AshvinP wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 9:52 pm
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.