Cleric's Responses to Mystical Metaphysics (or How to Make a Logical Argument)

[Soul_of_Shu]

None of the above, however, really seeks deeper reality that shapes the activity of our ego (for obvious reasons in Buddhism). If we're to investigate what it is in us that thinks (that is, what is our true being), and not only live with the meaning of the written thoughts, we have no choice but seek consciousness within the thinking process itself, such that from there we begin to experience how our spirit moves and weaves - that is we begin to discover new consciousness within the structure of the hand and its degrees of freedom.

Thanks ... I will think on that.

As an aside, as these kind of discussions linger on, here, there, and everywhere, I'm reminded of a fellow I know who is passionate about soccer, which for him is the most beautiful game, all other games being not worth bothering with, whereas I find it a slog to get through even 15 minutes. Nonetheless, he insists that all I have to do is make the effort to watch many more soccer games, and seriously study the finer details of the game, and I will eventually be just as passionate about soccer, and truly, deeply appreciate and understand why it is the most beautiful game. But hey, I just can't just can't tear myself away from the MLB wild-card race

[Eugene I]

I can't do otherwise but point again to the hand analogy. Transfigured ideation is not simply to increase the quantity and colorfulness of conscious content (as in heightened fantasy). All of this is still only writings on the screen, while the hand remains in the shadows. Impressions of the astral world can be perceived on the screen in visionary states. The Tibetan Buddhist can also reach visionary experiences of the astral but you can be quite certain that they are viewed in the impartial perspective of dependent arising, which must not interfere with the anatman principle. There's movement, there's activity but the Buddhist doesn't try to experience any of this activity as proceeding from the "I". This runs counter to the whole doctrine. It's quite the opposite - the more detached one is from any "I"-willed activity, the more objective the perceptions are considered to be. There's a lot of activity going on in these states but it's seen as dependent arising within the field of the completely impersonal consciousness.

It is arising in the field of impersonal "awareness", where the awareness is a "formless" and impersonal aspect of consciousness (every individual has awareness of fundamentally the same nature). As opposed to formless awareness, the willing, feeling and thinking are form-creating activities that are always personal. So, from what we know from our direct experience (if we do the study that you and the Buddhists suggest) is an inseparable presence of formless unchanging and impersonal awareness and personal form-creating and ever-changing thinking-feeling-willing activity together and inseparable from the forms/ideas that it creates. Labeling the ideal content as "illusory" in Buddhism is really a misnomer, it's just a practical tactics to dismantle the naive realism belief in the existence of "things" independent of conscious/spiritual activity that actually creates them.

[Cleric K]

Cleric, you might have noticed (or not) that all "good" non-dual teachings, from traditional Advaita and Buddhism to modern (Spira etc) are exactly about the experiencing of the inner Being. They are exactly aimed to turn around from what it written and discover and recognize the existence of what is "writing" (experiencing, willing etc)

OK, Eugene, I'll take a break. It's clear that you don't even try to internalize the analogy that was at the core of my post. You keep coming back with "of cooourse, all ancient Eastern and modern non-dual traditions have always been all about the exploration of the inner being." It's already quite clear to me that you don't even try to experience a thought as coming from your "I"-activity, to feel fully engaged and responsible for the thought-perception (the written thought). I gave example in the above post why to "recognize the existence of what is "writing" (experiencing, willing etc)" in the Buddhist sense is to experience it in the way of dependent arising, as the interaction of external will, ideas, perceptions, etc. experienced by completely impartial observing awareness. Unless you try to experience a thought as proceeding not as arising dependently in a World process spread before the completely detached awareness, but instead as the product of you heartfelt "I"-activity, we can't go any further than this.

[Eugene I]

OK, Eugene, I'll take a break. It's clear that you don't even try to internalize the analogy that was at the core of my post. You keep coming back with "of cooourse, all ancient Eastern and modern non-dual traditions have always been all about the exploration of the inner being." It's already quite clear to me that you don't even try to experience a thought as coming from your "I"-activity, to feel fully engaged and responsible for the thought-perception (the written thought). I gave example in the above post why to "recognize the existence of what is "writing" (experiencing, willing etc)" in the Buddhist sense is to experience it in the way of dependent arising, as the interaction of external will, ideas, perceptions, etc. experienced by completely impartial observing awareness. Unless you try to experience a thought as proceeding not as arising dependently in a World process spread before the completely detached awareness, but instead as the product of you heartfelt "I"-activity, we can't go any further than this.

You are grossly misinterpreting the Buddhist practice, and this misinterpretation is directly related you you supremacist positioning of the PoF with respect to other spiritual traditions. In the Buddhist practice the willing and thinking is never experienced as "external", but on the opposite, everything is experienced within the realm of one consciousness. If you follow Rupert Spira teachings/practice, or familiar with the traditional Dzogchen practice, they are quite explicit on this.

[Cleric K]

it's just a practical tactics to dismantle the naive realism belief in the existence of "things" independent of conscious/spiritual activity that actually creates them.

The whole thing is that in the way the words are used, this "conscious/spiritual activity" is ultimately a World process that is opaque to the observing (as you call it - formless) consciousness and is ultimately no different (from experiential viewpoint) than the perceived activity of fire that evaporates water. In other words, spiritual activity is in principle no different from perceived chemical activity. It's simply that they are all called 'activity within the One consciousness'.

[AshvinP]

1) From what I 've read, I haven't seen any explicit ontological idealist statements by Steiner, so it looks like the original PoF is not specifically idealism. But you always described it as ideaism, that's why I assumed that it is. So, may be your interpretation of PoF and the original Steiner's formulation of it are actually different. I haven't figure that out yet.

2) Isn't is exactly what Cleric tell us all the time?: "the consciousness or spiritual soul it is the very shapes and dynamics of our spiritual activity that are being (directly) known". And notice that I fully agree with it

2) This is based on your statements that the totality of reality is equivalent to its ideal content, and therefore, in principle all cognizable by thinking activity. But here is the quote from the abridged PoF confirming that:
"There are no universal limits to knowledge, only individual ones"

1) Ok so at least we have cleared up that this assumption is not made.

PoF is a book, Eugene. We have stated over and over again it is Steiner's phenomenology of Thinking. An idealist can write a book without making idealist assumptions for the arguments in a book. And it is obviously one of many books and many more lectures produced by Steiner. There really exists no personality in the history of humanity more prolific that I can think of.

That being said, Steiner reaches the conclusion of idealist monism in PoF, after he conducts the phenomenology. It is pretty useless to engage in such a philosophical endeavor without reaching any firm conclusions, but I recognize that is all too common in the modern age. People want to endlessly speculate for their ego to have a voice, so they reach no firm conclusions and they foreclose on the very possibility of anyone else reaching firm conclusions. Steiner was not like that.


2) I am talking about assumptions in PoF, which is what you initially claimed. Do you see "the consciousness or spiritual soul it is the very shapes and dynamics of our spiritual activity that are being (directly) known" used as an assumption by Steiner in PoF? Again, it makes no sense to mix up the conclusions we have stated here with the assumptions Steiner made [actually, did not make] in PoF.

3) "There are no universal limits to knowledge, only individual ones" - Again, this is a conclusion Steiner reaches after many pages of logical argumentation. I really hope you now understand the difference between simply stating metaphysical conclusions and reasoning them out from the givens of experience.


But, it seems in general you just ignore everything we write here, such as Cleric's endless analogies to explain his arguments to you, so I am not surprised it is the same with Steiner and PoF. That's why I said you need to get back in touch with meaning of "prejudice". When we are simply ignoring things and perceiving whatever we want to perceive in other's writing, no matter what they write or how many times they write it, then clearly there is prejudice at work.

prejudice [ prej-uh-dis ]
1 an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason.
2 any preconceived opinion or feeling, either favorable or unfavorable.

[lorenzop]

it's just a practical tactics to dismantle the naive realism belief in the existence of "things" independent of conscious/spiritual activity that actually creates them.

The whole thing is that in the way the words are used, this "conscious/spiritual activity" is ultimately a World process that is opaque to the observing (as you call it - formless) consciousness and is ultimately no different (from experiential viewpoint) than the perceived activity of fire that evaporates water. In other words, spiritual activity is in principle no different from perceived chemical activity. It's simply that they are all called 'activity within the One consciousness'.

For myself this capitalizing of 'random' words stops me in my tracks . . . I can't read you . . . I come to word 'World' which is capitalized and I wonder am I missing some mystery/magical use of the word. For me, your writing comes off as 'for initiated members only'.

[Eugene I]

3) "There are no universal limits to knowledge, only individual ones" - Again, this is a conclusion Steiner reaches after many pages of logical argumentation. I really hope you now understand the difference between simply stating metaphysical conclusions and reasoning them out from the givens of experience.

Such statement can not be a conclusion, because it is in principle unprovable. It is impossible prove non-existence of limits to knowledge.

[AshvinP]

it's just a practical tactics to dismantle the naive realism belief in the existence of "things" independent of conscious/spiritual activity that actually creates them.

The whole thing is that in the way the words are used, this "conscious/spiritual activity" is ultimately a World process that is opaque to the observing (as you call it - formless) consciousness and is ultimately no different (from experiential viewpoint) than the perceived activity of fire that evaporates water. In other words, spiritual activity is in principle no different from perceived chemical activity. It's simply that they are all called 'activity within the One consciousness'.

For myself this capitalizing of 'random' words stops me in my tracks . . . I can't read you . . . I come to word 'World' which is capitalized and I wonder am I missing some mystery/magical use of the word. For me, your writing comes off as 'for initiated members only'.

This capitalizing of words has been used throughout modern philosophy. It is pretty simple - a capital word represents the most Universal version of the concept a word is expressing. That is why most people capitalize "God" regardless of what they specifically mean by it - whatever "God" is, it is the highest ideal one can imagine. "Thinking" is the most universal concept of cognitive activity. "World" is the most universal concept of phenomenal manifestations. "Light" is the most universal concept of shedding conscious awareness on the World. And so on. It takes no initiation to understand.

[AshvinP]

3) "There are no universal limits to knowledge, only individual ones" - Again, this is a conclusion Steiner reaches after many pages of logical argumentation. I really hope you now understand the difference between simply stating metaphysical conclusions and reasoning them out from the givens of experience.

Such statement can not be a conclusion, because it is in principle unprovable. It is impossible prove non-existence of limits to knowledge.

It is perfectly "provable" according to pragmatic approach to "truth", which is really the only approach which makes any sense to use, because it doesn't rely on non-existent 3rd person perspective. It is that non-existenct perspective you adopt when claiming it is not "provable", because what you mean is, "if we were to stand apart from the Cosmos and observe it, we may then find limits to knowledge that we can never observe from our own internal perspective". Such a perspective and assertion will never have any practical relevance to our lives. The pragmatic assertion is, "from the perspective and context of what any person can experience right now, there are no universal limits to knowledge". That is actually the sort of assertion we are implicitly making in nearly every field of inquiry, from judgments in a court of law to determinations of feasible designs in engineering science. You never say, "there could be natural laws which no one has yet discovered and will render this design completely ineffective, so we cannot 'prove' the design is feasible and we may as well treat my assertion of 'feasible design' as an assumption rather than a conclusion of my carefully reasoned thought process".