Is this a good answer to the question "why am I me and not someone else?", and the possibility of infinite creation

[Hedge90]

I've run accross this question in the analyticidealism subreddit, and engaged in a conversation. In the end, instead of theoretical descriptions, I provided a simile ...

For the fun of it, let's toss in another limited analogy here: Let's imagine some irreducible, immanent conscious agency as non-local operating system (as paradoxical as that may be) that conceives an Omni-browser, which via an ever-updating/evolving ideated pattern, a Cosmos is experienced. Using that browser, an unlimited number of tabs are open, each one a discrete configuration of patterned ideation, as a unique experiential POV, even as they all share the same OS. Now insofar as the conscious agency never actually closes any tabs, it is holding all those POVs simultaneously, as a Sole being experiencing a multiplicity, in theory an infinitude, of soul beings. This then may also involve tabs within tabs. Notwithstanding the question of each tab having a sovereign will of its own, in this scenario is the conscious agency not always experiencing an integrally valid POV, that however transitory cannot be regarded as illusory?

Yes, that analogy mostly covers what I was thinking of. "Illusion" was just my choice of words, I didn't mean it pejoratively.

[Hedge90]

Yes. If I keep a capacity to choose between things, then I'll have a preference for either Lucy or someone else, because I know which experiences are pleasurable and which are not. If we follow this line of thought, then why wouldn't I only live the life in the entire fractal that is the "best" (has the maximum pleasure) over and over again? (I'd like to note in that case I can pretty much preclude solipsism on the grounds that my life is very far from the maximum amount of pleasure).
If, on the other hand, I do not have any kind of preference, then once again the question: how is the choice made? Whenever a choice is made by an actor, it is made based on input considering those choices. Even when you seemingly choose randomly, there are innumerable circumstances resulting in that choice. But what if there are really NO factors to consider at all, because the core "I" knows not the difference between good and bad, pain and pleasure? Then a truly random choice would need to be made.. but what is truly random? Is it even possible?

That's why the concept of Karma exists. When we look back in memory, our current state of beings has grown out of all our previous activity. Similarly, our future states will grow out from what we now do in our thinking, feeling, willing and its interference with the environment. Everything we do shapes the seeds from which our future states grow.

Let me ask you two things Cleric.
1. Do you think we exist simultaneously, or when I perceive typing this, you are just an idea in my mind, and when you perceive reading this, I am just an idea in your mind? In other words, do you think only one of us exists at any one time, unless one of us manages to integrate the other into his consciousness?
2. Do you think reincarnation is atemporal, i.e. I can be reborn in the Roman Empire? Because if so, then there's no causality, everything is already determined, and we are just switching perspectives. In that case, I don't get what the metamorphosis means.

[AshvinP]

I think it is possible because she is a human being like me, with thoughts and perceptions. And because I recognise my own nature in her, I am able to empathise. But that doesn't mean the boundary is not there. I still experience her as an object, and I dont experience her thoughts, unless she shares them.

The boundary is what you are adding on as an assumption, due to your current limitations of perception and cognition. You perceive objects in the physical world which others perceive from a different perspective, so does that mean there is a cone-like boundary from your eyes to the object and same for everyone else? No, we know that is not the case and that whatever ideations you perceive in the outer world in the form of objects are shared with others. You can't perceive objects from all sides at once, but you know those other sides, perceived by others, exist. The same applies for 'sides' or, more accurately, moments of ideas which are transforming in Time. Modern science also shows how all physical organisms would appear as more stream-like if we observed the inner constituents over sufficient periods of time. They only appear as physical objects because our intellect has fixed them in time. So if we admit to ourselves that logical reasoning activity is more than just a "subjective"
faculty which fantasizes things and adds them on top of pre-existing reality; that the harmonizing meaning we perceive in the world of forms is just as real as the content of colors, sounds, shapes, etc. we perceive, then the shared ideational reality goes from mere assumption to undeniable fact, supported by our own observations and by rigorous science alike.

Also, I can hardly imagine this hard boundary view without furrowing my brow or chuckling, after some moments of reflection about whatit would look like if true. In this view, little packets of ideas are formed in our brain, travel to our mouth every time we speak, and travel across to the other person's ears and into their brain. What is infinitely more reasonable is that speech is a thinking-gesture which calls the other's attention to shared ideational content, just like pointing your finger at a tree would call someone's attention to it. And there is also a sense in which you are calling your own attention to content with these thinking-gestures as well, which is what we call learning through dialogue with others.

[Hedge90]

I think it is possible because she is a human being like me, with thoughts and perceptions. And because I recognise my own nature in her, I am able to empathise. But that doesn't mean the boundary is not there. I still experience her as an object, and I dont experience her thoughts, unless she shares them.

The boundary is what you are adding on as an assumption, due to your current limitations of perception and cognition. You perceive objects in the physical world which others perceive from a different perspective, so does that mean there is a cone-like boundary from your eyes to the object and same for everyone else? No, we know that is not the case and that whatever ideations you perceive in the outer world in the form of objects are shared with others. You can't perceive objects from all sides at once, but you know those other sides, perceived by others, exist. The same applies for 'sides' or, more accurately, moments of ideas which are transforming in Time. Modern science also shows how all physical organisms would appear as more stream-like if we observed the inner constituents over sufficient periods of time. They only appear as physical objects because our intellect has fixed them in time. So if we admit to ourselves that logical reasoning activity is more than just a "subjective"
faculty which fantasizes things and adds them on top of pre-existing reality; that the harmonizing meaning we perceive in the world of forms is just as real as the content of colors, sounds, shapes, etc. we perceive, then the shared ideational reality goes from mere assumption to undeniable fact, supported by our own observations and by rigorous science alike.

Also, I can hardly imagine this hard boundary view without furrowing my brow or chuckling, after some moments of reflection about whatit would look like if true. In this view, little packets of ideas are formed in our brain, travel to our mouth every time we speak, and travel across to the other person's ears and into their brain. What is infinitely more reasonable is that speech is a thinking-gesture which calls the other's attention to shared ideational content, just like pointing your finger at a tree would call someone's attention to it. And there is also a sense in which you are calling your own attention to content with these thinking-gestures as well, which is what we call learning through dialogue with others.

All right, most of this is reasonable. I only have a quarrel with the very first sentence.
"The boundary is what you are adding on as an assumption, due to your current limitations of perception and cognition."
No, I am not adding a boundary. It is very clear that I do not have direct access to my sister's thoughts. That's precisely why we as a species had to evolve speech. I can accept that metaphysically, we are the same being, or we (as bodies) are appendages of the same being, which being thinks through us, and we communicate these thoughts between each other like neurons communicate in the brain. But there IS a perceptible division which is not added but perceived by me.

[Cleric K]

1. Do you think we exist simultaneously, or when I perceive typing this, you are just an idea in my mind, and when you perceive reading this, I am just an idea in your mind? In other words, do you think only one of us exists at any one time, unless one of us manages to integrate the other into his consciousness?

In addition to what Ashvin said:

These questions can never give us satisfaction as long as we seek purely intellectual solution. No matter how we rearrange our concepts of alters and bubbles, they'll remain thoughts in the mind and the mystery will remain outside. We do that because of our Kantian habits, believing that our thoughts are only mental model of the unknowable world on the opaque side of our consciousness.

It's not the goal to find intellectual model of reality (or a proof of other consciousnesses on the other side of the model). In all practical life, thoughts find their worth only if they unveil the meaningful relations inherent in the full spectrum of reality.

When we see things in this way, think about the following: what gives us greater understanding of reality: when we understand the thoughts, feelings, will and perceptions of our fellow human beings or when we imagine them as figments of our imagination? If they were just our imaginations it would make sense to be able to control them and shape them in any way we want. Obviously we can't do that. So if we want to make sense of the whole picture what do we do? Just believe that we'll take control of them after death? Or we simply investigate what we find in the given? We'll easily find out that the more we learn about our fellow human beings, the more we learn to step in their shoes, to empathize with their feelings, to live together with their ideas, the more richer and meaningful the picture of reality becomes. There's no question about this. Try living for a day without trying to understand the meaning of the words of the people around you or their feelings on the pretext that they are only floating imaginary pictures. The simple fact is we would be unfit to interact with reality in such a way. Even if in theory we deny the existence of their thoughts, we can do that denial only when we're not interacting with them. As long as we're interacting, we're exchanging thoughts. We can declare these thoughts non-existent only post factum, once we have absorbed the thoughts and then we practically say "OK, I got the thoughts but now I'll imagine them to have existence only for me. In these automatons there are no thoughts. I have no clue what is responsible for their dynamics which try to fool me, but it is not thoughts."

This is another manifestation of the hysteresis process, where we flip in bistable fashion but we totally lose the link between the two sides. We suffer from these tormenting questions only as far as we try to postulate other side of consciousness. In your question to Ashvin you say:

No, I am not adding a boundary. It is very clear that I do not have direct access to my sister's thoughts. That's precisely why we as a species had to evolve speech. I can accept that metaphysically, we are the same being, or we (as bodies) are appendages of the same being, which being thinks through us, and we communicate these thoughts between each other like neurons communicate in the brain. But there IS a perceptible division which is not added but perceived by me.

Here a distinction must be made. It is really a fact that while in the body, ordinary consciousness doesn't perceive other's thoughts telepathically. But boundary is added when we say that what is not perceived exists on the 'other side' of consciousness. Now this is unwarranted. There's nothing in the given which suggests the existence of opaque side of consciousness where the thoughts of other beings are supposedly to be found. I don't see the Eiffel tower in the moment. Does this mean it exists in some anti-physical universe? Strangely, we imagine just that when it comes to soul and spiritual phenomena. Just because we don't perceive something, we imagine that it must exist in anti-conscious universe, on the opaque side of our own. Why not simply be open for the possibility that there's something that we should do if we want to find others' thoughts and feelings, just like we need to do something if we want to see the Eiffel tower?

So even though currently we communicate our thoughts through sensory mediums, we should simply ask: what makes a more complete and logical picture of reality: that the sensory words I hear are expressions of thoughts, even though I don't perceive them directly or that other beings are figments of my imagination, even though this has zero practical value. It even has negative value because it makes me completely unfit to deal with reality."

Once again we should repeat this, even though I don't think anyone listens: "We shouldn't confuse our current limitations with limitations of the World."

2. Do you think reincarnation is atemporal, i.e. I can be reborn in the Roman Empire? Because if so, then there's no causality, everything is already determined, and we are just switching perspectives. In that case, I don't get what the metamorphosis means.

No, it is not atemporal. Time-Consciousness has hierarchical structure - waves within waves. The incarnational rhythm is alternation between the states where the fractal is walked in much finer details, and states where we expand in the wider rhythms, which constitute the evolutionary epochs of humanity, the planetary rhythms and so on. So just like every morning we awaken in the future, so it is with every incarnation.

[Hedge90]

I think I get what you're saying. The difficulty with these things is that even in an idealist framework, one's thinking tends to default back into a dualism between what is physical and what is mental. So I unwittingly make a metaphysical distinction between when I think something in my personal mind, and when I think something through conversation with others. I say one is "my thought", while the other is a "result of interaction". But if we stay within the idealist framework, then the interaction is a thought too, as well as the result of the interaction. They are just somewhat different kinds of thoughts.

[Cleric K]

I think I get what you're saying. The difficulty with these things is that even in an idealist framework, one's thinking tends to default back into a dualism between what is physical and what is mental. So I unwittingly make a metaphysical distinction between when I think something in my personal mind, and when I think something through conversation with others. I say one is "my thought", while the other is a "result of interaction". But if we stay within the idealist framework, then the interaction is a thought too, as well as the result of the interaction. They are just somewhat different kinds of thoughts.

It is difficult as long as we're caught up in the hysteresis process and we don't grasp the Thinking process.

Today we're at very interesting evolutionary situation:



Human consciousness is generally encapsulated. This can be likened to embryonal stage, where the "I" lives within the uterus (the leftmost picture). I've tried many times here to point out that the psychedelic state doesn't lead to some fundamental state of consciousness but only illuminates the uterus walls from the inside. We live within the womb of our physical and etheric bodies. It's the same with the general mystical state.

Through spiritual development we can attain to the second birth, when the "I" begins to recognize the bodily sheaths as part of the general environment.

3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?
5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.

Indeed, in the current evolutionary stage the life between physical birth and death is something akin to gestation period and physical death is the birth in the real world outside the womb (the world in the womb is Maya). Yet things stand in such a way that we must prepare consciously our spiritual being for that birth, otherwise we're born as cripples and continue our work in the next gestation cycle.

Once consciousness begins to expand further than the personal bodily constellation, we begin to sense thoughts in the environment. Here I hinted something about the nature of these perceptions. Please don't mistaken this process to dissolving in the environment. The rightmost picture is exaggerated. We'll have our personal physical and etheric prism for a very long time to come but we'll also be feeling more and more as a Spirit which only makes use of the prism, like we use a suit. It's not the goal to leave behind the sensory spectrum. The goal is to develop the full spectrum such that we can gather the spiritual forces through which we can become artful masters of the physical realm.

PoF prepares the process by bringing understanding of the fundamental polarity of the waters and the Spirit (Perception - Idea)

It should be stressed that the above picture is by no means to be taken in literal geometric sense. The important thing is to realize that our inner screen is not self-enclosed sphere completely opaque to other supposed spheres. Our etheric volume is part of an etheric world. In our life of will we accept that we're in contact, we operate in the same physical world. It's the same with the world of feelings and thoughts, except that the organs of perception for these layers are only now beginning to develop.

Before the second birth, all we know is the inner life in the womb. That's why we speak of veils, boundaries, solipsism, etc. But through our Spirit we are also part of the spiritual world outside the personal capsule (again we should be very careful that words like 'outside' are not to be taken in strict geometric sense). As long as we don't find the place of thinking, we only observe thoughts appearing and disappearing as pictures on the womb's walls. Only by experiencing ourselves as an active spiritual being, which weaves the thinking process, we begin to experience the part of ourselves which lives in meaning outside the capsule. Only when we understand how the Spirit shapes the waters within ourselves, we'll be gradually developing our sensitivity to cognize the World Spirit's weaving in the World Waters, of which we grasp only a tiny aperture.

Returning to the original question "Why do we experience only our own womb and not whatever we want?" Because we must attain to the thinking gestures which correspond to environment different from the one we know. It's like being mathematically illiterate and asking "How come I don't perceive any of the things mathematicians talk about?" The "I" is growing as a spiritual core of interrelations of spiritual activity. As long as we live exclusively in our own womb, it is as if we live in a single room, where we're very used to the furniture, where things are and so on. Everything we perceive there reminds us only of experiences that have happened in the same that room. To grow beyond the room we need to develop real loving interest in our fellow human beings and also in higher beings. We begin to find their thinking gestures when we're seeking to expand our own palette to include them, in the same way someone seeks to expand his thinking palette with mathematical thinking gestures. Only by seeking the Human Universal, we have the chance to find the unity of the world content which includes also the life of other beings. It's not enough to have compassion. We can have compassion within our womb. To be born we need Love. Without Love we support the walls of the womb because we don't want to find out that we share common Life.

[Hedge90]

Thanks, Cleric, that was interesting to read.

Just as a sidenote, do you think you've given mytical traditions their due? You always say that the mystical / meditative path keeps you within your womb. But as I see it, most mystical traditions include the stages of seeing through the illusion of the personal mind, and realising your connection with everything else, with the end point being the realisation that your inner I is the inner I of everything.

[Cleric K]

Thanks, Cleric, that was interesting to read.

Just as a sidenote, do you think you've given mytical traditions their due? You always say that the mystical / meditative path keeps you within your womb. But as I see it, most mystical traditions include the stages of seeing through the illusion of the personal mind, and realising your connection with everything else, with the end point being the realisation that your inner I is the inner I of everything.

I think this due is given by anyone who understands what you said above.

The question is whether we're interested in how this process goes further? Do we take the above realization as the final accomplishment and then everything else is to be expected only after death? Or it is only the starting point for bridging the type of consciousness we have after death with what we have within the body?

And herein lies the challenge of our times - to find the place where this bridge manifests. We either find how the spiritual activity of our true being manifests in Thinking, or we (that is - Thinking in the blind spot) consider thoughts to be just phenomena like any other. In the latter case, the thinking ego which declares the center of reality to lie elsewhere, ensures that it can never reconcile itself with that reality. The thinking ego sees itself only as a tumorous artifact, which is completely opaque to the essential being. The reconciliation can only be dreamed for after death.

We begin manifesting the bridge when we understand that the higher spiritual being that acts through our Earthly perspective, is the same being which manifests in thinking and postulates its own unreality within the body. We need to follow the trails of the voice which declares its own unreality and we will find reality.