The Time-Consciousness Spectrum

[Federica]

Fair enough, Federica, I look forward to the integrated response, although I will probably let him reply before continuing. I will say, it is humbling to witness the gap between my superficial, mostly abstract response to you and the level of depth Cleric took it too with concrete first-person examples.

Ashvin,
I understand of course that you aim to further develop your writing. But I shoud say, from my beginner perspective, that Cleric's answers and yours have always had a clearly different individual voice and perspective. As you know, I find both consistently insightful, in different ways, to the point that often the difference in itself is helpful, including in this case!

PS. I am finally keeping replies separate

[Federica]

Thank you, Cleric! In short, this has clarified my doubts, I think I've now reached a sufficient understanding of the given.

I’m saying, we want to address the immediate given of experience - what a naive observer can notice, not knowing anything about philosophical arguments and forums, only equipped with sound and calm observation intent - yet a category is introduced, that moreover is made of functionally (hence temporally) uneven elements. This is not at all an issue in the thousand ways this category can be helpfully used, but here we are addressing the pure given of experience!

Federica, I believe that you're taking a somewhat restricted view on what the given is. We should remember that we're dealing with living phenomenology. Thus the experiences of our spiritual activity should also be included into our investigations.

Here's a simple example. Take a small object and place it in front of you. Place your hand as if you are about to grab it. Then begin to imagine how you take the object. As always, the more slowly and smoothly we do this imagining, the better. Repeat this imagining over and over again. At some point decide to actually take the object. Try to feel the difference. Naturally, the difference is very elusive. We can't point our finger at it. But yet undoubtedly we feel that we do something differently.

One thing I should have kept, but I ended up editing out: I had an underlying question mark about how to speak of living thinking to others - how to point to the “immediate given of experience”. I didn’t want to sound pretentious so I cut it, but actually people start to wonder what this “philosophy” I’m doing is all about, so I’m trying to figure out how to talk about it. so I can answer questions.

This being said, I never said I would exclude the experiences of spiritual activity from the given. Quite the opposite:

We first observe that our given experience consists of sense perceptions, feelings, and thoughts, as conscious phenomena (in more reasoned-out terms, it consists of thought-pictures of sense perceptions, thought-pictures of feelings, and other thought-pictures)

Now, I admit I hadn’t grasped the missing piece you describe, that makes the bodily will phenomenologically given. Thank you, I understand that. Very useful, because until now I was placing under the word Will a larger meaning of intention, freedom, free will, that can apply to the body, but also to willed thinking and willed feeling. For this reason, in my proposed description of the available sorts of conscious phenomena, I replaced Will with sense perceptions. That was the ‘innovation’ I wanted to suggest, in order to better stick to the immediate given, but I wasn't clear what exactly is intended with Will. Now I am.


So I had two misconceptions about Will: first, I was missing that phenomenological “something else” that you describe; second, I was thinking of Will as intention plus its execution in time. Therefore I thought that Will was the "odd one out" in the triad, and that it was confusing when the goal is to do a slow, careful, phenomenology. With these clarifications of what the Will is, my points are clarified! In some more detail, in case anyone is interested:

Yes it is true that these ideal soul spaces that we flow through are not at all obvious but I think you overlook the fact that all our conscious willing passes through thinking as well.

I didn’t overlook it:

Experiential inquiry only allows us to take stock of thought-pictures, and they are of three types: sensory, that includes one's own physical body, feeling, and other thought-pictures.

Again, my misunderstanding comes from misreading the exact meaning of will:

We can observe a force originating from the 'I', that we call intention, or Will - the direct contribution of the self to the shape of the observable becoming.

So I used the will as the originator of the rules of transformation. But I was not imagining such rules guided by abstract models. On the contrary, I spoke of an inner model that is not external or theoretical.


***

The reason you see the rules of craftsmanship as more immediate than that of thinking...

I didn't see them so at all! Instead, I gave some examples about the DoF not being as obvious as it seems, then I said that the more immediate steering seems to go across not along the WFT categories. I am well aware of the heavy constraints limiting bodily imagination, not only the physical ones but also the karmic ones, as Ashvin mentioned, and those in between: more overarching than the range of our joints, but less than our karma, like our physical habits.


***

Actually in the course of spiritual development we have to become more and more conscious even of our most ordinary movements. We need to clearly live in that bodily imagination and clearly feel how our imaginative intents flow even in the mundane activities. One such important aspect is learning to eat consciously, to feel how that food has absorbed the life of the Sun, how it was grown, how it reached our table and how we now take that transformed Sun-life into ourselves.

I have some sense of this development, thanks for this insight! I try to do what you describe with food, but for now I forget about it more often than I remember….


***

So, when we say that we feel more creatively responsible for some kind of phenomena and less of some others, it seems to me that we have left the given, and have started extracting rules. We are creating not an abstract theory, but an inner model that we can use to either predict the degree of freedom of a future conscious phenomenon based on its type, or to draw further conclusions out of that categorization.

In the above you seem to place a strict split between the given as something that we find through the interaction with the bodily spectrum and our thinking process.

No, the above was not referred to Will but to the whole WFT spectrum. In simple words, what I was trying to express with “we have left the given” is this: “The essay says that W is less consciously steered, T is fully consciously steered, and F is in between. But this is not always confirmed in our experience, as per the mentioned examples of how it’s much less obvious than so. Therefore, when we say that T is the most conscious, we are extracting it as an inner model, a rule that we have experienced to be true when we have consciously willed out thinking activity, but that’s not as confirmed in reality (we might be easily tossed around by our thoughts for example). So we have created an inner model, a concept of T as necessarily high in conscious steering, that we use to sets an expectation, or a prediction, that our next T activity should be steered fully consciously, though maybe the given will be different, maybe we will be tossed around by repetitive thoughts without even realize it. So when we say T is fully under our responsibility, we have left the given, we are relying on an inner model. It can be so - say in a concentration exercise - but it can also not be so, if we fall back into compulsive thinking.”


Such was the difference I was making between given and not given. Although it's true that the soul spaces are not obvious, I understand now this is not the point. Of course, we need to develop our activity and improve our conscious steering but it's not the point of the phenomenology, and with the right meaning and phenomenology of Will, I understand now how the "given" extends to the full spectrum of activity.

[Stranger]

This is resolved when we conceive that the idea which thinking has of itself, is only a very specific evolutionary instance of the living Idea of the limitless potential. That's why it's valuable to keep in mind something as the turning torus. We continually discover our true essence anew. The idea that thinking has of itself is shed like a skin and something even more incredible is born. The previous idea was not wrong but it was simply the best possible intuition that within certain constraints. This doesn't mean that we'll always feel dissatisfied that we always live in partial truths. This is overcome when we embrace the actual process of becoming. We can only feel dissatisfied if we maintain the desire to pin our present understanding and imagine that we have the full picture.

That's right, because the content and the modes of this unfolding are ever-evolving and ever unfolding. Yet, there is always something invariant in this unfolding of the potential, and this is the certain aspects of Thinking itself that never change (this is why they sometimes called "fundamental"). Take for example the very ability to Will or to Think: no matter how the torus is unfolding and expanding and what kind of new content is revealed, it is the same ability to Think and to Will as the fundamental abilities of this creative potential that allow this new content to be created. Likewise, it is always the same way "to exist" in which this Thinking Consciousness and its unfolding content is present and unfolding. There is no other different way to exist, there is only one way - "things" either exist or not. Likewise, there is only one way to consciously experience (be aware). Consciousness as Reality cannot ever not Think and not Will, it cannot not exist, it cannot not to experience itself and its content. So there are certain aspects of the Reality revealed in our phenomenal experience that never change, that are universal and invariant. Yet simultaneously, the phenomenal content is ever unfolding and ever anew. And it is true that we continually discover our true essence anew as a current experience, yet the essence itself, its fundamental aspects of WTFEB (Willing-Thinking-Feeling-Experiencing-Being) never change. In other words, they are beyond time, they are timeless as a fact of our experience of them. In that sense, we can reach to timelessness right now directly by our thinking recognizing its timeless and universal aspects. Yet there is also an asymptotic approaching to timelessness through the asymptotic unfolding of its ideal and phenomenal content in time.

Notice that these "timeless" aspects are available for our direct phenomenal experience because the Thinking Consciousness (and we as the activities of the same Thinking Consciousness) can experientially know itself by recognizing its abilities of Willing-Thinking-Feeling-Experiencing-Being. So, this knowledge is available to us as a living experience, not as an abstract modeling.

And finally, if we only look at the ideal structural phenomenal and hierarchical content and disregard this experiential knowledge of Thinking Consciousness itself as a timeless Reality in its fundamental aspects, then the world as we experience it only becomes the world of phenomena and structures, it becomes fragmented into the infinite facets of the torus-fractal of this phenomenal and ideational content, with different facets seemingly existing on their own, even though interrelated with each other. This brings us to the dualistic fragmented perception of the world. It is only when we, simultaneously with experiencing the unfolding hierarchical content in time, also know and experience the timeless aspects of Thinking Consciousness itself, only then we experientially realize the underlying unity of the Reality. These timeless aspects become like a glue that bring all these infinite facets of the torus into inseparable oneness, because they all are created and experienced by and within the same never changing Thinking Consciousness that unceasingly knows itself as their creator simultaneously with knowing all the structures of its creation. Every phenomenon, every facet of the torus, is never separate form its own existence, from the conscious experiencing of this phenomenon, from thinking and willing of it, which means all this phenomenal content is inseparable in its fundamental aspects, yet still real, diverse and structured. There is no "reductionism" here, the creation is not "reduced" to the timeless aspects of Consciousness, but co-exists with it on equal existential basis, so all of them are equally real. Such all-encompassing experience of reality brings the experience of fullness and oneness simultaneously with diversity, structuration and ever-afresh unfolding of its content. And such all-encompassing experience never claims to bring the full and static picture of the content and never stops or impedes the unfolding, evolution and exploration of the structural content, but only facilitates this ever-unfolding process.

And emphasizing it again, knowing the timeless aspects of Consciousness should not be a reason to disregard the ideal structural content of Consciousness on the basis that this content is considered as an "illusion". That is another mistaking extreme of "mystical reductionism" that many "nondual" teachers and practitioners resort to but should be avoided. Let's just dump the "strawman" of this twisted understanding of "oneness in which the world is an illusion" and never mistake it with the authentic "oneness revealed in real structural diversity".

[AshvinP]

So, if we again take the above as a phenomenal experience rather than an abstract model, we come to the experiential realization that the structural content of forces and ideas on all levels of hierarchy simultaneously exist as simply phenomena and ideations of the same Consciousness created and experienced by the same Willing-Thinking-Feeling-Experiencing-Being. We can call it "Oneness in its hierarchical diversity". In this way we avoid the "mystical reductionism" without discarding the actual experience of Oneness.

And another key is, once these dualistic abstractions ("inside" and "outside", "separate me" etc) are refuted, and experiential oneness is realized (without discarding the reality of the hierarchical structure of forces), it substantially changes the perception of the world and the dynamics of the development of individuated streams of consciousness as they become functioning in a different "non-egoic" mode. The extent of the conscious participation and creative responsibility for the World Process substantially enhances since we no longer separate ourselves from the rest of Reality and no longer focus on pursuing our egoic goals associated with our sense of "separate me". That is because the sense of "separate me inside" is a force existing within our individual consciousness that activates and maintains the ancestral egoic survival mechanisms that do not concern in a least about the "World Process" and only preoccupied with the individual prosperity and survival within the content of individual human existence. At the evolutionary phase of humanoids this was a progressive and lawful force as it helped humanoids to survive in the wild, but at the current stage of humanity it became a de-evolutionary force that needs to be disengaged and left behind. Letting go of the sense of "separate me" removes the catalyzing force that maintains these egoic survival mechanisms so that they can be gradually disentangled from the structures of our consciousness.

But we can still use these abstract ideas of "outside" and "inside" in an utilitarian way in our everyday life without believing that they refer to any actual realities, just like engineers use abstract ideas from modern physics in engineering practice as practical recipes. I know as a spiritual practitioner that such thing as "current of electrons" may not refer to any actual phenomenal reality, yet without this abstract idea of "current of electrons" no electrical engineering practice would be possible (and the computers through which we communicate on this forum, and the forum itself, would not exist).

We don't disagree with anything you write here, but we keep pointing out the Oneness experiential realization you are describing, is the beginning of spiritual science. If we don't go further, we are eventually forced to make it an abstract model, because that's the only thing we can do with intellectual cognition.

You say the realization changes the perception of the world. Yet when reference is made to concrete spiritual scientific research in the various domains of science based on the expanded perceptual spectrum, you generally write it off as fantastic theories which are refuted by 'natural science' which is based on the narrowly restricted perceptual spectrum, i.e. that part of the spectrum which only reveals to us objects-processes which are decaying and dying. (which doesn't mean the spiritual scientific research is always perfectly accurate, but if it's in error, the reasons why have nothing to do with current natural scientific theories). I'm not sure if you had a chance to check out Cleric's in-depth post on the Levin models.

The question why we should experience such holistic patterns as consciousness is hard enough but it should be clear that even the simplest unicellular life is only assumed to be nothing but the dynamics of the physical pixels. There’s currently no scientific experiment which can tell if the laws of physics are enough. All our physical science and its remarkable mathematical precision, is entirely a science of what is dead. We can’t study the behavior of an electron unless we devise specific experiments where this electron is isolated in a very controlled system. The same holds for our study of the molecular dynamics in the biological cell. Our microscopes can’t see at the scale where molecules react. We can only study the chemical reactions of molecules that have been extracted from the living cell. Thus most of the fine details about molecular biology are conceptually patched together from our understanding of the separate steps of the chemical reactions. For example, videos such as the following are presently impossible to film directly. They represent our understanding of the separate chemical reactions and how they would fit together through time.

[video]

Watching animations like these leaves one wondering how could it be that molecules which are supposed to wiggle in their statistical Brownian dynamics, exhibit such orchestrated behavior. And indeed, the idea that the laws of physics, as we know them when studying isolated particles in highly controlled (constrained) experiments, are enough to explain the complicated dynamics of biological chemistry, is entirely an assumption. Presently, our computers are not powerful enough to fully simulate a simple macromolecule (such as folding of a protein), let alone a whole cell. But hopefully, if such simulations become possible and we load the blocks of biology, and begin to simulate their transformations frame by frame, it will be seen that we can only simulate a dying cell. The molecules will wiggle in their Brownian motions and soon everything falls apart into chaos.

So my question is this - is it conceivable to you that some people have already substantially transformed their cognition-perception to the point where the precise forces of life, soul-sentience, and thinking consciousness have been discerned and the gradient was established which allowed them to integrate the dynamics of these archetypal forces into modern scientific understanding of Earthly phenomena? For ex., what exactly happens with our body-soul-spirit organism when we go to sleep? Where do we go and what do we experience? What happens when we wake up? If we have progressed from abstract models of spiritual reality and its Oneness to living experiential knowledge, shouldn't the answers to these sorts of questions be something we can precisely discern?

[Federica]

What little you have hinted to in the way of clarification above, still makes me think I completely disagree with your points. WFT is absolutely within the given of experience. We have to start making concrete differentiations for inner activity if we want to get anywhere with our reasoning, especially in phenomenology.

As I wrote from the beginning, I agree with differentiating WFT, I made it very clear:

We first observe that our given experience consists of sense perceptions, feelings, and thoughts, as conscious phenomena (in more reasoned-out terms, it consists of thought-pictures of sense perceptions, thought-pictures of feelings, and other thought-pictures)

Experiential inquiry only allows us to take stock of thought-pictures, and they are of three types: sensory, that includes one's own physical body, feeling, and other thought-pictures.

My problem was a wrong understanding of what the Will is exactly, as I explained in my reply to Cleric.

***

The latter isn't about restricting ourselves to some hypothetical 'naive observer' and what he can or can't notice (notice the term "naive" was never used in Cleric's essay). In fact, we should assume we have an observer who is paying very close attention to the entire field of outer-inner experience and is soundly reasoning through that field at all times. Likewise, none of the TC spectrum phenomenology requires very philosophical terminology, but of course it can be used if we happen to be on a philosophy forum where it is likely to be understood. Otherwise the language can be adapted to the inner meaning which we intend to convey depending on the audience. Needless to say, the average 'joe six pack' will probably tune out no matter what language is used.

It might help to keep in mind that one of my preoccupations is to be able to convey some idea of living thinking to others. Maybe not to the average Joe six pack, but not the philosopher either.


***

The process of reintegration of concepts and percepts is part of the given, period. The only reason, which is an important reason, to speak of 'pure field of percepts' is to help the imagination discern what otherwise takes place subconsciously through the intuitive linking of percepts with concepts, as a matter of course. In other words, it addresses the standard objection that, 'I perceive a coherent world even without any reflective thinking'.

Well, after the period, I would start a new sentence and say: we agree on the usefulness of speaking of the field of percepts. But: if a process is unconscious, it's not an immediate given. The process cannot be "given". What is given is the finished package byproduct+concept. But the process is not: we have, as you say, to discern it, we have to carefully reason it out, we have to read and read again Max Leyf's essay, or PoF, to understand it. In my vocabulary, it sound counterintuitive to call such a thing "immediate given of experience", but well, it's a matter of agreeing on how we define things. If we want to establish that given=everything that can be reasoned out without abstract speculations, OK, then yes, the whole phenonenology of cognition can be called "the given".

Just as little is it legitimate to regard the sum of perceptual characteristics as the thing. It might be quite possible for a spirit to receive the concept at the same time as, and united with, the percept. It would never occur to such a spirit that the concept did not belong to the thing. It would have to ascribe to the concept an existence indivisibly bound up with the thing.

But the phenomenology of cognition is all about discerning, despite the simultaneity of concept-percept for intuitive perception, how our thought-perceptions which link percepts together in a more holistic fashion are part of the given, otherwise we can't make any progress. It must be understood that the concepts-ideas discerned through thinking are integral parts of the given.

Yes, Ashvin, it must be understood, and it is understood (here I have to repeat that I am the same person who wrote about the byproducts of cognition and all that stuff, on the other thread). But at this point, listen, why don't we eliminate the "given of experience" and only speak of phenomenology of cognition then? It would all be much more clear! When Cleric says:

Federica, I believe that you're taking a somewhat restricted view on what the given is. We should remember that we're dealing with living phenomenology. Thus the experiences of our spiritual activity should also be included into our investigations.

Do you understand he means the unconscious must be made conscious before one can continue to read about the time-consciousness spectrum? Is he assuming the reader fully understands PoF Part One through those few introductory lines in the T-C essay? Not exactly, I would say.

***

There are no assumptions about the 'nature' of time, memory, etc., only observation of the given fact that our thought-experiences are integrated into continuity of consciousness through whatever we refer to as 'memory' and 'time'.

I have explained in my reply to Cleric, how this depended on my misunderstanding of the use od Will.


***

If you feel these are 'admittedly boring points' and 'housework', why even make them? I don't think they are as tangential to a proper understanding of phenomenology of spiritual activity as you are making them seem to be right now. You have chosen very central points of the phenomenology to focus on, such as the WFT spectrum. And you also called into question the most central point of the entire phenomenological essay - "So, when we say that we feel more creatively responsible for some kind of phenomena and less of some others, it seems to me that we have left the given, and have started extracting rules."

It is often the case that we will have a solid understanding in one context and let it slip away in another context, for a variety of intellectual and soul reasons which are deeply rooted. That is nothing to be worried about, in fact it's completely natural part of esoteric development, as we venture into unfamiliar conceptual territory. But we should also try to make this aspect of our cognitive patterns more and more conscious when we have the opportunities to do so. If you feel I am completely off the mark here, set out to argue against you for no legitimate reason at all, and don't' want to discuss further, that's fine too, we can leave it.

At this point, including the comments I gave in my other reply, the point you raise here shouldn't require additional comments? I can still comment, if they do.

[Stranger]

We don't disagree with anything you write here, but we keep pointing out the Oneness experiential realization you are describing, is the beginning of spiritual science. If we don't go further, we are eventually forced to make it an abstract model, because that's the only thing we can do with intellectual cognition.

sure I agree, I stated many times that such realization of Oneness is only a beginning and not a stop for the ever-unfolding process of SS and further evolution of consciousness. I also stated that the realization of oneness does not make a person automatically omniscient (or in fact any more "scient" with respect to the knowledge of the laws and structures of the world).

You say the realization changes the perception of the world. Yet when reference is made to concrete spiritual scientific research in the various domains of science based on the expanded perceptual spectrum, you generally write it off as fantastic theories which are refuted by 'natural science' which is based on the narrowly restricted perceptual spectrum, i.e. that part of the spectrum which only reveals to us objects-processes which are decaying and dying. (which doesn't mean the spiritual scientific research is always perfectly accurate, but if it's in error, the reasons why have nothing to do with current natural scientific theories). I'm not sure if you had a chance to check out Cleric's in-depth post on the Levin models.

Oh sure, as a disillusioned scientist I know all the limitations of current natural sciences. Yet it would be silly to deny the practical usefulness of even that limited amount of knowledge achieved by the natural sciences. Notwithstanding all this very inaccurate and primitive understanding of the molecular biology, we were able to design COVID vaccines that saved millions of lives, or we could design microchips that allow our computers to work, even though, as a designer of those chips, I can assure you that we have very hazy understanding of how exactly the atoms and electrons behave in those chips.

So my question is this - is it conceivable to you that some people have already substantially transformed their cognition-perception to the point where the precise forces of life, soul-sentience, and thinking consciousness have been discerned and the gradient was established which allowed them to integrate the dynamics of these archetypal forces into modern scientific understanding of Earthly phenomena? For ex., what exactly happens with our body-soul-spirit organism when we go to sleep? Where do we go and what do we experience? What happens when we wake up? If we have progressed from abstract models of spiritual reality and its Oneness to living experiential knowledge, shouldn't the answers to these sorts of questions be something we can precisely discern?

Yes, it is quite conceivable that it is possible, certainly in the domains of our psychic life, including the sleeping states, subconscious (individual and collective) etc. There are certainly some areas of reality accessible to such SS. I was just skeptical of how much can be known by SS with respect to the aspects of the natural world, since I have not seen any evidences (from Steiner for example) that such transformed capabilities brought any breakthrough new discoveries in natural sciences.

From the practical perspective, the nondual realization does not help much in sciences, neither in SS nor in secular science. But one of the problems of humanity is that we are progressing in sciences and technology at an accelerating speed but are still stuck in egotistic cognitive and behavioral patterns of our ancestors. We became like "monkeys with nukes". We can clearly observe it now in the Ukrainian war where the mass destruction was brought and thousands of lives are lost because of the very narrow egotistic motivations of the political leaders supported by similar egotistic nationalistic motivations of the big part of the population in Russia. We can observe similar processes in Western politics and economy where the corporate world is mostly driven by greediness and political structures driven by a range of selfish motivations of the leaders. It is everywhere in our society. Likewise, the never-satisfied appetite for more and more possessions of average members of society bring the pollution of the Earth. Our egotism is also a source of mental suffering, psychological and psychiatric disfunctions in our individual lives when our inner life revolves only around "me and my interests" which brings us into conflict with the rest of reality. The egoic structures residing in individual and collective subconscious became a major impediment and anti-evolutionary force of humanity. The nondual realization addresses exactly this issue because it dismantles the "separate me struggling in the outer world" abstraction together with all the egoic complex of motivations, desires and behavioral-cognitive patterns built on the foundation of this "separate me" idea. This is not an abstract knowledge for me, I studied for quite a long time in meditations how my egoic motivations, thoughts, feelings and their patterns in my inner phenomenal experiences always arise from and refer to this idea-sense of "separate me", and the separate me idea grows on the foundation of the dualistic perception of reality. So, we can certainly study the structures and "integrate the dynamics of these archetypal forces into modern scientific understanding of Earthly phenomena", this is all certainly useful. But if we leave unnoticed this "skeleton in the wardrobe" of our "separate me" we will remain stuck in our stagnant egotistic and dualistic state both individually and collectively for as long as we keep the "skeleton" and hold on to it subconsciously.

[AshvinP]

What little you have hinted to in the way of clarification above, still makes me think I completely disagree with your points. WFT is absolutely within the given of experience. We have to start making concrete differentiations for inner activity if we want to get anywhere with our reasoning, especially in phenomenology.

As I wrote from the beginning, I agree with differentiating WFT, I made it very clear:

We first observe that our given experience consists of sense perceptions, feelings, and thoughts, as conscious phenomena (in more reasoned-out terms, it consists of thought-pictures of sense perceptions, thought-pictures of feelings, and other thought-pictures)

Experiential inquiry only allows us to take stock of thought-pictures, and they are of three types: sensory, that includes one's own physical body, feeling, and other thought-pictures.

My problem was a wrong understanding of what the Will is exactly, as I explained in my reply to Cleric.

***

The latter isn't about restricting ourselves to some hypothetical 'naive observer' and what he can or can't notice (notice the term "naive" was never used in Cleric's essay). In fact, we should assume we have an observer who is paying very close attention to the entire field of outer-inner experience and is soundly reasoning through that field at all times. Likewise, none of the TC spectrum phenomenology requires very philosophical terminology, but of course it can be used if we happen to be on a philosophy forum where it is likely to be understood. Otherwise the language can be adapted to the inner meaning which we intend to convey depending on the audience. Needless to say, the average 'joe six pack' will probably tune out no matter what language is used.

It might help to keep in mind that one of my preoccupations is to be able to convey some idea of living thinking to others. Maybe not to the average Joe six pack, but not the philosopher either.


***

Yes, I can sense that you are interested in refining the presentations to reach more people. I think that factored into your comments on my liminal spaces essay too. It's a very fine line to walk, because we want to make it as concrete and accessible as possible, but it also needs to 'strain' the intellect to the point where it starts to lift itself out of habitual patterns of abstract thinking through these existential issues. Generally the metaphors and analogies are the ideal means of striking that balance. But it's interesting because, as you can see in my initial response to Cleric's essay, I found, and still find, the TC spectrum to be the most accessible way of approaching a phenomenology of spiritual activity, perhaps even more so than PoF only because it's shorter and uses some modern metaphors/language. Naturally many topics of discussion from PoF are left out, which are also critical for further enlivening our understanding. Of course there is always room for refinement, but I just didn't feel the things you highlighted needed to be refined, but were foundational to the phenomenology and also pretty accessible.

The process of reintegration of concepts and percepts is part of the given, period. The only reason, which is an important reason, to speak of 'pure field of percepts' is to help the imagination discern what otherwise takes place subconsciously through the intuitive linking of percepts with concepts, as a matter of course. In other words, it addresses the standard objection that, 'I perceive a coherent world even without any reflective thinking'.

Well, after the period, I would start a new sentence and say: we agree on the usefulness of speaking of the field of percepts. But: if a process is unconscious, it's not an immediate given. The process cannot be "given". What is given is the finished package byproduct+concept. But the process is not: we have, as you say, to discern it, we have to carefully reason it out, we have to read and read again Max Leyf's essay, or PoF, to understand it. In my vocabulary, it sound counterintuitive to call such a thing "immediate given of experience", but well, it's a matter of agreeing on how we define things. If we want to establish that given=everything that can be reasoned out without abstract speculations, OK, then yes, the whole phenonenology of cognition can be called "the given".

Just as little is it legitimate to regard the sum of perceptual characteristics as the thing. It might be quite possible for a spirit to receive the concept at the same time as, and united with, the percept. It would never occur to such a spirit that the concept did not belong to the thing. It would have to ascribe to the concept an existence indivisibly bound up with the thing.

But the phenomenology of cognition is all about discerning, despite the simultaneity of concept-percept for intuitive perception, how our thought-perceptions which link percepts together in a more holistic fashion are part of the given, otherwise we can't make any progress. It must be understood that the concepts-ideas discerned through thinking are integral parts of the given.

Yes, Ashvin, it must be understood, and it is understood (here I have to repeat that I am the same person who wrote about the byproducts of cognition and all that stuff, on the other thread). But at this point, listen, why don't we eliminate the "given of experience" and only speak of phenomenology of cognition then? It would all be much more clear! When Cleric says:

Federica, I believe that you're taking a somewhat restricted view on what the given is. We should remember that we're dealing with living phenomenology. Thus the experiences of our spiritual activity should also be included into our investigations.

Do you understand he means the unconscious must be made conscious before one can continue to read about the time-consciousness spectrum? Is he assuming the reader fully understands PoF Part One through those few introductory lines in the T-C essay? Not exactly, I would say.

***

There are no assumptions about the 'nature' of time, memory, etc., only observation of the given fact that our thought-experiences are integrated into continuity of consciousness through whatever we refer to as 'memory' and 'time'.

I have explained in my reply to Cleric, how this depended on my misunderstanding of the use od Will.


***

If you feel these are 'admittedly boring points' and 'housework', why even make them? I don't think they are as tangential to a proper understanding of phenomenology of spiritual activity as you are making them seem to be right now. You have chosen very central points of the phenomenology to focus on, such as the WFT spectrum. And you also called into question the most central point of the entire phenomenological essay - "So, when we say that we feel more creatively responsible for some kind of phenomena and less of some others, it seems to me that we have left the given, and have started extracting rules."

It is often the case that we will have a solid understanding in one context and let it slip away in another context, for a variety of intellectual and soul reasons which are deeply rooted. That is nothing to be worried about, in fact it's completely natural part of esoteric development, as we venture into unfamiliar conceptual territory. But we should also try to make this aspect of our cognitive patterns more and more conscious when we have the opportunities to do so. If you feel I am completely off the mark here, set out to argue against you for no legitimate reason at all, and don't' want to discuss further, that's fine too, we can leave it.

At this point, including the comments I gave in my other reply, the point you raise here shouldn't require additional comments? I can still comment, if they do.

The intuitive perception is normally subconscious - in fact this is what allows for spatiotemporal representation of WFT activity - but the gradient of concept-percept integration will be normally conscious if we simply don't leave out our ever-present spiritual activity from our experience of the perceptual spectrum. Actually what is not really given, and needs to be imagined and reasoned out separate from real-time experience, is a 'pure field of percepts' which would be more like a chaotic, blooming, buzzing confusion. Most people will have no experience with such a state. But if we do something as simple as the object concentration exercise, and recognize what our thinking is doing in the process of discovering new details of the objects, then the integral relationship will be very evident. That is what Cleric also pointed to in the comment you quoted.

But if you feel that you have a good grasp of the WFT relationship in relation to the givens of our experience after Cleric's post, then I don't see any point debating this further. I certainly don't want to argue about what you did or didn't mean in your original post. That's the past and is only relevant to the extent it is still influencing your understanding now. Let me know if there are still any lingering issues.

[AshvinP]

We don't disagree with anything you write here, but we keep pointing out the Oneness experiential realization you are describing, is the beginning of spiritual science. If we don't go further, we are eventually forced to make it an abstract model, because that's the only thing we can do with intellectual cognition.

sure I agree, I stated many times that such realization of Oneness is only a beginning and not a stop for the ever-unfolding process of SS and further evolution of consciousness. I also stated that the realization of oneness does not make a person automatically omniscient (or in fact any more "scient" with respect to the knowledge of the laws and structures of the world).

You say the realization changes the perception of the world. Yet when reference is made to concrete spiritual scientific research in the various domains of science based on the expanded perceptual spectrum, you generally write it off as fantastic theories which are refuted by 'natural science' which is based on the narrowly restricted perceptual spectrum, i.e. that part of the spectrum which only reveals to us objects-processes which are decaying and dying. (which doesn't mean the spiritual scientific research is always perfectly accurate, but if it's in error, the reasons why have nothing to do with current natural scientific theories). I'm not sure if you had a chance to check out Cleric's in-depth post on the Levin models.

Oh sure, as a disillusioned scientist I know all the limitations of current natural sciences. Yet it would be silly to deny the practical usefulness of even that limited amount of knowledge achieved by the natural sciences. Notwithstanding all this very inaccurate and primitive understanding of the molecular biology, we were able to design COVID vaccines that saved millions of lives, or we could design microchips that allow our computers to work, even though, as a designer of those chips, I can assure you that we have very hazy understanding of how exactly the atoms and electrons behave in those chips.

So my question is this - is it conceivable to you that some people have already substantially transformed their cognition-perception to the point where the precise forces of life, soul-sentience, and thinking consciousness have been discerned and the gradient was established which allowed them to integrate the dynamics of these archetypal forces into modern scientific understanding of Earthly phenomena? For ex., what exactly happens with our body-soul-spirit organism when we go to sleep? Where do we go and what do we experience? What happens when we wake up? If we have progressed from abstract models of spiritual reality and its Oneness to living experiential knowledge, shouldn't the answers to these sorts of questions be something we can precisely discern?

Yes, it is quite conceivable that it is possible, certainly in the domains of our psychic life, including the sleeping states, subconscious (individual and collective) etc. There are certainly some areas of reality accessible to such SS. I was just skeptical of how much can be known by SS with respect to the aspects of the natural world, since I have not seen any evidences (from Steiner for example) that such transformed capabilities brought any breakthrough new discoveries in natural sciences.

From the practical perspective, the nondual realization does not help much in sciences, neither in SS nor in secular science. But one of the problems of humanity is that we are progressing in sciences and technology at an accelerating speed but are still stuck in egotistic cognitive and behavioral patterns of our ancestors. We became like "monkeys with nukes". We can clearly observe it now in the Ukrainian war where the mass destruction was brought and thousands of lives are lost because of the very narrow egotistic motivations of the political leaders supported by similar egotistic nationalistic motivations of the big part of the population in Russia. We can observe similar processes in Western politics and economy where the corporate world is mostly driven by greediness and political structures driven by a range of selfish motivations of the leaders. It is everywhere in our society. Likewise, the never-satisfied appetite for more and more possessions of average members of society bring the pollution of the Earth. Our egotism is also a source of mental suffering, psychological and psychiatric disfunctions in our individual lives when our inner life revolves only around "me and my interests" which brings us into conflict with the rest of reality. The egoic structures residing in individual and collective subconscious became a major impediment and anti-evolutionary force of humanity. The nondual realization addresses exactly this issue because it dismantles the "separate me struggling in the outer world" abstraction together with all the egoic complex of motivations, desires and behavioral-cognitive patterns built on the foundation of this "separate me" idea. This is not an abstract knowledge for me, I studied for quite a long time in meditations how my egoic motivations, thoughts, feelings and their patterns in my inner phenomenal experiences always arise from and refer to this idea-sense of "separate me", and the separate me idea grows on the foundation of the dualistic perception of reality. So, we can certainly study the structures and "integrate the dynamics of these archetypal forces into modern scientific understanding of Earthly phenomena", this is all certainly useful. But if we leave unnoticed this "skeleton in the wardrobe" of our "separate me" we will remain stuck in our stagnant egotistic and dualistic state both individually and collectively for as long as we keep the "skeleton" and hold on to it subconsciously.

Here is where the rubber meets the road. It is why we refer to the 'dualism of non-dualism', or how the natural plane is considered 'orthogonal' to the psychic and spiritual planes. When we proceed through inverted spiritual activity into higher modes of cognition, even only the Imaginative, there is no mistaking that the lawfulness of the natural domain, as studied by the natural sciences and its remarkable results so far, can only be made sense of when the perceptual spectrum is expanded into the lawfulness of higher worlds. In other words, we can't make sense of anything which occurs during our normal waking day, in a scientific way, without also understanding what happens to our organism within and from the spiritual worlds when we sleep. The latter is nothing other than what we also experience between death-rebirth. Of course we can only livingly understand this if our thinking is flexible and fluid enough not to be constrained by the dogma of linear time flow. Time-flow is the phenomenal manifestation of these nested WFT incarnational dynamics. Cleric has provided many helpful posts for grasping this nature of Time, including this TC spectrum essay. 

Likewise, we can't make sense of human history and its cultural progression, such as the scientific revolutions you previously commented on, without knowing the lawful dynamics which work into the physical plane from the activity between death-rebirth. As Cleric noted before:

This is actually the case. Steiner and other esotericists have explained how for example people who have great disdain for another nation create a very strong bond with the Folk Spirit of that nation and after death that bond swallows them, thus they incarnate in the very nation that they hated. So we can see how Karma is really weaved of such rhythmic interactions, as communicating vessels that are entangled in pendulum-like ebb and flow. Our evolutionary study consists of learning about these rhythms and consciously navigating them. Think of a two-man saw. There should be certain harmony between the persons if the job is to be done. When one pulls the other must push and vice versa. The chaos in the Earthly realm is that we have absolutely no awareness of these fractal layers of entanglement and we act as lumberjacks that push and pull randomly without any concern that the majority of our efforts conflict. The thing to beware of is not to imagine these entanglements as something mechanical. These are living relations of our spiritual life. In fact, the physical world can be conceived as such condensed form of spiritual Karma, where elemental beings are entangled in very rigid elastic relations.

But we don't need to get into all the details of how this lawful entanglement is taking place, which requires extensive living study (as indicated in that Steiner lesson on the other thread), but only to discern why this is the only possibility that makes logical sense of the elemental to archetypal spiritual spectrum. We need to really sense how our lawful becoming on the physical plane is an image of this - "The oneness of all things is much more overwhelming at that stage. It is as if we could immediately preconceive how any decision would ripple through the Cosmic fabric and what that will lead to. Thus our existence there is like constant communion with this board of Intelligent beings and we together seek creative solutions to the overall becoming of the Cosmic context." And it will become an ever more perfect image the more conscious we make ourselves of this relationship. That is the task of our Earthly evolution, and we will only feel like it is something distant and remote as long as we procrastinate on taking it up. Once the first steps are made, it is made very clear to us how our lives of intuitive becoming can only make sense in the context of this Ideal. We can only make sense of humanity's entire evolution in this context.

None of this is simply theoretical knowledge - it is exactly what can lead to the elimination of selfishness and egoism. When people can livingly sense how they were of a different gender, race, nationality, etc. in a previous incarnation, and how that previous incarnation is still lawfully working into the current one, how will this affect how they treat people in the current one? When they can livingly sense how all their economic, political, religious, etc. ideologies, which they are normally willing to spill blood over, precipitated in from the spiritual worlds very much independently of their own Earthly will? This is how scientific consciousness spirals into moral imagination in a concrete way through self-knowledge of the Spirit. It spirals in a way that can lead people to begin living, for the very first time, with a complete sense of responsibility for their neighbors, humanity, and the Earth organism as a whole, in all circumstances and at all times. When they are even willing to sacrifice their lives for others who they have never met - "greater Love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for a friend". Such a Love simply isn't possible through isolated mystical realizations. There is no cause for a duality of radical pessimism or optimism under this view, but only a realization that the outcome of Earthly evolution will only be as optimistic as we are able to imagine, inspire, and intuit in a fully conscious way. 

[Stranger]

Here is where the rubber meets the road. It is why we refer to the 'dualism of non-dualism', or how the natural plane is considered 'orthogonal' to the psychic and spiritual planes. When we proceed through inverted spiritual activity into higher modes of cognition, even only the Imaginative, there is no mistaking that the lawfulness of the natural domain, as studied by the natural sciences and its remarkable results so far, can only be made sense of when the perceptual spectrum is expanded into the lawfulness of higher worlds. In other words, we can't make sense of anything which occurs during our normal waking day, in a scientific way, without also understanding what happens to our organism within and from the spiritual worlds when we sleep. The latter is nothing other than what we also experience between death-rebirth. Of course we can only livingly understand this if our thinking is flexible and fluid enough not to be constrained by the dogma of linear time flow. Time-flow is the phenomenal manifestation of these nested WFT incarnational dynamics. Cleric has provided many helpful posts for grasping this nature of Time, including this TC spectrum essay. 

Oh, I think you misunderstood me again, I admit it may be partly my fault due to my imprecise explanations. I said many times that "there is nothing wrong with the mother Earth", there is nothing wrong with natural plane and it is not "orthogonal" to spiritual planes at all, it's surely all part of the vertical and lawful structure of the Cosmos. Likewise, in my dialog with Federica I pointed that there is nothing wrong with human perceptual filter. The duality has not much to do with the natural realm (although certain structures and laws may catalyze its development), the beings can live in dualistic state both in incarnate and discarnate forms.

What I meant is the structures we see in our human society (and likewise they exist in the societies of discarnate beings) built upon and developed from the dualistic perception of the world. For example, most of human political structures are based on the dualistic perception and egoic motivations stemming from it. Most of the materialistic science is built upon the dualistic models of the world. Most of corporate structures are built upon the egoic principles of greediness and competition which again stem from dualistic perception. Most of the human education is of the same kind. This is what is orthogonal to the spiritual nondual content and structures. This is not the structures of natural and material world per se, these are structures artificially built by humans (and other discarnate beings) upon the natural structures based on their abstracted and erroneous dualistic perception of reality. So, that is why I said that I have no interest in further studying all this body of dualistic human knowledge and human structures (as well as structures and knowledge of the discarnate dualistic realms) build on the erroneous dualistic perception of reality, because they are irrelevant and orthogonal to the authentic nondual structures of the spiritual realms.

But we don't need to get into all the details of how this lawful entanglement is taking place, which requires extensive living study (as indicated in that Steiner lesson on the other thread), but only to discern why this is the only possibility that makes logical sense of the elemental to archetypal spiritual spectrum. We need to really sense how our lawful becoming on the physical plane is an image of this - "The oneness of all things is much more overwhelming at that stage. It is as if we could immediately preconceive how any decision would ripple through the Cosmic fabric and what that will lead to. Thus our existence there is like constant communion with this board of Intelligent beings and we together seek creative solutions to the overall becoming of the Cosmic context." And it will become an ever more perfect image the more conscious we make ourselves of this relationship. That is the task of our Earthly evolution, and we will only feel like it is something distant and remote as long as we procrastinate on taking it up. Once the first steps are made, it is made very clear to us how our lives of intuitive becoming can only make sense in the context of this Ideal. We can only make sense of humanity's entire evolution in this context.

None of this is simply theoretical knowledge - it is exactly what can lead to the elimination of selfishness and egoism. When people can livingly sense how they were of a different gender, race, nationality, etc. in a previous incarnation, and how that previous incarnation is still lawfully working into the current one, how will this affect how they treat people in the current one? When they can livingly sense how all their economic, political, religious, etc. ideologies, which they are normally willing to spill blood over, precipitated in from the spiritual worlds very much independently of their own Earthly will? This is how scientific consciousness spirals into moral imagination in a concrete way through self-knowledge of the Spirit. It spirals in a way that can lead people to begin living, for the very first time, with a complete sense of responsibility for their neighbors, humanity, and the Earth organism as a whole, in all circumstances and at all times. When they are even willing to sacrifice their lives for others who they have never met - "greater Love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for a friend". Such a Love simply isn't possible through isolated mystical realizations. There is no cause for a duality of radical pessimism or optimism under this view, but only a realization that the outcome of Earthly evolution will only be as optimistic as we are able to imagine, inspire, and intuit in a fully conscious way. 

All you said about the Cosmic content is correct. But I think you may be still missing this metamorphic process of transitioning from dualistic to nondual states of consciousness. The dualistic phase was an epoch in human history that developed lawfully through natural conditions of humanoid evolution, however, it is coming to a dead end and stagnation. It is impossible to grow into higher levels of spiritual development without breaking through the dualistic perception and "separate me" egoic bubble. In order to reach to the higher levels, beings need to go through a metamorphic stage of leaving behind their egoic and dualistic structures of cognition and transforming/transcending to the nondual ones by rebuilding their state of consciousness starting from deep subconscious layers where the dualistic perception and the sense of "separate me" reside. IMO, this metamorphic transformation is the only viable solution for the progress of humanity. And as we all agree, this nondual transformation is a necessary but not sufficient step, humans also simultaneously need to expand the frontiers of their cognition and reach to the higher levels of the spiritual knowledge of all laws and structures as you rightly said.

[Federica]

Take a small object and place it in front of you. Place your hand as if you are about to grab it. Then begin to imagine how you take the object. As always, the more slowly and smoothly we do this imagining, the better. Repeat this imagining over and over again. At some point decide to actually take the object. Try to feel the difference. Naturally, the difference is very elusive. We can't point our finger at it. But yet undoubtedly we feel that we do something differently. We know how to steer our spiritual activity such that we not only imagine the movement but we actually perform it.

In this respect will is also something that we phenomenologically know about. Yes, it doesn't approach us as something that simply impresses into our observation. We know about will only through its active experience. Yet this experience is something phenomenological. It is given in the sense that we don't simply postulate it in the way we postulate parallel universes. There's something in our immediate experiences which makes the difference between only imagining the movement and actually performing it.

I’ve reflected further on that indefinable “something else” that characterizes the given of the bodily movement, between the thought-picture(s) of thinking intent and those of sensory perception of the movement. The best word or image I can find to describe it is that of a net. I first thought of 'battery'. A network of charging points would be my current best attempt.

The most telling example for me is the movement of getting out of bed in the morning. There are various thought intentions “Let’s get out of bed now” appearing here and there, with varying levels of intensity. They build a network of intention for the bodily will to later 'run over' the sensory threshold. They charge a 'network of batteries'. Then, in the moment the body finally pulls the cover aside and gets up, it’s like the body goes first and the thought follows: “Oh, it looks like I’m actually getting up now”.

This is for me the most helpful example, because for some reason there is some perceivable separation, or leeway, between the intention and the bodily will (unlike in most body movements) therefore there’s an opportunity to observe and ponder the gesture of the bodily will a little more in isolation.


I also feel an urge to explore this bodily gesture in connection with past events, for example by living through a ski accident again, that I had years ago, and still remember vividly. What was the nature of the bodily gesture that made the flow of becoming abruptly run out of balance and break? I'm trying to decipher that... also in connection with all the accidents we narrowly avoided, often without even realizing it (but sometimes, realizing it)