PaulSmid wrote: ↑Tue Aug 24, 2021 6:03 amThank you Soul_of_Shu, I hadn't seen this yet. I really like what Bernardo is saying in this video. It rings true to me.Paul ... You may have already checked out this before, but once upon a story time BK offered this version of the function of the body, which may be of interest still ...
This idea that the body limits consciousness, and that that allows for MAL to analyse itself sounds very reasonable to me. But that still does not explain why the body needs food. In the theory of Bernardo, it seems like MAL might as well create some kind mental body that feels separated from Mind At Large, but does not need to 'eat' the images of transpersonal mental states of Mind at Large to stay alive.
Especially if the purpose of the alters is to investigate MAL, then why would alters evolve that basically have to spend almost all of their time trying to collect food in order to survive? If you really wanted to investigate yourself, you'd create alters with a lot more free time on their hands.
But that being said, I do feel a bit less like there is a gaping hole after in Bernardo's theory after watching that video. I think there could be a reasonably satisfactory answer to why body's need food in the framework of Bernardo's theory. I just don't know what answer is yet.
I do however just get a bit the sense that consciousness is just playing this game with itself when it incarnates into the 'material' world. That all this happened due to the 'instincts' of mind at large seems just a bit farfetched. I get the sense more that consciousness just dreamt op a crazy material world, with some crazy 'material' rules, just to experience what it is like to experience its material self. But in this case consciousness is actively deciding to do all this. This would make Mind At Large basically an all powerful creator god. I'm comfortable with that idea, but I don't think many other people are.
This position is called naïve realism and is no different from the materialist who claims that the reach of our senses and cognition are determined by physical structures of the body. To the extent BK advocates this view, he must answer all the same questions about why physical structures are limiting in this way. That is impossible to do with idealist assumptions. It is actually increasingly more impossible to do with mainstream science, as illustrated from the excerpt of Everything Flows. BK really needs to address these issues without hand waving of "dissociation" as the explanation for everything related to localized consciousness. And we should as well, if we are genuinely interested in getting answers to our questions rather than interested in ignoring the answers so that we can forever keep asking the same questions so we feel like it's not our fault when absolutely no progress is being made. Rather we simply "can't find the answers"... yes we can, if we stop ignoring the answers given and seek their confirmation with genuine interest and effort.