Prospects for a Phenomenological Idealism

[Federica]

Scott, how is your PoF Simplified going?

[ScottRoberts]

Scott, how is your PoF Simplified going?

It's not, going, that is. I've run into a couple of problems I don't know how to deal with, so I've been preoccupied with thinking about them. One is "intuitive thinking", and how to present it in an esoterism-free way. Steiner defines "intuition" in PoF as "purely spiritual experience with purely spiritual contents". Which leads me to the second problem, that in English translations the words "spirit" and "soul" are used to translate "Geist" and "Seele". I don't know German well enough to tell if German usage of these terms is sufficiently like how anthroposophists use the terms, but it is a major problem for English speakers. "Spiritual" can be anything from church-going to ghosts to psychedelics, while "soul" can be "heartfeltness" or that part of one that survives death, and so on.

Now, as I have read some anthroposophy, I think I know what Steiner means by "purely spiritual experience with purely spiritual contents", but the only example I have for this is mathematical thinking. Which I value, but I fail to see how to get from that to moral intuition. As a math major I've known many mathematicians whose mathematical thinking is way more advanced than mine, but I can't say I've noticed any moral superiority among them, or that they are more "free". So something more is needed, and I'm not sure one can explain what it is without bringing in the esoteric. Which, as I see it, defeats the purpose. I wonder if there is anyone has read PoF and got headed in an anthroposophical direction who hasn't also been acquainted with Steiner's esoteric writings.

By "the purpose" I mean coming up with a text that provides a philosophical basis for anthroposophy free of any esotericism, but indicates a path to freedom. I think this can be done with the only requirement being that one accepts idealism. But one also needs to accept the distinction between thinking and thoughts, which, of course, is a major point of PoF Part I. Chapter I of Barfield's What Coleridge Thought is, in fact, titled "Thinking and Thought", but Barfield points out, after discussing this distinction, that making this distinction is why Coleridge got a reputation for being obscure, so that's discouraging. I'm currently considering whether my arguments in my Tetralemmic Polarity essay might help, but that's kinda obscure too.

Anyway, these are my somewhat incoherent excuses for giving up, for the time being at least, on trying to simplify Pof Part II.

[AshvinP]

Scott, how is your PoF Simplified going?

It's not, going, that is. I've run into a couple of problems I don't know how to deal with, so I've been preoccupied with thinking about them. One is "intuitive thinking", and how to present it in an esoterism-free way. Steiner defines "intuition" in PoF as "purely spiritual experience with purely spiritual contents". Which leads me to the second problem, that in English translations the words "spirit" and "soul" are used to translate "Geist" and "Seele". I don't know German well enough to tell if German usage of these terms is sufficiently like how anthroposophists use the terms, but it is a major problem for English speakers. "Spiritual" can be anything from church-going to ghosts to psychedelics, while "soul" can be "heartfeltness" or that part of one that survives death, and so on.

Now, as I have read some anthroposophy, I think I know what Steiner means by "purely spiritual experience with purely spiritual contents", but the only example I have for this is mathematical thinking. Which I value, but I fail to see how to get from that to moral intuition. As a math major I've known many mathematicians whose mathematical thinking is way more advanced than mine, but I can't say I've noticed any moral superiority among them, or that they are more "free". So something more is needed, and I'm not sure one can explain what it is without bringing in the esoteric. Which, as I see it, defeats the purpose. I wonder if there is anyone has read PoF and got headed in an anthroposophical direction who hasn't also been acquainted with Steiner's esoteric writings.

By "the purpose" I mean coming up with a text that provides a philosophical basis for anthroposophy free of any esotericism, but indicates a path to freedom. I think this can be done with the only requirement being that one accepts idealism. But one also needs to accept the distinction between thinking and thoughts, which, of course, is a major point of PoF Part I. Chapter I of Barfield's What Coleridge Thought is, in fact, titled "Thinking and Thought", but Barfield points out, after discussing this distinction, that making this distinction is why Coleridge got a reputation for being obscure, so that's discouraging. I'm currently considering whether my arguments in my Tetralemmic Polarity essay might help, but that's kinda obscure too.

Anyway, these are my somewhat incoherent excuses for giving up, for the time being at least, on trying to simplify Pof Part II.

Scott,

I wonder if your project should be reoriented towards summarizing/simplifying or otherwise collating, not necessarily PoF, but Cleric's various metaphorical illustrations on this forum, which themselves explore the PoF ideas but in different ways, from different angles. Very few of them reference Steiner or esoteric scientific concepts, and they provide a very modern language for us to conceptually explore states of higher cognition. For ex., on the question of intuition and 'purely spiritual experience of purely spiritual contents', you could work with the following post. I realize the reference to the first-person perspective of the 'Elohim' in this context is esoteric, but I think it would be relatively easy to work around such references.

(Federica, this post is also very relevant to our discussion on the other thread).

viewtopic.php?p=17123#p17123

Now the key to higher cognition is that this structured potential can be known in various degrees. This is evident even from the simple example above - if we recognize our affected stated, we already have grasped some of the curvature of the potential that we're forced to crystalize. From here it's a matter of inner work to find the degrees of freedom of our becoming through which we can navigate more freely the regions which are being narrowed down into perception. For example, if we manage to utilize our feeling degrees of freedom, we may be able to transform our pride and escape the clutches of affection. Then we're free to manifest other regions of potential, which would otherwise have been inaccessible while we were busy manifesting thoughts and feelings about the argument.

When this process continues it becomes possible to know even higher order curvature of meaningful potential. That's how it is possible for SS to speak about the past and the future. On a higher level it becomes evident that the states of Earthly life funnel in certain direction. We make plans based on our limited perspective but at the same time the macro-structure of the dream narrows down in certain direction and ultimately we're forced to manifest our states from within that potential. The points of conception and death are two poles within which our states funnel. This is quite self-evident also in the case of planetary motion for example. We may wish that our next state can be anywhere in Cosmic space but in reality all our states of being are narrowed down within a palette which is consistent with the perceptual content of the Earthly planetary environment.

This may seem fantastic but in reality this is what planetary motions really are. What we see with our eyes is only the crystalized manifestation of states. From higher order perspective, the gods don't see a planet moving into some orbit. Instead, their activity shapes the potential curvature which is hierarchically being narrowed down. From the perspective of the gods, their activity is also experienced as becoming, as manifestation of potential. This is very well illustrated in Genesis where it's said "And Elohim said, “Let light come to be,” and light came to be. And Elohim saw the light, that it was good." These are very deep things and they speak directly of this horizon of manifestation. So even the Elohim manifest their activity from within unseen potential and only as it crosses the horizon becomes perceptible. The difference is that for the higher beings, what they manifest is the 'shape' of potential which can be further narrowed down. In this sense, the Light that the Elohim create is not simply photons travelling in space through time.

We can imagine it in a simplified way thus. Imagine that you take the 'frames' of inner life from a whole year of your life and superimpose them one over the other. All colors, sounds, thoughts, feelings - everything is superimposed and builds a superposition, similar to white light. Yet this superposition is not absolute white light. There are many more states that are missing. For example, there are no states in this superposition which correspond to the inner experience of beholding the Mars environment. So it's structured potential. Imagine that (I repeat that this is oversimplification) the Elohim thinks the superposition of states of being which correspond to one year of time. The Elohim sees these superimposed states from the same first-person perspective, just like we do. This superposition is structured such that it contains all possible (first-person) states of being that humans can go through within a year time. Through the narrowing down of this potential, many relative perspectives become possible which are consistent with each other. From within this narrowed potential, the Elohim's activity is experienced in its time-decohered form.

So the intuitive state is like experiencing this superposition of all those sensory qualities, stripped of all outer perceptual quantities and forms - it is reaching the completely inner side of the physical sensory spectrum we flow through in our development, which is entirely intentional in its character (unlike how we normally experience it). It is entirely temporal patterns of ideated meaning. By becoming conscious of this underlying qualitative nature of our physical stream of becoming, via the higher stages culminating with intuitive thinking, we are able to more effectively align our will with its intentional structure and thereby manifest new degrees of freedom within its 'field of potential'. We gain more creative freedom in how the potential narrows down into our actual states. Even in our normal experience, we encounter many situations in which immoral (misaligned) thoughts-feelings-actions lead to physical laws conspiring against us and constraining our degrees of freedom, as Cleric also shows prior to the part quoted. I am reminded of this article I came across awhile ago in my fundamentalist days:


https://reasons.org/explore/publication ... ics-of-sin

God’s design of gravity, electromagnetism, strong and weak nuclear forces, and thermodynamics yields this result: the more a person sins, the more work he must perform and the more pain he must experience. All of these laws contribute to the breakdown of a person’s body and the breakdown of everything he builds (e.g., a home, a relationship, or a career). Gravity results in increasing sag and stress over time. Electromagnetic radiation corrodes the surfaces of all structures. Nuclear laws cause change in the fundamental building blocks.

Because of their propensity to defy God, individuals need discipline. God’s act of ejecting Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden to the world outside, where they had to plant their own gardens and deal, for example, with “thorns and thistles,” helped set in motion the discipline they needed to understand that God’s ways are best. The propensity to do things their own way (as opposed to following God’s wisdom), consigned Adam and Eve and their descendents to experience much more work and much more pain.

The second law of thermodynamics guarantees that whatever a man organizes, whatever he designs, and whatever information he accumulates becomes increasingly disordered. However, sin speeds up the breakdown. For example, if a man abuses his tools, they become less productive and wear out faster, leading him to experience more pain and more work when he uses them. If he abuses his animals, his employees, or a woman who might become his spouse, their response to the abuse causes him more work, less pleasure, and more pain.

God designed the laws of physics to gently but firmly encourage humankind to depart from sin. As Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 5 and 6, not all sins bring identical harm. Some sins defile more than others. The way God designed the laws of physics, the more defiling the sin, the more pain and/or work it generates. And the more sin an individual commits, the more pain and work he experiences. The laws of physics, unlike parents, teachers, and supervisors, allocate consistent and timely retribution. Moreover, physics discipline never misses, never forgets. By God’s design, it is neither too much nor too little.

I am also reminded of a similar question I used to ask myself: why are the foods that taste the best - the sweetest, the juiciest, and the most decadent - also the most unhealthy for our physical organism? Things are so structured that we are incentivized - assuming we are seeking higher ideals and reasoning properly - to turn away from immediate gratification in the sensory world and look for satisfaction in that which is eternal, so we are able to ascend back to our intuitive home and help lift others as well. We could think of many other such examples, such as the prevalence of STDs and broken homes in a sexually immoral culture. You may remember there is also a more mathematically oriented post here, which perhaps fits better into your own line of thinking.

I would add that, in any version of the project you undertake, I would recommend keeping in mind that "The [modest] goal here is to gradually learn to think differently", to quote Cleric from that post. None of these metaphors or summaries will produce understanding of higher cognitive realities out of themselves, but will instead help readers to loosen their rigid forms of sense-based thinking and gradually accustom their thinking organism to something supersensible and new. It will help form new habits of thinking and I think that goal is at the core of PoF.

[Güney27]

I'm currently working more with pof again, and I wanted to point out that I don't think Pof should really be read like a book by Bermardo kastrup, for example, but rather it's more of a training book for thinking.

I also have to say that Pof and Steiner's epistemological writings in general are his main work and have brought something new into the world.
The esoteric writings are nothing new; he adopted a lot from the Rosicrucians and theosophical literature in general when he worked there.
I only became aware of this when I started to deal with other esoteric writers, for example Manly P Hall.

[LukeJTM]

I'm currently working more with pof again, and I wanted to point out that I don't think Pof should really be read like a book by Bermardo kastrup, for example, but rather it's more of a training book for thinking.

I also have to say that Pof and Steiner's epistemological writings in general are his main work and have brought something new into the world.
The esoteric writings are nothing new; he adopted a lot from the Rosicrucians and theosophical literature in general when he worked there.
I only became aware of this when I started to deal with other esoteric writers, for example Manly P Hall.

Well there's nothing new under the sun, as people say.

I think what Steiner brought to esotericism that was unique was marrying clairvoyance and science together. For many centuries prior, science and spirituality or religion were very distinct or separate fields.

[AshvinP]

I'm currently working more with pof again, and I wanted to point out that I don't think Pof should really be read like a book by Bermardo kastrup, for example, but rather it's more of a training book for thinking.

I also have to say that Pof and Steiner's epistemological writings in general are his main work and have brought something new into the world.
The esoteric writings are nothing new; he adopted a lot from the Rosicrucians and theosophical literature in general when he worked there.
I only became aware of this when I started to deal with other esoteric writers, for example Manly P Hall.

Well there's nothing new under the sun, as people say.

I think what Steiner brought to esotericism that was unique was marrying clairvoyance and science together. For many centuries prior, science and spirituality or religion were very distinct or separate fields.

Indeed, that is a key marriage which earlier esotericists/occultists had envisioned and explored, but Steiner consummated in many ways. In the words of Thoreau,

"I, standing twenty miles off, see a crimson cloud in the horizon. You tell me it is a mass of vapor which absorbs all other rays and reflects the red, but that is nothing to the purpose... What sort of science is that which enriches the understanding, but robs the imagination? If we knew all things thus mechanically merely, should we know anything really?"

Steiner and PoF lead us to the realization that the intellectual study of nature is like training wheels for the Imagination - we eventually take them off so we can steer the bike through the force of our innermost inspirations and intuitions, our lucid conscience. In the words of Schelling, "to gain insight into Nature is to create Nature." We can not only observe Nature from a distance but artistically shape her, beginning from within our own soul-nature and radiating outwards.

[Federica]

Scott, how is your PoF Simplified going?

It's not, going, that is. I've run into a couple of problems I don't know how to deal with, so I've been preoccupied with thinking about them. One is "intuitive thinking", and how to present it in an esoterism-free way. Steiner defines "intuition" in PoF as "purely spiritual experience with purely spiritual contents". Which leads me to the second problem, that in English translations the words "spirit" and "soul" are used to translate "Geist" and "Seele". I don't know German well enough to tell if German usage of these terms is sufficiently like how anthroposophists use the terms, but it is a major problem for English speakers. "Spiritual" can be anything from church-going to ghosts to psychedelics, while "soul" can be "heartfeltness" or that part of one that survives death, and so on.

Now, as I have read some anthroposophy, I think I know what Steiner means by "purely spiritual experience with purely spiritual contents", but the only example I have for this is mathematical thinking. Which I value, but I fail to see how to get from that to moral intuition. As a math major I've known many mathematicians whose mathematical thinking is way more advanced than mine, but I can't say I've noticed any moral superiority among them, or that they are more "free". So something more is needed, and I'm not sure one can explain what it is without bringing in the esoteric.

By coincidence, I am listening to a passage by Scaligero that refers to that intuitive thinking:

Truth is the etheric power of thinking. That’s what truth is, there is no other truth. For example, when Galileo intuited those laws, the truth of those laws is the etheric moment when he had the intuition. That etheric moment is everything. That’s the intuition our Doctor speaks of in the Philosophy of Freedom.

So, good examples are mathematical thinking and the laws of Nature in general. From here, abstractifying from what C&A have multiple times developed, for example in the post above, one could probably say:

The same mathematical relations can be experienced immorally - when materialistically intended as models of physical reality - or morally, when idealistically recognized as symbols, contours, intuitions, of the makeup of our shared (with all other beings/ideals/intelligences) inner fabric (ideal fabric).

In other words, the intuition that your fellow mathematicians lacked in order to stand as moral agents in the world was the intuition of being one with the formalized mathematical relations, as thinking beings. It was their inability to recognize those mathematical relations as the shape of their interconnectedness with the spiritual world, i.e. with the intelligences reality is made of under idealism (as we could say to remain esoterism-free). That monistic intuition would have made them moral, since it would have synchronized them (put them in unison) with a reality of ideas that is intrinsically moral - since it’s the only, definitive, conscious truth.

[ScottRoberts]

I wonder if your project should be reoriented towards summarizing/simplifying or otherwise collating, not necessarily PoF, but Cleric's various metaphorical illustrations on this forum, which themselves explore the PoF ideas but in different ways, from different angles. Very few of them reference Steiner or esoteric scientific concepts, and they provide a very modern language for us to conceptually explore states of higher cognition. For ex., on the question of intuition and 'purely spiritual experience of purely spiritual contents', you could work with the following post. I realize the reference to the first-person perspective of the 'Elohim' in this context is esoteric, but I think it would be relatively easy to work around such references.


viewtopic.php?p=17123#p17123

Now the key to higher cognition is that this structured potential can be known in various degrees. This is evident even from the simple example above - if we recognize our affected stated, we already have grasped some of the curvature of the potential that we're forced to crystalize.
....

I think what you suggest would serve as a Part II to what I am working on. All I would hope to achieve is to show that idealism, and the evidence for consciousness evolution, implies that there is higher cognition, while a Part II would show how to get there. But that's beyond me for the present.

I would add that, in any version of the project you undertake, I would recommend keeping in mind that "The [modest] goal here is to gradually learn to think differently", to quote Cleric from that post. None of these metaphors or summaries will produce understanding of higher cognitive realities out of themselves, but will instead help readers to loosen their rigid forms of sense-based thinking and gradually accustom their thinking organism to something supersensible and new. It will help form new habits of thinking and I think that goal is at the core of PoF.

Yes. As I see it, idealism in itself should shake up one's thinking. Bluntly, if idealism is true, then we are insane, in that we look out at the world and don't perceive it as it is, as an environment of ideational activity. This is not a new idea (religions call it Original Sin, or Maya), but now, in the age of the consciousness soul, one can do something about it, through radical re-thinking.

[ScottRoberts]

By coincidence, I am listening to a passage by Scaligero that refers to that intuitive thinking:

Truth is the etheric power of thinking. That’s what truth is, there is no other truth. For example, when Galileo intuited those laws, the truth of those laws is the etheric moment when he had the intuition. That etheric moment is everything. That’s the intuition our Doctor speaks of in the Philosophy of Freedom.

So, good examples are mathematical thinking and the laws of Nature in general. From here, abstractifying from what C&A have multiple times developed, for example in the post above, one could probably say:

The same mathematical relations can be experienced immorally - when materialistically intended as models of physical reality -

That's not how I see it. Mathematicians are not concerned with models of physical reality. That's the province of mathematical physicists. Mathematicians, I would say, take pride in thinking of their work as amoral, as beyond all petty worldly concerns. Which, I suppose, is a kind of immorality.

or morally, when idealistically recognized as symbols, contours, intuitions, of the makeup of our shared (with all other beings/ideals/intelligences) inner fabric (ideal fabric).

In other words, the intuition that your mathematicians colleagues lacked in order to stand as moral agents in the world was the intuition of being one with the formalized mathematical relations, as thinking beings. It was their inability to recognize those mathematical relations as the shape of their interconnectedness with the spiritual world, i.e. with the intelligences reality is made of under idealism (as we could say to remain esoterism-free). That monistic intuition would have made them moral, since it would have synchronized them (put them in unison) with a reality of ideas that is intrinsically moral - since it’s the only, definitive, conscious truth.

Yes. Are you aware of Max Tegmark's Our Mathematical Universe? He is a mathematical physicist who postulates that all of reality consists of mathematical objects. But he is also a materialist, and so he leaves out of his theory the mathematicians, i.e., the intelligences.

[Federica]

By coincidence, I am listening to a passage by Scaligero that refers to that intuitive thinking:

Truth is the etheric power of thinking. That’s what truth is, there is no other truth. For example, when Galileo intuited those laws, the truth of those laws is the etheric moment when he had the intuition. That etheric moment is everything. That’s the intuition our Doctor speaks of in the Philosophy of Freedom.

So, good examples are mathematical thinking and the laws of Nature in general. From here, abstractifying from what C&A have multiple times developed, for example in the post above, one could probably say:

The same mathematical relations can be experienced immorally - when materialistically intended as models of physical reality -

That's not how I see it. Mathematicians are not concerned with models of physical reality. That's the province of mathematical physicists. Mathematicians, I would say, take pride in thinking of their work as amoral, as beyond all petty worldly concerns. Which, I suppose, is a kind of immorality.

Ok, let's say I was referring to mathematical physicists. But, as you say, seen from the perspective of PoF, the risk for the mathematicians is the same, if they take pride in abstract mathematics, i.e. arbitrarily constructed rules of transformation of arbitrarily defined quantities. The construction is the form of their own thinking life, but in their view they edify or discover an independent, objectified reality. To the extent that the ideal interconnectedness escapes them - blinded by the illusion of purity and detachment from petty worldly concerns, and unaware of the implicit assumptions - they incur the same amorality as the physicists who aim to model the laws of nature as described. Unless any of them starts making use of those same formalized math relations from within a higher cognition of reality, in which case, as said, they realize its intrinsic morality.

or morally, when idealistically recognized as symbols, contours, intuitions, of the makeup of our shared (with all other beings/ideals/intelligences) inner fabric (ideal fabric).

In other words, the intuition that your mathematicians colleagues lacked in order to stand as moral agents in the world was the intuition of being one with the formalized mathematical relations, as thinking beings. It was their inability to recognize those mathematical relations as the shape of their interconnectedness with the spiritual world, i.e. with the intelligences reality is made of under idealism (as we could say to remain esoterism-free). That monistic intuition would have made them moral, since it would have synchronized them (put them in unison) with a reality of ideas that is intrinsically moral - since it’s the only, definitive, conscious truth.

Yes. Are you aware of Max Tegmark's Our Mathematical Universe? He is a mathematical physicist who postulates that all of reality consists of mathematical objects. But he is also a materialist, and so he leaves out of his theory the mathematicians, i.e., the intelligences.

I don't know Tegmark's philosophy. I know very little of all these things, beyond what Cleric and Ashvin have written and linked to in this forum, that I'm trying to apply here.