Philosophical Speculations

AshvinP wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 6:11 pm I agree with a lot of what you wrote, but I also want to point out that the tabula rasa notion of the infant human mind is scientifically incorrect. We come into the world with a fair amount of innate ideal content.

Eugene I wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 2:55 am
Well, than what would you say about the evidences of non-active state of consciousness with an absence of any thoughts, conscious phenomena and any phenomenal activity at all? Those states were experienced by many people (me included). You could argue of course that this state has memory function "running", and therefore technically is not an entirely "inactive" state.

AshvinP wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 6:11 pm
I agree with a lot of what you wrote, but I also want to point out that the tabula rasa notion of the infant human mind is scientifically incorrect. We come into the world with a fair amount of innate ideal content.

Soul_of_Shu wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 6:12 pm If they met on the road, I imagine the chat might go like this ... Buddha says: "Did you hear the zen koan that goes: 'If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill the Buddha" ... Jesus says: "Yeah right, tell me about it!"

ScottRoberts wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 8:31 pm I don't know, but I can speculate, based on Merrell-Wolff's experience. Which was: experiencing what he called "Nirvana", which he defined as "awareness of absence of objects", as distinct from normal consciousness as being "awareness of objects". Then he moved on to a higher state, in which he recognized these two "awarenesses" as being the same. So my speculation is that in normal consciousness we are polarized in the direction of objects, but this polarization can reverse to being in the direction of absence of objects. Or to put it another way, in normal consciousness, formlessness (which is nevertheless "there") is obfuscated, while in Nirvana, form (which is nevertheless "there") is obfuscated.

Eugene I wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 6:38 pm Simon, right. I think everyone agrees that we, and conscious activity in general (ok, I accept your term ), has an innate ability to express, generate and experience meanings, ideas and forms. The question is - where do they come from, how are they generated, or perhaps they might always exist somewhere or somehow, or else? And, as you said, another question is: do the sense perceptions originate from ideas (as being Divine creations), or they somehow develop "naturally" through some different origination mechanism. So, different philosophies and spiritual traditions offer different answers to those questions, and the answers seem to be quite incompatible with each other.

One of the major demarcations in that sense is the difference between mono-theistic and poly-theistic (or-poly-creators) views. In the former one the ideas and the sense perceptions of the world both originate in the single supra-Divine mind, while the Divine allowing them to further run and develop "on their own" in the minds of the creature souls.

In the poly-creators view the ideas and creations originate in multiplicity of minds working together. Every individual stream of consciousness possesses the innate ability to created ideas and forms. But some of them may be local Gods-creators-Demiurges of a large intelligence and creative power scale, in which case the inhabitants of their realms would experience and view the ideas and perceptions as if originated from their local creator. In such case it is quite possible that the universe where we live is a creation of such local Divinity, and we experience ideas and perceptions of the world originated in him. The difference with the mono-theistic view is that this scenario is still not absolute and we are not constrained to experience only the ideas and perceptions originated in our local Divinity, but, as possessing the innate ability to create ideas and forms ourselves, can continue doing that on our own and regain our spiritual self-sufficiency and freedom from being bound to ideas and forms created by some other beings. Not that those pre-created ideas or forms are bad in any ways, but simply because we can do it and it is our path to learn how to do it, become creators and unleash our creative abilities. So, in a way, such local universes are local universities, "incubators" for young souls who have not yet fully developed their creative potential and need assistance and training from more developed "Divine" souls. For such young souls their supervisor may look like the highest-and-absolute-God-of-everything, just like children tend to "deify" their parents in their minds, and there is nothing wrong with that, it's entirely natural.

Simon Adams wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 10:08 pm

Eugene I wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 6:38 pm In the poly-creators view the ideas and creations originate in multiplicity of minds working together. Every individual stream of consciousness possesses the innate ability to created ideas and forms. But some of them may be local Gods-creators-Demiurges of a large intelligence and creative power scale, in which case the inhabitants of their realms would experience and view the ideas and perceptions as if originated from their local creator. In such case it is quite possible that the universe where we live is a creation of such local Divinity, and we experience ideas and perceptions of the world originated in him. The difference with the mono-theistic view is that this scenario is still not absolute and we are not constrained to experience only the ideas and perceptions originated in our local Divinity, but, as possessing the innate ability to create ideas and forms ourselves, can continue doing that on our own and regain our spiritual self-sufficiency and freedom from being bound to ideas and forms created by some other beings. Not that those pre-created ideas or forms are bad in any ways, but simply because we can do it and it is our path to learn how to do it, become creators and unleash our creative abilities. So, in a way, such local universes are local universities, "incubators" for young souls who have not yet fully developed their creative potential and need assistance and training from more developed "Divine" souls. For such young souls their supervisor may look like the highest-and-absolute-God-of-everything, just like children tend to "deify" their parents in their minds, and there is nothing wrong with that, it's entirely natural.

When I was an atheist, I decided that this image of parents to young kids, as knowing and controlling almost everything, was the origin of the idea of god. It seemed to me this left a gap in the psyche that people filled with god or gods. In some ways my atheist idea of god seems closer to your idea of god described here, although with a lot less reality of course. I’m quite prepared to accept local structures and processes, and even a hierarchy of sorts, but this idea of god as ‘the greatest being’, let alone “local divinities”, is just completely different from what I mean by god. He is shockingly ‘other’, I’m not sure how I could describe this so that you wouldn’t think as you do.

On much of what you say about spiritual reality I get what you’re saying and often agree, but when you talk about god we’re talking about completely different things. To put it another way, if we just stick to the realm I would call within-god-but-not-god, then we have plenty to agree on. The life that is in this realm has huge creative potential, nature creates it’s own forms in amazing diversity and complexity, from stars to diamonds, insects like ants create unique hills and animals such beavers build unique damns, and we can create our our own ideas and forms. All of this is essentially spiritual creativity to me, but it’s set in place to be like this by a no-thing, something other, that makes the formless potential possible in the first place.

Anyway I don’t think we will agree on this, and no amount of debating which change such a fundamental difference

Simon Adams wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 10:08 pm When I was an atheist, I decided that this image of parents to young kids, as knowing and controlling almost everything, was the origin of the idea of god. It seemed to me this left a gap in the psyche that people filled with god or gods. In some ways my atheist idea of god seems closer to your idea of god described here, although with a lot less reality of course. I’m quite prepared to accept local structures and processes, and even a hierarchy of sorts, but this idea of god as ‘the greatest being’, let alone “local divinities”, is just completely different from what I mean by god. He is shockingly ‘other’, I’m not sure how I could describe this so that you wouldn’t think as you do.

On much of what you say about spiritual reality I get what you’re saying and often agree, but when you talk about god we’re talking about completely different things. To put it another way, if we just stick to the realm I would call within-god-but-not-god, then we have plenty to agree on. The life that is in this realm has huge creative potential, nature creates it’s own forms in amazing diversity and complexity, from stars to diamonds, insects like ants create unique hills and animals such beavers build unique damns, and we can create our our own ideas and forms. All of this is essentially spiritual creativity to me, but it’s set in place to be like this by a no-thing, something other, that makes the formless potential possible in the first place.

Anyway I don’t think we will agree on this, and no amount of debating which change such a fundamental difference

AshvinP wrote: ↑Mon Mar 29, 2021 10:31 pm
This is very interesting. You both are employing the Kantian divide at different ends of the spiritual spectrum. Eugene views the fundamental formlessness as being so 'other' that we cannot possibly relate it to our normal consciousness, and Simon views the fundamental form of God as being so 'other' we cannot possibly relate it to our normal relationships with children, parents, etc. Does anyone else see that happening?