Bernardo's latest essay

[AshvinP]

One more thing about this "practical difference" issue. There is, of course, a huge practical difference between our views, just as there is between our view and any dualism or philosophy of universal Will. The reason why I asked about it, though, is because it seems lately your view has increasingly metamorphosed to incorporate many of our points while maintaining a fundamental schism which also shifts around. I am not even saying that critically, because at least it means you are paying attention to our arguments and taking some of them seriously. But the problem is that fundamental schism which you feel obligated to maintain under all circumstances for some reason. Instead of rehashing the same old reasons why such a schism is problematic, I am just going to relate my own experience here:

I was "conditionally" adapting to your views and have nothing in particular against them. All this evolutionary metamorphotic stuff, Barfield and Steiner are great. But I'm just trying to turn your Thinking activity towards a different facet of Reality. It amazes me that you guys still have no clue what I'm talking about. But it's ok, as I said, it's entirely optional Anyway, I'm giving up

Well that is the beauty of pragmatic philosophy, which Steiner's philosophy also expresses - something that cannot possibly affect one's life by being experienced-known may as well not exist. For your "experiential knowing", it is more like something that only a few hardcore Eastern mystics could maybe, possibly, somewhat, kind of, know... but even then it makes no difference to one's spiritual path! At least that is the latest watered down incarnation of your view. I suspect we will see how it is transfigured and resurrected soon enough

[Eugene I]

It makes a huge difference in my life and to my spiritual path. The only thing I wanted here is to share this insight in case if there is a chance someone else could discover it and experience it for themselves.

[AshvinP]

It makes a huge difference in my life and to my spiritual path. The only thing I wanted here is to share this insight in case if there is a chance someone else could discover it and experience it for themselves.

Here are the differences you have given us so far:

"It is somewhat similar to a difference between thinking about being a human, and actually being a human."

"It is like you can be a scientist (e.g. spiritual one) and at the same time a musician. On one hand, these activities almost do not interfere with each other, but on the other hand, they do affect each other in some ways"

That first one, other than being extremely condescending, clarifies nothing. The second clarifies nothing more than I could learn from a personality test showing where someone lies on scale of extroversion-introversion and openness to experience, i.e. interest in 'things' vs. creativity. That is probably my biggest frustration with your position - the extreme arrogance it takes to say what you have experienced is that rare, indescribable, and penultimate experience that even most Eastern mystics have not experienced, and Cleric has not experienced despite him telling you so many times that he has. Instead of confronting our specific arguments with coherent arguments of your own, you fall back on that prideful excuse. You also pretend that we have not had so many discussions where your distaste of all things related to Western spirituality was revealed. I really don't get any satisfaction from bringing these things up, but I just feel like it becomes necessary with you once you go into your "hey I'm just innocently giving you guys another option to look at" aside from "all this evolutionary metamorphic stuff" routine.

[DandelionSoul]

Sure! Since I wrote about this in a recent essay, Thinking, Memory, and Time (Part III), I am going to paste a relevant excerpt:

Before proceeding further, we should remain clear - Heidegger does not exclude the "imagination", "inspiration", or "intuition" from Thinking. Spiritual contemplative personalities often partition abstract intellect from all these other modes of contemplation and consider only the former "thinking". That is a fundamental mistake and one that Heidegger, even with his mature exploration of Eastern mysticism, did not make. He recognized that all of these contemplative activities belong to and only belong to the domain of Thinking. We belong to that place where we must find our essential role. My heart belongs to my circulatory system and my lungs belong to my respiratory system, while both are essential to and therefore inseparable from my 'physical' existence.

My heart cannot claim for itself my in-breathing and out-breathing and my lungs cannot claim for themselves the circulation of my blood. So it is that my willing, feeling, and thinking activities belong to distinct and asymmetrical domains of my spiritual existence. The same applies for the Willing, Feeling, and Thinking of humanity writ large, because my personal activities are microcosms of the macrocosm. The soul-activities of Willing and Feeling fulfill their essential roles in the differentiated perspectives of human beings. They are what imbue us with unique personalities as our lives unfold in the integral flow of Time. Without these living beings constantly impelling our conscious experience into new thought-states, we would never experience any flow of Time.
...
Human spirits, for example, present to us as a book - we read their gestures, expressions, eye movements, speech, etc. and are thereby drawn closer into their inner experience. If we were to ignore that reality of shared experience, then we would perceive human spirits as lifeless corpses moving around mechanically. In fact, there is a real danger of that occurring in the modern world with modern technology. We may soon be unable to tell any difference between interacting with a human spirit or an AI algorithm pretending to be such a spirit. Yet that same technology, when treated as nothing more than a symbol of an underlying spiritual reality, also reminds us that 'invisible' spiritual forces form all of our social interactions in a highly specified manner.

In what way besides Thinking could we approach such an invisible yet highly specified Reality? Thinking fulfills its essential role, then, through the integration of varied human souls - "I have not come to abolish the law or the prophets, but to fulfill them." It takes what presents to us as differentiated appearances of willing and feeling and weaves back together the ideal constellations which make sense of those appearances as a living whole. We often refer to this process when speaking of the "spirit" of a text, especially in common law traditions. The highly differentiated rules of court decisions and statutes can only be effective when they are born of the principle (spirit) underlying them. Old rules must continuously be reborn in that spirit to remain relevant and useful.

Such realities can be spoken of so casually in conversation that we look entirely past their essential meaning, so let us dwell on it some more. Our thinking, through its rebirth, takes the most varied notes and tones of the human soul provided by willing-feeling and synthesizes them into a harmony which sounds exceptionally pleasant to the eternal Spirit. We cannot understand these distinct essential roles of W-F-T in complete isolation from one other, because all experience always consists of all three qualities in Tri-Unity. And it is only that living Trinity which provides food for our thought; which provokes the most thought within us; which eternally calls upon us to Think.

That is Steiner's view of W-F-T in a very crude nutshell. Many problems in philosophy come from the simple refusal to recognize these distinct essential roles of, W-F-T in the unfolding of our experience. If you really want to explore the specific role of Thinking in this world-evolving process, then I highly recommend reading Steiner's The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity (or Freedom). It's even possible to read individual chapters of the book without being completely lost.

Thank you for all of this! I'm going to have to read Steiner whenever I can, along with your three essays. You also mentioned the Deep M@L essay (which I don't think you wrote, but you commended) in another very long thread I'm slowly crawling through. I went and read that one a few hours ago and it was fascinating. Engaging just with what you've written here, though, you said, "All experience always consists of all three qualities in Tri-Unity." To follow the Trinity metaphor, that would suggest Experience as analogous to the Godhead, and Willing/Thinking/Feeling as the three Persons?

I know I ask a lot of questions, and I appreciate you (all of you, actually) bearing with me. I'm still trying to learn about the frameworks in dialogue here and sort out where my inclination to agree or disagree at certain points is due to differences/similarities in actual metaphysical content versus where it's due to some of the key words (consciousness, experience, thought, existence, being, mind, etc.) just being used differently by different people in different contexts.

[SanteriSatama]

Those are very deep questions, how pure math, sensing and empirism relate. For Greeks there was no distinction between pure and applied mathematics, they started from naturally continuous geometry and derived discrete number theory that way, by relating line segments and areas and giving those relations numerical values.

Child development in some aspects repeats fractally the evolution of humanity. Mathematics begin with numbers or simply - counting. Numbers are qualities before they are conceptualized. Just as there's a common quality between yellow lemon and yellow apple, so there's a common quality between two arms and two legs. From the first we extract the idea of 'yellowness', from the second - of 'twoness'. This is what a child learns first. Geo-metry begins again with counting - we count how many steps it takes to walk some distance, how many stick lengths fit somewhere and so on. This is something that the child learns later. It's more complicated because there's a level of indirection. The child first learns to count because it can extract the qualities of the numbers directly from the perceptions - count of hands, apples. Geo-metry is second iteration of counting - we're counting relations between the meter (steps, sticks) and the thing being measured. It's obvious that this is a more complicated task and naturally it can only be mastered after acquiring the skill of counting immediate perceptions.

I'm not saying that numbers can't be derived from continuous geometry (they can be derived in many ways - sets, Church lambda numerals, etc.) but only pointing out the progression in purely cognitive evolution.

You are already using metaphysical definition in your definition of mathematics as something build on the foundation of the counting numbers (and thus begging the question), instead of mathematics as measuring continuities as relative proportions, which as such is not dependent from language and metacognition, but what we do also subconsciously all the time. In cognitive evolution measuring continuous proportions is universal and comes first, the metaphysical idea of counting numbers is not universal, as not even all human natural languages include the metaphysical idea of numerical counting.

[Cleric]

I must agree with Ashvin. You simply do everything possible to keep the Experiential knowing in a completely different domain. Even though you call it Clarity, it's still a knowing experience.

Because Cleric keeps insisting that what he calls "Experiential knowing" is an "intuitive idea-nature" that can "metamorphose", it is obvious that he is talking about a completely different phenomenon. Because this "Clarity" that I'm referring to never metamorphoses.

What you are objecting against is contained in your own example. When a bird eats a berry it has one kind of Clarity experience. Then if it flies somewhere else and eats some grains it's another kind of Clarity experience - the Experience has smoothly metamorphosed from berries to grains. There's of course an aspect that seems to be staying the same.

We can imagine the metamorphic view as composed of waves of different frequencies, all superimposed. The shorter wavelengths change rapidly from moment to moment. At one point there's a berry, in the next the berry is eaten. Others experiences have longer wavelengths. For example, when the bird moves from the berries to the grains it has to travel trough space. This movement through outer space is only a phantom idea of the intellect. If we stick to the given, there's actually a musical transformation of the metamorphic view. It's like passing from one verse to the next. We haven't really moved anywhere. We're always at the center of experience. Only the musical contents of the metamorphic view have transformed. So the short wavelengths of berries and grains are floating in the context of the longer wavelengths which are experienced as transformation of the space perspective. Then there are even so long wavelengths that everything seems to be in their context, they never seem to change. We don't need to go as far as the mystical to understand this. Everyone of us can find a living example in the course of our life. At all times our metamorphic view transforms. We can 'spectrum analyze' it in different frequencies/wavelength. The moment to moment experiences are short wavelengths. For example, the keystrokes that I now perform are such short wave-packets of metamorphic experience that come and go. These are harmonically embedded in the longer wavelength of the idea-experience of the post that I'm now writing. The post is embedded in the wavelength of my day experience. The day in the month, year and so on. Every longer wavelength is not simply an abstract measure of time but layer of consciousness. In this way we approach asymptotically the wave that embeds the whole eternity of all other waves - this is the permanent aspect of consciousness that you speak of. And as said, we don't need mystical experience to appreciate this. From the time we were a child, there's probably not even a single cell of our body that contains the same atoms. Our thoughts are different, our interests are different, our character has changed. Our temperament probably hasn't changed that much (it's a longer wavelength compared to the character). Yet in all cases, even though almost everything has changed we can still look back and say "It was me who experienced all this. There's something in the child that is the same even now. This something allows me to say that all these stages of metamorphosis belong to the same encompassing wavelength of conscious experience which integrates, glues them through time."

Spectrum analyzing the metamorphic view in these time-consciousness layers is very powerful tool (of course we must always guard against being carried away too much in abstraction). Every frequency layer is Experience imbued with Knowing. The infinite wavelength that encompasses all other wavelengths is also connected with the Clarity and Knowing Presence that you speak of. When we focus with our intuitive thinking on this infinite wavelength we extract a holographic wave packet (concept) which is at the resolution that the intellect operates, yet the wave packet is in resonant relations to the Master Wavelength, it is self-similar to it, an image of it.

So you see, I'm not trying to demean Knowing, Presence, Clarity aspect of the Master Wavelength. It's quite the opposite - spiritual development aims to harmonize the frequency gradient. This is also why the spiral or vortex, is a good metaphor for the metamorphic view. Circles of different size are like different wavelengths. In order that spiritual activity can smoothly transduce the gradient of frequencies they must be arranged harmonically. The spiral is a great symbol for this - it practically illustrates how circles of different wavelengths are fused together into a gradient. If we envision God or the Pure Consciousness as a Grand Circle and our ego consciousness as separate circle within it, there's apparent discontinuity (this is the dualism Ashvin speaks of). This is understandable in Simon's paradigm where this separateness is held fast. But it's little strange in nondualist view. It's odd that the Knowledge of Presence is forcefully put in completely separate and irreconcilable category. Isn't it the most logical thing for nondualism to seek the unified Knowing essence and recognize it as it manifests through the different frequencies? Through proper application of our spiritual activity we can guide the metamorphosis of our view, such that the circles can flow into each other and become a spiral (this is the bridge). Imagination, Inspiration, Intuition are the octaves that when developed, build this spiral transducing of wavelengths.

Here we shouldn't be worried that this bridge demeans the Divine nature of the longer wavelengths. We should be clear about this - the fact that we can experience the permanence of consciousness (the Master wavelength), even in a mystical state, doesn't mean that we encompass all time-consciousness. In fact, we must approach these longer wavelengths in complete humility and mood of prayer because they are not under our control. They are higher order rhythms that rule the unfoldment of the metamorphic view. The best we can do is to synchronize our lower level frequencies with the Master frequencies.

[Cleric]

In cognitive evolution measuring continuous proportions is universal and comes first, the metaphysical idea of counting numbers is not universal, as not even all human natural languages include the metaphysical idea of numerical counting.

Can you give concrete example in child development, in what way this 'measuring continuous proportions' manifests in cognition, such that it precedes the counting of hands?

[SanteriSatama]

The keyword is Experiential knowing. This knowing has the same essential idea-nature, as the ordinary concepts. Concepts, Imaginations, Inspirations, Intuitions. These form the gradient of ideal content from the most fragmentary to the most holistic. In Intuition we don't have separate ideas. We can imagine that there's only one idea as big as the Cosmos. This idea is not an object within consciousness or intuitive reflection of the Experiential knowing - it is the very essence of the 'knowing' in the Experiential knowing. True Intuition is precisely the meaningful essence for which you say that is directly experienced and when we think about it we only have a thought reflection (fractally similar). Everything you said about the "seeing the sky", etc. hold true for Intuitive consciousness. It is precisely when we strip away ordinary thinking, Imaginative and Inspirative cognitive activity, that we remain with the pure Experience that is being known as meaning filling the whole Consciousness.

We'll be able to make another step forward if we consider that this Experiential knowing is not entirely passive state but can metamorphose according to our spiritual activity. In other words we can be meaningfully active even without decohering this activity to ordinary thoughts. In certain sense we navigate through the holistic Experience that is being known, in fully conscious way, without the need to reduce/reflect it to intellectual thoughts.

The very essence of knowing in the Experiental knowing are proportional differences of continuities. Transformations etc. movements and time. Zen pupil knowing to dodge when the Master tries to hit him with a stick. Knowing where your hand is. Knowing if you are hungry or not, knowing when to stop suckling mothers breast.

The imagined idea of "only one idea as big as the Cosmos" is as said an imaginary idea, which aspectually contains also the idea of separation, in the perfective aspect of the idea of the Whole. It's not empirical necessity, we can experience also without being possessed by that idea.

To avoid self-deception and to stay honest, we need to accept that when experiencing and talking from experiencing spiritually, we are still perceiving and projecting through the filters of our linguistic and cultural conditioning. "The Only One Idea" is what the story about blind men and elephant tells about...

[SanteriSatama]

In cognitive evolution measuring continuous proportions is universal and comes first, the metaphysical idea of counting numbers is not universal, as not even all human natural languages include the metaphysical idea of numerical counting.

Can you give concrete example in child development, in what way this 'measuring continuous proportions' manifests in cognition, such that it precedes the counting of hands?

"Counting"of hands?

Feeling hungry and eating until not feeling hungry. Growing until it's time to be born. Etc.

[Cleric]

The imagined idea of "only one idea as big as the Cosmos" is as said an imaginary idea, which aspectually contains also the idea of separation, in the perfective aspect of the idea of the Whole. It's not empirical necessity, we can experience also without being possessed by that idea.

Here again 'idea' is being misunderstood as something which is added to pure experience and obscures its pristine qualities. You say "we can experience also without being possessed by that idea". This precisely implies that some idea is being forcefully carried as unnecessary appendage (which is of course possible). I'm not speaking of this at all. The thing is that when you 'experience without being possessed by the idea' you still have fundamental knowing that there's concrete experience. This knowing can be meaningful. I'm speaking about this inseparable meaningful attribute of consciousness which permeates it through and through. It is for this meaningful essence that I say is as big as the Cosmos. If you take that essence away you're left with the buzzing confusion (which is still some kind of knowing, although completely nebulous, indeterminate and inexplicable. In other words you can never completely remove the meaningful essence away and still have awareness).

I don't know why there's such resistance to grasp the simple fact that this meaningful and inseparable essence of conscious existence is called Ideal in Western thought. There's always the desire to thrust any meaningful essence down into 'mere concepts' and the other is elevated in some inexplicable and unapproachable through conscious spiritual activity, mysterious knowing that doesn't share anything with the Ideal.