Consciousness can change physical reality.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Well, given what I understand constitutes actual idealism, rather than some quasi version that doesn't really grok the profound implications for the here and now, if I were to suddenly find myself homeless and hungry, it would not lessen the indelible knowing of the primacy of consciousness one iota, and the understanding of the power of the imaginal to affect change in the ever-present origin.

[Lou Gold]

Well, given what I understand constitutes actual idealism, rather than some quasi version that doesn't really grok the profound implications for the here and now, if I were to suddenly find myself homeless and hungry, it would not lessen the indelible knowing of the primacy of consciousness one iota, and the understanding of the power of the imaginal to affect change in the ever-present origin.

Good for you. Any sense of being among the rather privileged few?

[Lou Gold]

Well, given what I understand constitutes actual idealism, rather than some quasi version that doesn't really grok the profound implications for the here and now, if I were to suddenly find myself homeless and hungry, it would not lessen the indelible knowing of the primacy of consciousness one iota, and the understanding of the power of the imaginal to affect change in the ever-present origin.

BTW, Shu, I've been sincerely wondering if anyone can identify a historical Idealist inspired-shift in consciousness that occurred to the benefit of the many within a relatively short timeline like for the current challenges of covid, climate or conservation? Lot's of changes going on right now, YES! Are they being triggered by ideas or events? I know that conceptually (and even practically) most of the needed concepts and tech already exist. I'm asking about what a Buddhist might call "the right moment and auspicious event" or a Christian might call the "Second Coming" or "Intervention by the Grace of God"? Can you or anyone else identify such a historical moment?

[Soul_of_Shu]

Good for you. Any sense of being among the rather privileged few?

Not at all, I've a sense of being among everyOne else who are not intrinsically incapable of grokking this, except for being indoctrinated into a mindset that serves to thwart it. If it were just a function of being 'privileged', then the likes of well-to-do Harari might have grokked it by now, instead of just pointing out the symptoms of a deprived paradigm and offering no alternative. When the time is ripe, it will matter not how under-privileged one may be, just as it mattered not within the abused childhood this psyche endured. And so now I endeavour, as best I can, to exemplify this possibility.

[Lou Gold]

Good for you. Any sense of being among the rather privileged few?

Not at all, I've a sense of being among everyOne else who are not intrinsically incapable of grokking this, except for being indoctrinated into a mindset that serves to thwart it. If it were just a function of being 'privileged', then the likes of well-to-do Harari might have grokked it by now, instead of just pointing out the symptoms of a deprived paradigm and offering no alternative. When the time is ripe, it will matter not how under-privileged one may be, just as it mattered not within the abused childhood this psyche endured. And so now I endeavour, as best I can, to exemplify this possibility.

Great. I've no reason to challenge your process or Harari's.

What do we know of Harari's wounds? I don't think you are suggesting he might be with the privileged few and you are with the great masses. The First Noble Truth is that everyone is suffering. As a Buddhist, he is aware of this. As a secular spiritual and philosophical person, you are aware of this. Me? I'm an old guy.

Nowadays, as an aging elder my body has a lot of aches and pains. My allopathic doctor, a hardcore materialist, identifies the symptoms and offers meds to temporarily reduce the suffering and alter the balance. Sometimes he gets it right and sometimes not, sometimes he even makes it worse. He is aware of the limits of allopathy. He doesn't offer an alternative paradigm. He listens when I offer a possibility I've received from daime. He and I work together seeking balance. There will come a day when our tricks no longer work. When that event comes our relationship and my very self will be transformed. We are both aware that a new paradigm may arrive. We are aware of the limits and values of the present paradigm. We don't prance about preaching that the paradigm is deprived, which strikes me a lot like a fundamentalist preacher screeching that we are a species of sinners. Harari chooses to focus on increments viable in the short term and warn of possibilities for making things worse. He offers strong insights about the tremendous power of fictions. I doubt that, as a Buddhist, he is a materialist.

What's my bottom line? Paradigms offer possibilities and events trigger changes. Science progresses funeral by funeral. I think that, at the practical level, metaphysics make less difference than we suggest at this forum with its small very specialized following who argue over either/or. At the end of the day in the practical world, I often see great ecological meaning arising from materialist science. In the metaphysical debate, I'm more likely to embrace both/and.

[Soul_of_Shu]

I think that, at the practical level, metaphysics make less difference than we suggest at this forum with its small very specialized following who argue over either/or. At the end of the day in the practical world, I often see great ecological meaning arising from materialist science. In the metaphysical debate, I'm more likely to embrace both/and.

Materialism is a metaphysical premise that for better or for worse has clearly had a profound impact in the practical world, given that under materialism the world is just a material resource to be exploited. So I suggest that conceiving and offering an alternative is not just some idle 'ivory tower' exercise in futility with no practical value. Indeed, if we don't rectify it soon enough, us elders will be the fortunate ones for only having been here for the dress rehearsal of the tragedy.

[AshvinP]

I think that, at the practical level, metaphysics make less difference than we suggest at this forum with its small very specialized following who argue over either/or. At the end of the day in the practical world, I often see great ecological meaning arising from materialist science. In the metaphysical debate, I'm more likely to embrace both/and.

Materialism is a metaphysical premise that for better or for worse has clearly had a profound impact in the practical world, given that under materialism the world is just a material resource to be exploited. So I suggest that conceiving and offering an alternative is not just some idle 'ivory tower' exercise in futility with no practical value. Indeed, if we don't rectify it soon enough, us elders will be the fortunate ones for only having been here for the dress rehearsal of the tragedy.

Exactly right. If we only think in seconds, minutes, hours, days, years, decades, then we remain detached from the practical implications of metaphysical paradigms. Once we broaden out to millennia, aions, epochs, then we realize it is only metaphysical-spiritual paradigms operating within each individual which make a practical difference. How much a simple change in perspective can make all the difference.

[Jim Cross]

Actually you've missed my point. Google and the United States really don't exist. They are category abstractions that group together many different kinds of things. When we say they do anything at all, it is not at all in literal sense. We are just taking a sort of shot cut that language allows us to do.

If you are saying Mind is in this same sense like Google or the United States, then you are making a strong materialist point that Mind too is an category abstraction that groups together many different kinds of things but actually can do nothing in a literal sense.

Yours is not my read, which is that YNH is saying that Google, the US and money are abstract fictions and that it is only the belief in them that make them powerful enough to alter physical reality. Simple example: there's no way to build a CERN without the fiction of money, which is the medium or mechanism or myth that allows thousands of strangers to cooperate in a networked mutual endeavor. YES! "When we say they do anything at all, it is not at all in literal sense." And, as BK elegantly points out in MTA, for the magic to work it must be believed as literally true. I grok it deeply and appreciatively when BK says that MTA is probably his most important book.

We are the symbolic species and can invest psychic energy into our ideas and thoughts.

[Soul_of_Shu]

... then we realize it is only metaphysical-spiritual paradigms operating within each individual which make a practical difference. How much a simple change in perspective can make all the difference.

Yes, and as BK points out, one of the curious deprivations of materialism is that, even while being a metaphysics itself, it dismisses metaphysics as the domain of irrelevant philosophers, or parapsychologists, or religious studies, or just new-age woo, of no practical value in the 'real' world, when actually its praxis is born of and steeped in its metaphysical premise and context, only serving to sustain it, and is of no practical use in changing it. So if conceiving and offering a viable alternative isn't a practical way to begin to change it, then what else would be?

[Jim Cross]

... then we realize it is only metaphysical-spiritual paradigms operating within each individual which make a practical difference. How much a simple change in perspective can make all the difference.

Yes, and as BK points out, one of the curious deprivations of materialism is that, even while being a metaphysics itself, it dismisses metaphysics as the domain of irrelevant philosophers, or parapsychologists, or religious studies, or just new-age woo, of no practical value in the 'real' world, when actually its praxis is born of and steeped in its metaphysical premise and context, only serving to sustain it, and of no practical use in changing it. So if conceiving and offering a viable alternative isn't a practical way to begin to change it, then what else would be?

It 's an interesting question whether changing minds and views makes all that much difference. Personally I'm not sure of the exact answer.

It seems like there is a huge amount of inertia in the trends of history. Many minds can do little more than go with the flows. Possibly even many minds can change but the flow continues on its own course. Sometimes, however, a butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazon and the result is a hurricane in Florida. I think there is inertia with tipping points but what causes the tipping isn't always straightforward.