Ask Bernardo
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Simon Adams
- Posts: 366
- Joined: Fri Nov 13, 2020 10:54 pm
Re: Ask Bernardo
Thanks all for the questions. That's ten so I think a nice round number to draw a line under...
Ideas are certain original forms of things, their archetypes, permanent and incommunicable, which are contained in the Divine intelligence. And though they neither begin to be nor cease, yet upon them are patterned the manifold things of the world that come into being and pass away.
St Augustine
St Augustine
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Soul_of_Shu
- Posts: 2023
- Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2021 6:48 pm
- Contact:
Re: Ask Bernardo
Thanks Bernardo, looking forward to your responses, and so we ask that no further questions be submitted here, until such time that you may be able to address a few more.
Here out of instinct or grace we seek
soulmates in these galleries of hieroglyph and glass,
where mutual longings and sufferings of love
are laid bare in transfigured exhibition of our hearts,
we who crave deep secrets and mysteries,
as elusive as the avatars of our dreams.
soulmates in these galleries of hieroglyph and glass,
where mutual longings and sufferings of love
are laid bare in transfigured exhibition of our hearts,
we who crave deep secrets and mysteries,
as elusive as the avatars of our dreams.
Re: Ask Bernardo
Hi all,
Here are my answers, below.
1) Are you familiar with Owen Barfield's and/or Jean Gebser's ideas on the "evolution of consciousness" (as described in Saving the Appearances and The Ever-Present Origin respectively) and, if so, do you find their arguments convincing and what implications would such a process have for your idealist position, specifically regarding any telos it may imply for collective human development?
I am familiar with both. My position on telos, motivated not only by my own pondering, but also those of Jung, Barfield, Gebser and others, is that nature seems to be driving, at tremendous cost in suffering and time, towards the development of meta-consciousness (a.k.a. self reflection, conscious metacognition, re-representation, self awareness, etc.) in both breadth and depth. This seems to be our role, and that of our suffering: to take explicit notice of nature and its unfolding, in the mirror of our reflections.
2) Inspired from reading Decoding Jung's Metaphysics, what do feel is our integral role as corporeal alters in determining the quality and integrity of the medium the Angels and Daemons have to work with, in forging our collective, inter-being, ever-evolving dreamworld, if indeed that's what's going on?
I think our position as living beings is unique, developed by nature at unimaginable cost, because it seems to be worth of any cost. The suffering incurred in 3.5 billion years of biology on this planet alone is beyond comprehension. Yet, without suffering, there would be no reflection. I suspect we carry with us, upon death, a wealth of observations and insights that are inaccessible to -- that is, cannot be developed by -- other daimons in the collective unconscious, since they do not have our reflective state of consciousness. As such, it is by living that we accumulate the riches nature seems to be so interested is, and by dying that we seed these riches in a broader field of consciousness, where other daimons -- semi-dissociated structures of the collective unconscious -- can then benefit from them.
3) BK, as far as I can see, assumes there is one alter per organism (in contrast to someone like Nietzsche for whom the body 'is a social structure composed of many souls'). So, my questions are:
- What do you think of the idea of each cell being an alter?
I think the error of this notion is to carry over to subjectivity itself a structure only discernible in perception. In other words, we imagine the noumena (the thing in itself) as having the same structure of the phenomena (the way the thing in itself appears to observation). This is a logical error. My brain is constituted by billions of cells, yet my individual consciousness is largely a unit. I think those cells are like pixels of an image, like the pixels of your image when you appear on somebody else's computer screen. But you yourself are not made of pixels; the latter are an artifact of the representation, not the structure of the thing that is represented.
Now, of course single-celled organisms are alters; not by virtue of being cells, but by virtue of being unitary organisms.
- Why would bacterial cells in the body be alters, but other cells, such as blood cells circulating freely in the blood, not be alters?
The answer seems obvious to me: the cells of our own organism share DNA and operate as part of a unified metabolic whole, while the bacteria in e.g. our gut operate as standalone organisms, focusing on their own survival, not the survival of a larger whole. They so happen to be useful to us, but they are focused on their own survival. They are cells because their subjectivity is so simple that the representation of this subjectivity on the screen of perception does not span beyond a single pixel. Moreover, we know what happens when our own cells become dissociated from us and turn into alters of their own: we call it cancer.
4) Do you plan on releasing any more formal philosophical white papers?
I am sure I eventually will, but it's not in the plans right now.
5) What are your thoughts on the traditions of the “world soul”? Do you think it’s comparable to “Mind at Large”?
Very probably.
6) How do you explain out of body experiences? When you have them your conscious mind is looking down at your body from a particular place, so what do you think is the focus point that you are perceiving from under idealism?
Mind conjures up -- i.e. imagines -- symbols for itself. In the absence of perceptual organs (since the body is largely shut down during the NDE), whatever inflow of (veridical) information from beyond the now-weakened and porous dissociative boundary there is, will be represented by mind in a way consistent with the kind of experiences mind was having just before the NDE. And so it will imagine quasi-perceptual images to dress that information with, in a kind of inertia. I think the images of an OBE are imagined -- although anchored in veridical information -- and that's why OBErs often point out that, although the world they see is veridical, it's not quite the same as the perceptible world; there seems to be peculiarities.
7) What are the prospects of idealism becoming a (if the not the) mainstream explanatory model used in science?
I think there is an excellent chance of this happening by mid-century.
8) What do you really think of Horgan's Mind-Body Problem antisolution? Scientific journalism can't find someone better to cover consciousness?
I have great respect for John and consider him a very smart and observant commentator and journalist. I disagree with his anti-solution because I think it is intrinsic to human nature to always run an inner story about what's going on. So the best we can do is to run the best story we can come up with, based on reason and evidence.
9) My question is a continuation of the matter of self - reflection and the nature of M@L. I regard this issue a speculative one but I will still ask. Bernardo and other idealists use the analogy of dreaming to describe reality. In my daily life I am never in a state of mere dreaming, I can observe the meaning of the dream when I am in a state of wakefulness. Even if I was in a lucid dream, in order to decipher the dream I still need to remember events that happened to me while awake and now appear symbolically before me . Given these facts, why shouldn't we assume that reality was in a state of wakefulness before it entered a state of "dreaming", and the phenomena we witness only remind us of insights we already know and corresponds to events or mental states prior to our sleep. Another derivative of this matter is that it is possible that the entry into "sleep mode" was done for reasons that are not known to us at the moment but were known at that time and fullfiled a certain purpose
I consider speculation indispensable to philosophy, but also think we should speculate as little as possible; to postulate just what is strictly needed to come to a coherent and empirically adequate story. In this spirit, I don't think we need to postulate that life is the premeditated plan of some all-knowing entity. In addition, the evidence isn't consistent with this hypothesis, as even a casual glance of natural processes will indicate.
10) This is purely speculative but I'd like to know if Bernardo thinks that biotic life exists in multiple locations across the cosmos or if the earthly garden is unique?
I am open to both options equally. I think it likely that there might be life on other astral bodies. But I disagree with those who maintain that this is SURE to be the case, based on a statistical argument. We know too little about the extent to which the objective world we think to see around ourselves is, in fact, partly a reflection of ourselves. For all I know, we may be entirely alone in the universe we partly project around ourselves; which, of course, doesn't preclude the likelihood of other forms of life -- i.e. of dissociation -- in segments of universal consciousness that don't correspond to our universe.
Here are my answers, below.
1) Are you familiar with Owen Barfield's and/or Jean Gebser's ideas on the "evolution of consciousness" (as described in Saving the Appearances and The Ever-Present Origin respectively) and, if so, do you find their arguments convincing and what implications would such a process have for your idealist position, specifically regarding any telos it may imply for collective human development?
I am familiar with both. My position on telos, motivated not only by my own pondering, but also those of Jung, Barfield, Gebser and others, is that nature seems to be driving, at tremendous cost in suffering and time, towards the development of meta-consciousness (a.k.a. self reflection, conscious metacognition, re-representation, self awareness, etc.) in both breadth and depth. This seems to be our role, and that of our suffering: to take explicit notice of nature and its unfolding, in the mirror of our reflections.
2) Inspired from reading Decoding Jung's Metaphysics, what do feel is our integral role as corporeal alters in determining the quality and integrity of the medium the Angels and Daemons have to work with, in forging our collective, inter-being, ever-evolving dreamworld, if indeed that's what's going on?
I think our position as living beings is unique, developed by nature at unimaginable cost, because it seems to be worth of any cost. The suffering incurred in 3.5 billion years of biology on this planet alone is beyond comprehension. Yet, without suffering, there would be no reflection. I suspect we carry with us, upon death, a wealth of observations and insights that are inaccessible to -- that is, cannot be developed by -- other daimons in the collective unconscious, since they do not have our reflective state of consciousness. As such, it is by living that we accumulate the riches nature seems to be so interested is, and by dying that we seed these riches in a broader field of consciousness, where other daimons -- semi-dissociated structures of the collective unconscious -- can then benefit from them.
3) BK, as far as I can see, assumes there is one alter per organism (in contrast to someone like Nietzsche for whom the body 'is a social structure composed of many souls'). So, my questions are:
- What do you think of the idea of each cell being an alter?
I think the error of this notion is to carry over to subjectivity itself a structure only discernible in perception. In other words, we imagine the noumena (the thing in itself) as having the same structure of the phenomena (the way the thing in itself appears to observation). This is a logical error. My brain is constituted by billions of cells, yet my individual consciousness is largely a unit. I think those cells are like pixels of an image, like the pixels of your image when you appear on somebody else's computer screen. But you yourself are not made of pixels; the latter are an artifact of the representation, not the structure of the thing that is represented.
Now, of course single-celled organisms are alters; not by virtue of being cells, but by virtue of being unitary organisms.
- Why would bacterial cells in the body be alters, but other cells, such as blood cells circulating freely in the blood, not be alters?
The answer seems obvious to me: the cells of our own organism share DNA and operate as part of a unified metabolic whole, while the bacteria in e.g. our gut operate as standalone organisms, focusing on their own survival, not the survival of a larger whole. They so happen to be useful to us, but they are focused on their own survival. They are cells because their subjectivity is so simple that the representation of this subjectivity on the screen of perception does not span beyond a single pixel. Moreover, we know what happens when our own cells become dissociated from us and turn into alters of their own: we call it cancer.
4) Do you plan on releasing any more formal philosophical white papers?
I am sure I eventually will, but it's not in the plans right now.
5) What are your thoughts on the traditions of the “world soul”? Do you think it’s comparable to “Mind at Large”?
Very probably.
6) How do you explain out of body experiences? When you have them your conscious mind is looking down at your body from a particular place, so what do you think is the focus point that you are perceiving from under idealism?
Mind conjures up -- i.e. imagines -- symbols for itself. In the absence of perceptual organs (since the body is largely shut down during the NDE), whatever inflow of (veridical) information from beyond the now-weakened and porous dissociative boundary there is, will be represented by mind in a way consistent with the kind of experiences mind was having just before the NDE. And so it will imagine quasi-perceptual images to dress that information with, in a kind of inertia. I think the images of an OBE are imagined -- although anchored in veridical information -- and that's why OBErs often point out that, although the world they see is veridical, it's not quite the same as the perceptible world; there seems to be peculiarities.
7) What are the prospects of idealism becoming a (if the not the) mainstream explanatory model used in science?
I think there is an excellent chance of this happening by mid-century.
8) What do you really think of Horgan's Mind-Body Problem antisolution? Scientific journalism can't find someone better to cover consciousness?
I have great respect for John and consider him a very smart and observant commentator and journalist. I disagree with his anti-solution because I think it is intrinsic to human nature to always run an inner story about what's going on. So the best we can do is to run the best story we can come up with, based on reason and evidence.
9) My question is a continuation of the matter of self - reflection and the nature of M@L. I regard this issue a speculative one but I will still ask. Bernardo and other idealists use the analogy of dreaming to describe reality. In my daily life I am never in a state of mere dreaming, I can observe the meaning of the dream when I am in a state of wakefulness. Even if I was in a lucid dream, in order to decipher the dream I still need to remember events that happened to me while awake and now appear symbolically before me . Given these facts, why shouldn't we assume that reality was in a state of wakefulness before it entered a state of "dreaming", and the phenomena we witness only remind us of insights we already know and corresponds to events or mental states prior to our sleep. Another derivative of this matter is that it is possible that the entry into "sleep mode" was done for reasons that are not known to us at the moment but were known at that time and fullfiled a certain purpose
I consider speculation indispensable to philosophy, but also think we should speculate as little as possible; to postulate just what is strictly needed to come to a coherent and empirically adequate story. In this spirit, I don't think we need to postulate that life is the premeditated plan of some all-knowing entity. In addition, the evidence isn't consistent with this hypothesis, as even a casual glance of natural processes will indicate.
10) This is purely speculative but I'd like to know if Bernardo thinks that biotic life exists in multiple locations across the cosmos or if the earthly garden is unique?
I am open to both options equally. I think it likely that there might be life on other astral bodies. But I disagree with those who maintain that this is SURE to be the case, based on a statistical argument. We know too little about the extent to which the objective world we think to see around ourselves is, in fact, partly a reflection of ourselves. For all I know, we may be entirely alone in the universe we partly project around ourselves; which, of course, doesn't preclude the likelihood of other forms of life -- i.e. of dissociation -- in segments of universal consciousness that don't correspond to our universe.
Last edited by bkastrup on Thu Mar 18, 2021 5:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Simon Adams
- Posts: 366
- Joined: Fri Nov 13, 2020 10:54 pm
Re: Ask Bernardo
Many thanks Bernardo, useful to have the chance to clear up some questions on where you stand things.
Ideas are certain original forms of things, their archetypes, permanent and incommunicable, which are contained in the Divine intelligence. And though they neither begin to be nor cease, yet upon them are patterned the manifold things of the world that come into being and pass away.
St Augustine
St Augustine
-
Soul_of_Shu
- Posts: 2023
- Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2021 6:48 pm
- Contact:
Re: Ask Bernardo
Thanks Bernardo for the nuanced answer to my query, much appreciated.
Here out of instinct or grace we seek
soulmates in these galleries of hieroglyph and glass,
where mutual longings and sufferings of love
are laid bare in transfigured exhibition of our hearts,
we who crave deep secrets and mysteries,
as elusive as the avatars of our dreams.
soulmates in these galleries of hieroglyph and glass,
where mutual longings and sufferings of love
are laid bare in transfigured exhibition of our hearts,
we who crave deep secrets and mysteries,
as elusive as the avatars of our dreams.
Re: Ask Bernardo
The answer only made me want to start a discussion. Thank you for taking the time to answer
"And a mute thought sails,
like a swift cloud on high.
Were I to ask, here below,
Amongst the gates of desolation:
Where goes
this captive of the heavens?
There is no one who can reveal to me the book,
or explain to me the chapters."
like a swift cloud on high.
Were I to ask, here below,
Amongst the gates of desolation:
Where goes
this captive of the heavens?
There is no one who can reveal to me the book,
or explain to me the chapters."
Re: Ask Bernardo
Thank you Bernardo, much appreciated as well! A lot to ponder on now.
"Most people would sooner regard themselves as a piece of lava in the moon than as an 'I'"
Re: Ask Bernardo
Thanks for the responses Bernardo. Food for thought next time I donate blood at the blood bank 
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Soul_of_Shu
- Posts: 2023
- Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2021 6:48 pm
- Contact:
Re: Ask Bernardo
I know the feeling, it does whet the appetite for further engagement and clarification. But since BK seems disinclined to engage in this kind of discussion format, or in the comments sections of social media (note the exception being his recent engagement in the comments section of his latest blog post), it leaves only setting up a one-on-one interview, or perhaps signing up for his online course, where presumably there's some significant Q&A time.
Here out of instinct or grace we seek
soulmates in these galleries of hieroglyph and glass,
where mutual longings and sufferings of love
are laid bare in transfigured exhibition of our hearts,
we who crave deep secrets and mysteries,
as elusive as the avatars of our dreams.
soulmates in these galleries of hieroglyph and glass,
where mutual longings and sufferings of love
are laid bare in transfigured exhibition of our hearts,
we who crave deep secrets and mysteries,
as elusive as the avatars of our dreams.
Re: Ask Bernardo
Soul_of_Shu wrote: ↑Fri Mar 19, 2021 8:47 am
I know the feeling, it does whet the appetite for further engagement and clarification. But since BK seems disinclined to engage in this kind of discussion format, or in the comments sections of social media (note the exception being his recent engagement in the comments section of his latest blog post), it leaves only setting up a one-on-one interview, or perhaps signing up for his online course, where presumably there's some significant Q&A time.
I can understand Bernardo in this matter. Regarding your reference to his latest post, Bernardo, as in his other books, talks about interpertation. In my opinion the fact that we do not have absolute answers regarding certain questions is an inherent part of our reality and consciousness. And in this place where imagination and belief in meaning and values takes hold, I give weight to intuitive observation that is not part of the cold, analytical and limited mind. So I doubt the ability of such a(n interesting) discussion to yield different results. Ultimately the recurring motif in the world of different idealists is where we place the boundary between the subjective and the objective.
"And a mute thought sails,
like a swift cloud on high.
Were I to ask, here below,
Amongst the gates of desolation:
Where goes
this captive of the heavens?
There is no one who can reveal to me the book,
or explain to me the chapters."
like a swift cloud on high.
Were I to ask, here below,
Amongst the gates of desolation:
Where goes
this captive of the heavens?
There is no one who can reveal to me the book,
or explain to me the chapters."