Intuitive Idealism vs. Analytic Idealism (Part II): An alternative formulation of idealism

[AshvinP]

I agree, once we "defeat" materialism in ourselves, there is no reason to stay within the narrow and shallow limits of the strict analytical approach.

I'm just saying these challeneges to BK idealism should not be discouraged. They are clearly well thought out and reflect another approach to idealist philosophy which is well established in the 20th century, intuitionist philosophy in general, albeit much lesser known. For that last reason alone they should be encouraged. I don't think Adur misunderstood BK "strategy" at all.

[Steve Petermann]

Adur,

Well thought out and written essay.

First, I also disagree with BK's dissociative analogy. Being tied to Dissociative Identity Disorder gives it a negative connotation but it also doesn't fit in with his characterization of Mind-at-Large or Universal Consciousness. He thinks M@L is instinctive and undifferentiated. So, what's to dissociate from? In DID there is an associated personality to begin with.

So, let me say a few things about simulation metaphors that might spark some thoughts for you with your system.

Like you, I have also offered a simulation analogy. Like yours, it's an MMORPG (massively multiplayer online roleplay game). Here's a link where I offered it in response to Bernardo's DID. Analogies for Idealism . I realize that metaphors have their limits but let me comment on where I think the typical simulation analogy goes awry. It is algorithmic or rule-based. This might appeal to materialists but it also offers no way to affirm our existential intuitions. I'm a proponent of acknowledging that intuitions are an important part of metaphysics. We have intuitions that there is genuine free-will (could have done otherwise), objective value( moral realism), and real meaning and purpose. In law-based or algorithmic-based systems none of these are possible without supernaturalism or magic because the universe (including us) just hums along autonomically. Even in BK's system with instinct as fundamental, there is no room for these either. He has even acknowledged (in one of his videos) that we don't have libertarian free-will. Even Mind-at-Large only has a compatibilist type of free-will. Having said that, I do think the RPG metaphor is helpful but only if it is actively and continually intention-based. No laws and no chance. No algorithms. No autonomics. Every event is intentional. Both the regularities and novelties are intentional -> a juggler metaphor. Accordingly, no supernaturalism or magic is necessary to get those existential affirmations because there is nothing to override. It means there is a source for free-will, meaning, objective value, and purpose which we can have a share of. Now, this obviously leads to some cosmic or transcendent agent having the intentions. That's where things get complicated but for me, that agent is God within a form of divine idealism.

Now, I think a major failing for many metaphysical systems is too narrow a focus. Many current ones are trying to solve the consciousness dilemma. Fair enough. However, in their formulations, they often ignore other pressing questions — namely existential issues like I mentioned. This means they can spend a lot of time trying to solve a narrow problem and then when it comes to addressing these other issues (they will come up) their formulation won't accommodate them without ill-conceived contrivances, obfuscations, or questionable brute facts. I think this problem with other issues is what Bernardo's system is having to deal with now. He's made a good case against materialism but with his ontology (just a semantically different form of autonomics), I don't think he can provide answers that affirm our intuitions.

So, with your great work so far, I would suggest you see how you might address all the pressing issues, at the same time.

[Eugene I]

The simulation metaphor: the law of consistency in action

This is how the law of consistency gives rise to the regularity of the observed world. At the beginning of the game, the players would be free to perceive the world around them behaving in any possible way they could imagine. As the game progressed, those perceived behaviours would become “natural laws”. The freedom of the players to perceive whatever they might would diminish, but their impression of being in a “real world” would accordingly increase.

So this is your completely immersive virtual reality game. It would enhance the players’ freedom and creativity. They would be unwittingly creating their own virtual world as they played. There is no way to predict what kind of world they would create. Each new set of players (you could relaunch the game as many times as you liked) would probably end up in a completely different universe. You, as the game designer, would save a lot of work. You could just sit back and watch. And the game would be anything but boring.

I'm afraid this is again too simplistic model. The players don't just see consistent images. When they analyze their images down to very microscopic level and up to very mega-scopic level, they find that their images are not only consistent to each other, but also always precisely consistent with specific mathematical rules (Schrodinger equation, laws of special and general relativity etc). How did that happen? When did they agreed to introduce those precise rules in the game? And why did they forget about those rules and had to later re-discover them?

[AshvinP]

The simulation metaphor: the law of consistency in action

This is how the law of consistency gives rise to the regularity of the observed world. At the beginning of the game, the players would be free to perceive the world around them behaving in any possible way they could imagine. As the game progressed, those perceived behaviours would become “natural laws”. The freedom of the players to perceive whatever they might would diminish, but their impression of being in a “real world” would accordingly increase.

So this is your completely immersive virtual reality game. It would enhance the players’ freedom and creativity. They would be unwittingly creating their own virtual world as they played. There is no way to predict what kind of world they would create. Each new set of players (you could relaunch the game as many times as you liked) would probably end up in a completely different universe. You, as the game designer, would save a lot of work. You could just sit back and watch. And the game would be anything but boring.

I'm afraid this is again too simplistic model. The players don't just see consistent images. When they analyze their images down to very microscopic level and up to very mega-scopic level, they find that their images are not only consistent to each other, but also always precisely consistent with specific mathematical rules (Schrodinger equation, laws of special and general relativity etc). How did that happen? When did they agreed to introduce those precise rules in the game? And why did they forget about those rules and had to later re-discover them?

This is only understood when factoring in metamorphic progression of consciousness. That is a great example of a qualitative essence which we can test and verify via experience and Reason. A lot of modern anthropomorphic prejudices must be abandoned, like the insistence on strict rational "rules" that the dynamics follow, which Stephen also pointed out above. But we will also see how this essential dynamic makes living sense of all human development of culture, myth, art, religion, philosophy, socioeconomics, science, and ethics.

[Eugene I]

This is only understood when factoring in metamorphic progression of consciousness. That is a great example of a qualitative essence which we can test and verify via experience and Reason. A lot of modern anthropomorphic prejudices must be abandoned, like the insistence on strict rational "rules" that the dynamics follow, which Stephen also pointed out above. But we will also see how this essential dynamic makes living sense of all human development of culture, myth, art, religion, philosophy, socioeconomics, science, and ethics.

It has nothing to do with whether we abandon any prejudices or not. The dynamics of sensual experiences that we observe always follow these exact patterns/rules: it's a fact of our experience. We observe those rules every single time we make quantitative measurements (in natural science). If spiritual science has an ambition to explain the origin of the perceived world, it also has to explain the origin of these rules. Why the observed sensual phenomena always and exactly follow the rules of the Schrodinger equation to the extremely high precision? The model presented in the essay does not explain it.

This is actually the biggest explanatory gap in almost every version of idealism and a target of a valid criticism from the materialistic and panpsychistic camps, and from ordinary people too. Idealism has to come up with a plausible explanation of why the observed conscious phenomena that relate to the "physical world" always follow these exact mathematical patterns described by Schrodinger and other basic physical equations.

[AshvinP]

This is only understood when factoring in metamorphic progression of consciousness. That is a great example of a qualitative essence which we can test and verify via experience and Reason. A lot of modern anthropomorphic prejudices must be abandoned, like the insistence on strict rational "rules" that the dynamics follow, which Stephen also pointed out above. But we will also see how this essential dynamic makes living sense of all human development of culture, myth, art, religion, philosophy, socioeconomics, science, and ethics.

It has nothing to do with whether we abandon any prejudices or not. The dynamics of sensual experiences that we observe always follow these exact patterns/rules: it's a fact of our experience. We observe those rules every single time we make quantitative measurements (in natural science). If spiritual science has an ambition to explain the origin of the perceived world, it also has to explain the origin of these rules. Why the observed sensual phenomena always and exactly follow the rules of the Schrodinger equation to the extremely high precision? The model presented in the essay does not explain it.

This is actually the biggest explanatory gap in almost every version of idealism and a target of a valid criticism from the materialistic and panpsychistic camps, and from ordinary people too. Idealism has to come up with a plausible explanation of why the observed conscious phenomena that relate to the "physical world" always follow these exact mathematical patterns described by Schrodinger and other basic physical equations.

That is what is being attempted to done here, you just need to keep an open mind to let it unfold within your Imagination. I am sure Adur will not claim his model is the absolute final word or most detailed analysis of idealist metaphysics and the dynamics of phenomenal appearances, but he is just laying a basic conceptual foundation to orient in another direction. We are always in a rush to get to some overall unifying "TOE" and discard valuable stepping stones because they don't automatically transport our souls to the Eternal. (side note: for anyone who has visited the Discord chat for TOE channel, they will see this run amok). That is modern pathology and dysfunctional relationship with Time (which Cleric just made a great post about on another thread). Because we cannot see the inner logic immediately, we assume there is no inner logic and it all may as well be personal fantasies, when the most simple explanation is that our vision is being obstructed by modern prejudices.

"One almost immediately declares his conscious experience as unreality in order to postulate the 'true' reality somewhere out there" - Cleric

Under idealism, especially, imaginations and intuitions which arrive from within should be regarded with the utmost objective validity once they have been tested with our own inner logic. Those higher thoughts reveal to us why there are no "exact patterns/rules" of sensual experience - there are only increasingly (or decreasingly) useful ones, which are generally displaced within a few decades. That has always been the structure of scientific revolutions. Who cares what the materialists and panpsychists critique? They are clinging on to dying worldviews with a million different fatal errors, so of course they will not grasp the nuances within idealist metaphysics, phenomenology, etc., let alone spirituality (the precise reason they cling on to those dying worldviews is to avoid the spiritual implications of idealist phenomenology). We should be holding ourselves to a much higher standard.

[Soul_of_Shu]

I agree, once we "defeat" materialism in ourselves, there is no reason to stay within the narrow and shallow limits of the strict analytical approach.

I'm just saying these challeneges to BK idealism should not be discouraged. They are clearly well thought out and reflect another approach to idealist philosophy which is well established in the 20th century, intuitionist philosophy in general, albeit much lesser known. For that last reason alone they should be encouraged. I don't think Adur misunderstood BK "strategy" at all.

I feel that it's a fair point that BK's approach that it sometimes takes a thorn to remove a thorn is not sufficient to be some deeper explication of idealism, and should that initial intention be accomplished, then there's certainly good reason to move beyond it. But neither is some Steiner-like approach sufficient onto itself, otherwise we would not find that after a century since it's been available, having been largely ignored, materialism remains the prevailing paradigm. This is where BK enters the scene to try to at least get a foot in the door of the paradigmatic edifice, before yet again just leaping into such esoteric knowledge that many who have been thoroughly conditioned by the current paradigm which they were born and indoctrinated into are just going to balk at as a being a bridge too far for them to cross. I don't think it's any accident that a forum such as this had to wait for the arrival of the likes of BK , Hoffman, and a few others. But now that it's here, wherein those attracted here can venture into what Ashvin, Cleric, Adur and others have to offer, should they be ripe for that exploration, then that too is a good development. As has been said, to every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose ...

[Steve Petermann]

Eugene I,

This is actually the biggest explanatory gap in almost every version of idealism and a target of a valid criticism from the materialistic and panpsychistic camps, and from ordinary people too. Idealism has to come up with a plausible explanation of why the observed conscious phenomena that relate to the "physical world" always follow these exact mathematical patterns described by Schrodinger and other basic physical equations.

I've given it a shot here within the framework of a divine idealism. I talk about the various well-established features of quantum mechanics and what theological implications there might be. Within a divine idealism ontology, what science characterizes is what divine mentation looks like to us. This includes both the regularities and novelties — all intentionally constituted in the mind of God according to divine purposes.

A metaphor I often use is Author/Story where the author creates a narrative in her mind. She intentionally constitutes everything, including the settings, characters, plants, other animals, environments, other beings, and events. It's all in the author's One mind but there are distinctions(aspects as I call them) in her mind where she "lives" each aspect, honoring whatever features, freedom, and constraints each has.

[AshvinP]

I agree, once we "defeat" materialism in ourselves, there is no reason to stay within the narrow and shallow limits of the strict analytical approach.

I'm just saying these challeneges to BK idealism should not be discouraged. They are clearly well thought out and reflect another approach to idealist philosophy which is well established in the 20th century, intuitionist philosophy in general, albeit much lesser known. For that last reason alone they should be encouraged. I don't think Adur misunderstood BK "strategy" at all.

I feel that it's a fair point that BK's approach that it sometimes takes a thorn to remove a thorn is not sufficient to be some deeper explication of idealism, and should that initial intention be accomplished, then there's certainly good reason to move beyond it. But neither is some Steiner-like approach sufficient onto itself, otherwise we would not find that after a century since it's been available, having been largely ignored, materialism remains the prevailing paradigm. This is where BK enters the scene to try to at least get a foot in the door of the paradigmatic edifice, before yet again just leaping into such esoteric knowledge that many who have been thoroughly conditioned by the current paradigm which they were born and indoctrinated into are just going to balk at as a being a bridge too far for them to cross. I don't think it's any accident that a forum such as this had to wait for the arrival of the likes of BK , Hoffman, and a few others. But now that it's here, wherein those attracted here can venture into what Ashvin, Cleric, Adur and others have to offer, should they be ripe for that exploration, then that too is a good development. As has been said, to every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose ...

I agree with your overall sentiment that every perspective has something valuable to offer and we must patiently seek for it. But, that being said, we must not underestimate the power of mechanical abstract thinking which has developed in the modern age and is now ingrained habit of mind for all of us here. I suspect Cleric may be the only one here who does not need to constantly remind himself to avoid it. We can say to ourselves and others, "I am just using this abstract conceptual approach as an entry point to then overcome it and move to more living thinking", but the question is does that actually show in our thinking and output or not? It's very much like an addict saying, "don't worry, I am just using a little here and there to wean myself off." Again, I am saying this because I know from first-hand experience that, after writing a fair number of essays precisely trying to overcome that thinking, most of my day still resides within that mode of thinking. For someone whose entire career revolves around analytical idealism of that sort, I think it's more than a fair point to say he has entered that scene and is showing little intention of ever leaving it. But of course the point is not to dump on BK himself, but to critique the overall current of analytical thought he and most others are engaged in.

As for Goethe, Steiner, Barfield, Jung and others who developed the more living thinking approach, I think you are exactly right - "to every thing there is a season". That time has not arrived yet for them, as Steiner himself predicted in various ways, but I don't think it is very far off either, given how quickly the mechanical thinking is reaching its 'event horizon' of usefulness in practical aims.

[Eugene I]

Eugene I,

I've given it a shot here within the framework of a divine idealism. I talk about the various well-established features of quantum mechanics and what theological implications there might be. Within a divine idealism ontology, what science characterizes is what divine mentation looks like to us. This includes both the regularities and novelties — all intentionally constituted in the mind of God according to divine purposes.

A metaphor I often use is Author/Story where the author creates a narrative in her mind. She intentionally constitutes everything, including the settings, characters, plants, other animals, environments, other beings, and events. It's all in the author's One mind but there are distinctions(aspects as I call them) in her mind where she "lives" each aspect, honoring whatever features, freedom, and constraints each has.

Your essays are well written, I'm gonna spend some time reading them. You are right, in the theistic version of idealism the origins of the observable laws can be easily explained: God created them, duh But for other non-theistic versions it is a more challenging problem.