Saving the materialists

[AshvinP]

You ask a meaningful question, Ashvin. If things-in-themselves are by definition unknowable to me—if they “could not overlap with the domain of intuition/sensibility in any way, because in that case I would know their existence”—then how can I make such references [to things-in-themselves, even if only as “problematic”] but simultaneously say they have *no useful role* in explaining the possibilities of experience?

The answer to this question has to do with the essence of critical philosophizing. The critical philosopher can neither affirm nor deny the transcendental reality of things-in-themselves because then he’d eo ipso lapse into dogmatic transcendental realism or into dogmatic metaphysical solipsism respectively.

The maintenance of the problematic status of things-in-themselves is mainly a sort of “check” whose function is to remind the critical philosopher that—though he cannot possibly know whether there is a transcendental reality beyond his sphere of consciousness or not—he can legitimately claim knowledge only of what arises in his experience (therefore making preferable the empirical realist criterion of truth, because the transcendental realist criterion leads inevitably always to the abyss of skepticism).

Yes, it is true that things-in-themselves “play *no useful role* in explaining possibilities of experience”, and we must therefore seek to ground objectivity on the basis of empirical realism; but the enterprise of critical philosophizing *demands* that the possibility of a transcendental reality be at least acknowledged as “problematic”, even if we repudiate the transcendental realist criterion of truth in favor of the empirical realist.
The transcendental solipsist does not use the concept of the transcendent in an attempt to explain experience—and he even acknowledges that there may not even exist any transcendent at all to begin with—but he does maintain the problematic status of the transcendent in order to prevent from lapsing either into dogmatic transcendental realism or into dogmatic metaphysical solipsism.

The critical philosopher must maintain the problematic status of the transcendent because, insofar as he does away with it entirely, he may deceive himself by believing that he knows or can know everything. The purpose of the maintenance of the specifically *problematic* status of the transcendent is to humble the critical philosopher; to remind him that (even if he can explore experience and know it intimately, thoroughly, and profoundly) it is still always *possible* that there is a transcendent forever beyond the scope of his possible knowledge/experience.
The maintenance of the problematic status of the transcendent is, therefore, not for the end of explaining experience (as we have already established); such maintenance functions, rather, to remind the critical philosopher of his limits.

In a word, Ashvin, the reason for maintaining the *problematic* concept of the transcendent (emphasis on “problematic”) is to prevent the critical philosopher from believing that he knows or can know everything.

I hope this clarifies why references to things-in-themselves in discussions of freedom and other minds don’t contradict their lack of explanatory role; such references serve to mark the boundaries of possible knowledge rather than to explain experience itself. The critical philosopher can fully investigate experience while remaining humble about the possibility of what *might* lie beyond it (that is, *if* there is anything beyond it). This creates an interesting resolution, Ashvin: we can fully investigate experience and other minds as they appear within consciousness while maintaining critical awareness that our knowledge, however thorough, may not exhaust reality. The problematic status of things-in-themselves serves not to explain experience but to prevent philosophical hubris.

“From all this it follows that it is not in keeping with the nature of philosophy, especially in the field of pure reason, to take pride in a dogmatic procedure, and to deck itself out with the title and insignia of mathematics, to whose ranks it does not belong, though it has every ground to hope for a sisterly union with it. Such pretensions are idle claims which can never be satisfied, and indeed must divert philosophy from its true purpose, namely, to expose the illusions of a reason that forgets its limits, and by sufficiently clarifying our concepts to recall it from its presumptuous speculative pursuits to modest but thorough self-knowledge” (Kant, KrV, A 735, B 763)


Thanks, Felipe, your response indeed clarifies many things for me. There are two main points I want to make in response:

1/ I don't think it is accurate that, by denying the transcendent reality of things-themselves, we necessarily lapse into metaphysical solipsism (if the latter is understood as an affirmation of 'MY currently experienced domain of immanent representations is the source of all possible existence'). In fact, the scientific method is (in ideal circumstances) based on the fact that we can hold concepts without letting them influence our direction of thinking. A scientist can say, "the thought has occurred to me that Universe is not unified, lawful, or capable of coherent inquiry, yet I will cast aside this thought as if it doesn't point to anything real and continue conducting my experiments in good faith". We can likewise say, "this concept of things-themselves has occurred to me but does not point to anything real or of practical import, so I will not let it influence my thinking and will continue conducting my inquiries on the flow of my immanent representations in good faith". Whether inquiries into that flow of immanent representations will lead to recognizing the superposition of distinct perspectives on the World content, is a matter of scientific inquiry. As soon as we allow the problematic thought to influence our thinking in one particular direction, for example toward the conclusion of 'boundaries to knowledge', 'limits to cognition', and so on, we have strayed from the ideal scientific method into the very dogmatic realism or solipsism that we were trying to initially avoid with the problematic thought. Which brings me to the next point,

"In a word, Ashvin, the reason for maintaining the *problematic* concept of the transcendent (emphasis on “problematic”) is to prevent the critical philosopher from believing that he knows or can know everything."

2/ I don't necessarily need a problematic concept to avoid believing I already know everything - I simply need to pay attention to the flow of immanent representations and see how many mysterious aspects there are which, upon certain lines of inquiry, become less mysterious. In a certain sense, every moment of existence we live through lessens the mystery a tiny bit, as we have now encompassed a greater 'aperture' of our representational flow. Clearly, every time we learn new facts or new skills, we illuminate aspects of the representational flow that were previously mysterious. I would actually suggest that engaging in the process of continually lessening the mystery is what gives us the best foundation for recognizing the mystery exists and how vast it is in comparison to our knowing efforts, and thus the virtue of humility. No problematic concept is necessary here, especially if it starts directing our thinking toward the conclusion, "I can't possibly know everything".

Of course, that is likely true in the most general sense, since a 'remainder' mystery will always be there (which we know through our efforts towards lessening the mystery, not through holding a problematic concept), but we never know *beforehand* how much of the mystery can be illuminated. It is actually quite arrogant to think that we can pronounce judgment on such things before we actually attempt to lessen the mystery. We should not allow the problematic concept to play a 'useful role' in influencing our thinking about the possibilities of cognitive experience. This is no more humble than the dogmatic theologian who uses the concept of 'transcendent Creator who stands apart from his creation' to justify a blind and passive faith, i.e. an excuse to avoid 'searching out the ways of God', to avoid knowing the truth so that it may 'set us free'.

It is true that our ever-deepening self-knowledge will not be some computational effort, it won't be dogmatic procedure decked out with the title and insignia of mathematics. There is no reason to assume that it must either be that or nothing at all. But the latter is where we end up if we let the problematic concept influence our thinking toward the postulation of 'other domains of representations' distinct from 'MY domain of representations'. Because, in the end, self-knowledge is not other than World-knowledge, it is not other than the knowledge of the superimposed experiential perspectives on the One flow of immanent representations. Indeed, how often is it that we are the best judge of our own flaws, limitations, and weaknesses, or our own virtues and positive qualities? We often only come to know those things in the light of Truth when we adopt the perspective of others (i.e. to bring our perspective into greater 'resonance' with more expansive perspectives), such that we gain *cognitive distance* on the flow that we are normally merged with. Again, by 'more expansive perspectives' I am not speaking of anything fundamentally different than how our perspective grows from moment to moment, it is only that we don't need to place an arbitrary cap on that growth process or pretend to know beforehand where it can or cannot lead.

[AshvinP]

Thank you, Ashvin, for sharing these further thoughts of yours. I desire to reply to your two central points, if I may.

Concerning your first central point I will say that, in the first place, dogmatic metaphysical solipsism is not what *follows* from *denying* the transcendent; rather, dogmatic metaphysical solipsism *is* that very denial (just as much as dogmatic transcendental realism does not *follow* from but simply *is* the *affirming* the transcendent); hence, it *is* necessary that “by denying the transcendental reality of things-themselves, we *necessarily* lapse into metaphysical solipsism”, but only because “denying the transcendental reality of things-themselves” simply just *is* dogmatic metaphysical solipsism qua dogmatic metaphysical solipsism. In the second place, as it pertains to your first central point, it is worthwhile to here distinguish between the constitutive and regulative validity of claims: whereas constitutive claims aim to be descriptive, regulative claims aim only to be prescriptive. It is crucial to here also distinguish between speculative and practical reason: by means of practical reason we seek to substantiate constitutive claims, whereas by means of practical reason we seek only to substantiate regulative claims. The scientist can take the idea of the lawfulness of the universe in “good faith”, and the critical philosopher can maintain that the idea of the transcendent “does not point to anything real or of practical import, so I will not let it influence my thinking and will continue conducting my inquiries on the flow of my immanent representations in good faith”; in both cases we have practical reason supporting regulative claims (and the justification of regulative claims on the basis of practical reason, Ashvin, is consistent rather than inconsistent with critical philosophizing). The maintenance of the problematic status of the transcendent does *not* lead to “the very dogmatic realism or solipsism that we were trying to initially avoid with the problematic thought” insofar as we acknowledge and emphasize the distinction between a practical reason employed for the end of substantiating regulative claims and a speculative reason employed for the end of attempting to substantiate dogmatic constitutive claims (whether dogmatic solipsist or transcendental realist claims).

Your second central point, Ashvin—viz., that “I don’t necessarily need a problematic concept to avoid believing I already know everything”—seems to me to involve ignoratio elenchi. In elaborating on your second central point you reveal to us the ignoratio elenchi implicit in it; viz., you write that “a ‘remainder’ mystery will always be there (which we know through our efforts towards lessening the mystery, not through holding a problematic concept), but we never know *beforehand* how much of the mystery can be illuminated”. You seem to think, Ashvin, that the critical philosopher *begins* by postulating the problematic status of the transcendent, which is simply *not* the case at all; the critical philosopher *concludes* the problematic status of the transcendent following a thorough critical investigation into the conditions and limits of knowledge. The critical philosopher will agree with you, Ashvin, and happily say that “We never know *beforehand* how much of the mystery can be illuminated”, and he will add “Which is why ‘our efforts towards lessening the mystery’ [namely, a critical enterprise or a critique of pure reason] is appropriate”. The chief error in your second central point, Ashvin, is that you are assuming that what the critical philosopher has *concluded* subsequent a critical investigation is what he is beginning with. Ironically, Ashvin, when you write that “We never know *beforehand* how much of the mystery can be illuminated”, you are actually *affirming* rather than challenging the critical philosopher’s position.

And, even if “self-knowledge is not other than World-knowledge”, the key insight here is: “Even if we could bring our intuition to the highest degree of clearness, we should not thereby come any nearer to the constitution of objects in themselves. We should still know only our mode of intuition, that is, our sensibility. We should, indeed, know it completely, but always only under the conditions of space and time — conditions which are originally inherent in the subject. What the objects may be in themselves would never become known to us even through the most enlightened knowledge of that which is alone given us, namely, their appearance” (Kant, KrV, A 43, B 60).

Additionally, Ashvin, your assertion that “we don’t need to place an arbitrary cap on that growth process or pretend to know beforehand where it can or cannot lead” involves ignoratio elechi yet again: firstly, you are assuming erroneously that that the critical philosopher *begins* with critical limits upon knowledge when he actually *concludes* these; secondly, the critical limits are *not* arbitrary but follow necessarily, because it implies a *contradiction in terms* to suggest that I can have knowledge of things-in-themselves; it implies, that is, a *contradiction in terms* to suggest that I can have knowledge of that which I cannot have knowledge (which is *not* to affirm the transcendental reality of things-in-themselves but, rather, is only to make a statement about the the extent of my possible knowledge).

The chief error in your analysis, Ashvin, is a fundamental misunderstanding of what critical philosophy is: critical philosophy *must* maintain the problematic status of things-in-themselves, not to make dogmatic assertions about things but to make clear what the limits of our knowledge are. The moment we do away with the problematic status of the transcendent is the very moment we turn our back on critical philosophy and its insights.


Thanks, Felipe.

As a preliminary aside, I am not entirely convinced your position stands in for the critical philosopher as such, i.e. that the latter merely holds things-themselves in problematic status. It seems that, in the realm of moral ideas, Kant was interested in grounding such ideas in transcendent realities, being the good Christian that he was. He would not want to affirm merely problematic status and leave the door open for materialistic hedonism, for example, to become the most optimal 'regulative' ideas a few decades later. It seems he desired, and thus argued, that the domain of Christian moral values (including freedom, immortality, conscience, etc.) be grounded affirmatively in things-themselves which remained stable despite the prevailing cultural or natural conditions (hence the categorical imperative).

That's just an aside and doesn't matter too much for our discussion. Because even if you are correct that critical philosophers only (and must) conclude the problematic status of things-themselves (and I agree it is a conclusion, not a beginning point), I still see many inconsistencies. It only makes sense to assert 'limits to knowledge' if there is some domain of reality that is *being limited*. Otherwise, we are merely asserting, "I can only know what can be known", which is a tautology and may as well not be asserted at all. If all of reality is of the essence of knowing activity, then the conclusion, "I can only know what can be known", does not establish limits to anything. (and again, it seems obvious to me that Kant, in the quotes you provide, wants to assert more than a mere tautology of this sort).

So if we stick with the problematic status of things-themselves, and don't let it play an influencing role in exploring possibilities of experience, then there is no basis to conclude 'limits to knowledge'. If all we can experience and know is spiritual activity (known through and identical with the flow of immanent representations), then whatever our problematic concept of 'things-themselves' refers to must also be *within* the immanent representational flow (essentially, the "I" unity of apperception). By calling it 'problematic', we are simply taking something within the immanent flow and imagining that it might somehow exist beyond that flow, i.e. we are dislocating the immanent as something possibly transcendent in our imagination.

It is easy to see why this is the case, i.e. that the content or referent of our concept 'things-themselves', whether held problematically or affirmatively, must be something within the immanent flow (usually something we have not brought clearly 'into focus' at the horizon of our cognitive experience yet). If the referent of 'things-themselves' was some X beyond the immanent flow, we simply would not be able to imagine the concept. Therefore, whenever we refer to 'things-themselves', we must be referring to some aspect of the immanent flow, the "I" unity of apperception, but functionally we transplant that aspect into a transcendent realm and wonder about its possibility, letting it influence our thinking through experience to establish 'limits to knowledge' which invariably demotivates further investigation into the mysterious aspects of the immanent flow.

[AshvinP]

Thank you, Ashvin, for sharing your further observations. As it pertains to your observation that my position may not “stand in for the critical philosopher as such”, I must confess you make a very fair point—scholarship pertaining to the Critical Philosophy, and Kant scholarship more in particular, is complex; and scholars often take extreme positions. At one end of the extreme is the subjectivist interpretation of Kant’s transcendental idealism, which interprets Kant’s transcendental idealism as a quasi if not outright Berkeleyianism, and which suggests that the transcendental subject is the basis of both the form and matter of experience (doing away with the thing-in-itself altogether, lapsing practically into Berkeleyan “dogmatic” idealism); at the other end of the extreme is the anti-subjectivist interpretation, which suggests that Kant’s transcendental idealism makes sense only insofar as the forms of experience are detached from the transcendental subject and understood as intelligible archetypes independent of both subject and object (quasi if not outright neo-Platonism). Between these extremes, moreover, there are more moderate stances: for example, more conservative Kantians may actually affirm the transcendental reality of the thing-in-itself, maintaining that the transcendental subject is the basis of the form though *not* of the matter of experience, arguing for transcendental affection and the passivity of sensibility. Therefore, it is true, Ashvin, that it is unfair to say that the critical philosopher “holds things-themselves in problematic status” tout court, and the issue is more complex.

Yet, as an aside—if I may—and for what its worth, I’d like here to share a passage from Beiser’s *German Idealism* book, wherein he writes as follows: “How is it possible for the Kant scholar to determine the strengths and weaknesses of these interpretations? How can he find his way through the textual labyrinth, which seems to support both readings? The most simple and straightforward approach is historical: to investigate Kant’s philosophical development, and more specifically Kant’s own reaction to subjective and objective idealism. It is still an underappreciated fact that, for decades, Kant himself had been a sharp critic of all forms of idealism. From his 1755 Nova dilucidatio to his 1797-1800 Opus postumum, he had opposed both extremes of the idealist tradition. He had criticized Descartes’s subjective idealism because it doubted the reality of the external world; and he had attacked Leibniz’s objective idealism because it affirmed only the reality of the noumenal world. After the formulation of his own idealist doctrine in the 1770 Inaugural Dissertation, Kant struggled to distinguish his idealism from other variants, especially Leibniz’s Platonic idealism. This concern only intensified after the publication of the first Kritik, when Kant became especially troubled by the charge of Berkeleyianism. Finally, in both the first and second editions of the Kritik, and in the Reflexionen of the 1790s, Kant devoted much energy to the refutation of Descartes’s skeptical idealism. It is safe to conclude that, throughout his development, Kant conceived his transcendental idealism as the *middle path* between the extremes of subjective and objective idealism. It is as if he already foresaw—and forcefully rejected—both the subjective and objective interpretations of his transcendental idealism” (Harvard University Press, 2002, pp. 19-20).

That being said, Ashvin, I’d like now to turn to your suggestion that “in the realm of moral ideas, Kant was interested in grounding such ideas in transcendent realities, being the good Christian that he was”. That this suggestion of yours, Ashvin, is misguided is evident from Kant’s own explicit distinctions between, in the first place, theoretical and practical reason and, in the second place, between constitutive and regulative claims (which distinctions you are simply ignoring in your suggestion that “Kant was interested in grounding such ideas in transcendent realities, being the good Christian that he was”). Furthermore, as Kant himself wrote in his first Kritik: “I maintain that all attempts to employ reason in theology in any merely speculative manner are altogether fruitless and by their very nature null and void, and that the principles of its employment in the study of nature do not lead to any theology whatsoever” (A 636, B 664). Kant, interestingly, adds that “I accordingly maintain that transcendental ideas never allow of any constitutive employment” (A 664, B 672). “I have therefore found it necessary”, famously adds Kant, “to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith” (B xxx).

Your suggestion, Ashvin—that “in the realm of moral ideas, Kant was interested in grounding such ideas in transcendent realities, being the good Christian that he was”—is simply inconsistent with the facts. As Kant himself writes: “The hypothetical employment of reason, based upon ideas viewed as problematic concepts, is not, properly speaking, constitutive” (KrV, A 647, B 675).

You further suggest, Ashvin, that “if we stick with the problematic status of things-themselves, and don’t let it play an influencing role in exploring possibilities of experience, then there is no basis to conclude ‘limits to knowledge’”—but this suggestion of yours seems to me to involve ignoratio elenchi. You must understand that Kant’s aim in the critical enterprise is *not* to subvert those advocating for “exploring possibilities of experience”; his aim is to subvert transcendental realists or dogmatic metaphysical solipsists who pretend to *know* the transcendent (whether affirmatively in the case of the transcendental realist, or negatively in the case of the dogmatic solipsist).

The source of the confusion in your general critique here, Ashvin, I will say has to do with the fact that you are failing to acknowledge the careful distinctions Kant himself made—between theoretical and practical reason, between constitutive and regulative claims, between knowledge and faith, between knowing and thinking an object according to the categories, and *especially* between the assertoric, apodeictic, and problematic. The distinctions Kant so carefully made you are simply ignoring, such that you ultimately are critiquing a straw-man rather that any actual Kantian critical philosophy.

That you are simply ignoring Kant’s careful distinction between knowing and thinking an object according to the categories, Ashvin, is epecially evident when you write that “If the referent of ‘things-themselves’ was some X beyond the immanent flow, we simply would not be able to imagine the concept”.

Ironically, the maintenance of the problematic status of the transcendent does not “demotivate further investigation into the mysterious aspects of the immanent flow” but rather is the necessary prerequisite for enabling a complete and thorough “investigation into the mysterious aspects of the immanent flow”; to attribute a problematic status to the transcendent is specifically to acknowledge that what we can concern ourselves with is *nothing other than* “the immanent flow”. The maintenance of the transcendent as “problematic” doesn’t discourage investigation of immanent experience but rather enables it by clearly marking its domain: by acknowledging what lies beyond possible knowledge as “problematic” (that is, as “hypothetical”), we can eo ipso focus our investigation on the immanent flow of experience itself.


Felipe, I am curious whether you think this "complete and thorough investigation into the mysterious aspects of the immanent flow" has already been done, if it is done through critical philosophy itself? Or, if not, what would such an investigation look like? I think we briefly discussed it before and you began to speak about establishing the possibility of freedom, but then we came back to critical philosophy. That is the primary question I am interested in and what follows is just to briefly address your points, but I am not sure if we will reach agreement on those points.

Your elaborations on Kant's view, with the appropriate quotes, only further show that he positively affirmed the reality of things-themselves. That he concluded such realities cannot be reached by reason, but rather only through 'faith', is clear and is the whole basis for the 'limits to knowledge' conclusion which, according to many commentators, has led Western civilization in an epistemically nihilist direction. It is exactly as you quoted, "I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith." Faith in what? Faith in things-themselves, transcendent moral realities! I am simply taking Kant at his word here.

So there is a separation between ideas reached through reason and ideas held on faith, the latter pertaining to supersensible realities which (according to spiritual phenomenology) creatively and morally structure our immanent representational flow. That separation is further reinforced in the quote you shared - "and that the principles of [reason's] employment in the study of nature do not lead to any theology whatsoever". That could only be true if theology must necessarily pertain to the realm of things-themselves, which I am arguing is an incoherent belief, itself at odds with TS. Whatever theology pertains to must be implicit and immanent in our representational flow. Theology, like philosophy and science, is an endeavor of human *thinking*. How could it be otherwise?

As Schelling observed, "Nature is visible Spirit, Spirit is invisible Nature." This is the truly monist and idealist view. Yet that is only a broad truth - the task of thoroughly investigating the mysterious aspects of the immanent flow is to reveal HOW that is true. We should be able to develop a true science of the Spirit, no less lucid and precise than physics, chemistry, biology, etc. and their mathematical foundations. We will then understand that reason is not at odds with or discontinuous with faith, but rather the latter is a higher 'state of aggregation' of the former. After all, through faith we actively attend to something, we seek out higher intuitions through inner perceptions, we try to discriminate various aspects of our supersensible life. These are all functions of *cognitive activity*, only it is more purified, intensified, and integrated than the ordinary combinatorial (reasoning) activity we are familiar with, rooted in sensory life.

"One sees, with Kant everything reappears as faith what knowledge can never reach. Kant achieved in a different way something similar to what Luther aimed at in his way. Luther wanted to exclude knowledge from the objects of faith. Kant wanted the same thing. His faith is no longer Bible faith; he speaks of a "religion within the limits of mere reason." But the cognition, the knowledge, should be limited only to the phenomena; about the objects of faith they should have no say. Kant has rightly been called the philosopher of Protestantism. He has himself best described what he thinks he has achieved with the words: "I had therefore to abolish knowledge in order to make room for faith." Knowledge, then, in Kant's sense, is to deal only with the subordinate world which gives no meaning to life; what gives meaning to life are objects of faith which no knowledge can approach.
...
Goethe was also imbued with this world view. He, too, sought in nature itself what earlier views had sought in an otherworldly world. Nature became his god. He did not want to know anything about any other divine entity.

'What would be a God, who would push only from the outside,
In the circle the universe at the finger would run!
He wants to move the world within,
Nature in itself, to cherish itself in nature,
Never misses its power, never misses its spirit.'

Thus Goethe says. Nature is God to him, and nature also reveals God. There is no other revelation. And there can be no other besides the essences of nature, which are to be reached only by faith. Therefore Goethe never wanted to have anything to do with the Kantian distinction between faith and knowledge." (Steiner, GA 51)

[AshvinP]

Thank you, Ashvin, for your continued engagement with these profound themes here. I should first like to address your suggestion that Kant “positively affirmed the reality of things-themselves”: that you are once again making the same mistake of ignoring Kant’s careful distinctions is evident. “I accordingly maintain”, *explicitly* writes Kant, “that transcendental ideas *never* allow of any constitutive employment” (A 664, B 672). Once again, Ashvin, you are here critiquing a straw-man rather than Kant’s actual Critical Philosophy. Insofar as you fail to acknowledge Kant’s careful distinctions between constitutive and regulative claims, between theoretical and practical reason, between knowledge and faith, and between distinct modes of judgment (assertion, apodeictic, and problematic), then you’ll eo ipso inevitably be critiquing a straw-man rather than Kant’s *actual* Critical Philosophy. To claim knowledge of the transcendent would by definition be inconsistent with critical strictures; to accept transcendental ideas (e.g., God, freedom, immortality, things-in-themselves, etc.) upon faith on the basis of practical reason, however, is perfectly consistent with critical strictures *because* knowledge is not being claimed here (once again, Ashvin, you are here simply ignoring careful distinctions *essential* to Kant’s critical enterprise, thereby addressing yourself only to a straw-man of your own making).

Concerning your question of whether I am convinced or not that a “complete and thorough investigation into the mysterious aspects of the immanent flow” has already been achieved via critical philosophy, I’d say that the critical philosophy has at least revealed the limits of the field of possible investigation (the bathos of experience), but this does not mean that the investigation is complete; it only means that I know where I can and cannot in principle conduct my investigation. Fichte, in his Wissenschaftslehre, stressed the role of striving, and he critiqued the contemplative model of knowledge, stressing that knowledge arises from action rather than from contemplation—such that I’d say (building on Fichte’s emphasis on striving) that any “complete and thorough [post-critical] investigation into the mysterious aspects of the immanent flow” must discard the contemplative model of knowledge altogether (because, after all, the critical philosophy very clearly reveals the limits of speculative reason) and must therefore be based on striving and action.

Concerning your suggestion that “We should be able to develop a true science of the Spirit, no less lucid and precise than physics, chemistry, biology, etc. and their mathematical foundations”—I’ll suggest (to build on what I’ve just noted in regards to a Fichtean “Strebungsphilosophie”) that any such “true science of the Spirit” must be based on action/striving (as opposed to on the contemplative model of knowledge); any attempt to base such a “true science of Spirit” on theoretical reason, I insist, is bound to fail (because of the limits of speculative reason revealed via the critique of pure reason, and because it is the contemplative model of knowledge which [because of its inherent limits] invites skeptical challenges in the first place).
Concerning your proposal of the possibility that we may seek Divine Revelation within nature itself rather than in a transcendent beyond, I think there is something to be said for this proposal—but ultimately, I insist, it would be a matter of faith; it would come down to how one relates to the notion of the Divine personally. Is the Divine present in nature, is the Divine inherently unknowable, or some combination of both? I suggest that the answer to this must be a personal affair, based on faith, grounded in the moral/practical sphere rather than in the speculative/philosophical sphere. Nobody (not the Protestant, not the Schellingian, etc.) can tell one what Divinity signifies or consists of; the individual must wrestle with himself and discover that significance for himself.


Thanks, Felipe, and indeed this is the heart of the issue. The disagreements surrounding Kant are only tangential.

The science of the Spirit cannot be rooted in theoretical/speculative reason, which merely reflects on familiar experience and builds models out of its speculative thoughts, but must proceed from active striving. In other words, through this science the very faculty of thinking should be transformed. What is known does not passively 'sit there' while we observe and comment on it, but itself transforms the knower. We are in full agreement there, as is Steiner.

"Now what kind of reader approach did The Philosophy of Freedom count on? It had to assume a special way of reading. It expected the reader, as he read, to undergo the sort of inner experience that, in an external sense, is really just like waking up out of sleep in the morning. The feeling one should have about it is such as to make one say, “My relationship to the world in passive thoughts was, on a higher level, that of a person who lies asleep. Now I am waking up.” It is like knowing, at the moment of awakening, that one has been lying passively in bed, letting nature have her way with one's body. But then one begins to be inwardly active. One relates one's senses actively to what is going on in the color permeated, sounding world about one. One links one's own bodily activity to one's intentions. The reader of The Philosophy of Freedom should experience something very like this waking moment of transition from passivity to activity, though of course on a higher level.
...
When one suffuses one's thinking with active soul life, one realizes for the first time that thought is just a leftover and recognizes it as the remains of something that has died. Ordinary thinking is dead, a mere corpse of the soul, and one has to become aware of it as such through suffusing it with one's own soul life and getting to know this corpse of abstract thinking in its new aliveness." (GA 257, III)

The key point I want to make is that we should be wary of confusing the 'limits to knowledge', i.e. knowledge gained through speculative reason, for a limit to undergoing this transformative inner experience of awakening one's thinking. This is a real trap that i have witnessed often. Because this awakened thinking is forced to describe its experiences using the same (or similar) words as those of models derived from theoretical reason, the two are often conflated together and the former is dismissed on that basis. We simply need to remain aware, when investigating the results of awakened thinking, that its descriptions are not being used in any speculative or theoretical way. Rather they are simply symbolic ways of speaking of what the inner structure and dynamics of the immanent representational flow *feels like*, so that those who have still not brought such dynamics into focus at their cognitive horizon can still 'triangulate' the general experience that is being described.

"By truly experiencing the silence of the soul, we become able to hear spiritually what dwells in the world of Spirit. The ordinary sensory world then becomes a means for us to interpret what lives in the spiritual world... what resounds approaches me with a certain vivacity, it can give me, say, something like the color yellow gives me if I am sensitive and receptive to colors. Then I have something in the sense world through which I can express my experience in the world of Spirit. My perception is one I can describe by saying that 'it effects me as the color yellow does'. Or like the tone C or C sharp in music, or like warmth or cold. In brief, my sensory experiences offer me a means for expressing in ordinary words what appears to me in the world of Spirit. In this way, the whole sensory world becomes like a language to express what I experience in the spiritual world.
Those who seek too rapid progress do not understand this and come only to a superficial judgment. This is why patient investigators describe their experiences in terms of colors, tones, and so on. Just as we shouldn't confuse the word "table" with an actual table, so we should not confuse the world of Spirit itself... with the manner in which it is described." (GA 84)

(the following comments are from a thread for the latest essay which he commented on - since he subsequently subscribed to my Substack and even my recommended substacks, Max and Raphael, I feel like there may be some gradual inching forward, although clearly he is firmly attached to the flattened philosophical habits)

Thank you, Ashvin, for sharing the above insightful thoughts concerning the issue of “other ‘alter’ perspectives being superimposed on our own”. Concerning your suggestion that we need to “stick with the given facts of our inner [and even outer] experience”, I’d say I find myself wholeheartedly in agreement with you here.

But, *if* we “stick with the given facts of our inner [and even outer] experience”—as both you and I insist that we do—then we cannot eo ipso affirm that “inner states of other souls (human or otherwise) are always superimposed on our own” without thereby engaging in non sequitur, Johnsonian stone-kicking, and circular reasoning. As wrote the estimable David Hume: “That our senses offer not their impressions as the images of something distinct, or independent, and external, is evident; because they convey to us nothing but a single perception, and never give us the least intimation of any thing beyond. A single perception can never produce the idea of a double existence, but by some inference either of the reason or imagination. When the mind looks farther than what immediately appears to it, its conclusions can never be put to the account of the senses; and it certainly looks farther, when from a single perception it infers a double existence [e.g., some alleged ‘multiplicity that comprises higher-order agents’], and supposes the relations of resemblance and causation betwixt them” (Treatise of Human Nature, T 1.4.2.4, SBN 189).

The question is *whether* such a “multiplicity that comprises higher-order agents” has any transcendental reality beyond my own domain of experience; I cannot appeal to my experience to argue for such a “multiplicity that comprises higher-order agents” without thereby kicking the stone à la Dr. Samuel Johnson, without begging the question, and without engaging in non-sequitur (“When the mind looks farther than what immediately appears to it, its conclusions can never be put to the account of the senses”). Nor can the issue be settled a priori, because it is not logically necessary that any such “multiplicity that comprises higher-order agents” be transcendentally real, and it is perfectly logically possible that solipsism is actually the case (such that I am the sole reality).

When it is suggested that “Jeremy lived and died having no inkling about the broader patterns and concepts involved”, one is already begging the question—the question is *whether* I am the sole conscious/sentient agent or there is some alleged “multiplicity that comprises higher-order agents” (e.g., some Jeremy experiencing independently of my experiencing). As notes Hume, “To begin with the senses, ’tis evident these faculties are incapable of giving rise to the notion of the continu’d existence of their objects, after they no longer appear to the senses. For that is a contradiction in terms, and supposes that the senses continue to operate, even after they have ceas’d all manner of operation” (Treatise of Human Nature, T 1.4.2.3, SBN 188-189)

Now, it is important to distinguish between empirical and transcendental realism here—I can grant empirical reality to time and to my spatially-extended neighbors, and therefore grant, with Kant, that “The postulate bearing on the knowledge of things as actual does not, indeed, demand immediate perception (and, therefore, sensation of which we are conscious) of the object whose existence is to be known. What we do, however, require is the connection of the object with some actual perception, in accordance with the analogies of experience, which define all real connection in an experience in general” (Kant, KrV, A 255, B 272). But, even if I grant empirical reality to time and to my spatially-extended neighbors—and thereby “stick with the given facts of our inner [and even outer] experience”—the question nevertheless remains whether independently of my experience (which involves time and spatially-extended objects) there is any transcendentally real “multiplicity that comprises higher-order agents” (to defend such a multiplicity it will not suffice to appeal to the stone, Ashvin).

“Even if we could bring our intuition to the highest degree of clearness”, reminds us Kant, “we should not thereby come any nearer to the constitution of objects in themselves. We should still know only our mode of intuition, that is, our sensibility [sticking with the given facts of our inner and even outer experience]. We should, indeed, know it completely, but always only under the conditions of space and time—conditions which are originally inherent in the subject. What the objects may be in themselves [whether some alleged ‘multiplicity that comprises higher-order agents’ or no such multiplicity] would never become known to us [would never and *cannot* possibly become known to us empirically, that is]” (KrV, A 43, B 60).

The Square may hypothesize that the Sphere could himself be a low-dimensional projection of an even higher-dimensional object, and the Sphere may retort “Preposterous”—but the key thing to remember here is that *neither* the Square nor the Sphere “stick with the given facts of our inner [and even outer] experience”, and instead they either dogmatically assert or dogmatically deny some transcendent “higher-dimensional object”. If, as you suggest (and as I agree), Ashvin, we should “stick with the given facts of our inner [and even outer] experience”, *then* the idea of some “higher-dimensional object” can be at best considered as merely problematic/hypothetical (or even as a regulative ideal), but to either assert or deny its constitutive existence would be to blatantly lapse into dogmatism and, worse, to egregiously *not* “stick with the given facts of our inner [and even outer] experience”.

Concerning the regulative ideal, even you allude to this, Ashvin, when you write that “Even if 3 was never discovered, the relation between the above numbers would be *as if* 3 exists. Thus, the state of 3 exists *as if* superimposed on our first-person states of 1, 2, 4, and 5”. But, if 3 “only needs to be brought into focus through inner effort”, and even *if* I discover 3 via such inner effort, I would still only know my mode of intuition; eo ipso, any talk of higher-dimensional objects or of some alleged “multiplicity that comprises higher-order agents” beyond my mode of intuition must be considered as, at best, problematic or regulative. To assert or deny the constitutive status of higher-dimensional objects or of some alleged “multiplicity that comprises higher-order agents” beyond my mode of intuition is argumentum ad lapidem, petitio principii, non-sequitur, and dogmatism, “the presumption that it is possible to make progress with pure knowledge, according to principles, from concepts alone” (Kant, KrV, B xxxv).


Yes, Felipe, I understand your concern and the issue is what we started discussing on the other thread. The words I am using cannot help but be the same sort of words someone would use to describe 'higher-order multiplicities' beyond the immanent mode of intuition. There are no 'special words' that can automatically convey that they are NOT rooted in speculative reason, referring to transcendent realities beyond my own domain of experience, but are referring to mysterious (yet verifiable) aspects of my own domain of experience. Thus it is up to the reader, of course with the help of the author, to make this distinction. In fact, that was one of the core purposes of using the numerical metaphor. That is why I prefaced,

"A major intellectual obstacle to this reality [of other 'alter' perspectives being superimposed on our own] is that we habitually imagine these as-of-yet unexperienced ‘inner states’ of other perspectives as self-contained objects existing in some ‘other world’, on the ‘other side’ of our first-person present state"

I believe you are imagining my words on 'higher-order multiplicities' as referring to that which I was trying to avoid with this preface, i.e. as perspectives existing on the 'other side' of our first-person domain of experience. The numerical metaphor should help us see how the state of "3" (corresponding to a unique experiential perspective superimposed on our own) is implicit within the states of "2" and "4" (corresponding to my own conscious experiential perspective) even if I am unaware of that implicit presence at any given time. The implicit presence is verified once we discover the state of "3" and realize how the states of "2" and "4" could only be experienced the way they were if "3" had always been there. When we discover "3", we don't (or shouldn't) assume it existed in some transcendental realm before we discovered it.

To make this more concrete, we can think about how, if we truly love another person, we can feel our perspective begins to merge with theirs. If something threatening or harmful or painful is about to descend upon them, we feel like it is about to descend upon us as well. Or if something profound and joyful happens to them, we also feel uplifted and joyful. Now this is a given fact of experience (assuming we have brought the experience of love into focus through inner effort), we can't simply philosophize this fact away. The problem is that, even if this given fact is recognized by most people, it is considered a fluke, an exception to the rule, etc. It is not imagined that this 'merging' of perspectives via the active soul force of Love could become more intense, more lucid, and more expansive such that it reaches a broader range of human and even non-human souls.

At a certain point, we have to start wondering WHY we keep falling into the same traps, philosophizing ways to avoid discovering the "3" state implicit in our current domain of experience? Why do we keep failing to make the distinction between words born of speculative reason pointing to transcendent realities, and words used as symbolic testimonies to our immanent domain of experience? Why is it so hard to point to BK that he is speculating on unknowable transcendent realities when he speaks of the 'dissociated alter' model? Clearly this isn't a matter of just passively rearranging intellectual concepts (otherwise we wouldn't keep falling into the same traps), but rather requires an active striving in the sense of Fichte. We need to strive to confront what desires, antipathies, etc. live in our soul and prefer to keep us imagining we are confined to our alter state, to keep us from discovering the superimposed perspectives on our immanent domain of experience.

I mention this toward the end of the linked essay:

"Unlike sensory seeing, where the objects we seek to perceive and know don’t seem to care whether or how we see or know them, spiritual seeing and knowledge is met with living forces of the soul that have a stake in whether or not they are perceived. The very preferences we seek to objectively perceive prefer not to be seen, the desires desire not to be known, the opinions opine that they need not be investigated, the habits habitually avoid becoming conscious, and so on. These inner obstacles can manifest in many subtle and sneaky ways, so we may not even realize how we are sabotaging our own progress. The only reliable way to navigate this inner minefield of the soul is through dispassionate (and symbolic) logical reasoning, on the one hand, and the moods of gratitude and prayer, on the other. We can be grateful for our new, fully conscious opportunities for conducting our spiritual activity and we can pray for guidance on how to realize the full potential of those opportunities."


Thank you Ashvin, for sharing your further elaboration here. And I am prepared to agree with you if, by “higher-order multiplicities”, you mean to refer to “mysterious (yet verifiable) aspects of my own domain of experience”—my above allusion to the distinction between transcendental and empirical realism is key here. And I am prepared to agree with you here *because* this would be entirely consistent with my contention heretofore that “even *if* I discover 3 via inner effort, I would still only know my mode of intuition [eo ipso]”. Once again, the distinction between transcendental and empirical realism is key here.

Concerning the issue of how “Unlike sensory seeing, where the objects we seek to perceive and know don’t seem to care whether or how we see or know them”, I’d here say that—even if it *seems* that the objects of the senses don’t “care whether or how we see or know them”—one of the key insights of the critical philosophy is that the objects of the senses arise in perception *only because* of the synthetic activities of the understanding, such that the objects of the senses arise in perception *only because* of how and that we see them; “we hypostatise outer appearances … [when we] come to regard them not as representations but as things existing by themselves outside us, with the same quality as that with which they exist in us” (Kant, KrV, A 386). I’d even add—and I am curious to know your thoughts on this, Ashvin—that I cannot see/know anything (whether sensory or what you call “spiritual”) that does not already depend upon my own synthetic activity; viz., insofar as I see/know anything at all (whether sensory or what you call “spiritual”), it is *only because* of *how* and *that* I see/know it. I’d also dispute the dichotomy between sensory and spiritual seeing/knowing, since—I suggest—these are ultimately inseparable and ultimately even the same activity.


Thanks for the questions, Felipe. Yes, I agree it only seems that sensory objects don't care whether or how we see/know them (for precise reasons that we can discern, which I also touch on in the essays), and they are only seen/known through our 'synthetic activity', or what I simply call 'spiritual activity'. I discuss this in Part I:

[essay quote]

That example also relates to the distinction we can draw between sensory and spiritual seeing/knowing. They are not metaphysically different categories and, in fact, sensory objects are like 'decohered reflections' of the spiritual experiences that feedback on our spiritual activity. Essentially, the entire sensory world is not unlike the words I am typing now - they are reflections of the supersensible ideas that I am living in. Those ideas are focused and anchored through my spiritual activity into perceptible word-forms. So it is with the sensory world, and this also reveals why it is necessary to distinguish between them, since our spiritual activity relates to them differently. It is very important to be clear on how our spiritual activity relates to and interacts with these two poles of reality - perception and idea. We feel like we can clearly encompass perceptions in our mental images, but we don't encompass ideas in the same way. The ideas are rather the meaning we live in *prior* to it 'condensing' as concrete perceptions. We have experience with this when we live in certain meaning but can't find the words to express it, the latter are on the 'tip of our tongue'.

Attaining spiritual sight is about purifying and intensifying the experience of that invisible meaning we always steer through with our spiritual activity and which condenses as 'inner' and 'outer' perceptions.

[Federica]

In the spirit of “saving the materialist” and under the impression of various lecture cycles, I have recently thought about the following question: couldn’t (earthly) thinking be initially presented as (in principle quantifiable) energy - in line with the definition of energy in physics? Perhaps the use of a familiar framework could help approach, even from a materialistic perspective, the realization that thinking must be alive in all reality.

I was about to post a few elaborations on that, but then I stumbled upon my limited understanding of both current natural science and Steiners, for example what Steiner says about the law of conservation of energy, which I guess I understand, but not fully as I would need. I have had a few initial thoughts on how to compound all this, but I wonder: is anyone aware whether this idea has been addressed already (which would seem very likely to me) that energy, as modern science has it, can be a starting point to build a sense for the pervasiveness of thinking, on the physical plane to start with?

[AshvinP]

In the spirit of “saving the materialist” and under the impression of various lecture cycles, I have recently thought about the following question: couldn’t (earthly) thinking be initially presented as (in principle quantifiable) energy - in line with the definition of energy in physics? Perhaps the use of a familiar framework could help approach, even from a materialistic perspective, the realization that thinking must be alive in all reality.

I was about to post a few elaborations on that, but then I stumbled upon my limited understanding of both current natural science and Steiners, for example what Steiner says about the law of conservation of energy, which I guess I understand, but not fully as I would need. I have had a few initial thoughts on how to compound all this, but I wonder: is anyone aware whether this idea has been addressed already (which would seem very likely to me) that energy, as modern science has it, can be a starting point to build a sense for the pervasiveness of thinking, on the physical plane to start with?

Interesting question, Federica. A reference comes to mind from Tomberg's MoT:

One can understand the idea of the “great work” when one compares it with the ideal of modern exact science. For the idea of science is power—practical technical power and intellectual technical power. The intellectual aspect of the scientific ideal is to reduce the multiplicity of phenomena to a limited number of laws and then reduce these to a single simple formula. It is a matter, in the last analysis, of mechanising the intellect in such a manner that it calculates the world instead of understanding it. Then one would attain intellectual technical power.

The practical aspect of the scientific ideal is revealed in the progress of modern science from the eighteenth century to the present day. Its essential stages are the discoveries and putting into man’s service, successively, of steam, electricity and atomic energy. But as different as these appear to be, these discoveries are based only on a single principle, namely the principle of the destruction of matter, by which energy is freed in order to be captured anew by man so as to be put at his service. It is so with the little regular explosions of petrol which produce the energy to drive a car. And it is so with the destruction of atoms, by means of the technique of neutron bombardment, which produces atomic energy. That it is a matter of coal, petrol, or hydrogen atoms, is not important; it is always a case of the production of energy as a consequence of the destruction of matter. For the practical aspect of the scientific ideal is the domination of Nature by means of putting into play the principle of destruction or death.

Imagine, dear Unknown Friend, efforts and discoveries in the opposite direction, in the direction of construction or life. Imagine, not an explosion, but rather the blossoming out of a constructive “atomic bomb”. It is not too difficult to imagine, because each little acorn is such a “constructive bomb” and the oak is only the visible result of the slow “explosion”—or blossoming out—of this “bomb”. Imagine it, and you will have the ideal of the great work or the idea of the Tree of Life. The image itself of the tree comprises the negation of the technical and mechanical element. It is the living synthesis of celestial light and elements of the earth. Not only is it the synthesis of heaven and earth, it constantly synthesises that which descends from above and that which ascends from below.

And another one:

Modern science has come to the understanding that matter is only condensed energy—which, moreover, was known by alchemists and Hermeticists thousands of years ago. Sooner or later science will also discover the fact that what it calls “energy” is only condensed psychic force—which discovery will lead in the end to the establishment of the fact that all psychic force is the “condensation”, purely and simply, of consciousness, i.e. spirit. Thus, it will be known for certain that we walk not thanks to the existence of legs, but rather that legs exist thanks to the will for movement, i.e. that it is the will for movement which has fashioned the legs so as to serve as its instrument. Similarly, it will be known that the brain does not engender consciousness but that it is the latter’s instrument of action.

Of course, these things will mean very little (or will be taken as some theoretical model) until a person intimately experiences how their own thinking 'will for movement' is continually 'destroying matter' to release energy, i.e. condensing and consuming the flow of mental pictures to mine them for meaning, by which new ideal constellations 'blossom out' constructively. Then they can resonate with how the collective flow of human civilization follows similar rhythms which, when remaining unconscious, tends more and more toward the principle of destruction/consumption without sufficient compensating construction of meaning. In this situation, the thinking-will is increasingly conditioned by its finished psychic, energetic, and physical condensations rather than using the latter as its reflective instrument for attaining inner perfection.

[Cleric]

In the spirit of “saving the materialist” and under the impression of various lecture cycles, I have recently thought about the following question: couldn’t (earthly) thinking be initially presented as (in principle quantifiable) energy - in line with the definition of energy in physics? Perhaps the use of a familiar framework could help approach, even from a materialistic perspective, the realization that thinking must be alive in all reality.

I was about to post a few elaborations on that, but then I stumbled upon my limited understanding of both current natural science and Steiners, for example what Steiner says about the law of conservation of energy, which I guess I understand, but not fully as I would need. I have had a few initial thoughts on how to compound all this, but I wonder: is anyone aware whether this idea has been addressed already (which would seem very likely to me) that energy, as modern science has it, can be a starting point to build a sense for the pervasiveness of thinking, on the physical plane to start with?

I think that this attempt [to represent thinking as quantifiable energy] will simply keep us circling in the age-old metaphysics. Actually, for some time now I've been putting together a list of a few things that I presently see as key milestones for the reorientation of modern scientific thinking toward making it compatible with living experience.

We can ask the same question in pretty much the same way about the 'life energy' that guides the growth of the mineral body. And it is not as if this hasn't been attempted (for example with vitalism). The trouble is that in the end, from the perspective of physics, this only adds a suspicious layer on top of the measurable physical world, which practically serves no other role than filling that gaps of knowledge with something imagined. It's the same with thinking (and consciousness). The even greater trouble is that even if the physicist accepts to consider such an additional layer in his model of reality, this would only make the whole theoretical system even more convoluted.

We have spoken about this before, but to this day the most powerful transformation of thinking that I recognize is thinking in terms of a metamorphosing state. This is already what science is doing in a lot of fields anyway. What is missing is the shift in inner perspective - to understand that this state is actually the relative perspective of our inner experience and to include also the flow of our thinking there.

The key here is that we do not try to build a thought model of this state from various conceptual elements (physical energy, mental energy, etc.) Instead, we need to learn to be mindful of the real-time experience of the flow and closely observe how our inner activity feeds back through the experience.

Maybe it could be useful to make an analogy with pseudo forces in physics (like the Coriolis force).



Let's consider biological growth because it feels more pictorially approachable. Imagine that we get to choose the way the World state metamorphoses by steering the direction of the flow. We forget about all laws of nature for a while and imagine that the next World state state could be anything as long as we can find a way to bend the flow of metamorphosis in that way. For example, we can steer the metamorphosis toward states where the phenomenological pixels of our bodily experience crumble and fall apart or cohere and grow in a healthy way. From our perspective there are no 'forces'. There's a whole palette of potential next states, we simply intend certain direction. It's like steering toward what the next movie frame should be. From another perspective, however, it may seem as certain forces are at play, much like the Coriolis force that bend the ball's path. Then we look at the biological system and say "There are certain forces here that pull the biological material in the right way to sustain life." This could be the perspective of vitalism.

Of course, at our present human stage we do not get to steer the biological flow in such a direct way. But we can do that to our thinking flow to a much greater extent. And here the thinking flow is not to be taken as something fundamentally distinct from the World flow as a whole. For example, when we look at the following image (let's pretend it is a faithful scan of brain activity):



we make things difficult for us if we say "OK, so here's the material part with the neurons, then thought energy surges through it and activates the different parts." It's not that there could be no value in this way of speaking and thinking, but we should remember that in a sense this 'thought-energy' is like a Coriolis force. From our first-person flow, there's only the bending of the flow of mematorphosis. It's like saying "I'll steer toward a World state where I experience such mental images, which can only be such if the brain pixels are also such and such." In other words, the World state should always be thought of as something whole. Ultimately, when this holistic state is grasped in differentiated way and it seems that differentiated parts affect each other 'horizontally' through exchanges of forces, this can be considered a 'Coriolis view'. The origin of these forces can only be found in the interference of superimposed first-person perspectives, where each bends the World-flow according to its limited intuitions. And just like the dude in the video said, this doesn't mean that these forces are 'unreal', as if we can realize their illusionary nature and think them away. It's all a matter of finding the right perspective.

[Federica]

Thank you, both, for offering these ideas.
“Sooner or later science will also discover the fact that what it calls “energy” is only condensed psychic force”, as Tomberg says, and my musing was about formulating some simple thought experiment to help make the path toward that discovery more straightforward, so it can be completed sooner rather than later. I have always in mind that the number-one hurdle in getting something out of PoF is to conceive of thinking ‘outside and above’ human cognitive activity, but not in space. Yes, people talk a whole lot about mind at large and consciousness, but I believe many project human mind onto it, implicitly imagining a vaguely larger being or "agency", who must somehow emit mental pictures. These ‘emissions’ are said to happen in a space which is “ideal” but, to many intents and purposes, the space works like a copy of the physical space. Therefore, to help this thought process get out of the implicit constraint - figuring consciousness/mind as streams of mental pictures emitted by centers of agency - I was hoping that some small prompts could be useful, perhaps more than “very little”, even if one does not “intimately experiences how their own thinking 'will for movement' is continually 'destroying matter' to release energy”.

In this sense, it would be a low-ambition type of prompt, with the small goal of inspiring a sense for the inherence of thinking in the whole world, starting from the physical plane. Can this idea become less outlandish, while the thinker remains within the common framework of observing physical systems from a vantage point, to begin with? If a sense for the pervasiveness of thinking (...thinking energy?) can be stimulated with regards to the physical plane first, then it’s ‘OK’ that the vantage point is not overcome yet. The two things are related of course. The goal is only to make the subsequent jump more manageable.

For this reason I believe it would be better to focus not on consciousness/mind/awareness - these are more difficult to bridge without falling in the spatial trap mentioned above - but on thinking, earthly thinking, thinking as formative force, the spiritual scientist would say. Hence the question: can this sense be conveyed and served to the vantage point dweller in terms of physical property inherent in all physical systems?

What is missing is the shift in inner perspective - to understand that this state is actually the relative perspective of our inner experience and to include also the flow of our thinking there.

…we need to learn to be mindful of the real-time experience of the flow and closely observe how our inner activity feeds back through the experience.

Yes, but isn’t the reason why the shift is still missing precisely that the jump or shift is too big?

We can ask the same question in pretty much the same way about the 'life energy' that guides the growth of the mineral body. And it is not as if this hasn't been attempted (for example with vitalism). The trouble is that in the end, from the perspective of physics, this only adds a suspicious layer on top of the measurable physical world, which practically serves no other role than filling that gaps of knowledge with something imagined. It's the same with thinking (and consciousness). The even greater trouble is that even if the physicist accepts to consider such an additional layer in his model of reality, this would only make the whole theoretical system even more convoluted.

I was hoping that, if we turn attention to earthly thinking rather than to “mind”, that would include "life energy". The usefulness of that, to the benefit of the conventional science student, is precisely that biological growth and brain production are taken up as one. The formative forces coming from outside the Earth (from the perspective of spiritual science) form all earthly thinking, be it expressed as life forces in physical nature, or as thinking impulse in man’s brain. Is there a way to point attention to these large-spectrum earthly manifestations of those forces across the board of natures kingdoms? That is my question.

Vitalism is an old attempt. Are scientific minds of today open for a revised update of that prompt, and can the new "vitalistic prompt", if we want to call it so, go beyond the view: "There are certain forces here that pull the biological material in the right way to sustain life", so as to stay away from the behavioral trap - Levin's cognitive light-cone and so on?

[AshvinP]

I was hoping that, if we turn attention to earthly thinking rather than to “mind”, that would include "life energy". The usefulness of that, to the benefit of the conventional science student, is precisely that biological growth and brain production are taken up as one. The formative forces coming from outside the Earth (from the perspective of spiritual science) form all earthly thinking, be it expressed as life forces in physical nature, or as thinking impulse in man’s brain. Is there a way to point attention to these large-spectrum earthly manifestations of those forces across the board of natures kingdoms? That is my question.

Vitalism is an old attempt. Are scientific minds of today open for a revised update of that prompt, and can the new "vitalistic prompt", if we want to call it so, go beyond the view: "There are certain forces here that pull the biological material in the right way to sustain life", so as to stay away from the behavioral trap - Levin's cognitive light-cone and so on?

One thing I generally keep in mind is that, since we are in fact dealing with the interference of relatively autonomous beings and their activity in our imaginative organization, things are so structured that what advances our depth understanding is not necessarily putting various conceptual contents in the 'right order', as we imagine to be the case for natural scientific understanding, but transforming the very perspective from which we think and the life quality of our thinking process. Why do people so often project familiar human consciousness into the ideal space? Because of a deeper indolent desire to reach insight without transformative cognitive experience, the latter being what the spiritual Cosmos is most interested in for its long-term ideals.

We can certainly lay the conceptual foundation for finding thinking expression across domains of experience. And most people can acknowledge that the Earthly environment we interact with is now highly structured by human thinking. We can also present various undeniable considerations like Steiner does in PoF when discussing observation of the rose's stages of growth and how Nature brings forth thinking in the heads of humans just like it does the rose blossom of the plant (which the materialist would be happy to acknowledge as well). But how to make the leap across the chasm of the thinking that structures the cultural environment to thinking that structures the natural kingdoms and our own living bodily processes (in a direct way not mediated by physical technology)?

Recall the Schrodinger essay 'on life' in which he intuited the peripheral forces and the 'order-from-order' principle that is necessary for life and distinct from known physical forces and laws. This was a highly detailed essay that worked through all kinds of scientific facts and possible explanations. How does he connect this insight up with his own thinking process by which he attained that insight, rather than some nebulous and theoretical 'mind', 'consciousness', or some other imagined material-mystical process? I think if there were a way to make this happen without the fundamental shift in perspective that comes through attending to one's own thinking will for movement and its meaningful feedback, it would have already happened. Surely some of these genius-level thinkers would have found the right order of conceptual contents to smooth over the transition.

I think the process of attaining spiritual understanding is truly analogous to the magic eye stereograms. The intellectual experience of all these cleverly arranged contents is akin to staring at the stereogram but only seeing the flat image. By effortfully learning new inner skills that shift the perspective, however, the hidden depth emerges. We then begin to notice all these 'hidden' images across the familiar World content, that we normally and habitually brush past without a second thought. We are amazed that we had missed those depth images the whole time, which were literally staring us in the face, although we also understand why.

[Federica]

I think if there were a way to make this happen without the fundamental shift in perspective that comes through attending to one's own thinking will for movement and its meaningful feedback, it would have already happened. Surely some of these genius-level thinkers would have found the right order of conceptual contents to smooth over the transition.

Thanks, Ashvin. Perhaps you are right, and if it were possible, Schrödinger would have found it. But Schrödinger thought of these ideas more than a lifetime ago. Evolution has kept rolling since then. And when the moment is cardinal, every little click counts. And he didn’t know Steiner. He didn’t read it, like the vast majority of the genius-level thinkers you refer to. I don’t recall the essay to be honest, but I do recall his overall approach, and connection with religious faith, and his insightfulness. I also recall the fifth subsidiary exercise. Of course, I’m not fantasizing that I can find what Schrödinger couldn’t find, and if I had bumped into some sensational conceptual content, I would be writing an essay, rather than posting here asking for help. This being said, I don’t think there’s anything to gain from excluding the possibility that something new in the way of drawing “conceptual” closer to “thinking” in conceptual thinking may emerge. Moreover, we can notice that Steiner, who knows how to be curt when the situation requires it, is consistently conciliatory and smooth when it comes to the potential of convergence between brain thinking and living thinking in real life.

I think the process of attaining spiritual understanding is truly analogous to the magic eye stereograms.

Whoa… I missed out on this in the nineties. That’s stunning! Maybe it means nothing, but there are many helpful ways to use concepts to make the magic eye experience more likely to happen, as I am seeing on Youtube, so my hope is that the analogy is robust enough!

But how to make the leap across the chasm of the thinking that structures the cultural environment to thinking that structures the natural kingdoms and our own living bodily processes (in a direct way not mediated by physical technology)?

Yeah right, that’s exactly the right question! I think there are cues to be found in Steiner to approach that.
Surely, a genius wouldn’t need that, but normal thinkers who have Anthroposophy in their karma may be prompted to connect some dots bubbling up from the wealth of living material Steiner gifted us with. That’s how this question came to mind for me: from studying lecture cycles. For example, one connection that could help making the leap across the chasm is by picking up what Steiner suggests about the traceable similarities between the expression of the formative forces in “the thinking that structures the cultural environment” and that which “structures the natural kingdoms”. It’s as if some form of consistency across kingdoms - including man, including all physical systems - could emerge conceptually, as it overarches and constrains the manifestation of these forces in various relatively independent types of being.

To say it bluntly, the common element, the formative principle, can be traced. The earthly worlds are pervaded by one quality of thinking force. Its nature is to be formative, creative. It hits the world through the plant filter, and some types of manifestation take place on the physical plane. It also hits the physical world through the animal filter, and there it flows into the vessels of the animal, with different material fallouts. There are differences, however, some objectively (and recognizable) common element remains. It hits the material plane through the human vessel, too. The same applies to the inanimate world. It’s not only the living. Within each system, the 'sub-vessels' communicate. The living formative forces of earthly thinking find diverse outlets in each kingdom, depending on the specific organization they flow into and animate. These diverse manifestations may seem to form a chasm with each other. But a common element remains detectable, to bridge the chasm to some extent, providing a sense of the pervasiveness of the overarching formative energy.

Trying to make all this more concrete, with examples from the lectures. Consider the physical system ‘human being’, in its existence on the physical plane. We inevitably notice that in man the formative forces (we could find a more conventional way to express that for the materialist’s benefit) transform into nervous-perceptual and intellectual workings, to a large extent. Of course, they also have to animate the rest of the physical body, working into the rhythmic and metabolic functions as well. Still, a huge portion or that energetic flow is sucked up by the senses and the brain. It’s like our signature feature, especially the intellectual part. When poured into the human vessel, the sharpest, most creative potential ‘contained’ in those forces must be directed up, because these intellectual workings are characteristic of the human form. If the human form is to affirm itself, that’s where the freshest energies must flow first, even at the expense of other creative functions. The output is what it is because of the particular conformation of man. It must work like that, if the coherence of the human form has to be ensured. If the formative forces flowing into the human system weren't lifted up to express and perpetuate the functionally coherent human form - characteristically distinguished from other systems by the reasoning capacities - not only would “human” mean nothing distinct or graspable, but also human-systems would lack internal coherence (and no so-called “human” would be there to try and grasp the meaning of “human”).

In comparison, a plant system, for example a hardy bush, doesn’t have organical means (nerves and brain) to convert the inflow of the same energetic potential into intellectual work, as man can do. So the conceptual energy flowing into a plant system must be expressed in other sorts of form-preserving works. One way plants do that is by multiplying organs (leaves, stems, roots,...) adaptively, depending on the particular environmental configuration they happen to interact with, as they metamorphose (soil topology and composition, atmospheric conditions, etcetera). In these functional activities, the plant interacts energetically with its environment in uniquely appropriate and transformative ways, while maintaining its distinguishable coherence of form - as long as it remains an internally consistent physical system. From spiritual science we know that, on the supra-sensible level, the formative forces of plants do much more than that, in interaction with cosmic ether, planetary forces, man’s etheric body and so on - but here we are focusing on the physical plane.

So, on the physical plane, a bush growing on a rocky hillside, or atop the ruin of an old castle, grows roots, stems, and peduncles in a way that would never occur to another specimen rooted in flat sandy soil, for instance. Its organs deliver a different function. The plant expresses an impressive level of creative freedom. On the same physical plane, a lizard can do something similar with its inflowing formative force, in order to energetically affirm its form coherently in time and space. It can regrow its tail, for example, though the range of possibilities seems more limited for it, compared to the plant’s. The bush doesn’t have nerves and brain. As it interactively establishes its form within the environment, it can allow energy to animate as many extra peduncles as needed. On the other hand, a lizard's nervous system is basic. Still, it’s enough of an energy drain to limit the gushing creative force we see manifesting in plants. The lizard wouldn’t manage to grow dozens of extra tails as it sees fit, and make these work as monkey tails or butterfly wings. But a planarian can regrow countless heads out of any sectioned-out portion of its body.

We can notice these major differences in how the one formative force of earthly thinking falls out into the physical plane differently, depending on what vessels it finds operable and what flow rate they require in each system. When it comes to the elements of the inanimate world, the force in them seems to work in a less immediately recognizable manner. Through spiritual science we know why. As for the materialist, to begin with, he could think of the formative forces substantiating an inanimate system as dormant, locked-in potential.

In summary, although higher animals and man seem more evolved than plants, lizards, and planarians, they can’t regrow a finger or an organ, to adapt to environmental hazards. To be precise, humans actually have some minimal ability to direct formative energy into form-supporting physical transformations as well. If one is right-handed, the right hand tends to grow slightly bigger and stronger than the left. If one is blind, the other senses become more acutely perceptive, and finer. But these are all minor interactions, compared to the power of functional transformation demonstrated by plants and lower animals in the physical.

And I was hoping that, from this large view, spread across the spectrum of the various kingdoms, one could start to get a sense of the common element in the formative energy of thinking, and to see how the human organization by necessity diverts forces away from organical transformation, and toward the works that establish the intellectual and volitional form (soul-spiritual activity) on the physical plane. In this way, the potential for growing new organs with new functions has dried up in man, like a dry river. But the common stamp of the original energy is there. The qualitative character of the transformation is preserved across kingdoms. Similar to how the lizard and the plant regrow a lost organ, asserting their form with high degrees of freedom through functionally plastic activity, human beings pour and use that energetic value primarily in mental picture form. That’s what affirms our human form more distinctively, on the physical plane.

As Steiner says, while we can’t regrow a physical organ out of adjacent tissues, we are indeed able to regrow a lost thought sequence out of an adjacent reasoning or analogical thought train, which we may divert and repurpose, as demanded by the intellectual challenge we are faced with. The interactive generative power supporting each system's contextual form is the common trait across Nature's kingdoms, of what we could perhaps call conceptual energy.