Nietzsche and Christianity - Metaphysical Idealist Critique

[AshvinP]

Eugene, you have a tendency to say you "agree" when you don't actually agree, or maybe it's the other way around and you do agree but continue to argue for the opposite conclusion. So which is it, are we "imprisoned to a private space of experience until we die", therefore making all metaphysical-spiritual models equally valid, or can our conceptions-perceptions in this life, in this world, lead us to knowledge of the 'higher realms' which Cleric is referencing? Do you believe metaphysical-spiritual models are of another essence than scientific models, or are they continuous with each other in their essence? I seriously just want to figure out what your position is.

I admit that my responses might have been confusing and not clear enough. Of course our "conceptions-perceptions in this life, in this world, lead us to knowledge of the 'higher realms' which Cleric is referencing". I do that myself all the time in my spiritual practice, I believe that I connect to higher realms and spiritually communicate with their inhabitants with whom I share common non-dual spiritual states of consciousness, and I often ask for their assistance and council. Yet, while doing that, I still experience all of that within my private space of conscious experiences. What happens after I die, whether I will continue experiencing within my private space of conscious experience (even though I will be communicating with other spaces) or whether I will merge with the oneness of all conscious experiences on the cosmic level - I do not know, and I'm open to both possibilities.

I was trying to explain here, that, unless you experience here and now the whole cosmic totality of all experiences of all sentient beings in the universe (which would mean that you are the Cosmic Divine subject), you and me are limited to experiencing the world within our private spaces of conscious experiences. These multiple spaces can communicate with each other through language or telepathically, in the human and animal domain or reaching to the higher-realm spiritual domains, but when two of us communicate, telepathically or by signs, we still remain having experiences within our private conscious spaces.

Sorry but I still don't understand how the first paragraph is reconciled with the second paragraph. I am completely open to the possibility that I am totally failing to follow your otherwise valid logic. So let me ask a follow up - do you think we spiritual beings share the same unified experiential space or are we in separate spaces which are able to telepathically or otherwise communicate with each other? Or both? (I know "space" implies a physical location so just remember it is a symbol for a thought-location)

Also, remember I am asking about what is theoretically possible and not what is the case at any given moment, i.e. I cannot access all of your experiences now and vice versa but is our ability to empathize, as Cleric suggested, a dim reflection of a higher spiritual capacity to truly access each other's perspectives.

[Eugene I]

Sorry but I still don't understand how the first paragraph is reconciled with the second paragraph. I am completely open to the possibility that I am totally failing to follow your otherwise valid logic. So let me ask a follow up - do you think we spiritual beings share the same unified experiential space or are we in separate spaces which are able to telepathically or otherwise communicate with each other? Or both? (I know "space" implies a physical location so just remember it is a symbol for a thought-location)

Well, it's a good question, and I do not know the answer for sure, but I have my "preferred" variant of the answer. There are two variants of the answer:
1. Beings sharing the same experience actually have exactly the same quale of experience. Say, you see a blue sky and experience the quale of blueness in your space of awareness, and I telepathically experience your experience of blueness. There is only one quale that is experienced by both of us. In such case the beings would actually share the same unified experiential space when they have common experiences.
2. Beings sharing the same experience actually have the unique qualia that represent that experience, each qualia belonging to each space of awareness. In other words, these qualia are "copies" of each other. In that example the experience of the blueness that I see in my private space is a representation/copy/resonance of your blueness experience. It's like when there are two pianos in the room and you press a key on one piano, the other one will resonate and produce the same sound, but that will be the sound of the second piano and not the same sound produced by the first piano.

We had that discussion before. I still believe, as almost all professional philosophers in the filed of the philosophy of consciousness, that the subject combination problem is a real problem, and therefore any explanatory model of consciousness should avoid it. The subject combination problem is based on a claim that two subjects can not share exactly the same quale, because qualia of conscious experience entirely belong to the unity of each individuated space of experience. You might notice that your space of experience has a mysterious quality of unity: even though you experience a variety of qualia every moment, they all are mysteriously and inseparably united into a oneness and completeness of the totality of your conscious experience here and now. You can not break this totality into pieces so that those pieces do not entirely belong to each private totality anymore. The answer variant #1 violates the subject combination problem and breaks the totalities of individuated spaces "into pieces". This is the reason the answer #1 is rejected by most philosophers, and I kind of agree with that because I observe and meditate on this unbreakable unity of the conscious experience all the time. However, there is still a chance that this reasoning is wrong and the answer #1 is in fact what happens. So, my 2 cents: I don't know for sure but I tend to think that #2 is the case.

The answer #2 is similar to the BK's model: when MAL creates its ideations of the world, we alters experience them through the "Markov's blanket" on the "other side" of the blanket, and thus our sensory experiences/qualia of the world are not the same as the ideations of the MAL, but only their products/copies communicated to us through the blankets. In this way BK also avoids the subject combination problem (otherwise he would be in trouble of his philosophy rejected by the rest of the philosophical community).

Cleric, what are your thoughts about this puzzle?

[SanteriSatama]

I am claiming the deeply ingrained habit of mind which causes us to be convinced no spiritual models can ever be verified through our experience in our lifetime on planet Earth is what leads to nihilism (and all manner of corresponding Self-destructive tendencies).

There's a deep truth to that. Pyrrhonian philosophical skepticism is the position that stays uncommitted to the conviction you describe, and allows investigation.

[AshvinP]

Sorry but I still don't understand how the first paragraph is reconciled with the second paragraph. I am completely open to the possibility that I am totally failing to follow your otherwise valid logic. So let me ask a follow up - do you think we spiritual beings share the same unified experiential space or are we in separate spaces which are able to telepathically or otherwise communicate with each other? Or both? (I know "space" implies a physical location so just remember it is a symbol for a thought-location)

Well, it's a good question, and I do not know the answer for sure, but I have my "preferred" variant of the answer. There are two variants of the answer:
1. Beings sharing the same experience actually have exactly the same quale of experience. Say, you see a blue sky and experience the quale of blueness in your space of awareness, and I telepathically experience your experience of blueness. There is only one quale that is experienced by both of us. In such case the beings would actually share the same unified experiential space when they have common experiences.
2. Beings sharing the same experience actually have the unique qualia that represent that experience, each qualia belonging to each space of awareness. In other words, these qualia are "copies" of each other. In that example the experience of the blueness that I see in my private space is a representation/copy/resonance of your blueness experience. It's like when there are two pianos in the room and you press a key on one piano, the other one will resonate and produce the same sound, but that will be the sound of the second piano and not the same sound produced by the first piano.

We had that discussion before. I still believe, as almost all professional philosophers in the filed of the philosophy of consciousness, that the subject combination problem is a real problem, and therefore any explanatory model of consciousness should avoid it. The subject combination problem is based on a claim that two subjects can not share exactly the same quale, because qualia of conscious experience entirely belong to the unity of each individuated space of experience. You might notice that your space of experience has a mysterious quality of unity: even though you experience a variety of qualia every moment, they all are mysteriously and inseparably united into a oneness and completeness of the totality of your conscious experience here and now. You can not break this totality into pieces so that those pieces do not entirely belong to each private totality anymore. The answer variant #1 violates the subject combination problem and breaks the totalities of individuated spaces "into pieces". This is the reason the answer #1 is rejected by most philosophers, and I kind of agree with that because I observe and meditate on this unbreakable unity of the conscious experience all the time. However, there is still a chance that this reasoning is wrong and the answer #1 is in fact what happens. So, my 2 cents: I don't know for sure but I tend to think that #2 is the case.

The answer #2 is similar to the BK's model: when MAL creates its ideations of the world, we alters experience them through the "Markov's blanket" on the "other side" of the blanket, and thus our sensory experiences/qualia of the world are not the same as the ideations of the MAL, but only their products/copies communicated to us through the blankets. In this way BK also avoids the subject combination problem (otherwise he would be in trouble of his philosophy rejected by the rest of the philosophical community).

Cleric, what are your thoughts about this puzzle?

So I think my questions have not been clear, but let me see if we are on the same page now. We all agree that the individual space of experience contains inseparable percepts-concepts which form a unity. Cleric has explained we can know this unity is a product of our thinking activity by reflecting on that activity, in the broadest sense of "thinking" (not simply ratiocination), and I agree with him on that point. You may have a different explanation for the unity but that's a separate issue we can deal with later.

So then the question becomes whether there are higher orders of unity among the 'spaces' of experience for many individuals, i.e. families, communities, nations, etc., and our individual spaces are in essence contiguous with other spaces through these higher orders. It sounds like you are saying that such higher order unities are unlikely to be the case because that would involve a shared set of qualia which implicates the "subject combination" philosophical problem. Is that accurate?

PS - I have a feeling Cleric is going to drop a megaton post on us at any moment which will restate what I am saying above better and anticipate my next 10 questions to you as well, in which case feel free to ignore everything I am writing and just respond to him

[Eugene I]

So I think my questions have not been clear, but let me see if we are on the same page now. We all agree that the individual space of experience contains inseparable percepts-concepts which form a unity. Cleric has explained we can know this unity is a product of our thinking activity by reflecting on that activity, in the broadest sense of "thinking" (not simply ratiocination), and I agree with him on that point. You may have a different explanation for the unity but that's a separate issue we can deal with later.

So then the question becomes whether there are higher orders of unity among the 'spaces' of experience for many individuals, i.e. families, communities, nations, etc., and our individual spaces are in essence contiguous with other spaces through these higher orders. It sounds like you are saying that such higher order unities are unlikely to be the case because that would involve a shared set of qualia which implicates the "subject combination" philosophical problem. Is that accurate?

PS - I have a feeling Cleric is going to drop a megaton post on us at any moment which will restate what I am saying above better and anticipate my next 10 questions to you as well, in which case feel free to ignore everything I am writing and just respond to him

Yes, this is correct, if we believe that the combination problem is a valid problem, such higher order unities would trigger the subject combination problem.

One correction though: the unity of our private space of consciousness is an experiential fact. But using our attention and intellect we can directly see and recognize it, label as "unity", analyze etc. But the fact/experience of this unity is there in our direct conscious experience even before the intellect can notice it. Usually though, it takes some meditation practice effort to be able to notice and recognize it by the intellect.

Typically people don't even notice and don't pay any attention to it, because they "live" mostly in the contents of their interpretational representations of the conscious experience, in their thoughts and imaginations rather than in the base reality of the direct conscious experience. As I gave an analogy before, when we look at the clouds, the "primary level" of our direct experience is just the direct perceptions of the clouds. However, we re-create a secondary "virtual reality" using our imagination when we recognize images in the shapes of the clouds and start seeing "seemingly real" people and animals there, and that becomes the secondary reality where we spend most of our mental and volitional activity and where our attention span resides. But this is mind-constructed reality that consists mostly of the contents of our thought and imaginations. And the funny thing is: these thoughts are similarly just part of our direct conscious experience, but we typically do not notice that. With out narrowed attention span we literally "live insight" these imaginations and thoughts neglecting the reality of of the directly experienced space of the stream of conscious phenomena, and this virtual world of our imaginations/thought becomes our mind-constructed world where we primarily live. But when we narrow the attention span only into the imaginations and thoughts, we do not see that unity of the space of awareness, because the conglomerate of out imaginations and meanings of the thoughts seems to us very fragmented, we see and identify seemingly separate objects, people, ourselves there etc. this is how the "duality" happens and how we fragment the space of consciousness in our minds. Such fragmentation, however, is only imaginary, it's an illusion, and in the reality of our direct experience there is only unity of our space of awareness. So, the awareness has a mysterious quality of "gluing together" seemingly fragmented phenomena of our conscious experience. This is a remarkable fact! And presumably (now we are making an intellectual inference, not referring to an actual experiential fact) this prompts us to the insight how the Cosmic Consciousness is united into oneness in the ground of the cosmic Awareness due to such "gluing" property, while still being seemingly fragmented into multiplicity of individuated spaces of private experiences. This is of course a speculation only, but this is how I envision it (hypothetically).

You may ask then why two or more spaces could not "unite" into oneness in a similar way? The answer is: they are (hypothetically) screened from each other by "Markov blankets" and so appear to be separated (as it appears from within each of the spaces), while still being united in the common ground of Consciousness/Awareness. And as soon as they have some common shared qualia, they necessarily have to unite into one space. It's like the airs in two bubbles are enclosed in and belong to two bubbles. The bubbles can touch and "communicate", but they never share the internal air. But once the shared surface is burst, they now can share the common air, but alas, they are no longer two separate bubbles, but only a single bubble. Yet, even when the airs are enclosed into two bubbles, they are made of the same "substance" - the air (Awareness), and fundamentally are the same. this is an analogy only of course and may be inaccurate.

[SanteriSatama]

So then the question becomes whether there are higher orders of unity among the 'spaces' of experience for many individuals, i.e. families, communities, nations, etc., and our individual spaces are in essence contiguous with other spaces through these higher orders. It sounds like you are saying that such higher order unities are unlikely to be the case because that would involve a shared set of qualia which implicates the "subject combination" philosophical problem. Is that accurate?

Quantification is a qualia, yes?

In standard number theory there's no higher order of unity, than the idea of One. In p-adic analysis, if we start from the idea of One-Infinity, or from A as in Absolute, hierarchies of various spaces are characterized by unique prime numbers (to which the "p" in the adic refers to).

The unity of various sense-qualia, as well as levels of social organization, can be only a mathematical qualia, it seems. Reading 'Highest' from the left, we can write:

A...nnn,p

'p' for prime number, 'n' for descending exponentiation of natural numbers from the top A. (...n^3, n^2, n^1). Each prime at the bottom level (ie. rational numbers) has it's unique character, p-adic math has unique flavors in each number base or prime numbers.

In addition to Absolute, A can be interpreted also as Abstract and Absolving. Math can continue to more and more abstract levels than p-adics, but without similarly strong intuition of Higher and Highest as with the p-adic structure.

For mathematical cognition etc conscience, contemplation and awareness of the mathematical qualia of p-adic unities can mean process of at least partially absolving the grip of the structure and moving on to deeper inquiry of other sense qualia and their relations, connections and continuities. .

[AshvinP]

So I think my questions have not been clear, but let me see if we are on the same page now. We all agree that the individual space of experience contains inseparable percepts-concepts which form a unity. Cleric has explained we can know this unity is a product of our thinking activity by reflecting on that activity, in the broadest sense of "thinking" (not simply ratiocination), and I agree with him on that point. You may have a different explanation for the unity but that's a separate issue we can deal with later.

So then the question becomes whether there are higher orders of unity among the 'spaces' of experience for many individuals, i.e. families, communities, nations, etc., and our individual spaces are in essence contiguous with other spaces through these higher orders. It sounds like you are saying that such higher order unities are unlikely to be the case because that would involve a shared set of qualia which implicates the "subject combination" philosophical problem. Is that accurate?

PS - I have a feeling Cleric is going to drop a megaton post on us at any moment which will restate what I am saying above better and anticipate my next 10 questions to you as well, in which case feel free to ignore everything I am writing and just respond to him

Yes, this is correct, if we believe that the combination problem is a valid problem, such higher order unities would trigger the subject combination problem.

One correction though: the unity of our private space of consciousness is an experiential fact. But using our attention and intellect we can directly see and recognize it, label as "unity", analyze etc. But the fact/experience of this unity is there in our direct conscious experience even before the intellect can notice it. Usually though, it takes some meditation practice effort to be able to notice and recognize it by the intellect.

To be clear, we agree that the unity is experiential fact which happens before we intellectually reflect on it, but what I was referencing was how that unity arises, i.e. what glues the percept-concepts together. One answer is our thinking, which is what truly belongs to us, and we can arrive at that answer by reflecting on our thinking process. You seem to give a different answer in the rest of your post, but I am going to leave that aside to discuss the other issue of higher order unities (even though the first issue is also a very important distinction).

So, as you pointed out, we have had the "subject combination/de-combination" argument before in the old forum. To make a long story short, I argued that the empirical evidence of "de-combination" in split-brain studies trumps the philosophical arguments against it. I believe the same holds true here. Even though the empirical evidence is not complete or absolute, I give it much more weight than the consensus of philosophical community. We know all too well how philosophers can create "irresolvable" problems for themselves based on various unexamined or insufficiently examined axioms.

I think that mostly accounts for what is going on here and that gets to heart of the critique of German idealism launched by Nietzsche, Steiner and Heidegger among others. The apparent continuity of experience between individuals is rendered merely apparent, rather than reflective of metaphysical reality, by the split between mind (private) and 'material'-representation (public); between true knowledge (private) and mere appearance (public). That split goes very, very deep into the intellectual culture after Descartes and Kant (which is not to deny either of their insightful genius, especially the latter). It convinces us that a philosophical (intellectual) quandary trumps any empirical observations.

Before we get too much further, I want to pause and see whether you think that subject combo problem is related to Kantian epistemic limit as I suggest, or want to dispute that and provide reasons why? I will grant you are more familiar with the particulars of that problem and I may be off on the association.

[Eugene I]

To be clear, we agree that the unity is experiential fact which happens before we intellectually reflect on it, but what I was referencing was how that unity arises, i.e. what glues the percept-concepts together. One answer is our thinking, which is what truly belongs to us, and we can arrive at that answer by reflecting on our thinking process. You seem to give a different answer in the rest of your post, but I am going to leave that aside to discuss the other issue of higher order unities (even though the first issue is also a very important distinction).

I do not think its "arises", but it is just a fundamental property of consciousness/awareness. It's definitely not our thinking because it takes place even without any thinking (which I verified many times in meditations)

One important insight that meditation in thoughtless state reveals is that the awareness is continuously aware of itself prior to any thinking and interpretation, or in other words, experiencing is experiencing itself. It probably makes no sense until one actually experiences it. And the same experience also reveals that the unity of the space of experience is always there prior to any thinking. The intellectual reflection and analysis of these experiential facts of course always happen only when thinking resumes.

It convinces us that a philosophical (intellectual) quandary trumps any empirical observations.

I'm not sure it this parallel holds in our case. I am actually referring to my empirical observations. I do have occasionally "telepathic" communications (I once in a while know people's answers in exact phrases before they say it, as well as sometimes feel people's emotions). But I do not experience them as "their" thoughts and emotions exactly the way they experience, but rather like communications and emotional "resonances". Again, I may be mistaking here, but that's all I know. Basically, I do not have sufficient empirical data to come to a definite conclusion here. And the intellectual quandaries trumping empirical observations is exactly what I'm always trying to avoid, and if I do accept (always conditionally) any quandaries, I always try to be honest with myself and admit that these are only my inferences and beliefs. anyway, may be Cleric will give us more insights on this topic.

[Eugene I]

It convinces us that a philosophical (intellectual) quandary trumps any empirical observations.

But let me return this question back to you: if you would want to infer that the communities of beings have any "telepathically" shared original experiences (rather than each being would experience its own telepathically produced instance of it), what empirical observations would support such inference?

[SanteriSatama]

And the same experience also reveals that the unity of the space of experience is always there prior to any thinking.

The "always" can be questioned. U.G. Krishnamurti describing his transformation and and experiencing hints towards lack of unity of his sensual experiencing. I can't speak from his experience, but the suggestion seem to be that sensual "elements" can function more independently, and "naturally" (as he uses the word), without unifying force mixing them into more coherent whole.