KASTRUP AND SHELDRAKE ON THE COSMIC MIND

[Cleric K]

OK, this is a good progress in the dialogue, I believe. Would it be fair to say that there is a divine as well as a vulgar(dysfunctional) version of the diversity of ways and means?

Sure, just as there can be cacophony and harmony.

[Lou Gold]

OK. I just wanted to clarify that respect for a diversity of ways does not mean that anything goes or that there's not one best way for a particular person.

Thanks and good tidings to you.

[lorenzop]

You could make a case for the advantage or necessity of archetypical beings in an explanation of karma, technically it's not my duty to argue in opposition since it's your claim.

Then maybe you can make a case about the nature of mindless/mechanical processes (because this is not as self-evident as many believe).

We need to make a very subtle but very important distinction here. In reality, we have no direct evidence of anything of mechanical nature. What we have direct evidence of, is the metamorphosis of our conscious contents (perceptions, sensations, feelings) which we do not understand and for which we have no idea how and why they appear, transform, and disappear. As a matter of fact, as we have said a million times, the only thing for which we have some idea for its appearance, transformation, and disappearance, is our willful thinking.

Would you agree that the more certain thing, is to say that we simply don't know how and why most of our existence metamorphoses? Would you agree that by declaring that the processes are mindless and mechanical we're actually going beyond the direct experience? In fact, by saying such a thing we practically 'explain' the world by introducing a mechanical and mindless ghost into Nature. It's one thing to observe the facts but quite another to introduce an explanatory ghost. For example, we can see billiard balls ricocheting in waking life or while dreaming. These are the bare perceptual facts. It immediately becomes apparent, however, how in trying to explain the facts, we're going in quite speculative directions if we declare that our dream billiard balls are governed by mechanical laws.

See, the difference is subtle but tremendously important. Do you sense the difference between not yet knowing the true nature of what makes the world metamorphose, and assuming that these metamorphoses are driven by mindless/mechanical laws? Do you sense that in the latter case we add a layer of superstition on top of the direct experience?

I repeat that the key here is not to conflate the simple and repeatable perceptions of the hitting balls, with the idea that there's some mindless and mechanical Nature behind these appearances. The latter idea simply does not follow automatically from the perceptions.

Karma itself is a belief, and believing whether karma is driven by an impersonal or personal force is stacking one belief on top of another belief - - so there really is no end to this conversation. Regarding Nature as having a heart or mind is an (honest\authentic) intuition, not a preference. Personally, I don't share that intuition . . . maybe someday.

[AshvinP]

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?

Not that I have any illusion this will influence your view, but it should be mentioned how surreptitiously you have thrown out the "I" who is throwing the ball, breaking the billiard balls, and so forth. This is the 'coherent center' mentioned on the other thread, which is not another 'ball' that will be found on the billiards table, but is the active and insightful force that intends to break the balls for some particular purpose. How can this active and insightful force simply be left out of the flow of reality altogether? Only by thinking away its own existence through some materialistic or mystical reasoning. Then naturally any talk of a 'coherent center' will sound like nonsense because we have obscured it from our thinking.





The "I" can't directly see itself in the process of breaking the balls, as another ball that is being broken, so it forgets about its own existence when theorizing about the 'laws' of reality. It is the same thing every scientist does when they forget to account for the fact that their "I" sets up the experiments that elicit certain movements of natural processes and their "I" analyzes the results to formulate 'laws of nature'. Of course, if the insightful agency that always links Idea and Perception is completely blotted out from consciousness, everything will start to seem mindless and mechanical.

Likewise, it is the insightful and active "I" that doesn't see any advantage in believing some things and not others, or that mimics the transformation of perceptual states in its concepts and thereby derives the 'laws of motion' for planets around the Sun. It is the same "I" that disregards the perceptual states and simply extrapolates the mechanical 'laws of motion' into mathematical models that will supposedly hold good for all time (which has already proven to be a false assumption of the "I" according to the latest research of planetary motion). It is the "I" that dreams it needs to believe in things rather than know them because it forgot its own insightful agency by which all is known.

[Lou Gold]

You could make a case for the advantage or necessity of archetypical beings in an explanation of karma, technically it's not my duty to argue in opposition since it's your claim.

Then maybe you can make a case about the nature of mindless/mechanical processes (because this is not as self-evident as many believe).

We need to make a very subtle but very important distinction here. In reality, we have no direct evidence of anything of mechanical nature. What we have direct evidence of, is the metamorphosis of our conscious contents (perceptions, sensations, feelings) which we do not understand and for which we have no idea how and why they appear, transform, and disappear. As a matter of fact, as we have said a million times, the only thing for which we have some idea for its appearance, transformation, and disappearance, is our willful thinking.

Would you agree that the more certain thing, is to say that we simply don't know how and why most of our existence metamorphoses? Would you agree that by declaring that the processes are mindless and mechanical we're actually going beyond the direct experience? In fact, by saying such a thing we practically 'explain' the world by introducing a mechanical and mindless ghost into Nature. It's one thing to observe the facts but quite another to introduce an explanatory ghost. For example, we can see billiard balls ricocheting in waking life or while dreaming. These are the bare perceptual facts. It immediately becomes apparent, however, how in trying to explain the facts, we're going in quite speculative directions if we declare that our dream billiard balls are governed by mechanical laws.

See, the difference is subtle but tremendously important. Do you sense the difference between not yet knowing the true nature of what makes the world metamorphose, and assuming that these metamorphoses are driven by mindless/mechanical laws? Do you sense that in the latter case we add a layer of superstition on top of the direct experience?

I repeat that the key here is not to conflate the simple and repeatable perceptions of the hitting balls, with the idea that there's some mindless and mechanical Nature behind these appearances. The latter idea simply does not follow automatically from the perceptions.

Karma itself is a belief, and believing whether karma is driven by an impersonal or personal force is stacking one belief on top of another belief - - so there really is no end to this conversation. Regarding Nature as having a heart or mind is an (honest\authentic) intuition, not a preference. Personally, I don't share that intuition . . . maybe someday.

lorenzop,

You might contemplate the works of Rupert Sheldrake who has focused on the gaps in mechanistic materialism and has attempted to open new spaces of plausibility into the present standard model/paradigm. I'm not suggesting that you adopt his specific model of morphic resonance, only that you may find contemplating his perspective on science as useful in your process.

I'm gonna watch this debate today

[Lou Gold]

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?

Not that I have any illusion this will influence your view, but it should be mentioned how surreptitiously you have thrown out the "I" who is throwing the ball, breaking the billiard balls, and so forth. This is the 'coherent center' mentioned on the other thread, which is not another 'ball' that will be found on the billiards table, but is the active and insightful force that intends to break the balls for some particular purpose. How can this active and insightful force simply be left out of the flow of reality altogether? Only by thinking away its own existence through some materialistic or mystical reasoning. Then naturally any talk of a 'coherent center' will sound like nonsense because we have obscured it from our thinking.





The "I" can't directly see itself in the process of breaking the balls, as another ball that is being broken, so it forgets about its own existence when theorizing about the 'laws' of reality. It is the same thing every scientist does when they forget to account for the fact that their "I" sets up the experiments that elicit certain movements of natural processes and their "I" analyzes the results to formulate 'laws of nature'. Of course, if the insightful agency that always links Idea and Perception is completely blotted out from consciousness, everything will start to seem mindless and mechanical.

Likewise, it is the insightful and active "I" that doesn't see any advantage in believing some things and not others, or that mimics the transformation of perceptual states in its concepts and thereby derives the 'laws of motion' for planets around the Sun. It is the same "I" that disregards the perceptual states and simply extrapolates the mechanical 'laws of motion' into mathematical models that will supposedly hold good for all time (which has already proven to be a false assumption of the "I" according to the latest research of planetary motion). It is the "I" that dreams it needs to believe in things rather than know them because it forgot its own insightful agency by which all is known.

Ashvin,

Granted that thinking is the port of entry, I believe that, "who is doing the thinking" is the more interesting question. Are you familiar with the story of the enlightenment of the 20th Century Indian sage Sri Auribindo who greatly influenced the human potential movement in the US??

[Federica]

Granted that thinking is the port of entry, I believe that, "who is doing the thinking" is the more interesting question.

There is an unwarranted hidden premise in the question here, Lou: "thinking is a functionality that something/someone "does" in relation to something/someone else".... But thinking is the foundational constituent of the entire Cosmos!

It constitutes all reality, that is, all intelligences, directly! Not that someone, being outside thinking, does the thinking. It's not that we are a body with an organ that does the thinking and/or some other mysterious agent is doing it for us, unbeknownst to us. Any other impressions that obscure this reality are impoverished perceptions going around in circles in the sensory spectrum, read through the prism of favorite interpretation grids - hopelessly arbitrary.

Let's see beyond the grids, through us. We are a flow of conscious experiences in the process of recovering awareness of its entire depth of being as part of the primordial thinking fluid. Is it possible to take this idea seriously in oneself?

[Lou Gold]

Granted that thinking is the port of entry, I believe that, "who is doing the thinking" is the more interesting question.

There is an unwarranted hidden premise in the question here, Lou: "thinking is a functionality that something/someone "does" in relation to something/someone else".... But thinking is the foundational constituent of the entire Cosmos!

It constitutes all reality, that is, all intelligences, directly! Not that someone, being outside thinking, does the thinking. It's not that we are a body with an organ that does the thinking and/or some other mysterious agent is doing it for us, unbeknownst to us. Any other impressions that obscure this reality are impoverished perceptions going around in circles in the sensory spectrum, read through the prism of favorite interpretation grids - hopelessly arbitrary.

Let's see beyond the grids, through us. We are a flow of conscious experiences in the process of recovering awareness of its entire depth of being as part of the primordial thinking fluid. Is it possible to take this idea seriously in oneself?

I understand your view that all is thought and do not dispute it. Do you assign any meaning to planes of consciousness or the existence of archetypal beings? How shall we speak of them in the context of all is thought? Is it valid to ask, "who is thinking this thought?"

[lorenzop]

Not that I have any illusion this will influence your view, but it should be mentioned how surreptitiously you have thrown out the "I" who is throwing the ball, breaking the billiard balls, and so forth. This is the 'coherent center' mentioned on the other thread, which is not another 'ball' that will be found on the billiards table, but is the active and insightful force that intends to break the balls for some particular purpose. How can this active and insightful force simply be left out of the flow of reality altogether? Only by thinking away its own existence through some materialistic or mystical reasoning. Then naturally any talk of a 'coherent center' will sound like nonsense because we have obscured it from our thinking.


The "I" can't directly see itself in the process of breaking the balls, as another ball that is being broken, so it forgets about its own existence when theorizing about the 'laws' of reality. It is the same thing every scientist does when they forget to account for the fact that their "I" sets up the experiments that elicit certain movements of natural processes and their "I" analyzes the results to formulate 'laws of nature'. Of course, if the insightful agency that always links Idea and Perception is completely blotted out from consciousness, everything will start to seem mindless and mechanical.

Likewise, it is the insightful and active "I" that doesn't see any advantage in believing some things and not others, or that mimics the transformation of perceptual states in its concepts and thereby derives the 'laws of motion' for planets around the Sun. It is the same "I" that disregards the perceptual states and simply extrapolates the mechanical 'laws of motion' into mathematical models that will supposedly hold good for all time (which has already proven to be a false assumption of the "I" according to the latest research of planetary motion). It is the "I" that dreams it needs to believe in things rather than know them because it forgot its own insightful agency by which all is known.

Again, I'll simply repeat what I stated above, Karma is a belief, and whether this belief includes an impersonal force or a God(s) as manager is an intuition and not a truth. 'Karma' is an idea that belongs to a separate self, the separate self as the feeling that I am a separate human being and live a separate life. The separate self is not a 'coherent center', it is a wisp of a thing and requires minute by minute grasping to maintain it. 'Being' is not subject to or effected by karma.

[Lou Gold]

I believe Sheldrake would basically agree wit what you've said. He see all nature as alive (for example, the sun is a living being). However, he considers himself as a cosmo-panpsychist. Can you describe specifically where you disagree with him?

I'm not familiar with Sheldrake's work in great depth, but from what I have encountered, I wouldn't say that I disagree with him. For example, his morphogenetic fields can very well be considered as synonymous with what in Western esoterism is called etheric forces.

The difference would only come when we consider the method of knowing. It's obvious that in our ordinary consciousness we have no sense organ for morphic fields. We know only the bodily senses. Thus when we speak of them, they become abstract theories, they remain only as thoughts in our intellect. So I wouldn't say that I disagree with him but only that if these things are not to remain abstractions, we need also the method Initiation. Man has to find lucid consciousness in the strata where these fields are found as ideal reality, just like we find our thoughts and ideas as reality.

If we speak with Sheldrake and he's honest and good-willed, he would have to say "I don't deny that human consciousness can grow into these spiritual depths of existence, but I don't consider it my mission to go in that direction and lead others. I confine myself in spreading intellectual awareness". And that's fine. Such intellectual works can and in a sense must appear in the historical process of humankind. It's only that they should be understood as a prelude to the actual expansion of consciousness into the full spectrum of reality. If they are not understood in this way, they become an obstacle to the development of the human being. Then it would be appropriate to say: “Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter in yourselves [in the Kingdom of God], and those who were entering in you hindered.” (Luke 11:52)

Cleric offers:

The difference would only come when we consider the method of knowing. It's obvious that in our ordinary consciousness we have no sense organ for morphic fields. We know only the bodily senses. Thus when we speak of them, they become abstract theories, they remain only as thoughts in our intellect. So I wouldn't say that I disagree with him but only that if these things are not to remain abstractions, we need also the method Initiation. Man has to find lucid consciousness in the strata where these fields are found as ideal reality, just like we find our thoughts and ideas as reality.

Lou offers:

Doesn't Sheldrake say that we do have senses for energetic fields as when we quite commonly think of someone just before they phone us or when we sense that someone is looking at us and turn toward the exact local. And he speaks of these senses not being limited to humans in the example of dogs knowing when their owners are on the way home. Furthermore, he offers published scientific investigations of these phenomena. How does this fit into your view?