A Syllogism Concerning Life

1. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but may change from one form to another.

2. Consciousness is energy.

3. Therefore, consciousness may neither be created or destroyed, but may change from one form to another.

4. We typically call "creation of consciousness," "birth;" and "destruction of consciousness," "death."

5. Therefore, birth and death (of consciousness) are impossible, and merely represent changes in the form of consciousness.

(With all respect to Socrates in the Phædo)

The Luminous Vehicle and Time

I was musing with boccaderlupo that light is consciousness and consciousness is light. Let's suppose this is so. (Certainly, Proclus thought so: he distinguished three individual bodies, calling the physical body the "shell-like vehicle," the lower (irrational) soul the "pneumatic vehicle," and the higher (rational) soul the "luminous vehicle.")

If that's the case, then the soul—which consists only of consciousness, and thus of light—must travel at the speed of light. But Einstein can tell you that the faster something moves, the slower time seems to pass—and that once you reach the speed of light, time stops altogether. Perhaps this is why people who are outside of their bodies, whether due to a near-death experience or astral projection or what have you, experience timelessness.

Taking the Reciprocal

Paraphrasing Plotinus, the body is matter to the soul, the soul is matter to the Intellect, and the Intellect is matter to the One. But if we are correct in the association of the soul to light, then we can go the other way, too: the One is light to the Intellect, the Intellect is light to the soul, and, as we have said, the soul is light to the body.

In many ways, the relation of each level of being to the next reminds me strongly of yang (among other things, sky and light) to yin (among other things, earth and darkness).

Empedocles' Elements

I'm going back over parts of Diogenes Laertius for a research project, and noticed a reference to Empedocles' elements:

He used to assert that there were four elements, fire, water, earth, and air. And that that is friendship by which they are united, and discord by which they are separated. And he speaks thus on this subject:—

Bright Jove, life-giving Juno, Pluto dark,
And Nestis, who fills mortal eyes with tears.

Meaning by Jove fire, by Juno the earth, by Pluto the air, and by Nestis water. And these things, says he, never cease alternating with one another; inasmuch as this arrangement is perpetual.

I knew of the reference, of course, but when I was first digging into this, I had assumed Jove was fire, Juno was air, Proserpine was water, and Pluto was earth; I had been corrected on this citing a number of sources, including especially John Opsopaus, who gives Hades as fire, Jove as air, Proserpine as water, and Juno as earth! Well, here is Diogenes Laertius disagreeing with both of us and giving a third set of associations!

His linking of Juno with earth and Pluto with air confuses me. No matter how much I study, I fear I'll never understand what the gods meant to the ancients.