Seflf-causality of the reality of consciousness.

[Stranger]

I would like to share a metaphysical hypothesis within the framework of idealism. This hypothesis addresses and resolves a number of fundamental metaphysical problems such as the problem of the prime cause (“why there is something rather than nothing?”), the question whether the MAL is metacognitive or not, and if it is metacognitive then how we can reconcile this with the suffering of the living beings in the world (“the problem of evil”). I will follow the Bernardo’s terminology of calling the reality as “MAL”, even though it can be interchangeably called by many alternative names (Consciousness, God, Divine etc).

The first point to consider is the problem of the prime cause. There are a few options here:

1. Reality exists without any cause. This position is rather an admittance of inability to provide any plausible solution to the problem.

2. There is a prime cause of reality that caused it into existence. But this proposition is problematic because it does not provide a closure: we can apply the same question to the prime cause – what is the prime-prime cause for the prime cause to exist, and then what is the prime-prime-prime cause etc. It’s “turtles all the way down”. Obviously, this solution is implausible.

3. Reality contains its own cause. This solution makes sense because if there is a prime cause for reality to exist, then such prime cause must itself be real and therefore must inevitably be part of reality. However, this requires an assumption for the existence of a self-referential causal loop within the fabric of reality.

4. "New mysterianism" - there may be a cause for the reality to exist, but we do not know it and may never know it because of the lack of sufficient cognitive capacity to know it. Just like #1, this position is another way to admit our inability to provide any plausible solution to the problem.

Now, how can we apply the option #3 to idealism? Here is the proposed scheme:

1. Let’s start from the Bernardo’s idealistic paradigm, from the original state of non-metacognitive MAL that, by its instinctive will, imagines/manifests the world as its own excitation and dissociates into alters in order to experience it. The question can be asked: where did this will to create came from? Why exactly this will to create the world in the direction of evolution of sentience and not any other kind of will (for example, a will to simply rest in the peace of its unexcited state)? In Bernardo’s version of idealism this question remains unanswered. We will return to this question later in #4.

2. Consequently, within the arrow of time from the perspective of the alters, the process of evolution of the world progresses and the alters evolve into sentient beings with progressively higher developed cognitive abilities until they become able to attain metacognition and realization of their own fundamental nature as consciousness.

3. At some point in the evolution the cognitive abilities of the alters become so powerful that they make the MAL itself also highly evolved and metacognitive when they merge with it at the end of their evolutionary paths. This soul’s evolution may involve ascending through multiple hierarchical levels of cognition. At the end of this evolutionary process the MAL reaches the state of omnipotence and omniscience beyond the limits of space and time that monotheistic religions refer to as “God”.

4. At this point the MAL knows that in order for itself and for such omniscient state to exist it had to go through the whole process of evolution from the instinctive to metacognitive state through the development of cognition of individual alters, so it was necessary to have the telos and will to evolve implanted in the original non-metacognitive state of the MAL. However, at this point MAL abides beyond time, which allows it to act at any moment of its own evolution and of the historical apparent axis of time of the apparent world. This makes it possible to for the MAL to retro-causally “implant” the telos and will to evolve (and may be even the very ability to have conscious experience) into its own original instinctive state whereby creating its own cause to evolve and exist.

Now, this paradigm gives answers to a number of metaphysical problems:

1. The problem of prime cause is obviously resolved: the MAL creates the cause of its own existence by creating the process of its own evolution from the primitive instinctive state into the final omniscient state. This answers the question of “why there is something rather than nothing”. Everything that has an existential possibility to exist does exist. In other words, the existential possibility is the same as existential necessity. Is the reality of self-causing, self-manifesting and self-aware consciousness is definitely the reality that have the existential possibility of exist, the proof of it is our own existence as conscious self-aware thinking activity. But the existential possibility of such reality must be contained within this reality, which means that such reality is self-caused.

2. The question in idealism whether or not the MAL is metacognitive and even omniscient (aka “God” in the theological idealist paradigm) is resolved, and the answer is that it is both non-metacognitive in its original state and highly metacognitive in its final state of evolution through time. It also provides a naturalistic explanation for the evolution of the MAL from the instinctive state into the final God-like state and reconciles the naturalism and evolutionism with the theistic premise of the existence of metacognitive God. God indeed exists beyond time in its omniscient and metacognitive state, but it has evolved into that state naturally by creating its own cause to exist and evolve.

3. The problem of suffering and evil is resolved. The MAL realizes that in order to exist it has to create its own cause by undergoing the process of evolution, but such natural evolution inevitably involves suffering of sentient beings. Note that the MAL knows that it itself would be the only and single subject in the universe who would experience the suffering, so it has all moral rights to decide for itself whether it would choose to undertake the suffering. However, the MAL knows that the only alternative choice to such evolution would be the choice not to exist, because if the MAL would choose not to undergo such suffering, then it would not be able to exist through the self-caused evolutionary process. In other words, the choice to exist inevitably involves the choice to suffer. This can be called “the Divine courage to exist”.

4. Based on #3, this paradigm also gives a meaning and justification for our human suffering and a sense of purpose for our human life. First, by personal development of our cognitive abilities and growing intellectually and spiritually we participate in and contribute to the evolution of the MAL. But even deeper than that, by agreeing to live as alters and undergo the suffering and troubles of our human lives we agree to participate and contribute to making the very existence of the reality of consciousness possible, we participate in and agree with the choice of the MAL to exist which would not be possible without the evolution of consciousness with our participation in its inevitable suffering. Simply speaking, we say “yes” to the choice of the MAL as conscious reality to exist.

I do not claim to be the one who discovered this idea and I have to give credit to people who approached this idea long before. I believe the hypothesis of self-caused reality was first suggested in the Western academic philosophy by Bertran Russel and then John Weeler attempted to apply it to a physical model of the universe within the framework of physicalism calling it “The Universe as a self-excited circuit” (Wheeler, J. A., “Beyond the Black Hole”, in Some Strangeness in the Proportion: A Centennial Symposium to Celebrate the Achievments of Albert Einstein, Woolf, H. (Ed.), Addison-Welsley, 1980, p. 362). I myself learnt about it from Christopher Langan’s paper "The Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe: A New Kind of Reality Theory", and even though I do not subscribe to many other propositions of his CTMU, the “reality contains its own cause” hypothesis seemed very appealing to me and I realized that it can nicely fit into the idealist paradigm. But far before Russel, Wheeler and Langan the great Christian mystic Meister Eckhart had this insight in his famous quotes "God cannot know itself without me" and “The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.”

[Federica]

I would like to share a metaphysical hypothesis within the framework of idealism. This hypothesis addresses and resolves a number of fundamental metaphysical problems such as the problem of the prime cause (“why there is something rather than nothing?”), the question whether the MAL is metacognitive or not, and if it is metacognitive then how we can reconcile this with the suffering of the living beings in the world (“the problem of evil”). I will follow the Bernardo’s terminology of calling the reality as “MAL”, even though it can be interchangeably called by many alternative names (Consciousness, God, Divine etc).

The first point to consider is the problem of the prime cause. There are a few options here:

1. Reality exists without any cause. This position is rather an admittance of inability to provide any plausible solution to the problem.

2. There is a prime cause of reality that caused it into existence. But this proposition is problematic because it does not provide a closure: we can apply the same question to the prime cause – what is the prime-prime cause for the prime cause to exist, and then what is the prime-prime-prime cause etc. It’s “turtles all the way down”. Obviously, this solution is implausible.

3. Reality contains its own cause. This solution makes sense because if there is a prime cause for reality to exist, then such prime cause must itself be real and therefore must inevitably be part of reality. However, this requires an assumption for the existence of a self-referential causal loop within the fabric of reality.

4. "New mysterianism" - there may be a cause for the reality to exist, but we do not know it and may never know it because of the lack of sufficient cognitive capacity to know it. Just like #1, this position is another way to admit our inability to provide any plausible solution to the problem.

Now, how can we apply the option #3 to idealism? Here is the proposed scheme:

1. Let’s start from the Bernardo’s idealistic paradigm, from the original state of non-metacognitive MAL that, by its instinctive will, imagines/manifests the world as its own excitation and dissociates into alters in order to experience it. The question can be asked: where did this will to create came from? Why exactly this will to create the world in the direction of evolution of sentience and not any other kind of will (for example, a will to simply rest in the peace of its unexcited state)? In Bernardo’s version of idealism this question remains unanswered. We will return to this question later in #4.

2. Consequently, within the arrow of time from the perspective of the alters, the process of evolution of the world progresses and the alters evolve into sentient beings with progressively higher developed cognitive abilities until they become able to attain metacognition and realization of their own fundamental nature as consciousness.

3. At some point in the evolution the cognitive abilities of the alters become so powerful that they make the MAL itself also highly evolved and metacognitive when they merge with it at the end of their evolutionary paths. This soul’s evolution may involve ascending through multiple hierarchical levels of cognition. At the end of this evolutionary process the MAL reaches the state of omnipotence and omniscience beyond the limits of space and time that monotheistic religions refer to as “God”.

4. At this point the MAL knows that in order for itself and for such omniscient state to exist it had to go through the whole process of evolution from the instinctive to metacognitive state through the development of cognition of individual alters, so it was necessary to have the telos and will to evolve implanted in the original non-metacognitive state of the MAL. However, at this point MAL abides beyond time, which allows it to act at any moment of its own evolution and of the historical apparent axis of time of the apparent world. This makes it possible to for the MAL to retro-causally “implant” the telos and will to evolve (and may be even the very ability to have conscious experience) into its own original instinctive state whereby creating its own cause to evolve and exist.

Now, this paradigm gives answers to a number of metaphysical problems:

1. The problem of prime cause is obviously resolved: the MAL creates the cause of its own existence by creating the process of its own evolution from the primitive instinctive state into the final omniscient state. This answers the question of “why there is something rather than nothing”. Everything that has an existential possibility to exist does exist. In other words, the existential possibility is the same as existential necessity. Is the reality of self-causing, self-manifesting and self-aware consciousness is definitely the reality that have the existential possibility of exist, the proof of it is our own existence as conscious self-aware thinking activity. But the existential possibility of such reality must be contained within this reality, which means that such reality is self-caused.

2. The question in idealism whether or not the MAL is metacognitive and even omniscient (aka “God” in the theological idealist paradigm) is resolved, and the answer is that it is both non-metacognitive in its original state and highly metacognitive in its final state of evolution through time. It also provides a naturalistic explanation for the evolution of the MAL from the instinctive state into the final God-like state and reconciles the naturalism and evolutionism with the theistic premise of the existence of metacognitive God. God indeed exists beyond time in its omniscient and metacognitive state, but it has evolved into that state naturally by creating its own cause to exist and evolve.

3. The problem of suffering and evil is resolved. The MAL realizes that in order to exist it has to create its own cause by undergoing the process of evolution, but such natural evolution inevitably involves suffering of sentient beings. Note that the MAL knows that it itself would be the only and single subject in the universe who would experience the suffering, so it has all moral rights to decide for itself whether it would choose to undertake the suffering. However, the MAL knows that the only alternative choice to such evolution would be the choice not to exist, because if the MAL would choose not to undergo such suffering, then it would not be able to exist through the self-caused evolutionary process. In other words, the choice to exist inevitably involves the choice to suffer. This can be called “the Divine courage to exist”.

4. Based on #3, this paradigm also gives a meaning and justification for our human suffering and a sense of purpose for our human life. First, by personal development of our cognitive abilities and growing intellectually and spiritually we participate in and contribute to the evolution of the MAL. But even deeper than that, by agreeing to live as alters and undergo the suffering and troubles of our human lives we agree to participate and contribute to making the very existence of the reality of consciousness possible, we participate in and agree with the choice of the MAL to exist which would not be possible without the evolution of consciousness with our participation in its inevitable suffering. Simply speaking, we say “yes” to the choice of the MAL as conscious reality to exist.

I do not claim to be the one who discovered this idea and I have to give credit to people who approached this idea long before. I believe the hypothesis of self-caused reality was first suggested in the Western academic philosophy by Bertran Russel and then John Weeler attempted to apply it to a physical model of the universe within the framework of physicalism calling it “The Universe as a self-excited circuit” (Wheeler, J. A., “Beyond the Black Hole”, in Some Strangeness in the Proportion: A Centennial Symposium to Celebrate the Achievments of Albert Einstein, Woolf, H. (Ed.), Addison-Welsley, 1980, p. 362). I myself learnt about it from Christopher Langan’s paper "The Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe: A New Kind of Reality Theory", and even though I do not subscribe to many other propositions of his CTMU, the “reality contains its own cause” hypothesis seemed very appealing to me and I realized that it can nicely fit into the idealist paradigm. But far before Russel, Wheeler and Langan the great Christian mystic Meister Eckhart had this insight in his famous quotes "God cannot know itself without me" and “The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.”

Stranger,

Be it as you state that this scheme closes some open questions, the scheme also seems to originate and leave unanswered just as many, if not more. A couple of them:


1) So there's an hypothesis that MAL somehow inherits and builds up for itself a meta-faculty-at-large from the mini meta-consciousnesses of all the dissolved alters?

2) "However at this point (do you mean point in time?) MAL abides beyond time" seems to be equivalent, in your hypothesis, to ‘MAL moving at will up or down the arrow of time’, that is to say, MAL remains very much caught within, not beyond, time. So in this scheme, time does not seem enabled to live up to the preponderant role that it is given, of both main culprit of MAL’s slip-at-large, and deus-ex-machina, or magic device that will /would /did allow the MAL-police to handcuff the stream of events and pin it back down on itself, so solving the mystery by wrapping it up.



It reminds me on the video fragment included in Ashvin’s “Infernal loops” essay:

One question that could enable a total reset of the problem: is the task of reflecting about the nature and cause of reality similar to the task of writing the plot of a detective novel, trying to find a clever solution to the mystery? If the answer is yes, well you should work at solving at least the two issues listed above. Also, you could consider to submit the scheme to Bernardo, during the upcoming Q&A. If the answer is no: I am glad to hear that - then there must be another way, that does not start by conjuring up a bit of theory, to fit another theory, that already has its issues, with the goal of countering some additional issues, but in the process, originating some more issues….

[Stranger]

Stranger,

Be it as you state that this scheme closes some open questions, the scheme also seems to originate and leave unanswered just as many, if not more. A couple of them:

We are approaching a mystery here that likely cannot be fully understood with our current human cognitive capacities, so there will certainly be open questions and explanatory gaps.

1) So there's an hypothesis that MAL somehow inherits and builds up for itself a meta-faculty-at-large from the mini meta-consciousnesses of all the dissolved alters?

Correct. Notice that alters are not something separate from MAL, alters ARE MAL by nature, dissociation is just a way for MAL to evolve and acquire learning experiences from the first person perspectives of the alters. So, of course, MAL inherits the learning experiences of its own alters in order to evolve at the larger scale.

2) "However at this point (do you mean point in time?) MAL abides beyond time" seems to be equivalent, in your hypothesis, to ‘MAL moving at will up or down the arrow of time’, that is to say, MAL remains very much caught within, not beyond, time. So in this scheme, time does not seem enabled to live up to the preponderant role that it is given, of both main culprit of MAL’s slip-at-large, and deus-ex-machina, or magic device that will /would /did allow the MAL-police to handcuff the stream of events and pin it back down on itself, so solving the mystery by wrapping it up.

Here the assumption is that MAL is both within and beyond the time of our apparent universe. I understand that this may be inconceivable for our human minds because most of us have no experience of the beyond-time state. As an analogy I can suggest a block-universe theory in modern physics or the philosophy of eternalism. Another similar view to consider is the view of the classical Chistian theology (e.g. Augustine of Hippo) that God abides beyond time of the created world but still acts within the dimension of time in the world, and that God is both immanent to the world and transcendental to it. Unfortunately, I don't understand your second sentence.

One question that could enable a total reset of the problem: is the task of reflecting about the nature and cause of reality similar to the task of writing the plot of a detective novel, trying to find a clever solution to the mystery? If the answer is yes, well you should work at solving at least the two issues listed above. Also, you could consider to submit the scheme to Bernardo, during the upcoming Q&A. If the answer is no: I am glad to hear that - then there must be another way, that does not start by conjuring up a bit of theory, to fit another theory, that already has its issues, with the goal of countering some additional issues, but in the process, originating some more issues….

I'm just exploring here a "what if" possibility as a hypothesis without claiming that it is true and without expecting it to be free of any explanatory gaps. This is how science and philosophy work where people suggest hypotheses and theories and then scrutinize them to discover all their strong and weak points. Many don't survive in the process, but some do and contribute to our accumulated body of knowledge, but I'm not aware of a single scientific or philosophical theory that is totally free of any explanatory gaps and issues.

[Cleric K]

I would like to share a metaphysical hypothesis within the framework of idealism. This hypothesis addresses and resolves a number of fundamental metaphysical problems such as the problem of the prime cause (“why there is something rather than nothing?”), the question whether the MAL is metacognitive or not, and if it is metacognitive then how we can reconcile this with the suffering of the living beings in the world (“the problem of evil”). I will follow the Bernardo’s terminology of calling the reality as “MAL”, even though it can be interchangeably called by many alternative names (Consciousness, God, Divine etc).

Hi Stranger,

Thank you for your participation. What you have laid down about MAL being simultaneously both the beginning and the end (Alpha and Omega) has been a subject of many discussions here (I don't know for how long you have been following the forum). You may look at this illustration. It portrays something similar to what you suggest. Basically at the source of existence there's a 'moment of eternity' which contains all conceivable ways through which it can be realized as a Time arc. Time can be 'decomposed' in a fractal manner and lived through as an integrative process. And here we already hit against the limitations of our intellectual cognition that operates in strictly linear fashion. When we say that the potential 'decomposed' we habitually imagine that this happens in time (as Federica noted - some point in time). As if we (MAL) can contemplate a clock and the integrated potential for some time, then the clock strikes 12 and we begin to decompose Time, which itself takes time on our clock. Clearly this is a complete failure on part of the intellect and it proved notoriously difficult to speak of these things here. So don't be discouraged if you don't get much feedback about your idea of MAL existing simultaneously across time. Many times there were attempts here to point attention to the fact that as our consciousness evolves and integrates Time within itself, this doesn't mean that we reach some state of perfection (the integration of all Time potential) where we look at our clock continuing to tick and eventually get bored and decide to spectrum-analyze Time again. Clearly, this is simply the inability of the intellect to extricate itself from the Newtonian linear time. All our present cognition lies in the blind spot of consciousness and when we imagine a higher order of integration we can’t help but see it through the prism of our current human cognition and feelings. As long as we think in sequences of thoughts we always feel time as an arrow, because what we call time is really the flow of our cognition.

It is indeed difficult to get a proper experience of this verticality of Time, its integration. The reason is that we can't do that simply by arranging thoughts in some clever sequence. We need completely new cognitive skills. I'll use your reference to the block universe (which has also been used as a metaphor many times here). Usually we imagine objects, particles, planets, stars flowing within the curvature of spacetime. But try to feel that your own first-person states of being are metamorphosing along this curvature. For example, think about the whole theory that you have presented here. Can you find it in your consciousness as something concrete, in the way you can focus on a color, sound, smell, feeling? Probably not. Instead you would say that it lives in you as intuitive understanding. You feel certain orientation within invisible ideas. This intuitive body is 'larger' than anything you can express at any point with a single word. As seen, you needed quite some paragraphs in order to describe the 'shape' of your intuitive landscape. Notice that just like spacetime curvature determines the motion of a planet through time, so the landscape that you know intuitively determines the arrangements of words that you used. If you choose incorrect words you'll have to say "This is not what I mean". So you know intuitively what you mean and the words are like puzzle pieces that either fit the curvature of what you mean or contradict it (which is felt as cognitive dissonance, lack of logic). So all this is to point attention that we live through a deeper lawfulness of reality that we know intuitively and the words that we think are like fitting phenomena within these deeper intuitive curvatures. As we ascend this fractal-like landscape we encompass more of the 'block-universe' in our intuitive understanding. We understand more of from where phenomena come and where they are going. When we go higher towards the Cosmic unity of all potential, it is not like we move along the Newtonian clock forward in time but more like stretching in time where the end is at the same time the beginning of all.

I'm interested if you have ever considered things in such light. We can surely build a philosophical theory of MAL but what are our thoughts and the intellectual ego in relation to the reality of MAL? You suggested that there might be hierarchical levels of integration. Do you see death as the only way for transition or you envision that true evolution consists in the vertical integration even while still in a body? In the former case, as long as we're human beings on Earth we can do no more than speculate about the deeper nature of MAL. We have to wait for some external event (in most cases death) which will move us through levels of integration. In the latter case we are apertures of MAL and the integration happens here and now. We should find the forces of a higher being that works through our intellect. Within the thinking gestures of our intellectual ego is concealed the spirit of MAL which can express and know itself only in clumsy intellectual fragments arranged in sequences. Thus by proper transformation of the intellectual self it should be possible for the higher self to awaken as if concentric to the ego and consciously active in the curvatures of Time-MAL, which within the intellect were only dimly grasped in intuitive knowing.

[AshvinP]

2) "However at this point (do you mean point in time?) MAL abides beyond time" seems to be equivalent, in your hypothesis, to ‘MAL moving at will up or down the arrow of time’, that is to say, MAL remains very much caught within, not beyond, time. So in this scheme, time does not seem enabled to live up to the preponderant role that it is given, of both main culprit of MAL’s slip-at-large, and deus-ex-machina, or magic device that will /would /did allow the MAL-police to handcuff the stream of events and pin it back down on itself, so solving the mystery by wrapping it up.

I just want to note here that it's interesting to consider how, in our abstract thought-content, we are already 'outside Time', in the sense that we must negate-kill the force of Time in order to quantitatively experience it as the successive flow of minutes, hours, days, etc. It is our own 'outside Time' experience in abstract thinking which then gets projected onto the MAL/God/Absolute and results in, for all practical intents and purposes, a remote and 'transcendent' Consciousness which has little to do with our inner activity-experience. As crude as it sounds, the common understanding of God is only a corpse as is our own dialectical thought-form. Modern intellectual man re-creates God in his own image.

We needed to get outside Time to win our inner freedom, as it is not possible to exert our individual will - to potentially make errors, lie, do evil, etc. - when our thought is within the true metamorphic force of Time. The sheer reality of that force makes impossible any will-independence. That is only possible within a quantitative realm of experience, i.e. Space as the polar opposite of Time. Yet our will-thought within Space is only the seed of freedom and cannot be nourished when we idolize our own quantitative creations, thereby forgetting their final cause or telos. We forget that we can only experience 'outside Time' because the true experiencer - the higher Self - is still within the force of Time. It is the forgetting which leads to the infernal loops, which are a symptom of the fact that we increasingly refuse to learn any lessons from our errors in the quantitative realm and are therefore destined to repeat them until we so learn.

By continually requiring perception in order to become manifest, immobility, as a fixed symbol of simultaneity, is imperceptible simultaneity stripped of itself: simultaneity continually broken off into moments by perception.

We are unaware of how to grasp these moments as moments, as points of the emergence of simultaneity, or eternity, whose form is simultaneousness. Such moments are annihilated in sensory perception. As part of the finite world, they are simultaneously possessed as small openings beyond the finite realm, and then lost. For this reason, they necessarily always involve an interval. The interval, abstractly overcome and abstractly filled, is time, but lost time—the continuance of its loss.

We can cognize this interval, which is never cognized, by grasping the inner movement that unites one thought to another. In fact, abstract thinking in need of a quantitative measure (or succession) loses time. Time exists separate and apart from quantity. Only the specter of time can be measured; time, itself, is immeasurable. Time is not the succession; it is what guides the succession.

Scaligero, Massimo. The Secrets of Space and Time (pp. 37-38). Lindisfarne Books. Kindle Edition.

[Stranger]

It is indeed difficult to get a proper experience of this verticality of Time, its integration. The reason is that we can't do that simply by arranging thoughts in some clever sequence. We need completely new cognitive skills. I'll use your reference to the block universe (which has also been used as a metaphor many times here). Usually we imagine objects, particles, planets, stars flowing within the curvature of spacetime. But try to feel that your own first-person states of being are metamorphosing along this curvature. For example, think about the whole theory that you have presented here. Can you find it in your consciousness as something concrete, in the way you can focus on a color, sound, smell, feeling? Probably not. Instead you would say that it lives in you as intuitive understanding. You feel certain orientation within invisible ideas. This intuitive body is 'larger' than anything you can express at any point with a single word. As seen, you needed quite some paragraphs in order to describe the 'shape' of your intuitive landscape. Notice that just like spacetime curvature determines the motion of a planet through time, so the landscape that you know intuitively determines the arrangements of words that you used. If you choose incorrect words you'll have to say "This is not what I mean". So you know intuitively what you mean and the words are like puzzle pieces that either fit the curvature of what you mean or contradict it (which is felt as cognitive dissonance, lack of logic). So all this is to point attention that we live through a deeper lawfulness of reality that we know intuitively and the words that we think are like fitting phenomena within these deeper intuitive curvatures. As we ascend this fractal-like landscape we encompass more of the 'block-universe' in our intuitive understanding. We understand more of from where phenomena come and where they are going. When we go higher towards the Cosmic unity of all potential, it is not like we move along the Newtonian clock forward in time but more like stretching in time where the end is at the same time the beginning of all.
I'm interested if you have ever considered things in such light.

Thanks for your thoughtful comments, Cleric. I agree that there is a vertical structure which is both the result of the evolution and the guiding force to it in a similar self-causing loop. Another seeming paradox to out limited mind is the free will of conscious beings co-existing with the telos and guiding structures of the universe. You are also right about the primacy of the intuitive thinking that operates with meanings and only uses the language and the means to communicate the meanings.

We can surely build a philosophical theory of MAL but what are our thoughts and the intellectual ego in relation to the reality of MAL?

IMO the ego is an inevitable result of the natural evolution of consciousness at a certain humanoid transitory stage where the ego-complex is a conglomerate of survival mechanisms and intellectual dualistic perception of the world as a world of separate selves and objects. In the primitive humanoids the ego complex was necessary because without it humanoids could not survive. However, at the current stage of the development of humanity the ego and egoic intellect became a huge impediment and the cause of problems on all levels from individual lives to the larger scale society and politics.

You suggested that there might be hierarchical levels of integration. Do you see death as the only way for transition or you envision that true evolution consists in the vertical integration even while still in a body? In the former case, as long as we're human beings on Earth we can do no more than speculate about the deeper nature of MAL. We have to wait for some external event (in most cases death) which will move us through levels of integration. In the latter case we are apertures of MAL and the integration happens here and now. We should find the forces of a higher being that works through our intellect. Within the thinking gestures of our intellectual ego is concealed the spirit of MAL which can express and know itself only in clumsy intellectual fragments arranged in sequences. Thus by proper transformation of the intellectual self it should be possible for the higher self to awaken as if concentric to the ego and consciously active in the curvatures of Time-MAL, which within the intellect were only dimly grasped in intuitive knowing.

I definitely support the former position and agree with all you said, which leads to the melding of such philosophical paradigm with the spiritual practice and spiritual and intellectual development of our consciousness beyond the boundaries of the human level of the intellect. I also disagree with Bernardo's official position that all evolution of consciousness only happens on the levels of biological structures (animals and humans) and stops and dissolves into the instinctive state of MAL after the physical death, even though he admitted at one of his Q&A that he is open to the hierarchical view but just not willing to openly admit it in the area of academic philosophy where he is currently active (and I understand his rationale for that).

[Stranger]

Adding to the root post, it's interesting to note that the idea of the self-originating reality was also discovered long time ago in Buddhism, see below a quote from the Tantra of the Great Perfection dated to around 8-th century. Needless to say, the Dzogchen school of Buddhism where this tantra belongs is a branch of the Yogachara (mind-only) philosophical school of Buddhism which essentially is pure idealism. Here Samantabhadra (Primordial Buddha) represents the highest level of consciousness-intellect that corresponds to the Logos in the Chistian theology, and "the ground of reality" represents the Ontic Prime of Consciousness-Awareness corresponding to the Father in the Christian theology or to Brahman (Sat-Chit-Ananda or Being-Consciousness-Bliss) in Advaita Vedanta.

I, Samantabhadra, know the ground’s reality,
Which is without cause or condition;
It originates by itself within this very ground
... A self-originating expanse, vast and inexpressible
... Recognise self-originating awareness,
So that vast wisdom may be perfected.

[Stranger]

To elaborate further: however, even though the Buddhists had that insight into the self-causality of the ontic Prime, they, as well as Avdvaitists and Christians, missed an important aspect of it, namely the fundamental role of the highest Intellect and its ideas (Logos in Christianity or Thinking in Steiner's philosophy). In these ontologies the Ground (Brahman, the Father, the ground pure Consciousness), is the non-dual ontic Prime of the reality from which the world of forms and ideas originates (Logos proceeds from the Father in the Christian paradigm, the world of ideas and appearances emerges from the ground of empty awareness in Advaita and Buddhism), so, the world of ideas, forms and appearance is understood as causally secondary to the ontic prime of the pure Consciousness. However, in the paradigm of the self-caused reality it is the Thinking-Logos-Intellect at its timeless state and highest level of development that causes the self-origination of Consciousness itself in the causal loop, so now we are in a causal circle of a snake biting its tail and it is impossible to tell anymore which one is the prime cause and which one is the emergent reality. All the aspects of Consciousness become equal components of the causal loop. Also, in this paradigm, the reality is closed with respect to its ideal content, there is nothing that does not belong to the ideal content or nothing outside this ideal content, and this is because all there exists is self-caused by the Idea, by Thinking. The self-Awareness of Thinking still remains a fundamental aspect of Reality, but not the ontic prime per se from which everything else originates, as the Buddhists and Advaitists believed. In other words, Consciousness creates its own reality and all its content knowingly and pre-meditatively by Thinking and it always knows what it creates.

Does this also confirm the Platonist view of the pre-existence of the ideal content? Do ideas timelessly pre-exist, or do they get invented in the process of the evolutionary development of consciousness? This dichotomy only exists in the paradigm of the linear causality and is resolved in the paradigm of the self-causality as follows: within the loop of self-causality the ideas are both get invented and developed in the evolutionary process AND simultaneously timelessly abide beyond the linear time whereby retro-actively causing the reality of ideas to be able to emerge into existence through the evolutionary process.

[Cleric K]

I definitely support the former position and agree with all you said, which leads to the melding of such philosophical paradigm with the spiritual practice and spiritual and intellectual development of our consciousness beyond the boundaries of the human level of the intellect. I also disagree with Bernardo's official position that all evolution of consciousness only happens on the levels of biological structures (animals and humans) and stops and dissolves into the instinctive state of MAL after the physical death, even though he admitted at one of his Q&A that he is open to the hierarchical view but just not willing to openly admit it in the area of academic philosophy where he is currently active (and I understand his rationale for that).

Stranger, thank you for the quotes and references but I'm not sure which position you support and how you can agree with everything said, since I presented two mutually exclusive positions.

(1) One is that existence proceeds through hierarchical stages. In our case the next stage is separated from the Earthly consciousness through the threshold of physical death. We switch between the stages as we move through the floors of a building.

(2) The other is that there's no absolute separation between the stages of consciousness but it is more like there's a unitary spectrum of being that spans the full 'bandwidth' - from the Divine, through the archetypal, astral, etheric, mineral. At all point of existence our being is a full slice of this spectrum (floors). We may say that in our peculiar Earthly stage this full spectrum (picture it as the hierarchy of a musical symphony - acts, chapters, musical phrases, tones) has gone slightly out of tune. The spirit always seeks unity because in its essence it is a perspective of the Divine unity, but currently it finds it mainly in the unity of perceptions which seem to symbolize the story of a single biography. There's an overarching unity of intuition which makes sense of the flow of perceptions, as far as they fit in our current life's story. The "I" feels as the center around which that story integrates. This "I" would find its higher nature when it manages to integrate the incarnational rhythms. Imagine feeling as a different person every morning with no memory of the previous day. This is more or less how the incarnational rhythm manifests for most souls today. Just as we need a higher, overarching unity which fits the experiences of the different days into the life flow of a unitary being, so we need a higher order unity of the unitary being if it is to see the different incarnations as 'days' of the same evolutionary flow. Needless to say, this higher "I" will be quite different from its partial manifestations. In different incarnations we may have been men, women, belonging to different cultures, having different characters, temperaments, interests and so on. The higher being should be able to see itself within the overarching unity of these very different experiences. It would have quite different higher order interests and goals for which the different incarnations are only means.

Another metaphor for the unity of being is like being in a busy coffee house where a lot of people speak. When we focus on the conversation with one person, all the rest becomes noisy background. But imagine that instead, people sing. It's not necessary that they sing in the same voice - everyone has their unique part but all voices are united in a common harmony. Then suddenly we can perceive the whole coffee house as a holistic unity. So in this analogy it is not that our sphere of being is placed in some completely distinct floor of the Cosmic building and we are absolutely separated from the next floor through the gate of death. Instead, because of our still disorganized being we can make sense only of the perceptions, thoughts and feelings that seem to form a coherent time flow of a single being. All the rest of the Cosmic happenings sound like noise and are gradually filtered from consciousness - they seem as darkness to us. Yet our being spans through the full spectrum and it is a matter of musical development that we find that unity also through the higher order rhythms. Then we can even find the Archetypal Man, the Christ principle. But we don't find it as some distinct floor of the Cosmos but as something living through each one of us. We only attain to consciousness of this level when we organize our coffee house along the full spectrum and we find the unified being of all humanity. Not as abstract theory but as actual expansion of consciousness into the Cosmos, bridging the threshold of death in the process.

So in (1) we have a clean separation between the fractal stages. Our spiritual perspective is like a soul-ball that moves through the floors of a pyramid. In (2) even at this moment our 'ball' spans the full spectrum but we're conscious only of that within which we can find coherent unity. In this view there's no need to wait for death since this coherency can be worked upon here and now. It's a matter of proper development of the verticality of our being such that consciousness can expand towards the overarching levels of being and integrate them even while we're operating through the sensory spectrum. Clearly, this is not merely a technical process but requires the Love impulse. Only in this way we can find the unified higher being of humanity within ourselves and others.

Can you now be more specific about what you support and what you agree/disagree with?

[Stranger]

Can you now be more specific about what you support and what you agree/disagree with?

Cleric, I agree with #2, and from my own experience I can confirm that we have access to different levels of the developmental hierarchy even in our human form according to the individual level of the spiritual and cognitive development. So, our human phases of incarnation are in no way an impediment to our development beyond the limits of the human mind, but certainly a challenge as we are confronted by animal survival instincts and the materialistic culture of human society. But it also might be that the challenges of the human form also give us unique opportunities for the development.