Cosmic Consciousness: meta-cognitive or non-meta-cognitive?

[AshvinP]

Eugene, could you clarify what you mean by "physicalist" in #1 and why NDE studies do not support #1?

In other words, the non-meta-cognitive ideations appearing in the MAL's mind only take material-looking forms. The MAL is "dreaming" material worlds only. My understanding that this is what BK is suggesting. In this scenario, when we humans die, our individuated conscious processes have no other environment to continue their autonomous functioning in, so our "souls" disintegrate and dissolve back into the non-metacognitive instinctual state of MAL. NDE reports clearly do not support such scenario.

re: problem of evil - I am inclined to think it is resolved through faith in an evolutionary process which reveals higher-cognition perspectives on how 'evil' fits into a Divine order.

Well, there is still a moral problem here. Even though the "evil" and suffering might eventually fit into the higher-order, subjecting the conscious alters to such suffering without their pre-agreement is immoral. As Dostoevsky wrote, "The Kingdom of Heaven is not worth the tears of that one tortured child" (providing that the child's soul did not agree to be exposed to such suffering). However, this might be an irrelevant problem, because the NDE/regression data suggest that we actually freely pre-agree to incarnate into humans.

Got it. I agree NDE data support a meta-cognitive argument, at least in this Universe.

Voluntary incarnation certainly makes the 'problem of evil' much easier to deal with, but I am still not sure it is necessary. If what we think of as "suffering" in this world is but a distorted shadow of a shadow etc. cast by much 'higher-dimensional' realities, then perhaps those elevated perspectives will allow us to completely reimagine those seemingly negative qualities, while right now we are like flatlanders trying to imagine a three-dimensional sphere of being.

[Simon Adams]

This sounds to me like dualism: you a suggesting that there is the ontic "stuff" that everything is made of (the ontic fundamental), and then, when the whirlpools form in the substratum of such fundamental, somehow some "entities" of entirely different nature magically appear there. If these entities are nothing more than forms of the same fundamental, then the "entities" are simply our mental representations of the forms, and in reality there are only forms made of the same fundamental. But if you are saying that these entities are not entirely equivalent to the forms of the same nature as the fundamental, then they must represent some other fundamental different from the fundamental of the "stuff" that forms the whirlpool, which is an ontological dualism. In other words, from the standpoint of ontological monism, there is only one "stuff" that "exists" in the fundamental sense, everything else only "appears" as forms of the same stuff. So the "beingness" of such forms is the same of the "Beingness' of the ontic fundamental. In idealistic monism, we all on the fundamental level ARE the same Consciousness, we are all made of it, and nothing is fundamentally altered or added when our whirlpools of individuated minds are formed. I understand that this is the traditional premise of Christianity, but that is why the traditional Christianity is a variant of dualism from philosophical point of view.

You’ll have to forgive my poor description, but that’s not what I’m saying. I’m not claiming ‘being’ as a separate substance, but it’s not a property either. If I just call it existence then it will sound like a trivial description of things, something that should be taken for granted, not something that is fundamental. I guess you could say that ontic is about what is there, being is about how it’s there.

On your other point, I’m certainly not a dualist in terms of mind and matter, but you could call me a dualist between god and things (people, animals, trees, the universe). God is transcendent ....and can be immanent, but is not always. I have to start with what I think I know, and god can be present in a place sometimes, and not others. Also god can be present to us sometimes, and not at others. There is sometimes a presence that comes and goes (such as in Eucharistic adoration), through all things, and all the things that could be called ‘mind at large’ were there when it arrived, and are still there after it’s gone...

[Eugene I]

Voluntary incarnation certainly makes the 'problem of evil' much easier to deal with, but I am still not sure it is necessary. If what we think of as "suffering" in this world is but a distorted shadow of a shadow etc. cast by much 'higher-dimensional' realities, then perhaps those elevated perspectives will allow us to completely reimagine those seemingly negative qualities, while right now we are like flatlanders trying to imagine a three-dimensional sphere of being.

I can't agree with that. The fact that there is a "bigger picture" of things where every suffering fits and leads to eventual harmony can not justify the suffering of a child dying from cancer in extreme pain, terror and fear of death and who is unable to understand this "bigger picture", unless this child deliberately pre-agreed to experience such suffering.

Dostoevsky expressed this very acutely in his "tear of a child" chapter of Brothers Karamazov. And Dostoevsky did not express it only from Ivan's rebellious perspective. Ivan asks Alyosha to answer if he would consent to such global scheme where the eventual harmony is build on a tear of a single child, and Alyosha, who represents the voice of the Christian faith and Christian goodness, answers "no". His conscience could not allow him to say "yes".

Tell me yourself, I challenge your answer. Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature- that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance- and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth."
"No, I wouldn't consent," said Alyosha softly."
And can you admit the idea that men for whom you are building it would agree to accept their happiness on the foundation of the unexpiated blood of a little victim? And accepting it would remain happy for ever?"
"No, I can't admit it."
Dostoevsky, "Brothers Karamazov".

[Eugene I]

On your other point, I’m certainly not a dualist in terms of mind and matter, but you could call me a dualist between god and things (people, animals, trees, the universe). God is transcendent ....and can be immanent, but is not always. I have to start with what I think I know, and god can be present in a place sometimes, and not others. Also god can be present to us sometimes, and not at others. There is sometimes a presence that comes and goes (such as in Eucharistic adoration), through all things, and all the things that could be called ‘mind at large’ were there when it arrived, and are still there after it’s gone...

Right, I understand it (myself having been exposed to Christianity). This is what makes Christianity dualistic and differentiate it form Advaitic theism for example, where everything is fundamentally Brahman/God and there is no fundamental duality whatsoever. Brahman cannot be not present everywhere and its "presence" seems to disappear to us only because our minds loose a perception of such presence. In other words, the Brahman in Advaita is not transcendent to the world, it is present as the awareness and beingness of every conscious experience, but the forms of the world (such as human minds) often do not see or notice that presence.

[Soul_of_Shu]

OK and I'd add pretty much the same for M@L, God, Life, Dharma, Etc.

And which Bernardo makes quite clear in his latest book Decoding Jung's Metaphysics

[AshvinP]

Voluntary incarnation certainly makes the 'problem of evil' much easier to deal with, but I am still not sure it is necessary. If what we think of as "suffering" in this world is but a distorted shadow of a shadow etc. cast by much 'higher-dimensional' realities, then perhaps those elevated perspectives will allow us to completely reimagine those seemingly negative qualities, while right now we are like flatlanders trying to imagine a three-dimensional sphere of being.

I can't agree with that. The fact that there is a "bigger picture" of things where every suffering fits and leads to eventual harmony can not justify the suffering of a child dying from cancer in extreme pain, terror and fear of death and who is unable to understand this "bigger picture", unless this child deliberately pre-agreed to experience such suffering.

Let's flip it around - a parent comes to you and says "my daughter has terminal cancer and is in extreme constant agony, how could this be in a Good and Just universe?" Would your response be, "well... according to X, Y, Z presuppositions, your child actually chose to be incarnated into this life, even though I know it does not appear that way in the slightest..."? I doubt it.

My inclination would be to work in Victor Frankl's story in the concentration camp and his 'will-to-meaning', which is of course related to Nietzsche's will-to-power. I believe he quotes Nietzsche's maxim, "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" approvingly. And from a metaphysical idealist perspective, nothing in this incarnation actually kills you in a final sense.

Dostoevsky expressed this very acutely in his "tear of a child" chapter of Brothers Karamazov. And Dostoevsky did not express it only from Ivan's rebellious perspective. Ivan asks Alyosha to answer if he would consent to such global scheme where the eventual harmony is build on a tear of a single child, and Alyosha, who represents the voice of the Christian faith and Christian goodness, answers "no". His conscience could not allow him to say "yes".

Tell me yourself, I challenge your answer. Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature- that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance- and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth."
"No, I wouldn't consent," said Alyosha softly."
And can you admit the idea that men for whom you are building it would agree to accept their happiness on the foundation of the unexpiated blood of a little victim? And accepting it would remain happy for ever?"
"No, I can't admit it."
Dostoevsky, "Brothers Karamazov".

Dostoevsky is too deep of a thinker to identify him with any particular character in his writings. We know that he often 'steel-mans' the characters expressing philosophical positions which he ultimately disagrees with. That being said, Ivan's hypothetical of an omnibenevolent Creator justifying the suffering is not the same as the evolutionary will-to-meaning argument. In fact, it's basically the opposite. It is not pointing to a grand Architect to justify the suffering, but rather to a non-directed process. And it is not even claiming there is pure harmony and bliss at the 'end' of the process, just that it is clearly beyond our current understanding and therefore something we must submit to and attempt to understand from that position of humility.

[ScottRoberts]

Now, I can see three possible developmental scenarios here, and the question is which of the scenarios would be more likely:

1. The development of non-meta-cognitive ideational states of a physicalist character (a variety of "imagined" by the MAL physicalist universes) leading though natural selection to the fine tuning resulting in the universe where meta-cognitive forms of life can exist as the "alters" of the MAL. This is the BK's scenario.

2. The development of non-meta-cognitive states evolving into more refined and eventually meta-cognitive purely mental states of the single non-divided MAL. The ideational states of the physicalist character do not occur until the state of meta-cognition is attained. But once the state of meta-cognition is achieved (at which point such MAL becomes a "God" in our human terminology), MAL subsequently pre-meditatively decides to create the "souls and the world" and goes on to dissociate into alters, create the ideations of the astral universe and the physicalist-looking universe to give the alters the world with favorable conditions to evolve. This is a theistic scenario. The problem of evil/suffering can be resolved through the assumption that the alters freely and voluntarily agree to incarnate into humans and experience all the sufferings of human life prior to the incarnation (how it happens with animals is a more tricky question).

3. The development of non-meta-cognitive states first through the fragmentation process of dissociation into alters, and then each alter evolving into more refined and eventually meta-cognitive states. In this scenario the result is a community of meta-cognitive conscious alters that further cooperate in creating a variety of astral and physicalist realities where they can "incarnate" and evolve further. The hierarchy of such universes fits into the hierarchy of the spiritual developmental stages of the alters, or, in other words, the groups of alters create the realms/universes for themselves where they can find the most favorable conditions to evolve further. This is a-la-Buddhist scenario.

A fourth possibility: conscious activity is fundamentally meta-cognitive. While spontaneous creations happen, they are immediately reflected on and evaluated, resulting in some being followed up on ("good" or "beautiful") and some not ("uninteresting"). Non-metacognitive experiences are experiencing products or representations of a metacognitive act and not the full act.

Side note: the "evil" of non-human animal pain can be accounted for if the animal's Group Soul is also volunteering to participate in physical reality.

[Simon Adams]

Right, I understand it (myself having been exposed to Christianity). This is what makes Christianity dualistic and differentiate it form Advaitic theism for example, where everything is fundamentally Brahman/God and there is no fundamental duality whatsoever. Brahman cannot be not present everywhere and its "presence" seems to disappear to us only because our minds loose a perception of such presence. In other words, the Brahman in Advaita is not transcendent to the world, it is present as the awareness and beingness of every conscious experience, but the forms of the world (such as human minds) often do not see or notice that presence.

Yes and that understanding of it makes at least as much sense, even if it happens at a certain place, it can still be explained in the same way.

I’m in the strange position of having gone from atheist through Buddhism - first an interest in Zen, then slightly more formally Tibetan (my teacher was taught by Namgyal Rinpoche), and for the past 15 years or so Catholic. It’s pretty much all been practice rather than any metaphysics, although I have been for a long time interested in how science led me to be an atheist in the first place.

It sounds like maybe we’ve gone in opposite directions

[Eugene I]

Let's flip it around - a parent comes to you and says "my daughter has terminal cancer and is in extreme constant agony, how could this be in a Good and Just universe?" Would your response be, "well... according to X, Y, Z presuppositions, your child actually chose to be incarnated into this life, even though I know it does not appear that way in the slightest..."? I doubt it.

Yes, that's how I would answer

Dostoevsky is too deep of a thinker to identify him with any particular character in his writings. We know that he often 'steel-mans' the characters expressing philosophical positions which he ultimately disagrees with. That being said, Ivan's hypothetical of an omnibenevolent Creator justifying the suffering is not the same as the evolutionary will-to-meaning argument. In fact, it's basically the opposite. It is not pointing to a grand Architect to justify the suffering, but rather to a non-directed process. And it is not even claiming there is pure harmony and bliss at the 'end' of the process, just that it is clearly beyond our current understanding and therefore something we must submit to and attempt to understand from that position of humility.

The way Dostoevsky approaches this is not that he is trying to make God responsible or blame him for the suffering of the child. But he is exposing it "as if" from God's first person perspective, with Alyosha representing such perspective: would benevolent God himself have any compassion to the child's suffering or moral remorse from exposing the child to suffering? I does not matter with whom Dostoevsky himself identified with, he identifies Alyosha with God's first person perspective and with the voice of the Divine goodness, and specifically makes it clear that the Divine goodness would have to say "no" to its own creation plan. The point is, if the evolutionary will-to-meaning is meta-cognitive and if it is fully benevolent and has a fully developed conscience and compassion, it would be morally unable to expose conscious beings to suffering without their consent. So this is not a question of responsibility or justification, but a question of the moral inability of fully benevolent Divinity to expose beings to suffering. Dostoevsky basically pointed to the irresolvable moral contradiction in the traditional Christianity where God is understood as fully benevolent, meta-cognitive and compassionate, but at the same time human sols had no say or consent in the decision to be exposed to sufferings.

[Lou Gold]

OK and I'd add pretty much the same for M@L, God, Life, Dharma, Etc.

And which Bernardo makes quite clear in his latest book Decoding Jung's Metaphysics

I just started reading DJM but that's what I would expect.