Why I believe Analytic Idealism is flawed

[AshvinP]

There is a recent interview between BK and Pageau (Orthodox Christian) as well -

I haven't watched it yet, and not sure if I will. What you relayed from BK sums up "why AI is flawed". If I hadn't known, I would have guessed that was asked of and answered by an a-gnostic materialist philosopher.

Thanks for the link to this discussion, one which I've long lobbied for in Pageau's youtube comments sections, which is surely pertinent to the original post, and which is the kind of dialogos with BK I crave, drawing him out of his strictly analytical approach, into what can be likened to 'intuitive thinking as a spiritual path'. The delving into their respective takes on angels and daemons, finding much common ground, as well as so much more insight, is surely worth a listen. Indeed, one wonders if the BK Daemon has not co-opted Pageau's in order to re-exert its influence

As much as I like Pageau, we shouldn't confuse his approach for the spiritual path of intuitive thinking. The latter simply isn't satisfied with a "symbolic world", but wants to actively touch the contours of what is being symbolized, in full consciousness. In other words, it wants to awaken to what it is actually doing when symbolizing the world. Such an awakened thinking knows no limits to its reach, set by God or otherwise, since it is no longer thinking about the Divine, but experiencing how the Divine thinks its existence. It isn't trying to interpret the symbols, but experience how the symbols come into existence through its own activity.

Based on what I hear from Pageau, it seems he would consider such an intuitive thinking impossible. That may be fine for him, as it is for BK as well. Yet we, here and now, can bring their spiritual models to a higher completion. The conceptual reasoning they engage, about angels and daemons or otherwise, is a necessary condition for intuitive thinking. It is a seed which must be planted within the human psyche for the latter to grow as fruit. For that to happen, it needs to be cared for and nourished in a living way. Where thinkers like them are ending can become the beginning for those of us who want to tread the spiritual path of inutitive thinking.

[Soul_of_Shu]

As much as I like Pageau, we shouldn't confuse his approach for the spiritual path of intuitive thinking. The latter simply isn't satisfied with a "symbolic world", but wants to actively touch the contours of what is being symbolized, in full consciousness. In other words, it wants to awaken to what it is actually doing when symbolizing the world. Such an awakened thinking knows no limits to its reach, set by God or otherwise, since it is no longer thinking about the Divine, but experiencing how the Divine thinks its existence. It isn't trying to interpret the symbols, but experience how the symbols come into existence through its own activity.

Based on what I hear from Pageau, it seems he would consider such an intuitive thinking impossible. That may be fine for him, as it is for BK as well. Yet we, here and now, can bring their spiritual models to a higher completion. The conceptual reasoning they engage, about angels and daemons or otherwise, is a necessary condition for intuitive thinking. It is a seed which must be planted within the human psyche for the latter to grow as fruit. For that to happen, it needs to be cared for and nourished in a living way. Where thinkers like them are ending can become the beginning for those of us who want to tread the spiritual path of inutitive thinking.

As usual, I'm left with the impression that unless one can in some way directly and extensively engage with these thinkers, these spectator-like unilateral observations remain in the sphere of 'here's what I think about what they think', without any way of getting into what they might think about what you think about what they think. So unless that should come to pass, I remain largely ambivalent about such observations, and unconvinced as to just how accurate they may actually be, and feeling no sense of completion. But if you should find a way to deeply engage with Pageau, I await with great anticipation

[AshvinP]

As much as I like Pageau, we shouldn't confuse his approach for the spiritual path of intuitive thinking. The latter simply isn't satisfied with a "symbolic world", but wants to actively touch the contours of what is being symbolized, in full consciousness. In other words, it wants to awaken to what it is actually doing when symbolizing the world. Such an awakened thinking knows no limits to its reach, set by God or otherwise, since it is no longer thinking about the Divine, but experiencing how the Divine thinks its existence. It isn't trying to interpret the symbols, but experience how the symbols come into existence through its own activity.

Based on what I hear from Pageau, it seems he would consider such an intuitive thinking impossible. That may be fine for him, as it is for BK as well. Yet we, here and now, can bring their spiritual models to a higher completion. The conceptual reasoning they engage, about angels and daemons or otherwise, is a necessary condition for intuitive thinking. It is a seed which must be planted within the human psyche for the latter to grow as fruit. For that to happen, it needs to be cared for and nourished in a living way. Where thinkers like them are ending can become the beginning for those of us who want to tread the spiritual path of inutitive thinking.

As usual, I'm left with the impression that unless one can in some way directly and extensively engage with these thinkers, these spectator-like unilateral observations remain in the sphere of 'here's what I think about what they think', without any way of getting into what they might think about what you think about what they think. So unless that should come to pass, I remain largely ambivalent about such observations, and unconvinced as to just how accurate they may actually be, and feeling no sense of completion. But if you should find a way to deeply engage with Pageau, I await with great anticipation

Maybe that's because you listened to PoSA on audiobook

Seriously, I listen to a lot of stuff by audio, but in PoSA, every word and sentence was carefully crafted in a way which, if approached without prejudice, leads our logical thinking into a realization of its own higher capacities. Consider these quotes from Steiner:


“For in the case of a book like this, the important thing is so to organize the thoughts it contains that they take effect. With many other books it doesn’t make a great deal of difference if one shifts the sequence, putting this thing first and that later. But in the case of The Philosophy of Freedom that is impossible. It would be just as unthinkable to put page 150 fifty pages earlier as it would be to put a dog’s hind legs, where the front ones belong.”

“Catharsis is an ancient term for the purification of the astral body by means of meditation and concentration exercises. If a reader takes this book as it was meant and relates to it in the way a virtuoso playing a composition on the piano relates to its composer, reproducing the whole piece out of herself, the books organically evolved thought sequence will bring about a high degree of catharsis.”

“Within this book thinking is experienced in a way that makes it impossible for a person involved in it to have any other impression, when he is living in thought, he is living in the cosmos. This relatedness to cosmic mysteries is the red thread running through the book.”


I am sure we both agree BK doesn't regard the spiritual activity of Thinking in anything remotely resembling what Steiner means by it. Pageau is a bit trickier, since he is an Orthodox Christian and obviously has deep devotion and reverence for the high ideals of human existence. I have never heard him comment on intuitive thinking one way or the other, and certainly have never heard him mention Steiner or PoSA. One time I remember he tweeted something about Jung's form of Christianity being "dark" i.e. occult (presumably because it was 'Gnostic' in orientation), in a negative sense, so the Lord only knows what he would consider Steiner's occult understanding of Christianity. As we mention often here, people are perfectly fine dabbling in esotericism and the occult, adopting its terminology and referencing various occult writers and esoteric traditions, when it is kept at a 'safe distance' from their own need for inner transformation through the power of free and heartfelt Imaginative thinking.

As mentioned on the other thread, I don't really have any desire to engage with BK or Pageau or anyone similar, even if offered the opportunity, because the genuine interest in evolving their own thinking is much less than individuals right here on this forum and others. Why are they more important to address with these ideas than anyone else? They aren't, really. If someone could show me they are willing to actually read and engage with PoSA in good faith, then that's a different story, but none of them give even an inkling of that desire right now. They have decided to play an entirely different 'game', the same one which has been played by intellectual academia for centuries now. These so-called 'debates' or 'dialogos' they have with each other are just another symptom of the problem, in my view, which is the notion that abstract intellectual models of higher worlds can substitute for endeavoring to actually experience those worlds from within.

[Soul_of_Shu]

These so-called 'debates' or 'dialogos' they have with each other are just another symptom of the problem, in my view, which is the notion that abstract intellectual models of higher worlds can substitute for endeavoring to actually experience those worlds from within.

Well no, I don't conclude that these deeply intimate experiences they have with these transpersonal influences that form the basis of much of their comparative exchange for the first 90 minutes are somehow less profound than one's own such experiences, and that engagement with them could not lead to some mutually beneficial understanding of what comprises those influences, beyond whatever one might gleen from following Steiner's ideas. Truly, I'd far more value hearing you in such an exchange express how your similar intimate experiences have profoundly informed your psyche's evolution, and what insights might come from that relational dynamic.

[Federica]

It's not about what BK is consciously proposing, but how his 'objective idealism', with 'dissociated alters', functions for all intents and purposes. As the OP says, it makes the exact same abstraction of materialism-dualism, but in the form of "atomized subject beholding ideas of Big Subject across a dissociative boundary". So now we practically have conceived the ontology with a subject/object (or subject/Subject) divide, and we end up with the same hard problems and the same abstraction of 'ideas' into illusory and acausal floating thought-forms which foam up into Consciousness upon dissociation (birth) and dissolve back into it upon death.

Well, how is it the 'exact' same abstraction? Under materialism, that which is deemed to be 'out there' is of an entirely discrete ontological category, which would exist were there no consciousness at all. Under idealism, it's subjectified and objectified aspects of one ontological category, i.e. Mind, in dynamic relationship. Again, why should this be defined as a 'divide' rather than a 'dynamic'?

Soul_of_Shu,

I have been struggling with fully understanding this criticism. However, it was an intuition of the same problem highlighted here which brought me to this forum. I then tried to write it down as a concise criticism to analytical idealism viewtopic.php?p=17172#p17172
I think our two criticism are similar. Mine was focusing on one specific implied inconsistency in BK's model, while joepoe's is actually a better, broader, general way to highlight the inconsistency at its root. I was disturbed by one non-fitting piece of the puzzle while joepoe is showing why the piece is not fitting.

The problem starts with the arbitrary (BK states it's an 'empirical fact') decision of taking life (body) as the discriminant line of separation between this and that. Once we have validated that step, and the assumptions it requires, once we look at experience from within BKs model, then yes, by all means, what's within life and what's outside life do interact in a dynamic, integrated way. As you say, they are not a dichotomy.
However, the pointing here is to trace further back, to go back before the point where we come to that fork.

From there, one way to go is joepoe's, where one brings the front of epistemological primacy of experience forward in one piece, being mindful of sticking to it all the way, so that we don't find ourselves inadvertently sliding away in some kind of arbitrary subject-object split, be it as physicalists or as analytical idealists. I think this is The way to go, however I have been struggling with its... may I say... abstract take? I mean I now realize it's correct but it's been a little tough to grasp it comfortably.

Another way to go that could help - it certainly helped me - is to look at the question from a fully experiential viewpoint. The question, in purely experiential terms is: 'Is the delineation of our body really an empirical fact, as BK posits?' If we inquire this question from an experiential viewpoint only, and stick to our experience all the way, maybe we can touch a bit more concretely the arbitrariness of the delineation, and emerge on the other side of the fork, look backward and realize that actually there is no fork, we have come that far without having to quit the initial path.

I find this brief Q&A by Rupert Spira a helpful guidance into this test. (Then, if one relates to that, he has multiple meditations that explore this same question more thoroughly. What he calls meditation by the way is simply undertaking an exploration of concepts/experience the same way one would do in a post here or in a talk, just with some prolonged silence between sentences):

[Lou Gold]

These so-called 'debates' or 'dialogos' they have with each other are just another symptom of the problem, in my view, which is the notion that abstract intellectual models of higher worlds can substitute for endeavoring to actually experience those worlds from within.

Well no, I don't conclude that these deeply intimate experiences they have with these transpersonal influences that form the basis of much of their comparative exchange for the first 90 minutes are somehow less profound than one's own such experiences, and that engagement with them could not lead to some mutually beneficial understanding of what comprises those influences, beyond whatever one might gleen from following Steiner's ideas. Truly, I'd far more value hearing you in such an exchange express how your similar intimate experiences have profoundly informed your psyche's evolution, and what insights might come from that relational dynamic.

Dana, I totally agree, especially with your bolded words above.

I know from our past discussions that we are both especially fond of BK's book "More Than Allegory", which does seem somehow more intuitive than his otherwise largely conceptual works. I found it especially interesting in the recent AMA ROUND 2 at 19:56 that when BK is asked how his relationship goes with his intuitive artist personal partner he explains that he is highly intellectual and it is difficult for him to step into the intuitive but that he wrote MTA in part to facilitate a good relationship in which they might use their different natures in support and validation of each other and that their relationship because of mutual support is like a smooth glide on thick ice. In my perception it was an intimate honesty filled with love and a good illustration of the fact that philosophical debate may not necessarily always be the best path toward the true, good and beautiful.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Soul_of_Shu,

I have been struggling with fully understanding this criticism. However, it was an intuition of the same problem highlighted here which brought me to this forum. I then tried to write it down as a concise criticism to analytical idealism viewtopic.php?p=17172#p17172
I think our two criticism are similar. Mine was focusing on one specific implied inconsistency in BK's model, while joepoe's is actually a better, broader, general way to highlight the inconsistency at its root. I was disturbed by one non-fitting piece of the puzzle while joepoe is showing why the piece is not fitting.

The problem starts with the arbitrary (BK states it's an 'empirical fact') decision of taking life (body) as the discriminant line of separation between this and that. Once we have validated that step, and the assumptions it requires, once we look at experience from within BKs model, then yes, by all means, what's within life and what's outside life do interact in a dynamic, integrated way. As you say, they are not a dichotomy.
However, the pointing here is to trace further back, to go back before the point where we come to that fork.

From there, one way to go is joepoe's, where one brings the front of epistemological primacy of experience forward in one piece, being mindful of sticking to it all the way, so that we don't find ourselves inadvertently sliding away in some kind of arbitrary subject-object split, be it as physicalists or as analytical idealists. I think this is The way to go, however I have been struggling with its... may I say... abstract take? I mean I now realize it's correct but it's been a little tough to grasp it comfortably.

Another way to go that could help - it certainly helped me - is to look at the question from a fully experiential viewpoint. The question, in purely experiential terms is: 'Is the delineation of our body really an empirical fact, as BK posits?' If we inquire this question from an experiential viewpoint only, and stick to our experience all the way, maybe we can touch a bit more concretely the arbitrariness of the delineation, and emerge on the other side of the fork, look backward and realize that actually there is no fork, we have come that far without having to quit the initial path.

Yes, I get what you and jp are getting at, and don't necessarily disagree with the issues with BK's modeling of the self><other-than-self dynamic. I just don't find any actual divide. But however we might metacognitively model that dynamic, it seems quite clear that a sense of self in relation to other-than-self is a fundamental dynamic in Nature, and so some explication under idealism seems called for. As for this body being on the 'self' side of the equation, that notion was disabused upon finding it to be laying upon a bed, while that which one is in essence gazed at it from some formless transcorporeal state, as if it were no less objectified than the bed, thus being more of a formlessness><form dynamic. Ever since, especially as the bodily form becomes more and more dysfunctional with age, one's transitory connection to it is no longer very compelling, however integral its lifetime was to the psyche's metamorphosis.

[AshvinP]

These so-called 'debates' or 'dialogos' they have with each other are just another symptom of the problem, in my view, which is the notion that abstract intellectual models of higher worlds can substitute for endeavoring to actually experience those worlds from within.

Well no, I don't conclude that these deeply intimate experiences they have with these transpersonal influences that form the basis of much of their comparative exchange for the first 90 minutes are somehow less profound than one's own such experiences, and that engagement with them could not lead to some mutually beneficial understanding of what comprises those influences, beyond whatever one might gleen from following Steiner's ideas. Truly, I'd far more value hearing you in such an exchange express how your similar intimate experiences have profoundly informed your psyche's evolution, and what insights might come from that relational dynamic.

I don't have such experiences to share at this point. This is the issue. As Cleric often points out, he has only been writing about the same one or two topic from various angles since the inception of this forum. And I have only been writing about sub-topics of those one or two topics. What is the topic? It is about the very first step in any genuine esoteric path of the Spirit, which is knowing there is a path within one's own thinking psyche and having genuine conviction one can lift their feet high enough to take it. BK and Pageau simply don't realize there is a viable path to take in that respect. They may have heard about such a path, but it is entirely speculative woo-woo from their perspective. Generally, people simply need to ask more questions. It does no good to pretend this is all understood and proceed accordingly. I understand very little of the path. It's not as if my taking the first step gives me deep knowledge of Cosmic secrets. All I know is that realms of inquiry have opened up which I could not have imagined existing before (literally). There are questions to ask of others which I didn't know were possible to ask before. There are paths to higher knowledge in this world that we simply don't know and can't know until we take the first steps. If these were experienced, then the potential would be shouted from the rooftops from anyone who had the platform. Actually, they would retreat into solitude for quite some time to learn and experience more, before reemerging with the message. There is a certain vested interest in material pursuits which make such a thing very difficult for people in those positions. Why should we bind up our own spiritual path in those pursuits when we don't have any such vested interest yet? We are extremely fortunate to have more mobility in that respect. We need not let that Fortune go to waste. It's not that anyone's spiritual experience lacks profundity, but that a certain characteristic shift in perspective, which resonates through one's entire being, is needed before one realizes just how profound they are.

[Soul_of_Shu]

I don't have such experiences to share at this point. This is the issue. As Cleric often points out, he has only been writing about the same one or two topic from various angles since the inception of this forum. And I have only been writing about sub-topics of those one or two topics. What is the topic? It is about the very first step in any genuine esoteric path of the Spirit, which is knowing there is a path within one's own thinking psyche and having genuine conviction one can lift their feet high enough to take it. BK and Pageau simply don't realize there is a viable path to take in that respect. They may have heard about such a path, but it is entirely speculative woo-woo from their perspective. Generally, people simply need to ask more questions. It does no good to pretend this is all understood and proceed accordingly. I understand very little of the path. It's not as if my taking the first step gives me deep knowledge of Cosmic secrets. All I know is that realms of inquiry have opened up which I could not have imagined existing before (literally). There are questions to ask of others which I didn't know were possible to ask before. There are paths to higher knowledge in this world that we simply don't know and can't know until we take the first steps. If these were experienced, then the potential would be shouted from the rooftops from anyone who had the platform. Actually, they would retreat into solitude for quite some time to learn and experience more, before reemerging with the message. There is a certain vested interest in material pursuits which make such a thing very difficult for people in those positions. Why should we bind up our own spiritual path in those pursuits when we don't have any such vested interest yet? We are extremely fortunate to have more mobility in that respect. We need not let that Fortune go to waste. It's not that anyone's spiritual experience lacks profundity, but that a certain characteristic shift in perspective, which resonates through one's entire being, is needed before one realizes just how profound they are.

No issue with that, but that seems to me to be what BK and Pageau are wrestling with in their exchange, in their own way, in getting at how to render the sacred/'spiritual' as inextricable from the profane. That they aren't taking Steiner's way into account is not an issue as far as I'm concerned, however much you may advocate for making the case that everyone should be taking Steiner into account, while gainsaying pretty much everyone who doesn't. Suffice to say, I feel great appreciation for their offerings, as well as yours, and will continue to listen with trust that all are on their unique path for reasons crucial to their transfiguration, however it may otherwise appear from any given alternative perspective.

[AshvinP]

I don't have such experiences to share at this point. This is the issue. As Cleric often points out, he has only been writing about the same one or two topic from various angles since the inception of this forum. And I have only been writing about sub-topics of those one or two topics. What is the topic? It is about the very first step in any genuine esoteric path of the Spirit, which is knowing there is a path within one's own thinking psyche and having genuine conviction one can lift their feet high enough to take it. BK and Pageau simply don't realize there is a viable path to take in that respect. They may have heard about such a path, but it is entirely speculative woo-woo from their perspective. Generally, people simply need to ask more questions. It does no good to pretend this is all understood and proceed accordingly. I understand very little of the path. It's not as if my taking the first step gives me deep knowledge of Cosmic secrets. All I know is that realms of inquiry have opened up which I could not have imagined existing before (literally). There are questions to ask of others which I didn't know were possible to ask before. There are paths to higher knowledge in this world that we simply don't know and can't know until we take the first steps. If these were experienced, then the potential would be shouted from the rooftops from anyone who had the platform. Actually, they would retreat into solitude for quite some time to learn and experience more, before reemerging with the message. There is a certain vested interest in material pursuits which make such a thing very difficult for people in those positions. Why should we bind up our own spiritual path in those pursuits when we don't have any such vested interest yet? We are extremely fortunate to have more mobility in that respect. We need not let that Fortune go to waste. It's not that anyone's spiritual experience lacks profundity, but that a certain characteristic shift in perspective, which resonates through one's entire being, is needed before one realizes just how profound they are.

No issue with that, but that seems to me to be what BK and Pageau are wrestling with in their exchange, in their own way, in getting at how to render the sacred/'spiritual' as inextricable from the profane. That they aren't taking Steiner's way into account is not an issue as far as I'm concerned, however much you may advocate for making the case that everyone should be taking Steiner into account, while gainsaying pretty much everyone who doesn't. Suffice to say, I feel great appreciation for their offerings, as well as yours, and will continue to listen with trust that all are on their unique path for reasons crucial to their transfiguration, however it may otherwise appear from any given alternative perspective.

This isn't about Steiner. He is mentioned simply because his writings/lectures are so extensive, comprehensive, and suited for philosophically or scientifically minded people who are familiar with concepts and terminology of Western philosophy and science (at least they used to be). Steiner isn't the sum total of Christian esotericism itself. Anyway, the only thing I wanted to point out is that neither BK nor Pageau are pursuing intuitive thinking as a spiritual path. These things have very precise meaning and we need to be clear on that meaning. Whatever path they are on, and however useful it may be, it's not that one.