The Game Loop: Part 2 Interleaved IO flows I

[Federica]

Based on this, it is clear to me that what you call "noticing" is what I am already calling introspection, which is quite uncommon and unfamiliar from anything performed in ordinary intellectual experience (without the benefit of prior introspective gestures that have become second nature). Even if the reader does not physically move the fingers, clench the fist, etc., for some sustained duration, for example, the process of thinking about the memory experiences, linking the movements to differentiated willing gestures, and feeling how this constellates a unique IO vocabulary, is quite a bit of introspective effort. Even if this happens in a matter of seconds, it is a direction of thinking that is orthogonal to ordinary mental puzzle making, where concepts are hanging in the air and only related between themselves. It reminds me of an article that I recently read in the archive:

https://rsarchive.org/Articles/GA036/En ... index.html
"There is much talk about ‘Humanism’ in these days, and of cultivating the genuine human principle common to all men. But, for any such tendency to become quite genuine, it needs to be applied seriously to the different concrete provinces of life. Think what it means for anyone who once has felt words and phrases invested with an absolutely distinct and visible reality. How much fuller and keener is the sense a man then has of his own human nature than when language is merely felt in its abstraction! We need not think, of course, when a person sees a picture and says, ‘How delicious!’ that, whilst looking at the picture, he must at the same time have a vision of his joints being loosened until he is in a state of such complete ‘delectation’ that he begins to feel as if his being were dissolved! Still, anyone who has once vividly felt the corresponding picture in his soul, will—when he speaks such words—have a quite different inner experience from one who has never known them as anything but an abstraction."

We can also see why this form of "noticing" feels so easy and accessible for us, because the introspective skill is already baked into our intuitive context through prior efforts, just like our intuition for driving, weight lifting, or other physical skills we may have developed. I don't think this is being appreciated enough. We can reflect on how many people we have come across who would barely understand the inward experience of 'inner gestures', for example, how they are inwardly active in playing the game and how such inner gestures diffuse through the IO flows. It probably feels almost impossible for us to imagine someone not recognizing this experience, but nevertheless, we know there are plenty of people who cannot seem to do it no matter how many different appealing descriptions are presented. And for such people, not only are these descriptions hard to understand, they can easily feel incoherent or as the expression of someone who has egoistically succumbed to the illusion of being a 'doer'.

For example, you write: "There is first a specifically biological input-output set of patterns, like intention to move the index --- perceived motion of the index. This set is necessary for game playing, but game playing is not necessary for this vocabulary to express itself in all its variety." Many souls that only tread the intellectual surface of such descriptions can first say, "What intention to move the index? This is simply an automatic reflex that has been conditioned into me over the years. Just because I don't know all the historical reasons that compel my fingers to move, that doesn't mean I am intentionally guiding the process". Then, if that is moved beyond, they could say, "It's not true that the biological IO flow is necessary for game playing, because a completely mechanical robot can be programmed with movements that also play the game." The ordinary intellect can endlessly doubt the truth and importance of these ideas in such ways. Again, we have seen this pattern concretely play out more than a few times. This means that, what makes the logical reasoning compelling, in a deeper (and freer) sense, is not contained in the abstract tokens and their sequences, but in the vivid feeling of the 'soul pictures' which are evoked through them. That vivid feeling is only cultivated by introspective gestures.

[...]

This again makes me feel like my standard for "explicit introspective prompts" is much lower (or more expanded) than yours. I don't see how the essay's introspective prompts could be made any more explicit. True, Cleric doesn't take a commandeering tone, tell people to create a meditative environment, try to micromanage exactly how they carry out the introspection, and things of that nature, and no one is suggesting that is necessary, but he couldn't be any more explicit that it is critical for active experimentation to unfold. Of course, this doesn't mean strictly physical experiments, but inner experiments that are carried out consciously and consistently.

Isn’t the bolded a little too categorical of a judgement? Had I read the essay as a newcomer to this forum I believe I would have understood that. I would have either given up in frustration or understood the three vocabularies. But I would not have continued reading trying to connect concepts only to themselves. It’s the same in many other fields of intellectual inquiry. When the mind wants to understand Jung’s psychological types, as well as the description of Feeling in “Theosophy” (imagine you cross a meadow covered with flowers…), it has to go in that orthogonal direction, and it has the means to do that. It’s nothing foreclosed, only a little effortful. Now, you are right there are definitely many people who are not oriented to make the effort to truly understanding things, but I wouldn’t refer to that attitude as the norm for what the modern intellect can do. Yes, what’s compelling is the vivid feeling evoked through the thought sequences, and cultivated introspectively, and I would include that in the capacities of the healthy and still undeveloped intellect (undeveloped in the direction of higher cognition). Even if many people would not take the pain of applying themselves to ‘really understand’ what’s being conveyed, I think it’s only this accessible capacity of ‘really understanding’ that is in question. And the difference made by essays such as these is to create a large-ranging and all in all comfortable, feeling-imbued, context for the intellect, so that it’s more likely that it feels compelled to exert itself in the right direction. In any case, we agree in essence. It’s only that we have somewhat different general perspectives probably due to different backgrounds and life experiences.

[AshvinP]

Isn’t the bolded a little too categorical of a judgement? Had I read the essay as a newcomer to this forum I believe I would have understood that. I would have either given up in frustration or understood the three vocabularies. But I would not have continued reading trying to connect concepts only to themselves. It’s the same in many other fields of intellectual inquiry. When the mind wants to understand Jung’s psychological types, as well as the description of Feeling in “Theosophy” (imagine you cross a meadow covered with flowers…), it has to go in that orthogonal direction, and it has the means to do that. It’s nothing foreclosed, only a little effortful. Now, you are right there are definitely many people who are not oriented to make the effort to truly understanding things, but I wouldn’t refer to that attitude as the norm for what the modern intellect can do. Yes, what’s compelling is the vivid feeling evoked through the thought sequences, and cultivated introspectively, and I would include that in the capacities of the healthy and still undeveloped intellect (undeveloped in the direction of higher cognition). Even if many people would not take the pain of applying themselves to ‘really understand’ what’s being conveyed, I think it’s only this accessible capacity of ‘really understanding’ that is in question. And the difference made by essays such as these is to create a large-ranging and all in all comfortable, feeling-imbued, context for the intellect, so that it’s more likely that it feels compelled to exert itself in the right direction. In any case, we agree in essence. It’s only that we have somewhat different general perspectives probably due to different backgrounds and life experiences.

Yes, I think we are now pretty much agreed on the general form and direction that the 'bridge' should take, especially if we are centering around these essays as a stellar example. (and these essays aren't too different from previous ones, in terms of their phenomenological method and introspective promptings).

I also think the modern tendency is to generally overestimate the intellect's capacity for 'unprejudiced, healthy understanding' rather than underestimate it, even amongst those who have begun delaminating the IO flow spectrum. I have compiled a brief list of 'gentle cautions' provided by Cleric in the essays so far, which is like a checklist of all the archetypal traps that the intellect will inevitably fall into if it doesn't quickly shift its stance orthogonally with introspective effort. It's helpful to survey these cautions from time to time and feel how they take shape in our imaginative IO flow. (each paragraph comes from a different section of the essays)

"Even though we use the word ‘flow’, we should in no way imagine something beheld from a third-person perspective, similar to the way we can perceive a river from the side. Instead, we always imply the first-person metamorphosis of experience.

Whether we live in a dream, a physical Cosmos, the Matrix, or whatever, these basic questions remain. When we say ‘questions,’ we should be clear that we no longer seek merely theoretical answers. It’s no longer about thrusting ourselves into a pipeline of mental potato processing and producing a satisfying Minecraft computer (MC).

This example, however, shouldn’t be taken too literally. Doing so gives the impression that we already have more or less a good grasp on the controls of existence – we already hold the gamepad steadily, we know its overall geometry, etc. – but only miss a few details here and there within our already familiar volume of experience. Rather, we should equip ourselves with the humility and patience that we may need to seek the new controls in ways that are presently beyond the palette of our familiar imagination.

Since we’ll be using the term ‘intuition’ a lot, let’s be clear right from the start that nothing extraordinary is implied in this. The term is not about drawing upon some speculative data layer of reality.

By using a word like ‘bandwidth’, we do not imply any pseudo-scientific ideas. We can only grasp this if we are willing to do experiments and inner observations... When we use such words (like bandwidth or superimposed), they shouldn’t hang in the air as abstractions but should point right back to our direct experience. And clearly, there is something the words can point to only if we have tried to experiment and come to know the experiential reality that the words symbolize.

We should not imagine the flows as ‘made of’ some speculative vibrating energies. These are only artistic words expressing the facts of our inner experience.

Even though we have analyzed the gameplay IO flow into discrete operational, tactical, and strategic flows, our goal is not to postulate these as some fundamental axioms. Rather, we use them only as anchor points that can help us get a sense of this particular gradient of temporal intuitive integration.

It should be emphasized that everything described still pertains entirely to our phenomenological experience in the here and now. Even though we artistically symbolize the IO flows as waves extending in time, we are not at all implying that such waves exist in some speculative metaphysical dimensions of reality.

Again, this is not to suggest that it is useless to build intuition about the flow of IO patterns, but only that we should avoid fantasizing tortoises in the gaps. We can still use the term ‘cause’, but we should take that only as an indicator of the order in which we are intuitively accustomed to behold the outputs.

With this we’re not aiming to build some theoretical model of inner experience but only strive to focus on two sensations and the ways they can manifest in the output flow... The plane and the point are only an abstract map symbolizing our intuition for the way these sensations can transform and in what combinations they can be experienced. As the actual sensations change, we do not feel as moving spatially in one direction or another – we are always at the center of experience, and the sensations change in our phenomenal volume.

Once again, with this we do not imply the existence of some metaphysical axes, nor that the chosen three aspects are somehow fundamental and the whole complexity of our phenomenal existence can be represented through them. It is all only an artistic depiction of our intuition about these concrete aspects of the existential flow.

We are not ‘here’ or ‘there’ in that space. In fact, we should not expect that we can ever find such space as part of experience, except for in our picture-in-picture imaginative sub-flow. Nevertheless, the map can still artistically represent valid intuitions and lawfulness surveyable from our living experience."


I have probably left a few other ones out. In any case, these cautions hit on the ways that practically all modern thinkers investigate and imagine the 'structure of reality' through their varied philosophical, scientific, and religious frameworks. These are very stubborn habits that are only overcome once the intellect attains a better feel for what it is doing in the process of philosophizing in these ways. For example, practically all modern Kantian-style philosophies could be logically refuted by simply saying, "Yes, but you are thinking in the process of forming these conclusions about the limits of knowledge, the inaccessible game-loop-in-itself, etc., and your thinking is itself a spectrum of the game loop flow." If taken a little bit seriously and followed to its logical implications, this simple observation would dispel all sorts of prejudicial opinions about reality and the possibilities of cognition. Yet the impenetrable veil philosophy maintains itself, in one form or another, despite such a simple logical refutation. (and we have often seen these cautions and refutations directly pointed out and ignored, as if the intellect begins daydreaming at this point and sees right through the words)

To put it in a caricatured picture, we can imagine the process of attaining greater insight into reality as tugging a rope that is anchored behind a wall by a tiny demon, and the rope comes through a hole in the wall. As we tug on the rope, the tiny demon gives slack to the rope, and it is increasingly exposed on our side of the wall, which corresponds to more insight into output-to-output relations. When we come to the threshold of insight into our first-person inputting process, however, it's like the demon on the other side of the wall absolutely refuses to give more slack to the rope. It is programmed to stop giving slack at that threshold, even if the logical thinking process would naturally continue beyond it and expose more of the supersensible rope. No matter what logical refutations of the threshold that we throw at the demon, it refuses to allow more slack. That's how all the stubborn habits referenced above take shape, as the tugging is experienced as fruitless, and it is concluded the only viable path of progress is to loop the existing rope around itself into new configurations. The only way to get more slack is to become one with the rope demon and squeeze our imaginative activity through the hole, so to speak, such that we take over the process of giving slack. (which doesn't mean our local imagination is solely responsible for giving slack, since on the other side of the hole, 'we' are understood as an interference of many greater perspectives on the flow, to whom we must prayerfully align).

[Kaje977]

Kaje, I want to assure you that you are not alone in such experiences. However, we need to be clear what genuine inner development - as suitable for modern man - is about. I fully understand your concern about finishing education, and this should by all means take priority at your stage in life. It seems to me that at this time, your dabbling in esoteric science and exercises acts like a magnifying glass, and now many daily phenomena are accompanied by imaginative elements that you find disturbing. But would you say that the little trigger you speak of throwing you in the emotional vortex wouldn't have had a similar effect even without the imaginative aura? If that were the case, people who have never encountered esoteric ideas would have to be quite protected from such effects. Alas, this is not the case. In fact, a great part of humanity lives constantly in such kinds of inner torment, except that they experience everything clothed in completely secular mental images. The hatred is there, the jealousy, and so on, but intuited through the prism of daily life - the demon is seen in the wife, husband, the politicians, and so on.

Thus, we need to make a distinction. It is true that intellectually swallowing a lot of esoteric ideas can make us hypersensitive about many things. This is not too different from the way things work out for those fond of conspiracy theories. Even though our intellectual vocabulary increases, we get weaker and weaker. Now we see all around us warped images that we blame for our misery, whether they be the Illuminati or spectres. In that case, it would be good to get on a 'leaner diet' and consume less of these images. With respect to our overall development, however, this doesn't solve our evolutionary tasks. We only choose to get back to the drunkenness of sensory life, where we are still haunted and tormented, but simply interpreting everything through a 'rational' prism.

The way I see it, it could be useful to limit the consumption of esoteric images that become clothes for your heightened sensitivity. Yet, this period is also great for focusing on these images and intuitions that link you with the world of Light, even if this is done in a simple-minded way. We can never win a fight with the imaginative impressions that assail us. The inner strength only comes from our unity with the Divine Life contextualizing our existential flow. Cultivating this strength is precisely what allows us to find our center even amidst the infernal vortex. Be sure that it is within the Divine curvature of your destiny to finish your education and be a human being who can stand on his feet. Heaven has little use for weaklings. Seek that curvature, merge with it in prayer, picture the outflow of your destiny - of your thoughts, feelings, and actions - as the continuation of Divine Inspiration, and I can guarantee you that these activities will not in the least interfere with your education. In fact, it is precisely in this alignment with the Divine Love, Wisdom, and Truth that you will find the inner radiance which alone dispels all shadows.

Think of it in this way. One may say, "I don't want to read about hygiene, of caries, and so on. I won't brush my teeth, wash, and so on, because all these things only remind me of such haunting images." Of course, this helps only in the short term. Then the images come back as far more disturbing realities. But we do not need to perform any of these activities out of fear. Instead, we can be inspired by the ideal of health, life, purity, beauty, and so on. It is similar when the Divine aspects of existence become part of our daily routine. We no longer do anything out of fear or because of an imposed law, but because we discover aspects of life that inspire us to meet every day with enthusiasm and sacred joy about the incredible journey we are part of. Then, when we look back, we even wonder how we could have borne life as a lost soul, tossed around on the waves of fleeting sensations.

Hello, Cleric. First of all, thank you very much for your encouraging words, it really moved me. I have read your post very carefully and have reconsidered, and that I will continue with the spiritual exercises and try to get through it. I know that this is probably not the right topic for this (otherwise we can move my answer), but your answer has raised an important question for me and I hope you can answer it more precisely.

You said I should be sure if it is in the Divine curvature of my destiny to complete my studies. So you mean, in principle, whether it is in my destiny, so to speak, that I should complete this degree? If so, then that leads me to an important question: how can I be sure? How do I know that the path of life I have chosen is not the "wrong" one, or more specifically, isn't out-of-touch with the Divine curvature? And that it actually lies on the sacred curve of my destiny? How can I be sure that I really know and that I'm not possibly creating a fantasy to satisfy certain desires because it just feels nicer and avoiding other things that might be more important for my path but are more strenuous or significantly riskier (e.g. in terms of finding a job and earning money)?

Anyway, I thank you very much for your encouraging words, once again.

[Federica]

Yes, I think we are now pretty much agreed on the general form and direction that the 'bridge' should take, especially if we are centering around these essays as a stellar example. (and these essays aren't too different from previous ones, in terms of their phenomenological method and introspective promptings).

I also think the modern tendency is to generally overestimate the intellect's capacity for 'unprejudiced, healthy understanding' rather than underestimate it, even amongst those who have begun delaminating the IO flow spectrum. I have compiled a brief list of 'gentle cautions' provided by Cleric in the essays so far, which is like a checklist of all the archetypal traps that the intellect will inevitably fall into if it doesn't quickly shift its stance orthogonally with introspective effort. It's helpful to survey these cautions from time to time and feel how they take shape in our imaginative IO flow. (each paragraph comes from a different section of the essays)

"Even though we use the word ‘flow’, we should in no way imagine something beheld from a third-person perspective, similar to the way we can perceive a river from the side. Instead, we always imply the first-person metamorphosis of experience.

Whether we live in a dream, a physical Cosmos, the Matrix, or whatever, these basic questions remain. When we say ‘questions,’ we should be clear that we no longer seek merely theoretical answers. It’s no longer about thrusting ourselves into a pipeline of mental potato processing and producing a satisfying Minecraft computer (MC).

This example, however, shouldn’t be taken too literally. Doing so gives the impression that we already have more or less a good grasp on the controls of existence – we already hold the gamepad steadily, we know its overall geometry, etc. – but only miss a few details here and there within our already familiar volume of experience. Rather, we should equip ourselves with the humility and patience that we may need to seek the new controls in ways that are presently beyond the palette of our familiar imagination.

Since we’ll be using the term ‘intuition’ a lot, let’s be clear right from the start that nothing extraordinary is implied in this. The term is not about drawing upon some speculative data layer of reality.

By using a word like ‘bandwidth’, we do not imply any pseudo-scientific ideas. We can only grasp this if we are willing to do experiments and inner observations... When we use such words (like bandwidth or superimposed), they shouldn’t hang in the air as abstractions but should point right back to our direct experience. And clearly, there is something the words can point to only if we have tried to experiment and come to know the experiential reality that the words symbolize.

We should not imagine the flows as ‘made of’ some speculative vibrating energies. These are only artistic words expressing the facts of our inner experience.

Even though we have analyzed the gameplay IO flow into discrete operational, tactical, and strategic flows, our goal is not to postulate these as some fundamental axioms. Rather, we use them only as anchor points that can help us get a sense of this particular gradient of temporal intuitive integration.

It should be emphasized that everything described still pertains entirely to our phenomenological experience in the here and now. Even though we artistically symbolize the IO flows as waves extending in time, we are not at all implying that such waves exist in some speculative metaphysical dimensions of reality.

Again, this is not to suggest that it is useless to build intuition about the flow of IO patterns, but only that we should avoid fantasizing tortoises in the gaps. We can still use the term ‘cause’, but we should take that only as an indicator of the order in which we are intuitively accustomed to behold the outputs.

With this we’re not aiming to build some theoretical model of inner experience but only strive to focus on two sensations and the ways they can manifest in the output flow... The plane and the point are only an abstract map symbolizing our intuition for the way these sensations can transform and in what combinations they can be experienced. As the actual sensations change, we do not feel as moving spatially in one direction or another – we are always at the center of experience, and the sensations change in our phenomenal volume.

Once again, with this we do not imply the existence of some metaphysical axes, nor that the chosen three aspects are somehow fundamental and the whole complexity of our phenomenal existence can be represented through them. It is all only an artistic depiction of our intuition about these concrete aspects of the existential flow.

We are not ‘here’ or ‘there’ in that space. In fact, we should not expect that we can ever find such space as part of experience, except for in our picture-in-picture imaginative sub-flow. Nevertheless, the map can still artistically represent valid intuitions and lawfulness surveyable from our living experience."


I have probably left a few other ones out. In any case, these cautions hit on the ways that practically all modern thinkers investigate and imagine the 'structure of reality' through their varied philosophical, scientific, and religious frameworks. These are very stubborn habits that are only overcome once the intellect attains a better feel for what it is doing in the process of philosophizing in these ways. For example, practically all modern Kantian-style philosophies could be logically refuted by simply saying, "Yes, but you are thinking in the process of forming these conclusions about the limits of knowledge, the inaccessible game-loop-in-itself, etc., and your thinking is itself a spectrum of the game loop flow." If taken a little bit seriously and followed to its logical implications, this simple observation would dispel all sorts of prejudicial opinions about reality and the possibilities of cognition. Yet the impenetrable veil philosophy maintains itself, in one form or another, despite such a simple logical refutation. (and we have often seen these cautions and refutations directly pointed out and ignored, as if the intellect begins daydreaming at this point and sees right through the words)

To put it in a caricatured picture, we can imagine the process of attaining greater insight into reality as tugging a rope that is anchored behind a wall by a tiny demon, and the rope comes through a hole in the wall. As we tug on the rope, the tiny demon gives slack to the rope, and it is increasingly exposed on our side of the wall, which corresponds to more insight into output-to-output relations. When we come to the threshold of insight into our first-person inputting process, however, it's like the demon on the other side of the wall absolutely refuses to give more slack to the rope. It is programmed to stop giving slack at that threshold, even if the logical thinking process would naturally continue beyond it and expose more of the supersensible rope. No matter what logical refutations of the threshold that we throw at the demon, it refuses to allow more slack. That's how all the stubborn habits referenced above take shape, as the tugging is experienced as fruitless, and it is concluded the only viable path of progress is to loop the existing rope around itself into new configurations. The only way to get more slack is to become one with the rope demon and squeeze our imaginative activity through the hole, so to speak, such that we take over the process of giving slack. (which doesn't mean our local imagination is solely responsible for giving slack, since on the other side of the hole, 'we' are understood as an interference of many greater perspectives on the flow, to whom we must prayerfully align).

Yes the default thinking mode, especially the scientific one - as Donald Hoffman described in the paper you recently shared - is third person, and the thirsty mind benefits from regular guardrails, or gently reminders, that keep the knowing process from defaulting to dissociation from thinking. Perhaps this is a relatable expression - dissociation from thinking.

Thanks for the rope image. Perhaps there is an easy way AI can put it into a visual animation form for your next essay
But I am curious, why does the process of knowing evoke giving slack on a rope for you? This wouldn't have come to my mind and I wonder if you can add a few thoughts on that?

[AshvinP]

Yes the default thinking mode, especially the scientific one - as Donald Hoffman described in the paper you recently shared - is third person, and the thirsty mind benefits from regular guardrails, or gently reminders, that keep the knowing process from defaulting to dissociation from thinking. Perhaps this is a relatable expression - dissociation from thinking.

Thanks for the rope image. Perhaps there is an easy way AI can put it into a visual animation form for your next essay
But I am curious, why does the process of knowing evoke giving slack on a rope for you? This wouldn't have come to my mind and I wonder if you can add a few thoughts on that?

I'm not sure how useful enough of a metaphor it would be for an essay

I have in mind that the process of knowing (expanding intuitive orientation within the game flow) is synonymous with loosening the imaginative, emotional, and (eventually) physical constraints that continually obscure, deviate, and dampen the first-person lived experience of reality. Usually, we feel like this process is accumulating theoretical facts about an independent reality that we observe (via sensory or imaginative outputs), cobbling them together from the bottom-up and gaining intuition of their patterns. That is like we are pulling the rope on our side of the wall without any awareness that there is anything on the other side that is giving slack - the intellect simply assumes there is endless rope that can be tugged on, an endless flow of intellectual thoughts that can be combined in various ways to figure out reality. There is not even awareness that there is 'another side' to our imaginative life, which steers and shapes that life. When we gain such awareness through first-person experimentation with the imaginative IO flow, however, the knowing process comes to be experienced quite differently, as if we are working patiently with reality to expose more of the rope on the manifest side of the wall.

It can feel like there is a superposition of all possible knowledge flowing on the other side, awaiting the soul, yet it is only released periodically through pipes, ducts, and valves, when the concentric IO flows align harmoniously. We feel how our soul constraints are tying up the rope in knots on the other side, preventing further slack. It becomes evident that we would never be able to loosen those knots without first introspecting them, becoming aware of their characteristic patterns that chaotically move our soul life through the octants. Of course, that begins with the imaginative constraints - we need to work with the knots of opinions, prejudices, assumptions, etc. that condition our perspective and thoughts on the first-person flow. Yet even these knots can't be sufficiently loosened without simultaneous work on deeper constraints, by cultivating humility, patience, reverence, and so on. All these inner aspects that prevent further slack in our participatory knowing process are superimposed and entangled with one another.

Interestingly, the phenomenological method helps us work on all these knots simultaneously. It helps us perceive the default imaginative constraints that shape the flow and often obscure that flow from clear consciousness, but only by inviting us into a concentrated, patient, reverent, and humble effort. The soul needs to endeavor to lay aside its misgivings, its suspicions, its desire for quick and convenient understanding, for neatly memorizable correspondences, for all-encompassing theoretical tableaus, etc., before true inner experimentation can unfold and bear fruit. I think we have to kind of make peace with the fact that there are only very few who will manage this effort, especially in our time, when the intellectual and social atmosphere tends to reinforce the knots at every step. Yet we can also refine and clarify our introspective prompts such that there are as few opportunities for indirection as possible, as Cleric is doing.

[Federica]

I have in mind that the process of knowing (expanding intuitive orientation within the game flow) is synonymous with loosening the imaginative, emotional, and (eventually) physical constraints that continually obscure, deviate, and dampen the first-person lived experience of reality. Usually, we feel like this process is accumulating theoretical facts about an independent reality that we observe (via sensory or imaginative outputs), cobbling them together from the bottom-up and gaining intuition of their patterns. That is like we are pulling the rope on our side of the wall without any awareness that there is anything on the other side that is giving slack - the intellect simply assumes there is endless rope that can be tugged on, an endless flow of intellectual thoughts that can be combined in various ways to figure out reality. There is not even awareness that there is 'another side' to our imaginative life, which steers and shapes that life. When we gain such awareness through first-person experimentation with the imaginative IO flow, however, the knowing process comes to be experienced quite differently, as if we are working patiently with reality to expose more of the rope on the manifest side of the wall.

It can feel like there is a superposition of all possible knowledge flowing on the other side, awaiting the soul, yet it is only released periodically through pipes, ducts, and valves, when the concentric IO flows align harmoniously. We feel how our soul constraints are tying up the rope in knots on the other side, preventing further slack. It becomes evident that we would never be able to loosen those knots without first introspecting them, becoming aware of their characteristic patterns that chaotically move our soul life through the octants. Of course, that begins with the imaginative constraints - we need to work with the knots of opinions, prejudices, assumptions, etc. that condition our perspective and thoughts on the first-person flow. Yet even these knots can't be sufficiently loosened without simultaneous work on deeper constraints, by cultivating humility, patience, reverence, and so on. All these inner aspects that prevent further slack in our participatory knowing process are superimposed and entangled with one another.

Interestingly, the phenomenological method helps us work on all these knots simultaneously. It helps us perceive the default imaginative constraints that shape the flow and often obscure that flow from clear consciousness, but only by inviting us into a concentrated, patient, reverent, and humble effort. The soul needs to endeavor to lay aside its misgivings, its suspicions, its desire for quick and convenient understanding, for neatly memorizable correspondences, for all-encompassing theoretical tableaus, etc., before true inner experimentation can unfold and bear fruit. I think we have to kind of make peace with the fact that there are only very few who will manage this effort, especially in our time, when the intellectual and social atmosphere tends to reinforce the knots at every step. Yet we can also refine and clarify our introspective prompts such that there are as few opportunities for indirection as possible, as Cleric is doing.

Yes, well, it seems that the demon you speak of - the same who made Donald Hoffman say: “But the new theory has its own, unexplained, assumptions. And so on, forever” - is well and thriving. So you are right, but for my part I don’t feel like making peace with the idea that there are only very few who will manage the effort. What is the benefit of settling for that idea ahead of the facts?

[AshvinP]

Yes, well, it seems that the demon you speak of - the same who made Donald Hoffman say: “But the new theory has its own, unexplained, assumptions. And so on, forever” - is well and thriving. So you are right, but for my part I don’t feel like making peace with the idea that there are only very few who will manage the effort. What is the benefit of settling for that idea ahead of the facts?

You have often pointed out how few people can manage the introspective effort and find value in the phenomenological essays, based on our forum experiences. That's all that I was referring to. I don't think this fact of our experience should cause us to reevaluate the value of the phenomenological method and steer in a different direction, but rather we should 'make peace' with it and continue our efforts in the same general direction.

[Cleric]

Hello, Cleric. First of all, thank you very much for your encouraging words, it really moved me. I have read your post very carefully and have reconsidered, and that I will continue with the spiritual exercises and try to get through it. I know that this is probably not the right topic for this (otherwise we can move my answer), but your answer has raised an important question for me and I hope you can answer it more precisely.

You said I should be sure if it is in the Divine curvature of my destiny to complete my studies. So you mean, in principle, whether it is in my destiny, so to speak, that I should complete this degree? If so, then that leads me to an important question: how can I be sure? How do I know that the path of life I have chosen is not the "wrong" one, or more specifically, isn't out-of-touch with the Divine curvature? And that it actually lies on the sacred curve of my destiny? How can I be sure that I really know and that I'm not possibly creating a fantasy to satisfy certain desires because it just feels nicer and avoiding other things that might be more important for my path but are more strenuous or significantly riskier (e.g. in terms of finding a job and earning money)?

Anyway, I thank you very much for your encouraging words, once again.

Hi, Kaje, sorry for the delayed response.

I wrote the above simply in contrast with the alternative of neglecting Earthly affairs. We do need some kind of way to provide for ourselves and those we are responsible for. And I think that your education is both a way to do that in the future, and also a good exercise for your thinking, which can also be of value.

As far as 'how can I be sure': there's no absolute way to do that. Our intellect is of such a nature that to every inner gesture we can produce also its opposite. As such, we can never arrive at a thought for which it is impossible to summon also its negation. In other words, when our intellectual self wants to be 'sure', this secretly implies that it wants to arrive at such a thought that is impossible to doubt. And that can only happen if we somehow lose the degree of freedom that allows us to think the negation of the 'sure' thought. This, however, would be a kind of handicapped intellect.

So the solution is not to seek absolute intellectual sureness (a thought that is impossible to negate) but to have faith and constantly pray for keeping close to the Divine curvature. We should wish that our eyes are open and able to discern the pathways in our destiny as the Divine can discern them. We also shouldn't be afraid of making mistakes. As long as we make such mistakes out of sincere effort, we'll always be able to learn from them and correct our course.

[Kaje977]

Hi, Kaje, sorry for the delayed response.

I wrote the above simply in contrast with the alternative of neglecting Earthly affairs. We do need some kind of way to provide for ourselves and those we are responsible for. And I think that your education is both a way to do that in the future, and also a good exercise for your thinking, which can also be of value.

As far as 'how can I be sure': there's no absolute way to do that. Our intellect is of such a nature that to every inner gesture we can produce also its opposite. As such, we can never arrive at a thought for which it is impossible to summon also its negation. In other words, when our intellectual self wants to be 'sure', this secretly implies that it wants to arrive at such a thought that is impossible to doubt. And that can only happen if we somehow lose the degree of freedom that allows us to think the negation of the 'sure' thought. This, however, would be a kind of handicapped intellect.

So the solution is not to seek absolute intellectual sureness (a thought that is impossible to negate) but to have faith and constantly pray for keeping close to the Divine curvature. We should wish that our eyes are open and able to discern the pathways in our destiny as the Divine can discern them. We also shouldn't be afraid of making mistakes. As long as we make such mistakes out of sincere effort, we'll always be able to learn from them and correct our course.

Hello, Cleric. Thank you for your reply. I see. I think I understand now what you mean, but there is still one thing left that leaves me confused although I do see that prayer and having faith is what I should be striving for in order to find the right alignment towards the Divine curvature.

But I still don't quite understand what you mean, that there are no thoughts that cannot be negated. Perhaps I have fundamentally misunderstood something so far, but shouldn't there be such thoughts? (from a phenomenological perspective) Or are you only concerned here with the formation of the thoughts themselves?

I am aware, for example, that we are capable of forming all kinds of fossilized thoughts. Every thought can also have its logical opposite. According to Kant, this would be the judgment form of negation, the so-called negating judgment or negating thought. I can think: "All dogs are mammals", but I can also think the thought: "All dogs are not mammals" (or more precisely: they cannot be subsumed under the concept of "mammals"). But does this also apply to the truth of thoughts? That is, when I look at a thought and use it to determine the truth of what the thought points to or comes from? (The "assertoric judgment", according to Kant)

There are judgments/thoughts in which one can always doubt the truth, in which no certainty is possible. For example, the thought: "The sun will rise tomorrow". Such thoughts are always questionable, I can even imagine a world in my imagination where the sensory world seems to contradict even this thought. (e.g. if an apocalypse were to occur or the sun were to be destroyed) Even more everyday thoughts such as "House X is on street Y" are never 'sure' or "certain". But here I (my Thinking) am already anticipating precisely this doubt. That's what confuses me. It's similar to Hume's problem of induction.

After all, there are also seem to be thoughts in which you can't even imagine the truth as negated, i.e. it's not even sensually conceivable, and, in some cases, not even logically. At least not for me.

So you can formulate the logical opposite of every thought, but we can still somehow be certain that this thought cannot really be "apodictically" certain, i.e. to which we can only ascribe a truth based on external factors relatively (aka a relative truth). That a house X will still be standing tomorrow is always uncertain. But that e.g. causality or the "I" or Self will one day disappear is a possible thought, but I feel/sense/know with absolute certainty that it cannot be so, due to my phenomenlogical experience. My whole existence literally prevents it from livingly experiencing the opposite of this thought. I cannot even imagine the opposite of the I or Self, like a no-self or a world where causality doesn't exist or means nothing (like, how would I be able to write this sentence if it weren't for causal order?). So, doesn't this mean that it is possible to anticipate and discover something that we can absolutely be sure and certain of?

[AshvinP]

You said I should be sure if it is in the Divine curvature of my destiny to complete my studies. So you mean, in principle, whether it is in my destiny, so to speak, that I should complete this degree? If so, then that leads me to an important question: how can I be sure? How do I know that the path of life I have chosen is not the "wrong" one, or more specifically, isn't out-of-touch with the Divine curvature? And that it actually lies on the sacred curve of my destiny? How can I be sure that I really know and that I'm not possibly creating a fantasy to satisfy certain desires because it just feels nicer and avoiding other things that might be more important for my path but are more strenuous or significantly riskier (e.g. in terms of finding a job and earning money)?

I will add a few brief and general thoughts here, Kaje. Although we cannot reach any sort of intellectual certainty in this (or any other) domain, we can certainly refine our intuitive sensitivity to the possibilities of our life destiny. For example, we could think of this overall life destiny as an intuitive envelope of superimposed event lines. In this superposition, there are all possible temperaments, character traits, desires, skills, preferences, and so on, which may steer our course of becoming in one direction or another. These are further contextualized within a particular epoch of evolution, in which the general consciousness is of a certain shared character. In our time, that is clearly the relatively rigid intellectual-sensory consciousness in which the event lines unfold. Within that shared context, we can think of the other soul factors filtering out from the superposition and crystallizing in certain patterns for different individuals based on particular karma. Individuals incarnate with a certain blend of temperamental qualities and latent capacities that will influence their decisions through life.

Generally speaking, the temperament, disposition, skills, etc. that have filtered in a given incarnation should be understood as part of our proper karmic destiny. These, in turn, may stimulate specific interests that lead toward various educational and career paths. Clearly, it's not all the same whether the 'life movie' leads our experience to the scene of being a computer engineer or a social worker, even though they are both a means of making money and providing for ourselves. These imply quite different ways of relating to people and objects in our environment, different interests, knowledge, relationships, and so on. Thus, if we have ended up in a certain education or career, we can often look back and intuitively sense how our soul constellation biased our palette of life choices in that direction. If we have deep interest and enthusiasm for a certain line of study and work, then we can be pretty confident that it is a part of our proper destiny, i.e., that it will lead to qualities and capacities that serve our higher spiritual nature and tasks, as those were strategically premeditated before birth. 

The way in which our current pursuits will tie back into those higher tasks may not be very clear, and I think we often should expect them to be much more indirect. For example, a certain career choice may eventually bring us into contact with another individual who will play a critical role in our spiritual development. This encounter simply can't be figured out beforehand through any intellectual means. Yet we may still attain a deeper intuitive sense of the harmony between our soul context and our environmental circumstances, and faithfully anticipate how this sensed harmony can serve our individual and collective spiritual progress. It is a sense that will feel to reside at a much deeper level than intellectual speculation about whether our choices are 'wrong' or 'right', or whether we are simply trying to satisfy myopic desires. It is rather like we can feel the musical orchestration between core aspects of our soul life and pivotal events and opportunities that have entered our stream of becoming.