+1Cleric K wrote: ↑Fri Mar 12, 2021 8:56 pm The second stage concerns direct experience. It is directly related to the first. The more we come to terms with our thinking, the more we see clearly. When we unlearn this parasitic habit of fantasizing how things are produced from one another, we no longer fall in for the hard traps. It's very simple - don't fantasize that which you can never observe.
Thanks for the pass, I'll do my best to keep the ball going towards the goal and try not to stumble too badly.Cleric K wrote: ↑Fri Mar 12, 2021 8:56 pm 1. We must first realize something that is specific to thinking. That is that we can never produce concepts through combination of other concepts. Let's take the simplest example. The concepts of 'one' and 'two'. We are so used to think about 1 + 1 = 2 that we very easily mistake that if we think of two 'one' concepts together this somehow produces the concept of two. But this is not the case. Every concept is discovered independently. For example, let's imagine that we have no concepts of any numbers. We look at an apple and experience the concept of apple. Then someone adds one more next to it. Now we look at the one, look at the other, but we need a jump of insight to discover the concept of 'twofoldness'. Then we can experience this idea in relation to all things that come in pairs - two arms, two legs, etc. We should really appreciate the fact that there's an insight. If we are not very bright we might be looking at the apples separately or together but we might never come to the idea of twofoldness. We may never conceive that there's something in common between two apples and two hands. The concept of 'two' does not consist of two concepts of 'one', neither of the concept of 'three' from which we subtract the concept of 'one'.
(...)
Interestingly, mathematics in itself in no way 'claims' that numbers or whatever mathematical objects are 'produced' from one another. We only explore their relations. The idea of causality does not exist there. Does the left side of the equation cause the right or vice versa?
Exactly. Atoms don't combine to form concepts, attributes, verbs, experiences. It works the other way around.If the above was properly understood there would never be any hard problems in philosophy and science. Why are there hard problems? Because people have no sense that they fantasize how they combine concepts and produce other concepts.
What I described was intended exactly in the opposite direction of analysis, that is - to distinguish coloring added by abstract thoughts, from the given (direct) experience. This leads us to the Great Poles of light and dark and that we can't derive one from the other. Yet this doesn't prevent us to objectively recognize the different qualities of both. And this is troublesome for some. For example polarity like left-right is somewhat symmetric - it's the same geometric 'quality' but mirrored. But the vertical polarity has different qualities at both poles. This is in no way should be confused with good and bad. It's only that we have to understand the poles and now how to use them.Lou Gold wrote: ↑Fri Mar 12, 2021 10:54 pm Let me presume that you are not denying my experience and subtly (or directly) suggesting that my perceptions were merely projections of my thoughts. My questions to you merely asks whether you are reporting your direct experience or your logical analysis/speculation, the latter which appears to me as ascent-and-light biased. I also value the light and hold it lovingly along with the dark in communion with each other. Is your direct experience other than this, perhaps a top-down enlightenment?
It tells me that everyone goes through rhythms of day and night.
And this tells what?Cleric K wrote: ↑Sat Mar 13, 2021 9:15 amWhat I described was intended exactly in the opposite direction of analysis, that is - to distinguish coloring added by abstract thoughts, from the given (direct) experience. This leads us to the Great Poles of light and dark and that we can't derive one from the other. Yet this doesn't prevent us to objectively recognize the different qualities of both. And this is troublesome for some. For example polarity like left-right is somewhat symmetric - it's the same geometric 'quality' but mirrored. But the vertical polarity has different qualities at both poles. This is in no way should be confused with good and bad. It's only that we have to understand the poles and now how to use them.Lou Gold wrote: ↑Fri Mar 12, 2021 10:54 pm Let me presume that you are not denying my experience and subtly (or directly) suggesting that my perceptions were merely projections of my thoughts. My questions to you merely asks whether you are reporting your direct experience or your logical analysis/speculation, the latter which appears to me as ascent-and-light biased. I also value the light and hold it lovingly along with the dark in communion with each other. Is your direct experience other than this, perhaps a top-down enlightenment?
Previously I said that in the higher worlds it doesn't make sense to speak of primary and secondary beings but this should be understood rightly. It is still the case that some beings have much more pronounced influence on other beings than other more 'local' beings.
Simple example: when you go out through the beautiful landscapes that you occasionally send photos of, you can appreciate something. Think how you can appreciate the harmony of water, earth, plants, air, animals because it is all illuminated by the Sun. In certain sense you can perceive the unity of life because there's a Sun being that reflects in everything you see. If it's meditated deeply on this we'll discover the qualitative differences between the tow poles. The pole of darkness is what separates the beings so that they can experience themselves into manifold relationships, while the pole of light is what reveals the unity. Now if you say that you can see the unity of everything in complete darkness, without any light, I'll ask you to observe more closely. You'll discover that you don't notice the light because you are the light when you think about unity. Your thoughts floods that separated elements of darkness with their light - this is why you see the hidden unity in darkness, even though it doesn't become externally shining light.
It tells me that everyone goes through rhythms of day and night.
Every Night & every Morn
Some to Misery are Born
Every Morn and every Night
Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to Endless Night
We are led to Believe a Lie
When we see not Thro the Eye
Which was Born in a Night to perish in a Night
When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light
God Appears & God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in Night
But does a Human Form Display
To those who Dwell in Realms of day
Yes. Probably bad wording on my part. My point was that the complex process doesn't produce the concepts but leads us to them. Evolution is a path of experience that gradually leads us through domains where new living relations are revealed, throwing light on everything so far explored. In certain sense everything that can possibly exist already exists with no relation to time. Time experience consist in gradual coming together of the timeless.SanteriSatama wrote: ↑Sat Mar 13, 2021 12:06 am Nominal concepts don't emerge independently from vacuum. They evolve as results of complex semantic processes.
Here we should make distinction again between pure mathematical thought and relating math thoughts to other domains of experience. The thoughts/concepts of 'empty set' and 'point' most certainly exist - otherwise we wouldn't be able to think about them let alone give them names. We can explore their relationships with all other abstract math thoughts/concepts. 'They don't really exist' is already something else. I understand very well what you mean but just for the sake of clarity I'm saying that we should be precise when we say what exactly doesn't exist. We can also have an abstract concept of 'non-existence', even though we can never find actual perception/experience of this. If we have certain experience and say "now this is what I call non-existence" this defeats itself. It's a Gödel problem. You can hold the abstract thought of it but if you find experiential path to it, it crumbles. I perfectly agree about this being the source of bad philosophy. It is also at the root of Kant's self-imposed limits to what can be known.SanteriSatama wrote: ↑Sat Mar 13, 2021 12:06 am 1) Empty set; 2) Point. Both are totally arbitrarily postulated as undefined primitive notions and nobody can tell what the hell they are supposed to mean. They are not even concepts. They don't really exist, they are just empty and dishonest sophistry of very bad philosophy.
Yes you are light and as such you can make the choice to continue casting more and more light on everything. Not only out of some vain curiosity but because it is only in this way you can trace the complicated interconnectedness of everything. This in turn can be used to channel our energies in the most productive way for the benefit of all. Otherwise we might as well be trying to fill a bucket with a hole in the bottom which we don't see in the dark.
Dark, invisible, non-reflecting... you could also say that reflection is a form of separation and each source of light illuminates and sees in its own way. And sight is just one sense among many.Cleric K wrote: ↑Sat Mar 13, 2021 9:15 am The pole of darkness is what separates the beings so that they can experience themselves into manifold relationships, while the pole of light is what reveals the unity. Now if you say that you can see the unity of everything in complete darkness, without any light, I'll ask you to observe more closely. You'll discover that you don't notice the light because you are the light when you think about unity. Your thoughts floods that separated elements of darkness with their light - this is why you see the hidden unity in darkness, even though it doesn't become externally shining light.
Hmm... really?
Yes, exactly. The exact way that 'empty set' in the context of axiomatic set theory and 'point' in the context of Hilbert's axioms of theory is that in the purely mathematical meaning they are not concepts, they are the opposite of concepts. Mathematical concept should be and is definable in very exact and lucid way, and empty set and and point are undefinable in the contexts mentioned because those theories are wrong-playing, attempt to define and conceptualize those primitive notions self-destructs the wrong playing theories. The deep structure of Gödel's criticism of wrong playing of logicism and formalism is that their attempts to self-reflect self-destructs the whole construction.Here we should make distinction again between pure mathematical thought and relating math thoughts to other domains of experience. The thoughts/concepts of 'empty set' and 'point' most certainly exist - otherwise we wouldn't be able to think about them let alone give them names. We can explore their relationships with all other abstract math thoughts/concepts. 'They don't really exist' is already something else. I understand very well what you mean but just for the sake of clarity I'm saying that we should be precise when we say what exactly doesn't exist.SanteriSatama wrote: ↑Sat Mar 13, 2021 12:06 am 1) Empty set; 2) Point. Both are totally arbitrarily postulated as undefined primitive notions and nobody can tell what the hell they are supposed to mean. They are not even concepts. They don't really exist, they are just empty and dishonest sophistry of very bad philosophy.
Etymologically 'existence' has roughly same meaning as phenomenal and sensible, which is part of the more holistic category and context of being and non-being. I've already mentioned Plato's discussion of being and non-being in Sophist many times, and just make a reference to those discussions. Another aspect of the same theme is the Bohmian dialectic of explicate and implicate orders. Notion of grades of a continuum is important also here, instead of just structuralist opposition based on presupposition of LEM, which denies the grades in-between. We have experiences of living and being more and less fully.We can also have an abstract concept of 'non-existence', even though we can never find actual perception/experience of this. If we have certain experience and say "now this is what I call non-existence" this defeats itself. It's a Gödel problem. You can hold the abstract thought of it but if you find experiential path to it, it crumbles. I perfectly agree about this being the source of bad philosophy. It is also at the root of Kant's self-imposed limits to what can be known.
Yes, and we imagine the processes of growth and decay instinctively. That instinctive imagination is what Sheldrakes Morphic fields seem to be about. Sheldrake is a good empirical scientist and experimentalist, who does not try to force a static metaphysical dogma over phenomenal reality, like scientism does.The real challenge is how to attain to the living experience of the deep processes instead of becoming lost in juggling with the words that point to them. In esoteric training there's a very powerful exercise. We imagine a planted seed. Then we imagine how the seed sprouts, shoots upwards, the roots downwards, begins to unfold leaf by leaf, flowers and forms seeds. This may seem as very simple exercise but it is tremendously important and effective. It prepares us for the higher cognitive experiences. How does a scientist approach plant growth? He sees the disconnected frames of growth and postulates the laws of nature that animate the physical state from frame to frame. When we do the above exercise, it's not so much about the visual presentation of the plant but about what makes the plant grow.
I'm not sure of the origin or exact meaning of your concept of ether, but recent experimental evidence as well as revaluation of older experiments points again towards ether theories. Measurements of very small but real ether inertia take us back to Michelson-Morley starting point and falsify the whole Einstein-paradigm, what was left of it after falsification by QM.If we imagine the perception of the etheric world as something akin to physical seeing, only with overlaid 'finer', more ethereal 'colors', we're still in the domain of fantasy (or at best - atavistic, visionary clairvoyance). Etheric perception reveals the life forces not as additional finer layer of sensory perceptions but as something of the character of what we are doing when we make the imaginary plant grow. In other words, we perceive Imaginative-willing element in Nature with the clear awareness that it's not of our own making. Historically, Goethe advanced this idea into wider circles with his Urpflanze (Archetypal plant), although in his time this was simply not understood.
Very simply, by dropping the presupposition of objective reality, by drawing the carpet from under the whole question frame implied by the term and concept 'perception'. The modes and methods of comparative valuations of experiences and their degrees of meaningfulness change radically. Responsible and creative awareness of our projection and reflection mechanisms becomes a very real thing. Also notion of responsibility changes radically, accepting full responsibility does not mean that you should be a busybody activist worrying and intervening in everything, on the contrary. It means just being and happening as happens, just more aware.How can we be sure that we are perceiving something real and not our own fantasy?
Speaking of trees, interesting fact is that the sugars from photosynthesis flow down along the bark, water and minerals go up in the core. I don't know what the correct English term is, we call starving the roots by cutting off a section of bark 'necking' (kaulaaminen).What botany discovers in plants as saps moving from the roots towards the leaves and in the opposite direction is not merely some mechanical osmotic gradient but is clearly perceptible as two opposite etheric processes. They are closely related to the 'vertical' axis that we discuss with Lou. It can be traced how these archetypal opposite streams have passed through several iterations until they have reached their form as it's seen in plants.
Of course, who else would make your choice? I don't know how this is for you and therefore I will not use the phrases "you will be" or "you will see" or "at a higher level you will _____" but for me this is a choiceless-choice. All I can do is ask, "having seen the way, why would you not take it?" This is why, out of respect, I ask "have you seen it or are you offering speculations?" I am also asking, respectfully, not if you can see in the dark but if you have seen the palpable darkness that defies description, a darkness that Shu once attempted to describe as 'dazzling'?Cleric K wrote: ↑Sat Mar 13, 2021 11:24 amYes you are light and as such you can make the choice to continue casting more and more light on everything. Not only out of some vain curiosity but because it is only in this way you can trace the complicated interconnectedness of everything. This in turn can be used to channel our energies in the most productive way for the benefit of all. Otherwise we might as well be trying to fill a bucket with a hole in the bottom which we don't see in the dark.
The important thing is that it's a choice everyone makes for themselves. We can also stay where we are and be content with the spotlight around us.
I agree that sensory light and the superficial thought of unity can be distractions from the essential. But so can be the fixation on the pure and undivided sense of being. Especially in the way the so called 'nondual' practices are popularized today. What is called nondual state is in most cases an undivided experience of the local self - no thoughts, no problem. This 'undivided unity' can only be measured against practical life. Otherwise we don't know if we really reach something more fundamental or we simply close our eyes and assume the world no longer exists and we are free from it.SanteriSatama wrote: ↑Sat Mar 13, 2021 12:29 pm Imposing light and sight and thought of "unity", distracts a finite and edgy 'w' from the whole of the self, this bodily awareness, from the pure and undivided sense of being.