Criticism

[JeffreyW]

Alright, let's get more specific to clarify then. You say, "living beings are made up of protein, water, polypeptides, etc, which alone do not display life". For you, is that simply the phenomenal appearance of whatever deeper underlying processes put it on the 'screen' of our representational perception, or have you actually reached a solid conclusion about the essence (or whatever you prefer to call it) of living beings?

I have a response to the rest of what you wrote, but let's see where the above takes us first...

It is our representation of sense data, which is superficially correct within the small slice of reality we call classical or Newtonian. Nothing deeper can be said from this rational/objective mode, but then this entire thread has remained within that mode. This has been no deep exploration of Being.

OK, so would you then admit it tells you nothing about the Being of consciousness or idea? Perceiving that these "components" or "energy" is "prior to" consciousness tells you nothing whatsoever about the deeper Being of energy or consciousness, correct?

No. Consciousness itself is just our objectification which we observe in ourselves. In our representations its existence is dependent on energy and a living brain. Anything beyond that is mere metaphysical assertion. Being is of an entirely different nature and is not revealed in mere representation. We lost that when physis was split into physics and metaphysics.

[AshvinP]

It is our representation of sense data, which is superficially correct within the small slice of reality we call classical or Newtonian. Nothing deeper can be said from this rational/objective mode, but then this entire thread has remained within that mode. This has been no deep exploration of Being.

OK, so would you then admit it tells you nothing about the Being of consciousness or idea? Perceiving that these "components" or "energy" is "prior to" consciousness tells you nothing whatsoever about the deeper Being of energy or consciousness, correct?

No. Consciousness itself is just our objectification which we observe in ourselves. In our representations its existence is dependent on energy and a living brain. Anything beyond that is mere metaphysical assertion. Being is of an entirely different nature and is not revealed in mere representation. We lost that when physis was split into physics and metaphysics.

Alright. Well, like I said, this is spitting image of Kant and Schop. What you write in bold could not make that any more clear. That could also be a quote from BK, which makes it even more strange that you are critiquing him. Anyway, I think our respective positions have been made clear, and I have no illusions of convincing anyone this deep into the Kantian divide to realize what is going on. I will just post what I already wrote in response to the other parts of your last comment.

The rational/objective vs. esthetic/non-objective "modes of understanding" philosophy you are putting forth here is simply a reformulation of the object/subject dualism of Cartesian rationalism and Kantian idealism. It is very clear for anyone to see this from the 'outside looking in', so to speak. The concepts match up almost perfectly and they certainly function in the exact same way. What is "objective-rational" (matter) can be spoken about and investigated publicly, what is "subjective" remains a perpetual mystery for each "private" mind to contemplate and nothing else. It is when people are intellectually invested in their own thought-system, which can occur for reasons quite independent of finances, reputation, etc., that they inevitably fail to perceive this dualism in their own thought.

This is a serious misunderstanding of what I mean by esthetic knowledge, which is the sort of thing not only NOT related to Kantian Idealism, but something I doubt Kant could even conceive. Kantian Idealism really is related to metaphysical idealism, which he retained to preserve his belief in god and free will. It rejects the senses in favor of Pure Reason. My approach is to explore what is revealed to our senses prior to any subject/object metaphysics at all. That means to relay poetically or musically what is revealed and remain silent about what isn’t. Of course, that isn’t happening on this thread, which is a conversation resolutely confined to subject/object analysis and argumentation. We are all bi-lingual in this regard, but most are more proficient in one than in the other.

Esthetic knowledge is not subjective as opposed to an object perceived, but an entanglement between our consciousness and the world in which both are equally participatory, negating any notion of what is subject and what is object.

The question is not what you mean by "esthetic knowledge". Everyone here - BK, Eugene, yourself, me - thinks they mean something that has transcended subject-object metaphysics. The only way to get a better intellectual grasp on the overall philosophy is to see how the concepts function within the philosophy. This is the pragmatic approach, and it is also a phenomenological approach if we are doing a phenomenology of concepts and conceptual systems (as opposed to mere sense-perceptions). When it comes to these deeply ingrained habits of intellectual conceptual thinking, we can't simply rely on what people claim they understand or have transcended. If that were the case, then all of your critiques against BK would be a moot point, because he certainly claims to have transcended modern rationalism, dualism, etc.

I know what you are saying above about aesthetic knowledge and revealing deeper meaning of sense-perceptions via art. Many modern and especially post-modern thinkers have said similar things. But the concept is not functioning any differently than what Schopenhauer or anyone else had to say about music, imagination, intuition, etc. It is serving as an abstraction which you can put at the base of your worldview, leading directly to your desired mystical conclusion that representational intellect simply cannot discuss these matters in any higher resolution. As Bergson observed, such an approach "will have no difficulty in explaining everything deductively, since it will have been given beforehand, in a principle which is the concept of concepts, all the real and all the possible. But this explanation will be vague and hypothetical, this unity will be artificial, and this philosophy would apply equally well to a very different world from our own".

Kant wanted to preserve belief in God and free will by critiquing "Pure Reason", and Schopenhauer wanted to preserve disbelief in God (of Western sort) and the possibility of freedom by critiquing any Reason whatsoever. You and BK both fall on the Schop side of that same coin. You simulataneously want to claim space-time is representational yet your immediate sense-perceptions are "prior to subject-object distinction", which simply does not hold up to Reason (which is part of the motivation for discounting Reason to begin with). Schop did the exact same thing with "universal Will" - he said all perceptions are illusory representations, except my own perception of the Will within me. He gives no justification why his naive realism of the will he perceived within him should be given higher epistemic warrant than the naive realism of 'things' he perceived around him. You are also doing the same thing - picking and choosing which sense-perceptions can be trusted and which cannot.

I would agree to the extent that there is a continuity arising from life’s emergence from the cosmos, but that doesn’t imply that what is pre-emergent shares life. All experience would contradict that assumption, which renders it a mere metaphysical assertion.

If what is "pre-emergent" does not share life, then there is no continuity, only non-life/life (matter/mind, object/subject) dualism once again.

[JeffreyW]

OK, so would you then admit it tells you nothing about the Being of consciousness or idea? Perceiving that these "components" or "energy" is "prior to" consciousness tells you nothing whatsoever about the deeper Being of energy or consciousness, correct?

No. Consciousness itself is just our objectification which we observe in ourselves. In our representations its existence is dependent on energy and a living brain. Anything beyond that is mere metaphysical assertion. Being is of an entirely different nature and is not revealed in mere representation. We lost that when physis was split into physics and metaphysics.

Alright. Well, like I said, this is spitting image of Kant and Schop. What you write in bold could not make that any more clear. That could also be a quote from BK, which makes it even more strange that you are critiquing him. Anyway, I think our respective positions have been made clear, and I have no illusions of convincing anyone this deep into the Kantian divide to realize what is going on. I will just post what I already wrote in response to the other parts of your last comment.

In what way similar to Kant and Schopenhauer? What you claim is not obvious at all.

The rational/objective vs. esthetic/non-objective "modes of understanding" philosophy you are putting forth here is simply a reformulation of the object/subject dualism of Cartesian rationalism and Kantian idealism. It is very clear for anyone to see this from the 'outside looking in', so to speak. The concepts match up almost perfectly and they certainly function in the exact same way. What is "objective-rational" (matter) can be spoken about and investigated publicly, what is "subjective" remains a perpetual mystery for each "private" mind to contemplate and nothing else. It is when people are intellectually invested in their own thought-system, which can occur for reasons quite independent of finances, reputation, etc., that they inevitably fail to perceive this dualism in their own thought.

This is a serious misunderstanding of what I mean by esthetic knowledge, which is the sort of thing not only NOT related to Kantian Idealism, but something I doubt Kant could even conceive. Kantian Idealism really is related to metaphysical idealism, which he retained to preserve his belief in god and free will. It rejects the senses in favor of Pure Reason. My approach is to explore what is revealed to our senses prior to any subject/object metaphysics at all. That means to relay poetically or musically what is revealed and remain silent about what isn’t. Of course, that isn’t happening on this thread, which is a conversation resolutely confined to subject/object analysis and argumentation. We are all bi-lingual in this regard, but most are more proficient in one than in the other.

Esthetic knowledge is not subjective as opposed to an object perceived, but an entanglement between our consciousness and the world in which both are equally participatory, negating any notion of what is subject and what is object.

The question is not what you mean by "esthetic knowledge". Everyone here - BK, Eugene, yourself, me - thinks they mean something that has transcended subject-object metaphysics. The only way to get a better intellectual grasp on the overall philosophy is to see how the concepts function within the philosophy. This is the pragmatic approach, and it is also a phenomenological approach if we are doing a phenomenology of concepts and conceptual systems (as opposed to mere sense-perceptions). When it comes to these deeply ingrained habits of intellectual conceptual thinking, we can't simply rely on what people claim they understand or have transcended. If that were the case, then all of your critiques against BK would be a moot point, because he certainly claims to have transcended modern rationalism, dualism, etc.

I know what you are saying above about aesthetic knowledge and revealing deeper meaning of sense-perceptions via art. Many modern and especially post-modern thinkers have said similar things. But the concept is not functioning any differently than what Schopenhauer or anyone else had to say about music, imagination, intuition, etc. It is serving as an abstraction which you can put at the base of your worldview, leading directly to your desired mystical conclusion that representational intellect simply cannot discuss these matters in any higher resolution. As Bergson observed, such an approach "will have no difficulty in explaining everything deductively, since it will have been given beforehand, in a principle which is the concept of concepts, all the real and all the possible. But this explanation will be vague and hypothetical, this unity will be artificial, and this philosophy would apply equally well to a very different world from our own".

This is simply false. Could you provide any text from Schopenhauer that is in any way similar to what I propose as esthetic knowledge? The notion didn’t really exist until Nietzsche.

To appeal to phenomenology or Bergson is to miss that point that the question is hidden in that approach, which is purely subject/object metaphysics.

Kant wanted to preserve belief in God and free will by critiquing "Pure Reason", and Schopenhauer wanted to preserve disbelief in God (of Western sort) and the possibility of freedom by critiquing any Reason whatsoever. You and BK both fall on the Schop side of that same coin. You simulataneously want to claim space-time is representational yet your immediate sense-perceptions are "prior to subject-object distinction", which simply does not hold up to Reason (which is part of the motivation for discounting Reason to begin with). Schop did the exact same thing with "universal Will" - he said all perceptions are illusory representations, except my own perception of the Will within me. He gives no justification why his naive realism of the will he perceived within him should be given higher epistemic warrant than the naive realism of 'things' he perceived around him. You are also doing the same thing - picking and choosing which sense-perceptions can be trusted and which cannot.

I would agree to the extent that there is a continuity arising from life’s emergence from the cosmos, but that doesn’t imply that what is pre-emergent shares life. All experience would contradict that assumption, which renders it a mere metaphysical assertion.

If what is "pre-emergent" does not share life, then there is no continuity, only non-life/life (matter/mind, object/subject) dualism once again.

To believe that would mean that life or consciousness is an entity or substance. It is an event that occurred on a continuum as all events do.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Hi Jeffrey ... For ease of reading, I've taken the liberty in some recent posts in this thread of clarifying the quoted passages, so as to make them clearly distinct from your replies. The issue is that some of the code is being omitted. For future reference, you may want to check out the BBCode guide, and click on 'Quoting text in replies'.

What you end up with in the preview, and after submitting the post should look like this text in a distinct block ...

yada-yada-yada

[AshvinP]

No. Consciousness itself is just our objectification which we observe in ourselves. In our representations its existence is dependent on energy and a living brain. Anything beyond that is mere metaphysical assertion. Being is of an entirely different nature and is not revealed in mere representation. We lost that when physis was split into physics and metaphysics.

Alright. Well, like I said, this is spitting image of Kant and Schop. What you write in bold could not make that any more clear. That could also be a quote from BK, which makes it even more strange that you are critiquing him. Anyway, I think our respective positions have been made clear, and I have no illusions of convincing anyone this deep into the Kantian divide to realize what is going on. I will just post what I already wrote in response to the other parts of your last comment.

In what way similar to Kant and Schopenhauer? What you claim is not obvious at all.
...
This is simply false. Could you provide any text from Schopenhauer that is in any way similar to what I propose as esthetic knowledge? The notion didn’t really exist until Nietzsche.

To appeal to phenomenology or Bergson is to miss that point that the question is hidden in that approach, which is purely subject/object metaphysics.

The notion of music as providing direct knowledge of Being which bypasses representational thinking (mental images)? Schop is pretty famous for his treatment of the musical aesthetic.

The effect of music upon the mind, so penetrating, so direct, so unfailing, may be explained from the passive nature of hearing which has been discussed; also the after effect which sometimes follows it, and which consists in a specially elevated frame of mind. The vibrations of the tones following in rationally combined numerical relations set the fibre of the brain itself in similar vibra tion. On the other hand, the active nature of sight, opposed as it is to the passive nature of hearing, makes it intelligible why there can be nothing analogous to music for the eye, and the piano of colours was an absurd mistake. Further, it is just on account of the active.

I don't even disagree with the above (except the "absurd mistake" part, which hearkens back to your own view of the modern age). The problem is when Schop and yourself claim that trying to Reason our way through the musical aesthetic or any other aesthetic phenomena (even though that is obviously what both of you are implicitly doing) automatically destroys the aesthetic knowledge by bringing it within the domain of representational thought, and therefore we are never penetrating deeper into Being through such Reason. Your position appears to be exactly the same as his (and BK's) in that manner. And that position is little more than an artifact adopted from the Kantian (implicitly dualist) critique of Reason.

Again, if we obsess over who calls what concept this or that label, i.e. the outer forms of things instead of the inner meaning, which is the natural consequence of denying Thinking any substantial role in genuine knowledge, we will never understand the above reasoning. Instead of focusing on how these concepts are functioning in your philosophy, you just want to claim victory (avoid confronting the flaws in your reasoning) by saying your formulation appears different from someone else's on the surface. That no one phrased it quite like you do until Nietzsche. But that is hardly relevant here.

What is relevant is how the same flawed assumptions lead to the same flawed conclusions over and over again in the modern age - namely the conclusion that what we can think and say about Being is completely disconnected from what we can experience and "know" of Being. There may come a time when we evolve to reconcile the two in the distant future, but no one knows when that will happen or what that will look like in any concrete detail (a sentiment echoed by Eugene on the other thread). Instead of perceiving this obvious connection in your own thought, it is projected outwards and everyone else is engaging in dualist metaphysical speculation except you.

To believe that would mean that life or consciousness is an entity or substance. It is an event that occurred on a continuum as all events do.

Here is where you switch from relational phenomenal observations to ontology and back again according to what helps you maintain the implicit dualism which keeps "consciousness" and "idea" as some fuzzy abstract concept. Yes, from a relational phenomenal perspective, consciousness emerges from the evolutionary process which began in non-consciousness, or life from non-life. But then when Scott or myself make an argument pertaining to the ontology of "idea", you appeal to this phenomenal relation as a counter-argument because these appear "prior to" ideational activity. When it is pointed out that this is naive realism in the context of ontology, you switch back and say you are not assuming anything about the underlying ontology, even though it is only that ontic assumption which provides support for your rejection of idealism in all its possible formulations.

[Dave casarino]

I find it hilarious that everything an idealist says about consciousness, you say about being, only being is temporary whilst the idealist is eternalist. Your idea of consciousness as some sort of amalgamation that you can step outside of into your world of 'being' and then observe separately from is very strange. You deny naive realism, and then assume it when objects interact with consciousness, and then deny you have assumed it again, although despite everyone's best efforts to point this out to you, you seem painfully unaware. Your view of consciousness (now I don't mean ontological) seems to be the same as any physicalist (and buddhist for that matter) in that the contents of consciousness (experiences and apparatuses that register different experiences) are considered to be consciousness as a whole, a painting without a canvas. What being witnesses you reduce being to, wait hold on wrong word, what consciousness witnesses you reduce consciousness to, but if consciousness is indeed a composite of a combined sum of experiences had by different apparatuses then it would be like a hive of different subjects in your brain that can only experience one exact thing each depending on what kind of neuronal apparatus they are (specialist subjects), be it an exact shade of red, or an exact frequency of sound, each in brain subject has nothing more to it then being a witness hole to be filled with an experience, but because this is all in your brain then we are back at dualism, unless we mix subject with experience in order to blend the paint, but that means experience is outside of your brain, that would be panexperientialism and you would deny that. Anyway you can't be the cake and have a slice,but that is what you are doing. Kastrup may have plenty of contradictions but at least he is consistent, although at this rate you are consistent with your inconsistency.

[AshvinP]

Kastrup may have plenty of contradictions but at least he is consistent, although at this rate you are consistent with your inconsistency.

I challenge BK's consistency in this exact same regard as well, but I think that has been made very clear elsewhere so I won't rehash it. I just came across a text by Richard Tarnas (known for "archetypal astrology") which does a great job summarizing the general dynamic that is occurring here with JW, BK, and just about everyone else.

In the same way, Descartes's schism between the personal and conscious human subject and the impersonal and unconscious material universe was systematically ratified and augmented by the long procession of subsequent scientific developments, from Newtonian physics all the way to contemporary bigbang cosmology, black holes, quarks, W and Z particles, and grand unified superforce theories. The world revealed by modern science has been a world devoid of spiritual purpose, opaque, ruled by chance and necessity, without intrinsic meaning. The human soul has not felt at home in the modern cosmos: the soul can hold dear its poetry and its music, its private metaphysics and religion, but these find no certain foundation in the empirical universe.

And so too with the third of this trinity of modern alienation, the great schism established by Kant and here we see the pivot of the shift from the modern to the postmodern. For Kant's recognition of the human mind's subjective ordering of reality, and thus, finally, the relative and unrooted nature of human knowledge, has been extended and deepened by a host of subsequent developments, from anthropology, linguistics, sociology of knowledge, and quantum physics to cognitive psychology, neurophysiology, semiotics, and philosophy of science; from Marx, Nietzsche, Weber, and Freud to Heisenberg, Wittgenstein, Kuhn, and Foucault. The consensus is decisive: The world is in some essential sense a construct. Human knowledge is radically interpretive. There are no perspective independent facts. Every act of perception and cognition is contingent, mediated, situated, contextual, theory soaked.

Human language cannot establish its ground in an independent reality. Meaning is rendered by the mind and cannot be assumed to inhere in the object, in the world beyond the mind, for that world can never be contacted without having already been saturated by the mind's own nature. That world cannot even be justifiably postulated. Radical uncertainty prevails, for in the end what one knows and experiences is to an indeterminate extent a projection.

Thus the cosmological estrangement of modern consciousness initiated by Copernicus and the ontological estrangement initiated by Descartes were completed by the epistemological estrangement initiated by Kant: a threefold mutually enforced prison of modern alienation.

[JeffreyW]

Alright. Well, like I said, this is spitting image of Kant and Schop. What you write in bold could not make that any more clear. That could also be a quote from BK, which makes it even more strange that you are critiquing him. Anyway, I think our respective positions have been made clear, and I have no illusions of convincing anyone this deep into the Kantian divide to realize what is going on. I will just post what I already wrote in response to the other parts of your last comment.

In what way similar to Kant and Schopenhauer? What you claim is not obvious at all.
...
This is simply false. Could you provide any text from Schopenhauer that is in any way similar to what I propose as esthetic knowledge? The notion didn’t really exist until Nietzsche.

To appeal to phenomenology or Bergson is to miss that point that the question is hidden in that approach, which is purely subject/object metaphysics.

The notion of music as providing direct knowledge of Being which bypasses representational thinking (mental images)? Schop is pretty famous for his treatment of the musical aesthetic.

The effect of music upon the mind, so penetrating, so direct, so unfailing, may be explained from the passive nature of hearing which has been discussed; also the after effect which sometimes follows it, and which consists in a specially elevated frame of mind. The vibrations of the tones following in rationally combined numerical relations set the fibre of the brain itself in similar vibra tion. On the other hand, the active nature of sight, opposed as it is to the passive nature of hearing, makes it intelligible why there can be nothing analogous to music for the eye, and the piano of colours was an absurd mistake. Further, it is just on account of the active.

I don't even disagree with the above (except the "absurd mistake" part, which hearkens back to your own view of the modern age). The problem is when Schop and yourself claim that trying to Reason our way through the musical aesthetic or any other aesthetic phenomena (even though that is obviously what both of you are implicitly doing) automatically destroys the aesthetic knowledge by bringing it within the domain of representational thought, and therefore we are never penetrating deeper into Being through such Reason. Your position appears to be exactly the same as his (and BK's) in that manner. And that position is little more than an artifact adopted from the Kantian (implicitly dualist) critique of Reason.

Again, if we obsess over who calls what concept this or that label, i.e. the outer forms of things instead of the inner meaning, which is the natural consequence of denying Thinking any substantial role in genuine knowledge, we will never understand the above reasoning. Instead of focusing on how these concepts are functioning in your philosophy, you just want to claim victory (avoid confronting the flaws in your reasoning) by saying your formulation appears different from someone else's on the surface. That no one phrased it quite like you do until Nietzsche. But that is hardly relevant here.

What is relevant is how the same flawed assumptions lead to the same flawed conclusions over and over again in the modern age - namely the conclusion that what we can think and say about Being is completely disconnected from what we can experience and "know" of Being. There may come a time when we evolve to reconcile the two in the distant future, but no one knows when that will happen or what that will look like in any concrete detail (a sentiment echoed by Eugene on the other thread). Instead of perceiving this obvious connection in your own thought, it is projected outwards and everyone else is engaging in dualist metaphysical speculation except you.

To believe that would mean that life or consciousness is an entity or substance. It is an event that occurred on a continuum as all events do.

Here is where you switch from relational phenomenal observations to ontology and back again according to what helps you maintain the implicit dualism which keeps "consciousness" and "idea" as some fuzzy abstract concept. Yes, from a relational phenomenal perspective, consciousness emerges from the evolutionary process which began in non-consciousness, or life from non-life. But then when Scott or myself make an argument pertaining to the ontology of "idea", you appeal to this phenomenal relation as a counter-argument because these appear "prior to" ideational activity. When it is pointed out that this is naive realism in the context of ontology, you switch back and say you are not assuming anything about the underlying ontology, even though it is only that ontic assumption which provides support for your rejection of idealism in all its possible formulations.

As I think you also suggest, we are belaboring the question of how Kant and Schopenhauer understood esthetic knowledge. I just will quickly point out that for both Kant and Schopenhauer, esthetic knowledge pleases Reason, which for Schopenhauer was a sublimation of Will. For me, it is pre-rational and and raw. What is important is your continued misstatement of my position, which you go on to then dismiss as the same old false conclusion. The claim that Being is completely disconnected from experience and what we can know is directly OPPOSITE of what I have been writing. I have continually said that we can only know Being POETICALLY or musically in its unmediated experience, but only what Being reveals to us. If we know it poetically, then you could hardly claim I say we cannot know or say it, but rather I limit ontological knowledge to poetic speech, music, and art - not objective representation. To understand something ontologically, two errors must be avoided: 1: Speaking of what has not been revealed in that authentic experience (Remain silent before what we cannot speak) - the error of metaphysics; 2: Reducing it to representations and ideas.

Both objective observation and ontological exploration portray a world of events, where there really are no objects or substance. Rovelli probably explains this best from both perspectives, but at the most elemental level of physics, there are no objects, only events. Even particles are simply concentrated energy along a wave, and not a thing. The world is essentially a constant interplay of quantum waves. Not only is what we represent to ourselves as consciousness a result of multi-billion year events, but every occurrence of this consciousness is its own event, as both Penrose and Rovelli demonstrate. From an ontological perspective this is also true, from Schopenhauer’s Will as eternal striving to Heidegger’s consciousness as an “Ereignis”.

I see no justification objectively or ontologically to claim that life or consciousness and the elements from which they emerged are separate entities, and not parts of the same continuum.

Every usage of consciousness in this thread, and by Kastrup, is a reductive idea of consciousness. That is by necessity because NOBODY knows what consciousness is. That is why Idealism is the real return of flawed assumptions and a false conclusion, and rejected long ago. It falsely claims we know what consciousness is through mere metaphysical assertion, and in the process commits the error reduction in defining it. Any claim that consciousness exists as elemental to the universe is the repetition of this error, contradicted by both scientific observation and ontological exploration.

Since we don’t know consciousness other than as we represent it to ourselves as an idea, we have no basis to make any sorts of metaphysical claims about it. Every usage of “consciousness” in this thread, including mine, is merely a reductive representation of something we have not yet grasped.

It is also a gross error to suggest I remain trapped in dualism. I propose that consciousness is a physical part of Being, just as everything else is. It is the idealist who is trapped in dualism when he tries to claim consciousness as non-physical.

I have every desire to continue this conversation, which could turn very interesting. But I do ask that we at least proceed from a better understanding of what I have presented. Sometimes people project onto me what they have seen others write.

[JeffreyW]

Hi Jeffrey ... For ease of reading, I've taken the liberty in some recent posts in this thread of clarifying the quoted passages, so as to make them clearly distinct from your replies. The issue is that some of the code is being omitted. For future reference, you may want to check out the BBCode guide, and click on 'Quoting text in replies'.

What you end up with in the preview, and after submitting the post should look like this text in a distinct block ...

yada-yada-yada

Thanks again, and once more I ask your indulgence as I try to learn these things. If you think this is bad, you should see me try to string a video together. Oddly enough, I do have GarageBand down pretty well.

[JeffreyW]

I find it hilarious that everything an idealist says about consciousness, you say about being, only being is temporary whilst the idealist is eternalist. Your idea of consciousness as some sort of amalgamation that you can step outside of into your world of 'being' and then observe separately from is very strange. You deny naive realism, and then assume it when objects interact with consciousness, and then deny you have assumed it again, although despite everyone's best efforts to point this out to you, you seem painfully unaware. Your view of consciousness (now I don't mean ontological) seems to be the same as any physicalist (and buddhist for that matter) in that the contents of consciousness (experiences and apparatuses that register different experiences) are considered to be consciousness as a whole, a painting without a canvas. What being witnesses you reduce being to, wait hold on wrong word, what consciousness witnesses you reduce consciousness to, but if consciousness is indeed a composite of a combined sum of experiences had by different apparatuses then it would be like a hive of different subjects in your brain that can only experience one exact thing each depending on what kind of neuronal apparatus they are (specialist subjects), be it an exact shade of red, or an exact frequency of sound, each in brain subject has nothing more to it then being a witness hole to be filled with an experience, but because this is all in your brain then we are back at dualism, unless we mix subject with experience in order to blend the paint, but that means experience is outside of your brain, that would be panexperientialism and you would deny that. Anyway you can't be the cake and have a slice,but that is what you are doing. Kastrup may have plenty of contradictions but at least he is consistent, although at this rate you are consistent with your inconsistency.

This so badly misunderstands everything I have written here I couldn’t even begin to respond to it. All I can suggest is you go back and read what I actually wrote rather than project onto it some other person’s thoughts, or ask questions.