Criticism

[Soul_of_Shu]

There are some fine points that need to be established here, which may take a few turns. This first is important: Being is not a quality, but the very truth of existence. Being, as the ground of existence, cannot be a quality of something else, and as such cannot be compared to experience. There is nothing else for Being to be a quality of. I suspect we will be returning to this several times.

Yeah well, and there's good reason why we return to it again and again. For all intents and purposes, if there is nothing to be posited about the immanent nature of Being other than, by definition, it exists, and to posit that the immanent nature of this Being is in any way aware, so it is claimed, can only be an unfounded metaphysical premise, then ontology ends there. Yet we're still left with how to account for the origin of awareness, an accounting that remains entirely in the dark. And yet again, I'm not getting why Being being immanently aware is so much more troublesome than awareness being utterly inexplicable. Why should endless speculation about the latter trump the metaphysical premise of the former? In this experience, Being and awareness are inextricable, and any Being existing apart from awareness can only be an abstraction within awareness.

[Eugene I]

In our basic experience we encounter things, and the perpetual appearance of new things lets us know there are many things we have yet to encounter. To stray from this basis of experience, such as to suggest these aren’t things or they only exist when we observe them is the metaphysical speculation that arises from straying from experience.

Well, from the standpoint of the any-metaphysical approach, this sounds like a rational argument and we are not supposed to use those arguments in anti-metaphysical and anti-rational esthetic approach.

But anyway, in idealism things do exist when we (human observers) do not observe them, since it is assumed that conscious experience is not limited to human and animal conscious experiences (which is of course a metaphysical assumption).

[AshvinP]

There are some fine points that need to be established here, which may take a few turns. This first is important: Being is not a quality, but the very truth of existence. Being, as the ground of existence, cannot be a quality of something else, and as such cannot be compared to experience. There is nothing else for Being to be a quality of. I suspect we will be returning to this several times.

Yeah well, and there's good reason why we return to it again and again. For all intents and purposes, if there is nothing to be posited about the immanent nature of Being other than, by definition, it exists, and to posit that the immanent nature of this Being is in any way aware, so it is claimed, can only be an unfounded metaphysical premise, then ontology ends there. Yet we're still left with how to account for the origin of awareness, an accounting that remains entirely in the dark. And yet again, I'm not getting why Being being immanently aware is so much more troublesome than awareness being utterly inexplicable. Why should endless speculation about the latter trump the metaphysical premise of the former? In this experience, Being and awareness are inextricable, and any Being existing apart from awareness can only be an abstraction within awareness.

Although I would not mind continuing a dialogue on metamorphoses of cognition with JW, I also want to summarize what I think is going on here.

Notice JW and Eugene both skipped over Thinking right into "existing" or "Being-ness" as the quality (or "very truth") which we can have absolute confidence and trust in. To nearly everyone, this will seem like a justifiable move, even a patently obvious one. But by skipping over the immanent reality of Thinking which is used to say anything about "existing" or "Being-ness" in the first instance, we are forced to insert thinking (with small 't') later as an abstract concept (unless we are hardcore materialists, then it is simply left out altogether). We have already entered into a dualism of "existing" and "thinking" at that point. Remember we are talking ontology here - this cannot be avoided by switching back to a claim of epistemic distinctions. Once one skips over Thinking as concrete Reality of our immanent experience, there is never any reason to look for it later. Inevitably, due to sound philosophical and scientific considerations, one must then posit a complete void of knowledge which exists within the structure of Being, and there is literally nowhere else to possibly go from there, as you correctly point out (Shu).

The reason why the Reason-Imagination (representational-poetic/aesthetic) link is so important is because it reveals an inner logic which heralds a new stage of cognitive evolution. Not aeons from now, but already manifesting significantly in our present day. If we a priori foreclose on the possibility of Reason having the capacity to even discern this inner logic, then obviously we will say it isn't possible and anyone writing about it, no matter how thorough and well-reasoned their arguments, must be mistaken. This is the real tragedy of the Cartesian-Kantian dualism - it's not about abstract metaphysical concepts, i.e. monism v. dualism, idealism v. materialism, etc., but rather it is about dead-ends of knowledge which manifest only because we convinced ourselves it is practically impossible to find what we are looking for - and what the human soul has always been looking for since the dawn of self-awareness is a way out from the dead-ends back to its primordial Source.

That a priori assumption comes in many forms in the modern age. Everyone seems to think the person with an opposing philosophy has done it but not themselves. BK says DID (dissociative identity disorder) is inherent structure of MAL. JW says representational thinking has practically veiled poetic thinking for aeons. The common element to both is implicit naive realism and dualism. It takes what is fundamentally a mental habit, and reifies it into a fixed law of Reality itself. Barfield asked, "why does it never occur to them that a habit is something you can overcome, if you set about it with enough energy?" The unexamined naive realism and dualism is why. That is where Steiner's Philosophy of Spiritual Activity (Thinking) is invaluable, because it shows us, by way of step by step analysis of perception and cognition as it manifests in our immanent experience, how we, as individuals, can come to trust in our living Reason again, despite the nearly fatal thrashing it has taken in the modern age.

Behind Steiner, the thinker who documented this inner logic of cognitive evolution the most thoroughly is Jean Gebser in The Ever-Present Origin. There are a few others like Teilhard de Chardin and Aurobindo who also investigate along the same lines - "such a fundamental mutation as thinking—which gives the entire species its distinctive stamp—must transcend the point of origin and the beginning of evolutionary development." (Chardin).The evidence is undeniable, so the only question is whether we trust our Reason enough to evaluate it or, as is the norm in the modern and post-modern age, we will say our Reason is of no use and therefore this evidence is nothing more than idle speculation. If we held to that view of Reason in any other sphere of life, nothing would ever get done. But, in philosophy, we feel it is justified because we have divided the world of practical aims from Being itself. We say one can pursue practical aims endlessly without ever getting closer to Being. There is really nothing more escapist and life-denying than this mentality, which Nietzsche was correct to criticize so strongly.

Anyone today who considers the emergence of a new era of mankind as a certainty and expresses the conviction that our rescue from collapse and chaos could come about by virtue of a new attitude and a new formation of man’s consciousness, will surely elicit less credence than those who have heralded the decline of the West. Contemporaries of totalitarianism, World War II, and the atom bomb seem more likely to abandon even their very last stand than to realize the possibility of a transition, a new constellation or a transformation, or even to evince any readiness to take a leap into tomorrow, although the harbingers of tomorrow, the evidence of transformation, and other signs of the new and imminent cannot have gone entirely unnoticed. Such a reaction, the reaction of a mentality headed for a fall, is only too typical of man in transition.
...
By returning to the very sources of human development as we observe all of the structures of consciousness, and moving from there toward our present day and our contemporary situation and consciousness, we can not only discover the past and the present moment of our existence but also gain a view into the future which reveals the traits of a new reality amidst the decline of our age. It is our belief that the essential traits of a new age and a new reality are discernible in nearly all forms of contemporary expression, whether in the creations of modern art, or in the recent findings of the natural sciences, or in the results of the humanities and sciences of the mind. Moreover we are in a position to define this new reality in such a way as to emphasize one of its most significant elements. Our definition is a natural corollary of the recognition that man’s coming to awareness is inseparably bound to his consciousness of space and time.

Gebser, Jean. The Ever-Present Origin . Ohio University Press. Kindle Edition.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Inevitably, due to sound philosophical and scientific considerations, one must then posit a complete void of knowledge which exists within the structure of Being, and there is literally nowhere else to possibly go from there, as you correctly point out (Shu).

Indeed, to posit is to be aware ... Although, one can make the case that in one's experience, Being being inextricable from awareness seems to transcend positing. One's being is because one is aware of one's being, not because it is posited, such positing being inextricable from the awareness of it. Furthermore, to posit/abstract that there is Being existing apart from awareness is an abstraction within awareness. What is shared in common in all this seems paramount.

[AshvinP]

Inevitably, due to sound philosophical and scientific considerations, one must then posit a complete void of knowledge which exists within the structure of Being, and there is literally nowhere else to possibly go from there, as you correctly point out (Shu).

Indeed, to posit is to be aware ... Although, one can make the case that in one's experience, Being being inextricable from awareness seems to transcend positing. One's being is because one is aware of one's being, not because it is posited, such positing being inextricable from the awareness of it. Furthermore, to posit/abstract that there is Being existing apart from awareness is an abstraction within awareness. What is shared in common in all this seems paramount.

We don't need to conflate Thinking with "positing" here. Let's say the former is simply perception of meaning. We cannot experience "awareness" apart from meaning. It is actually conceivable that, if meaningful experience ceases, then existence/awareness ceases as well. So we can't be 100% confident in anything other than the meaning of experience, including that of "existing-awareness-being", which comes by way of Thinking. As soon as we say there is "awareness" and then "thinking" as a secondary activity, we have posited a dualism.

[Soul_of_Shu]

We don't need to conflate Thinking with "positing" here. Let's say the former is simply perception of meaning. We cannot experience "awareness" apart from meaning. It is actually conceivable that, if meaningful experience ceases, then existence/awareness ceases as well. So we can't be 100% confident in anything other than the meaning of experience, including that of "existing-awareness-being", which comes by way of Thinking. As soon as we say there is "awareness" and then "thinking" as a secondary activity, we have posited a dualism.

Sure, it is the profound implication of idealism that Thinking is immanent to Being. If not, then we're left with perennially positing a point of origin for Thinking—not far removed from positing the origin of awareness from non-awareness under physicalism. What I can't go with is that there is Thinking absent Awareness.

[Eugene I]

What I can't go with is that there is Thinking absent Awareness.

Not possible

[JeffreyW]

There are some fine points that need to be established here, which may take a few turns. This first is important: Being is not a quality, but the very truth of existence. Being, as the ground of existence, cannot be a quality of something else, and as such cannot be compared to experience. There is nothing else for Being to be a quality of. I suspect we will be returning to this several times.

Yeah well, and there's good reason why we return to it again and again. For all intents and purposes, if there is nothing to be posited about the immanent nature of Being other than, by definition, it exists, and to posit that the immanent nature of this Being is in any way aware, so it is claimed, can only be an unfounded metaphysical premise, then ontology ends there. Yet we're still left with how to account for the origin of awareness, an accounting that remains entirely in the dark. And yet again, I'm not getting why Being being immanently aware is so much more troublesome than awareness being utterly inexplicable. Why should endless speculation about the latter trump the metaphysical premise of the former? In this experience, Being and awareness are inextricable, and any Being existing apart from awareness can only be an abstraction within awareness.

We start from the basis that the most fundamental, yet overwhelming, question is why is there something instead of nothing - the basis of all ontology. The answer to that question, however, is beyond our reach, and any attempt to answer it will necessarily be metaphysical speculation that can tell us nothing. So we move to what is possible within our existential reality, which is not the question of why is Being, but what is Being. And we question that “what is” through direct experience with what is. In doing so, we quickly understand that experience is an event, not an object, and the question turns not to “what is”, but “how is”? And in that turn, Being shows itself not as definable object, but as a manifold event in experience - a wave, not a particle. Essence without substance or accidents in eternal becoming.

The claim that Being is just an empty definition is our ingrained loss from the habit of metaphysics, which sees “is” as a mere copula - a mere connector which caries no meaning in itself. Just an equal sign with the important meaning appearing on either flank. Before metaphysics, “is” was the all important word - the manifold Being as the essence of all existence, flanked by single observations from our experience of Being. Humble suggestion of what was revealed and what remains to be revealed in that mysterious “is”.

As I said before, the project here is exploration, not definition. Not systematization. Not Categorization. Just questioning of direct experience. Ontology doesn’t end here - it is our mere beginning. After 2500 years of metaphysical illusion, we are still at the beginning of our exploration, barely having left our doorway.

And so we turn to those who have been on this journey all along, letting their direct experience sing through them to presence Itself in our midst, should we let it - the poets, artists, and musicians. It is within their presented experience that we can poetically explore it ourselves.

Consciousness is an aspect of Being playing itself out, but only one aspect, and a late one at that. Consciousness is not our hermetic prison, but just the opposite - an entanglement, a light which opens up Being to experience. We also are a late instance of the play of Being, an inseparable part of it, and perhaps that part that Being, in its play, brought about for its own window; the poetic experience of itself.

To claim that consciousness is the “ontological primitive” (an inexcusably inelegant term) thus becomes an obvious metaphysical illusion. First, it distorts our experience. We never truly encounter anything like cosmic consciousness, but only in certain other living beings. Most importantly, it is reductive error, defining the undefinable mystery of Being to one anthropomorphic projection. And that projection itself is a mere abstraction of an existing thing we do not grasp, and perhaps is ungraspable.

Consciousness is not for defining, nor is Being. Consciousness is our own mode of Being that allows us to experience the playing out of events in what exists - Being.

The important question is not how did consciousness arise, but how do we live within the clearing our consciousness creates.

[AshvinP]

What I can't go with is that there is Thinking absent Awareness.

Not possible

Are you aware of what occurs during your deep dreamless sleep?

[JeffreyW]

In our basic experience we encounter things, and the perpetual appearance of new things lets us know there are many things we have yet to encounter. To stray from this basis of experience, such as to suggest these aren’t things or they only exist when we observe them is the metaphysical speculation that arises from straying from experience.

Well, from the standpoint of the any-metaphysical approach, this sounds like a rational argument and we are not supposed to use those arguments in anti-metaphysical and anti-rational esthetic approach.

But anyway, in idealism things do exist when we (human observers) do not observe them, since it is assumed that conscious experience is not limited to human and animal conscious experiences (which is of course a metaphysical assumption).

As long as we stay within perception and resist reduction, we should be ok for this purpose. This is no poetic exploration of Being here.

If consciousness bathes the universe, why hasn’t the entire universe collapsed into Eigenstate?