Gödel’s Infinite Candy Store

[Eugene I]

So now the question becomes - is it possible that someone (or a few people) have already discovered the best "possibilian" approach when it comes to spirituality? Is it possible that developing higher cognition in ways that have been made public and specified could reveal the possibility space of spiritual exploration most clearly and usefully? At the end of the day, that is what meets the most resistance - the basic idea that this already established approach could even be a possibility, let alone the best one. Then there is no question of keeping an open mind and seeing where it leads - it is never considered as a viable option and therefore the most basic steps towards it are never taken.

Yes, it is definitely possible that other people in the human realm or other beings in other realms already discovered those solutions and what is left for us is to adopt them (or discover them for ourselves)

Put another way - Cleric will repeatedly write posts here saying "we can know X, Y, Z via spiritual training of Anthroposophy, because I have experienced it". Then that same question of X,Y, Z will come up on the forum and you or someone else will say, "it is impossible to know X,Y,Z right now, so all we can do is speculate". What that indicates to me is you are not truly adopting your engineering approach to the spiritual approach. If you have already tried to develop imaginative thinking and it simply led nowhere, then I am definitely curious to hear your accounts of those attempts. Otherwise, I must simply conclude you want to keep spirituality in a separate, more heavily restricted (conservative) domain than your engineering practice in terms of exploring new possibilities.

OK, so for that part I need to tell about another side of the engineering and scientific process, namely: the scrutiny. So, the process, roughly speaking, consists of two stages: the innovative "a-ha" stage where wild imagination, innovation, creativity, open-mindedness are the drives, and then, once that stages brings some new solutions, there comes the "scrutiny" phase: defending it against all possible criticism (which includes being open to criticism and to admit any faults and drawbacks of the new solutions), rigorously testing them, finding all their drawbacks and potential pitfalls as well as all possible benefits. There is usually a long path from conception/invention to the practical realization, and if one wants to succeed along the projects like this, one needs to be prepared for all those hard work and troubles. It's a real challenge and requires a lot of persistence.

Now, going back to the spiritual paths, I've personally been exploring them over my whole life and made a lot of discoveries and progress. At the same time, I also saw a lot of false paths and spiritual practices, at best just useless led by dishonest gurus and cult leaders, and at worst quite dangerous and spiritually destructive. With the lack of the objective, practical and experimental measures that we use in science and engineering, it's even more challenging to exercise care and scrutiny in the areas of spiritual exploration. So, if one wants to make a safe progress along the spiritual path, a combination of open-mindedness and willingness to explore new paths, and at the same time much care and scrutiny, is needed.

So you should not be surprised that when you propose new ideas and approaches in the spiritual of philosophical areas you may not see much acceptance and enthusiasm right away and people jumping in large crowds on your spiritual/philosophical wagon. Yet, if there is certain truth in your path then there will definitely be people with whom that truth will resonate and who will eventually come along.

[AshvinP]

So now the question becomes - is it possible that someone (or a few people) have already discovered the best "possibilian" approach when it comes to spirituality? Is it possible that developing higher cognition in ways that have been made public and specified could reveal the possibility space of spiritual exploration most clearly and usefully? At the end of the day, that is what meets the most resistance - the basic idea that this already established approach could even be a possibility, let alone the best one. Then there is no question of keeping an open mind and seeing where it leads - it is never considered as a viable option and therefore the most basic steps towards it are never taken.

Yes, it is definitely possible that other people in the human realm or other beings in other realms already discovered those solutions and what is left for us is to adopt them (or discover them for ourselves)

Put another way - Cleric will repeatedly write posts here saying "we can know X, Y, Z via spiritual training of Anthroposophy, because I have experienced it". Then that same question of X,Y, Z will come up on the forum and you or someone else will say, "it is impossible to know X,Y,Z right now, so all we can do is speculate". What that indicates to me is you are not truly adopting your engineering approach to the spiritual approach. If you have already tried to develop imaginative thinking and it simply led nowhere, then I am definitely curious to hear your accounts of those attempts. Otherwise, I must simply conclude you want to keep spirituality in a separate, more heavily restricted (conservative) domain than your engineering practice in terms of exploring new possibilities.

OK, so for that part I need to tell about another side of the engineering and scientific process, namely: the scrutiny. So, the process, roughly speaking, consists of two stages: the innovative "a-ha" stage where wild imagination, innovation, creativity, open-mindedness are the drives, and then, once that stages brings some new solutions, there comes the "scrutiny" phase: defending it against all possible criticism (which includes being opened to criticism and being open to admit any faults and drawbacks of the new solutions), rigorously testing them, finding all their drawbacks and potential pitfalls as well as all possible benefits. There is usually a long path from conception/invention to the practical realization, and if one wants to succeed along the projects like this, one needs to be prepared for all those hard work and troubles. It's a real challenge.

Now, going back to the spiritual paths, I've personally been exploring them over my whole life and made a lot of discoveries and progress. At the same time, I also saw a lot of false paths and spiritual practices, at best just useless led by dishonest gurus and cult leaders, and at worst quite dangerous and spiritually destructive. With the lack of the objective, practical and experimental measures that we use in science and engineering, it's even more challenging to exercise care and scrutiny in the areas of spiritual exploration. So, if one wants to make a safe progress along the spiritual path, a combination of open-mindedness and willingness to explore new paths, and at the same time much care and scrutiny, is needed.

So you should not be surprised that when you propose new ideas and approaches in the spiritual of philosophical areas you may not see much acceptance and enthusiasm right away and people jumping in large crowds on your spiritual/philosophical wagon. Yet, if there is certain truth in your path then there will definitely be people with whom that truth will resonate and who will eventually come along.

I don't disagree with any of that, except the comparison to "cult leaders". The latter will entice you with some neat-sounding "truths", but they will not ask you to work extremely hard to develop higher faculties of knowledge just so that you can begin on the path to spiritual wisdom. Neither Cleric nor I have asked anyone to accept any spiritual conclusions without rigorous argument and testing against Reason - it's quite the opposite. We write long posts/essays and that is just to outline the spiritual approach, with very few significant conclusions presented, and then engage logically with anyone who responds with questions or criticisms. The rare times conclusions are presented, they are accompanied by a disclaimer along the lines of, "do not take this on faith or think these spiritual revelations will be magically perceived without massive amounts of devotion, time and effort".

There is a difference between not seeing "acceptance or enthusiasm right away", and seeing active resistance without any hint of an explanation why these arguments are being resisted. How can there be any scrutiny of spiritual science if the most simple steps advised, which can all be done in the comfort of one's home - like reading The Philosophy of Freedom - are not even taken? It's not as if you read it and then post a critique on the forum of specific arguments that were made. You simply say, "we can never know X, Y, Z during our lifetime, so it's all a matter of opinion and preference". The implication, of course, is that anyone who claims to know X, Y, Z is trying to pull the wool over your eyes, ignorantly or consciously.

Maybe it will help if you just say whether you have read PoF, what arguments you take issue with, whether you have tried to develop higher cognition throughout your life of spiritual exploration, etc. You could even just read Cleric or my essays and say what arguments from those you take issue with. If you say, "I don't need to do any of those things to know it is incorrect" or "it is just one out infinite spiritual paths which can be taken", then I am forced to stick with my original conclusion that these things are being avoided because you feel spirituality must remain cordoned off from all other rigorous empirical pursuits, including philosophy and science.

[Eugene I]

On a conceptual and verbal level, especially in philosophy and science, we use arguments and concepts. But behind that most people use their intuition and higher cognition (of course to the extent that they are developed) to see "through" those concepts, to sense what is "behind" them, to feel a "resonance" with the higher truths or insights that are being conveyed (which are never separate from the way of "how" they are conveyed).

[AshvinP]

On a conceptual and verbal level, especially in philosophy and science, we use arguments and concepts. But behind that most people use their intuition and higher cognition (of course to the extent that they are developed) to see "through" those concepts, to sense what is "behind" them, to feel a "resonance" with the higher truths or insights that are being conveyed (which are never separate from the way of "how" they are conveyed).

I am going to use a specific example from recent essay, as I think there is confusion going on here.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=453

There are seven epochs of our current age that we should keep in mind when considering integral mythology - (1) Indian, (2) Persian, (3) Egyptian-Babylonian, (4) Greco-Roman, (5) Germanic-Celtic, our current epoch, which we will call the (6) "Integral", and a (7) seventh epoch that is yet to come in our current age. A new consciousness was being born throughout these earlier epochs, but the older mode of clairvoyant consciousness was still somewhat alive. The primal clairvoyant mode was a dream consciousness which perceived the entire Cosmos inwardly with pictures, like we currently do in our dreams. Each earlier epoch is mirrored in a later one, with the exception of the fourth epoch which stands in the middle as a uniquely unmirrored epoch. We must keep this fact in mind when exploring the ancient mythology.

Now that is a pretty specific spiritual claim, right? I am identifying these epochs (and can give approximate dates for them) and pointing to their "mirrored" spiritual-soul qualities within themselves and with each other, which I then go on to explore by way of images and concepts presented in ancient mythology. I am very confident in these conclusions just by way of reasoning intellect and most basic imaginative thought, yet they probably sound extremely specific and bold spiritual assertions to the average person. What do you think? Is this the sort of spiritual claim that can be reasonably made, explored in detail, and known (or disproved) with high level of confidence?

[Eugene I]

Now that is a pretty specific spiritual claim, right? I am identifying these epochs (and can give approximate dates for them) and pointing to their "mirrored" spiritual-soul qualities within themselves and with each other, which I then go on to explore by way of images and concepts presented in ancient mythology. I am very confident in these conclusions just by way of reasoning intellect and most basic imaginative thought, yet they probably sound extremely specific and bold spiritual assertions to the average person. What do you think? Is this the sort of spiritual claim that can be reasonably made, explored in detail, and known (or disproved) with high level of confidence?

I don't see anything wrong with it but I just can't comment on this because it is not my area of expertise. I have background in natural sciences and some philosophy, but I'm not into humanities, mythology, history etc. You would need to ask someone else.

[AshvinP]

Now that is a pretty specific spiritual claim, right? I am identifying these epochs (and can give approximate dates for them) and pointing to their "mirrored" spiritual-soul qualities within themselves and with each other, which I then go on to explore by way of images and concepts presented in ancient mythology. I am very confident in these conclusions just by way of reasoning intellect and most basic imaginative thought, yet they probably sound extremely specific and bold spiritual assertions to the average person. What do you think? Is this the sort of spiritual claim that can be reasonably made, explored in detail, and known (or disproved) with high level of confidence?

I don't see anything wrong with it but I just can't comment on this because it is not my area of expertise. I have background in natural sciences and some philosophy, but I'm not into humanities, mythology, history etc. You would need to ask someone else.

I'm not asking if you think it is correct, only whether it is a valid spiritual claim to even make in the first place and explore with the goal of proving or disproving with high level of confidence?

[Eugene I]

I'm not asking if you think it is correct, only whether it is a valid spiritual claim to even make in the first place and explore with the goal of proving or disproving with high level of confidence?

As I said it sounds like a valid claim to me, but I have no expertise in history and humanities, so I don't think my opinion even counts anyway.

[AshvinP]

I'm not asking if you think it is correct, only whether it is a valid spiritual claim to even make in the first place and explore with the goal of proving or disproving with high level of confidence?

As I said it sounds like a valid claim to me, but I have no expertise in history and humanities, so I don't think my opinion even counts anyway.

I know you cannot possibly evaluate the claim's validity from that small quote, even if you did know more about mythology. So I take it from your responses you are saying these are the types of spiritual claims we can objectively verify?

[Eugene I]

I'm only familiar with the the criteria of objective verification used in natural sciences (experimental facts and math proofs). Those are not directly applicable in the areas of humanities, mythology, psychology, spirituality etc. I have no clue what objective verification criteria can be applicable there because it is not my area of expertise.

[AshvinP]

I'm only familiar with the the criteria of objective verification used in natural sciences (experimental facts and math proofs). Those are not directly applicable in the areas of humanities, mythology, psychology, spirituality etc. I have no clue what objective verification criteria can be applicable there because it is not my area of expertise.

Right, and this is always the biggest area of disagreement between us and between worldviews of the modern age more generally. I assert there is no warrant to assume the "criteria of objective verification" used in natural sciences is different from that of spiritually informed science. "Spiritually informed" meaning science which also considers ancient mythology, for ex., data points which can be factored into our reasoning towards scientific conclusions. We assume they are different because we diminish or entirely leave out the essential role of our Reason in weaving the "experimental facts" together into coherent wholes. Our reasoning process itself can be considered an experimental fact which should be observed and factored in. Once we see that it is the essential common element underlying all scientific inquiry, "natural" or otherwise, then we realize we do have a clue what criteria is applicable - because it is the activity we are always engaged in, such as you are engaged in with your engineering practice. As Cleric's post illustrated, "math proofs" are just another way of saying, "rules of reasoned thinking".