My work on consciousness

[AshvinP]

I'm answering you here from the reincarnation topic, so we don't be off-topic there.

In relation to our discussion on the other thread, would you agree that the examples you use above are referring to ideas which unite the particular letters and notes into a 'holistic entity'?

That's exactly what I think it happens. And I talk about this in my presentation at SAND: at minute 20:27. Obviously, English is not my native language.
Actually, I like Berkeley's use of the term "idea" by which he referred to all qualia. That's where also the term "idealism" comes from instead of "qualism", from the fact that all that exists are ideas/meanings. Because an animal when he sees objects around him, the colors of those objects are united holistically by the ideas of those objects, even though the animal might not have the same rational capacity of humans to talk about ideas in abstract ways. Yet the unification still happens, because ideas are not only what can be thought of by using human reason.
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What I'm wondering is: given that extra sensory perception exists, why is not all perception extra sensory ? So in principle a blind could see even without eyes, but something is limiting him, I don't know what. But yes, probably there are states of consciousness in which one has access to the entire universe. But why the limitations then I wonder ? Just for God to have fun and put himself in all possible situations, including limitations and suffering

Cosmin,

Thank you! I sense we are moving in a productive and mutually illuminating direction here. I will watch your video later tonight.

For now, I will say I agree with what you write above, except we need to be careful with "only what can be thought of by using human reason". In my experience, here the intellect can take our logic in unintended directions. For ex, we may start feeling human reason forms concepts internal to the "personal mind" and tries to match them with the "external" reality of objects, i.e. it is only creating models of an objective reality existing mostly independent of it. Since our mineralized concepts clearly cannot model a 4-D reality of holistic ideas which structures the entire phenomenal world, we feel human thinking must come up against a hard boundary which it cannot cross (this is Kantian epistemic tradition).

But you have already mitigated this issue by the questions of your 2nd comment. You have reasoned (and let's not forget it is your own reason which is asking these questions and perceiving that they are reasonable to ask because they could have discernable answers) that something is limiting our "extra sensory" perception, but it can't necessarily be declared a fundamental limitation of Reality or Thinking itself. Perhaps there are other more localized forces at work here. Certainly the fact that 'God' may be awakening to Himself through us is a critical factor to consider. And, if this is the case, who is to say the Divine Spirit within us stopped evolving in the 19th century?

These are some initial questions to consider for now, until I have a chance to watch the video and better understand your position.

[AshvinP]

Cosmin,

Consider this analogy. I know that my own localized organism is 'made of' the same physical forces as those of the solar system. The gravitational, electromagnetic, strong/weak nuclear forces are the same in my localized organism as they are for the planet Jupiter. Yet I know that I simply cannot change the path of Jupiter's orbit around the Sun. Whatever would allow me to influence the orbit with my own will remains entirely subconscious. It seems to me that can only be due to a nested hierarchy of forces within the solar system that make certain ones more powerful than my own at this stage of Cosmic evolution. The same principle can apply to the idealist understanding of the Cosmos as fundamental forces of willing, feeling, and thinking activity. All worldviews logically necessitate this hierarchical framework of Cosmic evolution, assuming they don't introduce mind/matter hard problems via axiomatic dualism. So could not the same principle apply for the meaning of higher-order Logic which can make the blind see and the deaf hear, i.e. the Divine Word (Logos), which remains entirely subconscious for me at my current evolutionary stage?

What I'm wondering is: given that extra sensory perception exists, why is not all perception extra sensory ? So in principle a blind could see even without eyes, but something is limiting him, I don't know what. But yes, probably there are states of consciousness in which one has access to the entire universe. But why the limitations then I wonder ? Just for God to have fun and put himself in all possible situations, including limitations and suffering ?

Cosmin,

I am following up on the previous comment. So I think we agree that meaning is fundamental and precipitates into the perceptual forms of the world around us. It is a fluid and adaptive process - there is not only one perceptual form for one meaning, but many. We play an integral role in that process of transfiguring meaning into perception. We can genuinely say that we co-create the phenomenal world in this manner.

Yet we know the phenomenal world does not exhaust the meaningul Ideas that it precipitated from through us. There are perceptions beyond what we can currently perceive with our 5 physical senses. Just like the blind person is missing perceptions of colors, etc. in the world of meaning he inhabits, we who are fortunate enough to have vision are still missing 'extra-sensory' perceptions. How is it that we can ascend to these supersensible perceptions? Should we not look to that faculty which precipitates the perceptions from the meaning in the first instance?

I assert we must call that intermediary faculty "thinking", because it is exactly the same faculty we use to logically reason through perceptual phenomena and unite them into more holistic laws and principles of Nature when doing philosophy or science. We don't need to wonder if we can Think from a God-perspective at first. Can we think from a more integrated perspective than we currently don't have? I think you probably agree that this is, in fact, what is occurring every day of our existence as new experiences form out previous states which must necessarily continue to exist, embedded within the new states. If you agree, then do you see any fundamental limit to, for example, ascending in Thinking to a perspective which concretely discerns the meaning-ideas which precipitate into the outer forms of Nature, like days, seasons, and years, or like the plant kingdom?