Stranger wrote: ↑Wed May 22, 2024 7:48 pm
The problem is that mathematics is by nature a mental abstraction. Yet, from the direct experience we know that the sensory experiences are always structured with precise mathematical regularities, and if we want to approach and understand/explain this fact, we need to use mathematics. There is a paradox here, may be Cleric can elaborate on this.
We need to be extra careful here. We know that true paradoxes do not exist. Paradoxes are contradictory thought-flows, like the Barber paradox.
So to solve this paradox we need to investigate the so far unquestioned thinking channels within which our cognitive flow meanders. The problem stems from the very beginning when you say:
Stranger wrote: ↑Tue May 21, 2024 11:15 pm
Obviously, notwithstanding the undeniable experiential fact that all we know about ourselves and reality is only conscious experiences, it is also
undeniable fact that sensory experiences are highly ordered and structured mathematically, and this fact needs to be explained. This is precisely what DH theory is trying to address. Obviously, structured perceptional experiences constitute only a limited set of the totality of our conscious experiences (which includes all kinds of non-sensory experiences that are not mathematically structured), and so, CA theory would have only a limited applicability and cannot be claimed to be the exhaustive theory of consciousness.
The bold part has a factual side - the fact that there's intuited lawfulness of our physical flow - but also an implicit side that secretly gets dragged along and causes all kinds of trouble.
What do we conceive of when we say "sensory experiences are highly ordered and structured mathematically"? The phenomenological thing to say would be "When I think mathematically, when I transform through cognitive states following the rules of calculation, I experience quantities which when mapped to other quantified perceptions, fit very well." This is a safe position because we state only a phenomenological fact. It remains a plain truth no matter what the deeper facts could reveal. When we say that the sensory experiences are structured mathematically, we place stronger demand because we now secretly conceive of a mathematical ghost that governs the sensory transformations.
To put that more graphically we can consider: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." When we take our present conscious perspective as a basis (even if non-dually purified), we are tempted to imagine that God pictured in his divine mind, for example, the planets, then scratched his head and said: "Hmm.. let me see what to do with those... Of all the possible ways they can move, I'll constrain them into elliptic pathways." So God intends his mathematical intuition over the sensory forms (which condense from his divine imagination) and makes sure they conform to the elliptical equations.
This is basically the way these things were approached in the early intellectual days, for example, by Kepler with his orbital equations. These people still had very strong religious feelings and were enthusiastic because they believed that in the mathematical formulas they think the same thoughts of God, that rule the world as laws of nature. For example, Kepler could have imagined that God indeed thought "I will make planets sweep equal areas of their orbital ellipse for the same interval of time." Thus, when we discover this mathematical idea we imagine that we have discovered
the ideal law that governs the physical transformations.
Thus, we need to be very careful when we ask questions. Even without noticing, the question in itself already contains a whole hidden framework
within which it expects the answer.
If we are careful, we'll see that even in Genesis we are hinted at a deeply esoteric fact (alluded to even in the early pages of PoF by Steiner). The Elohim first do their creative work and
then perceive the results (which were good). A miniature manifestation of this process is found all the time in our thinking. We intuitively steer our flow of becoming and then we perceive the sounds of our thinking voice. Normally these are so blurred together that we pay no attention but in meditation, when we try to 'split the now', we can indeed feel our thought perceptions as a receding echo of our invisible intuitive gestures.
One way to metaphorically approach this mystery is through the IFS analogy (Ashvin uses it in the essays and previously it was more graphically expanded in our conversation with Cosmin
here). Please, take some time to play with the IFS web tool. Try to feel how the movements of the coordinate frames (the L shapes) produce the most varied forms. Most importantly, try to feel how it is not so easy to predict what the result would be. In a sense, we first do (move the frames) and then we see (whether it is good or not). Then in
retrospect we can analyze the forms, find certain mathematical ratios, and so on. But imagine that we don't know how the forms have been produced. Then we take the orderly structured forms and wonder what mathematical thoughts have placed them in such patterns. This leads us to a dead end because the forms were never produced by 'horizontal' patching.
This is only an analogy but it can help us gain some intuition about reality. When we behold the lawfulness of the inner World content, we wonder what mathematical laws have been used to arrange the forms in such a way and constrain their metamorphoses. This, however, is the wrong question to ask, because even the Gods did not produce the forms in such a way. Instead, the individual contextual fields of the Cosmic Mind, intend their intuitive steering (analogous to the invisible L-shape movements) and as a result, the World state implodes in corresponding ways (as if adding Time tree-rings). All this can be so vividly experienced in meditation, only if we are willing to experiment with our inner activity. Our intuitive movements continuously implode thought forms as an integrating memory picture. The perception of the World state is such a Cosmic Memory picture that continually implodes based on the intuitive movements within the mind fields (the morphing vowels exercise is one way to get an intimate experience of this process).
So with all this said, we have to pay special attention to what we are trying to do when we seek the mathematical structure of the sensory world. When we seek the laws of physics we are analyzing only the memory picture of the Cosmos. We try to explain the patterns and transformations of the continuously imploding memory picture through relations that we find
entirely within that picture. This holds for formal thinking as a whole. Mathematical thinking, propositional logic, etc. (for pictorial intuition of that I remind of
this post) are forms of steering the flow of our states according to rules that we have extracted from the perceptual/memory tableau. Similarly to the quote about language and words that Federica posted, in this way we traverse rigid space of possible cognitive states. The memory pictures dictate the dynamics of our intuitive L-movements. In a sense, we only repeat our past movements in different combinations.
Stranger wrote: ↑Wed May 22, 2024 8:51 pm
I agree. But with all that said, the question again is how to integrate this living insightful approach with mathematics which is by nature a mental abstraction,
so that we can continue developing sciences and technologies in more harmonious ways while still using all the power of mathematical tooling.
The bold part again contains much implicit baggage. All our science and technology can be compared to a function optimization process. Every earthly activity is affected by many variables. We produce technology, tools, yet we modify the World state always in one and the same way - through the intuitive modification of our L-movements and observing the perceptual feedback of the imploding memory picture of the Cosmos. I think the recent advances in machine learning (which is a fancy word precisely for a function optimization problem) clearly show that. More and more scientists become skeptical that there are intellectually graspable mathematical laws of Nature at its foundation (which would imply that old Keplerian thinking - that God animates the World content based on intellectual mathematical thinking). Recent successes in protein folding, complex gravitational simulations, etc., show that we can pretty decently mimic these systems by taking a function with millions of coefficients and tweaking them until the function fits the training data. With this no one is under the illusion that this is how reality works - we simply mimic its appearances (the parts that we can quantify). However, on the positive side, this may help us understand that our traditional physics thinking is not that different after all. It all boils down to realizing that the higher order minds do not move their Ls according to computations in the way we manifest them in our stepwise cognitive sequences. This of course doesn't mean that these L-movements do not exist in certain lawful relations. It's precisely the latter that implode into the Cosmic memory tableau which seems structured and lawful. Morph the Ls - that is, steer our intuitive intents differently - and the imploding picture of the World state morphs too.
If we want to continue developing sciences and technology through the mathematical tooling, we need to support the
duality between the inner perceptual/memory picture of the World state and our deeper spiritual activity. We seek mathematical relations within the memory tableau and use that as feedback to change the coefficients of our Ls, through which we manifest the inner activity that builds the technological tools and utilizes them. In short, this kind of science and thinking, feel comfortable only when the movements of the Ls are impelled by patterns contained in the memory tableau. Then these patterns are repeated in different combinations. In other words, our scientific and formal thinking is entirely driven by that which is already
past, that which can be discerned as patterns in the memory tableau. Creativity in this sense is simply a lucky coincidence of factors that we can't predict.
To move toward a brighter future, we can no longer consider the Cosmic memory tableau as something separate and ruled by its own mathematical laws, while our subtler being hovers over it and somehow interacts with it. If we see things in this way it is obvious that we could manipulate the sensory panorama only if we understand the laws that govern it. Then from above, we imagine, we could manipulate those laws such that we can guide the sensory metamorphoses in any way we see fit (hopefully morally inspired). This, however, leaves the physical world as an object-in-itself, driven by its intrinsic laws, which are different from whatever drives the flow of our soul and spiritual states. I believe that the IFS metaphor can help us gain an intuition of how these two worlds are One.
So if we can't find the laws-in-themselves that govern the physical world, then how should we perfect our science and technologies? By first perfecting them within our innermost flow of being. We shall start by investigating how we intuitively steer the flow of existence (symbolized with the L shapes) and how this affects the imploding perceptual/memory tableau of the World state. We need to realize that all forces that constrain the movements of our Ls are invisible (supersensible), they are not something that we see in the tableau (although they can be Imaginatively symbolized). In the same way, the Ls in the IFS are not something that we see in the fractal image, yet they guide the recursive implosion.
Today we need to strive for mastering the inner flow. How to steer the imploding movie flow through our intuitive intents, how the latter are constrained, resisted, shaped by those of other beings, along the whole gradient of the Cosmic Mind. As Ashvin noted, the first fruits of this mastery will manifest as inner balance, self-control, healing, etc. However, the more we collectively master our flows and attune to each other and the higher flows, the more harmonious the whole World flow will be.
If we take something like agriculture we see that it is a constant war with pests, diseases, bad weather, and so on. This may seem crazy today, but when we better organize the flow, the whole environment will be steered differently. Some people even today may have experience with this in their gardens, where the moral forces of the gardener overflow the etheric body and positively influence the etheric body of the whole garden, they become fused. It's as if the gardener connects his blood and lymph system to that of the surrounding environment and now his inner strength and immune forces spread out and benefit the common organism.
Yes, such things indeed seem crazy today. It's hard to believe that the gardeners of the future would have to fuse their etheric bodies to that of the garden. Then, just like we have inner experiences within our brain, limbs, etc., so our consciousness expands and have inner experiences in the whole volume of the garden. Then movements of our Ls can implode the World state in a direction that results in better health for our common organism. Then pests, for example, will simply have no interest in the garden. They would find it distasteful, just like a scoundrel has no interest in going to the library.
Here it is very important to realize that we can't achieve this harmonic fusion one-sidedly and become a dictator over the garden. The life processes in the garden are steered by even higher L-movements. It's not about usurping this activity but about attuning to it and guiding it based on the insight and needs within the physical world. When these needs are in tune with the general World evolution, the higher collective beings of the plant world will gladly resonate with our intents because it is for everyone's benefit. Thus we see how morality plays in here. If we want to grow the food only to sell it and use the money for our own personal goals, it might be difficult to find harmonious mutual relations with the higher flow.
Things become even more magical when we reach the physical world. The devices of the future won't be something that utilize our better understanding of the laws of the physical-world-in-itself, but instead will be something like
amplifiers of our inner intents. Our L-movements would cascade through the stages of the device and manifest on a larger scale. Here, however, even deeper moral coordination will be needed. Even if we could get our hands on one such future device today, it would simply not work. No one would be able to set it in motion. This is simply due to the fact that the devices don't utilize some hardcoded laws of Nature that are immutable and independent of everything else. This is probably the greatest obstacle to present scientific thinking. It's not about learning the laws of something external to us and then utilizing it, but about flowing together with the inner flow of the lawfulness (the highest order Ls). So it's not about manipulating the law but
becoming the law. And since the laws of the physical world are the most universal, so the moral integrity needed for this future technology will be of the highest degree. In a sense, the seeming statistical randomness of our world results from the constant tug of war of the most varied conflicting intuitive intents. The Gaussian randomness is something like the smeared-out average of this tug of war. The future physico-spiritual technology will rest upon the fact that different levels of the mind fields become concentric, as if conspiring toward a common goal. Then it is as if the total wavefunction of the World state becomes 'biased' towards something that deviates from the pure random distribution.
This is a lot to digest but I hope it gives a direction. The most important thing to realize is that as long as we try to reach insight into the laws of the physical world (mathematical or otherwise) we keep conceiving of the latter as something separate that can be manipulated only through the
indirection of our mathematical thinking. These mathematical thought-fragments form a
screen that stands between our inner activity and the true inner Cosmic activity that moves the Ls. To take part in the implosion in its true nature, we need the inner expansion of consciousness and attunement all the way to the highest order contextual Ls. Of course, before we reach this stage, we need to go through mastery of our personal sphere, then the social/soul sphere (connected also with the ensouled animal world), then the life sphere (shared with the plant world) and only then we can reach the inner reality of the L forces that manifest the implosion of the physical aspects of the World flow. It is not that these should be achieved one by one, in the sense that we need to be fully ready with the social attunement before we proceed with the life spectrum. We are always working on all of them simultaneously, yet the degree to which we can master them depends on the more proximate layers. We can't have our conscious flow expanded in the garden if we haven't organized our personal sphere (which would otherwise continuously collapse the flow into our personal organs, desires, problems, etc.)