The purpose after full comprehension of itself?

[Cleric K]

I should clarify, that in this context by 'theory' I mean primarily formal mathematical theories such as ZFC. On the other hand I support intuitionist philosophy of math, which is empirical theory of mathematics in the intuitive and idealist sense of empirism. So, we can have intuitive insight how e.g. point relates to other concepts, and linguistic definitions should follow the intuitive empirical aspect of mathematics, not violate it.

Oh, OK, got it. So it's the foundations of mathematics themselves.

Personally, I don't have a problem with the point. Instead of planes and lines I would imagine a sphere or a circle. Now think - how many centers does it have? Or how big is the center?

Intuitively valid mathematical concepts are not mirrors, unless they are intuited and defined as mirrors. In my foundational approach, continuous processes are fundamental and don't reduce to discrete notions. Embodying and acting out intuitive mathematical investigations e.g. by dancing them has been a part of my methodology, but I don't consider that especially occult. I don't object to such interpretations, but don't fancy the occult aspect of secretive conspiracies myself. That level of paranoid is not good for my mental well being.

Then what I'm still unclear about would be "Does the understanding of the foundations of mathematics coincide for you with the understanding of reality itself?"

I don't mean occult in secretive/conspiracy way. It's only 'hidden' in the sense that it is not readily perceptible. In the same sense mathematics are something occult for the math illiterate. Going further, anyone with basic geometry understanding can do the visual part of you meditation. They can visualize the waves. But there's something that is not contained in the visualization itself which must be found and added by the meditator. When you meditate on the sphere you experience something quite different than simply the 'pixels' of the visualization. The back and forth waves are like written text for you. You read from them some meaning - the outgoing wave resonates with very specific spiritual experience, the ingoing wave with another. For the one who only visualizes the waves your additional meaning is occult. For them it's only the shape of the letter, appreciated as a pretty picture, without realizing that it must be read. They understand the purely geometric polarity but don't at all apprehend that there's a living polarity within spiritual experience that must be related to the geometry.

I can't give categorical answer to that question. I already gave my categorical answer: better instead of worse is better. Further and more complex qualifications don't improve that simple definition. As often, less is more. And before you ask, Finnish for 'pleasure' is mielihyvä, ie. mind-good, and displeasure mind-bad. Of course in practice mind-good and mind-bad can be extremely complex processes, but what other empirical criterion can there be?

Mielihyvä is not a good guide even from quite secular point of view. I suppose it isn't necessary to give examples of things that initially give us pleasure but then cost us way more than we have received. I've argued in similar lines with David that even maximizing Love and Joy can not be taken as the ultimate guide because as any function optimization, if we only want to climb the gradient we are most certainly to get stuck in a local maximum. That's why we need even more of the bold so that we can see further. Sometimes we have to lose altitude (fully conscious sacrifice and even suffering) but then we move towards the greater mountain.

[Lou Gold]

At the localized time-bound level, yes but not necessarily projected onto a cosmic level. About my personal revelations, I must say I trust my direct experiences and hold my interpretations of them agnostically. I keep finding more than I thought. My orientation is more of shamanic way-finding than of philosophical truth-seeking but these are just words describing my inclinations. I rarely consider something an article of my faith until after I have witnessed its affirmation and strengthening in my life and actions across time. Today, I can claim to more calmly and clearly hold the mysteriousness than I was able to 4 decades ago. Today, I am more appreciative of the many ways than I was 4 decades ago. Today, I can more calmly hold uncertainty with trust than I was then. On balance and in the context of our radically shifting times, I feel that I'm on a true path of heart without debilitating dependency on outcome. For me, this feeling is liberating.

OK, so on local time-bound level, you've transformed through the last four decades, although without specifically knowing the direction you were going. You now simply turn back, see where you've been, see where you're now and appreciate that by some criteria you are pleased with the transformation. I guess that if you try you can envision different hypothetical life scenarios that could have led you in completely different direction. For example, if you never had your transformative dream, your atheism (maybe I'm wrong but I remember you mentioned that you were atheist at some point) could have gone even stronger and now instead of the liberated, open-minded elder-child that you are, you could have been just as any other grumpy old man, cursing the youth and the politics. Think about your conscious experience when you go for your walks. Think about the gratitude that you feel for every living moment, for the living beauty all around you, for the opportunity to experience this Cosmic panorama from your unique human perspective. Think of the boundlessness of your consciousness, how it flows and connects you with everything. Now contrast this with the old grumpy man that you could have become. Imagine him taking the same walk. Try to squeeze your whole aura into the small atheistic brain. Imagine how you go all the way and through all the time your consciousness is within a small brain-cloud of confusion, dissatisfaction, resentment. You go around and notice nothing of the scenery, of the life around, the breeze. You return home tired in the same brain-cloud.

Now put these two on a scale. Do you miss any of grumpy's experiences? Do you think you are less of a human because of where you are now? Do you feel one-sidedly developed?

You invent hypotheticals that are not mine. Actually-factually I know good kind highly evolved people who are dedicated materialists. Their lives seem as rich and enriching as my own and I do not see myself as more evolved. The only thing I wish is that I might convince them that it is not necessary to believe in God or Divinity to be an Idealist. Why? Because, then, we'd have even more interesting stuff to talk about?

[Lou Gold]

Cleric, I like the drawing and see in it a great illustration of what I've been talking about: 1) as Santeri noted (somewhere) the interesting stuff does not occur at the extremes or poles of light and dark but in the middling realms of shadings; 2) darkness was the tool used to create the illustration and 3) in the hands of the creator the dark was more blessed than the light because it was the shadow removing the light that produced the creation. Yes, I understand that a marvelous drawing can be made with white chalk on a blackboard but the principle is the same: the dark is just as important/necessary as the light and has nothing to do with benign or malignant entities hovering about. Indeed, if one is a moth one best be damn careful when hovering about a candle burning in the dark.



Yes, I understand that my metacognition helps me describe this but I deny that metacognition is necessary for the creator to create the creation. It can be done instinctually.

[SanteriSatama]

Personally, I don't have a problem with the point. Instead of planes and lines I would imagine a sphere or a circle. Now think - how many centers does it have? Or how big is the center?

Question is not well defined.

In the spherical meditation before, point defined as end or a line = pole = wave center.

Then what I'm still unclear about would be "Does the understanding of the foundations of mathematics coincide for you with the understanding of reality itself?"

What is reality itself?

Though I consider mathematics a form of poetry, and the word comes from the Greek verb for 'doing' (poiein), the art of Unique does not reduce or limit to mathematics, which focuses on regularities. For a more concrete and particular answer, quantum superposition decoheres as it is measured, and so it matters how and with what kind of math potential is actualized. Does mathematics, on it's part, more create than describe, or vice versa? That is the essence of measurement problem, and it is ultimately ethical and practical... and spiritual question.

But there's something that is not contained in the visualization itself which must be found and added by the meditator. When you meditate on the sphere you experience something quite different than simply the 'pixels' of the visualization. The back and forth waves are like written text for you. You read from them some meaning - the outgoing wave resonates with very specific spiritual experience, the ingoing wave with another. For the one who only visualizes the waves your additional meaning is occult. For them it's only the shape of the letter, appreciated as a pretty picture, without realizing that it must be read. They understand the purely geometric polarity but don't at all apprehend that there's a living polarity within spiritual experience that must be related to the geometry.

Yes, except for the "must" part. As you notice, the main thing about that meditation is that it is fairly easy to communicate and share and doesn't require academic or other elitist background to grasp, and yet has potential to help to deconstruct some limiting conditionings and thought patterns as well as to open whatever experiences it opens. There is no must, no teleology of control mechanism, no authority.

Mielihyvä is not a good guide even from quite secular point of view. I suppose it isn't necessary to give examples of things that initially give us pleasure but then cost us way more than we have received. I've argued in similar lines with David that even maximizing Love and Joy can not be taken as the ultimate guide because as any function optimization, if we only want to climb the gradient we are most certainly to get stuck in a local maximum. That's why we need even more of the bold so that we can see further. Sometimes we have to lose altitude (fully conscious sacrifice and even suffering) but then we move towards the greater mountain.

That is very limited and naive understanding of pleasure and Epicurean hedonism. Of course it is not limited to instant gratification, but involves full complexity of delayed gratification that comes with comprehension of polarities and their sublation. Hedonism is natural criticism of various constructions of authoritarian Big Other, ie. projections of ego. .

[SanteriSatama]

You invent hypotheticals that are not mine. Actually-factually I know good kind highly evolved people who are dedicated materialists. Their lives seem as rich and enriching as my own and I do not see myself as more evolved. The only thing I wish is that I might convince them that it is not necessary to believe in God or Divinity to be an Idealist. Why? Because, then, we'd have even more interesting stuff to talk about?

I thought Clerics narrative of hypotheticals was very deep. The potential of Grumpy Lou is not lost and externalized by some old choiceless choice, the Grumpy Lou is part of Kind and Wise Lou. Tiny Grumpy inside is not in control but can come out sometimes, also much loved as who and how he is and most importantly helps Mahatma Lou to empathize and level with other selves in their grumpy stage of evolution and conditioning. I don't claim that this line of thinking is fully developed, but feels to have something to it, in terms of divine integration.

[AshvinP]

But there's something that is not contained in the visualization itself which must be found and added by the meditator. When you meditate on the sphere you experience something quite different than simply the 'pixels' of the visualization. The back and forth waves are like written text for you. You read from them some meaning - the outgoing wave resonates with very specific spiritual experience, the ingoing wave with another. For the one who only visualizes the waves your additional meaning is occult. For them it's only the shape of the letter, appreciated as a pretty picture, without realizing that it must be read. They understand the purely geometric polarity but don't at all apprehend that there's a living polarity within spiritual experience that must be related to the geometry.

Yes, except for the "must" part. As you notice, the main thing about that meditation is that it is fairly easy to communicate and share and doesn't require academic or other elitist background to grasp, and yet has potential to help to deconstruct some limiting conditionings and thought patterns as well as to open whatever experiences it opens. There is no must, no teleology of control mechanism, no authority.

Just a quick aside here - but, as you know, this particular argument really bugs me. What is it about the word "must" in the context Cleric used it that necessitates controlling, authoritarian mechanism? To me, that automatic association assumes the concept of "necessary" can be exhaustively explained in terms of human power dynamics. But we all know it is more than that one-dimensional framing. That water is necessary for a person to survive, i.e. the person must drink water, does not mean the water has become a despotic force ruling over the person.

[Lou Gold]

You invent hypotheticals that are not mine. Actually-factually I know good kind highly evolved people who are dedicated materialists. Their lives seem as rich and enriching as my own and I do not see myself as more evolved. The only thing I wish is that I might convince them that it is not necessary to believe in God or Divinity to be an Idealist. Why? Because, then, we'd have even more interesting stuff to talk about?

I thought Clerics narrative of hypotheticals was very deep. The potential of Grumpy Lou is not lost and externalized by some old choiceless choice, the Grumpy Lou is part of Kind and Wise Lou. Tiny Grumpy inside is not in control but can come out sometimes, also much loved as who and how he is and most importantly helps Mahatma Lou to empathize and level with other selves in their grumpy stage of evolution and conditioning. I don't claim that this line of thinking is fully developed, but feels to have something to it, in terms of divine integration.

INDEED! I grok your feeling. Lou is obligated by choiceless-choice to reveal, expose and to truly love Grumpy Lou as well as Wise Lou, et al.

"Gone. Gone to the other side. Naked. Nothing to defend. Awake. So be it."

[SanteriSatama]

Just a quick aside here - but, as you know, this particular argument really bugs me. What is it about the word "must" in the context Cleric used it that necessitates controlling, authoritarian mechanism? To me, that automatic association assumes the concept of "necessary" can be exhaustively explained in terms of human power dynamics. But we all know it is more than that one-dimensional framing. That water is necessary for a person to survive, i.e. the person must drink water, does not mean the water has become a despotic force ruling over the person.

OK. But in this case, giving a geometric meditation certain kind of spiritual interpretation is not a necessity. Difference between necessities and possibilities is important.

[Lou Gold]

... a darkness that Shu once attempted to describe as 'dazzling'

Just to clarify, the descriptor 'dazzling' was borrowed from a piece written by John Wren Lewis attempting to recount his NDE, available here ... https://www.nonduality.com/dazdark.htm

But I don't feel that the essence of awareness can actually be understood in any observational subject><object way, as in observing a dazzling darkness as the progenitor of it, since being uncaused, irreducible primal awareness has no source.

Thanks for the source of "dazzling darkness" Shu. Actually, I recognized it as a descriptive effort but not a concept really satisfying to me. However, I loved LWL's description of his process. I agree that the "irreducible primal awareness has no source" and say that when seen one can only surrender to it. In its presence, there is no choice other than to accept a lot of process to come. In my case, I'm still unpacking it with angst and gratitude.

Thanks again Shu for the JW-L link. Yes, I have seen "a vast blackness that was somehow radiant, a kind of infinitely concentrated aliveness or “pure consciousness” that had no separation within it,..." but my experience of it was somehow less intense or whatever to produce an instant transformation. It was more like it plunged me onto a path that continues to unfold to this day, a path I comfortably refer to as "my faith, rock solidly more than a mere belief." I guess this is why, when I hear anyone speak 'negatively' about darkness, I want to know if they have experienced the radiant blackness, which has no similarity with shadow stuff? For me, despite being ineffable, this is the difference making a difference.

I do like JW-L saying,

Moreover that wonderful “eternal life of everywhere” was still there, right behind my eyes—or more accurately, at the back of my head—continually recreating my whole personal body-mind consciousness afresh, instant by instant, now! and now! and now! That’s no mere metaphor for a vague sensation; it was so palpably real that I put my hand up to probe the back of my skull, half wondering if the doctors had sawn part of it away to open my head to infinity. Yet it wasn’t in the least a feeling of being damaged; it was more like having had a cataract taken off my brain, letting me experience the world and myself properly for the first time—for that lovely dark radiance seemed to reveal the essence of everything as holy.

I felt like exclaiming, “Of course! That’s absolutely right!” and applauding every single thing with tears of gratitude—not just the now sleeping Ann and the small jar of flowers the nurse had placed by the bedside, but also the ominous stains on the bed sheets, the ancient paint peeling off the walls, the far from hygienic smell of the toilet, the coughs and groans of other patients, and even the traumatized condition of my body. From the recesses of my memory emerged that statement at the beginning of the book of Genesis about God observing everything “he” had made and finding it very good. In the past I’d treated these words as mere romantic poetry, referring only to conventionally grand things like sunsets and conveniently ignoring what ordinary human consciousness calls illness or ugliness. Now all the judgments of goodness or badness which the human mind necessarily has to make in its activities along the line of time were contextualized in the perspective of that other dimension I can only call eternity, which loves all the productions of time regardless.

and, to connect with my never-ending circling with Cleric,

"First, beware of philosophies that put spiritual concerns into a framework of growth or evolution, which I believe are the great modern idols. Both are important phenomena of eternity’s time theater, but as paradigms they’re old hat, hangovers from the age of empire-building and the work ethic."

YUP!

[Lou Gold]

Thanks again Shu for the JW-L link. Yes, I have seen "a vast blackness that was somehow radiant, a kind of infinitely concentrated aliveness or “pure consciousness” that had no separation within it,..." but my experience of it was somehow less intense or whatever to produce an instant transformation. It was more like it plunged me onto a path that continues to unfold to this day, a path I comfortably refer to as "my faith, rock solidly more than a mere belief." I guess this is why, when I hear anyone speak 'negatively' about darkness, I want to know if they have experienced the radiant blackness, which has no similarity with shadow stuff? For me, despite being ineffable, this is the difference making a difference.

I do like JW-L saying,

Moreover that wonderful “eternal life of everywhere” was still there, right behind my eyes—or more accurately, at the back of my head—continually recreating my whole personal body-mind consciousness afresh, instant by instant, now! and now! and now! That’s no mere metaphor for a vague sensation; it was so palpably real that I put my hand up to probe the back of my skull, half wondering if the doctors had sawn part of it away to open my head to infinity. Yet it wasn’t in the least a feeling of being damaged; it was more like having had a cataract taken off my brain, letting me experience the world and myself properly for the first time—for that lovely dark radiance seemed to reveal the essence of everything as holy.

I felt like exclaiming, “Of course! That’s absolutely right!” and applauding every single thing with tears of gratitude—not just the now sleeping Ann and the small jar of flowers the nurse had placed by the bedside, but also the ominous stains on the bed sheets, the ancient paint peeling off the walls, the far from hygienic smell of the toilet, the coughs and groans of other patients, and even the traumatized condition of my body. From the recesses of my memory emerged that statement at the beginning of the book of Genesis about God observing everything “he” had made and finding it very good. In the past I’d treated these words as mere romantic poetry, referring only to conventionally grand things like sunsets and conveniently ignoring what ordinary human consciousness calls illness or ugliness. Now all the judgments of goodness or badness which the human mind necessarily has to make in its activities along the line of time were contextualized in the perspective of that other dimension I can only call eternity, which loves all the productions of time regardless.

and, to connect with my never-ending circling with Cleric,

"First, beware of philosophies that put spiritual concerns into a framework of growth or evolution, which I believe are the great modern idols. Both are important phenomena of eternity’s time theater, but as paradigms they’re old hat, hangovers from the age of empire-building and the work ethic."

YUP!