Can you help me with metaphysical Isms?

[Eugene I]

Just to be clear, I'm not positing that any given idea is immanent and uncaused, i.e. has always existed, but that the process of ideation is the immanent, ontological imperative, such that there is no abiding state of non-ideation, from which at some point ideation inexplicably arises ~ other than the ever-present origin ~ nor can ideation ever finally cease. So if ideation can never not be the case, and ideas are an infinitude, then some form of idea will always be present, and thus it's a moot point to suggest their absence.

OK, so you don't belong to the Platonists camp I agree that the process of creating ideations is immanent. But how does you proposition "there is no abiding state of non-ideation" align with the experience of many advanced meditators of the state of an absence of any ideations whatsoever?

My understanding is that in such thoughtless state the creative process of ideation is still intact, but it is on a temporary hold, which is still a state of potentiality to unfold in any ideation. If such potentiality would disappear, then it would not be possible for any ideations to emerge afterwards and the consciousness would be stuck in the thoughtless state "forever".

[Simon Adams]

I do think there is a problem with language. Its a bit like where the eskimos have many (50?) words for snow, and we have only two or three. Added to this is that the terms we do use have been used in so many different ways, within different ontologies and in day to day use.

For example we use ideas and thoughts almost interchangeably, but the “divine ideas” as the archetype-ideas of platonism and christianity are not like thoughts that come, develop, and go. These are more like the top level templates that shape the telos. You could say that the process of evolution is life reaching towards the ideas, whereas numbers, colours, shapes etc are our rerepresenting of the ideas.

I don’t think you need to meditate very long to understand awareness free from thoughts. I’ve never got quite to the source where the thoughts ‘bubble up’, but there is definitely a sense in which they are structure added to the awareness. The eastern view is generally that this horizontal plane of awareness is the base of reality, and the structures like thoughts are in a way just what it does. From the western tradition, our thoughts can be seen in the same way, but there is another dimension in which the structures exist, and those structures also have an ultimate source which is the divine ideas, which shape the forms in the ‘horizontal’ dimension, and are then rerepresented and abstracted into our own ‘shadow-copy’ of the divine ideas. The formless ‘void’ of awareness doesn’t need to do anything, it just is. It’s when the spirit is breathed through the divine ideas and into the formless dimension that it takes on dynamic shapes and structures, as forms.

I would argue that if the eastern view was everything, there would be no forms, no telos. It would just be, content in being.

Anyway controversial and baby-speak philosophy, but I’ve never let either get in the way of sharing my views

[Soul_of_Shu]

OK, so you don't belong to the Platonists camp I agree that the process of creating ideations is immanent. But how does you proposition "there is no abiding state of non-ideation" align with the experience of many advanced meditators of the state of an absence of any ideations whatsoever?

My understanding is that in such thoughtless state the creative process of ideation is still intact, but it is on a temporary hold, which is still a state of potentiality to unfold in any ideation. If such potentiality would disappear, then it would not be possible for any ideations to emerge afterwards and the consciousness would be stuck in the thoughtless state "forever".

Well, I'm referring to ideation being the fundamental, immanent, ontological imperative of the OP, so if it is non-preventably imperative, then an absence of ideas in perpetuity is not an option, however much a human mind may conceive some transitory thought-free state ~ although if even the idea of time is absent, then such a state between one thought and another would be in effect instantaneous, so how long exactly would there be an absence of all ideation?

[Eugene I]

Simon, I agree that the Platonic view of the divine origin of ideas is consistent and makes sense. This is the view of the traditional Christian theology.
In the Eastern Buddhist tradition the beingness-awareness as the non-emergent "substratum" has a potential to unfold into conscious forms and phenomena (Nirmanakaya in the Buddhist terms), including ideation forms, and so it naturally unfolds in time in an unlimited variety of phenomena, ideations and forms. Then such forms develop in a process of natural selection and natural development through a vast multiplicity of conscious agents (none of them being a "prime" one) and over time become more sophisticated and cognitive. So, in a way, it's a process philosophy, but without any intrinsic telos. But of course, the potential/possibility of conscious ideations (including meanings and ideas) must be present in awareness intrinsically. Such view can be called non-theistic/non-teleological idealism, or you can call it poly-theistic in a sense that we conscious beings are all equally god-creators. The Vedic tradition is more biased towards theism, although it is not strictly mono-theistic, but rather a hierarchically structured poly-theistic one.

[Eugene I]

Well, I'm referring to ideation being the fundamental, immanent, ontological imperative of the OP, so if it is non-preventably imperative, then an absence of ideas in perpetuity is not an option, however much a human mind may conceive some transitory thought-free state ~ although if even the idea of time is absent, then such a state between one thought and another would be in effect instantaneous, so how long exactly would there be an absence of all ideation?

You are right, from my experience any sense of time in the empty state is gone, so once I came out of such empty state I had no clue how long it lasted.

[Soul_of_Shu]

You are right, from my experience any sense of time in the empty state is gone, so once I came out of such empty state I had no clue how long it lasted.

Therein is the conundrum: if one can conceive how long some state between one thought and another lasted, then clearly the idea of time was still present.

[AshvinP]

Let me continue in a separate post. Here is a question for you Platonist guys. As we know (from mathematics for example), the number of possible ideas is infinite, and they include all ideas, both "wrong" and "right", and even include the ideas constituting the very criteria of truthfulness. There is an idea "2x2=4" and "2x2=5", there is an idea of Euclidian geometry, as well as countless number of ideas of non-Euclidian geometries. Which ones of them belong to the realm of ever-existing Platonic ideas? All of them? Or only the "true" ones? Which ones among the countless variants of geometries are "true" and belong to the kind of Platinic ever-existing non-emergent ideas?

You are shifting the burden here - us "Platonists" would only need to show one Idea is non-emergent, like the Idea of "being aware". Besides that I think you are also mixing up isolated intellectual concepts with ideas.

[Eugene I]

Therein is the conundrum: if one can conceive how long some state between one thought and another lasted, then clearly the idea of time was still present.

I would say: if one can conceive how long some state between one thought and another lasted, then clearly the perception of time was still present. Dogs (presumably) have perception of time but no idea of time, so those are different things.

But regardless, I said that I had neither the idea nor the perception of time in the empty state, so I had no clue how long it lasted when I came back from it.

[Eugene I]

You are shifting the burden here - us "Platonists" would only need to show one Idea is non-emergent, like the Idea of "being aware". Besides that I think you are also mixing up isolated intellectual concepts with ideas.

Right, I don't know what's the difference between concepts and ideas. Let's say I have a thought bearing some meaning ("2x2=4", or "I am aware" or else). Does that meaning belongs to "concepts" or to "ideas", and how would I know the difference?

[AshvinP]

You are shifting the burden here - us "Platonists" would only need to show one Idea is non-emergent, like the Idea of "being aware". Besides that I think you are also mixing up isolated intellectual concepts with ideas.

Right, I don't know what's the difference between concepts and ideas. Let's say I have a thought bearing some meaning ("2x2=4", or "I am aware" or else). Does that meaning belongs to "concepts" or to "ideas", and how would I know the difference?

My understanding is that bare intellectual concepts are only one half of the equation, like bare percepts of the world. When the percepts are united with their proper concepts, that is a meaningful idea. It is more a network-constellation of percept-concepts. We tell the difference by testing them to see if they remain solid upon further examination. We see if they remain at odds with our ideal network or whether they fit in and satisfy our Reason and desire for a more complete whole. That is the scientific method. It is of course an ongoing process as long as the ideal network remains incomplete.