Formlessness><form as the uncaused, irreducible ontic fundamental

[Eugene I]

PS: the traditional Christian theology is essentially Platonistic stating that for every creature there is a Divine "logos" (idea, telos, meaning) defined by God for that creature, yet it is within the creature's freedom of choice to follow such logos or reject/neglect it.

”For we believe that a logos of angels preceded their creation, a logos precede the creation of each of the beings and powers that fill the upper world, a logos preceded the creation of human beings, a logos preceded everything that receives its becoming from God, and so on” (St. Maximus the Confessor)

[AshvinP]

That is why I included "ontic" level. We know that right now we are having experiences that we are not reflectively aware of, right? I would say we are also having thoughts we are not aware of. So the meditative state where thinking "disappears" could be a state in which you are unaware of thoughts which are still ontically in existence.

There are definitely thoughts in existence when thinking disappears within one particular space of experience - the thinking continues in other individuated spaces and possibly in subconscious spaces. But that does not prove such thinking to be "ontic". Whenever any thinking occurs (within each space of experience), it is always experienced as impermanent, changing and conditional on other phenomena, therefore can not be "ontic" (being "ontic" means being non-changing, non-emergent and non-conditional).

But, following Platonism, you can still argue that, as opposed to thoughts that are conditional, the meanings themselves are not conditional and exist "prior to" any thinking/thoughts, and thinking only has "access" to the meanings. Such Platonic position is undecidable, you can nether prove nor disprove it. It definitely has right to exist, and this is why it survived up to these days and still has many proponents, especially among mathematicians and the followers of monotheistic religions.

The impermanent aspect of reality is present in all forms of experience, not just thoughts. It is also present in our basic will-attention and feelings. Your response is that the mystical state reverses that impermanent quality of experiences into permanent quality, but then that must be equally true of thoughts and feelings. The only way around that is to claim thoughts-feelings are derivative and 'epiphenomenal', i.e. they do not exist at the ontic level. And that leaves us with Kantian divide since thoughts cannot penetrate into ontic Reality, as well as the nihilistic consequences of that divide. It also leaves us with thought-forms which are fundamentally different from other forms of experience, which undermines metaphysical idealism-monism.

The broader point is that the Eastern mystic must come up with all sorts of discontinuous ways of explaining how thought forms arise from thoughtless awareness when the former is ontically absent, and how any of that squares with monist idealism which cannot have two essentially different substances or processes. And it also has the nihilistic issue of claiming experience of the OP (God) necessarily entails a loss of all meaning.

There are definitely explanatory gaps in the Eastern idealism, as there are in every other version of idealism (Platonic included). There is still one substance/process (OP) in the Eastern idealism that has various fundamental and non-fundamental (emergent) aspects, with thoughts and their meanings belong to the emergent aspects of the OP.

Yes, you can claim that there is a nihilistic issue with respect to meanings, but not with respect to the OP's fundamental aspects - the beingness/awareness and its potential to unfold into forms. So, if you want your life to be meaningful in the absolute/ontic sense, then Platonism or monotheistic religions give you a solution (timelessly existing meanings in Platonism, or meanings existing in the God's mind). In the Eastern traditions personal life is only meaningful in a relative sense: we, sentient beings, "invent" the meanings of our lives for ourselves. You can say that there is a "nihilistic" aspect in this, but "nihilistic" only in a sense of denying the ontic/absolute nature of meanings, while not denying the existence of meanings at all (because meanings do exist as emerging forms). On the other hand, there is an aspect of freedom in it: you are not constrained to some pre-destined timeless meanings and life goals, but you are free to define any meanings for your life that work for you and that you deem appropriate. Freedom/liberation from conditioning (including conditioning by meanings) is one of the motivations and "invented" meanings at the roots of the Eastern traditions. It is like loving just because loving makes us happy vs. loving because God made us and told us to love.

You keep wanting to attach loaded philosophical labels to everything which become very misleading. Let's keep it simple - mumorphism preserves continuity and primacy of all forms of experience, while your view does not for thought-forms. By positing "non-fundamental aspects", you have already veered into dualism. The OP cannot have "non-fundamental aspects" which are "emergent", that is simply a contradiction in terms. If there are in fact emergent aspects of experience, then they must be separate from the OP.

Mumorphism also preserves meaning at the ontic level, since thought-forms pervade Reality (and we agree thoughts are inseparably tied to meanings), while your view does not. There can be authentic relationship with the OP through our normal modes of willing-thinking-feeling under mumorphism, while there cannot be under your view. Nihilism is precisely the apparent inability to find authentic relationship with the primal Ground in our everyday lives. It is that apparent inability which leads to feelings of extreme isolation and alienation.

[Eugene I]

The impermanent aspect of reality is present in all forms of experience, not just thoughts. It is also present in our basic will-attention and feelings.

true

Your response is that the mystical state reverses that impermanent quality of experiences into permanent quality, but then that must be equally true of thoughts and feelings.

no, you probably misunderstood. The mystical state simply reveals the permanent aspects of reality that are independent of thoughts and feelings.

The only way around that is to claim thoughts-feelings are derivative and 'epiphenomenal', i.e. they do not exist at the ontic level. And that leaves us with Kantian divide since thoughts cannot penetrate into ontic Reality, as well as the nihilistic consequences of that divide.

This is not a Kantian divide. The thoughts cannot penetrate into the ontic Reality, but the direct mystical experience can penetrate into certain fundamental aspects of it, and that is the difference from the Kantian position where the "thing-in-itself" cannot be apprehended or experienced in any way, leaving it entirely inaccessible to us.

It also leaves us with thought-forms which are fundamentally different from other forms of experience, which undermines metaphysical idealism-monism.

I don't know why you arrived at such conclusion. Thought forms are essentially no different from other forms (perceptions, feelings, imaginations etc), the deference between those kinds of forms is mostly in their qualitative characters and the degree of their volitionality.

You keep wanting to attach loaded philosophical labels to everything which become very misleading. Let's keep it simple - mumorphism preserves continuity and primacy of all forms of experience, while your view does not. By positing "non-fundamental aspects", you have already veered into dualism. The OP cannot have "non-fundamental aspects" which are "emergent", that is simply a contradiction in terms. If there are in fact emergent aspects of experience, then they must be separate from the OP.

They are emergent but not separate. I refer you back to the Chalmers paper. You are arguing with Chalmers, not with me.

We have an experiential fact that there is a temporal change in the OP and some aspects of the OP are constantly changing, appearing and disappearing, but some other aspects are not changing, appearing or disappearing and their existence is unconditional. Terming the former aspects them "emergent" is simply stating that they "emerge" and "disappear" over time, and their emergence is conditional and interdependent upon the existence of other similar emerging aspects (other forms), so it is basically simply a statement of experimental fact. For the latter ones "fundamental" is simply another term meaning that such aspects/qualities are not changing in time and their continuous presence is not conditional or dependent upon the existence of other aspects, which is also a statement of experiential fact of their "non-emergence". I don't see how it introduces any dualism. Dualism is where entities or properties of different ontological nature are introduced into philosophy, such as matter and consciousness (Cartesian dualism).

Mumorphism also preserves meaning at the ontic level, since thought-forms pervade Reality, while your view does not. There can be authentic relationship with the OP through our normal modes of willing-thinking-feeling under mumorphism, while there cannot be under your view. Nihilism is precisely the apparent inability to find authentic relationship with the primal Ground in our everyday lives. It is that apparent inability which leads feelings of isolation and alienation.

There is no such nihilismin in my view because in my view there is precisely an ability to find intimate, authentic and direct relationship with the primal Ground in our everyday lives through the the direct experience of the fundamental aspects of the Ground in the non-dual state of cosnciousness. The direct experiential knowing of fundamental non-emergent aspects of the Ground as our true nature is the cornerstone of the Eastern mystical traditions, as well as of many modern non-dual teachings (Rupert Spira et al).

On the other hand, there is a problem with your approach, because there is no certainty and no criteria of truth in the realm of willing-thinking-feeling. The world of thinking, feelings and ideas is fluid and infinite. You may arrive at one set of meanings, truth criteria and values, and someone else may arrive at entirely different ones. To you Christianity may feel true, and for someone else Judaism may do. Mathematicians used to think that there is only one "true" Euclid's geometry, but it turned out that there is an unlimited number of different geometries with none of them any truer than others. There are no "true" ideas, because to separate "true" ideas from "false" ideas we need the criteria of truth, but the criteria themselves are ideas and there is unlimited way such truth criteria can be formulated, so how do we find which criteria of truth are true? We need another set of meta-criteria of truth to select the criteria of truth, and for those to be selected, we need meta-meta-criteria of truth, and that is a bad infinity. With the absence of experiential references there are no truth criteria for finding true meanings and common grounds in the realm of thinking and meanings.

[ScottRoberts]

Forms could not exist at all without the being-awareness, while being-awareness does not need forms to exist, even though it may never exist in time without forms. Forms are emergent by nature, while being-awareness is not emergent, it is a fundamental aspect of the OP, ...

This seems to be the basic disagreement. I say that awareness does not exist without forms. That a particular form is emergent does not entail that formation is emergent. And, if one accepts my definition of experiential time as "awareness of change" then I maintain that there is always time (and there is always timelessness). One can have an experience of timelessness, but as discussed earlier, this could just be a reversal of the mumorphic polarity from awareness of form to awareness of formlessness, to be transcended to mumorphic awareness.

(being "ontic" means being non-changing, non-emergent and non-conditional).

One could say that my whole endeavor is to change the meaning of "ontic" from this to non-changing/changing, etc. Which is to say that I think you are begging the question with this definition of 'ontic'.

[Eugene I]

This seems to be the basic disagreement. I say that awareness does not exist without forms. That a particular form is emergent does not entail that formation is emergent. And, if one accepts my definition of experiential time as "awareness of change" then I maintain that there is always time (and there is always timelessness).

I actually agree, as I said elsewhere, the "formation" itself (as a fundamental creative ability of the OP to create forms) is definitely a non-emergent aspect (= the Nirmanakaya aspect of the Trikaya in Buddhism). But any particular forms that appear as a result of such fundamental ability are always emergent. Yes, there is always time, and within time particular forms (including thoughts and their meanings) are constantly emerging and disappearing, it's a simple fact of experience. The formlessness never changes in time so it can be termed as the fundamental and non-emerging aspect of the OP. But each particular form (including any particular thought or meaning) emerge and disappear over time, and this is why they are termed "emerging".

[AshvinP]

This is not a Kantian divide. The thoughts cannot penetrate into the ontic Reality, but the direct mystical experience can penetrate into certain fundamental aspects of it, and that is the difference from the Kantian position where the "thing-in-itself" cannot be apprehended or experienced in any way, leaving it entirely inaccessible to us.

How can we know anything about the mystical experience if thoughts themselves do not penetrate into that Reality? How can there be any memory of it, assuming everyone does not remain in the non-thinking, thoughtless mystical state forever (or until the species dies off)?

It also leaves us with thought-forms which are fundamentally different from other forms of experience, which undermines metaphysical idealism-monism.

I don't know why you arrived at such conclusion. Thought forms are essentially no different from other forms (perceptions, feelings, imaginations etc), the deference between those kinds of forms is mostly in their qualitative characters and the degree of their volitionality.

And in their ability to penetrate Reality and continue existing, as you claimed above.

You keep wanting to attach loaded philosophical labels to everything which become very misleading. Let's keep it simple - mumorphism preserves continuity and primacy of all forms of experience, while your view does not. By positing "non-fundamental aspects", you have already veered into dualism. The OP cannot have "non-fundamental aspects" which are "emergent", that is simply a contradiction in terms. If there are in fact emergent aspects of experience, then they must be separate from the OP.

They are emergent but not separate. I refer you back to the Chalmers paper. You are arguing with Chalmers, not with me.

We have an experiential fact that there is a temporal change in the OP and some aspects of the OP are constantly changing, appearing and disappearing, but some other aspects are not changing, appearing or disappearing and their existence is unconditional. Terming the former aspects them "emergent" is simply stating that they "emerge" and "disappear" over time, and their emergence is conditional and interdependent upon the existence of other similar emerging aspects (other forms), so it is basically simply a statement of experimental fact. For the latter ones "fundamental" is simply another term meaning that such aspects/qualities are not changing in time and their continuous presence is not conditional or dependent upon the existence of other aspects, which is also a statement of experiential fact of their "non-emergence". I don't see how it introduces any dualism. Dualism is where entities or properties of different ontological nature are introduced into philosophy, such as matter and consciousness (Cartesian dualism).

Clearly it is not "simply" a statement of experimental fact, as the world of thought-forms i.e. ideas is what we most readily experience within ourselves in normal mode of consciousness. At best, it is a statement of mystical experiential fact which only a few have ever experienced.

You are really changing the plain meaning of "fundamental" here, but that's fine. Dualism comes from the aforementioned inability of thought-forms to exist at ontic level. As Scott pointed out, the fact that some forms of will, feeling and thought emerge does not mean the essential process of formation itself is emergent.

Mumorphism also preserves meaning at the ontic level, since thought-forms pervade Reality, while your view does not. There can be authentic relationship with the OP through our normal modes of willing-thinking-feeling under mumorphism, while there cannot be under your view. Nihilism is precisely the apparent inability to find authentic relationship with the primal Ground in our everyday lives. It is that apparent inability which leads feelings of isolation and alienation.

There is no such nihilismin in my view because in my view there is precisely an ability to find intimate, authentic and direct relationship with the primal Ground in our everyday lives through the the direct experience of the fundamental aspects of the Ground in the non-dual state of cosnciousness. The direct experiential knowing of fundamental non-emergent aspects of the Ground as our true nature is the cornerstone of the Eastern mystical traditions, as well as of many modern non-dual teachings (Rupert Spira et al).

On the other hand, there is a problem with your approach, because there is no certainty and no criteria of truth in the realm of willing-thinking-feeling. The world of thinking, feelings and ideas is fluid and infinite. You may arrive at one set of meanings, truth criteria and values, and someone else may arrive at entirely different ones. To you Christianity may feel true, and for someone else Judaism may do. Mathematicians used to think that there is only one "true" Euclid's geometry, but it turned out that there is an unlimited number of different geometries with none of them any truer than others. There are no "true" ideas, because to separate "true" ideas from "false" ideas we need the criteria of truth, but the criteria themselves are ideas and there is unlimited way such truth criteria can be formulated, so how do we find which criteria of truth are true? We need another set of meta-criteria of truth to select the criteria of truth, and for those to be selected, we need meta-meta-criteria of truth, and that is a bad infinity. With the absence of experiential references there are no truth criteria for finding true meanings and common grounds in the realm of thinking and meanings.

The mystical state of consciousness is hardly "our everyday lives" for most people. Now if you are claiming the mystical state can add quality of experience which is useful for us on our return to everyday cognition with thinking/thoughts, then I think we all agree on that (except we dispute that thinking/thoughts ever ontically disappear only to reappear later - a view that necessitates metaphysical dualism, along with the epistemic/memory problem mentioned above).

My approach is that all forms of experience, in all modes of consciousness, are tools through which we can access a shared realm of meaningful relationships, including and especially relation to the OP. Thought-forms penetrate every level of Reality. There is definitely an aspect of informed faith involved to bridge the apparent gap between my current fragmented experience and the truly shared essence of experience that I can potentially access. It is faith that all essentially shared meaning exists within me as microcosm and can be made fully conscious, which of course presupposes the ontic reality of Thinking-Thoughts. In this approach, I am never inventing meaning, rather I am discovering meaning for myself.

-"The least of men can be complete if he moves within the limits of his abilities and skills" -Goethe

[Eugene I]

How can we know anything about the mystical experience if thoughts themselves do not penetrate into that Reality? How can there be any memory of it, assuming everyone does not remain in the non-thinking, thoughtless mystical state forever (or until the species dies off)?

We can know it directly because the experiencing (experiential knowing=awareness=experiencing=Gnosis=Jnana) experientially knows itself directly regardless of any thoughts. The thoughts can be present of absent, but in the non-dual state neither presence not absence of thoughts affects such direct knowing. Definitely such state of direct knowing is recorded in memory and can be reflected and analyzed by thoughts, labeled with linguistic terms and communicated, there is nothing wrong with that,

Clearly it is not "simply" a statement of experimental fact, as the world of thought-forms i.e. ideas is what we most readily experience within ourselves in normal mode of consciousness. At best, it is a statement of mystical experiential fact which only a few have ever experienced.

That's right, but as Cleric rightly noted elsewhere, the fact that only a few people know or experience something does not invalidate the truthfulness or validity of such knowledge or experience.

As Scott pointed out, the fact that some forms of will, feeling and thought emerge does not mean the essential process of formation itself is emergent.

I completely agree, the process-ability of formation is definitely non-emergent, and that was known to Buddhists for two millennia since they formulated the philosophy of Trikaya (with "formation"-Nirmanakaya being a fundamental aspect of the inseparable nature if Trikaya)

The mystical state of consciousness is hardly "our everyday lives" for most people. Now if you are claiming the mystical state can add quality of experience which is useful for us on our return to everyday cognition with thinking/thoughts, then I think we all agree on that (except we dispute that thinking/thoughts ever ontically disappear only to reappear later - a view that necessitates metaphysical dualism, along with the epistemic/memory problem mentioned above).

It absolutely can add such quality, that is why it is termed "Nirvana" in Buddhism or "Samadhi" in Vedic traditions, and many of those schools understood Nirvana and Samadhi (specifically, Sahaja samadhi) not as a special kind of empty-of-thoughts meditative state, but as an every-day continuous and very functional state of consciousness (even though from the point of view of the ordinary state it may seem/feel to be quite "altered").

My approach is that all forms of experience, in all modes of consciousness, are tools through which we can access a shared realm of meaningful relationships, including and especially relation to the OP. Thought-forms penetrate every level of Reality. There is definitely an aspect of informed faith involved to bridge the apparent gap between my current fragmented experience and the truly shared essence of experience that I can potentially access. It is faith that all essentially shared meaning exists within me as microcosm and can be made fully conscious, which of course presupposes the ontic reality of Thinking-Thoughts.

That's ok, such approach has all rights to exist. IMO the realm of shared meanings belongs to the realm of emergent forms. Once a meaning was "invented" (emerged) at some point in time and space of consciousness, it can be definitely shared across the space and time and multiplicity of individual spaces of consciousness, even though through such process of communicating and propagating thought time each meaning never stays constant and always keeps changing and evolving. They do "penetrate" the levels of reality, but they themselves can never fully reflect the reality, they can only reflect it, because the reality has a different nature (in my Eastern scheme at least) - the nature of direct conscious experience and beingness, not the nature of meanings/ideas.

I understand that in your Platonic scheme the fundamental nature of reality is ideas themselves, so it is perfectly logical to say that the ideas are "true" instances of the actual ontic reality, but such view is only valid in the Platonic versions of idealism.

As I said before, I respect Platonism and consider Plato to be spiritual/philosophical genius of all times. I do not refute his philosophy and open to it as a possibility, yet Platonism remains not a worldview of my personal choice.

[AshvinP]

How can we know anything about the mystical experience if thoughts themselves do not penetrate into that Reality? How can there be any memory of it, assuming everyone does not remain in the non-thinking, thoughtless mystical state forever (or until the species dies off)?

We can know it directly because the experiencing (experiential knowing=awareness=experiencing=Gnosis=Jnana) experientially knows itself directly regardless of any thoughts. The thoughts can be present of absent, but in the non-dual state neither presence not absence of thoughts affects such direct knowing. Definitely such state of direct knowing is recorded in memory and can be reflected and analyzed by thoughts, labeled with linguistic terms and communicated, there is nothing wrong with that,

What does it mean for experience to be "recorded in memory" yet without any entanglement of thinking-thoughts?

I completely agree, the process-ability of formation is definitely non-emergent, and that was known to Buddhists for two millennia since they formulated the philosophy of Trikaya (with "formation"-Nirmanakaya being a fundamental aspect of the inseparable nature if Trikaya)

OK so then you agree the thinking process which powers thought-formation is not emergent?

That's ok, such approach has all rights to exist. IMO the realm of shared meanings belongs to the realm of emergent forms. Once a meaning was "invented" (emerged) at some point in time and space of consciousness, it can be definitely shared across the space and time and multiplicity of individual spaces of consciousness, even though through such process of communicating and propagating thought time each meaning never stays constant and always keeps changing and evolving. They do "penetrate" the levels of reality, but they themselves can never fully reflect the reality, they can only reflect it, because the reality has a different nature (in my Eastern scheme at least) - the nature of direct conscious experience and beingness, not the nature of meanings/ideas.

I understand that in your Platonic scheme the fundamental nature of reality is ideas themselves, so it is perfectly logical to say that the ideas are "true" instances of the actual ontic reality, but such view is only valid in the Platonic versions of idealism.

As I said before, I respect Platonism and consider Plato to be spiritual/philosophical genius of all times. I do not refute his philosophy and open to it as a possibility, yet Platonism remains not a worldview of my personal choice.

How can Reality have two "natures" without implying dualism? Or if thoughts-meanings-ideas are not included in the single unified nature of Reality, how are you not disputing the Trikaya philosophy you stated above? I really don't get it.

[Eugene I]

What does it mean for experience to be "recorded in memory" yet without any entanglement of thinking-thoughts?

Let's say you experience a feel of warm water but you don't think about it at the moment of the experiencing, but this experience was recorded in the memory. Then you can recall the record, but such recall would be already a kind of a thought-form "copy" of the original experience, not the actual original experience. And then by thinking you can analyze the experience any way you want.

OK so then you agree the thinking process which powers thought-formation is not emergent?

Yes

How can Reality have two "natures" without implying dualism? Or if thoughts-meanings-ideas are not included in the single unified nature of Reality, how are you not disputing the Trikaya philosophy you stated above? I really don't get it.

As I said already - these are not two natures, but two different aspects of the same nature. One aspect is of a non-emergent/non-changing/non-conditional quality - the beingness-awareness, the other aspects is of an emergent/changing/conditional quality. There is a term for that in philosophy - "dual aspect monism", even though such tern usually is used in the sense of the consciousness-matter dual-aspect, in the Eastern version of idealism it is understood as the emergent-nonemergent dual-aspect.

[AshvinP]

What does it mean for experience to be "recorded in memory" yet without any entanglement of thinking-thoughts?

Let's say you experience a feel of warm water but you don't think about it at the moment of the experiencing, but this experience was recorded in the memory. Then you can recall the record, but such recall would be already a kind of a thought-form "copy" of the original experience, not the actual original experience. And then by thinking you can analyze the experience any way you want.

OK so then you agree the thinking process which powers thought-formation is not emergent?

Yes

Then it must maintain at ontic level, right? In which case we do not need to imagine a memory recording process which is distinct from Thinking itself.

How can Reality have two "natures" without implying dualism? Or if thoughts-meanings-ideas are not included in the single unified nature of Reality, how are you not disputing the Trikaya philosophy you stated above? I really don't get it.

As I said already - these are not two natures, but two different aspects of the same nature. One aspect is of a non-emergent/non-changing/non-conditional quality - the beingness-awareness, the other aspects is of an emergent/changing/conditional quality. There is a term for that in philosophy - "dual aspect monism", even though such tern usually is used in the sense of the consciousness-matter dual-aspect, in the Eastern version of idealism it is understood as the emergent-nonemergent dual-aspect.

Except in your version of "dual-aspect monism", one aspect has a shared essence which maintains at ontic level (awareness) and another aspect has no shared essence and does not maintain at ontic level. That is dualism... there is no way around that. Although you keep going back and forth between whether Thinking maintains at the ontic level or not.