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[Cleric K]

I know that the World Content matter has been gone through with Ashvin but I would like to present yet another rendition.

What do we imagine when we hear the word 'world'? In the most general sense we picture a vast space filled with materials, plants, creatures, empty space between planets, forces, star stuff and so on. We imagine ourselves also as a creature within this world. These latter things that fill the world are the 'content'.

But is this world and its content something which is directly and unquestionably given to us? Or there's some unexamined thinking that gives it such a form? Let's compare our waking life with dreaming. In the former case we feel pretty confident that we know what the world is with all the creatures, trees, rocks. We imagine that this world exists outside of us and we only have subjective perceptions of it. What about dreaming? While we dream we play along the flow of imagery as if we're really moving within a world with its creatures and materials. So what is it which makes the dream imagery to be 'just a dream' instead of a real world? When we become lucid in a dream it is not because the visual content changes. What changes is our understanding of the perceptions. Seconds ago we were acting with implicit understanding that we're moving in a world, then our understanding changes and we comprehend our perceptions to be pliable flow of images that we can begin to shape in our lucid dream.

So it turns out that it is our thinking (even if implicit) that makes the difference between a visual landscape being understood as a dream image or as a sensory perception of the 'real' world. So what is the true given in our consciousness? It is the experience of certain colors, sounds, feelings and so on. A red color in itself doesn't have a label "Hey, I'm a dream color" or "Hey, I'm a color stimulated by your optic nerve". It is up to our spiritual activity to orient itself and grasp the dynamics of the perceptions, which make the dream imagery distinguishable from sensory perceptions.

So if we now ask "What is the world and its content?" we'll have to think twice before habitually answering "space filled with rocks, trees, creatures." As far as the given is concerned, the only world we know is that of first-person experienced color, sound, taste, feeling and so on. This is the only world we ever know! This is the only thing that comes to us as a certainty. The concept of a spatial world container within which all content resides exists only in our thoughts. Now this doesn't suggest that everything exists only in our head. Such a conception immediately falls into its own trap because it has to imagine some head existing within some space and then colors and sound existing within that head. We're not saying that the perceptions we experience exhaust the totality of reality. We're only saying that perceptions (no matter if sensory or dream) are the content of the world we experience. Just as through thinking, the meaning of these perceptions changes, so with even deeper development of cognition, our current spectrum of waking perceptions will be seen in a new light of understanding.

The key in all this is not to feel that some theory is being pressed upon us that has to be believed. It is actually the inverse of that - it's about taking a moment to step back and unbelieve the theories that we have unknowingly accumulated in our cognition. It's about focusing on what is certain and distinguishing what results from thinking about perceptions.

As it can hopefully be seen, all this doesn't require any special philosophical background, let alone certain personal names. It requires nothing but willingness to make inner observations, to go a little 'meta' in comparison to our habitual flow of cognition. Yes, this requires some effort, as any attempt to break a habit does, but how can we seriously imagine that the secrets of existence should simply appear effortlessly to us?

[Soul_of_Shu]

This is the last time I will make this point: anyone wishing to have a discussion that is intended to remain solely focused on a specific topic, then do so in the 'topic-specific' sub-forum. If then, anyone is not respecting the guidelines of that forum, let me know. Otherwise, if it's posted under 'general discussions', then veering off into other discussions only peripherally related will be allowed—as long as it remains relevant to metaphysics. If not content with that format, then you're going to have to wait until someone else takes over, and changes it. So save the griping for them.

[Federica]

I've always enjoyed your comments even though I mostly disagreed with them. I appreciate what you have been doing but I guess the time has come to decide what really the purpose of the forum is to be. When it broke off from Bernardo, I thought it would want to go in the direction of very broad range of metaphysical and scientific topics that I think is somewhat reflected by my proposed list of topics while maintaining some inspiration from BK. It could have gone another way and focused almost exclusively on BK, closely aligned viewpoints, and maybe contemporary science that supported or does not support BK's views. Now it is almost devoid of BK except for criticism and an occasional newbie who wanders in and thinks the forum bears some relation to BK. It seems to be now mostly a continual regurgitation of the same .obtuse Steinerian view that is used like a Swiss Army knife to address any problem or issue.

You conveniently avoided my question, but no surprise there ... So things here didn't turn out as you may have hoped. I had no such predisposed expectations, other than it should remain focused on metaphysics. Indeed, given the very title of the forum 'meta' (as in 'beyond' or 'transcending')-kastrup, this iteration should also come as no surprise. I never presumed to hold any sway over the direction the forum has taken, but have tried to set up sub-forums to allow for multiple directions, where any of the topics you suggested can be discussed. Anyway, should it live long enough, should Simon hand it over, who knows where it will next gravitate/evolve toward. My suggestion to all, if this current iteration has no resonance for you, rather than bemoaning it, move on. Or, alternatively, talk with Simon about taking the reins.

So where exactly have you, or anyone else, been precluded from having discussions that don't involve Steiner?

I didn't intend to avoid the question. I was primarily addressing why people might choose not to participate in the forum.

The last topic I started got plenty of comments from Ashvin, Cleric, and Federica as well as a few from lorenzo. Lou's last post had some nice back and forth with Martin before seven or eight comments from Federica, Ashvin, and Cleric that ended in an explanation of the etheric body and the nervous system (don't want to miss that one) that seems to have little to do with the Essentia article Lou posted about.

So sure anyone can post but don't expect many comments from anyone other than the usual crew. That's the problem.

Jim,

On your wind tunnels, I read your essay. I asked you very specifc questions about the details of your reasoning, for example here:
viewtopic.php?p=17727#p17727
You never bothered to answer. It's been 2 months now. I am still 'waiting'. I asked you this in particular:

"If your model is all you know, then the ideas in your article are no exception. Just as the sky and the room, they are contained within your model. Correct? So the question is: how can you, from within the confinement of your model of the world/your consciousness, state that something is, namely how can you state: "Your model of the world is your consciousness?"

You ignored the question. It seems absurd, in the context of your current 'complaints', but no, that's what really happened. So.... Jim Cross.... people seem to know who you are I have no idea who you are.
But what do you want? (No, it's not a real question, I know you don't know).

[Jim Cross]

You conveniently avoided my question, but no surprise there ... So things here didn't turn out as you may have hoped. I had no such predisposed expectations, other than it should remain focused on metaphysics. Indeed, given the very title of the forum 'meta' (as in 'beyond' or 'transcending')-kastrup, this iteration should also come as no surprise. I never presumed to hold any sway over the direction the forum has taken, but have tried to set up sub-forums to allow for multiple directions, where any of the topics you suggested can be discussed. Anyway, should it live long enough, should Simon hand it over, who knows where it will next gravitate/evolve toward. My suggestion to all, if this current iteration has no resonance for you, rather than bemoaning it, move on. Or, alternatively, talk with Simon about taking the reins.

So where exactly have you, or anyone else, been precluded from having discussions that don't involve Steiner?

I didn't intend to avoid the question. I was primarily addressing why people might choose not to participate in the forum.

The last topic I started got plenty of comments from Ashvin, Cleric, and Federica as well as a few from lorenzo. Lou's last post had some nice back and forth with Martin before seven or eight comments from Federica, Ashvin, and Cleric that ended in an explanation of the etheric body and the nervous system (don't want to miss that one) that seems to have little to do with the Essentia article Lou posted about.

So sure anyone can post but don't expect many comments from anyone other than the usual crew. That's the problem.

Jim,

On your wind tunnels, I read your essay. I asked you very specifc questions about the details of your reasoning, for example here:
viewtopic.php?p=17727#p17727
You never bothered to answer. It's been 2 months now. I am still 'waiting'. I asked you this in particular:

"If your model is all you know, then the ideas in your article are no exception. Just as the sky and the room, they are contained within your model. Correct? So the question is: how can you, from within the confinement of your model of the world/your consciousness, state that something is, namely how can you state: "Your model of the world is your consciousness?"

You ignored the question. It seems absurd, in the context of your current 'complaints', but no, that's what really happened. So.... Jim Cross.... people seem to know who you are I have no idea who you are.
But what do you want? (No, it's not a real question, I know you don't know).

I never asked or expected the comments on my post to be strictly on topic. That's why I posted in General Discussions. Actually many or most of them were on topic.

I am not now complaining they were off-topic.

I am only saying almost all of the comments came from the usual crew of people with their Steinerian lens on everything.

I do not feel any obligation to answer every question posed to me. Some questions are so bad they are not worth answering.

The problem with your question is that the same argument and question be used against any viewpoint because all we have are viewpoints. How does anybody know anything? We rely on observation, science, testing, reasoning, and we try not to fool ourselves with wishful thinking.

The question is already answered in my post:

That our model of the world is dependent on learning, experience, and the physical structure of the brain and senses may seem a trivial observation. It may also mean that even slight, almost undetectable differences in brain structure could result in world models that are significantly different. Even if my “blue” is the same as your “blue” (something that some scientists dispute[6]), other aspects of our consciousness might be quite different even if we both have all our senses and are normal psychologically and physically. The fact that our own models can change significantly with age, experience, and ingestion of drugs suggests that we may each live in unique islands of experience even while behaving outwardly in ways that reflect a common consensus on reality.

It is a completely open question how much our models agree with the actual world. I think there is good evidence our models must agree in some ways. Otherwise, we could not survive. We could not rely on anything happening as expected. But clearly we also are subject to many misunderstandings and superstitions.

I think in one of my comments on my blog I referred to my view as a sort of limited solipsism - actually I would say a form of idealism. I think there is an world external to our models but we only can interact with our models of the external world. The evidence of the external world is quite direct. We know we cannot control everything in our model. Our model includes things that are beyond our control. We can't jump off a tall building without a parachute and arrive at the ground unharmed by thought or wishful thinking alone.

[Papanca]

What some members here fail to understand is that it's more helpful to state their ideas in a clear, concise fashion before delving into indepth, cryptic and protracted developments.

People won't read 1000 paragraphs of cryptic messages with idiosyncratic lexicon every time some random person on the internet has an idea, there is a constraint of time, a question of tradeoffs, with so many theories, millions of people who think they got the key to undecipher reality, whether it's taking refuge with the lama or expounding steiner, we don't have neither infinite time nor attention, and forgive me for being blunt, but the chance that a 3/4 members on an obscure forum or one philosopher theories among countless other contradicting theories have nailed the truth is extremely weak, especially when he believes in easily refutable qualities like clairvoyance, we cannot read a novel everytime someone on the internet has a new theory, especially when the jargon used is obtuse, and the cultish vibes made by trying to subsume every conversation under the same philosophy, lauding and trying to evalute the lucky few elects who "get it" while demeaning the others doesn't help.

[ScottRoberts]

I suspect the various reasons for others no longer being actively involved are more complicated. To name only one, why, for example, has someone like Scott Roberts, long-time participant, fully capable of eloquently delving into certain esoteric metaphysics, who had is own informed take on Steiner, quietly disappeared?

I've got a couple of reasons for not having posted lately. One is just laziness, or maybe it is the lack of desire to argue over things that I no longer consider all that important. The main one is that anything I've had to say over things that I still consider important are being said much better by Cleric or Ashvin. I suppose if Eugene puts forth a misunderstanding of what I mean by mumorphism, or if Santeri were to re-introduce his notion that Set Theory is neo-colonialist oppression, or if Peter wants to restate his view that Nagarjuna's is the last word, I would probably respond, though I highly doubt the ensuing discussion would get any further than the previous ones did.

But while I'm here, I might add a comment on this topic, and that is to note that since I've been on this forum and its predecessor, the main discussions have mostly been 'meta'-Kastrup. Basically, the forum draws people who get that materialism is a non-starter, and who have embraced some form of spirituality (variations on Taoism, Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism, Rupert Spira, etc., and the occasional fanatic like Lee's weird combo of Kant and Pirsig), and who come here to enlighten the rest on why we all should go beyond Kastrup in their preferred way. (I'm no exception to this, my main shticks being Barfield's evolution of consciousness, which of course leads to Steiner, and Coleridge's polar logic, to be found in mind and nature, which also leads to Steiner). So one way of looking at the evolution of this forum is that only one of these ways is left standing, the others dropping out because they are based on abstractions, like "Pure Nothingness", rather than that which formulates abstractions, namely thinking.

[Papanca]

.

But while I'm here, I might add a comment on this topic, and that is to note that since I've been on this forum and its predecessor, the main discussions have mostly been 'meta'-Kastrup. Basically, the forum draws people who get that materialism is a non-starter, and who have embraced some form of spirituality (variations on Taoism, Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism, Rupert Spira, etc., and the occasional fanatic like Lee's weird combo of Kant and Pirsig), and who come here to enlighten the rest on why we all should go beyond Kastrup in their preferred way. (I'm no exception to this, my main shticks being Barfield's evolution of consciousness, which of course leads to Steiner, and Coleridge's polar logic, to be found in mind and nature, which also leads to Steiner). So one way of looking at the evolution of this forum is that only one of these ways is left standing, the others dropping out because they are based on abstractions, like "Pure Nothingness", rather than that which formulates abstractions, namely thinking.

Go to a buddhist/advaita/islam forum, try to debate them and see who will be the last standing. Sooner or later, you will quit, and they will be left standing.

Doesn't mean anything.

[Federica]

I listened to the podcast and very much enjoyed it. You clearly haven't done the rounds of the philosophical podcasts if you think that one was long - Curt Jaimungal with his "Theories of Everything" podcast have episodes that hit 6 hours in length!

The thing that struck me most from this podcast was the statement that the "higher being is transformation itself" at around 69'. This is in contrast the the traditional view that the ground of reality is unchangeable.

Glad that you enjoyed that! No, I haven't done those rounds for sure : ) This one might very well be the first philosophical podcast I've ever listened to.
"Higher being is transformational itself" It's interesting, this didn't come as a surprise to me at all. But, as the guy (I still don't know his name) says, our religious background can make a huge difference in this respect. I see the idea of transformation as one of the most primordial, encompassing. And I don't have anything in my background to talk me out of that (I don't know if you do). In the specific context of this forum, evolution has been presented quite early to me as the central engine that allows humanity's deepest potential to progressively become. The perceptible landscape of nature is not unchangeable either. Transience, or transformation seems to be the most core characteristic of existence.
Indiscreet question: How is this new idea of transformation effecting your intuition of the higher worlds / ground of reality?

[AshvinP]

What some members here fail to understand is that it's more helpful to state their ideas in a clear, concise fashion before delving into indepth, cryptic and protracted developments.

People won't read 1000 paragraphs of cryptic messages with idiosyncratic lexicon every time some random person on the internet has an idea, there is a constraint of time, a question of tradeoffs, with so many theories, millions of people who think they got the key to undecipher reality, whether it's taking refuge with the lama or expounding steiner, we don't have neither infinite time nor attention, and forgive me for being blunt, but the chance that a 3/4 members on an obscure forum or one philosopher theories among countless other contradicting theories have nailed the truth is extremely weak, especially when he believes in easily refutable qualities like clairvoyance, we cannot read a novel everytime someone on the internet has a new theory, especially when the jargon used is obtuse, and the cultish vibes made by trying to subsume every conversation under the same philosophy, lauding and trying to evalute the lucky few elects who "get it" while demeaning the others doesn't help.

Papanca,

If you state clearly what philosophical, scientific, or religious inquiry you would find more refreshing to consider, then I will find you something either Cleric or I wrote directly germane to it which doesn't mention Steiner, clairvoyance, or anything similar, and uses plain English and standard philosophical terms. Probably some of Scott's articles would help too. And if some terms are not clear, we can easily translate them into terms anyone familiar with modern philosophy would know. And if you aren't familiar with modern philosophy, we could easily translate them into something any literate person would know.

Whether you will put some effort into reading it, contemplating it, asking questions for clarification, etc. as Federica has in the last few months, in good faith to reach shared understanding of what is being communicated, even if it doesn't fit exactly your expectations of what the answers should be, is up to you. And our logical reasoning should never be rooted in the fact that, if we have come across something, it probably isn't true, because otherwise we wouldn't have come across it, because we aren't good enough to be in the presence of unfamiliar truth.

[Papanca]

What some members here fail to understand is that it's more helpful to state their ideas in a clear, concise fashion before delving into indepth, cryptic and protracted developments.

People won't read 1000 paragraphs of cryptic messages with idiosyncratic lexicon every time some random person on the internet has an idea, there is a constraint of time, a question of tradeoffs, with so many theories, millions of people who think they got the key to undecipher reality, whether it's taking refuge with the lama or expounding steiner, we don't have neither infinite time nor attention, and forgive me for being blunt, but the chance that a 3/4 members on an obscure forum or one philosopher theories among countless other contradicting theories have nailed the truth is extremely weak, especially when he believes in easily refutable qualities like clairvoyance, we cannot read a novel everytime someone on the internet has a new theory, especially when the jargon used is obtuse, and the cultish vibes made by trying to subsume every conversation under the same philosophy, lauding and trying to evalute the lucky few elects who "get it" while demeaning the others doesn't help.

Papanca,

If you state clearly what philosophical, scientific, or religious inquiry you would find more refreshing to consider, then I will find you something either Cleric or I wrote directly germane to it which doesn't mention Steiner, clairvoyance, or anything similar, and uses plain English and standard philosophical terms. Probably some of Scott's articles would help too. And if some terms are not clear, we can easily translate them into terms anyone familiar with modern philosophy would know. And if you aren't familiar with modern philosophy, we could easily translate them into something any literate person would know.

Whether you will put some effort into reading it, contemplating it, asking questions for clarification, etc. as Federica has in the last few months, in good faith to reach shared understanding of what is being communicated, even if it doesn't fit exactly your expectations of what the answers should be, is up to you. And our logical reasoning should never be rooted in the fact that, if we have come across something, it probably isn't true, because otherwise we wouldn't have come across it, because we aren't good enough to be in the presence of unfamiliar truth.

This post you made for instance is quite interresting.

viewtopic.php?t=853

I never encountered any of those type of posts before.