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Re: Phenomenology and Praxis: Philosophical Questions Not Asked Enough

Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2021 12:39 pm
by AshvinP
Shajan624 wrote: Sun Sep 05, 2021 10:36 am
AshvinP wrote: Fri Sep 03, 2021 5:04 pm We don't need to assume anything about the nature of the mental realm right now (although if we can agree there is only mental realm and no realms of different essence, i.e. idealism, that would help). We only need to answer the question of whether the assumptions arise from people independently figuring out or being told the meaning of "triangle", and/or whether we are drawing on, for all intents and purposes, a pre-existing transpersonal meaning of "triangle". Do you think we can confidently answer that question?
Mathematical forms appear to be related to the ‘grammar of thinking’. That’s all we can say to begin with if we don’t make any assumptions about the nature of the mental realm.

I am curious how this can be extended to non-mathematical forms, for example what are thought forms associated with ‘seeing colour red’ and can it be communicated to another person like we could with the triangle form?
AshvinP wrote: But, the overall point being, if we start with our conclusions and their disagreements, there is really nowhere left to go. Instead we should start with what can be easily agreed upon in the givens of our experience, without any added assumptions or biases from our respective presupposed conclusions, and see what conclusions naturally flow from those agreements.
Reality of consciousness and the inner urge to find comprehensible patterns from experience - these are my starting points and no other assumptions.

The collection of such patterns were known as ‘natural philosophy’ earlier, but now simply ‘science’. Strangely, science of life has come to view consciousness as unreal, contradicting my felt certainty of its reality. IMO, we should enquire into the roots of scientific knowledge to understand science’s problem with consciousness.

Scientific knowledge grew exponentially in the past 300 years. Practically there was no such knowledge a couple of thousand years ago. How/why did the ‘third person view’ begin and how did it reach such a dominant position in a short span of time?

Shajan,

So it sounds like we can agree there is a "grammar of thinking" i.e. meaningful structure to experience, which is shared by thinking beings such as humans, and all experience contains this shared cognitive element?

re: color red - that brings us to territory where we must specificy all the possible details in the context of the color perception. I am sure we can agree there is no experience where we experience "redness" in isolation. I do hold there are shared qualities of color-experience we can explore, but it will require extra effort for that reason. That is why it is much easier to begin with mathematical objects which can be formed within and are self-contained. Even if we form the color red impression without seeing the color, we are going to do so in a specific context of other qualities.

The reason for the third person scientific view is many layered. On a relatively surface level, we could say it's the rise of rationalism and dualism in the 15th to 16th centuries, which isolated inward mental stuff from outtward material stuff. Once we put that in the overall context of cognitive evolution, we may add that its part of a natural progression towards the sovereignty of the individual as locus of Thinking activity which will make possible integration of experience from differentiation. I further conclude that overall progression is the result of evolving activity of living spiritual beings who are responsible for our thoughts and feelings and corresponding physiological processes, yet are supersensible to normal present day cognition. Clearly we will disagree on at least one if not two or all of those, definitely the last one. Which is why it does not really make sense to start with the question of why. But if you want to provide your answer maybe we can find some areas of agreement within the inner logic of the evolutionary progression.

Re: Phenomenology and Praxis: Philosophical Questions Not Asked Enough

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2021 10:35 am
by Shajan624
AshvinP wrote: Sun Sep 05, 2021 12:39 pm
Shajan624 wrote: Sun Sep 05, 2021 10:36 am
AshvinP wrote: Fri Sep 03, 2021 5:04 pm
AshvinP wrote:
The reason for the third person scientific view is many layered. On a relatively surface level, we could say it's the rise of rationalism and dualism in the 15th to 16th centuries, which isolated inward mental stuff from outtward material stuff. Once we put that in the overall context of cognitive evolution, we may add that its part of a natural progression towards the sovereignty of the individual as locus of Thinking activity which will make possible integration of experience from differentiation. I further conclude that overall progression is the result of evolving activity of living spiritual beings who are responsible for our thoughts and feelings and corresponding physiological processes, yet are supersensible to normal present day cognition. Clearly we will disagree on at least one if not two or all of those, definitely the last one. Which is why it does not really make sense to start with the question of why. But if you want to provide your answer maybe we can find some areas of agreement within the inner logic of the evolutionary progression.
Ashvin:

I view evolution as the process through which ‘fundamental substance’ (universal mind) expresses its creativity in patterns of increasing beauty and complexity.

Before we could talk about ‘creative evolution’ in a meaningful way we should make an effort to answer the question ‘what am I?’ This is important because ‘I’ am the investigator as well as a key player in this unfolding drama.

Life on earth began as simple molecules and after 3.5 billion years has resulted in the human species capable of reflecting on its own thinking. Universal mind ‘devised’ various tools creativity in the course of evolution. Physical survival is the greatest of creative needs for every organism. The earliest tools were meant to support and enhance organism's survival.

Now here is the most crucial part - emergence of meta-cognition (self-awareness) as the latest tool for the universal mind to reflect and ‘know’ itself.

‘Knowing’ was not differentiated from ‘being’ until the appearance of self-aware man. The ability to be self-aware was risky. It introduced an element of estrangement and fear between man and the rest of nature, leading to a new type of detached, ‘being independent’ knowing. 'I' am this tiny offshoot of the universal mind that grew to become self-aware, a representation of the meta-cognitive ‘eye’ of the universal mind. At the same time 'I' view universal mind with fear and distrust because it is forever beyond my representational capacity.

History of human species is the unfolding dynamics of this estrangement. The split began long ago but crossed a critical threshold limit around axial age, leading to insightful individuals recognising the danger inherent in this division and re-asserting individual mind’s true relationship with universal mind. But the ‘new man’ grew bolder over time, blinded by the power of ever growing patterns of representations, forgetting his source and declaring independence in a universe devoid of meaning.

Re: Phenomenology and Praxis: Philosophical Questions Not Asked Enough

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2021 1:31 pm
by AshvinP
Shajan624 wrote: Mon Sep 06, 2021 10:35 am
AshvinP wrote: Sun Sep 05, 2021 12:39 pm
Shajan624 wrote: Sun Sep 05, 2021 10:36 am
The reason for the third person scientific view is many layered. On a relatively surface level, we could say it's the rise of rationalism and dualism in the 15th to 16th centuries, which isolated inward mental stuff from outtward material stuff. Once we put that in the overall context of cognitive evolution, we may add that its part of a natural progression towards the sovereignty of the individual as locus of Thinking activity which will make possible integration of experience from differentiation. I further conclude that overall progression is the result of evolving activity of living spiritual beings who are responsible for our thoughts and feelings and corresponding physiological processes, yet are supersensible to normal present day cognition. Clearly we will disagree on at least one if not two or all of those, definitely the last one. Which is why it does not really make sense to start with the question of why. But if you want to provide your answer maybe we can find some areas of agreement within the inner logic of the evolutionary progression.
Ashvin:

I view evolution as the process through which ‘fundamental substance’ (universal mind) expresses its creativity in patterns of increasing beauty and complexity.

Before we could talk about ‘creative evolution’ in a meaningful way we should make an effort to answer the question ‘what am I?’ This is important because ‘I’ am the investigator as well as a key player in this unfolding drama.

Life on earth began as simple molecules and after 3.5 billion years has resulted in the human species capable of reflecting on its own thinking. Universal mind ‘devised’ various tools creativity in the course of evolution. Physical survival is the greatest of creative needs for every organism. The earliest tools were meant to support and enhance organism's survival.

Now here is the most crucial part - emergence of meta-cognition (self-awareness) as the latest tool for the universal mind to reflect and ‘know’ itself.

‘Knowing’ was not differentiated from ‘being’ until the appearance of self-aware man. The ability to be self-aware was risky. It introduced an element of estrangement and fear between man and the rest of nature, leading to a new type of detached, ‘being independent’ knowing. 'I' am this tiny offshoot of the universal mind that grew to become self-aware, a representation of the meta-cognitive ‘eye’ of the universal mind. At the same time 'I' view universal mind with fear and distrust because it is forever beyond my representational capacity.

History of human species is the unfolding dynamics of this estrangement. The split began long ago but crossed a critical threshold limit around axial age, leading to insightful individuals recognising the danger inherent in this division and re-asserting individual mind’s true relationship with universal mind. But the ‘new man’ grew bolder over time, blinded by the power of ever growing patterns of representations, forgetting his source and declaring independence in a universe devoid of meaning.

I disagree with all of the first part. It appears you are taking materialist and reductionist assumptions and mapping them onto idealism. When we get to dawning self-awareness in humanity, I agree, but I don't see it as some epiphenomenal or independent process which occurs apart from phenomenal nature. Instead I hold that it results from the essential, i.e. eternal, infinite, universal, etc., "I" descending into the human soul and thereby allowing the co-arising of differentiated form in Nature. That shift towards a more spiritual idealist perspective makes a big difference.

The biggest is that now self-awareness is inherent to the eternal Spirit. And it is through the integral evolutionary process that fragmented form comes to remember its essential nature as eternal Spirit. So there is definitely reonciliation with division from "MAL", but the nature of MAL is not blind instinctive Will or anything similar. The essential Spirit is what allows our representational capcity to be overcome so that we may directly experience and know our essential relations with the Whole of Cosmic being. This is a systematic exploration of that living essence and not simply a mystical feeling of Oneness with the Whole.

So, as I have been saying, we have reached very different conclusions. The only way to meaningfully explore those differences and perhaps seen where one or the other has gone astray is to start with givens of our current experience without any assumptions about the metaphysical nature of MAL or the evolutionaey process billions or millions or even thousands of years ago. At that point we have already diverged in a major way which affects all further reasoning.