Please, I need help from patient and committed idealists

[EduardoCandeias]

Friends, my name is Eduardo, I'm 40 and I'm from Lisbon, Portugal. I've read "Why Materialism is Baloney", "Rationalist Spirituality" and "The Idea of ​​the Wold", watched the 7 videos of the "Analytic Idealism Course" and the conversation with Curt Jaimungal (YouTube), but I can't fully understand Idealism . My native language is not English, so I apologize in advance for the spelling mistakes I will certainly make and I appreciate any help you can give me. Please be patiente with me, I'm not a philosopher, I need simplifications, because things like "body is inside mind, not mind inside body" are very hard to grasp for someone who's been a materialist for as long as he can remember.

1st question:

In one of Bernardo's lectures, he says that one of the great differences between materialism and idealism is the fact that materialism excludes any possibility of continuity after death. How is idealism different? Take a look at this, I eat, I drink, I breathe and I do all this through energetic exchanges and transformations in my body. I'm alive and I have the possibility to experiment (whatever it is) because I get into this energy-consuming game. When I die, my body becomes food for some other living being. How is it possible to some form of consciousness to continue without entering into dualism? What part of me is not consumed by the cute little decomposers? I consume energy, andthe energy that makes me can be consumed. If there is part of it that can not, how is this not dualism?

Muito Obrigado.

[DandelionSoul]

You'll get different points of view here, but for Kastrup, what you really are is not Eduardo. Eduardo is an "alter," or a dream character, or something like that. What you really are is what he calls Mind At Large, which is the "Dreamer" or the dissociative identity disorder patient in the two analogies. Just to stick with one metaphor, the Dreamer dreams of being you, and it dreams of being me, and it dreams of being the little decomposers that eat "you" after death, and although it's having all these very many dreams, they are all the dreams of one dreamer. Death just dispels the illusion that you, the Dreamer, were ever really Eduardo in the first place, just as when you, Eduardo, go to sleep and dream and you die in the dream, you wake up and realize it was only a dream and you were never that person in that place being killed like that at all. Rather, you were the person you dreamed of being, and the whole dream world where the dream happened, and the person killing you in the dream.

So there is continuity because there is only one Dreamer, which cannot die, and it isn't a dualism because there is no split between the Dreamer and its dreams; there is nothing to the dreams but the Dreamer itself.

[SanteriSatama]

You'll get different points of view here, but for Kastrup, what you really are is not Eduardo. Eduardo is an "alter," or a dream character, or something like that. What you really are is what he calls Mind At Large, which is the "Dreamer" or the dissociative identity disorder patient in the two analogies. Just to stick with one metaphor, the Dreamer dreams of being you, and it dreams of being me, and it dreams of being the little decomposers that eat "you" after death, and although it's having all these very many dreams, they are all the dreams of one dreamer. Death just dispels the illusion that you, the Dreamer, were ever really Eduardo in the first place, just as when you, Eduardo, go to sleep and dream and you die in the dream, you wake up and realize it was only a dream and you were never that person in that place being killed like that at all. Rather, you were the person you dreamed of being, and the whole dream world where the dream happened, and the person killing you in the dream.

So there is continuity because there is only one Dreamer, which cannot die, and it isn't a dualism because there is no split between the Dreamer and its dreams; there is nothing to the dreams but the Dreamer itself.

Your paraphrase makes exposes BK belonging to the substance-philosophy Brahman=Atman school of advaita/non-dualism. So strongly, that he considers relational process-philosophy of the anatman school of advaita "meaningless" in his debate attempt towards Rovelli.

In relational anatman-approach the Brahman-substance is not any more "real" than Eduardo, DandelionSoul or SanteriSatama - Mother or Father deities etc.- as we exist an mean in our mutual relations, in and as relations that create their-our nodes of experiencing.

[Jim Cross]

Friends, my name is Eduardo, I'm 40 and I'm from Lisbon, Portugal. I've read "Why Materialism is Baloney", "Rationalist Spirituality" and "The Idea of ​​the Wold", watched the 7 videos of the "Analytic Idealism Course" and the conversation with Curt Jaimungal (YouTube), but I can't fully understand Idealism . My native language is not English, so I apologize in advance for the spelling mistakes I will certainly make and I appreciate any help you can give me. Please be patiente with me, I'm not a philosopher, I need simplifications, because things like "body is inside mind, not mind inside body" are very hard to grasp for someone who's been a materialist for as long as he can remember.

1st question:

In one of Bernardo's lectures, he says that one of the great differences between materialism and idealism is the fact that materialism excludes any possibility of continuity after death. How is idealism different? Take a look at this, I eat, I drink, I breathe and I do all this through energetic exchanges and transformations in my body. I'm alive and I have the possibility to experiment (whatever it is) because I get into this energy-consuming game. When I die, my body becomes food for some other living being. How is it possible to some form of consciousness to continue without entering into dualism? What part of me is not consumed by the cute little decomposers? I consume energy, andthe energy that makes me can be consumed. If there is part of it that can not, how is this not dualism?

Muito Obrigado.

I think the position is that the body is the extrinsic manifestation of the soul (alter); therefore, the soul could manifest itself in some other way- another physical body, an astral form, or some other form. The underlying reality remains the same even though it manifests in various external forms. It isn't exactly dualism because the external form is really composed of the same stuff as the underlying reality.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Ultimately it comes down to some inquiry into what is this 'me' that is being referred to, for if it is some entity entirely dependent upon its identification with a corporeal expression, then once that expression is turned to dust, then what remains of that provisional 'me'? However, if this 'me' is an idea construction within the Mind that conceives of it, then this maya-'me' is reducible to That which it is in essence, which in turn is irreducible. So That 'entity' is actually never not present, for it is the ever-present, identity-free origin of any provisional, corporeally dependent 'me'—and which can be known right here and now, and no need to wait for the body's dissolution, or any subsequent maya-'me' to be constructed. Rupert Spira may be helpful in pursuing this inquiry.

[EduardoCandeias]

You'll get different points of view here, but for Kastrup, what you really are is not Eduardo. Eduardo is an "alter," or a dream character, or something like that. What you really are is what he calls Mind At Large, which is the "Dreamer" or the dissociative identity disorder patient in the two analogies. Just to stick with one metaphor, the Dreamer dreams of being you, and it dreams of being me, and it dreams of being the little decomposers that eat "you" after death, and although it's having all these very many dreams, they are all the dreams of one dreamer. Death just dispels the illusion that you, the Dreamer, were ever really Eduardo in the first place, just as when you, Eduardo, go to sleep and dream and you die in the dream, you wake up and realize it was only a dream and you were never that person in that place being killed like that at all. Rather, you were the person you dreamed of being, and the whole dream world where the dream happened, and the person killing you in the dream.

So there is continuity because there is only one Dreamer, which cannot die, and it isn't a dualism because there is no split between the Dreamer and its dreams; there is nothing to the dreams but the Dreamer itself.

Thank you DandelionSoul, for your answer.

I can see how alter's theory fits into the organization of the inner universe, but not how it meshes with the energy wars of the outer world. Simply put, that there is only one mind and that it is divided into as many different perspectives as it can take, it makes sense to me, as the need to fight and consume energy is essential for this maintenance of differences, it doesn't. Because if there is only one substance (non-dual) and energy (or matter) is its form of expression, there will be nothing in that substance that is not manifested in material form, therefore, at the end of the body, the end of existence.

[EduardoCandeias]

You'll get different points of view here, but for Kastrup, what you really are is not Eduardo. Eduardo is an "alter," or a dream character, or something like that. What you really are is what he calls Mind At Large, which is the "Dreamer" or the dissociative identity disorder patient in the two analogies. Just to stick with one metaphor, the Dreamer dreams of being you, and it dreams of being me, and it dreams of being the little decomposers that eat "you" after death, and although it's having all these very many dreams, they are all the dreams of one dreamer. Death just dispels the illusion that you, the Dreamer, were ever really Eduardo in the first place, just as when you, Eduardo, go to sleep and dream and you die in the dream, you wake up and realize it was only a dream and you were never that person in that place being killed like that at all. Rather, you were the person you dreamed of being, and the whole dream world where the dream happened, and the person killing you in the dream.

So there is continuity because there is only one Dreamer, which cannot die, and it isn't a dualism because there is no split between the Dreamer and its dreams; there is nothing to the dreams but the Dreamer itself.

Your paraphrase makes exposes BK belonging to the substance-philosophy Brahman=Atman school of advaita/non-dualism. So strongly, that he considers relational process-philosophy of the anatman school of advaita "meaningless" in his debate attempt towards Rovelli.

In relational anatman-approach the Brahman-substance is not any more "real" than Eduardo, DandelionSoul or SanteriSatama - Mother or Father deities etc.- as we exist an mean in our mutual relations, in and as relations that create their-our nodes of experiencing.

Thank you SanteriSatama.

Sorry, but I haven't read anything about advaita vedanta, so I'm not familiar with any of the terms you used. Can you explain in a more layman's way to me, please?

[EduardoCandeias]

Friends, my name is Eduardo, I'm 40 and I'm from Lisbon, Portugal. I've read "Why Materialism is Baloney", "Rationalist Spirituality" and "The Idea of ​​the Wold", watched the 7 videos of the "Analytic Idealism Course" and the conversation with Curt Jaimungal (YouTube), but I can't fully understand Idealism . My native language is not English, so I apologize in advance for the spelling mistakes I will certainly make and I appreciate any help you can give me. Please be patiente with me, I'm not a philosopher, I need simplifications, because things like "body is inside mind, not mind inside body" are very hard to grasp for someone who's been a materialist for as long as he can remember.

1st question:

In one of Bernardo's lectures, he says that one of the great differences between materialism and idealism is the fact that materialism excludes any possibility of continuity after death. How is idealism different? Take a look at this, I eat, I drink, I breathe and I do all this through energetic exchanges and transformations in my body. I'm alive and I have the possibility to experiment (whatever it is) because I get into this energy-consuming game. When I die, my body becomes food for some other living being. How is it possible to some form of consciousness to continue without entering into dualism? What part of me is not consumed by the cute little decomposers? I consume energy, andthe energy that makes me can be consumed. If there is part of it that can not, how is this not dualism?

Muito Obrigado.

I think the position is that the body is the extrinsic manifestation of the soul (alter); therefore, the soul could manifest itself in some other way- another physical body, an astral form, or some other form. The underlying reality remains the same even though it manifests in various external forms. It isn't exactly dualism because the external form is really composed of the same stuff as the underlying reality.

Thank you Jim Cross.

I find this explanation quite accessible... is it then a kind of consciousness in several different states, like water vapor, water and ice?

[EduardoCandeias]

Ultimately it comes down to some inquiry into what is this 'me' that is being referred to, for if it is some entity entirely dependent upon its identification with a corporeal expression, then once that expression is turned to dust, then what remains of that provisional 'me'? However, if this 'me' is an idea construction within the Mind that conceives of it, then this maya-'me' is reducible to That which it is in essence, which in turn is irreducible. So That 'entity' is actually never not present, for it is the ever-present, identity-free origin of any provisional, corporeally dependent 'me'—and which can be known right here and now, and no need to wait for the body's dissolution, or any subsequent maya-'me' to be constructed. Rupert Spira may be helpful in pursuing this inquiry.

Thank you Soul_of_Shu.

I've watched dozens of Spira lectures and I'm in the middle of a dialogue with Curt Jaimungal. I think Spira says more or less what Bernardo says, but not so clearly. So, the alter only exists as long as the body exists, is that it? At the end of the body, does the mind break free from this reduction and expand to the size of everything that exists? All minds form one mind? Or do the different perspectives still exist?

[AshvinP]

Ultimately it comes down to some inquiry into what is this 'me' that is being referred to, for if it is some entity entirely dependent upon its identification with a corporeal expression, then once that expression is turned to dust, then what remains of that provisional 'me'? However, if this 'me' is an idea construction within the Mind that conceives of it, then this maya-'me' is reducible to That which it is in essence, which in turn is irreducible. So That 'entity' is actually never not present, for it is the ever-present, identity-free origin of any provisional, corporeally dependent 'me'—and which can be known right here and now, and no need to wait for the body's dissolution, or any subsequent maya-'me' to be constructed. Rupert Spira may be helpful in pursuing this inquiry.

Thank you Soul_of_Shu.

I've watched dozens of Spira lectures and I'm in the middle of a dialogue with Curt Jaimungal. I think Spira says more or less what Bernardo says, but not so clearly. So, the alter only exists as long as the body exists, is that it? At the end of the body, does the mind break free from this reduction and expand to the size of everything that exists? All minds form one mind? Or do the different perspectives still exist?

My observation here is that it is key to resist the urge to think of the 'alters' as personal minds living side by side with other personal minds within a larger circle of MAL. That is what has been termed "Flat MAL" here, and that term is actually a critique of BK's framing. We are not "ripples" on the waves of an ocean of Will, or "whirlpools", or anything similar to that imagery. We are not each "enclosed" spaces of consciousness, but there is only one space we exist in and we are all different perspectives within that one space and the Center of that one space is also an ideating perspective. You should try to keep the following image in mind as a loose analogy: