Cleric's Responses to Mystical Metaphysics (or How to Make a Logical Argument)

[Eugene I]

This is what we keep trying to point out to you, Eugene. You are an unconscious materialist-dualist, as in you are not aware that you are one. Only those worldviews can coherently hold to the correspondence theory of truth that you are holding to, evidenced many times by phrases like the one in bold. Coherently as in the CTT does not automatically go against their metaphysical worldview of mind in here and matter out there (but eventually the logic breaks down), like it automatically finds itself at 100% odds with any consistent idealism. This is why we need to be more direct and point you towards the unconscious biases and beliefs you are holding to when you evaluate philosophy and science in general. These are biases purely born of the modern age and it's easy to directly see how they developed in the course of Western history. Cleric and myself have written directly about this history too many times to count.

You are saying that I have biases towards materialism simply because I allow for an in-principle possibility for it it to be true. And this is exactly what sectarianism does: it considers any possibility of its views to be wrong as a complete heresy and impossibility. However, in science and philosophy allowing for a possibility to be wrong and possibility of alternative views to be right is considered a healthy and productive approach, because it is the only way to make sure that science and philosophy will never be stuck in a stagnant belief system and will keep developing (unfortunately, in reality we still see a lot of sectarianism in science and philosophy, but this is not how it is supposed to be). So, by stating the above you simply demonstrate that you position is sectarian.

So now, I'm saying exactly the same to you: it is you who has unconscious beliefs and biases towards you version of idealism of choice. And there is nothing wrong with having beliefs or biases, we all do, but they become problematic when they become unconscious and people become reluctant to admit them as being just beliefs.

[AshvinP]

The pragmatic approach says "what actually exists must be that which is knowable in principle and holds practical significance for our experience of the World Content". It completely rejects the assertion that there can be "actually existing" 'things' which we could never know or experience. Of course this is the natural conclusion of idealism as well if it is consistently applied. Scott mentions this in his essay on "How Idealism Simplifies Metaphysics":

The funny thing is: the Reality as it IS does not care about your approaches to it, it does not care if your pragmatic approach rejects the actually existing things that we can never know. They may still ontologically exist and have nothing to do with any of your epistemological or pragmatic approaches. A parallel universe may perfectly exist not caring even a bit whether your pragmatic approach rejects such existence. And you can not make it disappear or not exist by exercising all of your pragmatic approaches

This is what we keep trying to point out to you, Eugene. You are an unconscious materialist-dualist, as in you are not aware that you are one. Only those worldviews can coherently hold to the correspondence theory of truth that you are holding to, evidenced many times by phrases like the one in bold. Coherently as in the CTT does not automatically go against their metaphysical worldview of mind in here and matter out there (but eventually the logic breaks down), like it automatically finds itself at 100% odds with any consistent idealism. This is why we need to be more direct and point you towards the unconscious biases and beliefs you are holding to when you evaluate philosophy and science in general. These are biases purely born of the modern age and it's easy to directly see how they developed in the course of Western history. Cleric and myself have written directly about this history too many times to count.

So it's like this:

We try to point out these modern dualist prejudices you and Adur hold to (and others, but you guys write the longest posts by far, so it's much easier to see). Cleric takes a much more patient and gentle approach compared to me, but you equally dismiss, misrepresent, and generally fail to understand the same points both of us are making. Then we point this out to you guys and the ego naturally becomes defensive, because the ego is the one being directly challenged by us. You get feelings of extreme frustration and incredulity and whatever else in relation to our posts, but you misidentify the reasons for those feelings in what we are writing rather than what your own ego is doing in the background. It is no coincidence that the flattened view of the subconscious has a hard time perceiving forces which 'stand behind' the conscious experiences as well - it's all flattened out by the ego.

But now Cleric and I are caught between a rock and a hard place, for the reasons above. We are simultaneously trying to challenge the very same ego we are trying to convince (or at least make aware) of our perspective. Our appeals never actually reach the deeper reasoning of the Spirit-Self. So let me try turning it around. Earlier Cleric wrote in a comment, "I love Eugene". I have been thinking about that a lot since he wrote it. What allows Cleric to write that and truly mean it, when I do not feel it and therefore have no inclination to express it? What I conclude is that my intellectual ego still retains too much control and lives in superficial emotions. I cannot say "I love Eugene" because I truly do not. Why do I not? Because I have not come to enough deeper knowledge of my own soul yet and its interconnections to others. You see, it is truly through knowledge that our lives are enriched and we come to express our deepest shared human qualities of being.

Cleric can say "I love Eugene" because he truly feels it and means it. Anthroposophy does not ask us to throw around any pleasantries and niceities unless we actually know it and feel it and desire it within our deepest Self. Anything short of that is a lie that we speak to ourselves and all such lies will stunt our Self-knowledge. This is also why Christian spirituality places such a high value on speaking truth above all else. It is why Dante put the cheaters and betrayers and liars in the lowest rung of Hell. They are truly cheating and betraying their own souls and their own highest potential. This is why PoF is not just another treatise on how the "phenomenon" can lead to "noumenon" and what not. That is important only to the extent it is understood as a concrete reality which, upon discovering its reality in our own Thinking, will impell us to re-investigate all else about our experience in the world, and most importantly our own inner experiences, of our own volition. That is how, via enriching knowledge, those experiences are transfigured, baptized, reborn, born again through the Spirit.

With all of that said, I feel pretty confident in saying, if your response is just another of the sort you have been posting here, about how "reality does not care about our approach to it", then there is absolutely no point of me expanding further or trying to give another illustration of the same points regarding our concrete participatory Thinking in the world. There is simply no desire to understand it whatsoever.

[Eugene I]

Cleric can say "I love Eugene" because he truly feels it and means it. Anthroposophy does not ask us to throw around any pleasantries and niceities unless we actually know it and feel it and desire it within our deepest Self. Anything short of that is a lie that we speak to ourselves and all such lies will stunt our Self-knowledge. This is also why Christian spirituality places such a high value on speaking truth above all else. It is why Dante put the cheaters and betrayers and liars in the lowest rung of Hell. They are truly cheating and betraying their own souls and their highest potential.

Right, that is why historically Christians excommunicated and burnt to stakes anyone who would dare to question the "truth" as it was exactly stated by the Church with no doubts or alternatives allowed. This is because Christianity was founded on a firm belief that the Ultimate Truth is revealed to it in its fullness, so any alternative views by default were considered as wrong and as a heresy. This is exactly sectarianism, and the unspeakable atrocities in the history of Christianly is a direct consequence of its sectarianism, and that is why sectarianism is so dangerous.

And you are simply following the same sectarian path - you have no doubts that the truth was revealed to you and you are "speaking the truth above all else", and therefore you consider any view that does not align with yours by default undoubtedly wrong, and not just wrong, but a lie and a cheat and deserves to be punished in hell. This is simply an old good Christian fanatic sectarianism disguised under a label of the "Philosophy of Freedom"

And the sad thing is: all those poor Christian heretics were actually believers in God, but not exactly aligned with the Church teachings, and that was enough for the Church to kill them. Likewise, I'm a believer in the Divine and in idealism, but not exactly in the way aligned with your views, and that is enough for you to label me as a cheater and betrayer of the truth (your version of the truth of course).

[Lou Gold]

This is what we keep trying to point out to you, Eugene. You are an unconscious materialist-dualist, as in you are not aware that you are one. Only those worldviews can coherently hold to the correspondence theory of truth that you are holding to, evidenced many times by phrases like the one in bold. Coherently as in the CTT does not automatically go against their metaphysical worldview of mind in here and matter out there (but eventually the logic breaks down), like it automatically finds itself at 100% odds with any consistent idealism. This is why we need to be more direct and point you towards the unconscious biases and beliefs you are holding to when you evaluate philosophy and science in general. These are biases purely born of the modern age and it's easy to directly see how they developed in the course of Western history. Cleric and myself have written directly about this history too many times to count.

You are saying that I have biases towards materialism simply because I allow for an in-principle possibility for it it to be true. And this is exactly what sectarianism does: it considers any possibility of its views to be wrong as a complete heresy and impossibility. However, in science and philosophy allowing for a possibility to be wrong and possibility of alternative views to be right is considered a healthy and productive approach, because it is the only way to make sure that science and philosophy will never be stuck in a stagnant belief system and will keep developing (unfortunately, in reality we still see a lot of sectarianism in science and philosophy, but this is not how it is supposed to be). So, by stating the above you simply demonstrate that you position is sectarian.

So now, I'm saying exactly the same to you: it is you who has unconscious beliefs and biases towards you version of idealism of choice. And there is nothing wrong with having beliefs or biases, we all do, but they become problematic when they become unconscious and people become reluctant to admit them as being just beliefs.

Perhaps it just boils down to "it takes two to tango" and, as these forum pages amply reveal, the dance seems inexhaustible. I confess to have learned interesting stuff as a non-philosopher observer and of regularly arriving at a point of feeling exhausted. Perhaps, I'm just an old guy.

As a matter of pure curiosity, I wonder if anyone has actually met in this corporeal existence a person (not a writing of or about some luminary) who does not have unconscious beliefs that determine their personal choice of a model that best serves the evolution of their being? And does not the practice and pursuit of a chosen model require that it be viewed as an absolute TRUTH? For me this was a great insight of Kastrup's "More Than Allegory" and attracted me to this forum, which seems now to have unrelentingly drifted toward something else.

[Martin_]

Hey, just because everything is consciousness doesn't automatically make "truth" identical to what we know. Knowledge does not have to be the same as consciousness. There can be consciousness without thinking, and thus, without knowledge.

Secondly; Are you calling the entire Red Team dualists? Careful now, or i might just have to come over and slap you in the face with a glove.

I'm currently reading PoF, and it's a good read, but i'm having a hard time reconciling/interpreting some of the sections. Maybe it's like what you said Ashvin; it's just a book; not Wittgenstein's Tractatus; and I should stop being so technical and expecting Steiner to rigourously define each and every term along the way.

Still though; take this part as an example

Observation and thinking are the two points of departure for all the spiritual striving of man, in so far as he is conscious of such striving. The workings of common sense, as well as the most complicated scientific researches, rest on these two fundamental pillars of our spirit. Philosophers have started from various primary antitheses: idea and reality, subject and object, appearance and thing-in-itself, “I” and “Not-I”, idea and will, concept and matter, force and substance, the conscious and the unconscious. It is easy to show, however, that all these antitheses must be preceded by that of observation and thinking, this being for man the most important one.

Whatever principle we choose to lay down, we must either prove that somewhere we have observed it, or we must enunciate it in the form of a clear thought which can be re-thought by any other thinker. Every philosopher who sets out to discuss his fundamental principles must express them in conceptual form and thus use thinking. He therefore indirectly admits that his activity presupposes thinking. Whether thinking or something else is the chief factor in the evolution of the world will not be decided at this point. But that without thinking, the philosopher can gain no knowledge of such evolution, is clear from the start. In the occurrence of the world phenomena, thinking may play a minor part; but in the forming of a view about them, there can be no doubt that, its part is a leading one.

As regards observation, our need of it is due to the way we are constituted. Our thinking about a horse and the object “horse” are two things which for us emerge apart from each other. This object is accessible to us only by means of observation. As little as we can form a concept of a horse by merely staring at the animal, just as little are we able by mere thinking to produce a corresponding object.

In sequence of time, observation does in fact come before thinking. For even thinking we must get to know first through observation. It was essentially a description of an observation when, at the beginning of this chapter, we gave an account of how thinking lights up in the presence of an event and goes beyond what is merely presented. Everything that enters the circle of our experience, we first become aware of through observation. The content of sensation, perception and contemplation, all feelings, acts of will, dreams and fancies, mental pictures, concepts and ideas, all illusions and hallucinations, are given to us through observation.

My summary: "Before we can make any statements about the world, we first need to observe it, and then think about it."

That's a lot of words saying something which is quite obvious. What did I miss?

[AshvinP]

Cleric can say "I love Eugene" because he truly feels it and means it. Anthroposophy does not ask us to throw around any pleasantries and niceities unless we actually know it and feel it and desire it within our deepest Self. Anything short of that is a lie that we speak to ourselves and all such lies will stunt our Self-knowledge. This is also why Christian spirituality places such a high value on speaking truth above all else. It is why Dante put the cheaters and betrayers and liars in the lowest rung of Hell. They are truly cheating and betraying their own souls and their highest potential.

Right, that is why historically Christians excommunicated and burnt to stakes anyone who would dare to question the "truth" as it was exactly stated by the Church with no doubts or alternatives allowed. This is because Christianity was founded on a firm belief that the Ultimate Truth is revealed to it in its fullness, so any alternative views by default were considered as wrong and as a heresy. This is exactly sectarianism, and the unspeakable atrocities in the history of Christianly is a direct consequence of its sectarianism, and that is why sectarianism is so dangerous.

And you are simply following the same sectarian path - you have no doubts that the truth was revealed to you and you are "speaking the truth above all else", and therefore you consider any view that does not align with yours by default undoubtedly wrong, and not just wrong, but a lie and a cheat and deserves to be punished in hell. This is simply an old good Christian fanatic sectarianism disguised under a label of the "Philosophy of Freedom"

And the sad thing is: all those poor Christian heretics were actually believers in God, but not exactly aligned with the Church teachings, and that was enough for the Church to kill them. Likewise, I'm a believer in the Divine and in idealism, but not exactly in the way aligned with your views, and that is enough for you to label me as a cheater and betrayer of the truth (your version of the truth of course).

No, I just explained to why the highest value is placed on truth. It is the means by which we align our inner spiritual activities into harmonious pursuit of higher potential. Not just us personally, but societies as a whole (which are, of course, comprised of many individuals). You are using the most superficial "historical" cliches to reinforce your own ego-fueled antipathy for anything which asks the ego to serve a higher wholeness. Real history shows that human beings lived in an extremely fragmented and bloody state of perpetual war with each other until these impulses towards shared truth and knowledge manifested. Obviously it is a work in progress, but that should go without saying to anyone who has already abandoned Newtonian static view and adopted an evolutionary perspective.

Notice how what Cleric writes, and myself more recently, always tries to connect what is written to our concrete experience of the world. What you write is just a concoction of pure abstractions, and they aren't even original ones. Your ego has commandeered the most cliche talking points to its fanatical cause of denying reality of anything beyond itself. Everything is inverted and projected by the ego - its own prejudices, sectarianism (i.e. perpetual fragmentation which you directly endorsed in recent comments), intolerance, etc. are projected onto everyone else who challenges it. It's really a very sad sight to see, like a wounded animal who is cornered and can only think to fight for its survival. I'm not being coy when I say that... it's really how I perceive what's happening.

But your last comment, as if I should have expected anything different, really puts a lid on any further possibility of productive discussion here. I would really be a fool to think it will go any differently, no matter what Cleric or myself writes, no matter how gently loving or sternly critical we are. It really doesn't matter at this point, other than to inform others of what is happening in your comments, in case it was not already clear. But I hope we have finally reached a point where even that is not necessary.

[Eugene I]

As a matter of pure curiosity, I wonder if anyone has actually met in this corporeal existence a person (not a writing of or about some luminary) who does not have unconscious beliefs that determine their personal choice of a model that best serves the evolution of their being? And does not the practice and pursuit of a chosen model require that it be viewed as an absolute TRUTH? For me this was a great insight of Kastrup's "More Than Allegory" and attracted me to this forum, which seems now to have unrelentingly drifted toward something else.

Such people are indeed rare and I can't claim I belong to that crew, but this is a constant work in progress for me. I think the difficulty to accomplish this is rooted in our ego-structure - in the fear of uncertainty and unknown, because the unknown and uncertainty has always been a threat to survival for our ancestors. For many people just allowing for a possibility that they may not know the ultimate truth is so terrifying that they simply cannot sanely exist without a firm belief in at least some version of the ultimate truth. But that a recipe for trouble, because there is a vast variety of different possible formulations of the ultimate truth, and so inevitably different people cling to different formulations and become conflicting with each others because they consider other people attaching to other versions of truth to be infidels and enemies. This is the root cause of all religious and ideological wars and atrocities in the history. And nobody would expect them to give up their beliefs, the problem is not in beliefs, but in not allowing for even a possibility for their beliefs to be wrong. It would simply take to admit "I believe in such and such, but I may be wrong", and millions of lives could be saved.

"I believe that one of the greatest mistakes made by human beings is to want certainties when trying to understand something"
Carl Rovelli

[Martin_]

As a matter of pure curiosity, I wonder if anyone has actually met in this corporeal existence a person (not a writing of or about some luminary) who does not have unconscious beliefs that determine their personal choice of a model that best serves the evolution of their being?

How would I know if I did? Would they even know? And if neither of us know, did it truly happen?

And does not the practice and pursuit of a chosen model require that it be viewed as an absolute TRUTH?

No but it becomes more powerful if you do.

this forum, which seems now to have unrelentingly drifted toward something else.

agreed.

[AshvinP]

Hey, just because everything is consciousness doesn't automatically make "truth" identical to what we know. Knowledge does not have to be the same as consciousness. There can be consciousness without thinking, and thus, without knowledge.

Secondly; Are you calling the entire Red Team dualists? Careful now, or i might just have to come over and slap you in the face with a glove.

Martin,

Thanks for your comment. Yes, the unexamined dualism is really what underlies Schopenhauer's inability to see self-aware cognition as the factor which unites the World Content (including instinctual will) into coherent and meaningful wholes, just like it underlie Kant's inability to see the same. I would actually love for you to strap on the gloves and take a shot, as no one has landed a punch in what seems like forever. It has been more like drunk fans, who refuse to get in the ring, throwing empty beer cans at Cleric and myself every once in awhile

I'm currently reading PoF, and it's a good read, but i'm having a hard time reconciling/interpreting some of the sections. Maybe it's like what you said Ashvin; it's just a book; not Wittgenstein's Tractatus; and I should stop being so technical and expecting Steiner to rigourously define each and every term along the way.

Still though; take this part as an example

Observation and thinking are the two points of departure for all the spiritual striving of man, in so far as he is conscious of such striving. The workings of common sense, as well as the most complicated scientific researches, rest on these two fundamental pillars of our spirit. Philosophers have started from various primary antitheses: idea and reality, subject and object, appearance and thing-in-itself, “I” and “Not-I”, idea and will, concept and matter, force and substance, the conscious and the unconscious. It is easy to show, however, that all these antitheses must be preceded by that of observation and thinking, this being for man the most important one.

Whatever principle we choose to lay down, we must either prove that somewhere we have observed it, or we must enunciate it in the form of a clear thought which can be re-thought by any other thinker. Every philosopher who sets out to discuss his fundamental principles must express them in conceptual form and thus use thinking. He therefore indirectly admits that his activity presupposes thinking. Whether thinking or something else is the chief factor in the evolution of the world will not be decided at this point. But that without thinking, the philosopher can gain no knowledge of such evolution, is clear from the start. In the occurrence of the world phenomena, thinking may play a minor part; but in the forming of a view about them, there can be no doubt that, its part is a leading one.

As regards observation, our need of it is due to the way we are constituted. Our thinking about a horse and the object “horse” are two things which for us emerge apart from each other. This object is accessible to us only by means of observation. As little as we can form a concept of a horse by merely staring at the animal, just as little are we able by mere thinking to produce a corresponding object.

In sequence of time, observation does in fact come before thinking. For even thinking we must get to know first through observation. It was essentially a description of an observation when, at the beginning of this chapter, we gave an account of how thinking lights up in the presence of an event and goes beyond what is merely presented. Everything that enters the circle of our experience, we first become aware of through observation. The content of sensation, perception and contemplation, all feelings, acts of will, dreams and fancies, mental pictures, concepts and ideas, all illusions and hallucinations, are given to us through observation.

My summary: "Before we can make any statements about the world, we first need to observe it, and then think about it."

That's a lot of words saying something which is quite obvious. What did I miss?

You missed quite a lot, but I am assuming that is because you stopped reading there for now to ask a question. If you keep reading, then you will see how all of this is preparing the groundwork for the phenomenology of Thinking which is, in fact, revolutionary. You will come upon a chapter where he explicitly compares his view to other major modern philosophies, including idealism of Schopenhauer, just to make clear the significance. At that point, I highly doubt you will still think that what he is writing is "quite obvious" to anyone in the modern age, since it pretty much goes against all other modern philosophical views which are commonly held. Not just materialism and rationalism-dualism, but many forms of idealism and the naive realism which is incorporated into those (I am assuming you are pretty familiar with all of those term).

I am not going to state the conclusions, because, since you are already reading it, the process of following the phenomenology and logical progression for oneself is very important. Here I will just say the following - Steiner is outlining the basics of how the World Content appears to us as split into outward percept and inner concept; observation and thinking. It is important to remember he has not actually reached any conclusions at this point in his phenomenology. So, he has not posited that "observation" and "thinking" are two entirely different processes in Reality or that they are the same process expressed in two different ways. That is why it is "phenomenology" - he is only dealing with how the World Content presents itself to us in our immanent experience.

PS - I know most here are aware of the very general conclusions, such as the one I stated in the first part of my response to you, since we mention them often, but here I mean all the 'intermediate' conclusions which give the broader ones their full depth and living essence.

[Eugene I]

Real history shows that human beings lived in an extremely fragmented and bloody state of perpetual war with each other until these impulses towards shared truth and knowledge manifested. Obviously it is a work in progress, but that should go without saying to anyone who has already abandoned Newtonian static view and adopted an evolutionary perspective.

Interestingly enough, that is exactly what is happening now: millions of resuscitated people have NDE experiences and bring back to us the shared truths from the realms above the human, but unfortunately their messages do not align with your particular understanding of truth. So, in a way, by clinging to your version of the truth and rejecting a possibility of different versions, you are exactly obstructing the evolution towards the knowledge of the higher level truths.