Bernardo vs Graham Oppy!!

[Starbuck]

Starbuck the only think I might disagree with (if I'm understanding you) is that Bernardo maintains that the very nature of Reality is 'moving towards' creation in a way that can be described as intelligent, whereas the typical modern physicalist will strip all teleology out of the reduction base. Kastrup not only claims the base must be 'moving towards' but he claims it is an experiencing subject, The Subject. I might be misunderstanding what you are equating, in which case feel free to ignore my blabbering at you

No Blabbering Well, telos implies numerous possibilities yet through conscious agency, an optimum path is taken. That is certainly not BKs stance. It is AS it is because it is WHAT it is, so I don't see the 'moving towards' argument.

As you very rightly spotted, BK's selling point is the subjectivity of that neutrality.
For me THAT distinction makes all the difference, and is the meaning that is missing from reductionist materialism.

[Ben Iscatus]

Hey Ben,

I see there is a really great conversation about the possibility of layers of dissociation within BK's model. It is in the discussion room that is for focusing on BK specifically. What a relief that there is a spot that specifically asks all of us to focus on one topic!

Do you know if there is a special code to enter that conversation? I seem to be blocked from it. Ironic, considering my constant annoyance that when focusing on BK's specific model itself so often we must encounter lectures about other models or be told there is no point in discussing BK when somebody else has such a better understanding. Ugh. Anyway, until I learn the secret knock, I'll just read from my dissociated alter.

There's no special code FB - perhaps Dana could check this out?

[Soul_of_Shu]

There's no special code FB - perhaps Dana could check this out?

No-one should be restricted from the BK forum. I'll look into it

[AshvinP]

Yes that is my understanding. As you state, he is a naturalist. I would say he confers intelligence unto his ontic base to no more or less a degree than a quantum physicist confers intelligence upon the forms emerging out of the quantum vacuum.

I agree and that's a perfect analogy. There is a void of some sort or another and all that we call "intelligence", "self-awareness", "aesthetics", "ethical values", emerge out of that void as secondary epiphenomenon. There is no sense trying to make his argument into something it isn't and which no one really understands it to be. That only serves to confuse and halt all productive discussion, because no one is clear on anyone else's position anymore.

My argument is that BK's definition of "natural" practically excludes half of all reality, if we want a simple way of imaging it. The depth structure behind our inner experience is excluded from "natural". The realm of currently imperceptible spiritual activity and noumenal meaning. Why? That's what we are trying to explain by way of PoF and also posts completely independent of PoF. There are very sound philosophical and scientific arguments for why.

It's perhaps worth pointing out that this isn't the first time this has been pointed out, or at least implied in some of the exchanges dating back to the early days of the old MS forum, when there was quite a bit of posting/discussion regarding Aurobindo, mostly initiated by and involving Don Salmon. He would regularly offer long involved posts, quoting huge tracts from The Life Divine, explaining the inter-being evolution/involution dynamic. And while BK never really outright dismissed it, per se, one could tell that he was not into it, and not about to encourage it by indicating that he subscribed to it in any way. Here is just one thread from the old MS forum in which Don was clearly finding BK's take on idealism somewhat lacking—which BK did not respond to—although Don also points out that if BK's primary focus was on winning over some wavering academics still tentative about altogether abandoning materialism, it was understandable that BK had to keep it 'digestible' to their mindset, by taking the path of least resistance, while a vision like Aurobindo's, for example, would be a hard sell ... Don writes from Aug 3, 2014

Thanks, Dana. It's good to know Cleric and myself didn't cook up this spiritually-rooted critique of BK idealism in the last year after we were indoctrinated into a cult That is a great example of "completely independent of PoF". In addition to Aurobindo, I have also tried to show various facets of the same argument from Goethe, Schiller, Coleridge, Hegel, early Fichte and Schelling, Nietzsche, William James, Heidegger, Bergson, Jung, Teilhard de Chardin, and more recently I have seen it also in Herder. The only person I mention who was not independent of Steiner/PoF was Barfield. One would expect nothing less if ideation, specifically imaginative ideation, is essentially shared transpersonal activity, not divided and apportioned to "personal" alter-minds.

I have also noticed that many thinkers who have remained in pure intellectual analysis have their own involution of thinking, and their ability to adopt a more 'poetic' i.e. imaginative Thinking correlates to whether there will be an evolutionary phase. It correlates to whether their respective "turns" will be a turn for the worse, i.e. more abstract and fragmented, or for the better, more concrete and holistic. Let's remember, BK wrote a book called "More than Allegory", which was already short-changing spiritual mythology but was at least acknowledging it in some detail. Now he speaks of spiritual myth as almost less than fuzzy metaphor. All of these dynamics can become instructive tools for our own journeys. Nature offers up an endless supply for those paying close attention to her.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Hey Ben,

I see there is a really great conversation about the possibility of layers of dissociation within BK's model. It is in the discussion room that is for focusing on BK specifically. What a relief that there is a spot that specifically asks all of us to focus on one topic!

Do you know if there is a special code to enter that conversation? I seem to be blocked from it.

FB ... I've checked your forum permission settings, and they are all set to 'standard' access, including for 'BK gets a room of his own'. So there should be no reason why you would be blocked there.

Ironic, considering my constant annoyance that when focusing on BK's specific model itself so often we must encounter lectures about other models or be told there is no point in discussing BK when somebody else has such a better understanding. Ugh. Anyway, until I learn the secret knock, I'll just read from my dissociated alter.

There is nothing that precludes comparative critiques of BK's model from being offered in the new BK sub-forum, as long as it stays focused on the critique, and is not taken as an opportunity to ditch the critique and springboard into expounding at length about some other preferred model, or unrelated topic. As for this taunt— "so often we must encounter lectures about other models or be told there is no point in discussing BK when somebody else has such a better understanding. Ugh."—clearly intended to have a targeted trigger-effect, give it a rest.

[findingblanks]

It is fascinating to see the way people want Bernardo's core purpose in life to be more like other people's core purpose in life. Bernardo could not be more clear or honest about what his arguments are intended for. When Rudolf Steiner got a haircut, he wasn't trying to learn about insects. Imagine if somebody considered that a limitation of his haircut. When an architect designs a building for children with special needs in a particular environment, she isn't creating a design that explains why different forms of clairvoyance are possible. Imagine jumping on a forum to redicule the building's design for all the phenomena it does not explain.

It's fascinating.

I think Bernardo does a fairly poor job when he starts explaining some social phenomena. I think he also has some fairly distorted notions of human psychology. Obviously I haven't been shy to point out when I think he isn't making sense very well.

But I can't imagine what it would take for me to act as if he general arguments as to why idealism is a more coherent world view than physicalism were supposed to explain the details of other phenomena like reincarnation, clairvoyance, different states of higher consciousness, etc.

It's totally fine to just say, "Wow, I see some value in what he is doing, but I wish his main purpose was something else."

[findingblanks]

Starbuck, yes, for sure, Bernardo would see the process of evolution as much more creative than, say, the kind of spiritualist who has a model that states certain beings already had a very clear goal of getting the human form to come about. And there is a massive spectrum in between. Rudolf Steiner leans closer to Bernardo's view than the kind of spiritualist I just characterized. Steiner pointed out that all the non-human animals are forms that were 'thrown off' the evolving human so that it could continue developing in a more and more universal/generalized pattern. This wasn't a blind and random process, but it was much more like improvisation than reading a script

Also, Ashvin's bold claim that BK is in full agreement with the core assumptions of modern neo-Darwininanism leave out yet another tiny little thing: neo-Darwinism depends upon the belief that the changes passed from one generation to the next are 100% random. As we all know, Bernardo laughs outloud at this notion and has pointed out how it doesn't square with many strains of information and observation.

Anyway, people who insist on speaking in such extremes may or may not care about the boring truth that is typically near the center.

But Starbuck, I personally think that even the general way that Bernardo speaks of the archetypal patterns of the Godhead imply that evolution is a very specific process that is specifically striving towards self-consciousness as deeper integration. As an analogy I'd think of it as a comparison between a great improvisation comedian versus a comedian who can't improvise at all but can work well with a script.