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Re: A few definitions
Posted: Fri May 17, 2024 12:24 am
by lorenzop
I think everyone on the planet would agree there is no explanation equivalent to any experience. There are no set of words that can invoke the taste of a strawberry, or the 'taste of samadhi'.
Various flavors of Idealism and Physicalism offer approximate explanations for consciousness experiences. I think everyone who participates in this forum would agree that Idealism offers better, more useful and life-supporting explanations . . . but this is beside the point.
Re physicalism . . .
I am not a physicist so I'm not a good candidate for any physicalist explanations of consciousness. Roger Penrose has made some interesting claims about consciousness and physics, and recent research shows he may be on to something . . . but this is drifting from the main point.
If I'm speaking with a physicalist re Samadhi or meditation, etc., sparking interest is spiritual notions, I'm not going to try and convert him\her to Idealism first . . . it's not necessary. I can speak in physicalist language - might use analogies of coherent wave functions, wave function collapse, etc.
I'm sure everyone here has used physicalist ideas in their writings.
On a side note, I've been meditating and attending retreats and etc. for 50 years, and it's only in the last 5-10 years I was aware of Idealism\Physicalism etc. I bumped in Bernardo's book (Materialism is Baloney) and was off to the races.
Re: A few definitions
Posted: Fri May 17, 2024 1:09 pm
by AshvinP
lorenzop wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2024 12:24 am
On a side note, I've been meditating and attending retreats and etc. for 50 years, and it's only in the last 5-10 years I was aware of Idealism\Physicalism etc. I bumped in Bernardo's book (Materialism is Baloney) and was off to the races.
That's fine, Lorenzo. I think it's clear and you have confirmed that this meditative path can only ever lead to a dualist or physicalist understanding of reality. It maintains separate bubbles of consciousness for each 'alter' and, moreover, convinces us it is best not to even
seek Oneness of meaningful experience. All such efforts are viewed as quests for the Golden Calf, just as a fundamental theist would say such efforts trespass into the domain of the Creator who is hardly divided from the creatures. The impenetrable veil over death is likewise maintained by this path so one can never know how their current life relates to their spiritual life between death and rebirth. Mystical dualism gradually sinks into physicalism as the sensory world remains the only accessible domain for concrete knowledge.
So it should also be clear why you instinctively reject spiritual science, because the latter is exactly about how we can realize ever-greater Oneness within the Earthly stream of experience by penetrating through the veil of death and gaining intimate knowledge of the soul and spiritual worlds. There is no need to blame Steiner, terminology, definitions, or anything similar, because the real reason the spiritual scientific path is misunderstood and rejected is plain as day.
Re: A few definitions
Posted: Fri May 17, 2024 5:50 pm
by lorenzop
It's clear we don't communicate together very well - not sure how you came to the conclusion you did . . .
Re: A few definitions
Posted: Fri May 17, 2024 6:44 pm
by Cleric
lorenzop wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2024 5:50 pm
It's clear we don't communicate together very well - not sure how you came to the conclusion you did . . .
Lorenzo, I'll try to make the whole situation very clear. We can use Bernardo's metaphor.
Imagine a person with a dissociative disorder. Two personalities alternate. They don't know anything about each other. A third party explains to them individually that they share a body with another mind.
There are a few possible scenarios:
1/ The alters shudder in terror. They feel a mixture of feelings, mostly disgust, at the prospect that their most intimate world could be shared with another conscious being. The result is denial and recoil.
2/ The alters accept the message enthusiastically and even decide to find this oneness. However, they do that in a peculiar way. They simply focus on their own dissociated inner experience, diffuse it, and basically intuit something like "In this indeterminate state there must be something of the other alter, even though I never reach an experience of it. Nevertheless, I'll dwell on this feeling because this is the best I can ever attain to."
3/ An actual healing process occurs in which a new overarching consciousness develops that integrates the experiences of both alters. This may not be a one-time switch but rather the alters gradually begin to glimpse at the perspective of the other, they begin to understand how they are not fully independent, how their flows interfere and mutually bend each other.
I believe this analogy is as simple as it could be. I don't think anyone with normally functioning cognition can complain that they don't understand the three points above.
Points 2 and 3 can be used as an analogy for all the talks we have here with you, Eugene, and others who practically assume 2/. On the other hand, inner development and harmonization of the depth layers of MAL can be compared to 3/. It is obvious that 3/ can't be attained by simply diffusing into nothingness and enjoying some local ground state. It is a process of evolutionary expansion of consciousness and metamorphosis of what we are and what reality is.
You often say that the most important thing for you is knowing your true self. But think about it: in 2/ does the alter that diffuses into indeterminacy really know its true being? What that alter does, thinks, and feels, is secretly entangled with the processes of the other alter. Thus it is a great illusion if one believes that it has found its true and pure self by closing its eyes to its alterness and spending time in nebulousness. The latter can be known only by expanding consciousness and understanding what makes us 'tick', what beings and processes interfere in our inner space and bend the flow of being.
Re: A few definitions
Posted: Sat May 18, 2024 3:30 am
by lorenzop
Cleric K wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2024 6:44 pm
lorenzop wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2024 5:50 pm
It's clear we don't communicate together very well - not sure how you came to the conclusion you did . . .
Lorenzo, I'll try to make the whole situation very clear. We can use Bernardo's metaphor.
Imagine a person with a dissociative disorder. Two personalities alternate. They don't know anything about each other. A third party explains to them individually that they share a body with another mind.
There are a few possible scenarios:
1/ The alters shudder in terror. They feel a mixture of feelings, mostly disgust, at the prospect that their most intimate world could be shared with another conscious being. The result is denial and recoil.
2/ The alters accept the message enthusiastically and even decide to find this oneness. However, they do that in a peculiar way. They simply focus on their own dissociated inner experience, diffuse it, and basically intuit something like "In this indeterminate state there must be something of the other alter, even though I never reach an experience of it. Nevertheless, I'll dwell on this feeling because this is the best I can ever attain to."
3/ An actual healing process occurs in which a new overarching consciousness develops that integrates the experiences of both alters. This may not be a one-time switch but rather the alters gradually begin to glimpse at the perspective of the other, they begin to understand how they are not fully independent, how their flows interfere and mutually bend each other.
I believe this analogy is as simple as it could be. I don't think anyone with normally functioning cognition can complain that they don't understand the three points above.
Points 2 and 3 can be used as an analogy for all the talks we have here with you, Eugene, and others who practically assume 2/. On the other hand, inner development and harmonization of the depth layers of MAL can be compared to 3/. It is obvious that 3/ can't be attained by simply diffusing into nothingness and enjoying some local ground state. It is a process of evolutionary expansion of consciousness and metamorphosis of what we are and what reality is.
You often say that the most important thing for you is knowing your true self. But think about it: in 2/ does the alter that diffuses into indeterminacy really know its true being? What that alter does, thinks, and feels, is secretly entangled with the processes of the other alter. Thus it is a great illusion if one believes that it has found its true and pure self by closing its eyes to its alterness and spending time in nebulousness. The latter can be known only by expanding consciousness and understanding what makes us 'tick', what beings and processes interfere in our inner space and bend the flow of being.
In order to have a conversation on spiritual matters, we need to inject some errors\ignorance into our speech. If the requirement was we can only speak Absolute Truth, all we could do is sit in the corner and chant OM (or equivalent).
My point above (which Ashwin seemed to have missed) is that if I'm having a conversation with a physicalist re Consciousness, Samadhi, spirituality, etc - I can (attempt) to convey the significance and value of Pure Consciousness and mediation generally using physicalist language. Accommodating the POV of another (even a physicalist HaHa) is an expression of compassion in the spirit of sharing. It is not necessary to place additional barriers before others (like making sure they convert and properly understand Idealism)
This does not mean I am a physicalist, nor does it mean physicalism offers the best explanation of reality.
====
Re your analogy of disassociated alters - it is as clear as a bell, however I don't see how it pertains to anything I've (or you) every suggested or claimed. Is this an analogy to suggest why and how 2+ souls may share inner experiences (a suggestion from Ashwin)?
It's likely your analogy has too much error\ignorance to be of any use.
Re: A few definitions
Posted: Sat May 18, 2024 5:38 am
by Cleric
lorenzop wrote: ↑Sat May 18, 2024 3:30 am
Re your analogy of disassociated alters - it is as clear as a bell, however I don't see how it pertains to anything I've (or you) every suggested or claimed. Is this an analogy to suggest why and how 2+ souls may share inner experiences (a suggestion from Ashwin)?
It's likely your analogy has too much error\ignorance to be of any use.
It's bewildering to me to see how someone who, after all, found this forum because he was intrigued by BK's idea of MAL and dissociated alters, can't comprehend the relevance of the analogy.
What's so hard to understand? In idealism
"There is one body, and one Spirit". The Cosmos is the body of MAL, so to speak. Our human perspectives are like relative apertures within this totality. This is the ABC of why most people come to this forum, and why most of them enthusiastically repeat "We're all one, there's One Consciousness."
So if this is the case, why do the same those people cling at 2/ ? Why do they choose to celebrate their Cosmic isolation within MAL by mindlessly chanting OM or whatever, thus basically saying "Yes, my consciousness is part of the Cosmic One, but I don't want to know anything about it. I prefer my little corner, I'll make myself comfortable in it and keep everything else outside."
If you understand 3/ and see how the consciousness of alters within the same physical human body interfere, and how it is conceivable that there could be a new overarching consciousness that integrates something of the experiences of both, then why is it so difficult to conceive that the same may hold on a larger scale? (
"So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another")
If you really understand this analogy can you provide your reasoning for why it should be
impossible to reach higher, more overarching states of consciousness, that integrate the wholeness of MAL? In the bodily analogy that would be like a doctor speaking to the individual alters: "Listen, you share this body with another mind but it is principally impossible to expand consciousness and integrate with it. You are doomed to know only your own alterness. Thus chant OM in your little corner and be happy." So in the case of the Cosmic Mind and Cosmic Body, you as the doctor,
how would you justify the impossibility for more holistic consciousness that integrates into the overarching orders of MAL?
(just to save a few back and forths, the fact that we know nothing of this overarching MAL consciousness in our age doesn't prove that it is not there. It's just that it may need some methodological efforts to develop it. In the same way, the savage who knows nothing of mathematical thought does not prove that the latter is impossible.)
Re: A few definitions
Posted: Sat May 18, 2024 2:31 pm
by lorenzop
Initially I didn't get how an individual with Multiple Personality Disorder applied to anything I've said re Samadhi, Pure Consciousness. I see now what you are trying to do.
Yes, my 'inner activity' has something in common with other human beings, other gentlemen who play guitar, other creatures with metabolism, all beings, etc. We are all dependent upon each other.
And there are 'tons' of self-help books, methods and groups that we can partake in to enrich this relative\worldly communion - we can take up birding, cooking, biking, bagpipes, etc.
These endeavors enrich our lives.
However, I've been referencing a Oneness that is unbounded, self-sufficient, not dependent upon another property or essence.
This understanding of Oneness is where your analogy of alters with a common physical body breaks down.
There is an utterance "I am That"
I am suggesting the classical understanding of That as unboundedness, Pure Consciousness, Absolute.
I think Anthroposophy is suggesting in the above utterance, That (also) includes will, thinking and feeling activity, maybe also World Content.
I think this boils down the difference in what we are proposing.
The above utterance continues - "I am That, you are That, all This is nothing but That" The apparent differences in texture, color, shape, temperance, etc. are also That.