Philosophy Unbound: Schopenhauer vs. Steiner (Round One)

[Cleric]

"The basic error of many scientific endeavours, especially those of the present day, consists precisely of the fact that they believe they present pure experience, whereas in fact they only gather up the concepts again that they themselves have inserted into it. Someone could object that we have also assigned a whole number of attributes to pure experience. We called it an endless manifoldness, an aggregate of unconnected particulars, etc. Are those then not conceptual characterizations also? In the sense in which we use them, certainly not. We have only made use of these concepts in order to direct the reader's eye to reality free of thoughts. We do not wish to ascribe these concepts to experience; we make use of them only in order to direct attention to that form of reality which is devoid of any concept."

Blanks,
I agree with you on the above quote. Steiner places quite stark contrast here between thinking (concepts) and pure experience. Let's see what he has to say about it in the 1924 edition preface:

It might seem strange that this work of my youth, almost forty years old now, should appear today unchanged and expanded only by some notes. In its manner of presentation it bears the earmarks of a thinking that lived in the philosophy of forty years ago. If I were writing it today, I would state many things differently (1). But I would not be able to present anything different as the essential being of knowledge (2). Yet what I would write today would not be able to bear within itself so faithfully the germ of the world view for which I have stood and which is in accordance with the spirit. One can write in such a germinal way only at the beginning of a life of knowledge. This perhaps justifies a new publication of a youthful work in this unchanged form.

(numbers added by me)

We may be quite confident that the quote about the pure experiences would be one of the things that he would have rephrased in case of (1). But at the same time, anyone who has experienced the depth of these matters cannot do otherwise but agree with (2). The same essence that we find in this early work, we find later in PoF and throughout his whole life.

To give some support to (2) we can look at some other quotes from the same book.

We are so used to seeing the world of concepts as empty and without content, and so used to contrasting perception with it as something full of content and altogether definite, that it will be difficult to establish for the world of concepts the position it deserves in the true scheme of things. We miss the fact entirely that mere looking is the emptiest thing imaginable, and that only from thinking does it first receive any content at all. The only thing true about the above view is that looking does hold the ever-fluid thought in one particular form, without our having to work along actively with this holding. The fact that a person with a rich soul life sees a thousand things that are a blank to someone spiritually poor proves, clear as day, that the content of reality is only the mirror-image of the content of our spirit and that we receive only the empty form from outside.

From this is quite clear he admits that there's a thought in looking, even if we don't need to do any work to hold it. If this is the case why didn't he express similarly in the first quote? I don't know. That's why I guess this would be one of the things he would rectify in case of (1).

Another one:

The best proof that this is so is provided by the fact that people who lead a richer spiritual life also penetrate more deeply into the world of experience than do others for whom this is not the case. Much that passes over the latter kind of person without leaving a trace makes a deep impression upon the former. (“Were not the eye of sun-like nature, the sun it never could behold.” Goethe) Yes, someone will say, but don't we meet infinitely many things in life about which previously we had not had the slightest concept, and do we not then, right on the spot, at once form concepts of them? Certainly. But is the sum total of all possible concepts identical with the sum total of those I have formed in my life up to now? Is my system of concepts not capable of development? Can I not, in the face of a reality that is incomprehensible to me, at once bring my thinking into action so that in fact it also develops, right on the spot, the concept I need to hold up to an object? The only ability useful to me is one that allows a definite concept to emerge from the thought-world's supply. The point is not that a particular thought has already become conscious for me in the course of my life, but rather that this thought allows itself to be drawn from the world of thoughts accessible to me. It is indeed of no consequence to its content where and when I grasp it. In fact, I draw all the characterizations of thoughts out of the world of thoughts. Nothing whatsoever in fact, flows into this content from the sense object. I only recognize again, within the sense object, the thought I drew up from within my inner being. This object does in fact move me at a particular moment to bring forth precisely this thought-content out of the unity of all possible thoughts, but it does not in any way provide me with the building stones for these thoughts. These I must draw out of myself.

I suppose here we can again spend much time on the wording. For example, it might be objected "Why he puts again such a stark contrast between the thoughts that we draw out of ourselves and the perceptions? Couldn't it be that they have always been one and the same and it's just our fantasy that thinking brings them together?" This can only be understood rightly if we appreciate the fact that in thinking we experience self-propelled activity. This objection holds perfectly well if we diminish our spiritual role and focus on the experience of thoughts that always seem to accompany perceptions. Note - I say 'experience of thoughts', not experience of 'thinking'. To experience the latter we need to bring the exceptional state. Otherwise our thinking is perceived in a way no different that the contemplation of leaves growing on a branch or blown by the wind - that is, as something that 'just happens' spontaneously, we simply witness the unfoldment of thinking. It is here that the contemplative mystic would argue that even the feeling of spiritual causation of thinking is present just as yet another perception and the ego emerges as a 'strange loop' that revolves around the illusion of causative spiritual activity.

To return to the question. Why does he say "These [thoughts] I must draw out of myself" and not simply "I find the thoughts together with the perceptions"? Because the latter is the case only in the effortless mode of cognition where we have either witnessed the same perception many times and the concept is united with it as if by reflex, or if the perception is new but compatible enough with our whole knowledge that it immediately and effortlessly snaps to a new concept. In less trivial cases we must exercise thinking in order to reach the needed concept. When I'm confronted with a diagram of a four-stroke engine for the first time there's a small chance that I'll immediately be presented with the concepts of the four strokes, the valves, the ignition, the camshaft, etc. I need to work with my thinking in order to understand how the engine works. To understand this I need to find the proper concepts and relate them together. Here we can fully justifiably say that the concepts come out of thinking. They are symbolized in the diagram but by just looking at it I would have nothing but the concept of a pretty picture.

I won't say that when we don't have the right concepts we have experience of chaos (although this is also possible). The thing is that more often we focus on the things that we do know. For example, in the pencil exercise, there are tons of concepts that I can experience if I go into the details. Does this mean that when I have only the concept of 'pencil' when I look at it, I also experience the chaos of everything else that can be known about the pencil but which I have not yet conceptualized? Not really. My consciousness is filled with the meaning of 'pencil' and not with the meaning of everything that I don't know about it. This is also the reason that it's not always easy to show somebody what more can be found by enriching our spiritual life. The superficial mind is completely filled with the concepts it experiences, it doesn't experience that there's something missing unless it develops real interest in the World. For example, a superficial man may be completely happy with the diagram of the engine and accept it as a pretty picture of art. Only when he realizes that the diagram symbolizes a whole world of physical facts and laws, he also feels that this missing world must be added by thinking, if the diagram is to be understood in the way its author intended it.

Let my summarize:
1/ I fully acknowledge that we can't experience 'pure percept' without any meaning/ideal element. I agree that from what you quoted it sounds that Steiner insists on precisely the opposite - that we can have pure experienced devoid of thinking. This would be modified in case of (1). Yet as seen from other parts of the book, the essential nature of the knowing process is intact. He even agrees that mere looking is always accompanied with effortlessly experienced meaning.
2/ The above shouldn't prevent us from recognizing that nonetheless the conceptual world that our consciousness accesses, grows. This doesn't mean that before that, perceptions existed as free floating 'pure experiences' without ideal element. They do have some kind of meaning experienced together with them but it's clear that this meaning evolves as thinking continues to work with them.

Is my system of concepts not capable of development? I think anyone who doesn't live purely instinctive life, is capable of answering this question. And this is at the heart of the whole science of knowing. This can be comprehended even by Kant but where Steiner makes the step forward is that he recognizes that within this union of perception and knowing, we are the essential being of the World.

Returning to the topic of this thread. I don't think the Schop would suggest that cognition was not inherent within the will. I don't see a reason he would need to do that. Instead, this cognitive element becomes able of thoughtful self-experience only at certain threshold of complexity. He made his philosophy quite explicit on the fact that this cognitive element feels as the victim of the 'blind giant' on whose shoulders he is carried. And this is where the difference lies with Steiner. The whole work of the latter focuses precisely on the possibility that awakened cognition can grow into the blind giant such that his formerly unconscious point of view becomes conscious, concentrically united with that of the feeble man on his shoulders. Whether Schop has secretly allowed for this possibility - I don't know. The fact is that in his life work he made it quite explicit that something like that is not considered. What is considered is giving oneself to aesthetic contemplation by coming to peace with the giant.

Both Schop and Steiner recognize the blind giant (the lower nature). The great difference is how they deal with it. In Schop it is about coming to terms with the utter meaninglessness of the situation and at least experiencing some peace by living in the own element of ideas. The fact remains, though, that this element will always remain only the tip of the iceberg. Steiner goes further by showing that the cognitive element can develop and extend beneath the surface. Not that it doesn't already exist there, but it's not yet organized. Then what were the blind urges of the lower man, become elucidated by the Spirit. Once elucidated we're in position to alter these flows. This is why we need knowledge in order to be free. We're free not because we exhibit unrestricted behavior but when we attain to the deeper strata where we can work with the forces that have formerly determined our behavior with iron necessity. To understand this we need to consider that to have real knowledge of the motives of our actions is not the same as having theoretical explanation for them. The real knowledge requires higher order experience of the causes of our behavior, sympathies and antipathies. For example, people think they are free to have a favorite color. They are free as far as no one has restricted the palette for them and gave them to choose between two or three colors. But did we really choose that color? Or we simply find it as a peculiarity of our character, just like we find the color of our hair? We are free only when we attain to the spiritual foundations which explain why exactly this is our favorite color and not some other. We wouldn't be free if we have that knowledge only as something theoretical. For example, a neuroscientist can tell us "Your favorite color is this because these and these neurons fire in this particular way". But this doesn't at all change my inner experience. When through spiritual development we attain to the deeper strata of consciousness we live within the actual living forces which imbue certain color with sympathetic feeling. Now we're free because at that level we can actually alter the way these forces work. Even if we don't 'switch' our favorite color, we're still free to experience what it could be to temporarily have other colors as equally sympathetic. So this is the kind of freedom we're talking about. Not simply about feeling unrestricted, even though we have no clue why we would choose exactly the things we choose, but about attaining to the spiritual forces and beings that constitute our organism, and from whence we can alter our metamorphic process in ways impossible if we were simply flowing along in blissful ignorance.

[AshvinP]

It is entirely obvious that an action which the doer performs, without knowing why he does it, cannot be free.

Not at all obvious.

Pretty obvious, unless you want to exclude intuition from "knowing", which is arbitrary and incorrect move. How could someone without knowledge of why he is doing things be free in doing those things?

There is a concept in law called "informed consent", which I am sure you are familiar with. It means a person cannot be deemed to have given consent to some activity involving them unless they have sufficient knowledge of what activity they are consenting to.

[SanteriSatama]

It is entirely obvious that an action which the doer performs, without knowing why he does it, cannot be free.

Not at all obvious.

Pretty obvious, unless you want to exclude intuition from "knowing", which is arbitrary and incorrect move. How could someone without knowledge of why he is doing things be free in doing those things?

There is a concept in law called "informed consent", which I am sure you are familiar with. It means a person cannot be deemed to have given consent to some activity involving them unless they have sufficient knowledge of what activity they are consenting to.

I don't know what you mean by intuition, but that's a side issue. There are philosophies and religions that consider liberation from karma freedom.

[AshvinP]

So here is a clue that helps dissolve all the issues. And, yes, I realize that most of you think there are no issues when Steiner says things like:

"Thus far we have arrived at the following truths. At the first stage of our contemplation of the world, the whole of reality confronts us as an unconnected aggregate..."

Because you claim that he doesn't really believe there is an experience we have each moment before thinking attaches a concept to it. But, as I've shown above, you have to argue against each and every time Steiner argues that it is obvious this is the case.

But here's the thing. I'll assume an integrated knowledge and practice of Owen Barfield here:

If somebody is even slightly infected with the idols of the study, they will think it is obvious that early human beings MUST HAVE looked out at world like ours but it simply had no ideas attached to it. It was a blooming buzzing fleeting chaos that they then slapped concepts like "cloud' and 'moon' and 'river' and 'wind' to and looked at it as we modern people look out at those 'things'.

Similarly, an infection of the idols of the study will do much the same thing to how we imagine human children. We will imagine they must have had a period where it was all meaningless and just a loud visual blur of chaos that they slowly shaped by attaching the right concepts to the loud blur.

And finally, the infection of the idols will also determine how we conceptualize the nature of experience itself, even the adult. How? Well, the structure is very similar, unsurprisingly:

We will be forced to say there must be a moment in which we experience pure chaos. that moment must be followed (like with primitive man or a human child) with attaching the right concept to it. Then and only then has thinking bridged what the bodily organization separated.

In original participation none of these ideas would have made sense for all sorts of reasons, but primarily because in original participation we 'knew' that every appearances was the expression of something that shared our essence.

And now we must initiate final participation. This means we have to grasp directly, in experience, the error that would cause us to posit a world of chaos or even just a world of bare objects that are free from concepts.

Before that first step is congruently taken, all epistemologies will in some way (all differently) presume a division that must be bridged to greater or lesser degrees of accuracy and 'correspondence'.

Let's take stock of what is happening here. I am not sure why, but for some reason you have decided to enlist people who spent their entire lives refuting your view, i.e. making clear that these distinctions matter for practical spiritual experience, as support for it. You say Steiner wasn't saying what we think he is saying (regardless of how many different books and lectures he said it in), and Schopenhauer, as most famous and rigorous philosopher of blind Will, and acknowledged as such by everyone, also isn't saying what we think he's saying. OK, it's a very unusual approach, but we have gone with it. Cleric and I then quote numerous passages of Steiner either supporting a position you claim he didn't support or refuting a position you claim he did support. Those passages are ignored completely... not even mentioned in your next comment.

So now we're on to Barfield, clearly a devoted student of Steiner, meaning something other than he wrote, or writing something other than what every careful reader of his understands him to mean. OK, fine... I will play along for the sake of clarifying Barfield's thought. I am going to post a few quotes from different articles by him just to hammer the point home. I hope you actually read them and, if you choose to respond, then respond to them directly. And I hope you remember that, it is precisely because we have an "integrated knowledge" of some of these thinkers, that we decide to reject your interpretation of them. Even more important for you to remember is that, even if no mechanistic process of attaching concepts to percepts in the first instance can be illustrated (because no one is this entire discussion is claiming that there is such a process), Steiner and Barfield's arguments about the unique role of Thinking in spiritual experience remain exactly the same.

Finally, and most importantly, is to realize that, like Steiner, Barfield wrote extensively about the "evolution of consciousness". I am sure you knew that already but have not fully understood the implications. The bolded statement in the quote from him you shared above makes clear what he was addressing - the fact that our current mechanistic experience of the world was not how the ancients experienced it. So the picture of taking concepts from here and attaching them to percepts over there, as Cleric has pointed out numerous times already, is an artifact of the modern age - a question which it would only occur to modern man to ask of Steiner. With original participation, conceptual meaning was inherent in the percepts which confronted man. Every sense-experience was immediately perceived and known (without reflection) as imbued with the spiritual meaning that we no longer perceive in the sense-world and is gained by way of abstract reasoning (at first approach). That living Thinking process which now exists within modern man is one and the same as the process of "attaching" concepts to percepts.

https://www.owenbarfield.org/read-onlin ... of-memory/

Both the sentient soul and the intellectual soul are still contained within the womb of the macrocosm in a way that the consciousness soul is not. But the intellectual soul is for ever being born. It is in process of being born into a world not governed by biological laws, but by those quite different laws that govern the realm of concepts, including the laws of logic. Concepts do not belong to the individual soul; they are one and the same for all. But it is only by uniting itself with them that the soul can become possessed of ‘conceits’; and the conceit has in it the germ both of abstract notions in one direction and of creative imagination in the other.
-The Ventricle of Memory

https://www.owenbarfield.org/read-onlin ... and-hegel/

The whole system of concepts resembles a sheet (Tafel) between the supersensuous world on one side and the sense world on the other. Without it an observer of the sense world would be furnished with no more than incoherent representations (Vorstellugen). As it is, when he brings the inter-locking web of concepts (Begriffsnetz) within him to the sense-perceptions that meet him from without, he finds the sense world in accord with them. But similarly a mind which has, through modern methods of clairvoyance, become open to the world of supersensuous reality finds the web of concepts in accord with that world also. ‘Supersensuous reality casts its rays on the web from this side, no less than sensuous reality does from the other.’

Next he raises the question: Whence does it come, this web of concepts? And again he answers with a simile. He compares it to shadow – the shadow of a hand for instance. The shadow could not come about if the hand itself were not there. The shadow-shape resembles its archetype, but it has this peculiarity: that it is, properly speaking, nothing. It is brought about by substituting for light the absence of light, by effacing the light. ‘In just the same way concepts come about through the fact that behind our thinking soul there stands the supersensuous world.’ Concepts, too, are properly speaking only an effacing of supersensuous reality. And it is because they are like (ähnlich) the supersensuous world they efface (as the shadow is like its archetype) that man in his concepts can divine something (eine Ahnung bilden) of that world. The shadows arise at the point where supersensuous perception meets the sensuous. But they no more are the supersensuous world than the shadow of a hand is a hand.
- Rudolf Steiner and Hegel

https://www.owenbarfield.org/read-onlin ... l-impulse/

According to Rudolf Steiner, this gradual emergence of man from the old participation in nature, or in the Cosmic Intelligence which is the spirit of nature, has been the deep concern of Michael. Indeed one way of presenting the history of the Michael impulse – we might call it the Graeco-European way – is to trace the final coming into being of the Intellectual Soul in the Middle Ages, as it is reflected, for instance, in Christian and Arabian scholastic philosophy. We can watch Aristotle’s two great cosmic principles – the Nous Poieticus and Nous Patheticus – changing into the Intellectus Agens and Intellectus Possibilis of scholastic philosophy and, in doing so, we can grasp something of the nature and magnitude of Michael’s hope. For it is Michael’s hope that the Cosmic Intelligence shall gradually become embodied in the human personal intelligence – giving man an intellectual soul at once detached and not detached from its cosmic origin.
...
Let us now revert to the present moment – nearly eighty years after the beginning of this present Michael epoch. We are feeling to the full the effect of the Scientific Revolution, inasmuch as we experience nature, as a system of multitudinous objects and events, independent of, and wholly detached from us and from each other. It is a system in which we have no participation, except through the contacts of the senses. This is the effect of the Scientific Revolution
...
We hear a good deal about a ‘collective unconscious’; but no-one seems to have realised that the culmination of materialism simply forces the conclusion that the familiar world we all agree that we see and hear around us is – apart from its foundation in the mysterious ‘particles’ – a ‘collective conscious’. In other words, that we do still participate in the very structure of the world of nature; but we have lost the old awareness of our participation.
- Israel and the Michael Impulse

[AshvinP]

Not at all obvious.

Pretty obvious, unless you want to exclude intuition from "knowing", which is arbitrary and incorrect move. How could someone without knowledge of why he is doing things be free in doing those things?

There is a concept in law called "informed consent", which I am sure you are familiar with. It means a person cannot be deemed to have given consent to some activity involving them unless they have sufficient knowledge of what activity they are consenting to.

I don't know what you mean by intuition, but that's a side issue. There are philosophies and religions that consider liberation from karma freedom.

I don't get the connection you are making between "liberation from karma" and unknowing "freedom"?

[SanteriSatama]

Pretty obvious, unless you want to exclude intuition from "knowing", which is arbitrary and incorrect move. How could someone without knowledge of why he is doing things be free in doing those things?

There is a concept in law called "informed consent", which I am sure you are familiar with. It means a person cannot be deemed to have given consent to some activity involving them unless they have sufficient knowledge of what activity they are consenting to.

I don't know what you mean by intuition, but that's a side issue. There are philosophies and religions that consider liberation from karma freedom.

I don't get the connection you are making between "liberation from karma" and unknowing "freedom"?

Elementary, dr. Watson. Karma = cause and effect. "Knowledge of why" = cause. "he is doing" = effect.

I can stay impartial in the argument, just noting that in comparatively empirical approach to philosophies and life wisdom, "obvious" is not the correct term.

[SanteriSatama]

There is a concept in law called "informed consent", which I am sure you are familiar with. It means a person cannot be deemed to have given consent to some activity involving them unless they have sufficient knowledge of what activity they are consenting to.

Informed consent manifests also in following manner:

Law informes that if that I don't obey the law, I will be physically harmed by the law. The cause = threat. The effect = consent to tyranny, e.g. consent to steal and murder in the name of law.

In this example, knowing the cause is the opposite of freedom. Also, in the Nuremberg case, consent of "just obeying orders" was not considered sufficient argument for the defence.

[Cleric]

There is a concept in law called "informed consent", which I am sure you are familiar with. It means a person cannot be deemed to have given consent to some activity involving them unless they have sufficient knowledge of what activity they are consenting to.

Informed consent manifests also in following manner:

Law informes that if that I don't obey the law, I will be physically harmed by the law. The cause = threat. The effect = consent to tyranny, e.g. consent to steal and murder in the name of law.

In this example, knowing the cause is the opposite of freedom. Also, in the Nuremberg case, consent of "just obeying orders" was not considered sufficient argument for the defence.

This is not the type of freedom that we speak of in spiritual context. I already hinted that at the end of the previous post. In our age freedom is equated with lack of restrictions. Human laws are very convoluted topic and we'll never get to agreement unless we grasp the more fundamental situation.

The first step is to realize that spiritual freedom doesn't imply simply the momentary feeling of being unconstrained. Freedom takes into consideration spiritual activity as it extends in time. For example, superficially it might be considered that I'm more free if I'm able to drink a cup, without knowing that there's poison in it. In that case one would argue "knowledge of the fact that there's poison in the cup takes away degrees of freedom from me, it restricts the palette of choices. Without the knowledge I'm free to drink or not the cup, while with the knowledge I'm much more likely not to drink it. Effectively, by virtue of this knowledge, I've lost a degree of freedom - the freedom to drink the poison."

But is it so? My knowledge in itself doesn't prevent me to drink the cup. It only informs me of the consequences. So now superficially it seems I'm limiting myself but seen on a larger scale this actually ensures my freedom for everything else. If I choose to drink the cup out of spite, just to prove to the World that I'm unrestrained, I'll get sick or even die, thus severely limiting any future expression of my spiritual activity.

As said, I agree that human laws are sticky matter, devised out of the most varied interests and agendas. But even in that case I don't see how knowing the laws (even if they are the most inhumane and unfair) limits our freedom. This could be the case only if we are lied about the consequences of transgressing the laws, while in reality there are no such consequences. This is clearly how things look for those who see in religions only lies aiming to restrict freedom through fear. There's no doubt that in all ages people have been manipulated by lies. But it is naive to believe that if we're ignorant of the laws (human, natural or Divine), we're freer. This might be true in the limited cases where in fact some laws are manipulative lies. In that case, coincidentally, we benefit from the fact that we don't know anything about them because we're not limited by fake constraints. But the vast majority of laws have real repercussions and in that case we benefit from knowledge, because only in that way we can unfold our activity such that it remains free and even becomes freer in the long run. In other words, we reach again the importance of Thinking. Being ignorant of the laws in order to avoid fake constraints is like playing lottery because we don't have any means to recognize fake laws from real ones. Subduing blindly to laws will save us from most troubles but we can also fall victim to manipulation. Only through Thinking we have the chance to trace the origins of the laws and recognize those proceeding from spiritual reality and those devised by deceitful spiritual activity of other humans.

[SanteriSatama]

There is a concept in law called "informed consent", which I am sure you are familiar with. It means a person cannot be deemed to have given consent to some activity involving them unless they have sufficient knowledge of what activity they are consenting to.

Informed consent manifests also in following manner:

Law informes that if that I don't obey the law, I will be physically harmed by the law. The cause = threat. The effect = consent to tyranny, e.g. consent to steal and murder in the name of law.

In this example, knowing the cause is the opposite of freedom. Also, in the Nuremberg case, consent of "just obeying orders" was not considered sufficient argument for the defence.

This is not the type of freedom that we speak of in spiritual context. I already hinted that at the end of the previous post. In our age freedom is equated with lack of restrictions. Human laws are very convoluted topic and we'll never get to agreement unless we grasp the more fundamental situation.

The first step is to realize that spiritual freedom doesn't imply simply the momentary feeling of being unconstrained. Freedom takes into consideration spiritual activity as it extends in time. For example, superficially it might be considered that I'm more free if I'm able to drink a cup, without knowing that there's poison in it. In that case one would argue "knowledge of the fact that there's poison in the cup takes away degrees of freedom from me, it restricts the palette of choices. Without the knowledge I'm free to drink or not the cup, while with the knowledge I'm much more likely not to drink it. Effectively, by virtue of this knowledge, I've lost a degree of freedom - the freedom to drink the poison."

But is it so? My knowledge in itself doesn't prevent me to drink the cup. It only informs me of the consequences. So now superficially it seems I'm limiting myself but seen on a larger scale this actually ensures my freedom for everything else. If I choose to drink the cup out of spite, just to prove to the World that I'm unrestrained, I'll get sick or even die, thus severely limiting any future expression of my spiritual activity.

As said, I agree that human laws are sticky matter, devised out of the most varied interests and agendas. But even in that case I don't see how knowing the laws (even if they are the most inhumane and unfair) limits our freedom. This could be the case only if we are lied about the consequences of transgressing the laws, while in reality there are no such consequences. This is clearly how things look for those who see in religions only lies aiming to restrict freedom through fear. There's no doubt that in all ages people have been manipulated by lies. But it is naive to believe that if we're ignorant of the laws (human, natural or Divine), we're freer. This might be true in the limited cases where in fact some laws are manipulative lies. In that case, coincidentally, we benefit from the fact that we don't know anything about them because we're not limited by fake constraints. But the vast majority of laws have real repercussions and in that case we benefit from knowledge, because only in that way we can unfold our activity such that it remains free and even becomes freer in the long run. In other words, we reach again the importance of Thinking. Being ignorant of the laws in order to avoid fake constraints is like playing lottery because we don't have any means to recognize fake laws from real ones. Subduing blindly to laws will save us from most troubles but we can also fall victim to manipulation. Only through Thinking we have the chance to trace the origins of the laws and recognize those proceeding from spiritual reality and those devised by deceitful spiritual activity of other humans.

Sure, the law discussion is a sidestep from the discussion of spiritual freedom, in response to Ashwin's law-argument. In concrete nodes of spiritual freedom and social laws, psychadelics remain illegal, and many if not most on this forum are criminals from the perspective of law. And from the perspective of spiritual Golden/Silver rules (which are very complex issue involving reciprocal reflections etc. but are NOT laws), those who enforce the laws against psychadelic experiences are the violators of a higher order of learning and integrating with Spirit. And to add another layer complexity, laws function also as reverse psychology, and affect what kinds of characters obey to law or are attracted by reverse psychology.

Spiritually and more generally, it can be argued from Zen etc. perspectives that belief that "there exists objective and universal laws (ie. karma)" is as such ignorance, and attached ignorance of "knowing" such laws is an obstacle of freedom. The Zen-type argument does not need even be dependent from notions of "negative freedom", "positive freedom", "degrees of choice" etc. relative freedoms, it can be absolute freedom as liberation from cause and effect.

What I just said can be also an ignorant caricature of Zen. The Wild Fox Koan would seem to suggest so.

[findingblanks]

“Let's see what he has to say about it in the 1924 edition preface...”

First I want to note how we all naturally go outside of Steiner’s core texts (either into later lectures and book or his updates from decades later) once we spot the point I’ve been making. That is natural and we are always lucky when I thinker realizes the limitations and errors of earlier works.

This is why I started by asking you not to refer to later editions or texts to show me where in PoF Steiner makes it clear that a percept is always already united with thinking. Unlike Steiner, Schopenhauer did not update his work decades later, so in order to ‘find’ those less obvious things he thought were obvious, we don’t have later texts. I was hoping you’d then grasp one reason why you’ll probably never find sentences from Schopenhauer that convince you of my claim that he was fully aware of the will as primarily ‘cognitive’. That said, I did already share one quotation from Schop yesterday that should help you see your way into that.

“We may be quite confident that the quote about the pure experiences would be one of the things that he would have rephrased in case of (1). But at the same time, anyone who has experienced the depth of these matters cannot do otherwise but agree with (2). The same essence that we find in this early work, we find later in PoF and throughout his whole life.”

And my point, as I’ve said many times, was that I’d like you to show me where in PoF’s first edition we can rest assured that he is clearly indicating that the starting point is the realization that we are never outside cognitive activity. I told you that this is not impossible but that I’d like to a few sentences you find in there that for you make that clear.