KASTRUP AND SHELDRAKE ON THE COSMIC MIND

[Lou Gold]

Let's simplify according to the dictionary:

archetype

a very typical example of a certain person or thing.
"the book is a perfect archetype of the genre"

an original that has been imitated.
"the archetype of faith is Abraham"

Then, anything behaving like the originally named 'isness' or its common usage is exhibiting the influence of the archetype.

If one wants to be maximally free of the influence of external archetypes, stories or beings, one must become aware of one's original name.

[Cleric K]

Correct, there are many explanations where our thoughts come from other than archetypal beings, for example: karma; stresses in the body; field of pure awareness; and if the mind is elastic and porous, shared ideas\thoughts amongst families\societies\cultures.
As I understand 'archetypal beings', and archetypal beings as a source of thoughts\thinking, this would be like planet Saturn or catness (as inherent identities\essences of reality) feeding me thoughts or influencing my thinking?

I could of course try to explain more about the nature of archetypal beings but I realize that it won't go anywhere if we don't clarify why Idealism is called Idealism - that is, what has the word Idea have to do with it.

Let's take your example - karma. What is karma in your view? How is it possible that a certain action can attract some compensating experience? Why at all should this happen? Is it simply some mindless mechanism, some form of 'mental' electromagnetic force? Or there's something meaningful, some form of insight at some level of MAL, which understands that in this way a more encompassing goal can be pursued?

[Lou Gold]

Correct, there are many explanations where our thoughts come from other than archetypal beings, for example: karma; stresses in the body; field of pure awareness; and if the mind is elastic and porous, shared ideas\thoughts amongst families\societies\cultures.
As I understand 'archetypal beings', and archetypal beings as a source of thoughts\thinking, this would be like planet Saturn or catness (as inherent identities\essences of reality) feeding me thoughts or influencing my thinking?

I could of course try to explain more about the nature of archetypal beings but I realize that it won't go anywhere if we don't clarify why Idealism is called Idealism - that is, what has the word Idea have to do with it.

Let's take your example - karma. What is karma in your view? How is it possible that a certain action can attract some compensating experience? Why at all should this happen? Is it simply some mindless mechanism, some form of 'mental' electromagnetic force? Or there's something meaningful, some form of insight at some level of MAL, which understands that in this way a more encompassing goal can be pursued?

With your permission (or indulgence) let me shift from a serious word like 'karma' to a playful one like 'humor' to illustrate Cleric's point (as I understand it).

The great hippie clown Wavy Gravy once observed, If you don't have a sense of humor, it just won't be funny."

[lorenzop]

Correct, there are many explanations where our thoughts come from other than archetypal beings, for example: karma; stresses in the body; field of pure awareness; and if the mind is elastic and porous, shared ideas\thoughts amongst families\societies\cultures.
As I understand 'archetypal beings', and archetypal beings as a source of thoughts\thinking, this would be like planet Saturn or catness (as inherent identities\essences of reality) feeding me thoughts or influencing my thinking?

I could of course try to explain more about the nature of archetypal beings but I realize that it won't go anywhere if we don't clarify why Idealism is called Idealism - that is, what has the word Idea have to do with it.

Let's take your example - karma. What is karma in your view? How is it possible that a certain action can attract some compensating experience? Why at all should this happen? Is it simply some mindless mechanism, some form of 'mental' electromagnetic force? Or there's something meaningful, some form of insight at some level of MAL, which understands that in this way a more encompassing goal can be pursued?

Karma as a mindless mechanical force is simpler, more rational and intuitive. For example, if I throw a ball against a wall, or break balls in billiards, I don't see any advantage in believing the resulting motions involve the insight of an archetypical being. An argument could be made that karma has a bias and is therefore 'goal driven'.
Why do you believe that karma requires the insight of an intentional being? Do you think the motion of the planets around the Sun requires (insight) a being?

[Cleric K]

Karma as a mindless mechanical force is simpler, more rational and intuitive. For example, if I throw a ball against a wall, or break balls in billiards, I don't see any advantage in believing the resulting motions involve the insight of an archetypical being. An argument could be made that karma has a bias and is therefore 'goal driven'.
Why do you believe that karma requires the insight of an intentional being? Do you think the motion of the planets around the Sun requires (insight) a being?

We can put aside for a moment whether karma requires the insight of an intentional being. Let's look at how far we can go through your own example.

We can imagine that you throw a ball, a very small ball made of steel, an actual bullet. At the physical level, it's all the same if this ball lands on a rock or in a human body. Reality which is mechanical at its foundations (even if psychically (yet mindlessly) mechanical) doesn't distinguish between a rock and a human. No fundamental laws are violated in either case. But if we take karma in the way it is conveyed by spiritual traditions, we have to conceive that there is a difference.

In your view, if karma is a simple mechanical force, why would it have one behavior in the case of the rock and another in the human? Things become even more perplexing if we have to conceive how could that behavior affect the soul in a future incarnation. How would you explain karmic effects based on moral and immoral actions, through your purely mindless/mechanistic approach? Why such a mechanistic universe would even distinguish between moral and immoral - things that don't even make sense at a purely mindless level? Why and how would it 'keep record' of such things and influence human beings in their fate?

[Lou Gold]

Perhaps some interesting evidence of the impact of disincarnate beings is found in the current research [url]https://www.google.com/search?q=epigene ... p#ip=1/url] on the epigenetic consequences of intergenerational trauma.

[lorenzop]

Karma as a mindless mechanical force is simpler, more rational and intuitive. For example, if I throw a ball against a wall, or break balls in billiards, I don't see any advantage in believing the resulting motions involve the insight of an archetypical being. An argument could be made that karma has a bias and is therefore 'goal driven'.
Why do you believe that karma requires the insight of an intentional being? Do you think the motion of the planets around the Sun requires (insight) a being?

We can put aside for a moment whether karma requires the insight of an intentional being. Let's look at how far we can go through your own example.

We can imagine that you throw a ball, a very small ball made of steel, an actual bullet. At the physical level, it's all the same if this ball lands on a rock or in a human body. Reality which is mechanical at its foundations (even if psychically (yet mindlessly) mechanical) doesn't distinguish between a rock and a human. No fundamental laws are violated in either case. But if we take karma in the way it is conveyed by spiritual traditions, we have to conceive that there is a difference.

In your view, if karma is a simple mechanical force, why would it have one behavior in the case of the rock and another in the human? Things become even more perplexing if we have to conceive how could that behavior affect the soul in a future incarnation. How would you explain karmic effects based on moral and immoral actions, through your purely mindless/mechanistic approach? Why such a mechanistic universe would even distinguish between moral and immoral - things that don't even make sense at a purely mindless level? Why and how would it 'keep record' of such things and influence human beings in their fate?

Perhaps in a purely materialist\physicalist POV we can't account for the difference between a bullet passing through an orange vs passing through a person . . . but my suggestion that karma is mechanical doesn't mean events in consciousness or events that effect consciousness don't have consequences. We all know that speaking ill of someone has consequences, and these consequences can be explained mechanically (at least in principle) without adding an intermediary archetypical being.

[Lou Gold]

I believe this recent Sheldrake/Vernon dialogue is highly revelent. Hope you'll check it out.

[Cleric K]

Perhaps in a purely materialist\physicalist POV we can't account for the difference between a bullet passing through an orange vs passing through a person . . . but my suggestion that karma is mechanical doesn't mean events in consciousness or events that effect consciousness don't have consequences. We all know that speaking ill of someone has consequences, and these consequences can be explained mechanically (at least in principle) without adding an intermediary archetypical being.

That's good. But let's see how far these mechanics can go. Because if we take as an example ill speaking, as far as we can clearly trace the cause-effect chain through billiard balls (larynx, sound waves, ears, etc.) things are practically indistinguishable from physicalism. Consider this quote:

Around that time (1914-1915), there dwelt in Dornach a young woman who lived in severe conflict with her husband and sought to divorce him. Moved by compassion, Rudolf Steiner helped her out with much kindness and infinite patience. Gradually, the young woman reached a state of inner balance and wrote her husband asking to return to him. However, the man rejected her request, in a cold dismissive tone. She came to Rudolf Steiner with her husband’s letter, in a state of despair.

“Yes,” he said, “You see, that’s only the result of all those reproachful, angry, and hostile letters you wrote him.”

“But, Herr Doctor!”, she exclaimed, “I never sent the letters, but always tore them up! I only wrote them to ease my pain!”

“Yes,” said Steiner, “but his soul received them all.”

Is such, in modern terms we can call it 'non-local', influence plausible in your view?

It should be noted that this is still only half of the issue. We're speaking about effecting something, but the other half has to explain why such effects can have later karmic compensation (possibly in a future life), which is simply incomprehensible outside the question of what is moral and immoral. See, what makes karma challenging for the modern mind is not that actions have consequences. This is an obvious fact. The strange thing is that actions can have consequences for their issuer (not only for the one we act upon) in mysterious and roundabout ways, based on the moral value of the action. Also note that what we're now discussing is not some SS musing. The Upanishads that you often refer to, rest upon the question of karma, how moral and immoral actions determine the next life, and so on. But we can leave this second half for the next iteration. Because if our outlook turns out to be indistinguishable from physicalism, then the second half becomes completely bogus.

[lorenzop]

I can't respond to the story because I can't respond to Steiner's particular explanation as a 'truth'. Re your questions I don't see any issues with 'non-local' and etc. in an infinite field of consciousness.
However, I fail to see how the addition of archetypical beings answers your questions - even if true it simply gives the 'mystery' a name but doesn't explain anything. For example, we could assign romantic love as the result of the 'slings and arrows of Cupid' . . . but that's neither an answer or an explanation.