’s mythologies, related to the concept of sacred tree more generally, and hence in religious and philosophical tradition. (Wikipedia)
Tummo
Word definition: Tummo is a Tibetan word for inner fire.
Etymology: Tummo is found in the Mahasiddha Krishnacarya and the Hevajra Tantra texts.
Technical description: Tummo (Tumo or Chandali yoga) also refers to a part of tantric meditation cycles and breathing exercises for yogic heat, that developed around the concept of fierce female deity. It is found in the Six Yogas of Naropa, Lamdre, Kalachakra and Anuyoga teachings of Tibetan Vajrayana. The purpose of tummo is to gain control over body processes during the completion stage of ‘highest yoga tantra’ (Anuttarayoga Tantra) or Anuyoga. (Wikipedia)
Synonyms: Kundalini.
The concept in mythology: Inner fire.
Turiya
Word definition: a state of awakening beyond and underlying the waking, dreaming, and sleep states.
Etymology: One of the earliest mentions of Turiya, in the Hindu scriptures, occurs in verse 5.14.3 of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. The idea is also discussed in other early Upanishads. (Wikipedia)
Technical description: In Hindu philosophy, turiya (Sanskrit: तुरीय, meaning “the fourth”) or caturiya, chaturtha, is pure consciousness. Scientists described it as a hypo-metabolic state of “restful alertness.” Turiya is the background that underlies and transcends the three common states of consciousness. The states of consciousness are: waking consciousness, dreaming, and dreamless sleep (Wikipedia)
Phenomenological description: Advaita also posits the fourth state of Turiya, which some describe as pure consciousness, the background that underlies and transcends these three common states of consciousness. Turiya is the state of liberation, where according to the Advaita school, one experiences the infinite (ananta) and non-different (advaita/abheda), that is free from the dualistic experience, the state in which ajativada, non-origination, is apprehended. According to Candradhara Sarma, Turiya state is where the foundational Self is realized, it is measureless, neither cause nor effect, all pervading, without suffering, blissful, changeless, self-luminous, real, immanent in all things and transcendent. Those who have experienced the Turiya stage of self-consciousness have reached the pure awareness of their own non-dual Self as one with everyone and everything, for them the knowledge, the knower, the known becomes one, they are the Jivanmukta.
Advaita traces the foundation of this ontological theory in more ancient Sanskrit texts. For example, chapters 8.7 through 8.12 of Chandogya Upanishad discuss the “four states of consciousness” as awake, dream-filled sleep, deep sleep, and beyond deep sleep. One of the earliest mentions of Turiya, in the Hindu scriptures, occurs in verse 5.14.3 of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. The idea is also discussed in other early Upanishads. (Wikipedia)
Synonyms: non-dual mysticism.
Relevance of the concept: Literally “the fourth,” as in the fourth natural state after waking, dreaming, and deep dreamless sleep. Turiya is the Witness or pure observing awareness of all the other states.
Turiyatita
Word definition: Literally “beyond the fourth.” A fifth natural state, where the Witness (turiya) dissolves into everything that is witnessed, leaving only a pure, nondual unity. Turiyatita can also be considered the ever-present ground or “stateless” condition of all the other states and the union of Emptiness and Form.
Technical description: Literally “beyond the fourth.”
A fifth natural state, where the Witness (turiya) dissolves into everything that is witnessed, leaving only a pure, nondual unity.
Turiyatita can also be considered the ever-present ground or “stateless” condition of all the other states and the union of Emptiness and Form.
See: https://marinusjanmarijs.com/mystical-experiences/turiya-and-turiyatita/
Phenomenological description: Identity with the Absolute.
Word + definition:
Etymology:
Technical description:
Phenomenological description:
Synonyms:
Schemas / Maps:
Illustrations:
Cross-cultural comparisons:
Relevance of the concept:
The concept in mythology:
Citations:
Supporting evidence:
Serial patterns in time:
Parallel patterns in time:
Cross connections:
Literature: Books / Articles / Websites:
