Survival

[Lou Gold]

Ashvin, you are right, it is exactly the subconscious "veiling" that makes the localized cognition to ignore and not being able to experience the "excitations of a spatially unbound field of subjectivity—i.e., one universal mind". BK first offered DID only as an explanatory analogy to make some sense of such "veiling", but then he also brought the ideas and terms of "Markov blanket" and "dissociative boundary" as linguistic labels for such "veiling" phenomenon and called the localized cognition as "alters" according to the DID analogy. Over time BK used these terms everywhere without reminding that they are only metaphors for the "veiling" phenomenon, and so this analogy started living its own life disconnected from the actual 1-st person phenomenon of the "veiling" that it was just a metaphor of, and turned into an abstract 3-person perspective metaphysical and dualistic model of the Mind. If I were BK, I would probably write an article saying "guys, we went too far, the "alters" and "boundaries" are not in any way real, these are only metaphors and analogies, stop interpreting them literally in a naïve realistic way" (providing that this is the way he himself understands it).

EXCELLENT description, Eugene. This precisely is the trap of "naming" and we get seduced/distracted/habituated by its power. I guess this is why I countered Dissociated Identity Disorder with Divine Integral Diversity. Dualisms flowing from the word are a constant challenge to us people of the book(s).

[AshvinP]

Ashvin, you are right, it is exactly the subconscious "veiling" that makes the localized cognition to ignore and not being able to experience the "excitations of a spatially unbound field of subjectivity—i.e., one universal mind". BK first offered DID only as an explanatory analogy to make some sense of such "veiling", but then he also brought the ideas and terms of "Markov blanket" and "dissociative boundary" as linguistic labels for such "veiling" phenomenon and called the localized cognition as "alters" according to the DID analogy. Over time BK used these terms everywhere without reminding that they are only metaphors for the "veiling" phenomenon, and so this analogy started living its own life disconnected from the actual 1-st person phenomenon of the "veiling" that it was just a metaphor of, and turned into an abstract 3-person perspective metaphysical and dualistic model of the Mind. If I were BK, I would probably write an article saying "guys, we went too far, the "alters" and "boundaries" are not in any way real, these are only metaphors and analogies, stop interpreting them literally in a naïve realistic way" (providing that this is the way he himself understands it).

Yeah, that progression makes sense. DID is a localized cognitive disorder, but then BK takes this analogy to localized cognitive limitation and makes it applicable to the very structure of MAL and all "alters" within it. As soon as that unwarranted metaphysical leap takes place, he has lapsed back into Kantian dualism and all subsequent reasoning and conclusions are flawed.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Instead of projecting our own personal cognitive limitation onto the structure of Reality itself, we are simply recognizing that we are incomplete beings who are not yet knowledgeable or cognitively free, yet with the capacity to move towards genuine knowledge and cognitive freedom in this lifetime, between birth and death. This recognition is how we start to overcome abstract, dualistic, and reductive materialism AND idealism alike. Without this recognition, we have overcome neither, even if we claim that we no longer "believe" in material things which give rise to consciousness. Until we discover the logic of this recognition from within, our abstraction and reductionism is functioning exactly the same as it does in the mind of an explicit outward materialist.

Curiously enough, also from More Than Allegory, after the musings in the sub-section titled 'Death' I referenced above, you might well be echoing the words of The Other, expressed quite succinctly ...

"The truth is like a diamond with many facets. When you come back next time, if you give me a chance, I will try to give you a glimpse of a different one; a facet your analytical proclivities prevent you from even imagining"

Seemingly, our protagonist has lost touch with The Other—a voice from beyond the grave?—somewhere along the line

[Lou Gold]

Ashvin, you are right, it is exactly the subconscious "veiling" that makes the localized cognition to ignore and not being able to experience the "excitations of a spatially unbound field of subjectivity—i.e., one universal mind". BK first offered DID only as an explanatory analogy to make some sense of such "veiling", but then he also brought the ideas and terms of "Markov blanket" and "dissociative boundary" as linguistic labels for such "veiling" phenomenon and called the localized cognition as "alters" according to the DID analogy. Over time BK used these terms everywhere without reminding that they are only metaphors for the "veiling" phenomenon, and so this analogy started living its own life disconnected from the actual 1-st person phenomenon of the "veiling" that it was just a metaphor of, and turned into an abstract 3-person perspective metaphysical and dualistic model of the Mind. If I were BK, I would probably write an article saying "guys, we went too far, the "alters" and "boundaries" are not in any way real, these are only metaphors and analogies, stop interpreting them literally in a naïve realistic way" (providing that this is the way he himself understands it).

EXCELLENT description, Eugene. This precisely is the trap of "naming" and we get seduced/distracted/habituated by its power. I guess this is why I countered Dissociated Identity Disorder with Divine Integral Diversity. Dualisms flowing from the word are a constant challenge to us people of the book(s).

In agreement with Ashvin's insight about the subconscious "veiling" that makes the localized cognition to ignore and not being able to experience the "excitations of a spatially unbound field of subjectivity—i.e., one universal mind", I'd like to offer a personal story. Back in the early days when I was first learning of BK's idealism, I visited my friends in a rural area of forest in Brazil's westernmost State of Acre. One morning, well before dawn, we hiked to the edge of a lovely small river, drank some sacrament, and for an hour sat in quiet contemplation of the sounds and sights of morning arriving in the forest. Then, on our return, we passed through a varzea seasonally flooded forest where lots of the trees look like this one on the right ...



The trees stood in separate isolation with bare ground between them because the area had only recently emerged from seasonal flooding. Their separation was stunning in a region where a forest is generally an almost impenetrable tangle of vegetation. I looked and asked inwardly, "Is this a Dissociated Identity Disorder (perhaps a maladaptive separation born of the trauma of flooding)? The inner voice immediately responded, "NO! This is a Divine Integral Diversity." For me, this would be an example of lifting the veil and entering a larger field of subjective awareness. I had never read or previously thought of the term Divine Integral Diversity. The closest I can come to it is the Lakota sacred expression Mitakuye Oyasin meaning All My Relatives (we're all connected).

[Mark Tetzner]

If you check BKs FB-page you can find a new podcast going live just a few hours from now.

[Soul_of_Shu]

If you check BKs FB-page you can find a new podcast going live just a few hours from now.

You gonna get in on the Q&A and ask about that entity Mark II awaiting beyond the grave?

[Mark Tetzner]

you are close but no cigar. i will listen to it tomorrow when the recording is live.
or some other day.

[Soul_of_Shu]

you are close but no cigar. i will listen to it tomorrow when the recording is live.
or some other day.

Coast-to-Coast AM has a lot of far out content that would surely fall into the 'woo' category for most invested in a scientific approach, as well as BK who is scientifically inclined. Might be interesting to see the look on BK's face if they get into any Q&A relating to such content, for example ...

[Mark Tetzner]

you are close but no cigar. i will listen to it tomorrow when the recording is live.
or some other day.

Coast-to-Coast AM has a lot of far out content that would surely fall into the 'woo' category for most invested in a scientific approach, as well as BK who is scientifically inclined. Might be interesting to see the look on BK's face if they get into any Q&A relating to such content, for example ...

i listened to it while on my bed, but i opted to go to the bar down the road and get 2 more coffee and then off to bed. that really hurt.

[Jim Cross]

Please read Mishlove's essay and get back to me whether you think ALL the cases reported there qualify as "strange sensations". If not, your explanation has no value in this context.

Mishlove's essay is terrible from what I can see by glancing at it. Mostly anecdotal and/or based on accounts decades or more old that can no longer be verified or researched.

I'll give BK credit in that he was at least trying to make his arguments based on mainstream science.

Ok so what your're saying is that you don't have to answer whether the "strange sensations" explanation would explain the cases reported in the essay, because you don't trust that the reported cases are real?

Martin,

There isn't one explanation for everything.

"Strange sensations" is about the experience of ghosts. There is a section in the article how natural phenomena can produce low frequency sounds in nature. They can also be produced in old houses and in the case of this article a lab with a fan.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/200 ... nce.farout

In the early 1980s, Tandy was working in a laboratory designing medical equipment. Word began to spread among the staff that the labs might be haunted, something Tandy put down to the constant wheeze of life-support machines operating in the building.

One evening he was working on his own in the lab when he began to feel distinctly uncomfortable, breaking into a cold sweat as the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He was convinced that he was being watched. Then, out of the corner of his eye, Tandy noticed an ominous grey shape drifting slowly into view, but when he turned around to face it, it was gone. Terrified, he went straight home.

The next day Tandy, a keen fencer, noticed that a foil blade clamped in a vice was vibrating up and down very fast. He found that the vibrations were caused by a standing sound wave that was bouncing between the end walls of the laboratory and reached a peak of intensity in the centre of the room. He calculated that the frequency of the standing wave was about 19hz (cycles per second) and soon discovered that it was produced by a newly installed extractor fan. When the fan was turned off, the sound wave disappeared.

The key here is frequency: 19hz is in the range known as infrasound, below the range of human hearing, which begins at 20hz. Tandy learned that low frequencies in this region can affect humans and animals in several ways, causing discomfort, dizziness, blurred vision (by vibrating your eyeballs), hyperventilation and fear, possibly leading to panic attacks.

I've written an entire post on OBEs and NDEs. Blackmore's theory that they results from errant firing in the temporoparietal junction and related brain circuits makes the most sense. There is not yet any solid evidence for extraordinary veridical experience during OBEs and NDEs and the largest controlled study - AWARE- only produced one case that might construed that way. Even the researcher himself - Sam Parnia - said it wasn't conclusive.

https://broadspeculations.com/2021/09/0 ... -and-ndes/