Metamorphoses of the Spirit: Breaking Bad Habits

[Apanthropinist]

Apanthropinist, you come across as very wise.

Please don't let my way fool you Ben, I promise you I am a flawed person trying to make sense of myself and the world like anyone else.

[Apanthropinist]

Eugene - at a certain point you just need to state plainly whether you think idealism is anything more than a guess about what is true; a guess without any serious ramifications for the orientation of our being in the world.

I can't answer for Eugene, he's perfectly capable of that himself, but I can answer for myself seeing as though you included me in this. Idealism is a philosophical argument not a guess. Arguments don't create the truth, they reveal it.

Let me make it even simpler for you (and apanthropinist) to figure out where your quarrels lie:

I appreciate your offer of assistance, and I agree simplicity is best where possible, but I am quite capable of figuring out my own quarrels . So let's take a closer inspection of your questions:

1) Supersensible considers the Spirit (thinking activity) as a potential means of perception - do you agree or disagree?

First of all you are assuming a Spirit, it's not a given, so your term is loaded with an assumption that a Spirit exists. We can't know that with certainty because it is unfalsifiable. Rephrase the question without front loading it with a belief, otherwise you are 'Reifying' (An abstract thing is talked about as if it were concrete). How would an Atheist answer? Would they be excluded from a question that is related to all human beings? Don't assume, that's your first error.

2) As argued in the essay, thinking-perceiving are inextricably linked to each other today - agree or disagree?

I haven't read all the essay, so can't answer. What's your position in simple and clear terms? Then I can answer.

3) Thinking-perceiving were practically unified with each other in very early stages of human consciousness - agree or disagree?

What do you mean by 'very early stages of human consciousness'? Do you mean in the pre-history of humans? What exactly? This question also seems to be an retro linear extension of question 2.

4) All long-lasting spiritual traditions contemplate a reunification of all that which was originally undivided and is now divided - agree or disagree?

I am not aware of 'all' long lasting spiritual traditions and their nuances, neither are you. Shamanism was practiced here in the UK as far back as 26,000 years ago and lasted until the Christians arrived and slaughtered them, so we don't know the nuances of their beliefs. That's one example. This is inappropriate front loading again in a way that can't be supported so can't be answered. It's also called appeal to 'Amazing Familiarity' (The speaker seems to have information that there is no possible way for him to get, on the basis of his own statements.) Rephrase the question.

As I have pointed out several times on this thread alone, the burden is on you guys to explain why thinking (let's call it "spiritual imagination" if you do not like the t-word) cannot be another mode of perceiving in realms of higher cognition.

As I have pointed out several times on this philosophy forum, the burden of proof is with you as clearly expressed, ""Russell's teapot is an analogy, formulated by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making unfalsifiable claims, rather than shifting the burden of disproof to others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot "

[AshvinP]

Eugene - at a certain point you just need to state plainly whether you think idealism is anything more than a guess about what is true; a guess without any serious ramifications for the orientation of our being in the world.

I can't answer for Eugene, he's perfectly capable of that himself, but I can answer for myself seeing as though you included me in this. Idealism is a philosophical argument not a guess. Arguments don't create the truth, they reveal it.

Let me make it even simpler for you (and apanthropinist) to figure out where your quarrels lie:

I appreciate your offer of assistance, and I agree simplicity is best where possible, but I am quite capable of figuring out my own quarrels . So let's take a closer inspection of your questions:

1) Supersensible considers the Spirit (thinking activity) as a potential means of perception - do you agree or disagree?

First of all you are assuming a Spirit, it's not a given, so your term is loaded with an assumption that a Spirit exists. We can't know that with certainty because it is unfalsifiable. Rephrase the question without front loading it with a belief, otherwise you are 'Reifying' (An abstract thing is talked about as if it were concrete). How would an Atheist answer? Would they be excluded from a question that is related to all human beings? Don't assume, that's your first error.

I used the word "guess" to highlight how trivially you both are taking idealism, which I know Eugene holds to and you appear to as well.

Rephrased: take out the word "Spirit" - agree or disagree?

2) As argued in the essay, thinking-perceiving are inextricably linked to each other today - agree or disagree?

I haven't read all the essay, so can't answer. What's your position in simple and clear terms? Then I can answer.

3) Thinking-perceiving were practically unified with each other in very early stages of human consciousness - agree or disagree?

What do you mean by 'very early stages of human consciousness'? Do you mean in the pre-history of humans? What exactly? This question also seems to be an retro linear extension of question 2.

So you haven't read all of my essay and you stopped reading Cleric's Deep MAL post, and you don't want to read anything of the other writings we references... yet we are supposed to take your criticisms seriously?

Yes, pre-history or at any time in human history.

4) All long-lasting spiritual traditions contemplate a reunification of all that which was originally undivided and is now divided - agree or disagree?

I am not aware of 'all' long lasting spiritual traditions and their nuances, neither are you. Shamanism was practiced here in the UK as far back as 26,000 years ago and lasted until the Christians arrived and slaughtered them, so we don't know the nuances of their beliefs. That's one example. This is inappropriate front loading again in a way that can't be supported so can't be answered. It's also called appeal to 'Amazing Familiarity' (The speaker seems to have information that there is no possible way for him to get, on the basis of his own statements.) Rephrase the question.

As I have pointed out several times on this thread alone, the burden is on you guys to explain why thinking (let's call it "spiritual imagination" if you do not like the t-word) cannot be another mode of perceiving in realms of higher cognition.

As I have pointed out several times on this philosophy forum, the burden of proof is with you as clearly expressed, ""Russell's teapot is an analogy, formulated by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making unfalsifiable claims, rather than shifting the burden of disproof to others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot "

Rephrased: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Daoism (including all 'mystical' or 'esoteric' perspectives on those traditions) contemplate a reunification etc. - agree or disagree?

[Eugene I]

Eugene - at a certain point you just need to state plainly whether you think idealism is anything more than a guess about what is true; a guess without any serious ramifications for the orientation of our being in the world. If you accept it as most likely true, then it makes absolutely no sense to claim supersensible ideal-stuff is not amenable to empirical observation and testing just as sensible ideal-stuff is. Let me make it even simpler for you (and apanthropinist) to figure out where your quarrels lie:

1) Supersensible considers the Spirit (thinking activity) as a potential means of perception - do you agree or disagree?

2) As argued in the essay, thinking-perceiving are inextricably linked to each other today - agree or disagree?

3) Thinking-perceiving were practically unified with each other in very early stages of human consciousness - agree or disagree?

4) All long-lasting spiritual traditions contemplate a reunification of all that which was originally undivided and is now divided - agree or disagree?

As I have pointed out several times on this thread alone, the burden is on you guys to explain why thinking (let's call it "spiritual imagination" if you do not like the t-word) cannot be another mode of perceiving in realms of higher cognition. Because our experience shows, in normal cognition and after reflecting on that activity just a bit, that we cannot form any sort of coherent narrative of perceptual relations without such operations of the spiritual imagination. So what is your evidence to the contrary?

Ashvin, you need to understand the basics of philosophical discourse. Idealism (just as any other type of metaphysics) is a philosophy/metaphysics. None of the metaphysics can ever be proven true or wrong, they are unverifiable and unfalsifiable. There are still certain methods of philosophical discourse that can sort and prioritize different metaphysics in terms of their figures of merits such as logical consistency, parsimony, compliance with experimental facts, the amount and degree of explanatory gaps, practical (psychological, ethical etc) benefits etc. IMO idealism can be rated very high among other metaphysical paradigms, but that does not mean that it is "true".

Metaphysics is different from empirical science in that respect, and science uses a specific scientific method that is only partially applicable to philosophy. So far you haven't demonstrated that spiritual science can comply with, or develop it own reliable scientific method. A good test for an acceptable scientific method is the FSM theory (see my response to Cleric): the FSM should not be verifiable with scientific method, and if it appears to be verifiable, then it's a wrong method. Until a discipline (such as "spiritual science") develops a reliable scientific method, it can not be called an empirical science. There can be other sciences that are not necessarily empirical, such as mathematics, which uses a different method for verification of its theories.

As I have pointed out several times on this thread alone, the burden is on you guys to explain why thinking (let's call it "spiritual imagination" if you do not like the t-word) cannot be another mode of perceiving in realms of higher cognition.

It does not matter how you call it. Yes, you can call it "spiritual perception". The question is: whether such "spiritual perception" can be used as a experimental data for verification procedures in the empiric-scientific method. And as I demonstrated, it can not, because the FSM and just any other nonsensical theory becomes verifiable with such method.

That said, there are definitely causal relations between sensory perceptions, thinking and imaginations. First, as I sad before, they are all experiences/qualia of consciousness, and we only distinguish them by their qualities and properties. Second, I agree that we can never fully isolate them from each other, we can only emphasize one kind of phenomena and decrease the influence/presence of others down to almost negligible level. For example, in lucid dreaming I can have no bodily sensual perceptions, but vivid imagination and thinking. Or in deep meditation I can have negligible thinking and imagination but still have sense perceptions etc. These are simply the facts apart from any metaphysics.

Now, under the metaphysics of idealism these phenomena become even more related and less distinguishable, because really, in the absence of matter, all there is are just mental phenomena/qualia, and drawing any hard lines between thoughts, imaginations and perceptions becomes almost impossible. So, I actually for the most part agree with the questions you asked (under the assumption of idealism at least). In addition, as many NDE account reported, in the discarnate form we can manifest forms by our imagination and thinking and experience them as if we perceive them with senses, so the line between imagination and sense perception becomes really fuzzy. Also, almost any reality or world can be imagined, thought, manifested by the creating subjects and perceived by the experiencing subjects. So, I would say, in such scenario any "empirical" science to study the manifested structures becomes futile. It is the same as performing scientific studies of your own fantasies. Empirical science is only possible in the incarnate form where we experience consistent and reproducible patterns of sense perceptions that can be abstracted from the subjective content, and such science only applies to the apparent "physical" world of sensory perceptions. In idealism which encompasses both incarnate and discarnate worlds such distinction is no longer possible. Any ideal construct (astral bodies, planets or galaxies of any forms etc) can be imagined, manifested and perceived. Then, what is there to study for the science? The content of our imaginations? But they can be anything, there are no limits for what can be imagined and manifested, as long as it's imaginable and logically consistent.

IMO there are much more interesting questions and subjects for investigation in the "science" of idealism, for example:
- How consciousness actually works "behind the scenes", how willing, thinking, imagining, perceiving, manifesting and experiencing all works and links together, what are the mechanisms of their functioning assuming that there is no "physical brain" media to carry such functions.
- How changeable and unchangeable aspects of conscious experience are related and work together.
- How the unbreakable unity of our personal conscious experience is formed.
- Sort out the subject combination problem
- How exactly the dissociation happens, how conscious subjects interact with each other in the unified Consciousness, how exactly the "Markov blankets" work.
- Are all of these mechanisms also constructed only with conscious experiences? I can see a circular problem here - experiences producing experiences, but where is the bottom if it? What produces those most basic/fundamental experiences that have no other cause to them and how do they appear or exist without a cause? Is there anything existing in reality other than conscious experiences?

In other words, instead of focusing on studying the forms/structures that are imagined and manifested by subjects of consciousness, it is more interesting to study the mechanisms that bring about those structures. Study not the structural details of what the consciousness does/produces, but how it does what it does. It does not mean that the products of consciousness become irrelevant, they are still very relevant, but from this perspective, the qualities and characteristics of the products of consciousness (thoughts, imaginations, structures) now become the empirical content for such study, and by studying this content and its inter-relations, we may get insights into the underlying mechanisms.

[Eugene I]

PS: As an analogy, let's say we are living in a Matrix programmed on a massive computer by some creators-programmers. The science "within" the matrix studies how the appearances in the Matrix are casually related to each other, what are the laws of that causality, and what are the structures causing those relations. But in fact, all those relations and structures are produced by a computer code created by programmers. They could program it in a different way. It is still an interesting study, but I don't see much ultimate value in it studying products and appearances of a computer code created by someone else. What is more interesting is to study the "hardware" on which any such code can run, and the rules/language of its programming. In that way we can master the very process of programming and become the masters of programming and creating ourselves. It is still useful to study the already created codes and structures as examples of how it can be done.

[Apanthropinist]

I used the word "guess" to highlight how trivially you both are taking idealism, which I know Eugene holds to and you appear to as well.

I find it disappointing that you project your assumptions, rather presumptuous ones at that, on to others as a 'Straw Man'. As it happens I don't find anything about idealism trivial at all. That's what a good philosophical argument can do.

Rephrased: take out the word "Spirit" - agree or disagree?

I think that the term super sensible, being above or beyond perception by the senses; beyond the reach of the senses, is a term which would not fit with analytical idealism, in relation to a description of what a dissociated alter is.

So you haven't read all of my essay and you stopped reading Cleric's Deep MAL post, and you don't want to read anything of the other writings we references... yet we are supposed to take your criticisms seriously?

Yes, pre-history or at any time in human history.

I read your essay, all of it. So your questions were about your essay or Cleric's? It would help me if you were to make that clear. You appear unwilling to engage with my philosophical criticisms at all. Shall we play ping - pong or do philosophy? Though, strictly speaking your aim is Theology rather than philosophy.

OK, good, now I have part of the context. Now you just need to explain in simple and clear terms what you mean by "Thinking-perceiving were practically unified with each other in very early stages of human consciousness?" Bear in mind I don't know if you are talking about your essay or Cleric's as you haven't specified. Also bear in mind that I read your essay once, 3 days ago, and Cleric's part way through.

Rephrased: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Daoism (including all 'mystical' or 'esoteric' perspectives on those traditions) contemplate a reunification etc. - agree or disagree?

OK why these? Why are you front loading this question with these? What about the traditions that do not have this reunification? What about the traditions where we don't know? What is your point in asking a partial and front loaded question? The question then becomes suspect and falls foul of being a form of rhetorical question, where you attempt to ask a question in a way that leads to a particular answer, again a fallacy at work as any philosopher would point out.

[AshvinP]

In other words, instead of focusing on studying the forms/structures that are imagined and manifested by subjects of consciousness, it is more interesting to study the mechanisms that bring about those structures. Study not the structural details of what the consciousness does/produces, but how it does what it does. It does not mean that the products of consciousness become irrelevant, they are still very relevant, but from this perspective, the qualities and characteristics of the products of consciousness (thoughts, imaginations, structures) now become the empirical content for such study, and by studying this content and its inter-relations, we may get insights into the underlying mechanisms.

I have made pretty clear before that I do not consider what consciousness does to be an essentially different question from what it is, i.e. it is what it does, or how it does what it does, i.e. it does what it does by being what it is. That is the core of the pragmatic and phenomenological approaches. Now the question becomes whether we are only "imagining and manifesting form/structures" in the thought-realm or whether we are also doing so in the "physical" realm, because they are, in fact, the same realm. It makes sense to distinguish them for perspectives on ideal content, but not in terms of amenability to empirical study. The 'inner' realm can be empirically studied just like the 'outer' realm. That is at the very heart of so much 20th century psychology and philosophy - a paradigmatic shift from divided duality to integrated polarity. This essay and all the people referenced in my next part are making the case for the reality and importance of that shift in different yet extremely potent ways. Do you acknowledge such a shift or not?

[AshvinP]

I used the word "guess" to highlight how trivially you both are taking idealism, which I know Eugene holds to and you appear to as well.

I find it disappointing that you project your assumptions, rather presumptuous ones at that, on to others as a 'Straw Man'. As it happens I don't find anything about idealism trivial at all. That's what a good philosophical argument can do.

Rephrased: take out the word "Spirit" - agree or disagree?

I think that the term super sensible, being above or beyond perception by the senses; beyond the reach of the senses, is a term which would not fit with analytical idealism, in relation to a description of what a dissociated alter is.

So you haven't read all of my essay and you stopped reading Cleric's Deep MAL post, and you don't want to read anything of the other writings we references... yet we are supposed to take your criticisms seriously?

Yes, pre-history or at any time in human history.

I read your essay, all of it. So your questions were about your essay or Cleric's? It would help me if you were to make that clear. You appear unwilling to engage with my philosophical criticisms at all. Shall we play ping - pong or do philosophy? Though, strictly speaking your aim is Theology rather than philosophy.

OK, good, now I have part of the context. Now you just need to explain in simple and clear terms what you mean by "Thinking-perceiving were practically unified with each other in very early stages of human consciousness?" Bear in mind I don't know if you are talking about your essay or Cleric's as you haven't specified. Also bear in mind that I read your essay once, 3 days ago, and Cleric's part way through.

Rephrased: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Daoism (including all 'mystical' or 'esoteric' perspectives on those traditions) contemplate a reunification etc. - agree or disagree?

OK why these? Why are you front loading this question with these? What about the traditions that do not have this reunification? What about the traditions where we don't know? What is your point in asking a partial and front loaded question? The question then becomes suspect and falls foul of being a form of rhetorical question, where you attempt to ask a question in a way that leads to a particular answer, again a fallacy at work as any philosopher would point out.

I will grant you that I have not been treating this as a formal philosophical debate that I would engage in with someone who knew nothing of idealism. I am presupposing a lot of shared ideal conceptions, including a deep appreciation for the Truth and Wisdom of spiritual traditions. Cleric, on the other hand, has responded to you without any such presuppositions as far as I can tell, as he usually does.

To your bolded question, I am asking about claims made in my essay and/or Cleric's. Either one. Whatever claim anyone has made here that you find hard to swallow. I should have the next part of the essay up later today, so maybe you can wait for that before responding, since it will also address the "thinking-perceiving" unification (although I mean that 'literally' i.e. exactly how it sounds). Whatever you want to do is fine.

[Eugene I]

Do you acknowledge such a shift or not?

Oh, I acknowledge the shift of course, but I'm saying that it's not that easy as you seem to think with your amateur approach, and I told you so many times. You don't seem to grasp the problem here. If we mix-bag the ideas, imaginations, sensations and all aspects of consciousness itself into one big mess, we are no longer able to distinguish fantasies from reality. Any "science" of consciousness should be able to refute FSM-like theories, but yours so far can not. Basically, your science poses that anything that can be imagined or ideated is equally real, including the FSM, and any FSM becomes no less real than the consciousness itself that produced the FSM. Similarly, if the idea of matter and material world is produced in the mind of materialist, it now becomes as real as consciousness itself and we are unable to even distinguish materialism from idealism anymore. Logic will not help here because logic can not refute materialism or FSM theory or infinite number of other fantasy-theories. Now we end up living in an infinite multiverse where any idea of fantasy or metaphysics (as long as it's logically consistent) becomes equally real as much as consciousness itself. But I don't even see why we would exclude logically inconsistent ideas from that bag, because logic itself is only ideas, and, as the modern math showed us, there can be almost unlimited amount of variants of logic, neither of which is any "truer" than the other. Most of these theory-fantasy-realities would contradict each other, and the idealism itself becomes no longer any "truer" than any other theory of reality.

So, we obviously cannot do any science or philosophy on such premises. We need a certain method and criteria for distinguishing the "content" of ideas (that can contain virtually anything imaginable) from the base reality in where such content is produced. Now, the content can reflect reality and the thinking can be used to study the reality. But to equate the reality with all content of all possible ideas and imaginations leads to mere nonsense.

You are basically saying that consciousness itself and conscious experience itself and even existence itself are only ideas, as real as just as any other idea. This is idea-based idealism, not consciousness-based idealism, as I told you before. This is a mere reductionism of all reality to ideas only, and I do not subscribe to it because IMO it is nonsense. Conscious experience is not an "idea", it is the reality by/in which the ideas appear and are experienced while the ideas never being separate from their experiencing. The only way I can make sense of it is to see ideas as only aspects of conscious reality, and so reality cannot be reduced to ideas only, but has other inseparable but distinguishable aspects like awareness/experiencing, beingness, thinking/willing ability that produces ideas etc, but these aspects by their nature are not ideas but rather aspects of Consciousness.

[Cleric K]

Eugene, I did my best to distinguish between fantasy and perceiving of the real constraints which shape our cognition. Somehow you continue to view everything as simple imagining. Of most readers on this forum I was thinking that you are in privileged position to grasp these things quite easily because of your experience with meditation. Your FSM arguments are not serious. They presuppose that everything I said (even though I've put all effort to guard against such misunderstandings) is seen simply as guided visualization, as fantasy run wild.

Think of this. If I'm a secular person I can question in the same way your spiritual view. You say that you are able lift above the illusions of the self. I can oppose you that this is a FSM, you're just imagining things. If I'm really ill intended I can even go on to say that your Buddhist literature has brainwashed you and now you take some fantasy for reality. I'm quite certain you won't agree. You'll try to explain that this is a real experience, that the experience itself is the living confirmation. You'll try to point out that there's huge difference between imagining that you are free from the self and the actual meditative experience of lifting above the sheaths of the self. And there's no need to go as far as meditation to give examples for this. There's difference between imagining joy and feeling joy. Imagining love and experiencing love. Imagining health and being healthy. Imagining a beautiful landscape and actually perceiving it. We can be burnt with real fire but not with fantasized one. I agree that there are people with pathological soul life where fantasy is mixed with actual experiences - not that they are really the same but the person fails to cognitively distinguish them, even in the face of their different effects, such as a fire which burns and one which doesn't. Yet I think we can safely agree that we're here interested in healthy pursuit of truth and as long as we keep it that way we have all means to distinguish fantasized fire from real one.

So this is my response to your FSM argument. Proper meditative practice leads to clearly distinguishable experiences, just as imagined no-self is not the same as experienced no-self. Higher cognition simply goes further than that. Now I speak often about the soul organs. You can just as well fantasize them in some nebulous way. Yet there's a great difference between fantasizing them and really attaining to the state of consciousness where we can experience the soul rays interfering and forming the domains of our inner life. Now it you say that you accept that there's difference between fantasy and supersensible perception but insist that the supersensible is just a higher fantasy and can be anything you like, I would have to disagree. This would be the same as saying that we can, not imagine, but truly experience whatever kind of soul life we want, not only sensing, thinking, feeling, willing but with any number and combination of other imagined soul principles.

If you can't accept at least as possibility that there's difference between fantasy and supersensible perception in the above sense, there's simply no need to continue any further.