A Simple, Logical System for Proving the Existence of God — Idealist Metaphysics

[GrantHenderson]

Thanks Ashvin, there’s much for me to learn here.

One thing confuses me:

You mention that my reasoning is only satisfactory for physical sense thinking, and suggest that there is a spiritual thinking from subjective experience of world content that my reasoning doesn’t encapsulate. However, I’m not sure where you elaborate on that more specifically. You did mention this:

When it comes to consciousness and the Divine, i.e. soul and spirit, the concrete foundation of experience must be sought within our life of desires, impulses, feelings, thoughts, etc. These latter must become the objects of our observation and thinking, in their relation with the outer world as well. Put another way, what is normally the subject who investigates via reason must become the object of reasoned investigation. An inversion must come about from reflexive thinking entrained by perceptions and concepts to creative thinking which freely manifests and connects together perceptions and concepts within its own domain of inner activity. It is like a glove being turned inside-out, 'passing through the eye of a needle', the pinhole of cognition.

I really like this. If I’m correct in assuming that this is what you are considering to negate my reasoning, I’m not sure how. As far as I can tell, this simply takes my reasoning a step further, and into greater context.

In my passage, I’m illustrating that there is no concrete “point of equilibrium” which ties together all thought-concept, but rather a non-physical essence. Even when the meaning of the thought-concept becomes the object of investigation, such always brings into focus additional meaning. This is the “eye of the needle” you reference, which, rather, isn’t some central point, but exists everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It is both unbound, but also infinitely penetrable by world content. When world content penetrates the screen of perception, it reflexively re-binds the world content, wherein the world content becomes an extrinsic appearance of the screen of perception.

This might be a good visual analogy. Imagine a circle:

Anthony,

I thank you for the computational metaphor - I am not good with such things, so it will take some more time for me to digest. But right from the outset, I must make a distinction here with what I wrote previously - I was not attempting to provide a conceptual metaphor for the dynamics of consciousness, so that we understand better how our consciousness works. Rather, I was trying to explain the need for us to livingly experience our own first-person thinking differently, in an 'inverted' manner. Our own thinking needs to pass through the 'eye of the needle'. Perhaps you understood that already, but I'm not quite sure.

I think we can all admit that, normally, the world of outer perception appears as something pre-existing our own consciousness and ideation. It comes to meet us and we have almost no clue why we perceive it, what it means, or what stands 'behind' it. Like you said, when I perceive the blue sky outside, I cannot really answer any of those questions. What we are speaking of here is a means of reorienting that back to its rightful relationship - where meaning flows through us into perception - so that we can truly say, "my conscious ideation is what structures the phenomenal world content in its manifold appearances to me". It is that livingly experineced ideational flow of activity which begins to explain why we perceive some phenomenon, what it means, and what is responsible for it. Most immediately, we find this nexus of meaningful flow and perception in the observation of our own thinking.

Let's say you form the thought, "triangle", and picture it inwardly. What significance does this triangle-form we picture inwardly have for our essential activity? It is the simple fact that we willed it into existence, we imbued it with the meaning of "triangle", and we perceive the final product of that activity. We then have a tiny, yet complete circuit of meaningful activity from inner will to outer thought-perception; a corner of the World Content we can plant our flag into and call our own. Now the goal is to expand this creative thinking capacity to more and more domains of perceptual experience, so that less and less of that perceptual experience comes to meet us as a mystery, at least in terms of its relation to our own ideational activity and our life of feelings, desires, etc.

Consider this first section of Cleric's essay which provides an exercise to work with. This one in particular was really helpfulf for me, personally. Generally, the purpose of these imaginative exercises is about developing 'sense-free' thinking. We want to find an image that cannot be found in the sense-world but is also very simple. Usually it comes in the form of combinations of images we won't find anywhere. Half the battle, so to speak, is following the reasoning of why we are doing the exercise and building up the image in connection with our soul experience, i.e. the life of feeling. The images can include mantras, verses, and in this case simply a string of vowel sounds morphing between one another. It is very simple but also something that most people would not have experienced yet, and vowels inherently carry inner meaning as the counter-pole to the outer forms of consonants.

Let's experiment with vowels. The goal will be to produce vowels - a, e, o, u, i - while freely morphing between them. For example, we start with 'a' and smoothly morph into 'e' - aaaaaeaaaeeaaeeeaeeeeee. It's advisable that we first warm up with producing the sounds with our physical voice (make sure no one's around ). We take a deep breath and begin slowly and smoothly morphing among random vowels in one continuous sound until we run out of air. After we get used to it, we continue the exercise but now with producing the sounds in our mind only.

There's very interesting difference when we do the exercise in our mind only - we can do it indefinitely - we never run out of air! The voice in our mind is independent of breathing (well, there's still relation but it will go well beyond the scope of this post to go into that). As a matter of fact it might be interesting to experiment also without breathing - we take a deep breath, hold it and begin producing the thought-sounds. We can't produce physical sound without passing air through the larynx but we certainly can in our mind. The reader may find that it is easier to focus when the breath is held (breathing may act as source of distraction). After we get the hang out of it we can breathe normally and hold the sound as long as possible. If we can morph the sound continuously, without any interruption, without any distraction, for about half a minute, that is actually pretty good. But even if we can keep it for much less, there's no need to be discouraged - even ten seconds can be enough if we do it with the needed concentration and intensity.

The goal of this exercise is to experience our thinking spiritual activity as clearly as possible. Yes, even producing a morphing sound can be considered a form of thinking. When we produce the sound we do that with our inner voice, the same one we use to think with verbal words. The most important thing is to feel as tightly as possible how it is through our own activity that the morphing of the sound is accomplished. The sound should feel as continuous, gradual morphing. The slower we do it, the better we can feel it. The sound should be an expression of our thinking will, of our innermost being. We should resist the temptation to split from the act of sound producing and observe it from the side or think about it. The goal is to fully engage precisely this voice which has the tendency to move in the background and imperceptibly comment on conscious phenomena as a bystander. We need to gather all the forces of this bystander and project them into the sound. We should feel this act as giving us inner stability, as if our sound producing activity finds its stable center in the sound perception. The center where the sound is focused at should be felt in the head region. As long as we're being drawn away from that center, the concentration is not yet as it should be. When our activity meets the sound in the right way, we feel very characteristic stability, almost as if a key fits a lock.

Here some may object that the feeling of being responsible for the sound is an illusion. Above all, this feeling is immediate fact of the given. It is only the thinking about that feeling which can declare it to be an illusion or not, but this in no way changes the given fact. Here we simply stick to the given. We shouldn't arbitrarily discard parts of the given because in this way we may be creating for ourselves an unsolvable problem. So in this exercise we don't postulate anything metaphysical but we simply investigate the living experience of willfully thinking a sound with clear self-propelled intent and tightly perceiving the result.

Jared,

I thank you for the computational metaphor - I am not good with such things, so it will take some more time for me to digest.

You don’t have to understand computations to understand that. Even just considering the computational elements as visual contents imbued with meaning is all you need to do. The only thing difficult about that is my writing style.

I think it might just be a more precise demonstration of what you were explaining. It demonstrates how the meaning of objects of our perception inverts to become the objects of meaning (among other things).
The important thing to note for understanding this visual analogy is that perception is both unbound and infinitely penetrable: Since the contents of perception penetrates the bounds of perception, such contents always entails a qualitative meaning that isn’t entirely known by the perceptual agent. Inversely, since perception also bounds its contents, it always gives qualitative meaning to its contents. This is demonstrated by pixelated representations (contents of perception) penetrating a circle's circumference (local boundary of perception), and also, an outer circle (non-local boundary of perception) around the pixels (contents of perception) that are penetrating the inner circle's circumference. There is always empty space between the two circumferences that the mind will act to “fill in”, only to prompt repetition of the same process over and over again in a non-equilibrium steady state. The meaning of the object within our perception inverts to become the object of meaning, which carries fourth additional meaning, and so on.

And this idea might put into perspective what Steiner is demonstrating — The square that is perceived when relating two “points” by triangulating their positions in both directions. The points don’t actually exist independent of subjective pixelated representations. So it’s a subjective estimation of “points” in a kind of grid space. It’s important to note that the pixilated representations aren’t of something more fundamental in nature. They are just what we use to model the world.

More so, this dynamic of consciousness acts as a universal grammar.
This idea might also be supported by certain neuroscientific research. So here’s that same basic idea proposed as a universal grammar, and fitted more in neuroscientific terms:
Grammar is a mental adaptation to the spatial-temporal incompatibility between the digital signals (pixels) by which the brain forms spatial representations, and the analog signals which bounds its perception of the world, and syntactically organizes such pixels.

Due to the incompleteness to which a grid cell forms spatial representations carried from an analog signal, it semantically references that code as a transitional element (verb). Then, due to that grid cells future adaptive representation of that previous pixelation(s) through a higher bandwidth analog signal, it semantically references that code completely as a definite element (noun).

When the grid cell completely represents pixels as semantically defined elements (nouns), it consequently represents other pixels incompletely as semantically transitional elements (verbs), as grid cells code interactions between neural oscillations at escalating frequencies across time.
As such, the brain is constantly linking nouns to verbs, and verbs to nouns. In so doing, it distinguishes nouns from verbs, and verbs from nouns.

I think we can all admit that, normally, the world of outer perception appears as something pre-existing our own consciousness and ideation. It comes to meet us and we have almost no clue why we perceive it, what it means, or what stands 'behind' it. Like you said, when I perceive the blue sky outside, I cannot really answer any of those questions. What we are speaking of here is a means of reorienting that back to its rightful relationship - where meaning flows through us into perception - so that we can truly say, "my conscious ideation is what structures the phenomenal world content in its manifold appearances to me". It is that livingly experineced ideational flow of activity which begins to explain why we perceive some phenomenon, what it means, and what is responsible for it. Most immediately, we find this nexus of meaningful flow and perception in the observation of our own thinking.

Perception is like a vessel of activity. We allow meaning to flow through us so we can view it from an “outer” perspective, and to reveal additional factors of influence (meaning). This involves stopping it in its tracks so we can hold it in place. If we think about it (literally and figuratively), will requires disruption. But we want to minimize the level of disruption in order to keep the flow of activity moving freely.
We should treat it like sailing. Adjust your sail (attention) to the direction of the wind. Hold it until the wind changes, then change the angle of the sail accordingly.

Consider this first section of Cleric's essay which provides an exercise to work with.

I like how Cleric used a very mundane task to highlight the intended effect. If he had told us to focus on a task with any sort of meaningful implications, they may pose as distractions to the intended effect of the task.

I also want to be clear that I am not negating your reasoning in any of your posts. Let me use an analogy. Goethe developed a theory of colors contra Newtonian color theory. Newton said there is something called pure white light and all the colors are embedded within this light. When the thinking subject set up a prism, we are simply drawing out the colors already within the light without our involvement. Goethe found this explanation is not in accord with the facts, with the phenomena of colors as they manifest to us. He eventually concluded that colors result from an interplay of light and darkness, which is an archetypal phenomenon, mediated by the thinking agency. Darkness perceived through light results in blue (daytime sky), for ex., and light perceived through darkness results in reddish-orange (dawn or dusk). He didn't abstract out the thinking agency from the scientific experimental process. We can say the Newtonian color theory, still prevalent today, is analogous to materialism and the Goethean theory is analogous to idealism.

Yeah that's fair. I like the Goethe, Newton analogy too.

There isn't a strong reason to suggest it isn’t correct, but a strong reason to suggest that we cannot know if it is correct. While, it isn’t pointless to consider the potential truth of such concepts, it is pointless to put too much stock in them.
Though I do think it’s potential infallibility means something. I don’t know of many logical arguments regarding the nature of consciousness and the universe that are both infallible, and, at least, more suggestive of a conscious creator than this one. That makes it at least interesting (to me at least). I’m okay with that at the end of the day.

[GrantHenderson]

Thanks Ashvin, there’s much for me to learn here.

One thing confuses me:

You mention that my reasoning is only satisfactory for physical sense thinking, and suggest that there is a spiritual thinking from subjective experience of world content that my reasoning doesn’t encapsulate. However, I’m not sure where you elaborate on that more specifically. You did mention this:

When it comes to consciousness and the Divine, i.e. soul and spirit, the concrete foundation of experience must be sought within our life of desires, impulses, feelings, thoughts, etc. These latter must become the objects of our observation and thinking, in their relation with the outer world as well. Put another way, what is normally the subject who investigates via reason must become the object of reasoned investigation. An inversion must come about from reflexive thinking entrained by perceptions and concepts to creative thinking which freely manifests and connects together perceptions and concepts within its own domain of inner activity. It is like a glove being turned inside-out, 'passing through the eye of a needle', the pinhole of cognition.

I really like this. If I’m correct in assuming that this is what you are considering to negate my reasoning, I’m not sure how. As far as I can tell, this simply takes my reasoning a step further, and into greater context.

In my passage, I’m illustrating that there is no concrete “point of equilibrium” which ties together all thought-concept, but rather a non-physical essence. Even when the meaning of the thought-concept becomes the object of investigation, such always brings into focus additional meaning. This is the “eye of the needle” you reference, which, rather, isn’t some central point, but exists everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It is both unbound, but also infinitely penetrable by world content. When world content penetrates the screen of perception, it reflexively re-binds the world content, wherein the world content becomes an extrinsic appearance of the screen of perception.

This might be a good visual analogy. Imagine a circle:

Anthony,

I thank you for the computational metaphor - I am not good with such things, so it will take some more time for me to digest. But right from the outset, I must make a distinction here with what I wrote previously - I was not attempting to provide a conceptual metaphor for the dynamics of consciousness, so that we understand better how our consciousness works. Rather, I was trying to explain the need for us to livingly experience our own first-person thinking differently, in an 'inverted' manner. Our own thinking needs to pass through the 'eye of the needle'. Perhaps you understood that already, but I'm not quite sure.

I think we can all admit that, normally, the world of outer perception appears as something pre-existing our own consciousness and ideation. It comes to meet us and we have almost no clue why we perceive it, what it means, or what stands 'behind' it. Like you said, when I perceive the blue sky outside, I cannot really answer any of those questions. What we are speaking of here is a means of reorienting that back to its rightful relationship - where meaning flows through us into perception - so that we can truly say, "my conscious ideation is what structures the phenomenal world content in its manifold appearances to me". It is that livingly experineced ideational flow of activity which begins to explain why we perceive some phenomenon, what it means, and what is responsible for it. Most immediately, we find this nexus of meaningful flow and perception in the observation of our own thinking.

Let's say you form the thought, "triangle", and picture it inwardly. What significance does this triangle-form we picture inwardly have for our essential activity? It is the simple fact that we willed it into existence, we imbued it with the meaning of "triangle", and we perceive the final product of that activity. We then have a tiny, yet complete circuit of meaningful activity from inner will to outer thought-perception; a corner of the World Content we can plant our flag into and call our own. Now the goal is to expand this creative thinking capacity to more and more domains of perceptual experience, so that less and less of that perceptual experience comes to meet us as a mystery, at least in terms of its relation to our own ideational activity and our life of feelings, desires, etc.

Consider this first section of Cleric's essay which provides an exercise to work with. This one in particular was really helpfulf for me, personally. Generally, the purpose of these imaginative exercises is about developing 'sense-free' thinking. We want to find an image that cannot be found in the sense-world but is also very simple. Usually it comes in the form of combinations of images we won't find anywhere. Half the battle, so to speak, is following the reasoning of why we are doing the exercise and building up the image in connection with our soul experience, i.e. the life of feeling. The images can include mantras, verses, and in this case simply a string of vowel sounds morphing between one another. It is very simple but also something that most people would not have experienced yet, and vowels inherently carry inner meaning as the counter-pole to the outer forms of consonants.

Let's experiment with vowels. The goal will be to produce vowels - a, e, o, u, i - while freely morphing between them. For example, we start with 'a' and smoothly morph into 'e' - aaaaaeaaaeeaaeeeaeeeeee. It's advisable that we first warm up with producing the sounds with our physical voice (make sure no one's around ). We take a deep breath and begin slowly and smoothly morphing among random vowels in one continuous sound until we run out of air. After we get used to it, we continue the exercise but now with producing the sounds in our mind only.

There's very interesting difference when we do the exercise in our mind only - we can do it indefinitely - we never run out of air! The voice in our mind is independent of breathing (well, there's still relation but it will go well beyond the scope of this post to go into that). As a matter of fact it might be interesting to experiment also without breathing - we take a deep breath, hold it and begin producing the thought-sounds. We can't produce physical sound without passing air through the larynx but we certainly can in our mind. The reader may find that it is easier to focus when the breath is held (breathing may act as source of distraction). After we get the hang out of it we can breathe normally and hold the sound as long as possible. If we can morph the sound continuously, without any interruption, without any distraction, for about half a minute, that is actually pretty good. But even if we can keep it for much less, there's no need to be discouraged - even ten seconds can be enough if we do it with the needed concentration and intensity.

The goal of this exercise is to experience our thinking spiritual activity as clearly as possible. Yes, even producing a morphing sound can be considered a form of thinking. When we produce the sound we do that with our inner voice, the same one we use to think with verbal words. The most important thing is to feel as tightly as possible how it is through our own activity that the morphing of the sound is accomplished. The sound should feel as continuous, gradual morphing. The slower we do it, the better we can feel it. The sound should be an expression of our thinking will, of our innermost being. We should resist the temptation to split from the act of sound producing and observe it from the side or think about it. The goal is to fully engage precisely this voice which has the tendency to move in the background and imperceptibly comment on conscious phenomena as a bystander. We need to gather all the forces of this bystander and project them into the sound. We should feel this act as giving us inner stability, as if our sound producing activity finds its stable center in the sound perception. The center where the sound is focused at should be felt in the head region. As long as we're being drawn away from that center, the concentration is not yet as it should be. When our activity meets the sound in the right way, we feel very characteristic stability, almost as if a key fits a lock.

Here some may object that the feeling of being responsible for the sound is an illusion. Above all, this feeling is immediate fact of the given. It is only the thinking about that feeling which can declare it to be an illusion or not, but this in no way changes the given fact. Here we simply stick to the given. We shouldn't arbitrarily discard parts of the given because in this way we may be creating for ourselves an unsolvable problem. So in this exercise we don't postulate anything metaphysical but we simply investigate the living experience of willfully thinking a sound with clear self-propelled intent and tightly perceiving the result.

Jared,

I thank you for the computational metaphor - I am not good with such things, so it will take some more time for me to digest.

You don’t have to understand computations to understand that. Even just considering the computational elements as visual contents imbued with meaning is all you need to do. The only thing difficult about that is my writing style.

I think it might just be a more precise demonstration of what you were explaining. It demonstrates how the meaning of objects of our perception inverts to become the objects of meaning (among other things).
The important thing to note for understanding this visual analogy is that perception is both unbound and infinitely penetrable: Since the contents of perception penetrates the bounds of perception, such contents always entails a qualitative meaning that isn’t entirely known by the perceptual agent. Inversely, since perception also bounds its contents, it always gives qualitative meaning to its contents. This is demonstrated by pixelated representations (contents of perception) penetrating a circle's circumference (local boundary of perception), and also, an outer circle (non-local boundary of perception) around the pixels (contents of perception) that are penetrating the inner circle's circumference. There is always empty space between the two circumferences that the mind will act to “fill in”, only to prompt repetition of the same process over and over again in a non-equilibrium steady state. The meaning of the object within our perception inverts to become the object of meaning, which carries fourth additional meaning, and so on.

And this idea might put into perspective what Steiner is demonstrating — The square that is perceived when relating two “points” by triangulating their positions in both directions. The points don’t actually exist independent of subjective pixelated representations. So it’s a subjective estimation of “points” in a kind of grid space. It’s important to note that the pixilated representations aren’t of something more fundamental in nature. They are just what we use to model the world.

More so, this dynamic of consciousness acts as a universal grammar.
This idea might also be supported by certain neuroscientific research. So here’s that same basic idea proposed as a universal grammar, and fitted more in neuroscientific terms:
Grammar is a mental adaptation to the spatial-temporal incompatibility between the digital signals (pixels) by which the brain forms spatial representations, and the analog signals which bounds its perception of the world, and syntactically organizes such pixels.

Due to the incompleteness to which a grid cell forms spatial representations carried from an analog signal, it semantically references that code as a transitional element (verb). Then, due to that grid cells future adaptive representation of that previous pixelation(s) through a higher bandwidth analog signal, it semantically references that code completely as a definite element (noun).

When the grid cell completely represents pixels as semantically defined elements (nouns), it consequently represents other pixels incompletely as semantically transitional elements (verbs), as grid cells code interactions between neural oscillations at escalating frequencies across time.
As such, the brain is constantly linking nouns to verbs, and verbs to nouns. In so doing, it distinguishes nouns from verbs, and verbs from nouns.

I think we can all admit that, normally, the world of outer perception appears as something pre-existing our own consciousness and ideation. It comes to meet us and we have almost no clue why we perceive it, what it means, or what stands 'behind' it. Like you said, when I perceive the blue sky outside, I cannot really answer any of those questions. What we are speaking of here is a means of reorienting that back to its rightful relationship - where meaning flows through us into perception - so that we can truly say, "my conscious ideation is what structures the phenomenal world content in its manifold appearances to me". It is that livingly experineced ideational flow of activity which begins to explain why we perceive some phenomenon, what it means, and what is responsible for it. Most immediately, we find this nexus of meaningful flow and perception in the observation of our own thinking.

Perception is like a vessel of activity. We allow meaning to flow through us so we can view it from an “outer” perspective, and to reveal additional factors of influence (meaning). This involves stopping it in its tracks so we can hold it in place. If we think about it (literally and figuratively), will requires disruption. But we want to minimize the level of disruption in order to keep the flow of activity moving freely.
We should treat it like sailing. Adjust your sail (attention) to the direction of the wind. Hold it until the wind changes, then change the angle of the sail accordingly.

Consider this first section of Cleric's essay which provides an exercise to work with.

I like how Cleric used a very mundane task to highlight the intended effect. If he had told us to focus on a task with any sort of meaningful implications, they may pose as distractions to the intended effect of the task.

I also want to be clear that I am not negating your reasoning in any of your posts. Let me use an analogy. Goethe developed a theory of colors contra Newtonian color theory. Newton said there is something called pure white light and all the colors are embedded within this light. When the thinking subject set up a prism, we are simply drawing out the colors already within the light without our involvement. Goethe found this explanation is not in accord with the facts, with the phenomena of colors as they manifest to us. He eventually concluded that colors result from an interplay of light and darkness, which is an archetypal phenomenon, mediated by the thinking agency. Darkness perceived through light results in blue (daytime sky), for ex., and light perceived through darkness results in reddish-orange (dawn or dusk). He didn't abstract out the thinking agency from the scientific experimental process. We can say the Newtonian color theory, still prevalent today, is analogous to materialism and the Goethean theory is analogous to idealism.

Yeah that's fair. I like the Goethe, Newton analogy too.

There isn't a strong reason to suggest it isn’t correct, but a strong reason to suggest that we cannot know if it is correct. While, it isn’t pointless to consider the possible truth of such concepts, it is pointless to put too much stock in them.
Though I do think it’s potential infallibility means something. I don’t know of many logical arguments regarding the nature of consciousness and the universe that are both infallible, and, at least, more suggestive of a conscious creator than this one. That makes it at least interesting (to me at least). I’m okay with that at the end of the day.

[GrantHenderson]

Anthony,

I thank you for the computational metaphor - I am not good with such things, so it will take some more time for me to digest. But right from the outset, I must make a distinction here with what I wrote previously - I was not attempting to provide a conceptual metaphor for the dynamics of consciousness, so that we understand better how our consciousness works. Rather, I was trying to explain the need for us to livingly experience our own first-person thinking differently, in an 'inverted' manner. Our own thinking needs to pass through the 'eye of the needle'. Perhaps you understood that already, but I'm not quite sure.

I think we can all admit that, normally, the world of outer perception appears as something pre-existing our own consciousness and ideation. It comes to meet us and we have almost no clue why we perceive it, what it means, or what stands 'behind' it. Like you said, when I perceive the blue sky outside, I cannot really answer any of those questions. What we are speaking of here is a means of reorienting that back to its rightful relationship - where meaning flows through us into perception - so that we can truly say, "my conscious ideation is what structures the phenomenal world content in its manifold appearances to me". It is that livingly experineced ideational flow of activity which begins to explain why we perceive some phenomenon, what it means, and what is responsible for it. Most immediately, we find this nexus of meaningful flow and perception in the observation of our own thinking.

Let's say you form the thought, "triangle", and picture it inwardly. What significance does this triangle-form we picture inwardly have for our essential activity? It is the simple fact that we willed it into existence, we imbued it with the meaning of "triangle", and we perceive the final product of that activity. We then have a tiny, yet complete circuit of meaningful activity from inner will to outer thought-perception; a corner of the World Content we can plant our flag into and call our own. Now the goal is to expand this creative thinking capacity to more and more domains of perceptual experience, so that less and less of that perceptual experience comes to meet us as a mystery, at least in terms of its relation to our own ideational activity and our life of feelings, desires, etc.

Consider this first section of Cleric's essay which provides an exercise to work with. This one in particular was really helpfulf for me, personally. Generally, the purpose of these imaginative exercises is about developing 'sense-free' thinking. We want to find an image that cannot be found in the sense-world but is also very simple. Usually it comes in the form of combinations of images we won't find anywhere. Half the battle, so to speak, is following the reasoning of why we are doing the exercise and building up the image in connection with our soul experience, i.e. the life of feeling. The images can include mantras, verses, and in this case simply a string of vowel sounds morphing between one another. It is very simple but also something that most people would not have experienced yet, and vowels inherently carry inner meaning as the counter-pole to the outer forms of consonants.

Jared,

I thank you for the computational metaphor - I am not good with such things, so it will take some more time for me to digest.

You don’t have to understand computations to understand that. Even just considering the computational elements as visual contents imbued with meaning is all you need to do. The only thing difficult about that is my writing style.

I think it might just be a more precise demonstration of what you were explaining. It demonstrates how the meaning of objects of our perception inverts to become the objects of meaning (among other things).
The important thing to note for understanding this visual analogy is that perception is both unbound and infinitely penetrable: Since the contents of perception penetrates the bounds of perception, such contents always entails a qualitative meaning that isn’t entirely known by the perceptual agent. Inversely, since perception also bounds its contents, it always gives qualitative meaning to its contents. This is demonstrated by pixelated representations (contents of perception) penetrating a circle's circumference (local boundary of perception), and also, an outer circle (non-local boundary of perception) around the pixels (contents of perception) that are penetrating the inner circle's circumference. There is always empty space between the two circumferences that the mind will act to “fill in”, only to prompt repetition of the same process over and over again in a non-equilibrium steady state. The meaning of the object within our perception inverts to become the object of meaning, which carries fourth additional meaning, and so on.

And this idea might put into perspective what Steiner is demonstrating — The square that is perceived when relating two “points” by triangulating their positions in both directions. The points don’t actually exist independent of subjective pixelated representations. So it’s a subjective estimation of “points” in a kind of grid space. It’s important to note that the pixilated representations aren’t of something more fundamental in nature. They are just what we use to model the world.

More so, this dynamic of consciousness acts as a universal grammar.
This idea might also be supported by certain neuroscientific research. So here’s that same basic idea proposed as a universal grammar, and fitted more in neuroscientific terms:
Grammar is a mental adaptation to the spatial-temporal incompatibility between the digital signals (pixels) by which the brain forms spatial representations, and the analog signals which bounds its perception of the world, and syntactically organizes such pixels.

Due to the incompleteness to which a grid cell forms spatial representations carried from an analog signal, it semantically references that code as a transitional element (verb). Then, due to that grid cells future adaptive representation of that previous pixelation(s) through a higher bandwidth analog signal, it semantically references that code completely as a definite element (noun).

When the grid cell completely represents pixels as semantically defined elements (nouns), it consequently represents other pixels incompletely as semantically transitional elements (verbs), as grid cells code interactions between neural oscillations at escalating frequencies across time.
As such, the brain is constantly linking nouns to verbs, and verbs to nouns. In so doing, it distinguishes nouns from verbs, and verbs from nouns.

I think we can all admit that, normally, the world of outer perception appears as something pre-existing our own consciousness and ideation. It comes to meet us and we have almost no clue why we perceive it, what it means, or what stands 'behind' it. Like you said, when I perceive the blue sky outside, I cannot really answer any of those questions. What we are speaking of here is a means of reorienting that back to its rightful relationship - where meaning flows through us into perception - so that we can truly say, "my conscious ideation is what structures the phenomenal world content in its manifold appearances to me". It is that livingly experineced ideational flow of activity which begins to explain why we perceive some phenomenon, what it means, and what is responsible for it. Most immediately, we find this nexus of meaningful flow and perception in the observation of our own thinking.

Perception is like a vessel of activity. We allow meaning to flow through us so we can view it from an “outer” perspective, and to reveal additional factors of influence (meaning). This involves stopping it in its tracks so we can hold it in place. If we think about it (literally and figuratively), will requires disruption. But we want to minimize the level of disruption in order to keep the flow of activity moving freely.
We should treat it like sailing. Adjust your sail (attention) to the direction of the wind. Hold it until the wind changes, then change the angle of the sail accordingly.

Consider this first section of Cleric's essay which provides an exercise to work with.

I like how Cleric used a very mundane task to highlight the intended effect. If he had told us to focus on a task with any sort of meaningful implications, they may pose as distractions to the intended effect of the task.

I also want to be clear that I am not negating your reasoning in any of your posts. Let me use an analogy. Goethe developed a theory of colors contra Newtonian color theory. Newton said there is something called pure white light and all the colors are embedded within this light. When the thinking subject set up a prism, we are simply drawing out the colors already within the light without our involvement. Goethe found this explanation is not in accord with the facts, with the phenomena of colors as they manifest to us. He eventually concluded that colors result from an interplay of light and darkness, which is an archetypal phenomenon, mediated by the thinking agency. Darkness perceived through light results in blue (daytime sky), for ex., and light perceived through darkness results in reddish-orange (dawn or dusk). He didn't abstract out the thinking agency from the scientific experimental process. We can say the Newtonian color theory, still prevalent today, is analogous to materialism and the Goethean theory is analogous to idealism.

Yeah that's fair. I like the Goethe, Newton analogy too.

There isn't a strong reason to suggest it isn’t correct, but a strong reason to suggest that we cannot know if it is correct. While, it isn’t pointless to consider the possible truth of such concepts, it is pointless to put too much stock in them.
Though I do think it’s potential infallibility means something. I don’t know of many logical arguments regarding the nature of consciousness and the universe that are both infallible, and, at least, more suggestive of a conscious creator than this one. That makes it at least interesting (to me at least). I’m okay with that at the end of the day.

A quick clarification of my previous comment: I don't mean to give the impression that we should be waiting for thoughts arrive to us, without any conscious role in what we "will". We should be consciously restricting potentials through internal focus. But also, we don't always want to restrict our openness to experience so much when engaging in a "creative flow state".

[AshvinP]

I think we can all admit that, normally, the world of outer perception appears as something pre-existing our own consciousness and ideation. It comes to meet us and we have almost no clue why we perceive it, what it means, or what stands 'behind' it. Like you said, when I perceive the blue sky outside, I cannot really answer any of those questions. What we are speaking of here is a means of reorienting that back to its rightful relationship - where meaning flows through us into perception - so that we can truly say, "my conscious ideation is what structures the phenomenal world content in its manifold appearances to me". It is that livingly experineced ideational flow of activity which begins to explain why we perceive some phenomenon, what it means, and what is responsible for it. Most immediately, we find this nexus of meaningful flow and perception in the observation of our own thinking.

Perception is like a vessel of activity. We allow meaning to flow through us so we can view it from an “outer” perspective, and to reveal additional factors of influence (meaning). This involves stopping it in its tracks so we can hold it in place. If we think about it (literally and figuratively), will requires disruption. But we want to minimize the level of disruption in order to keep the flow of activity moving freely.
We should treat it like sailing. Adjust your sail (attention) to the direction of the wind. Hold it until the wind changes, then change the angle of the sail accordingly.

Consider this first section of Cleric's essay which provides an exercise to work with.

I like how Cleric used a very mundane task to highlight the intended effect. If he had told us to focus on a task with any sort of meaningful implications, they may pose as distractions to the intended effect of the task.

I also want to be clear that I am not negating your reasoning in any of your posts. Let me use an analogy. Goethe developed a theory of colors contra Newtonian color theory. Newton said there is something called pure white light and all the colors are embedded within this light. When the thinking subject set up a prism, we are simply drawing out the colors already within the light without our involvement. Goethe found this explanation is not in accord with the facts, with the phenomena of colors as they manifest to us. He eventually concluded that colors result from an interplay of light and darkness, which is an archetypal phenomenon, mediated by the thinking agency. Darkness perceived through light results in blue (daytime sky), for ex., and light perceived through darkness results in reddish-orange (dawn or dusk). He didn't abstract out the thinking agency from the scientific experimental process. We can say the Newtonian color theory, still prevalent today, is analogous to materialism and the Goethean theory is analogous to idealism.

Yeah that's fair. I like the Goethe, Newton analogy too.

There isn't a strong reason to suggest it isn’t correct, but a strong reason to suggest that we cannot know if it is correct. While, it isn’t pointless to consider the potential truth of such concepts, it is pointless to put too much stock in them.
Though I do think it’s potential infallibility means something. I don’t know of many logical arguments regarding the nature of consciousness and the universe that are both infallible, and, at least, more suggestive of a conscious creator than this one. That makes it at least interesting (to me at least). I’m okay with that at the end of the day.

Right, so I think our main area of dispute, which is the most common for our times as well, is the following:

1) is our thinking limited to the periodic 'adjustment of the sail' for changing wind conditions, or is it more like the wind itself, which is pushing against the sail (will or perception), or like an octopus who reaches out its feelers and mimics its environment through them?

It is my suggestion that the latter is the case for even normal thinking, but it happens subconsciously, i.e. it gropes around in the dark and becomes conscious of itself only after its living activity has extinguished and it has a hold of dead concepts, the final products of that activity which have been extracted and isolated from the living flow of that activity. This latter part is the holding in place you mention.

2) If #1 is accurate, can we become more conscious of the living flow of activity before it extinguishes, while its still in movement through the curvature of meaning. Can we shed light within the darkness so we aren't groping blindly? To a certain extent, the answer must be "yes" if my thinking has accurately perceived #1. I suggest that this is the same for all modern philosophies which claimed to discover "limits to knowing" - for their own endeavors to be valid or insightful in any way, we must presuppose those limits are fictions of the rational intellect, and the latter is not identical to human Thinking as such.

Beyond that, I think we can discern precisely why there are no such limits with sound reasoning, and we can experience the absurdity of such proposed limits through developmemt of our own higher thinking faculties like conscious Imagination.

3) If #2 is valid, then can we speak of any genuine knowledge or understanding which falls short of that living thinking, Reason and Imagination? Or at least any knowledge which satisfies humanity's deepest longings at this stage of its cognitive evolution?

What are your thoughts on those? To be honest, I became even more confused on the pixel metaphor when reading your last post, but based on your conclusions quoted above, I think it's safe to say we are not on the same page on the nature of Thinking and, consequently, its higher potential.

I am glad you liked the vowel exercise and am wondering if there was anything specific you sensed from it?

[GrantHenderson]

I think we can all admit that, normally, the world of outer perception appears as something pre-existing our own consciousness and ideation. It comes to meet us and we have almost no clue why we perceive it, what it means, or what stands 'behind' it. Like you said, when I perceive the blue sky outside, I cannot really answer any of those questions. What we are speaking of here is a means of reorienting that back to its rightful relationship - where meaning flows through us into perception - so that we can truly say, "my conscious ideation is what structures the phenomenal world content in its manifold appearances to me". It is that livingly experineced ideational flow of activity which begins to explain why we perceive some phenomenon, what it means, and what is responsible for it. Most immediately, we find this nexus of meaningful flow and perception in the observation of our own thinking.

Perception is like a vessel of activity. We allow meaning to flow through us so we can view it from an “outer” perspective, and to reveal additional factors of influence (meaning). This involves stopping it in its tracks so we can hold it in place. If we think about it (literally and figuratively), will requires disruption. But we want to minimize the level of disruption in order to keep the flow of activity moving freely.
We should treat it like sailing. Adjust your sail (attention) to the direction of the wind. Hold it until the wind changes, then change the angle of the sail accordingly.

Consider this first section of Cleric's essay which provides an exercise to work with.

I like how Cleric used a very mundane task to highlight the intended effect. If he had told us to focus on a task with any sort of meaningful implications, they may pose as distractions to the intended effect of the task.

I also want to be clear that I am not negating your reasoning in any of your posts. Let me use an analogy. Goethe developed a theory of colors contra Newtonian color theory. Newton said there is something called pure white light and all the colors are embedded within this light. When the thinking subject set up a prism, we are simply drawing out the colors already within the light without our involvement. Goethe found this explanation is not in accord with the facts, with the phenomena of colors as they manifest to us. He eventually concluded that colors result from an interplay of light and darkness, which is an archetypal phenomenon, mediated by the thinking agency. Darkness perceived through light results in blue (daytime sky), for ex., and light perceived through darkness results in reddish-orange (dawn or dusk). He didn't abstract out the thinking agency from the scientific experimental process. We can say the Newtonian color theory, still prevalent today, is analogous to materialism and the Goethean theory is analogous to idealism.

Yeah that's fair. I like the Goethe, Newton analogy too.

There isn't a strong reason to suggest it isn’t correct, but a strong reason to suggest that we cannot know if it is correct. While, it isn’t pointless to consider the potential truth of such concepts, it is pointless to put too much stock in them.
Though I do think it’s potential infallibility means something. I don’t know of many logical arguments regarding the nature of consciousness and the universe that are both infallible, and, at least, more suggestive of a conscious creator than this one. That makes it at least interesting (to me at least). I’m okay with that at the end of the day.

Right, so I think our main area of dispute, which is the most common for our times as well, is the following:

1) is our thinking limited to the periodic 'adjustment of the sail' for changing wind conditions, or is it more like the wind itself, which is pushing against the sail (will or perception), or like an octopus who reaches out its feelers and mimics its environment through them?

It is my suggestion that the latter is the case for even normal thinking, but it happens subconsciously, i.e. it gropes around in the dark and becomes conscious of itself only after its living activity has extinguished and it has a hold of dead concepts, the final products of that activity which have been extracted and isolated from the living flow of that activity. This latter part is the holding in place you mention.

2) If #1 is accurate, can we become more conscious of the living flow of activity before it extinguishes, while its still in movement through the curvature of meaning. Can we shed light within the darkness so we aren't groping blindly? To a certain extent, the answer must be "yes" if my thinking has accurately perceived #1. I suggest that this is the same for all modern philosophies which claimed to discover "limits to knowing" - for their own endeavors to be valid or insightful in any way, we must presuppose those limits are fictions of the rational intellect, and the latter is not identical to human Thinking as such.

Beyond that, I think we can discern precisely why there are no such limits with sound reasoning, and we can experience the absurdity of such proposed limits through developmemt of our own higher thinking faculties like conscious Imagination.

3) If #2 is valid, then can we speak of any genuine knowledge or understanding which falls short of that living thinking, Reason and Imagination? Or at least any knowledge which satisfies humanity's deepest longings at this stage of its cognitive evolution?

What are your thoughts on those? To be honest, I became even more confused on the pixel metaphor when reading your last post, but based on your conclusions quoted above, I think it's safe to say we are not on the same page on the nature of Thinking and, consequently, its higher potential.

I am glad you liked the vowel exercise and am wondering if there was anything specific you sensed from it?

Forget the sail example because it's not helpful for what I think you're trying to draw from it.

I think, when we form sense perceptions we can hold the visual stimuli in place and thereafter reevaluate as an internal state isolated from the living flow of activity (like you say). But I also think the contents held in this internal state have a fractal-like nature that reflects the activity of all other states. Maybe that's what you mean when you refuse the idea of "limits to knowledge"?

As confusing as I may make it seem, it's also demonstrated by the diagrams. Contents interacting with the boundary of perception are sense perceptions. When we will a new thought we can view the previous thought as an internal state (as demonstrated by a new boundary encompassing those states).

I admit that it would be much easier to explain if I could present it in the form of a video rather than a sequence of pictures.

[GrantHenderson]

I think we can all admit that, normally, the world of outer perception appears as something pre-existing our own consciousness and ideation. It comes to meet us and we have almost no clue why we perceive it, what it means, or what stands 'behind' it. Like you said, when I perceive the blue sky outside, I cannot really answer any of those questions. What we are speaking of here is a means of reorienting that back to its rightful relationship - where meaning flows through us into perception - so that we can truly say, "my conscious ideation is what structures the phenomenal world content in its manifold appearances to me". It is that livingly experineced ideational flow of activity which begins to explain why we perceive some phenomenon, what it means, and what is responsible for it. Most immediately, we find this nexus of meaningful flow and perception in the observation of our own thinking.

Perception is like a vessel of activity. We allow meaning to flow through us so we can view it from an “outer” perspective, and to reveal additional factors of influence (meaning). This involves stopping it in its tracks so we can hold it in place. If we think about it (literally and figuratively), will requires disruption. But we want to minimize the level of disruption in order to keep the flow of activity moving freely.
We should treat it like sailing. Adjust your sail (attention) to the direction of the wind. Hold it until the wind changes, then change the angle of the sail accordingly.

Consider this first section of Cleric's essay which provides an exercise to work with.

I like how Cleric used a very mundane task to highlight the intended effect. If he had told us to focus on a task with any sort of meaningful implications, they may pose as distractions to the intended effect of the task.

I also want to be clear that I am not negating your reasoning in any of your posts. Let me use an analogy. Goethe developed a theory of colors contra Newtonian color theory. Newton said there is something called pure white light and all the colors are embedded within this light. When the thinking subject set up a prism, we are simply drawing out the colors already within the light without our involvement. Goethe found this explanation is not in accord with the facts, with the phenomena of colors as they manifest to us. He eventually concluded that colors result from an interplay of light and darkness, which is an archetypal phenomenon, mediated by the thinking agency. Darkness perceived through light results in blue (daytime sky), for ex., and light perceived through darkness results in reddish-orange (dawn or dusk). He didn't abstract out the thinking agency from the scientific experimental process. We can say the Newtonian color theory, still prevalent today, is analogous to materialism and the Goethean theory is analogous to idealism.

Yeah that's fair. I like the Goethe, Newton analogy too.

There isn't a strong reason to suggest it isn’t correct, but a strong reason to suggest that we cannot know if it is correct. While, it isn’t pointless to consider the potential truth of such concepts, it is pointless to put too much stock in them.
Though I do think it’s potential infallibility means something. I don’t know of many logical arguments regarding the nature of consciousness and the universe that are both infallible, and, at least, more suggestive of a conscious creator than this one. That makes it at least interesting (to me at least). I’m okay with that at the end of the day.

Right, so I think our main area of dispute, which is the most common for our times as well, is the following:

1) is our thinking limited to the periodic 'adjustment of the sail' for changing wind conditions, or is it more like the wind itself, which is pushing against the sail (will or perception), or like an octopus who reaches out its feelers and mimics its environment through them?

It is my suggestion that the latter is the case for even normal thinking, but it happens subconsciously, i.e. it gropes around in the dark and becomes conscious of itself only after its living activity has extinguished and it has a hold of dead concepts, the final products of that activity which have been extracted and isolated from the living flow of that activity. This latter part is the holding in place you mention.

2) If #1 is accurate, can we become more conscious of the living flow of activity before it extinguishes, while its still in movement through the curvature of meaning. Can we shed light within the darkness so we aren't groping blindly? To a certain extent, the answer must be "yes" if my thinking has accurately perceived #1. I suggest that this is the same for all modern philosophies which claimed to discover "limits to knowing" - for their own endeavors to be valid or insightful in any way, we must presuppose those limits are fictions of the rational intellect, and the latter is not identical to human Thinking as such.

Beyond that, I think we can discern precisely why there are no such limits with sound reasoning, and we can experience the absurdity of such proposed limits through developmemt of our own higher thinking faculties like conscious Imagination.

3) If #2 is valid, then can we speak of any genuine knowledge or understanding which falls short of that living thinking, Reason and Imagination? Or at least any knowledge which satisfies humanity's deepest longings at this stage of its cognitive evolution?

What are your thoughts on those? To be honest, I became even more confused on the pixel metaphor when reading your last post, but based on your conclusions quoted above, I think it's safe to say we are not on the same page on the nature of Thinking and, consequently, its higher potential.

I am glad you liked the vowel exercise and am wondering if there was anything specific you sensed from it?

Forget the sail example because it's not helpful for what I think you're trying to draw from it.

I think, when we form sense perceptions we can hold the visual stimuli in place and thereafter reevaluate as an internal state isolated from the living flow of activity (like you say). But I also think the contents held in this internal state have a fractal-like nature that reflects the activity of all other states. Maybe that's what you mean when you refuse the idea of "limits to knowledge"?

As confusing as I may make it seem, it's also demonstrated by the diagrams. Contents interacting with the boundary of perception are sense perceptions. When we will a new thought we can view the previous thought as an internal state (as demonstrated by a new boundary encompassing those states).

I admit that it would be much easier to explain if I could present it in the form of a video rather than a sequence of pictures.

[AshvinP]

I think we can all admit that, normally, the world of outer perception appears as something pre-existing our own consciousness and ideation. It comes to meet us and we have almost no clue why we perceive it, what it means, or what stands 'behind' it. Like you said, when I perceive the blue sky outside, I cannot really answer any of those questions. What we are speaking of here is a means of reorienting that back to its rightful relationship - where meaning flows through us into perception - so that we can truly say, "my conscious ideation is what structures the phenomenal world content in its manifold appearances to me". It is that livingly experineced ideational flow of activity which begins to explain why we perceive some phenomenon, what it means, and what is responsible for it. Most immediately, we find this nexus of meaningful flow and perception in the observation of our own thinking.

Perception is like a vessel of activity. We allow meaning to flow through us so we can view it from an “outer” perspective, and to reveal additional factors of influence (meaning). This involves stopping it in its tracks so we can hold it in place. If we think about it (literally and figuratively), will requires disruption. But we want to minimize the level of disruption in order to keep the flow of activity moving freely.
We should treat it like sailing. Adjust your sail (attention) to the direction of the wind. Hold it until the wind changes, then change the angle of the sail accordingly.

Consider this first section of Cleric's essay which provides an exercise to work with.

I like how Cleric used a very mundane task to highlight the intended effect. If he had told us to focus on a task with any sort of meaningful implications, they may pose as distractions to the intended effect of the task.

I also want to be clear that I am not negating your reasoning in any of your posts. Let me use an analogy. Goethe developed a theory of colors contra Newtonian color theory. Newton said there is something called pure white light and all the colors are embedded within this light. When the thinking subject set up a prism, we are simply drawing out the colors already within the light without our involvement. Goethe found this explanation is not in accord with the facts, with the phenomena of colors as they manifest to us. He eventually concluded that colors result from an interplay of light and darkness, which is an archetypal phenomenon, mediated by the thinking agency. Darkness perceived through light results in blue (daytime sky), for ex., and light perceived through darkness results in reddish-orange (dawn or dusk). He didn't abstract out the thinking agency from the scientific experimental process. We can say the Newtonian color theory, still prevalent today, is analogous to materialism and the Goethean theory is analogous to idealism.

Yeah that's fair. I like the Goethe, Newton analogy too.

There isn't a strong reason to suggest it isn’t correct, but a strong reason to suggest that we cannot know if it is correct. While, it isn’t pointless to consider the potential truth of such concepts, it is pointless to put too much stock in them.
Though I do think it’s potential infallibility means something. I don’t know of many logical arguments regarding the nature of consciousness and the universe that are both infallible, and, at least, more suggestive of a conscious creator than this one. That makes it at least interesting (to me at least). I’m okay with that at the end of the day.

Right, so I think our main area of dispute, which is the most common for our times as well, is the following:

1) is our thinking limited to the periodic 'adjustment of the sail' for changing wind conditions, or is it more like the wind itself, which is pushing against the sail (will or perception), or like an octopus who reaches out its feelers and mimics its environment through them?

It is my suggestion that the latter is the case for even normal thinking, but it happens subconsciously, i.e. it gropes around in the dark and becomes conscious of itself only after its living activity has extinguished and it has a hold of dead concepts, the final products of that activity which have been extracted and isolated from the living flow of that activity. This latter part is the holding in place you mention.

2) If #1 is accurate, can we become more conscious of the living flow of activity before it extinguishes, while its still in movement through the curvature of meaning. Can we shed light within the darkness so we aren't groping blindly? To a certain extent, the answer must be "yes" if my thinking has accurately perceived #1. I suggest that this is the same for all modern philosophies which claimed to discover "limits to knowing" - for their own endeavors to be valid or insightful in any way, we must presuppose those limits are fictions of the rational intellect, and the latter is not identical to human Thinking as such.

Beyond that, I think we can discern precisely why there are no such limits with sound reasoning, and we can experience the absurdity of such proposed limits through developmemt of our own higher thinking faculties like conscious Imagination.

3) If #2 is valid, then can we speak of any genuine knowledge or understanding which falls short of that living thinking, Reason and Imagination? Or at least any knowledge which satisfies humanity's deepest longings at this stage of its cognitive evolution?

What are your thoughts on those? To be honest, I became even more confused on the pixel metaphor when reading your last post, but based on your conclusions quoted above, I think it's safe to say we are not on the same page on the nature of Thinking and, consequently, its higher potential.

I am glad you liked the vowel exercise and am wondering if there was anything specific you sensed from it?

Forget the sail example because it's not helpful for what I think you're trying to draw from it.

I think, when we form sense perceptions we can hold the visual stimuli in place and thereafter reevaluate as an internal state isolated from the living flow of activity (like you say). But I also think the contents held in this internal state have a fractal-like nature that reflects the activity of all other states. Maybe that's what you mean when you refuse the idea of "limits to knowledge"?

As confusing as I may make it seem, it's also demonstrated by the diagrams. Contents interacting with the boundary of perception are sense perceptions. When we will a new thought we can view the previous thought as an internal state (as demonstrated by a new boundary encompassing those states).

I admit that it would be much easier to explain if I could present it in the form of a video rather than a sequence of pictures.

I am mostly trying to differentiate between conceptualizing the dynamic of our consciousness, which I think we agree is not any sort of mechanical process like a clock, and experiencing its reality. Many 20th century thinkers have referred to this non-awareness of our own consciousness in its living dynamic. Heidegger observed, "we are still not yet Thinking". So how do we start Thinking? I am saying we won't conceptualize our way into this living thinking, but only by transforming our own thinking from its first-person perspective on the world content.

This transformation answers the question of "limits to knowledge" by its very occurrence. That question can only be asked from a conceptual perspective which has not experienced its own living thinking. And it is quite possible to posit no limits to thinking intellectually but still limit our own thinking out of pure mental habit. This seems to have happened often in analytic philosophy which claims to get "beyond Kant" but still functions as if his epistemic divide is gospel. I am reminded of Bergson here.

To the extent that we distend our will, tend to reabsorb our thought in it and get into greater sympathy with the effort which engenders things, these formidable problems recede, diminish, disappear. For we feel that a divinely creative will or thought is too full of itself, in the immensity of its reality, to have the slightest idea of a lack of order or lack of being. To imagine the possibility of absolute disorder, all the more the possibility of nothingness, would be for it to say to itself that it might have not existed at all, and that would be a weakness incompatible with its nature which is force. The more we turn toward this creative will, the more the doubts which trouble the sane and normal man seem to us abnormal and morbid.
...
Such is exactly the effect certain “great problems” produce in us when we set ourselves again in the direction of generating thought. They recede toward zero as fast as we approach this generating thought, as they fill only that space between it and us. Thus we discover the illusion of him who thinks he is doing more by raising these problems than by not raising them. One might just as well think that there is more in a half-consumed bottle than in a full one, because the latter contains only wine, while in the former there is wine and emptiness in addition.

[GrantHenderson]

Right, so I think our main area of dispute, which is the most common for our times as well, is the following:

1) is our thinking limited to the periodic 'adjustment of the sail' for changing wind conditions, or is it more like the wind itself, which is pushing against the sail (will or perception), or like an octopus who reaches out its feelers and mimics its environment through them?

It is my suggestion that the latter is the case for even normal thinking, but it happens subconsciously, i.e. it gropes around in the dark and becomes conscious of itself only after its living activity has extinguished and it has a hold of dead concepts, the final products of that activity which have been extracted and isolated from the living flow of that activity. This latter part is the holding in place you mention.

2) If #1 is accurate, can we become more conscious of the living flow of activity before it extinguishes, while its still in movement through the curvature of meaning. Can we shed light within the darkness so we aren't groping blindly? To a certain extent, the answer must be "yes" if my thinking has accurately perceived #1. I suggest that this is the same for all modern philosophies which claimed to discover "limits to knowing" - for their own endeavors to be valid or insightful in any way, we must presuppose those limits are fictions of the rational intellect, and the latter is not identical to human Thinking as such.

Beyond that, I think we can discern precisely why there are no such limits with sound reasoning, and we can experience the absurdity of such proposed limits through developmemt of our own higher thinking faculties like conscious Imagination.

3) If #2 is valid, then can we speak of any genuine knowledge or understanding which falls short of that living thinking, Reason and Imagination? Or at least any knowledge which satisfies humanity's deepest longings at this stage of its cognitive evolution?

What are your thoughts on those? To be honest, I became even more confused on the pixel metaphor when reading your last post, but based on your conclusions quoted above, I think it's safe to say we are not on the same page on the nature of Thinking and, consequently, its higher potential.

I am glad you liked the vowel exercise and am wondering if there was anything specific you sensed from it?

Forget the sail example because it's not helpful for what I think you're trying to draw from it.

I think, when we form sense perceptions we can hold the visual stimuli in place and thereafter reevaluate as an internal state isolated from the living flow of activity (like you say). But I also think the contents held in this internal state have a fractal-like nature that reflects the activity of all other states. Maybe that's what you mean when you refuse the idea of "limits to knowledge"?

As confusing as I may make it seem, it's also demonstrated by the diagrams. Contents interacting with the boundary of perception are sense perceptions. When we will a new thought we can view the previous thought as an internal state (as demonstrated by a new boundary encompassing those states).

I admit that it would be much easier to explain if I could present it in the form of a video rather than a sequence of pictures.

I am mostly trying to differentiate between conceptualizing the dynamic of our consciousness, which I think we agree is not any sort of mechanical process like a clock, and experiencing its reality. Many 20th century thinkers have referred to this non-awareness of our own consciousness in its living dynamic. Heidegger observed, "we are still not yet Thinking". So how do we start Thinking? I am saying we won't conceptualize our way into this living thinking, but only by transforming our own thinking from its first-person perspective on the world content.

This transformation answers the question of "limits to knowledge" by its very occurrence. That question can only be asked from a conceptual perspective which has not experienced its own living thinking. And it is quite possible to posit no limits to thinking intellectually but still limit our own thinking out of pure mental habit. This seems to have happened often in analytic philosophy which claims to get "beyond Kant" but still functions as if his epistemic divide is gospel. I am reminded of Bergson here.

To the extent that we distend our will, tend to reabsorb our thought in it and get into greater sympathy with the effort which engenders things, these formidable problems recede, diminish, disappear. For we feel that a divinely creative will or thought is too full of itself, in the immensity of its reality, to have the slightest idea of a lack of order or lack of being. To imagine the possibility of absolute disorder, all the more the possibility of nothingness, would be for it to say to itself that it might have not existed at all, and that would be a weakness incompatible with its nature which is force. The more we turn toward this creative will, the more the doubts which trouble the sane and normal man seem to us abnormal and morbid.
...
Such is exactly the effect certain “great problems” produce in us when we set ourselves again in the direction of generating thought. They recede toward zero as fast as we approach this generating thought, as they fill only that space between it and us. Thus we discover the illusion of him who thinks he is doing more by raising these problems than by not raising them. One might just as well think that there is more in a half-consumed bottle than in a full one, because the latter contains only wine, while in the former there is wine and emptiness in addition.

Of course, meta-analyzing first person experience of world content is the only way to learn about what is happening with that first person experience. Anybody who tries to decipher our thoughts does this to some extent. But there is always comprehension lost in translation from pure experience of our first person experience to our conceptual analysis thereof. We might even resort to an analysis of what might seem a logically comparable substitute as a way of making sense of pure thoughts, as opposed to reliving, and reevaluating the pure thoughts that lead us there in the first place. I’m guilty of that. We all are.

When we engage in pure internal visualizations, we’re experiencing direct comprehension of the visual processes, but we aren’t aware of what these experiences might mean in any other context, or consequently its own context. Whereas, when we compartmentalize these pure experiences, and commence the flow of sensory-perceptual activity upon the pure experiences which we have compartmentalized, we can form a meta-analysis of them. But this meta-analysis is always to some extent disconnected from the pure experiences they are based on.

I think I tried making this general point a few pages back.

[AshvinP]

Forget the sail example because it's not helpful for what I think you're trying to draw from it.

I think, when we form sense perceptions we can hold the visual stimuli in place and thereafter reevaluate as an internal state isolated from the living flow of activity (like you say). But I also think the contents held in this internal state have a fractal-like nature that reflects the activity of all other states. Maybe that's what you mean when you refuse the idea of "limits to knowledge"?

As confusing as I may make it seem, it's also demonstrated by the diagrams. Contents interacting with the boundary of perception are sense perceptions. When we will a new thought we can view the previous thought as an internal state (as demonstrated by a new boundary encompassing those states).

I admit that it would be much easier to explain if I could present it in the form of a video rather than a sequence of pictures.

I am mostly trying to differentiate between conceptualizing the dynamic of our consciousness, which I think we agree is not any sort of mechanical process like a clock, and experiencing its reality. Many 20th century thinkers have referred to this non-awareness of our own consciousness in its living dynamic. Heidegger observed, "we are still not yet Thinking". So how do we start Thinking? I am saying we won't conceptualize our way into this living thinking, but only by transforming our own thinking from its first-person perspective on the world content.

This transformation answers the question of "limits to knowledge" by its very occurrence. That question can only be asked from a conceptual perspective which has not experienced its own living thinking. And it is quite possible to posit no limits to thinking intellectually but still limit our own thinking out of pure mental habit. This seems to have happened often in analytic philosophy which claims to get "beyond Kant" but still functions as if his epistemic divide is gospel. I am reminded of Bergson here.

To the extent that we distend our will, tend to reabsorb our thought in it and get into greater sympathy with the effort which engenders things, these formidable problems recede, diminish, disappear. For we feel that a divinely creative will or thought is too full of itself, in the immensity of its reality, to have the slightest idea of a lack of order or lack of being. To imagine the possibility of absolute disorder, all the more the possibility of nothingness, would be for it to say to itself that it might have not existed at all, and that would be a weakness incompatible with its nature which is force. The more we turn toward this creative will, the more the doubts which trouble the sane and normal man seem to us abnormal and morbid.
...
Such is exactly the effect certain “great problems” produce in us when we set ourselves again in the direction of generating thought. They recede toward zero as fast as we approach this generating thought, as they fill only that space between it and us. Thus we discover the illusion of him who thinks he is doing more by raising these problems than by not raising them. One might just as well think that there is more in a half-consumed bottle than in a full one, because the latter contains only wine, while in the former there is wine and emptiness in addition.

Of course, meta-analyzing first person experience of world content is the only way to learn about what is happening with that first person experience. Anybody who tries to decipher our thoughts does this to some extent. But there is always comprehension lost in translation from pure experience of our first person experience to our conceptual analysis thereof. We might even resort to an analysis of what might seem a logically comparable substitute as a way of making sense of pure thoughts, as opposed to reliving, and reevaluating the pure thoughts that lead us there in the first place. I’m guilty of that. We all are.

When we engage in pure internal visualizations, we’re experiencing direct comprehension of the visual processes, but we aren’t aware of what these experiences might mean in any other context, or consequently its own context. Whereas, when we compartmentalize these pure experiences, and commence the flow of sensory-perceptual activity upon the pure experiences which we have compartmentalized, we can form a meta-analysis of them. But this meta-analysis is always to some extent disconnected from the pure experiences they are based on.

I think I tried making this general point a few pages back.

This is the crux of the issue. My position is that what you wrote above only holds valid in a dualistic framework. We must treat our thinking activity, which you refer to as "meta-analysis", as one which confronts a pre-existing array of perceptions. Whether these perceptions are conceived as made of matter or mental stuff is irrelevant, because they are both equally flawed and for the same reason. They both smuggle in a subject/object divide from the outset and then reason from there. I propose that our thinking activity is like a sensory organ which perceives ideal content like our eyes perceive colors, and therefore we are always co-creating the experiential world through this activity.

Let us return to our example of the thrown stone. We connect the sight perceptions that originate from the individual locations in which the stone finds itself. This connection gives us a curved line (the trajectory), and we obtain the laws of trajectory; when furthermore we take into account the material composition of the glass, and then understand the flying stone as cause, the shattering of the glass as effect, and so on, we then have permeated the given with concepts in such a way that it becomes comprehensible to us. This entire operation, which draws together the manifoldness of perception into a conceptual unity, occurs within our consciousness. The ideal interrelationship of the perceptual pictures is not given by the senses, but rather is grasped absolutely on its own by our spirit. For a being endowed only with the ability to perceive with the senses, this whole operation would simply not be there. For such a being the outer world would simply remain that disconnected chaos of perceptions we characterized as what first (directly) confronts us.

So the place, therefore, where the perceptual pictures appear in their ideal relationship, where this relationship is held out to the perceptual pictures as their conceptual counter-image, this place is human consciousness...

...Knowing would be an absolutely useless process if something complete were conveyed to us in sense experience. All drawing together, ordering, and grouping of sense-perceptible facts would have no objective value. Knowing has meaning only if we do not regard the configuration given to the senses as a finished one, if this configuration is for us a half of something that bears within itself something still higher that, however, is no longer sense-perceptible. There the human spirit steps in. It perceives that higher element. Therefore thinking must also not be regarded as bringing something to the content of reality. It is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas.

So the dichotomy between "pure experience" and meta-analysis thinking cannot be valid, as there would be nothing to meta-analyze in the absence of thinking. This understanding is of a great import, because we then discern how our thinking is genuine spiritual activity. It is a formative force - not only does it form human language, mathematical symbols, concepts, art, etc., but also the Cosmic and natural forms (which are essentially evolving processes). It doesn't form these processes arbitrarily, but according to the ideal plan which is disclosed to it through sense-phenomena. The rules by which our states of thinking-experience transform are also those by which the World Content transforms, and we call that Logic. Clearly, though, the intellectual logic we use to build conceptual models is not exactly the same as that which weaves together the world forms.

The intellectual logic is like the lowest order manifestation, a very crystallized form, of this higher Logic. We really need to get a feel for how all that we currently think precipitates from a higher living context which meaningfully shapes our willing-feeling-thinking states of being.  For ex., our sympathies and antipathies will shape what we direct attention to and desire to think about during any given timeframe. The forces responsible for these soul states are none other than the higher order Logic we are seeking, which funnels our activity in certain directions. Most of our perception-thinking is completely reflexive, dragged around by sense-perceptions and intellectual concepts, and therefore out of our control. We need to seek out the relatively tiny islands of active thinking and images which we have creative responsibility for.

The easy way out here is to declare this higher Logic we are seeking exists on some "other side' of Consciousness which is, for some reason, opaque to our own side. But this is dualism, plain and simple. Monist idealism cannot be salvaged from such an assumption. It can only lead to further and further abstract speculation about the dynamics of Consciousness, which takes us away from its living flow. Instead of abstracting further away, we can simply stick with experience and sound reasoning. We can seek to enter back into the living flow of our thinking. Right now we are as the faces on this sphere below, facing away from the depth of Being, only conscious of dead concepts once they have been shed from that living flow. That is the outer world we perceive, but the living flow is still accessible within our inner life. 





Our intellectual perspective is fixed on entirely past perceptions, pictures of living ideational activity (towards the Center) which has died out long ago. With exercises like the vowel one from Cleric, we are gradually turning around to face the future which resides within us, the currently invisible meaningful context from which all concepts and sense-experience precipitates. We simply need to stick with these things while also seeking to understand the logic of why they are necessary and how they will work to transform our thinking experience. Most of all, we need to abandon the dogma that it simply "isn't possible" for one intellectual reason or another. Why should the higher order archetypal Ideas moving towards the Center be opaque to us during this lifetime? We are only forced to remain fixed looking at shadows on the cave wall so long as remain unaware that we can turn around and exit the cave.

[GrantHenderson]

I am mostly trying to differentiate between conceptualizing the dynamic of our consciousness, which I think we agree is not any sort of mechanical process like a clock, and experiencing its reality. Many 20th century thinkers have referred to this non-awareness of our own consciousness in its living dynamic. Heidegger observed, "we are still not yet Thinking". So how do we start Thinking? I am saying we won't conceptualize our way into this living thinking, but only by transforming our own thinking from its first-person perspective on the world content.

This transformation answers the question of "limits to knowledge" by its very occurrence. That question can only be asked from a conceptual perspective which has not experienced its own living thinking. And it is quite possible to posit no limits to thinking intellectually but still limit our own thinking out of pure mental habit. This seems to have happened often in analytic philosophy which claims to get "beyond Kant" but still functions as if his epistemic divide is gospel. I am reminded of Bergson here.

Of course, meta-analyzing first person experience of world content is the only way to learn about what is happening with that first person experience. Anybody who tries to decipher our thoughts does this to some extent. But there is always comprehension lost in translation from pure experience of our first person experience to our conceptual analysis thereof. We might even resort to an analysis of what might seem a logically comparable substitute as a way of making sense of pure thoughts, as opposed to reliving, and reevaluating the pure thoughts that lead us there in the first place. I’m guilty of that. We all are.

When we engage in pure internal visualizations, we’re experiencing direct comprehension of the visual processes, but we aren’t aware of what these experiences might mean in any other context, or consequently its own context. Whereas, when we compartmentalize these pure experiences, and commence the flow of sensory-perceptual activity upon the pure experiences which we have compartmentalized, we can form a meta-analysis of them. But this meta-analysis is always to some extent disconnected from the pure experiences they are based on.

I think I tried making this general point a few pages back.

This is the crux of the issue. My position is that what you wrote above only holds valid in a dualistic framework. We must treat our thinking activity, which you refer to as "meta-analysis", as one which confronts a pre-existing array of perceptions. Whether these perceptions are conceived as made of matter or mental stuff is irrelevant, because they are both equally flawed and for the same reason. They both smuggle in a subject/object divide from the outset and then reason from there. I propose that our thinking activity is like a sensory organ which perceives ideal content like our eyes perceive colors, and therefore we are always co-creating the experiential world through this activity.

Let us return to our example of the thrown stone. We connect the sight perceptions that originate from the individual locations in which the stone finds itself. This connection gives us a curved line (the trajectory), and we obtain the laws of trajectory; when furthermore we take into account the material composition of the glass, and then understand the flying stone as cause, the shattering of the glass as effect, and so on, we then have permeated the given with concepts in such a way that it becomes comprehensible to us. This entire operation, which draws together the manifoldness of perception into a conceptual unity, occurs within our consciousness. The ideal interrelationship of the perceptual pictures is not given by the senses, but rather is grasped absolutely on its own by our spirit. For a being endowed only with the ability to perceive with the senses, this whole operation would simply not be there. For such a being the outer world would simply remain that disconnected chaos of perceptions we characterized as what first (directly) confronts us.

So the place, therefore, where the perceptual pictures appear in their ideal relationship, where this relationship is held out to the perceptual pictures as their conceptual counter-image, this place is human consciousness...

...Knowing would be an absolutely useless process if something complete were conveyed to us in sense experience. All drawing together, ordering, and grouping of sense-perceptible facts would have no objective value. Knowing has meaning only if we do not regard the configuration given to the senses as a finished one, if this configuration is for us a half of something that bears within itself something still higher that, however, is no longer sense-perceptible. There the human spirit steps in. It perceives that higher element. Therefore thinking must also not be regarded as bringing something to the content of reality. It is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas.

So the dichotomy between "pure experience" and meta-analysis thinking cannot be valid, as there would be nothing to meta-analyze in the absence of thinking. This understanding is of a great import, because we then discern how our thinking is genuine spiritual activity. It is a formative force - not only does it form human language, mathematical symbols, concepts, art, etc., but also the Cosmic and natural forms (which are essentially evolving processes). It doesn't form these processes arbitrarily, but according to the ideal plan which is disclosed to it through sense-phenomena. The rules by which our states of thinking-experience transform are also those by which the World Content transforms, and we call that Logic. Clearly, though, the intellectual logic we use to build conceptual models is not exactly the same as that which weaves together the world forms.

The intellectual logic is like the lowest order manifestation, a very crystallized form, of this higher Logic. We really need to get a feel for how all that we currently think precipitates from a higher living context which meaningfully shapes our willing-feeling-thinking states of being.  For ex., our sympathies and antipathies will shape what we direct attention to and desire to think about during any given timeframe. The forces responsible for these soul states are none other than the higher order Logic we are seeking, which funnels our activity in certain directions. Most of our perception-thinking is completely reflexive, dragged around by sense-perceptions and intellectual concepts, and therefore out of our control. We need to seek out the relatively tiny islands of active thinking and images which we have creative responsibility for.

The easy way out here is to declare this higher Logic we are seeking exists on some "other side' of Consciousness which is, for some reason, opaque to our own side. But this is dualism, plain and simple. Monist idealism cannot be salvaged from such an assumption. It can only lead to further and further abstract speculation about the dynamics of Consciousness, which takes us away from its living flow. Instead of abstracting further away, we can simply stick with experience and sound reasoning. We can seek to enter back into the living flow of our thinking. Right now we are as the faces on this sphere below, facing away from the depth of Being, only conscious of dead concepts once they have been shed from that living flow. That is the outer world we perceive, but the living flow is still accessible within our inner life. 





Our intellectual perspective is fixed on entirely past perceptions, pictures of living ideational activity (towards the Center) which has died out long ago. With exercises like the vowel one from Cleric, we are gradually turning around to face the future which resides within us, the currently invisible meaningful context from which all concepts and sense-experience precipitates. We simply need to stick with these things while also seeking to understand the logic of why they are necessary and how they will work to transform our thinking experience. Most of all, we need to abandon the dogma that it simply "isn't possible" for one intellectual reason or another. Why should the higher order archetypal Ideas moving towards the Center be opaque to us during this lifetime? We are only forced to remain fixed looking at shadows on the cave wall so long as remain unaware that we can turn around and exit the cave.

So the dichotomy between "pure experience" and meta-analysis thinking cannot be valid, as there would be nothing to meta-analyze in the absence of thinking.

Good catch, I wasn’t careful enough with that description.

I’m not intending to advocate that all thinking isn’t a meta-analysis of pre-existing thinking activity, but that we can block sense perceptions from interrupting such thoughts, thereby rendering them “internal experiences” that precede additional context provided by future sense perceptions. I don’t intend to propose a dichotomy between meta-analysis and pure experiences, but that we can engage in pure experiences (as a meta-analysis of previous thinking activity) without simultaneously forming an additional meta-analysis of that pure experience (which is itself a meta-analysis of previous thinking activity). The point I was trying to make is that when we form a meta-analysis of previous thinking activity, we lose some pure comprehension thereof.

This framework is supported by the visual analogy I shared. All future thinking activity — as bound by an outer circle — is linked to, and based upon previous thinking activity — as bound by an inner circle.

One thing I have tried to make clear from many of my previous comments is that there are no tangible objects, or an object/subject divide. I think the mind can trick itself into believing that such a divide exists — even though it doesn’t. The mind can assign arbitrary boundaries that separate subjects — this is evident by the fact that we can differentiate things in our surroundings. But these boundaries dissolve when they are brought deeper into focus. My reference to the mind as compartmentalizing information is as such a hallucination of mind.

This is also how I use pixels in my visual analogy — which should not be mistaken as objective content. The analogy demonstrates how pixels cannot be bound by perception, nor can pixels exist outside of perception. Thus, it is not rational to claim the existence of pixels as occupying a definite position in time (either as mind dependent or mind independent phenomena). Rather, pixels are how the mind forms estimations of its qualitative experiences.

I propose that our thinking activity is like a sensory organ which perceives ideal content like our eyes perceive colors, and therefore we are always co-creating the experiential world through this activity.

I agree that we participate in the creation of the experiential world through ideal thinking activity.

Most of our perception-thinking is completely reflexive, dragged around by sense-perceptions and intellectual concepts, and therefore out of our control. We need to seek out the relatively tiny islands of active thinking and images which we have creative responsibility for.

I don’t believe our perception-thinking is ever completely reflexive. This presupposes dualism, as it implies that our conscious thinking can be separate from the conscious thinking of MAL. It implies that we can be merely be a body which acts out the thinking activity of higher orders of consciousness.

Our capacity for creative choice is what enables our subjective experience of world content. It is our unique way of qualitatively viewing the world which makes us a participant in its creation. The experiential world is therefore never entirely created by “something else”. Otherwise, we would be dissolved in an entropic soup of the universe. The energy cost of creative choice is just subject to variation, and creative choice more quickly or slowly breaks down to instinct at the whims of the cosmic plan.

We serve a higher order consciousness in accordance with our order within the complexity chain. Like how each organ in our body functions to contribute not just to that organ but other related organs. And most of all, they serve to contribute to the function of our nervous system. Whereas, our nervous system moderates resources between all organs, but at some point delegates tasks to each specific organ. Universal minds' goal to dictate requires that it also empowers in a self generative feedback loop. Also a bit like how each neuron is essentially fighting for agency over every single neuron in your brain, which requires that it also sends information to other neurons (empowering them) in order for that neuron to reciprocate.

The energy cost for shifting focus against the influences of the cosmic forces depends on the homogeneity between our higher conscious environment and our individualistic interpretive model thereof, as well as our internal vs sense perceptual proclivities of our individualist focus/engagement in the instance of action.

For example, if we enter a relatively unfamiliar environment, and we are engaging our sense perceptions, the energy cost to shift our focus to some standard amount would be higher. Additionally, the time frame in which Willed thought breaks down to instinct reduces per standard amount of energy used — In which case, we are more at the whims of the “cosmic plan”. Whereas, if our sense perceptions are not as engaged, but we are instead processing deep internal experiences, this unfamiliar environment does not reduce the energy cost for individualistic choice as much. Furthermore, under familiar environmental conditions, we do not need to engage our sense perceptions as heavily, and are thereby more free to engage in internal processes without disruption by our relative environment.

As such, the relative entropy of the observer's environment, and the observer's sensory vs internal engagement levels determines the energy cost for said observer to make creative choices, as well as the time based parameters in which said observer's thinking breaks down to instinct under the whims of cosmic influences. This seems to function to filter the actions of observers that may otherwise push against the ideal patterns of the whole system.

Here’s another way of looking at it which you may not like due to its outward facing nature.

Since action by a local observer changes the state of the environment it is contained within, it can be regarded as distinct to its environment by the entropy differential it imposes on its environment. More specifically, the degree to which a local observer is defined as an alter = the differential entropy between the whole system, and the system external to the observer in a moment of conjunction between the observer and the system, multiplied by the time duration in which information is communicated from the relative system to the observer such that the system entropy is increased an amount equal to the differential entropy imposed by the observer.

Inversely, the degree to which the observer is globally defined (an aspect of the system) = the differential entropy between the whole system, and the observer in a moment of conjunction between the observer and the system as a whole, divided by the time duration in which information is communicated from the relative system to the observer such that the system entropy is increased an amount equal to the differential entropy imposed by the observer.

If two people are playing a game of 4 dimensional tag and the chaser can never catch the avoider, then the avoider is untouched by the chaser. But rather, the chaser only has to catch up to a point in which the avoider has previously been in order to define how far ahead the avoider is in that measured instance. Such is inevitable so long as the chaser is always moving.

So long as the observer imposes an informational complexity to the system, and that informational complexity is reimposed to the observer by the system in equal (or greater) margin, the observer is contained within that system because an equally complex relationship has been established between observer and environment.

P.s. I like the Steiner quote you linked. I wasn't aware of who he was until our conversation.