Federica wrote: ↑Tue Jun 04, 2024 8:49 pm
Federica wrote: ↑Tue Jun 04, 2024 8:04 pm
AshvinP wrote: ↑Tue Jun 04, 2024 2:31 pm
Federica, why did you bring up the PS (squared) and get so attached to defending your interpretation of it, if it was just a "wisecrack"?
Yes, if I have a broader context for the author's intended meaning, namely the numerous other comments he has made to me (and in published essays) about the phenomenal world, then I will bring that up.
Your original wasteland post referred to "
Looking at a lush natural scenery, teeming with life, or at an admirable man-made panorama, teeming with life..."
That this is not what Max's essay is referring to, is obvious. But even if it was referring to that, I would then argue Max is characterizing it in a misleading way. His essay should simply be a springboard for us to orient toward the evolving inner relations at work in our normal perceptual experience. I have already explained the potential traps if the 'wasteland' metaphor for perceptual-memory experience is taken too rigidly. I never said you are falling into these rigid traps, but it's just a common thinking habit in spiritual pursuits for
everyone to keep vigilant about.
Why I brought up the PS: first, because the language in the essay is so resolute, and you liked it, so I wanted to make a note about that. And because, when you express sensations like:
Ashvin wrote:I sensed that you were placing too much emphasis on the perceptual landscape as a 'wasteland'.
(only one of various recent examples I could quote, but let's keep it light) what I sense is, you are under the impression of a past-oriented memory picture of what you thought my soul constitution is, that is not very accurate. And I believe that, if I dared to qualify
anyhting as "Lucifer's lie" - qualia, memory pictures, scientific models, whatever - you would immediately jump at me with something like: "if we think that we can quickly dismiss the sensory spectrum... etc. etc.".
Then you can state that it's not about terminology, and not about me in particular, but you will admit that quotes like the above don't support that.
But anyway, these are all secondary and distracting things.
What I wanted to primarily raise is, it's very interesting to consider ML's approach versus yours and Cleric's. They are both phenomenological, but the quality (the nature) of the
conceptual approach differs greatly. Not that the essence of the pursued Truth is different, but the presentation of the phenomenological necessity in concepts is, which is very interesting. I believe there is more to elucidate from this observation. In one case the physical world is leveraged more, through metaphors, while in the other the conceptual-linguistic layer relies more on itself...
Alright, well, I also prefaced that comment by saying - "
Everything you wrote in the ghost town post, for example, is accurate and follows the threads of the convolutions closely, but just as we discussed on the Occult Science thread, it can become too rigid or formulaic if we don't also allow our thinking activity to fluidly explore the future potential it is retracing into."
As stated at that time, it didn't draw my attention (in a critical way) until we spoke of the convolutions and the brain, and there was a discrepancy in how we understood the latter, where I was suggesting it can not only be used as a metaphor for the combined convolutions compressed into a spatial structure, but is quite literally the point where the spirit has impregnated the physical world and can begin working to spiritualize the latter from the inside-out.
I don't see why my mere attempt to try and locate a reason for that discrepancy should be felt as boxing you into a past memory picture, condescending, or demeaning in any way. I assume you are interested in figuring out why the discrepancy is there too. If you feel the points I raise are completely irrelevant to it, then perhaps there are other potential paths that can be explored that are more relevant.
re: ML's approach - that makes sense. I have always felt that Barfield's philological approach, what could be called a phenomenology of spiritual activity as encoded in linguistic transformations, was one of the most powerful ways of understanding spiritual evolution at the conceptual level, short of a more direct PoF-style approach. Especially when one has devoted their vocation to teaching philosophy, as Max has, there are endless opportunities to leverage that to reveal the evolution of consciousness and expose flaws in the standard 'explanatory' philosophies and sciences. I'm not sure how far that can take us in focusing intuition of the higher states into conceptual form, however, if that is our aim. It can certainly address the past instinctive clairvoyance to some extent, by investigating ancient philosophy, mythology, art, etc., but I still feel the more scientific-technical metaphors will be the most effective at addressing the stages of modern initiation. But who knows, the human spirit is capable of making practically anything into an imaginative portal under the right circumstances, so I always remain open and enthusiastic for new ways of triangulating higher intuitions.
I'm not sure if that is exactly what you had in mind, though. If not, maybe you can provide another example (apart from the one you quoted) of the phenomenological approach you are referring to.
