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Re: Anybody willing to defend Kastrup on this? (solipsism and unconsciousness)

Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2021 8:40 am
by stratos
lorenzop wrote: Thu Jul 15, 2021 6:05 pm I'm not sure what you mean by "objecting to the reality of un-consciousness", or who is doing this. If you're suggesting that Idealism (ie BK) begins by first rejecting materialism/physicalism - I say no it does not.
Yes, Idealism (as does materialism/physicalism) does require inference(s) re a natural world outside the finite mind , however Idealism does not require the invention of a substance (ie matter) different than the finite mind. The inferences are not equivalent.
With the "reality of un-consiousness i meant the existence of a non conscious world and also the existence of out-of-this-mind minds, both of which are equally useful models to explain some of the arisings in our minds.

Re: Anybody willing to defend Kastrup on this? (solipsism and unconsciousness)

Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2021 6:08 pm
by stratos
JustinG wrote: Thu Jul 15, 2021 11:54 pm
Hallo JustinG

BK writes:
"As discussed earlier, I can explain much of my own external behavior to myself by the fact that I am conscious, and so can
you."

Firstly there is no behavior anywhere. If we are to speak about solipsism lets stick to the solipsism. There are just feelings. In some order (if we assume time).

"It is your conscious feelings that explain your facial expressions, your impulsive reac-
tions, your dislike of certain people and your love for others"

What do mean by "explain"? Explanation is a tricky thing. So we have sadness, followed by sad face image, followed by more sadness, followed by more sad face, followed by boredom. Which feeling is the explanation of which? Sometimes a bodily feeling seems to explain the arising of a mental image and sometimes a mental image seems to explain the arising of a bodily feeling.

As for the not yet confronted experience, "the observing of romantic love as a child", in dreams perceptions can be manipulated with so many ways that the argument does not hold: there can be false memories, loss of memory. False characters, false certainty. It can be anything. Even experiences that do not fit in known personal relation to the past experiences. In short, for every aspect of perception there is a state or disorder that can question the assumption of the external world. Dissociative Identity Disorder is not the only disorder that you can pick ;) You can take memory loss as a paradigm and see what happens. The child might have forgotten :)

But despite the above, i agree with BK that the step out of solipsism is a reasonable step to take. Were we differ is that i believe that the other step of assuming the existence of unconsciousness is a similarly reasonable step to take. But ok.

Re: Anybody willing to defend Kastrup on this? (solipsism and unconsciousness)

Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2021 7:52 pm
by Ben Iscatus
Where we differ is that i believe that the other step of assuming the existence of unconsciousness is a similarly reasonable step to take.
There are different types of apparent unconsciousness. For instance, MAL would seem to be unconscious of what is happening in the metacognitive minds of dissociated alters. But if time is part of the cognitive scaffolding of the alter, MAL may be conscious of all an alter's experiences in the continuous present (now and now and now).

Re: Anybody willing to defend Kastrup on this? (solipsism and unconsciousness)

Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2021 10:10 pm
by stratos
Ben Iscatus wrote: Fri Jul 16, 2021 7:52 pm
Where we differ is that i believe that the other step of assuming the existence of unconsciousness is a similarly reasonable step to take.
There are different types of apparent unconsciousness. For instance, MAL would seem to be unconscious of what is happening in the metacognitive minds of dissociated alters. But if time is part of the cognitive scaffolding of the alter, MAL may be conscious of all an alter's experiences in the continuous present (now and now and now).
I don't think i understood this very well, but don't we have to examine the reasons we have to believe in DID metaphor in the first place? Or Mind At Large? What do you mean by saying "MAL would seem to be unconscious of what is happening in the metacognitive minds of dissociated alters"? Me and you are the dissociated alters, and who is the MAL that seems unconscious? The world? The rocks?

Re: Anybody willing to defend Kastrup on this? (solipsism and unconsciousness)

Posted: Sat Jul 17, 2021 10:25 am
by Ben Iscatus
don't we have to examine the reasons we have to believe in DID metaphor in the first place? Or Mind At Large? What do you mean by saying "MAL would seem to be unconscious of what is happening in the metacognitive minds of dissociated alters"? Me and you are the dissociated alters, and who is the MAL that seems unconscious? The world? The rocks?
MAL (Mind at Large) is the transpersonal Mind whose activity (dreams, thoughts) manifests as the Whole Universe. We believe in the DID metaphor because we all experience dissociation (one of many examples is in our dreams, where our avatar is dissociated from our waking comprehension and also from the strange imagery our minds create).

Re: Anybody willing to defend Kastrup on this? (solipsism and unconsciousness)

Posted: Sat Jul 17, 2021 1:19 pm
by AshvinP
stratos wrote: Fri Jul 16, 2021 10:10 pm
Ben Iscatus wrote: Fri Jul 16, 2021 7:52 pm
Where we differ is that i believe that the other step of assuming the existence of unconsciousness is a similarly reasonable step to take.
There are different types of apparent unconsciousness. For instance, MAL would seem to be unconscious of what is happening in the metacognitive minds of dissociated alters. But if time is part of the cognitive scaffolding of the alter, MAL may be conscious of all an alter's experiences in the continuous present (now and now and now).
I don't think i understood this very well, but don't we have to examine the reasons we have to believe in DID metaphor in the first place? Or Mind At Large? What do you mean by saying "MAL would seem to be unconscious of what is happening in the metacognitive minds of dissociated alters"? Me and you are the dissociated alters, and who is the MAL that seems unconscious? The world? The rocks?
MAL and DID are just useful metaphors for those starting out with idealism, basic stepping stones and nothing more. They tell us nothing about the precise nature of the underlying Reality, other than it is all ideational activity. Some people will claim idealism is compatible with non-ideational activity that is still mental in nature, but I say that is very low resolution and incomplete understanding. We could call that "nondualism" to distinguish. Once we understand basic premises of idealism, we should abandon those metaphors and start looking for more precise ones, and eventually seek direct experience of the underlying noumenal relations themselves (beyond mere mystical experience). If you search for "Deep M@L" you will find essay from Cleric which explores the more precise metaphors/analogies.

Re: Anybody willing to defend Kastrup on this? (solipsism and unconsciousness)

Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2021 10:00 am
by stratos
Ben Iscatus wrote: Sat Jul 17, 2021 10:25 am
don't we have to examine the reasons we have to believe in DID metaphor in the first place? Or Mind At Large? What do you mean by saying "MAL would seem to be unconscious of what is happening in the metacognitive minds of dissociated alters"? Me and you are the dissociated alters, and who is the MAL that seems unconscious? The world? The rocks?
We believe in the DID metaphor because we all experience dissociation (one of many examples is in our dreams, where our avatar is dissociated from our waking comprehension and also from the strange imagery our minds create).
We all experience memory loss and false memories too, what does it have to do with how things actually are? Some states match the narrative that i can first-personaly and telepathically feel your feelings, and some others match the narrative that i am Napoleon Bonaparte and i forgot it. The important thing here is what are the good reasons we have to adopt any of these positions.

Re: Anybody willing to defend Kastrup on this? (solipsism and unconsciousness)

Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2021 2:28 am
by Jose_Silva
DID enters his construction Just because of two reasons:
1* Its a fact this phenomenon happens in human experience, so its not a mere abstraction
2* It works as an explanation to the perception that you and me are experiencing the same world, therefore there is a single common consciousness behind us and following this line our appearant individual consciousness would be like DID is

Re: Anybody willing to defend Kastrup on this? (solipsism and unconsciousness)

Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2021 3:18 pm
by AshvinP
Jose_Silva wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 2:28 am DID enters his construction Just because of two reasons:
1* Its a fact this phenomenon happens in human experience, so its not a mere abstraction
2* It works as an explanation to the perception that you and me are experiencing the same world, therefore there is a single common consciousness behind us and following this line our appearant individual consciousness would be like DID is
2 - DID does not explain the knowledge that we are experiencing the same world. It is really more like a conclusion - because we know that we are experiencing the same world (how we know that is a major question and one of much debate within idealism), we conclude that our individuated perspectives are "dissociated" from an essentially unified Whole.