Falsification of Scientific Theories of Consciousness

[AshvinP]

"With regard to the sensory facts he is a thing among things, and, insofar as this is the case, he acquires a knowledge of these things; but at any moment he can have the higher experience that he is the form in which the universal essence looks upon itself. Then he himself is transformed from a thing among things into a form of the universal essence — and with him the knowledge of things is changed into an utterance of the nature of things.

Thus it is not due to things themselves that at a certain stage they appear only as external objects; rather it is due to the fact that man must first transform himself to the point where he can reach the stage at which things cease to be external.
Steiner, Mysticism at the Dawn of the Modern Age"

WOW, I'm becoming a Steiner's fan, he is spot on, and that is exactly what I was saying all along: what you called "higher cognition" is exactly " universal essence looking upon itself", looking meaning directly and consciously experiencing-knowing itself prior to any rational cognition. It is Consciousness being experientially aware of itself, of its own existence and "essence" in every form and thing that unfolds in it. There is a reason this knowing is called "knowing" (gnosis) and "unknowing" (agnosia) at the same time, because it is a different kind of knowing, not rational or cognitive, but direct/existential/experiential.

I think, Ashvin, you misinterpret such "higher cognition" as a kind of cognitive gnosis, but only of some kind of a higher order. But what all those mystics, Western and Eastern alike, were pointing to is a different kind of knowing - gnosis and agnosis at the same time, immediate, existential/experiential and prior to any cognition.

"With an empty mind and open heart, let yourself be naked before grace... Let yourself sleep in this dark awareness of God as he is."
Anonymous, The Cloud of Unknowing

"no finite knowledge can fully know the Infinite One, and that therefore He is only truly to be approached by agnosia, or by that which is beyond and above knowledge.”
― Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

Eugene - you are misunderstanding Steiner. He is not endorsing the purely mystical way of knowing at the expense of higher cognition. Rather he is showing how the human individual can develop a new organ of perception, i.e. spiritual sight, which allows him to perceive and think about the interiority of the phenomenal world, including himself, in a rigorous scientific way which brings Unity to it without smearing out the contents. I have not experienced such a raising of myself into higher cognition, but Cleric has, and do you really think he is misunderstanding Steiner and higher cognition? Perhaps this passage will help clarify for you:

The road which is indicated by the way of thinking of Nicolas of Cusa was walked by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim (1487–1535) and Theophrastus Paracelsus (1493–1541). They immerse themselves in nature and, as comprehensively as possible, seek to explore its laws with all the means their period makes available to them. In this knowledge of nature they see at the same time the true foundation for all higher cognition. They themselves seek to develop the latter out of natural science by letting science be reborn in the spirit.
...
Thus Paracelsus' eyes are directed in the strictest sense upon nature, in order to discover from nature itself what it has to say about its products. He wants to investigate the laws of chemistry in order to work as an alchemist in his sense. He considers all bodies to be composed of three basic substances, namely, of salt, sulphur, and mercury. What he so designates of course does not correspond to what later chemistry designates by this name, any more than what Paracelsus considers to be a basic substance is one in the sense of later chemistry. Different things are designated by the same names at different times. What the ancients called the four elements, earth, water, air, and fire, we still have. We call these four “elements” no longer “elements” but states of aggregation, for which we have the designations: solid, liquid, aeriform, etheriform. Earth, for instance, for the ancients was not earth but the “solid.” The three basic substances of Paracelsus we can also recognize in contemporary concepts, but not under the homonymous contemporary names. For Paracelsus, solution in a liquid and combustion are the two important chemical processes of which he makes use. If a body is dissolved or burned it is decomposed into its parts. Something remains as residue; something is dissolved or burns. For him the residue is salt-like, the soluble (liquid), mercury-like; the combustible he calls sulphurous.

One who does not look beyond such natural processes may be left cold by them as by things of a material and prosaic nature; one who at all costs wants to grasp the spirit with the senses will people these processes with all kinds of spiritual beings. But like Paracelsus, one who knows how to look at such processes in connection with the universe, which reveals its secret within man, accepts these processes as they present themselves to the senses; he does not first reinterpret them; for as the natural processes stand before us in their sensory reality, in their own way they reveal the mystery of existence. What through this sensory reality these processes reveal out of the soul of man, occupies a higher position for one who strives for the light of higher cognition than do all the supernatural miracles concerning their so-called “spirit” which man can devise or have revealed to him. There is no “spirit of nature” which can utter more exalted truths than the great works of nature themselves, when our soul unites itself with this nature in friendship, and, in familiar intercourse, hearkens to the revelations of its secrets. Such a friendship with nature, Paracelsus sought.

[AshvinP]

I have to admit that I just don’t really get Steiner. He just doesn’t resonate with me on any level. I assume he must have some good insights, but they just don’t really register fully with me for some reason.

Probably because I am quoting passages here and there, which is not really a good way to approach his thought. If you go here - www.rsarchive.org, then you will find much of his writings available for free. You should start with Philosophy of Freedom. It is relatively short and uses very clear philosophical language that we are all familiar with.

[Cleric K]

I think, Ashvin, you misinterpret such "higher cognition" as a kind of cognitive gnosis, but only of some kind of a higher order. But what all those mystics, Western and Eastern alike, were pointing to is a different kind of knowing - gnosis and agnosis at the same time, immediate, existential/experiential and prior to any cognition.

"With an empty mind and open heart, let yourself be naked before grace... Let yourself sleep in this dark awareness of God as he is."
Anonymous, The Cloud of Unknowing

This is the central theme all over again. It all boils down to the fact that if we simply empty the mind and open the heart, we contemplate a general truth. Yes, it's all Consciousness looking upon itself. But then what? And here's where paths bifurcate. The East says that this general knowledge is enough. As long as we organize our outer affairs such that this truth can be available to everyone and we lead our lives in the moral implicit in this truth, this is considered the highest achievement. But note also the second sentence:

Then he himself is transformed from a thing among things into a form of the universal essence — and with him the knowledge of things is changed into an utterance of the nature of things.

This is what is largely missing from the Eastern method - especially in its modern popular versions. What the above means is that we no longer think about external perceptions of the things but the inner nature of the things resounds within our transformed form of the universal essence. This is for example how Goethe groped towards the archetypal plant. With the senses we see the plant and can think about it in concepts. This is the first kind of cognition (in the context of the quote). In the second type of cognition we experience ourselves within the universal essence and there we experience the universal idea of the plant, which is the real architect and living force behind the actual plant. We experience that not as a concept (although we can project it into a concept so that the intellect can use it) but as living reality within the very essence of Consciousness. It's the creative work of the Spirit, full of meaning.

This is what is new. This is the gradient between our limited condition and the general truth. And we should be clear - the experience of the general truth that we can experience today in a mystical state, with emptied mind and open heart, is not how the general truth will be experienced at the end of evolution when this truth will have become full reality.

Think of an hourglass. The sand is slowly passing from one half into the other. This is a picture of evolution. Consciousness slowly flows through the pinhole of the "I" and in the process it experiences more and more of the full potential. Today the whole universe is 'external', through the gradual flow of evolution it will become 'internal'. To become 'internal' it means that we need to discover the utterances of the things, the inner nature of everything that we perceive with the senses.

The general truth of Eastern teachings is that consciousness is all there is and that's enough. The East doesn't focus on the flow of the sand - it practically doesn't exist for it. It's all about becoming aware of the general and timeless truth. The West recognizes that this is not enough. We'll never be able to solve the problems of humanity if we only focus on 'it's all consciousness' without investigating how to accommodate the flow through the pinhole. It would be like wanting to build a house while refusing to learn anything about construction and putting the effort into the realization.

Through the advancements of the last two millennia more and more of this flow through the pinhole of the hourglass becomes understood. It so happens that the current form of spiritual activity in the vicinity of the pinhole is thinking. It is for this reason that higher cognition grows out of thinking. This is again a point of bifurcation between the East and West. The East, as it focuses on the general truth, doesn't see any real value in thinking. It should be clear that no one here insists that the intellect is the final solution to everything, nor that it can grasp the depth of everything. This can be the case only in philosophies that don't consider higher cognition. All forms of cognition are milestones along the flow of evolution. Each one is only a momentary state of metamorphosis leading into the next higher stage (this also explains the impossible search for TOE). Yet the fact that we can envision the general truth, the final destination, doesn't mean that we can skip the milestones through the gradient. In Steiner's words:

Although Spiritual Science is necessary, although the times demand it, nevertheless in a certain respect we must feel it to be a skeleton in comparison with the living realities of existence. It is indeed so. When anthroposophy keeps only our intellects busy, when with our intellects we draw up tables and coin all kinds of technical expressions, anthroposophy is nothing but a skeleton — above all when it is speaking of the living human being.

It begins to be a little more bearable when we are able to picture, for instance, the conditions of existence on Saturn, Sun and Moon, the earlier epochs of Earth-evolution or the work of the several Hierarchies.
But to say that the human being consists of physical body, ether-body, astral body and Ego — or Manas and Kama-Manas … this is really dreadful, and it is even more dreadful to have charts and tables of these things. Thinking of the human being in all his majesty, I can scarcely imagine anything more horrible than to be surrounded in a great hall by a number of living people and to have on the blackboard beside one a chart of the seven principles of man! But so, alas, it must be … and there is no getting away from it.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 286 – And The Temple Becomes Man – Berlin, December 12, 1911

[Eugene I]

This is the central theme all over again. It all boils down to the fact that if we simply empty the mind and open the heart, we contemplate a general truth. Yes, it's all Consciousness looking upon itself. But then what? And here's where paths bifurcate. The East says that this general knowledge is enough. As long as we organize our outer affairs such that this truth can be available to everyone and we lead our lives in the moral implicit in this truth, this is considered the highest achievement. But note also the second sentence:

Then he himself is transformed from a thing among things into a form of the universal essence — and with him the knowledge of things is changed into an utterance of the nature of things.

This is what is largely missing from the Eastern method - especially in its modern popular versions. What the above means is that we no longer think about external perceptions of the things but the inner nature of the things resounds within our transformed form of the universal essence. This is for example how Goethe groped towards the archetypal plant. With the senses we see the plant and can think about it in concepts. This is the first kind of cognition (in the context of the quote). In the second type of cognition we experience ourselves within the universal essence and there we experience the universal idea of the plant, which is the real architect and living force behind the actual plant. We experience that not as a concept (although we can project it into a concept so that the intellect can use it) but as living reality within the very essence of Consciousness. It's the creative work of the Spirit, full of meaning.

.... The general truth of Eastern teachings is that consciousness is all there is and that's enough.

But this exactly what I was saying too, and I repeat again: there are indeed some Eastern schools posing that "this general knowledge is enough", but those are rather peripheral. What they really say is that this general knowledge of Cosnciousness directly knowing itself is a prerequisite for a next level of development, the "enlightened" but still fully active state of consciousness, where both ways of knowing - the experiential Gnosis and thinking cognition - are fused together in synergy without opposing or diminishing each other, with each of them bringing into the whole picture what the other is missing.

The East, as it focuses on the general truth, doesn't see any real value in thinking.

Cleric, this is just so not true. I said many times before that "stopping thinking" (in the Buddhist shamatha meditation for example) is simply a practical method to discover a different type of knowing, because in our habitual condition all we do is thinking only and we are so involved in it that do now even know that other kind of experiential pre-thinking knowing even exists. So, simply to practically discover that different type of knowing, we need to temporarily put the thinking on hold, and that is what the non-thinking meditation is aimed to. Once the Jnana is recognized, one can fully go back to thinking in full capacity, and it is only then when the true transformation and fusion of both of them happens when the experiential knowledge (Jana) enhances the cognitive knowledge and opens a wholly different perspective on the existence of the world and opens a gate into an "enhanced" functioning of the cognitive knowledge.

It is also true that in the Eastern tradition not much is said about what happens after that gate is passed. In Buddhism what they usually say is: we cannot really describe the state of Nirvana because it is inexplicable before we can experientially know it and it can only cause distorted images of it, so let's focus on attaining the Jnana, and once that it passed one will know Nirvana directly and will have all questions about it answered. (Jnana is a Vedic term, and it is rather called Rigpa, Satori etc in different Buddhist schools, but the naming does not matter)

[Cleric K]

I have not experienced such a raising of myself into higher cognition

Ashvin, you have experienced something much more important at this point! There are not yet very many people that can penetrate into PoF in the way you already have.

In the first decade of the 20th century, August Ewerbeck got word that there were intimate circles in which Rudolf Steiner gave special esoteric training to those admitted to them. So he asked his teacher whether he too might be allowed to attend, and received the astonishing reply: “You don’t need to! You have understood my Philosophy of Freedom!”

Of course this doesn't mean that we don't need work with meditation. In fact you are already meditating when you experience the unity of perception and idea in thinking. It's a relatively small step from here to turn this activity into meditative concentration which can reveal the higher order perceptions which have hitherto been only intuitively thought about.

It is a thousand times better to have grasped the ideas of Spiritual Science with thought first of all, and then — sooner or later, each according to his karma — to be able oneself to ascend into the spiritual worlds; a thousand times better than to have ‘seen’ straight-away and not to have grasped with thought the knowledge that is imparted in the Movement known as the Anthroposophical. A thousand times better it is indeed, to know spiritual science and to see nothing as yet, than to see something and not be able to penetrate it with thought, for that is how unreliability is introduced.

Source

(btw the above blog has one thought every day which can be subscribed to via email)

[Cleric K]

It is also true that in the Eastern tradition not much is said about what happens after that gate is passed. In Buddhism what they usually say is: we cannot really describe the state of Nirvana because it is inexplicable before we can experientially know it and it can only cause distorted images of it, so let's focus on attaining the Jnana, and once that it passed one will know Nirvana directly and will have all questions about it answered. (Jnana is a Vedic term, and it is rather called Rigpa, Satori etc in different Buddhist schools, but the naming does not matter)

The above kind of describes the situation and why spiritual science has appeared on the stage of evolution. This is actually tightly related to the second quote in the post above. It is highly unlikely that anyone today who reaches Nirvana will automatically recognize the soul organs, the planetary spheres, the four eons, the kingdoms of Nature, the Beings of the hierarchies and so on. All of these have their corresponding concrete experiences in higher cognition but the fusion with the intellect doesn't happen automatically. The concepts must be forged. And it is about this point that I say that thinking's role is undervalued. Because the self that we experience all the time would simply not understand the experience in Nirvana, except in its general truthfulness. If the intellect doesn't have concepts for the experiences, they are experienced as amalgamation, as a mixed totality. To put it into an analogy, Jnana (when striven for directly) gives us the vista of the Cosmic Script. Even only the general experience of this Script is already a very powerful experience which in itself can give us great insights (primarily about the it's-all-consciousness direct experience). But we need to also learn to read the Script if we are to make spirituality into something practical that can give answers to the pressing issues of the times. The intellect must grow with its concepts into the Cosmic Script. This is how the concepts of spiritual science are being born. Otherwise there's always a chasm between the concepts of the intellect and the Cosmic Script. It's even worse when it's not understood that such a chasm exists. In that case it's simply accepted that the Script is what it is - a higher spiritual experience that is complete in itself - and doesn't need to be deciphered. In that sense we're acting like apes that stumble upon something written and only enjoy it for its sensory perception without realizing that there's something encoded there.

[AshvinP]

I have not experienced such a raising of myself into higher cognition

Ashvin, you have experienced something much more important at this point! There are not yet very many people that can penetrate into PoF in the way you already have.

In the first decade of the 20th century, August Ewerbeck got word that there were intimate circles in which Rudolf Steiner gave special esoteric training to those admitted to them. So he asked his teacher whether he too might be allowed to attend, and received the astonishing reply: “You don’t need to! You have understood my Philosophy of Freedom!”

Of course this doesn't mean that we don't need work with meditation. In fact you are already meditating when you experience the unity of perception and idea in thinking. It's a relatively small step from here to turn this activity into meditative concentration which can reveal the higher order perceptions which have hitherto been only intuitively thought about.

It is a thousand times better to have grasped the ideas of Spiritual Science with thought first of all, and then — sooner or later, each according to his karma — to be able oneself to ascend into the spiritual worlds; a thousand times better than to have ‘seen’ straight-away and not to have grasped with thought the knowledge that is imparted in the Movement known as the Anthroposophical. A thousand times better it is indeed, to know spiritual science and to see nothing as yet, than to see something and not be able to penetrate it with thought, for that is how unreliability is introduced.

Source

(btw the above blog has one thought every day which can be subscribed to via email)

Cleric, thank you for the encouragement and sharing the website with daily quotes! I feel very grateful to live in a time when so many of his writings and lectures are available for all to read.

[Eugene I]

It is highly unlikely that anyone today who reaches Nirvana will automatically recognize the soul organs, the planetary spheres, the four eons, the kingdoms of Nature, the Beings of the hierarchies and so on. All of these have their corresponding concrete experiences in higher cognition but the fusion with the intellect doesn't happen automatically.

That is true. But likewise it is highly unlikely that anyone today who does not reach the Nirvana will be able to see the full picture of it because of inability to decipher fantasies and appearances from reality. That is why I said that what is needed is not one or the other, but both.