Philosophy Unbound: Schopenhauer vs. Steiner (Round One)

[SanteriSatama]

If the will so wants, it can choose to be consciouss of the spiritual. If the will so wants, it can just dance the spiritual. And any mix.

Could this pass for a summary of Schop and Stein?

As long as we realize that when 'the will chooses to be conscious of the spiritual', we can no longer afford to express in this way. To be conscious of the spiritual in its essence means that we have the mentioned in my previous post, point of overlap. To dance with the spiritual one can simply recede and watch a movie by allowing himself to be carried by it. To be conscious of the spiritual means that in Thinking we are the very will of the movie. We can no longer speak that 'some will' decides to experience the spiritual within us, while we quietly observe this fact as a third person merged with the background.

Interesting response-movement. The previous thought was dancing as actual dancing etc. Dionysian movement in and by the spirit. You shifted the Dionysian a notch to the passive wittness position, "theoretical" in the original Greek meaning of watching/audience.

In terms of person pronoun systems, we have different backgrounds and deep structures. By "will chooses to be conscious", I thnk we at least agree that it's obvious that the will can't be separate from the consciousness making the consciouss choise, and there's no a priori reason to assume external and separate will in this context.

The most interesting movement was the shift from "passive wittness", which maintains some degree of exteriority, to "mind's eye" or analogical sphere of experiencing, where movements and choises are more fully interior. But not under the will of consciousness, which maintains a participatory and dialectic role instead of solipsist control.

Does this make any sense?

[Cleric K]

By "will chooses to be conscious", I thnk we at least agree that it's obvious that the will can't be separate from the consciousness making the consciouss choise, and there's no a priori reason to assume external and separate will in this context.

I supposed that this is what you mean but I wanted to make it sure. As you know, there are more than enough spiritual traditions which even though claim to be nondual, actually dissociate from any kind of spiritual activity, which for them is only an illusion on the screen.

The most interesting movement was the shift from "passive wittness", which maintains some degree of exteriority, to "mind's eye" or analogical sphere of experiencing, where movements and choises are more fully interior. But not under the will of consciousness, which maintains a participatory and dialectic role instead of solipsist control.

Does this make any sense?

The fact that we find a domain of the World Content (in Thinking) which is completely under our control doesn't imply solipsism. There's plenty of World Will which impresses in our inner state as the deeds of spiritual beings, completely independent of our own activity. Yet in the domain of Thinking we have a point where the World turns 'inside-out'. What impresses into our contents of consciousness without our participation, is gradually discovered 'on the other side' of the pinhole, where the World is revealed to be creative Spirit. Initially we only learn to read the imprints of the Spirit within our soul substance, much like we learn to read the gestures of a living human being, but at the higher forms of cognition we merge with the ideating spiritual activity of the beings. In short, we know a spiritual being in the fullest sense, not by having some kind of a perception of it but by merging with its 'first-person' spiritual activity. From that perspective we experience how the beings will the World Thoughts, which in our ordinary state imprint in us as the shadowy perceptions of the World Content. The totality of perceptions in our soul (not only sensory but all) is World Content for us and it's like the World Thoughts turned inside-out. We lose their spiritually cognitive element and only confront the way they imprint in our soul.

[AshvinP]

And I'm in complete harmony with this. There's always at the core of our state the experience of concept and percept belonging together. The easiest way to notice is this in the observation of our own thinking process (through the exceptional state). It makes no sense to speak for our thought-perceptions as if they are first being presented to us (which eventually may be accompanied with a brief moment of confusion) and only then we 'interpret' the thought-perceptions and arrive at the appropriate concepts. This is not at all how it works in our thinking. Actually it's quite the opposite. The thought-perceptions are only testimonies for the ideal meaning of the concept that we already experience in thinking. We don't need to perceive our thoughts in order to interpret and understand what we're thinking. We perceive our thoughts because we think. This Steiner explains in the beginning of PoF. So let's be clear. In our thinking we have unity of thought-perception and meaning. As far as we're thinking, there's always this unity at its core. In this sense I'm in full agreement that when we hear rumble with the vague meaning of confusion, there's still unity in our spiritual experience. Yet through our spiritual activity the meaning (considering the rumble sound stays the same) metamorphoses. This is objective transformation and you have described it above as a metamorphic process of the experience of meaning (by going through several concepts until settling at the final one).

So let's try to synchronize. I'm not saying that at the first moment there's only 'pure percept'. We can probably express ourselves in that way if we want to stress on the fact that we don't experience a clear cut concept together with the perception, but no one denies that even without the clear concept, we still experience a union of perception and ideal element - even if it is as vague as the meaning of 'confusion'. I really hope we're together so far. Assuming that at every elementary point of the metamorphic process we do experience some kind of unity of perceptions and meaning (we have suchness), how does this invalidate the fact that on a larger scale we have transformative experience which changes confusion to clear concepts?

I also add that what Cleric speaks of above is confirmed by cognitive science. We do not perceive a world of physical lines, shapes, etc. and then attach meaning to them, but first we perceive some meaning of "objects" and then 'fill out' those quantitative properties. That understanding is rooted in JJ Gibson's "Ecological Approach to Visual Perception (1979)". This may seem like a rebuttal of Steiner's philosophy in PoF, but only until we realize Steiner is speaking of Thinking as Cleric says in the bolded statement above, and that applies to all perceptions. Except with thought-perceptions, we also know how they came to be and have the meaning we perceive in them - because we can trace it to our own spiritual activity.

[SanteriSatama]

first we perceive some meaning of "objects"

The etymological meaning "to grasp" does not fit well the meaning of meaning.

[AshvinP]

first we perceive some meaning of "objects"

The etymological meaning "to grasp" does not fit well the meaning of meaning.

OK so what is the significance of that (assuming its correct)?

[AshvinP]

Translation: "The supernal Word proceeding, and yet not leaving the right hand of the Father...". That is the 'paradoxical' aesthetic quality of the Word discerned by Aquinas in his thoughtful contemplation, and he did not abstract it away from the particular words uttered by any given person in their co-creative participation. This Word goes out into the world while also remaining in the place from which it is spoken. Only speech has this unique quality of going out and remaining where it is at the same time. All manner of inner activities play out inside the soul of man, but only speech shares the soul-qualities of those activities through the Ontological Prime. This inseparable quality of the Word, every word, and all meaning of the world's forms we perceive, speaks from the power of the truly intuitive and imaginative thoughts we conceive.

"If we ask ourselves what are the most distinctive features about the little thing we call a “word” – and it’s not a question that we very often do ask ourselves – I think we shall find that the two most outstanding are these. First, a word, whether spoken or written, has a remarkable, even paradoxical, quality, – namely that it both goes out and remains where it was to start with. “Word” means, of course, not simply the ink marks on the paper or the sound in the air. There is also the meaning of the word... this exodus does not leave the speaker or writer any poorer...

The second feature is already implicit in the first. In addition to the element in it that is perceptible to the senses – ink or sound – it expresses or symbolizes... something that is not perceptible to the senses, the something that is called its meaning."

-Owen Barfield, Meaning, Revelation and Tradition (1982)

Barfield presents a mystery which plagues the experience of modern man - what is the essence of divine "Revelation" as expressed through words? Humanity has developed an obsession with mere "likeness" or "resemblance" when it comes to the symbolic qualities of words, which stems from his obsession with outer forms at the expense of interiority. He treats all symbolic speech as exhausted in similes and metaphors of various sort, which then reduces all the symbols to signs of little import. The signs merely compare A to C by way of B, or imply a connection between A and C by saying A is B - "my love is like a rose" (simile) or "my love is a rose" (metaphor). Because of that unhealthy obsession, man cleaves the "symbolic" poesy of a word from its "literal" prose. He is certain that the meaning must be one or the other but cannot, in any case, be both.

Yet what is "C", in this example? It is the meaningful quality of "rose" which illuminates the nature of "my love" - the beauty of it, the natural unfolding of it, the joyous pleasure of perceiving it from above. Or, if "my love is a thorny rose", then also the pain and suffering it inflicts on me when I handle it without care. The word that goes out yet also remains with its speaker is symbolic and literal, when we understand what is "literal" to be the meaningful activity and content that all beings share. The symbolic word is indeed based in "likeness", but a likeness which eternally bears fruit in its ripeness. It points to the meaning behind the likeness which flows forth from a noumenal emanation. When that symbolic meaning concerns the Divine, as it did in ancient myth produced when all speech was still poetic, we can then rightly call it "Revelation"

.


John begins: En arche een ho logos...
Logos =/= word. "Word" is translation from the crappy Latin translation 'verbum' of Vulgata.

Erasmus tried to translate 'logos' as discussion, discoursive speech. The Roman word, in the same transitive direction of domination, which Barfield illustrates, did not tolerate discussion but burned Erasmians at stake, as word is to be obeyed, not questioned. Poor Erasmians and their heretical dialectics, what is their suffering and sacrifice to the word compared to the Suffering of Christ, and translation of Him into Holy Sword of the Word?

Sword can also stay in wielders hand, and have no discussion while transitively dismembering the external.

Also Heart, a mere feel, can breath out and extend to all while also staying.

In these excerpts Barfield appears highly illiterate and thoroughly ignorant and misguided.

Only the meaning of "Heart" goes out and remains. Whenever we start speaking of the quality of such things, we are already operating in the realm of the Word as Thinking in its highest sense. That is the simple truth which causes people to jump through so many abstract cognitive hoops to avoid, because it shines too bright a light on our desire to avoid responsibility for the sins of the world. As Barfield says, "the obvious is the hardest of all to point out to someone who has genuinely lost sight of it." I am pretty convinced that at least 90% of 'post-structural' philosophy is motivated (unconsciously) by avoidance of these meta-narratives which impart on us a sense of responsibility in our true nature as spiritual beings. We are happy to take "deconstruction" over constructive thought for that reason. We project onto others, who make the case for spiritual responsibility with exceptional knowledge and proficiency, "illiteracy", "ignorance", etc. We do much better to enjoy the adventure of added responsibility as it opens up new vistas of knowledge in a quantity and quality that we could scarcely imagine before.

[SanteriSatama]

What is the meaning of "SQRT(2)"? Or "Abelian extension of rational field"? Or "Discriminant"? Or "Equation" or "Number"?

This is not a math test, so if you don't know the answer, don't worry, neither do I. Perhaps we could agree that those are expressions, but can we say that they are "objects" or "concepts" or even "ideas", on our level of miscomprehension? For really serious Thinking, trying to think as well as I can, those expressions etc. mystery of math ooze meaning and wonder, inviting to investigate the meaning as well as I can, with my humble limitations. The investigation demands extreme patience and dedication of withholding any definitive interpretation and conceptualization, and many various strategies of towards some sense making. Most important strategy is to mostly avoid conscious thinking, and letting subconsciousness, leizure and time do most of the work. You can read an article, over half of which - or all - is incomprehensible babble, but still you read something, try follow some discussions, and perhaps reread same article again after a year or a decade, and see if you can think some new relations, connotations etc. meanings, and try to form something into thoughts that could, perhaps, tried to be communicated in language... which perhaps some day, if lucky, could connect with another wonderer.

In mathematics, where many might imagine that concepts are as pure and clearly defined as can be, because math is often narrated as purely conceptual and abstract thinking, for most serious and meaningful Thinking concepts are the hardest thing and furthest out of grasp. They are not an impossibility, as the purpose of Thinking is very much seeking and formulation of concepts that could be as meaningfully and as clearly as possible defined and communicated. But the whole process is so multilayered and multidirectional shifting sands that nothing so far discussed in these 23 pages so far even begins to grasp the complexities. So I won't even try to.

[AshvinP]

What is the meaning of "SQRT(2)"? Or "Abelian extension of rational field"? Or "Discriminant"? Or "Equation" or "Number"?

This is not a math test, so if you don't know the answer, don't worry, neither do I. Perhaps we could agree that those are expressions, but can we say that they are "objects" or "concepts" or even "ideas", on our level of miscomprehension? For really serious Thinking, trying to think as well as I can, those expressions etc. mystery of math ooze meaning and wonder, inviting to investigate the meaning as well as I can, with my humble limitations. The investigation demands extreme patience and dedication of withholding any definitive interpretation and conceptualization, and many various strategies of towards some sense making. Most important strategy is to mostly avoid conscious thinking, and letting subconsciousness, leizure and time do most of the work. You can read an article, over half of which - or all - is incomprehensible babble, but still you read something, try follow some discussions, and perhaps reread same article again after a year or a decade, and see if you can think some new relations, connotations etc. meanings, and try to form something into thoughts that could, perhaps, tried to be communicated in language... which perhaps some day, if lucky, could connect with another wonderer.

In mathematics, where many might imagine that concepts are as pure and clearly defined as can be, because math is often narrated as purely conceptual and abstract thinking, for most serious and meaningful Thinking concepts are the hardest thing and furthest out of grasp. They are not an impossibility, as the purpose of Thinking is very much seeking and formulation of concepts that could be as meaningfully and as clearly as possible defined and communicated. But the whole process is so multilayered and multidirectional shifting sands that nothing so far discussed in these 23 pages so far even begins to grasp the complexities. So I won't even try to.

Exactly... I could not have illustrated the point any better. Many people are thinking to get out of Thinking. They spend all their thinking energy on figuring out how to justify a lack of even trying to Think. Grasping the essence of the world via Thinking, we convince ourselves, is a complete chimera, so why even bother? I'll let my "subconscious" and "leisure" do most of the work and that will be good enough. No definitive conceptual framework can be tolerated, because that means there is also a definitive path forward we should take. One day, if we are "lucky", some of these things will fall into place, but who knows. That part of our soul is what the Light of the Spirit unceasingly tries to illuminate for us, but we are much more comfortable crucifying it unceasingly than we are listening to it and embodying it even once.

[SanteriSatama]

Grasping the essence of the world via Thinking, we convince ourselves, is a complete chimera, so why even bother?

"Grasping" - no
"essence" - no
"via" - no
"complete" - no

Thinking mathematics and logic at foundational level is also very much a collective process, and the paths of thinking which that language refers to has been sufficiently rejected by Nagarjuna, Gödel etc. Thinking that mathematical thinking is 1) an instrument to 2) grasp 3) complete 4) essence of mathematics in the form of finite set of 5) axioms does not work. That language comes from thinking wrong. The wrong-thinking is not absolute, it's wrong relative to the purpose of foundational rethinking, purpose of trying to thing better than the numerated misdirecting concepts.

Thinking foundational mathematics is so complex process, that the process can't be described. For practical purposes of this context of communication it's ineffable. Giving up trying to describe the process does not mean giving up Thinking.

To give some idea, thinking involves trying to think the problem of self-referentiality (see Gödel etc.) better, which involves thinking mathematical cognition radically empirically and relationally. The motivation of Thinking started from trying to comprehend p-adic numbers. P-adic approach has been so far least wrong way to rethink math of QM, but trying to think expression for the origin of p-adic numbers has revealed that the formal idea of p-adic numbers is wrong, as they are established as reflection of real numbers, which are very wrong. The so far most coherent origin I've been able to think (open interval < >) does not rain down as prime numbers, as in the deeply fragmented p-adic formulation, but as coprimes of Stern-Brocot fractions. Some key findings have been made, which change the whole picture very radically in relation to collective cumulative thinking and investigation so far, but there is still a very very long way to to purpose of formulation of any concept, according to the mathematical criteria or rigour and coherence.

What I'm trying to tell, at this level Thinking appears rather opposite in relation to the view of having an established conceptual framework (the "given") and objectifying-grasping-attaching more stuff into the framework. On the level of foundational Thinking, the purpose-attempt of a conceptualization requires rethinking a whole new relational network and construction of a new language.

To genuinely appreciate and practice Thinking at highest level, we can't objectify "thinking" into "it", something to grasp and possess. We need to engage in the learning process with our whole bodies.

[AshvinP]

Grasping the essence of the world via Thinking, we convince ourselves, is a complete chimera, so why even bother?

"Grasping" - no
"essence" - no
"via" - no
"complete" - no

Thinking mathematics and logic at foundational level is also very much a collective process, and the paths of thinking which that language refers to has been sufficiently rejected by Nagarjuna, Gödel etc. Thinking that mathematical thinking is 1) an instrument to 2) grasp 3) complete 4) essence of mathematics in the form of finite set of 5) axioms does not work. That language comes from thinking wrong. The wrong-thinking is not absolute, it's wrong relative to the purpose of foundational rethinking, purpose of trying to thing better than the numerated misdirecting concepts.

Thinking foundational mathematics is so complex process, that the process can't be described. For practical purposes of this context of communication it's ineffable. Giving up trying to describe the process does not mean giving up Thinking.

To give some idea, thinking involves trying to think the problem of self-referentiality (see Gödel etc.) better, which involves thinking mathematical cognition radically empirically and relationally. The motivation of Thinking started from trying to comprehend p-adic numbers. P-adic approach has been so far least wrong way to rethink math of QM, but trying to think expression for the origin of p-adic numbers has revealed that the formal idea of p-adic numbers is wrong, as they are established as reflection of real numbers, which are very wrong. The so far most coherent origin I've been able to think (open interval < >) does not rain down as prime numbers, as in the deeply fragmented p-adic formulation, but as coprimes of Stern-Brocot fractions. Some key findings have been made, which change the whole picture very radically in relation to collective cumulative thinking and investigation so far, but there is still a very very long way to to purpose of formulation of any concept, according to the mathematical criteria or rigour and coherence.

What I'm trying to tell, at this level Thinking appears rather opposite in relation to the view of having an established conceptual framework (the "given") and objectifying-grasping-attaching more stuff into the framework. On the level of foundational Thinking, the purpose-attempt of a conceptualization requires rethinking a whole new relational network and construction of a new language.

To genuinely appreciate and practice Thinking at highest level, we can't objectify "thinking" into "it", something to grasp and possess. We need to engage in the learning process with our whole bodies.

We are operating off of different assumptions. I do not assume any fundamental discontinuity between intellectual thinking and higher order metamorphosed Thinking that is required for perceiving the "whole new relational network". It's true, we cannot simply derive the latter from the former, any more than we can derive the form of the butterfly from the form of the caterpillar. Yet we still know one naturally unfolds from the other. I know the ancient Greeks did not experience the world or their own Thinking as I do, or even the great medieval Thinkers, but I also know they are the ancestral foundation of my current abstract intellectual thinking. A lot of differing conclusions come from these differing assumptions. From the metamorphic assumption, I conclude that no conceptual framework which has come from sound abstract intellectual thinking in the West is "very wrong" when viewed in the light of higher spiritual illumination. None of it has to be abandoned in its essential meaning, which we all receive from shared spiritual realm, only in its superficial perception by rigid intellect. Now I am not exactly sure how that applies to the mathematical frameworks you are referring to, since I am very poor at comprehending those things, but I suspect it does apply.