Principles of Mind and Philosophy

[GrantHenderson]

When you say Mind "falsely assumes that it 'recreates internally the total perceptual content which exists externally'", are you then implying this is why Mind cannot, in principle, know itself? In other words, Mind tries to recreate the total content within its dissociated boundaries, and convinces itself that it is doing so, but it really isn't and it never can? If so, then we still disagree.

I do believe that the mind cannot completely know itself, but I distinguish this from the mind being “completely cognized” — which I believe it can be. I think that the mind “knowing” implies the possession of informational properties, and the cognizing of such information. And I don’t think that the mind can cognize information and simultaneously be completely cognized, because the act of cognizing information implies a progression towards epistemological completeness (or at least “epistemological variation”). To attribute something as epistemologically complete and progressing towards epistemological completeness would be a contradiction.

So I would agree that “mind can be completely cognized” but disagree that “mind can completely know itself” because the latter statement implies the act of cognizing information. This disagreement could just be due to a misunderstanding of terminology, but I don’t believe it is.

My view, reflected by Cleric and Goethe in the quoted post, is that one-half of the World's perceptual content arrives to us from within by way of our inner concepts, while the other half arrives from without as [outer] sensory-perceptions. In the process of knowing we are not simply observing the phenomenal world, but we are co-creating it. Much of this happens subconsciously by way of inner intuitions and imaginations which arrive together with the sensory-perceptions, but also our normal intellectual reasoning is engaged in this co-creative process as well.

If perceptual contents arrive from one of either source internal or external to the alter, then doesn’t this imply internal-external dualism? (I understand this assumption is likely wrong given my understanding of other aspects of your framework. But I need a clarification here regardless). Also, I agree that we are co creating the world, but i'm interested in a clarification for how proposition 1; “My view, reflected by Cleric and Goethe in the quoted post, is that one-half of the World's perceptual content arrives to us from within by way of our inner concepts, while the other half arrives from without as [outer] sensory-perceptions.” implies proposition 2; “In the process of knowing we are not simply observing the phenomenal world, but we are co-creating it”.

it should become much more clear why there is no fundamental limit to what (or how) we can know of the total World Content.

My claim that the mind cannot simultaneously be completely cognized and maintain informational properties does not imply that there is a fundamental limit to what the mind can know of the total world content. My claim does not deny the possibility for the mind to expand its knowledge of the world infinitely. In fact, it offers a potential solution for how this is the case.

Also, you have previously claimed that the mind can be “completely cognized”, which would imply a limit to cognitive knowledge about the world. Is this a mistake, or can you clarify this distinction?

My position is that, in the ancient past, and also in the future, qualtiative discernments of Mind will be distinctions without divisions. The words will retain their meanings without ever being reified into meanings isolated and separate from the holistic meaning of the sentence, paragraphs, etc. they are embedded within. Again, this is all very hard to imagine from the perspective of abstract intellect, whose entire purpose (until recently) has been to reify distinctions into divisions (and that serves an integral purpose in my overall framework), but such mere intellect is really a momentary blip on the vast 'timescale' of the Cosmos.

I agree with this general idea, but I think there are some logistics that need to be ironed out. I'm not sure how things can be discerned without some sort of arbitrary division -- it seems to me a necessary implication. As far as I can tell, the mind identifies information as both equal and unequal object identities so it can discern information (unequal object identities) embedded within the same medium (equal object identity). Below is a passage from my excerpt explaining why I think this is the case. You can let me know where you agree or disagree with the logistics:

Information is a term which has acquired various meanings in philosophy and science. However, what this theory has made certain is that information is conceived of by mind, and therefore must have intelligible properties. Furthermore, information is only intelligible when contextualized through relation. A relationship is only established when levels of similarity and difference between multiple phenomenal states are specified. Differentiating between multiple phenomenal states requires some level of sameness to specify how different they are, while relating multiple phenomenal states requires some level of difference to specify how similar they are. As such, information is intelligible only when the mind is able to attribute it as both equal (principle 1) and unequal (principle 2) respectively.

[AshvinP]

When you say Mind "falsely assumes that it 'recreates internally the total perceptual content which exists externally'", are you then implying this is why Mind cannot, in principle, know itself? In other words, Mind tries to recreate the total content within its dissociated boundaries, and convinces itself that it is doing so, but it really isn't and it never can? If so, then we still disagree.

I do believe that the mind cannot completely know itself, but I distinguish this from the mind being “completely cognized” — which I believe it can be. I think that the mind “knowing” implies the possession of informational properties, and the cognizing of such information. And I don’t think that the mind can cognize information and simultaneously be completely cognized, because the act of cognizing information implies a progression towards epistemological completeness (or at least “epistemological variation”). To attribute something as epistemologically complete and progressing towards epistemological completeness would be a contradiction.

So I would agree that “mind can be completely cognized” but disagree that “mind can completely know itself” because the latter statement implies the act of cognizing information. This disagreement could just be due to a misunderstanding of terminology, but I don’t believe it is.

Grant,

This is really a subtle dynamic which occurs with the intellect. I only came to understand it recently myself. The intellect projects itself onto the entire world, and then, only after that, it concludes its own way of thinking cannot capture the richness of Reality itself. But our soul inherently longs for reconnection with the underlying Reality, with which we are essentially united, so the only remaining option, at least for people who would not deny the existence of soul altogether, is to posit a dualism in Thinking. There must be a "knowing" which can encompass Reality as a whole but is entirely different from "thinking" or "cognizing". Some will call it pure "experiencing", "awareness","mystical union", "Love", [blind] "Will", etc.

None of these dualisms are logically necessary, though. Especially under metaphysical idealism, what you call "informational properties" are just outer expressions of essentially qualitative meaning, such as the kind we perceive when contemplating great art. It is really the materialistic worldview which makes us feel like, above a certain amount of "information", we would be "overloaded" and unable to function in life. All of those terms and concepts are actually ones of mechanism, i.e. they originated as ways to describe the capacities of machines. If we are not fundamentally mechanistic in nature, then those quantiative restrictions should not apply to us in the same way.

My view, reflected by Cleric and Goethe in the quoted post, is that one-half of the World's perceptual content arrives to us from within by way of our inner concepts, while the other half arrives from without as [outer] sensory-perceptions. In the process of knowing we are not simply observing the phenomenal world, but we are co-creating it. Much of this happens subconsciously by way of inner intuitions and imaginations which arrive together with the sensory-perceptions, but also our normal intellectual reasoning is engaged in this co-creative process as well.

If perceptual contents arrive from one of either source internal or external to the alter, then doesn’t this imply internal-external dualism? (I understand this assumption is likely wrong given my understanding of other aspects of your framework. But I need a clarification here regardless). Also, I agree that we are co creating the world, but i'm interested in a clarification for how proposition 1; “My view, reflected by Cleric and Goethe in the quoted post, is that one-half of the World's perceptual content arrives to us from within by way of our inner concepts, while the other half arrives from without as [outer] sensory-perceptions.” implies proposition 2; “In the process of knowing we are not simply observing the phenomenal world, but we are co-creating it”.

Yeah, whenever I mention those dualities, I am really only making a distinction and nothing else. That is only the way it currently appears to us. We must start from those appearances in any phenomenological endeavor. And, ironically, if we do, then we logically find our way back to the percepts and concepts being One in essence (both are essentially qualitative meaning). In my experience, whenever people engage in deductive analytical philosophy (such as BK), an unexamined dualism is presupposed of (1) "world content out there" and (2) "my abstract modeling consciousness in here", so it is no wonder these philosophical approaches never make their way back to the noumenon and phenomenon being united in our immanent experience of Thinking. If we come to the latter conclusion, however, then it is that immanent and 'bottomless' Thinking which is involved in creating the phenomenal world we experience, with all of its rich qualities. Our own concepts, when constellated together as ideas, principles, archetypes, create the underlying structure of the world. What we call "percepts out there" generally refers to end result of other Thinking activity which is not our own, yet is still the same essence as ours. All Thinking activity issues from the same central Source.

it should become much more clear why there is no fundamental limit to what (or how) we can know of the total World Content.

My claim that the mind cannot simultaneously be completely cognized and maintain informational properties does not imply that there is a fundamental limit to what the mind can know of the total world content. My claim does not deny the possibility for the mind to expand its knowledge of the world infinitely. In fact, it offers a potential solution for how this is the case.

Also, you have previously claimed that the mind can be “completely cognized”, which would imply a limit to cognitive knowledge about the world. Is this a mistake, or can you clarify this distinction?

I am sort of confused with what you are claiming here. When you say we can "expand knowledge of the world infinitely", do you mean genuinely accurate and precise scientific knowledge? If so, then I suppose we agree. To be clear, whether we can 100% cognize Reality is pretty irrelevant to me. I say that is something we cannot possibly know at our currently evolutionary stage, so, as a pragmatist, I say such questions are meaningless because we cannot possibly answer them. What we can know right now, however, is that there is no logical warrant for placing a principle limit on our capacity to know Reality. And that is a very important distinction, because without that self-imposed limit, we are motivated to keep expanding knowledge not just 'horizontally' to encompass more abstract concepts, but also 'vertically' to reach more qualitative modes of knowing.

I also don't understand how "completely cognized" implies a "limit to cognitive knowledge about the world"?

My position is that, in the ancient past, and also in the future, qualtiative discernments of Mind will be distinctions without divisions. The words will retain their meanings without ever being reified into meanings isolated and separate from the holistic meaning of the sentence, paragraphs, etc. they are embedded within. Again, this is all very hard to imagine from the perspective of abstract intellect, whose entire purpose (until recently) has been to reify distinctions into divisions (and that serves an integral purpose in my overall framework), but such mere intellect is really a momentary blip on the vast 'timescale' of the Cosmos.

I agree with this general idea, but I think there are some logistics that need to be ironed out. I'm not sure how things can be discerned without some sort of arbitrary division -- it seems to me a necessary implication. As far as I can tell, the mind identifies information as both equal and unequal object identities so it can discern information (unequal object identities) embedded within the same medium (equal object identity). Below is a passage from my excerpt explaining why I think this is the case. You can let me know where you agree or disagree with the logistics:

Information is a term which has acquired various meanings in philosophy and science. However, what this theory has made certain is that information is conceived of by mind, and therefore must have intelligible properties. Furthermore, information is only intelligible when contextualized through relation. A relationship is only established when levels of similarity and difference between multiple phenomenal states are specified. Differentiating between multiple phenomenal states requires some level of sameness to specify how different they are, while relating multiple phenomenal states requires some level of difference to specify how similar they are. As such, information is intelligible only when the mind is able to attribute it as both equal (principle 1) and unequal (principle 2) respectively.

I hesitate on this one. Because, in general, yes I agree that differentiation is necessary for cognition of any sort, but I still feel that you may be implying some sort of fixed spatiotemporal perspective in which these "informational properties" are being differentiated. It is my view that we are evolving towards qualitative modes of knowing which are, as Gebser terms it, "aperpsectival" and "time-free", which means that our experience of time becomes as our experience of space (think of scene from Interstellar after he crosses event horizon of black hole, if you have seen it). That is "Imaginative" knowing. There are even higher modes of knowing - Inspiration and Intuition. I also hold each individual can already begin developing these capacities of knowing right now. Do you think those higher modes of knowing, if they are actually possible, would affect your formulation above at all?

[GrantHenderson]

This is really a subtle dynamic which occurs with the intellect. I only came to understand it recently myself. The intellect projects itself onto the entire world, and then, only after that, it concludes its own way of thinking cannot capture the richness of Reality itself. But our soul inherently longs for reconnection with the underlying Reality, with which we are essentially united, so the only remaining option, at least for people who would not deny the existence of soul altogether, is to posit a dualism in Thinking. There must be a "knowing" which can encompass Reality as a whole but is entirely different from "thinking" or "cognizing". Some will call it pure "experiencing", "awareness","mystical union", "Love", [blind] "Will", etc.

Gotcha. Simple misinterpretation of terminologies afterall. And this interplay between our soul's connection to underlying reality and its perceived disconnection from underlying reality is precisely what my theory proposes to make sense of. Do you see that?

None of these dualisms are logically necessary, though. Especially under metaphysical idealism, what you call "informational properties" are just outer expressions of essentially qualitative meaning, such as the kind we perceive when contemplating great art. It is really the materialistic worldview which makes us feel like, above a certain amount of "information", we would be "overloaded" and unable to function in life. All of those terms and concepts are actually ones of mechanism, i.e. they originated as ways to describe the capacities of machines. If we are not fundamentally mechanistic in nature, then those quantiative restrictions should not apply to us in the same way.

Yup. No contentions here

Yeah, whenever I mention those dualities, I am really only making a distinction and nothing else. That is only the way it currently appears to us. We must start from those appearances in any phenomenological endeavor. And, ironically, if we do, then we logically find our way back to the percepts and concepts being One in essence (both are essentially qualitative meaning). In my experience, whenever people engage in deductive analytical philosophy (such as BK), an unexamined dualism is presupposed of (1) "world content out there" and (2) "my abstract modeling consciousness in here", so it is no wonder these philosophical approaches never make their way back to the noumenon and phenomenon being united in our immanent experience of Thinking. If we come to the latter conclusion, however, then it is that immanent and 'bottomless' Thinking which is involved in creating the phenomenal world we experience, with all of its rich qualities. Our own concepts, when constellated together as ideas, principles, archetypes, create the underlying structure of the world. What we call "percepts out there" generally refers to end result of other Thinking activity which is not our own, yet is still the same essence as ours. All Thinking activity issues from the same central Source.

Great, I have no contentions here. Thanks for the clarification.

I am sort of confused with what you are claiming here. When you say we can "expand knowledge of the world infinitely", do you mean genuinely accurate and precise scientific knowledge? If so, then I suppose we agree.

Not necessarily accurate scientific knowledge, but qualitative meaning in general. Like you were saying, “there is no limit to cognitive knowledge about the world”.

To be clear, whether we can 100% cognize Reality is pretty irrelevant to me. I say that is something we cannot possibly know at our currently evolutionary stage, so, as a pragmatist, I say such questions are meaningless because we cannot possibly answer them. What we can know right now, however, is that there is no logical warrant for placing a principle limit on our capacity to know Reality. And that is a very important distinction, because without that self-imposed limit, we are motivated to keep expanding knowledge not just 'horizontally' to encompass more abstract concepts, but also 'vertically' to reach more qualitative modes of knowing.

I am interpreting “100% cognitization of reality” as “mind at large”. That's all I mean. Then, it is an important aspect of the logical formulation which we can assume to be true. But ultimately you're right; these phrases should probably not be conflated. Anyways, I’m now more convinced that our disagreements can be boiled down to semantics.

I also don't understand how "completely cognized" implies a "limit to cognitive knowledge about the world"?

Never mind. Complete cognition is only limited in the sense that there is nothing unbound by it. This is not an important point in retrospect because you were not using the phrase “limit to cognitive knowledge about the world” with that implication in mind.

It is my view that we are evolving towards qualitative modes of knowing which are, as Gebser terms it, "aperpsectival" and "time-free", which means that our experience of time becomes as our experience of space (think of scene from Interstellar after he crosses event horizon of black hole, if you have seen it). That is "Imaginative" knowing.

This is an interesting perspective and one that I have considered. It really shouldn't affect the formulation at its essence. All that matters is that a qualitative difference is assigned to objects or ideas. These qualitative differences are manifestations within the same “medium” or “essence”. Perhaps I should be more broad with my terminology to account for these additional dimensions of experience.

There are even higher modes of knowing - Inspiration and Intuition.

What are these?

[AshvinP]

This is really a subtle dynamic which occurs with the intellect. I only came to understand it recently myself. The intellect projects itself onto the entire world, and then, only after that, it concludes its own way of thinking cannot capture the richness of Reality itself. But our soul inherently longs for reconnection with the underlying Reality, with which we are essentially united, so the only remaining option, at least for people who would not deny the existence of soul altogether, is to posit a dualism in Thinking. There must be a "knowing" which can encompass Reality as a whole but is entirely different from "thinking" or "cognizing". Some will call it pure "experiencing", "awareness","mystical union", "Love", [blind] "Will", etc.

Gotcha. Simple misinterpretation of terminologies afterall. And this interplay between our soul's connection to underlying reality and its perceived disconnection from underlying reality is precisely what my theory proposes to make sense of. Do you see that?
...
This is an interesting perspective and one that I have considered. It really shouldn't affect the formulation at its essence. All that matters is that a qualitative difference is assigned to objects or ideas. These qualitative differences are manifestations within the same “medium” or “essence”. Perhaps I should be more broad with my terminology to account for these additional dimensions of experience.

Grant,

I see how your proposal makes sense of a perceived disconnect between individual soul and MAL at the broadest level, and at our current interaction with reality via abstract intellect, but not at the level of evolutionary history or immanent personal experience. For example, the materialist view proposes there is a disconnect between the physical Cosmos and our personal subjective experience because various configurations of material stuff eventually, through some unknown (but highly speculated over) mechanism, gave rise to the experience of phenomenal conscious experience within the physical boundaries of certain living organisms. It's safe to say we all disagree with that proposal for many reasons, but it can sometimes be a pretty specified proposal which relates to personal experience and concepts which are familiar to us. I see that same specificity and concrete connection entirely lacking in BK's view and your proposal here, which seems inspired by that view. This incompletness, then, leads to flawed conclusions.

Again, if you want to sum up your conclusions in a few sentences, maybe I will see how I am misinterpreting them. For now, I suspect we are still at odds on the conclusions. For ex., I still find myself disagreeing with this:

The feedback loop can be rooted back to a more board concept in neuroscience known as the action-perception loop (Buzsaki, 2019). The mind detects environmental encounters by the act of identifying itself as detached from reality at large so as to impose an apparent distinction between itself and reality (principle 2). As such, all environmental interaction (action) is filtered through the mind's subjective experience, and interpreted in a manner consistent with its experience. Rather than observing/perceiving a “clear window” into reality, the mind forms inferences about reality to interpret reality with. All interaction with reality is thereby the act of inferring an explanation about reality. Thereafter, the mind perceives the results of its inference through a spatial-temporal representation. This informs the mind of how accurately it’s inferences predict future events and/or validates a given hypothesis. The mind then repeats this action-perception cycle to adjust its inferences in accordance to the predictive errors of prior cycles.

I don't think the feedback loop and inferential cognition of reality is inherent to "all interaction with reality" at all. Related to that, I don't think the mind must perceive-cognize reality, even with the sort of specificity demanded in science, "through a spatial-temporal representation". In my view, all of these assertions make an unwarranted assumption about the essential nature of cognition as something which must be akin to abstract intellect.

There are even higher modes of knowing - Inspiration and Intuition.

What are these?

These are what I consider the essential nature of cognition, along with Imagination. It is a Tri-Unity of cognitive perception. Again, this cognition does not stand apart from an external reality and model it, like abstract intellect, but rather is completely One with the Reality it is perceiving-cognizing. It may help to consider that we are always experiencing imaginations, inspirations, intuitions, but they are mostly subconscious now. The process of raising one's cognition into these higher modes is really the process of bringing more subconscious experience into the Light of consciousness. The reason I use "subconscious" instead of "unconscious" is important - most people think of it as a dark chaotic void from which experience bubbles up to our conscious intellect. It only appears that way from the intellectual perspective. Essentially, it is very much a structured realm with highly intelligent and self-aware agencies (to varying degrees based on evolutionary stages) who collectively influence our own current perspectives, instincts, desires, feelings, and cognition.

[GrantHenderson]

I don't think the feedback loop and inferential cognition of reality is inherent to "all interaction with reality" at all. Related to that, I don't think the mind must perceive-cognize reality, even with the sort of specificity demanded in science, "through a spatial-temporal representation". In my view, all of these assertions make an unwarranted assumption about the essential nature of cognition as something which must be akin to abstract intellect.

I believe you are correct. I really should have mentioned this earlier, but the second section of the paper -- how the principles of mind give rise to all experiential phenomena -- is wholly incomplete (and honestly, will probably be entirely reworked). The only section that I intended to present here for review are the actual principles (first section). These principles should make sense of the apparent disconnect between mind at large and each dissociative alter. That said, as far as I can tell, these principles should provide everything we need to explain all experiential phenomena as well.

These are what I consider the essential nature of cognition, along with Imagination. It is a Tri-Unity of cognitive perception. Again, this cognition does not stand apart from an external reality and model it, like abstract intellect, but rather is completely One with the Reality it is perceiving-cognizing. It may help to consider that we are always experiencing imaginations, inspirations, intuitions, but they are mostly subconscious now. The process of raising one's cognition into these higher modes is really the process of bringing more subconscious experience into the Light of consciousness. The reason I use "subconscious" instead of "unconscious" is important - most people think of it as a dark chaotic void from which experience bubbles up to our conscious intellect. It only appears that way from the intellectual perspective. Essentially, it is very much a structured realm with highly intelligent and self-aware agencies (to varying degrees based on evolutionary stages) who collectively influence our own current perspectives, instincts, desires, feelings, and cognition.

You are referring to how the mind self selects state changes. The cognitive self-selection procedure is atemporal, and takes place where all qualitative relations reside in a quantum state (non-local). It expands the relationship with certain correlates by limiting the relationship with other correlates in a conspansive manifold. Each selection strives for an ideal pattern set by modifying the constraints on inclusionary and exclusionary elements, thereby complexifying the relationship between all qualitative relations over their time of association in order to maximize the utility of the selection parameter. Like you say, “there is no dark chaotic void from which experience bubbles up to our conscious intellect”. Rather, it's an actively changing distribution function which is a constant of experience. This is your “aperpsectival". I simply refer it it as “non-local cognition”. It's not “global cognition” (just principle 1) but a combination of principle 1 and 2. The spatial representation is what I call “local cognition” (just principle 2). It is a direct consequence of the mind’s self selection procedure.

Local cognition is influenced by non-local cognition, but not global cognition. And non-local cognition is influenced by local cognition and global cognition. Might this — potentially — account for our “Imminent personal experience”? If my description is too vague for you to tell, know that I will also be updating the paper soon, and I can let you know when I do.

Ps. if im being honest, I wasn't actually expecting anyone to thoroughly read my paper, so I wasn’t concerned about it being an incomplete formulation. Given that you have considered my paper with great depth, I apologize for it being incomplete, and that I did not emphasize this fact beforehand. Also, I appreciate how helpful you have been in your feedback. I will hopefully update the paper soon.

[AshvinP]

These are what I consider the essential nature of cognition, along with Imagination. It is a Tri-Unity of cognitive perception. Again, this cognition does not stand apart from an external reality and model it, like abstract intellect, but rather is completely One with the Reality it is perceiving-cognizing. It may help to consider that we are always experiencing imaginations, inspirations, intuitions, but they are mostly subconscious now. The process of raising one's cognition into these higher modes is really the process of bringing more subconscious experience into the Light of consciousness. The reason I use "subconscious" instead of "unconscious" is important - most people think of it as a dark chaotic void from which experience bubbles up to our conscious intellect. It only appears that way from the intellectual perspective. Essentially, it is very much a structured realm with highly intelligent and self-aware agencies (to varying degrees based on evolutionary stages) who collectively influence our own current perspectives, instincts, desires, feelings, and cognition.

You are referring to how the mind self selects state changes. The cognitive self-selection procedure is atemporal, and takes place where all qualitative relations reside in a quantum state (non-local). It expands the relationship with certain correlates by limiting the relationship with other correlates in a conspansive manifold. Each selection strives for an ideal pattern set by modifying the constraints on inclusionary and exclusionary elements, thereby complexifying the relationship between all qualitative relations over their time of association in order to maximize the utility of the selection parameter. Like you say, “there is no dark chaotic void from which experience bubbles up to our conscious intellect”. Rather, it's an actively changing distribution function which is a constant of experience. This is your “aperpsectival". I simply refer it it as “non-local cognition”. It's not “global cognition” (just principle 1) but a combination of principle 1 and 2. The spatial representation is what I call “local cognition” (just principle 2). It is a direct consequence of the mind’s self selection procedure.

Local cognition is influenced by non-local cognition, but not global cognition. And non-local cognition is influenced by local cognition and global cognition. Might this — potentially — account for our “Imminent personal experience”? If my description is too vague for you to tell, know that I will also be updating the paper soon, and I can let you know when I do.

Ps. if im being honest, I wasn't actually expecting anyone to thoroughly read my paper, so I wasn’t concerned about it being an incomplete formulation. Given that you have considered my paper with great depth, I apologize for it being incomplete, and that I did not emphasize this fact beforehand. Also, I appreciate how helpful you have been in your feedback. I will hopefully update the paper soon.

Grant,

There is absolutely no need to apologize for anything. That you are open to the feedback and willing to factor it in to the paper is actually very surprising to me, not at all what I expected at first, and a breath of fresh air. So thank you!

To be honest, I am having a hard time following the above and relating it to my view of higher cognition. In general, I say we need to move away from abstract conceptual systems to more concrete living understandings (and, since Reality is spiritual in my view, I do not shy away from using spiritual language when it seems helpful). It is not only about avoiding confusion with terminology, but I think the abtracting process itself actively works against a holistic and deepening understanding. That process necessarily flattens the living ideas out and it is very hard to then reconnect the flattened concepts with the living essence from which they were extracted. And I hope it's clear I am not making this a personal criticism - it is something I myself am actively trying to move away from. As long as we remain with intellect, we cannot get rid of this abstracting process altogether, but we can still work to dampen its flattening effect by formulating the ideas with more concrete language.

From what I gather, it sounds like you are speaking from the 'global' perspective of MAL, while I am trying to speak from our current perspective, i.e. an individual simply trying to observe and think about the World Content. From that perspective, I am saying we can raise our cognition into higher modes than abstract intellectual modelling of the phenomena, which is generally how all modern science proceeds, to actually perceive and cognize the living ideal relations which give rise to our phenomenal experience, including inner desires, feelings, and thoughts. For example, here is a brief description by Cleric on the three modes of higher cognition I am speaking of by way of analogies. Imaginative is closest to our current intellectual reasoning, the next level up so to speak, while Inspirative and Intuitive will require much more development. All three, however, require a metamorphosis of cognition which is really best labeled as a transfiguration.

We can use our relations to other human beings as analogies for supersensible consciousness. When we experience the sensory perceptions of other men, we live within the impressions, the effects that their soul life has on ours. For example, if someone pushes me, I may have no idea what his motives are but most certainly this impresses into my perspective. Something changes within my perceptual field because of that pushing act. This is analogous to Imaginative consciousness, where we live in the wider soul realm and experience in imaginative impressions the deeds of soul and spiritual beings.

When we hear someone speak, we share into their ideal life. The words themselves impress in us like the push but when we speak with someone, we're not interested in the sensory form of the words but in the ideal meaning. We allow the other person to guide our own thinking experience, we practically allow him to take us on a trip through various regions of the ideal landscape. This is analogous to Inspirative consciousness, where we no longer focus on images but on the thoughts of the beings, the meaning that they employ in their Cosmic deeds. These thoughts approach as a kind of spiritual speech., not externally perceived but as the meaningful patterns and dynamics of the ideal world that we normally blindly probe with our intellect.

Finally, when we completely align our soul and spiritual being with that of another person, we completely understand their thoughts and feelings. This is what we attain to in Intuitive consciousness, where the Cosmic Thoughts are not only understood as we swim through them but we, so to speak, experience them from the first-person perspective that they proceed from.

Also, I realize you cannot work this stuff into your paper and must also use the technical language, but here I am just trying to point towards some areas where you may want to rework the assumptions. And when you say, "That said, as far as I can tell, these principles should provide everything we need to explain all experiential phenomena as well.", I am still not sure how you mean that. I suppose you mean the principles can explain why, in a very broad way, we experience phenomena to begin with from differentiated perspectives, instead of being completely at One with MAL?