Cosmic Consciousness: meta-cognitive or non-meta-cognitive?

[Lou Gold]

Eugene, since you are both a musician and philosopher way above my paygrade, I'd be most interested in learning how you would place the Jacob Collier interview (above in the thread) within your developmental scheme?

Well, that's a good topic to discuss (which would probably be an off-topic here), which is the dynamics of the developmental process and the role of creativity and unconscious in it. Jacob elaborated on the "multi-dimensional" quality of the process, and I entirely agree with him. But there is something more mysterious to it - the generic creativity side of it, which is irreducible to a rule-following mechanical process of evolution. Even the multi-dimensionality can be mechanically incorporated into the rule set of the developmental process, but genuine creativity seems to break any pre-conceived rules. Somehow the creativity is able to find solutions and forms that could never be deterministically or algorithmically derived from the prior knowledge and experience, nor they could be found by a random solution search (because the possible state of solutions is too vast to traverse). This process is a total mystery to me, even though I experienced it many times in my musical and engineering creative activities, and it usually happens without any meta-conscious control. So, creativity adds another dimension to the developmental process in addition to the meta-cognition, and the question arises whether creativity is a fundamental property of consciousness, or whether it is something of a developmental nature and a result of the evolution of consciousness.

Is it really off the topic of "meta-cognitive or non-meta-cognitive?" I'm suggesting that it's instinctual, that Being gives beings, Creativity gives creations, Life gives lives, God gives gods, Etc gives et ceteras. I'm reversing the question, "Why is the Universe fine tuned for life?" and asking "How can it not be?"

Somehow the creativity is able to find solutions and forms that could never be deterministically or algorithmically derived from the prior knowledge and experience, nor they could be found by a random solution search (because the possible state of solutions is too vast to traverse). This process is a total mystery to me, even though I experienced it many times in my musical and engineering creative activities, and it usually happens without any meta-conscious control. So, creativity adds another dimension to the developmental process in addition to the meta-cognition, and the question arises whether creativity is a fundamental property of consciousness, or whether it is something of a developmental nature and a result of the evolution of consciousness.

OK. You have experienced it. And consciousness is experience. Why is Creativity not the fundamental? Not "creativity is a fundamental property of consciousness" but instead "consciousness is a fundamental property of creativity"?

[Lou Gold]

I agree that Being gives being. In terms of the thread topic, I'm adding that Being does not have to be metacognitive. The puzzle is usually expressed as why is the Universe fine-tuned for life, does this not require pre-cognition or a plan? I am responding by asking, "How can Life NOT be fine tuned for life?"

There is a now-popular "multiverse" theory of nature which assumes a vast variety of versions of the universes with different sets of laws coexist, and we just happen to live in one of those universes where the laws and the set of fundamental constants allow for the development of life and meta-cognitive consciousness. In physics the number of possible variants of string theories is around 10^500, with each corresponding to its existing version of a universe. A similar approach can be used in idealism.

Yeah, the "multiverse" and "string theory" stuff is way beyond my paygrade. Going simple, I think I'm asking, "how can Creativity not be creative in a perfectly tuned instinctual process that includes lions eating baby elephants?"

[Soul_of_Shu]

Why is Creativity not the fundamental? Not "creativity is a fundamental property of consciousness" but instead "consciousness is a fundamental property of creativity"?

I'll suggest that creativity is the immanent, imperative ideation of consciousness, hence prioritizing one or the other is entirely arbitrary.

[AshvinP]

Now, I can see three possible developmental scenarios here, and the question is which of the scenarios would be more likely:

1. The development of non-meta-cognitive ideational states of a physicalist character (a variety of "imagined" by the MAL physicalist universes) leading though natural selection to the fine tuning resulting in the universe where meta-cognitive forms of life can exist as the "alters" of the MAL. This is the BK's scenario.

2. The development of non-meta-cognitive states evolving into more refined and eventually meta-cognitive purely mental states of the single non-divided MAL. The ideational states of the physicalist character do not occur until the state of meta-cognition is attained. But once the state of meta-cognition is achieved (at which point such MAL becomes a "God" in our human terminology), MAL subsequently pre-meditatively decides to create the "souls and the world" and goes on to dissociate into alters, create the ideations of the astral universe and the physicalist-looking universe to give the alters the world with favorable conditions to evolve. This is a theistic scenario. The problem of evil/suffering can be resolved through the assumption that the alters freely and voluntarily agree to incarnate into humans and experience all the sufferings of human life prior to the incarnation (how it happens with animals is a more tricky question).

3. The development of non-meta-cognitive states first through the fragmentation process of dissociation into alters, and then each alter evolving into more refined and eventually meta-cognitive states. In this scenario the result is a community of meta-cognitive conscious alters that further cooperate in creating a variety of astral and physicalist realities where they can "incarnate" and evolve further. The hierarchy of such universes fits into the hierarchy of the spiritual developmental stages of the alters, or, in other words, the groups of alters create the realms/universes for themselves where they can find the most favorable conditions to evolve further. This is a-la-Buddhist scenario.

The data of the regression and NDE studies clearly do not support the scenario #1, but leaves the choice between #2 and #3 indecisive.

Eugene, could you clarify what you mean by "physicalist" in #1 and why NDE studies do not support #1?

re: problem of evil - I am inclined to think it is resolved through faith in an evolutionary process which reveals higher-cognition perspectives on how 'evil' fits into a Divine order.

[Lou Gold]

Why is Creativity not the fundamental? Not "creativity is a fundamental property of consciousness" but instead "consciousness is a fundamental property of creativity"?

I'll suggest that creativity is the immanent, imperative ideation of consciousness, hence prioritizing one or the other is entirely arbitrary.

OK and I'd add pretty much the same for M@L, God, Life, Dharma, Etc.

[Simon Adams]

The question is whether you interpret the "being" (alternatively called "self") as an "entity" or as a process. An "entity" is something self-sufficiently and autonomously existing beyond any conditions or processes but able to interact with other similar entities (a-la-Leibnitz monadology scheme).

I’m putting being as fundamental. Take Bernardo’s analogy of a whirlpool as an example. A whirlpool is not caused by it’s whirlpoolness, maybe it could be two currents flowing into each other. So the existence is given to the whirlpool by the currents, it’s something different from what the whirlpool is.

The problem is that if multiple entities can interact with each other, then they must be "made of" the same "stuff" of the same nature (otherwise they would not be able to interact). In this case they are actually simply various forms of the same nature, or various processes occurring in the same nature, rather than separate "entities", and the "being"/"self" becomes simply a linguistic term for these autonomous processes/forms. These individuated conscious processes continue to evolve based on the dynamics of their developmental history (where the previous states of the process to a certain extent determine the consequent states). The seeming continuity of the processes of individual consciousness creates an illusion of the continuous existence of an "entity" behind each process. We just had a long discussion with Cleric on this topic in another thread.

Yes and I agree that the entity’s are made of the same substance, and need to be. I’m just saying that they need to have something that gives them their entityness, which is not the same as what they are (in all cases but god). This ‘being is not what the entity is composed of, but enables it to have it’s unique identity, and allows a continuity through the dynamic processes within mind. I think Bernardo’s use of disassociation is a good example from nature about a principle, but I don’t personally think it’s a full story.

I don’t think I’m expressing what I’m trying to say very well, but hopefully you get the general gist...

[Eugene I]

Eugene, could you clarify what you mean by "physicalist" in #1 and why NDE studies do not support #1?

In other words, the non-meta-cognitive ideations appearing in the MAL's mind only take material-looking forms. The MAL is "dreaming" material worlds only. My understanding that this is what BK is suggesting. In this scenario, when we humans die, our individuated conscious processes have no other environment to continue their autonomous functioning in, so our "souls" disintegrate and dissolve back into the non-metacognitive instinctual state of MAL. NDE reports clearly do not support such scenario.

re: problem of evil - I am inclined to think it is resolved through faith in an evolutionary process which reveals higher-cognition perspectives on how 'evil' fits into a Divine order.

Well, there is still a moral problem here. Even though the "evil" and suffering might eventually fit into the higher-order, subjecting the conscious alters to such suffering without their pre-agreement is immoral. As Dostoevsky wrote, "The Kingdom of Heaven is not worth the tears of that one tortured child" (providing that the child's soul did not agree to be exposed to such suffering). However, this might be an irrelevant problem, because the NDE/regression data suggest that we actually freely pre-agree to incarnate into humans.

[Eugene I]

Yes and I agree that the entity’s are made of the same substance, and need to be. I’m just saying that they need to have something that gives them their entityness, which is not the same as what they are (in all cases but god). This ‘being is not what the entity is composed of, but enables it to have it’s unique identity, and allows a continuity through the dynamic processes within mind. I think Bernardo’s use of disassociation is a good example from nature about a principle, but I don’t personally think it’s a full story.

This sounds to me like dualism: you a suggesting that there is the ontic "stuff" that everything is made of (the ontic fundamental), and then, when the whirlpools form in the substratum of such fundamental, somehow some "entities" of entirely different nature magically appear there. If these entities are nothing more than forms of the same fundamental, then the "entities" are simply our mental representations of the forms, and in reality there are only forms made of the same fundamental. But if you are saying that these entities are not entirely equivalent to the forms of the same nature as the fundamental, then they must represent some other fundamental different from the fundamental of the "stuff" that forms the whirlpool, which is an ontological dualism. In other words, from the standpoint of ontological monism, there is only one "stuff" that "exists" in the fundamental sense, everything else only "appears" as forms of the same stuff. So the "beingness" of such forms is the same of the "Beingness' of the ontic fundamental. In idealistic monism, we all on the fundamental level ARE the same Consciousness, we are all made of it, and nothing is fundamentally altered or added when our whirlpools of individuated minds are formed. I understand that this is the traditional premise of Christianity, but that is why the traditional Christianity is a variant of dualism from philosophical point of view.

[Simon Adams]

PS: I’m not using identity in the sense of properties that are unique, but more in the sense of actual uniqueness.

Also I don’t take anything from mind to ideate, to express itself in different ways and to be a creative force that produces new things. I just can’t simplify to the extent that mind and being are the same thing.

[Eugene I]

OK. You have experienced it. And consciousness is experience. Why is Creativity not the fundamental? Not "creativity is a fundamental property of consciousness" but instead "consciousness is a fundamental property of creativity"?

Either way, it's Creative Consciousness, or Conscious Creativity, pick whatever you like