Philosophical Speculations

"I agree to some extent here. So it's clear, I do not think anyone should totally rely on or put faith in any of these accounts before they have experienced the spiritual realms via higher cognition themselves." Agreed. And because any person who has developed a form of wider-deeper exper...

One day my daughter was playing by herself outside. She was about five. I was reading under a nearby tree. She ran up to a nearby big rock and placed both hands on it. I saw a smile grow on her face. She then twisted herself towards the sun behind her and said, "Thank you sun!" I asked he...

"My claim is that the distortion is much less severe and therefore the phenomena perceived are much more easily and precisely traced back to their sources. If that were not the case, cognition X would be practically the same as cognition Z. It sounds like you deny that higher cognition moves u...

https://static.wixstatic.com/media/563929_c2446b41c8a846c3ae58baa131c10d8e~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_564,h_399,al_c,q_20/file.jpg "The idea is eternal and single; that we also use the plural is not appropriate. All things of which we become aware and about which we are able to speak are only manifestat...

"So when you write, "I am suggesting that our very understanding is both a capturing of direct reality and a distorting of it", it appears to me you referring specifically to intellect as "understanding" while excluding higher cognition." Well put! No, the important ex...

Here is a meaning-seeking dive into the dreamlike labyrinth that is the artwork of Denis Villeneuve ... Thank you for sharing this, it looks really interesting from the first few minutes. It reminded me of his movie Enemy , which I really liked. I remember there is an early scene where the main cha...

"The only way around this is if one also allows for an "understanding" which is not merely intellectual and representational, i.e. thinking which must divide the world content into subject and object, but thinking which is prior to all such divisions." I'm not sure I'd agree wit...

Let me try a different approach. It is commonly accepted in psychology that we are influenced by the agency of others. Of course that is obvious from plain observation, but I mean in more technical sense of projection, displacement, suggestion, etc. even up to hypnosis. So clearly thoughts, feeling...

I like how you framed my comments above. But I would want to say that one element that I haven't said clearly enough is that, for me, it isn't just that we learn to point better at our understandings of the truth. I am suggesting that our very understanding is both a capturing of direct reality and...

Papanca, I like how Lou put it. I typically find that when somebody is explaining their compassion with reference to how they intellectually grasp their own ontology, that the cart is being put before the horse. ... I know that as I type this there is probably a person who has held some form of ide...