Bernardo vs Graham Oppy!!

[Ben Iscatus]

I've only ever read quotes by BK that claim MaL has no option but to evolve. By 'evolve' of course BK means via MaL per alters.

I agree, yes, MAL evolves (i.e. within the immanent context of spacetime) . That's the whole point of alters - to provide metacognitive feedback.

[AshvinP]

Let's play a game. I'll show you specific comments by BK that support my claim that he fully grasps why evolution must include the participation of ideal forms, and you show me just two comments by BK that support the claim that "BK states over and over again that MAL does not need to evolve..."

I've only ever read quotes by BK that claim MaL has no option but to evolve. By 'evolve' of course BK means via MaL per alters.

This might be super fun!

By correctly, albeit inadvertantly, asserting the bold, you refuted your own claim. "Alters" only exist for BK once life exists, and BK's model for when life exists is exactly the same as secular science. Life didn't exist until some unknown event caused abiogenesis via "dissociation" at the level of very simple organisms, which then evolved in a "planetary environment" into more and more complex forms, eventually leading to sentience ("meta-cognition"). This is why BK always asserts that "once science figures out abiogenesis, then we will know to how produce alters via dissociation". That evolutionary model completely rules out any possibility of 'top-down' involution of Spirit (ideational forms), who are living and evolving beings to begin with.

But thanks for playing!

(if you still want quotes to verify the above for yourself, I am sure that I or others here can dig them up...)

[findingblanks]

"That evolutionary model completely rules out any possibility of 'top-down' involution of Spirit..."

I promise you something huge; nobody here, not even Cleric, believes that BK's model rules out evolution of life inherently involving teleology. Fact. Cleric might work hard to show ways your point isn't completely wrong, fine. I agree that Bernardo does not claim to grasp the details of evolution.

But you are simply wrong in claiming that BK's model rules out meaningful Ideas playing an inherent role in evolution.

Sometimes it seems you are 'upset' that Bernardo doesn't teach about how spiritual beings guiding various processes. Sometimes it seems you are 'upset' that Bernardo doesn't talk about spiritual beings at all.

I don't want to 'upset' you but the only way evolution can work via BK's model is some kind of development that relies on core 'Ideas' of MaL before biological organisms came into being. Heck, even the sudden generation of alters wasn't 'random' in the materialistic sense. Alters are the function of highly intricate Ideas interacting in specific ways. In fact, alters are literally Ideas according to BK. Hardly random. And inherently meaningful.

Oh no. I 'upset' you.

Anyway, your claim that BK's model rules out the possibility of higher order Ideas playing an intrinsic role in evolution is wrong. But I think I see exactly why you think it's 100% true!

[findingblanks]

'Blind will' doesn't mean meaningless or random. I know three people who need to grok that.

[Starbuck]

'Blind will' doesn't mean meaningless or random. I know three people who need to grok that.

Indeed, Why cant the intrinsic excitations of universal subjectivity 'look like' intelligence?

[AshvinP]

'Blind will' doesn't mean meaningless or random. I know three people who need to grok that.

Who said anything about "random" or "meaningless". I am not claiming anything other than the obvious fact that BK holds to same understanding of evolution as 99.999% of people who know anything about evolution, whether materialists or theists or mystical idealists. So what I am claiming is not all disparaging to BK or singling him out.

This is very simple - BK prides himself on being a "naturalist", which, to him, means he does not reject any established models of secular science. He expressly thinks of any spiritual explanation for natural phenomena, especially involving spiritual beings, as "new age woo-woo". I guarantee Cleric understands what I am saying as well. You are way out of your depth here, FB, but don't realize it, as usual.

[AshvinP]

'Blind will' doesn't mean meaningless or random. I know three people who need to grok that.

Indeed, Why cant the intrinsic excitations of universal subjectivity 'look like' intelligence?

Exactly. FB is denying that BK holds this position as you state it above. He is saying that BK's idealism incorporates eternal self-awareness of MAL and beings within MAL who are non-corporeal, i.e. beings who are evolving apart from any "planetary environment".

Is that your understanding of BK's position as well? I don't think anyone who is familiar with BK would ever take that away from what he has written or said on the topic.

[Soul_of_Shu]

'Blind will' doesn't mean meaningless or random. I know three people who need to grok that.

Who said anything about "random" or "meaningless". I am not claiming anything other than the obvious fact that BK holds to same understanding of evolution as 99.999% of people who know anything about evolution, whether materialists or theists or mystical idealists. So what I am claiming is not all disparaging to BK or singling him out.

This is very simple - BK prides himself on being a "naturalist", which, to him, means he does not reject any established models of secular science. He expressly thinks of any spiritual explanation for natural phenomena, especially involving spiritual beings, as "new age woo-woo".

And yet he has posited a 'daemon' that compellingly informed his 'evolving' from a de facto CERN-employed physicalist into a writer of books on idealism, as if imperatively transcribing transpersonal dictation. Surely that is 'woo' worthy to your run-of-the-mill evolutionary biologist.

[AshvinP]

'Blind will' doesn't mean meaningless or random. I know three people who need to grok that.

Who said anything about "random" or "meaningless". I am not claiming anything other than the obvious fact that BK holds to same understanding of evolution as 99.999% of people who know anything about evolution, whether materialists or theists or mystical idealists. So what I am claiming is not all disparaging to BK or singling him out.

This is very simple - BK prides himself on being a "naturalist", which, to him, means he does not reject any established models of secular science. He expressly thinks of any spiritual explanation for natural phenomena, especially involving spiritual beings, as "new age woo-woo".

And yet he has posited a 'daemon' that compellingly informed his 'evolving' from a de facto CERN-employed physicalist into a writer of books on idealism, as if imperatively transcribing transpersonal dictation. Surely that is 'woo' worthy to your run-of-the-mill evolutionary biologist.

I don't see how it's any different. There are plenty of scientists who will acknowledge God or higher spiritual influences. The question is whether they feel those influences of higher spiritual beings via their ideational activity are the norm, i.e. the actual ideal laws, principles, and archetypes through which the natural phenomenal world manifests, or whether they are the exception. BK falls squarely in the latter camp and chalks the exceptions up to unpredictable 'softening' of the hard dissociative boundaries. Can anyone here even imagine BK seriously considering "spiritual science", even if he knew nothing about it and was simply asked to read up on it for awhile? Not a chance. The very notion of spritual science cuts completely against the foundation of his "naturalist" worldview.

[Soul_of_Shu]

I don't see how it's any different. There are plenty of scientists who will acknowledge God or higher spiritual influences. The question is whether they feel those influences of higher spiritual beings via their ideational activity are the norm, i.e. the actual ideal laws, principles, and archetypes through which the natural phenomenal world manifests, or whether they are the exception. BK falls squarely in the latter camp and chalks the exceptions up to unpredictable 'softening' of the hard dissociative boundaries. Can anyone here even imagine BK seriously considering "spiritual science", even if he knew nothing about it and was simply asked to read up on it for awhile? Not a chance. The very notion of spritual science cuts completely against the foundation of his "naturalist" worldview.

Granted, BK may not likely consider this the norm, but some rarefied exception visited upon him, similar, I suppose, to artistic inspiration from a Muse, or some visionary dream-sent logos that informs some ideational break-through, categorically different from a mundane everyday intuition or synchronicity. Why he feels that to be the case, is another good question to put to him in some AMA event he has proposed.