The Nature of the sensory world or do we really *know* the ultimate ground of reality?

[AshvinP]

With that said, I'm a little disappointed that this thread seems to have gone undeveloped. The question of how the imagination-intuition of higher-order beings precipitate into percepts within our field of conscious phenomena is something I'd love to gain a greater insight of. You started to address this here with the distinction between immediate perceptions, memory images, and imaginative images. The diverse character of these makes sense.

Where I struggle is bridging the divide between the various metaphors that have been employed here - carrier waves, Moiré patterns, fractals etc. - and the standard models of say visual perception as per ChatGPT:

Light travels as electromagnetic radiation and enters the eye through the cornea, a transparent outer covering. The cornea bends the light and focuses it onto the lens, which further refracts the light and adjusts its focus. The lens then projects the light onto the retina, a thin layer of light-sensitive cells located at the back of the eye. The retina contains two types of photoreceptor cells: rods and cones. Rods are more sensitive to low levels of light and are responsible for our vision in dim light conditions. Cones are responsible for color vision and work best in brighter light conditions. When light hits the photoreceptor cells, it triggers a series of chemical and electrical events that generate nerve impulses. These impulses travel along the optic nerve to the brain, which processes the information and creates a visual image.

On the one hand we have the causal chain of light, corneas, retinas, photoreceptor cells, and nerve impulses etc. The attachment of conceptual content to these perceptual elements and the identification of the interactions being a construction of our thinking I'm happy with. But how do these percepts "get in" to my field of conscious awareness? High order beings precipitate those precepts to which we add our thinking. Is it something akin to Berkeley's idea where perceptions arise directly out of the omnipotence of God? I can't quite join the dots.

Anthony,

I am glad you revisited that post from Cleric, as I am also interested in following that phenomenology further. On that note, in regards to your question, I think we need to clearly distinguish between metaphysics and phenomenology to begin with.

When we ask about higher order beings precipitating percepts into our field of consciousness and so forth, we are asking for a metaphysical model. We want to view the whole process from the side, like there are Divine beings who are radiating perceptual structures into our conscious field, which we then perceive and think about. This secretly embeds the assumption that our current concepts and conceptual templates are adequate to understand what actually happens in the first-person process of cognition-perception. Notice all metaphysical models presuppose we can borrow things from our current understanding, which is generally an understanding of how inanimate objects behave, and apply them across the board to the phenomena of life, soul, and thinking (which is what the quote you shared does). A phenomenology, in contrast, naturally leads us to entirely unfamiliar ways of observing and thinking through these intimate life, soul, and thinking processes which unfold in our stream of becoming. That is, if we remain open to the fact that our current opinions, assumptions, theories, etc. should be put aside, should be sacrificed for the time being, if we want the givens of experience to shine forth and guide our reasoning.

Does that make sense?

With the question of how perception arises in relation to our will-thinking, we are implicating the lawful spaces of soul and spirit. These are living spaces with unique lawfulness, not reducible to the merely physical forces we are familiar with in secular science, which by themselves only lead to decay and death. I am sure you remember the detailed post Cleric gave on Levin's models in response to a question you asked. We need to try and keep all of that in mind. Maybe it will help to revisit it again. I will leave it here for now, because I don't have a clear sense of how to articulate my thoughts further and maybe Cleric is already writing something in response. Both he and Steiner clearly show there are viable ways of articulating these unfamiliar dynamics and building a gradient of understanding between our familiar habits of thinking and the yet unfamiliar modes which alone can elucidate the phenomena of life, soul, and spirit. We need to trust that our living and energetic thinking can reach out beyond our current state and illuminate the corridors we otherwise navigate in the most dim and clumsy way with our abstract concepts, as long as we are willing to sacrifice the personal preferences, opinions, etc. which constantly tempt us to resist a deeper understanding of these archetypal processes.

There may be some interest in considering the following.

***
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA320/En ... 25p01.html
Truth is that where we simply have to do with images or pictures, the physicists speak of all manner of other things, — light-rays and so on. The “light-rays” have become the very basis of materialistic thinking in this domain. To illustrate the point more vividly, we will consider another phenomenon. Suppose I have a vessel here (Figure IIId), filled with liquid — water, for example. On the floor of the vessel there is an object — say, a florin. Here is the eye. I can now make the following experiment. Omitting the water to begin with, I can look down at the object and see it in this direction. What is the fact? An object is lying on the bottom of the vessel (Figure IIIc). I look and see it in a certain direction. Such is the simple fact, but if I now begin explaining: there is a ray of light proceeding from the object to the eye, affecting the eye, and so on, — then, my dear Friends, I am already fancying all kinds of things that are not given.








Now let me fill the vessel with water or some other liquid up to here. A strange thing happens. I draw a line from the eye towards the object in the direction in which I saw it before. Looking in this direction, I might expect to see the same as before, but I do not. A peculiar thing happens. I see the object lifted to some extent. I see it, and with it the whole floor of the vessel lifted upward. We may go into it another time, as to how this effect can be determined, by which I mean measured. I now only refer to the main principle. To what can this effect be due? How shall I answer this question, purely from the facts? Having previously seen the thing in this direction, I expect to find it there again. Yet when I look, I do not see it there but in this other direction. When there was no water in the vessel I could look straight to the bottom, between which and my eye there was only air. Now my sighting line impinges on the water. The water does not let my force of sight go through as easily as the air does; it offers stronger resistance, to which must give way. From the surface of the water onward I must give way to the stronger resistance, and, that I have to do so, comes to expression in that I do not see right down as before but it all looks lifted upward. It is as though it were more difficult for me to see through the water than through the air; the resistance of the water is harder for me to overcome. Hence I must shorten the force and so I myself draw the object upward. In meeting the stronger resistance I draw in the force and shorten it. If I could fill the vessel with a gas thinner than air (Figure IIIe), the object would be correspondingly lowered, since I should then encounter less resistance, — so I should push it downward. Instead of simply noting this fact, the physicists will say: There is a ray of light, sent from the object to the surface of the water. The ray is there refracted. Owing to the transition from a denser medium to a more tenuous, the ray is refracted away from the normal at the point of incidence; so then it reaches the eye in this direction. And now the physicists go on to say a very curious thing. The eye, they say, having received information by this ray of light, produces it on and outward in the same straight line and so projects the object thither. What is the meaning of this? In the conventional Physics they will invent all manner of concepts but fail to reckon with what is evidently there, — with the resistance which the sighting force of the eye encounters in the denser medium it has to penetrate. They want to leave all this out and to ascribe everything to the light alone, just as they say of the prism experiment: Oh, it is not the prism at all; the seven colours are there in the light all the time. The prism only provides the occasion for them to line up like so many soldiers. The seven naughty boys were there in the light already; now they are only made to line up and stand apart. The prism isn't responsible. Yet as we say, the colours are really caused by what arises in the prism. This wedge of dimness is the cause. The colours are not due to the light as such.





Here now you see it again. We must be clear that we ourselves are being active. We, actively, are looking with our eye, — with our line of sight. Finding increased resistance in the water, we are obliged to shorten the line of sight. What say the physicists on the other hand? They speak of rays of light being sent out and refracted and so on. And now the beauty of it, my dear Friends! The light, they say, reaches the eye by a bent and broken path, and then the eye projects the picture outward. So after all they end by attributing this activity to the eye: “The eye projects ...” Only they then present us with a merely phoronomical conception, remote from the given realities. They put a merely fancied activity in place of what is evidently given: the resistance of the denser water to the sighting force of the eye. It is at such points that you see most distinctly how abstract everything is made in our conventional Physics. All things are turned into mere phoronomic systems; what they will not do is to go into the qualities. Thus in the first place they divest the eye of any kind of activity of its own; only from outer objects rays of light are supposed to proceed and thence to reach the eye. Yet in the last resort the eye is said to project outward into space the stimulus which it receives. Surely we ought to begin with the activity of the eye from the very outset. We must be clear that the eye is an active organism.

***

That is a small excerpt from Lecture 3 of a 10-lecture series on phenomenological investigation of natural science and physics, particularly the phenomena of Light and colors. So as we can tell, there are no simple, neatly packaged, abstract answers to the actual living processes by which we cognize and perceive. There is a never-ending journey of energetic thinking which gradually unveils more and more layers of these deep Cosmic secrets. Ultimately these living processes we are familiar with and normally take for granted lead us into the very depths of Cosmic intents which unfold through the curvatures of Time potential over what appear to be aeons. So we should expect to be in it for the transincarnational long haul. Yet when we manage to gradually decondition from merely personal entanglements in our bodily sheaths, there is less and less concern that we won't figure everything out in the course of days, weeks, years, our current lifetime, or even immediately after death. It is only the perspective still wrapped up in such entanglements which feels pressured to get such answers now, usually in the form of abstract models, or to place its faith in some all-encompassing revelation in the future or after death.

[Stranger]

As a comment on the lecture above, I can give a perspective on it from a point of view of a physicist who is also a subjective idealist.
So, what is actually happening here, if we look carefully into our phenomenological experience, is:
1. I first experience a group of visual phenomena which looks like a "coin at the bottom of a glass". There is actually no "coin" or "glass" existing anywhere as some material object in some "outer world", there are only visual phenomena in my direct conscious experience. Let's call them "group A" of phenomena.
2. Then I experience "group B" of phenomena consisting in a group of tactile and visual percepts that feels and looks like "pouring glass of water into the glass with a coin".
3. Then I experience "group C" of phenomena when the visual picture of the coin is changed and looks like the coin is located at a different place compared to "group A' visual phenomenon.

A question-though-phenomenon arises in my consciousness: how can this be explained? Materialist scientist would explain it by introducing a group of beliefs in the existence of real "objects" in the real "external world" and then suggesting an abstract model of "light rays" travelling in the "space in the external world" with rays propagating along certain directions according to certain mathematical laws. And then it turns out that these mathematical laws actually accurately describe how the phenomena changed from group A to B to C. And then the scientist says" "aha, then my model must be correct, including all my assumptions about the existence of the material world with light rays propagating in it". However, what actually happens is only a certain correlation of conscious phenomena: somehow the group of phenomena changed in time from A to B to C. And it turns out that this correlation can be mathematically approximated by certain formulas without making any assumptions about the existence of real "rays of light" in the "real world outside". Likewise, no assumptions about the existence of real material "eye" or "brain" are needed. We simply have streams of phenomena which correlations and interdependencies can be approximately described by certain mathematical equations. This is all what natural science actually found and tells us about the world. There are no such things as "rays of light", "particles", "fields", "physical space and time", these are all abstractions that physicists use to more easily imagine the mathematical equations in order to solve them in easier ways. The "fields", "rays", "particles" are simply mathematical variables, notions and ideas with no relevance to any reality whatsoever.

So far one of the most accurate mathematical equation that describes the correlations of phenomena is the Schrodinger equation. It is worth noting that , when it is expressed in Heisenberg formalism, it gives exactly the formula that correlates a state vector of "observables" at some initial moment and state vector of the same "observables" at some following moment in time. Obviously "observables" are actually the phenomena, but in physics they are normally stripped from its qualitative phenomenological content and presented as abstract values of some physical measurements using some instruments. In fact we are talking here only about qualitative phenomena that are experienced as perceiving the "dials" of these "instruments". So, the Heisenberg form of Schrodinger equation is the cleanest way to mathematically represent the correlations of phenomena without introducing any unnecessary abstract ideas about "light rays", "fields", "particles" etc. In such equation there are not even such mathematical notions, there are only two mathematical constructs: state vectors of observables, and a "Hamiltonian" as a certain mathematical function having no relevance to any "physical" reality whatsoever.

So, once that is clear, now the real question is: why the steams of phenomena follow these mathematical equations with a rather high degree of accuracy? We cannot deny the fact that the correlations of phenomena indeed can be accurately described by these equations. This is the real question that needs to be addressed by spiritual science in phenomenological idealism. My explanation is that these mathematical equations are part of the lawful structures and ideas manifested by higher-order beings into which the human souls are "exposed" so to speak. These lawful structures-ideas precipitate into the phenomenological percepts that we humans experience in our direct phenomenal experience. However, I do not have a clear understanding or insight into how this mechanism of precipitation exactly works and hoping that Cleric will shed some light on it.

[AshvinP]

As a comment on the lecture above, I can give a perspective on it from a point of view of a physicist who is also a subjective idealist.
So, what is actually happening here, if we look carefully into our phenomenological experience, is:
1. I first experience a group of visual phenomena which looks like a "coin at the bottom of a glass". There is actually no "coin" or "glass" existing anywhere as some material object in some "outer world", there are only visual phenomena in my direct conscious experience. Let's call them "group A" of phenomena.
2. Then I experience "group B" of phenomena consisting in a group of tactile and visual percepts that feels and looks like "pouring glass of water into the glass with a coin".
3. Then I experience "group C" of phenomena when the visual picture of the coin is changed and looks like the coin is located at a different place compared to "group A' visual phenomenon.

A question-though-phenomenon arises in my consciousness: how can this be explained? Materialist scientist would explain it by introducing a group of beliefs in the existence of real "objects" in the real "external world" and then suggesting an abstract model of "light rays" travelling in the "space in the external world" with rays propagating along certain directions according to certain mathematical laws. And then it turns out that these mathematical laws actually accurately describe how the phenomena changed from group A to B to C. And then the scientist says" "aha, then my model must be correct, including all my assumptions about the existence of the material world with light rays propagating in it". However, what actually happens is only a certain correlation of conscious phenomena: somehow the group of phenomena changed in time from A to B to C. And it turns out that this correlation can be mathematically approximated by certain formulas without making any assumptions about the existence of real "rays of light" in the "real world outside". Likewise, no assumptions about the existence of real material "eye" or "brain" are needed. We simply have streams of phenomena which correlations and interdependencies can be approximately described by certain mathematical equations. This is all what natural science actually found and tells us about the world. There are no such things as "rays of light", "particles", "fields", "physical space and time", these are all abstractions that physicists use to more easily imagine the mathematical equations in order to solve them in easier ways. The "fields", "rays", "particles" are simply mathematical variables, notions and ideas with no relevance to any reality whatsoever.

So far one of the most accurate mathematical equations that describes the correlations of phenomena is the Schrodinger equation. It is worth noting that , when it is expressed in Heisenberg formalism, it gives exactly the formula that correlates a state vector of "observables" at some initial moment and state vector of the same "observables" at some following moment in time. Obviously "observables" are actually the phenomena, but in physics they are normally stripped from its qualitative phenomenological content and presented as abstract values of some physical measurements using some instruments. In fact we are talking here only about qualitative phenomena that fell like perceiving the "dials" of these "instruments".

So, once that is clear, now the real question is: why the steams of phenomena follow these mathematical equations with a rather high degree of accuracy? This is the real question that needs to be addressed by spiritual science in phenomenological idealism. My explanation is that these mathematical equations are part of the lawful structures and ideas manifested by higher-order beings into which the human souls are "exposed" so to speak. These lawful structures-ideas precipitate into the phenomenological percepts that we humans experience in our direct phenomenal experience. However, I do not have a clear understanding or insight into how this mechanism of precipitation exactly works and hoping that Cleric will shed some light on it.

Eugene,

The bold is very much related to what you are also discussing with Cleric about the One-Many and basically writing off the Many pole as illusion, although it seems from the last comment you agree that there are Many streams of becoming within the One which cannot be called 'illusory' in any sense, but are integral to the One. In that same sense, the precise differentiations made by natural science are pointing to real spiritual activities, forces, interactions across Many streams of becoming, which are certainly relevant to our understanding of the One reality. In fact, we cannot understand the One reality apart from these differentiations. The whole development of modern science since medieval times reflects to us the increasingly clarified intution of the One manifesting through the Many, but now we must become more conscious of how our active soul-life participates in that manifestation. That is the real problem with secular science - it abstracts the differentiated phenomena into independent realities which we merely observe as neutral spectators, rather than understanding them as manifestations of our first-person spiritual activity which prompt us to go searching for deeper and deeper layers of that activity along the depth gradient, perfecting our own WFT be-ing through that search.

Now if we continue in Steiner's lecture, we come to the following:

***


We will today begin our study of the nature of the human eye. Here is a model of it (Figure IIIf). The human eye, as you know, is in form like a kind of sphere, slightly compressed from front to back. Such is the eye-ball, seated in the bony cavity or orbit, and with a number of skins enveloping the inner portion. To draw it in cross-section (Figure IIIf). it will be like this. (When looking at your neighbour's eye you look into the pupil. I am now drawing it from the side and in cross-section.) This then would be a right-hand eye. If we removed the eye from the skull, making an anatomical preparation, the first thing we should encounter would be connective tissue and fatty tissue. Then we should reach the first integument of the eye properly speaking — the so-called sclerotic and the transparent portion of it, the cornea. This outermost integument (I have here drawn it) is sinewy, — of bony or cartilaginous consistency. Towards the front it gets transparent, so that the light can penetrate into the eye. A second layer enveloping the inner space of the eye is then the so-called choroid, containing blood-vessels. Thirdly we get the inner-most layer, the retina so-called, which is continued into the optic nerve as you go farther in into the skull. Herewith we have enumerated the three integuments of the eye, And now behind the cornea, shown here, — embedded in the ciliary muscle — is a kind of lens. The lens is carried by a muscle known as the ciliary muscle. In front is the transparent cornea, between which and the lens is the so-called aqueous humour. Thus when the light gets into the eye it first passes through the transparent cornea, then through the aqueous humour and then through this lens which is inherently movable by means of muscles. From the lens onward the light then reaches what is commonly known as the vitreous body or vitreous humour, filling the entire space of the eye. The light therefore goes through the transparent cornea, through the aqueous humour, the lens itself and the vitreous humour and from thence reaches the retina, which is in fact a ramification of the optic nerve that then goes on into the brain, This, therefore, (Figure IIIf), — envisaging only what is most important to begin with — would be a diagrammatic picture of the essential parts of the eye, embedded as it is in its cavity within the bony skull.

Now the eye reveals very remarkable features. Examining the contents of this fluid that is between the lens and the cornea through which the light first has to pass, we find it very like any ordinary liquid taken from the outer world. At this place in the human body therefore — in the liquid or aqueous humour of the eye, between the lens and the outer cornea, — a man in his bodily nature is quite of a piece with the outer world. The lens too is to a high degree “objective” and unalive. Not so when we go on to the vitreous body, filling the interior of the eye and bordering on the retina. Of this we can no longer say that it is like any external body or external fluid. In the vitreous humour there is decided vitality, — there is life. Truth is, the farther back we go into the eye, the more life do we find. In the aqueous humour we have a quite external and objective kind of fluid. The lens too is still external. Inside the vitreous body on the other hand we find inherent vitality. This difference, between what is contained in this more outward portion of the eye and what is there in the more contained parts, also reveals itself in another circumstance. Tracing the comparative development of the eye from the lower animals upward, we find that the external fluid or aqueous humour and the lens grow not from within outward but by the forming of new cells from the surrounding and more peripheral cells. I must conceive the forming of the lens rather in this way. The tissue of the lens, also the aqueous humour in the anterior part of the eye, are formed from neighbouring organs, not from within outward; whilst from within the vitreous body grows out to meet them. This is the noteworthy thing. In fact the nature of the outer light is here at work, bringing about that transformation whereby the aqueous humour and the lens originate. To this the living being then reacts from within, thrusting outward a more living, a more vital organ, namely the vitreous body. Notably in the eye, formations whose development is stimulated from without, and others stimulated from within, meet one-another in a very striking way.

This is the first peculiarity of the eye, and there is also another, scarcely less remarkable. The expanse of the retina which you see here is really the expanded optic nerve. Now the peculiar thing is that at the very point of entry of the optic nerve the eye is insensitive; there it is blind. Tomorrow I shall try to show you an experiment confirming this. The optic nerve thence spreads out, and in an area which for the right-hand eye is a little to the right of the point of entry the retina is most sensitive of all. We may begin by saying that it is surely the nerve which senses the light. Yet it is insensitive to light precisely at its point of entry. If it is really the nerve that senses the light we should expect it to do so more intensely at the point of entry, but it does not. Please try to bear this in mind.

That this whole structure and arrangement of the eye is full of wisdom — wisdom, if I may so put it, from the side of Nature — this you may also tell from the following fact. During the day when you look at the objects around you — in so far as you have healthy eyes — they will appear to you more or less sharp and clear, or at least so that their sharpness of outline is fully adequate for orientation. But in the morning when you first awaken you sometimes see the outlines of surrounding objects very indistinctly, as if enveloped with a little halo. The rim of a circle for example will be indistinct and nebular when you have just awakened in the morning. What is it due to? It is due to there being two different kinds of things in our eye, namely the vitreous body and the lens. In origin, as we have seen, they are quite different. The lens is formed more from without, the vitreous body more from within. While the lens is rather unalive, the vitreous body is full of vitality. Now in the moment of awakening they are not yet adapted to one-another. The vitreous body still tries to picture the objects to us in the way it can; the lens in the way it can. We have to wait till they are well adapted to each other. You see again how deeply mobile everything organic is. The whole working of it depends on this. First the activity is differentiated into that of the lens and the vitreous body respectively. From what is thus differentiated the activity is thereupon composed and integrated; so then the one has to adapt itself to the other.

From all these things we shall try gradually to discover how the many-coloured world emerges for us from the relation of the eye to the outer world.

***

I don't want to bombard with too much content right now, but this is only to help get an orientation for the direction in which a careful and rigorous phenomenology is to proceed which can gradually elucidate these matters for us (especially if we couple our intent studies with prayerful meditation). If this all sounds like abstract or materialstic to us, it's only because we ourselves are conditioned to thinking in that modern way and therefore anything which goes into precise differentiated detail is interpreted in that way. Through living thinking, we are able to make these processes much more intimate to our own first-person spiritual activity without sacrificing the structured details, collapsing them all under the umbrella of 'illusion'. Everything in nature, when also connected to our own intimate soul-life and activity, presents us with indispensable tools for seeking out the living relations of our spiritual evolution so that we can get increasing levels of feedback which allow us to more freely and optimally steer our stream of becoming towards the Divine Unity. Like the physical eye itself, we must first differentiate precisely spiritual phenomena before we are able to integrate back to a higher Unity of comprehension.

Also, in connection with this:

So, once that is clear, now the real question is: why the steams of phenomena follow these mathematical equations with a rather high degree of accuracy?

You may want to check out Lecture 1 - https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA320/En ... 23p01.html

[Stranger]

The bold is very much related to what you are also discussing with Cleric about the One-Many and basically writing off the Many pole as illusion, although it seems from the last comment you agree that there are Many streams of becoming within the One which cannot be called 'illusory' in any sense, but are integral to the One.

It actually depends on the concrete interpretation of what is meant by "Many". If Many is interpreted as a multitude of separate consciousnesses (as an ordinary human person would interpret it), then itis an illusion. If "Many" means multitude of interacting streams of phenomena within One Consciousness, so that One manifests its spiritual activity through the Many, then this is a correct interpretation and not an "illusion".

In that same sense, the precise differentiations made by natural science are pointing to real spiritual activities, forces, interactions across Many streams of becoming, which are certainly relevant to our understanding of the One reality. In fact, we cannot understand the One reality apart from these differentiations. The whole development of modern science since medieval times reflects to us the increasingly clarified intution of the One manifesting through the Many, but now we must become more conscious of how our active soul-life participates in that manifestation. That is the real problem with secular science - it abstracts the differentiated phenomena into independent realities which we merely observe as neutral spectators, rather than understanding them as manifestations of our first-person spiritual activity which prompt us to go searching for deeper and deeper layers of that activity along the depth gradient, perfecting our own WFT be-ing through that search.

Exactly, so now, if we reject the materialistic interpretation that those "eye", "retina" and other ideas relate to actual physical realities of the material world, then we need to find appropriate interpretations of all those notions of "eye", "retina" and other ideas that we find in science from the perspective of phenomenological idealism. You are right that they actually point not to any physical realities, but to spiritual activities, forces, ideations and interactions between many streams of phenomena within One Consciousness.

[Cleric K]

Let me say how much I have enjoyed the ongoing interactions here of late. I note that all sides have got frustrated at times but I really think the conversation has identified some core points of demarcation between aspects of non-dual thought and living thinking.

With that said, I'm a little disappointed that this thread seems to have gone undeveloped. The question of how the imagination-intuition of higher-order beings precipitate into percepts within our field of conscious phenomena is something I'd love to gain a greater insight of. You started to address this here with the distinction between immediate perceptions, memory images, and imaginative images. The diverse character of these makes sense.

Where I struggle is bridging the divide between the various metaphors that have been employed here - carrier waves, Moiré patterns, fractals etc. - and the standard models of say visual perception as per ChatGPT:

Light travels as electromagnetic radiation and enters the eye through the cornea, a transparent outer covering. The cornea bends the light and focuses it onto the lens, which further refracts the light and adjusts its focus. The lens then projects the light onto the retina, a thin layer of light-sensitive cells located at the back of the eye. The retina contains two types of photoreceptor cells: rods and cones. Rods are more sensitive to low levels of light and are responsible for our vision in dim light conditions. Cones are responsible for color vision and work best in brighter light conditions. When light hits the photoreceptor cells, it triggers a series of chemical and electrical events that generate nerve impulses. These impulses travel along the optic nerve to the brain, which processes the information and creates a visual image.

On the one hand we have the causal chain of light, corneas, retinas, photoreceptor cells, and nerve impulses etc. The attachment of conceptual content to these perceptual elements and the identification of the interactions being a construction of our thinking I'm happy with. But how do these percepts "get in" to my field of conscious awareness? High order beings precipitate those precepts to which we add our thinking. Is it something akin to Berkeley's idea where perceptions arise directly out of the omnipotence of God? I can't quite join the dots.

I'll have to think of some more compact way for approaching the question. Normally such things take whole books. I remembered something that I posted some time ago here. It is very interesting how such questions can actually lead us towards fundamental truths about reality.

The nature of the sensory world is not investigated in the above post but we would have to follow similar patterns. Until I come up with something suitable let's turn attention to that example. It's not about forming some detailed understanding but the main thing is to get at least a general feel for this iterative convolution of reality. The whole esoteric science rests upon the proper understanding of this. Without it we're threatened by a completely flat spirituality. That's why I tried to hint at Eugene that we should be very careful when we imagine that the Divine creates worlds and beings in a way comparable to the way we can imagine a mental picture. Such a conception would turn into an insurmountable hard problem.

The key idea conveyed in the above post is to feel how something (in this case nutrition) has its beginning as the dynamics of a very spiritual, yet simply structured state but then as the convolutions proceed, these archetypal dynamics are 'multiplied' in complicated ways and at different levels (remember the metaphor with the way children make snowflakes by cutting out pieces of folded paper). If we don't build the habit to always seek this multi-level, fractal-like manifestation, we'll never be able to make sense of reality.

So I'll leave it here at this time. It will be helpful if the linked post is considered. It's important that the iterations described there shouldn't be conceived simply as some events that happened in the far past, long ago in linear time. Instead these iterations should be thought of as accumulating and producing more and more complicated states (here's the gif I often use). This should be contrasted with the flat approach where we have to imagine 'Consciousness' to have quite incredible capabilities in order to be able to simply imagine into existence something like the human eye against the blank background of pure awareness.

[Federica]

All phenomena (percepts, thoughts-ideas on all levels of cognition, imaginations , feelings, willing gestures) emerge and experienced at every point of the "space" of Consciousness by the same "subjectivity" (awareness) of the same Consciousness. The patterns of phenomena are indeed shaped by lawful structures, karmic forces and memories, so the next appearing phenomena lawfully depend on the whole existing structure of these laws and karma. These phenomena tend to "conglomerate" into specific streams ("souls") and within the vicinity of these streams they are experienced as if happening "together" in one individuated mind. But this is only because they are within one stream in the vicinity with each other. The phenomena conglomerated in "another" stream could also be experienced in "this" stream, but because of their "distance" they are usually below the threshold of sensitivity. Clairvoyant people have higher sensitivity and can in fact experience phenomena occurring in other streams.

We can take any concrete example, for example, let's say there is a though appearing within "my" stream of phenomena. It appears due to the creative force of Consciousness, but its concrete form depends on all the lawful structures and history of collective and local karmic patterns present within "my" stream. It is experienced by the subjectivity-awareness of Consciousness at the point of its appearance but it is sensed mostly within "my" stream. Within "your" stream it could also be sensed, but only if you have sufficiently high sensitivity for the phenomena occurring further from your stream in other streams.

Eugene, thanks for this relpy. It's probably not relevant that I comment point by point, as I've seen that after replying to me, you have replyed to and agreed 100% with Cleric:

let's from now one consider that whenever we speak of individual beings, of perspectives of the One and so on, we mean precisely this intuitive variation of the One Consciousness which makes it experience itself as evolving along the curvature of a particular stream instead of another (the bias). Yes, all streams are part of the One fundamental spiritual reality, yet there's something unique in our experience, which makes it feel as integrating along a specific stream.

So let's bookmark this and use it for future reference. What we call individual beings or perspectives of the One, has nothing to do with duality but only with the fact that the One Consciousness experiences itself in an unique way that makes intuitive sense as the integration of a particular stream of becoming. We simply breed confusion if we insist that the only reality is the Oneness, while the experience of evolving along an individual stream is only a cognitive mistake that is incoherent with reality. We simply have to accept that the biased relation of the One to a particular stream of becoming is a given fact. Without this fact we would experience reality with perfect equanimity and no stream would seem more intimate than another.

!00% agreed.

So I trust you have now let go of this theory (or metaphisics, or third person view) of conglomerates of phenomena, that I don't think can be held at the same time as one agrees 100% with Cleric's bookmarked and agreed description, and I'm glad we can refer to that now.

[Stranger]

let's from now one consider that whenever we speak of individual beings, of perspectives of the One and so on, we mean precisely this intuitive variation of the One Consciousness which makes it experience itself as evolving along the curvature of a particular stream instead of another (the bias). Yes, all streams are part of the One fundamental spiritual reality, yet there's something unique in our experience, which makes it feel as integrating along a specific stream.

So let's bookmark this and use it for future reference. What we call individual beings or perspectives of the One, has nothing to do with duality but only with the fact that the One Consciousness experiences itself in an unique way that makes intuitive sense as the integration of a particular stream of becoming. We simply breed confusion if we insist that the only reality is the Oneness, while the experience of evolving along an individual stream is only a cognitive mistake that is incoherent with reality. We simply have to accept that the biased relation of the One to a particular stream of becoming is a given fact. Without this fact we would experience reality with perfect equanimity and no stream would seem more intimate than another.

!00% agreed.

So I trust you have now let go of this theory (or metaphisics, or third person view) of conglomerates of phenomena, that I don't think can be held at the same time as one agrees 100% with Cleric's bookmarked and agreed description, and I'm glad we can refer to that now.

Let Cleric correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Cleric by "streams" here meant the same thing that I meant. He mentioned "streams of becoming". Essentially, in idealism the reality is "made" of conscious experiences occurring in Consciousness that creates and experiences them. All phenomena we talk about - thoughts, intuitions, ideas, feelings, percepts, imaginations, willing gestures - are conscious experiences, or we call them "conscious phenomena". There is nothing else that we need to assume to ever exist - this is the claim the phenomenological idealism. So, the term "phenomenological idealism" may sound abstract, but it is actually very concrete statement of refusing to believe in a reality of anything other than the phenomena of our conscious experience that we all have right now in our direct first-person experience. Therefore, what we as "souls" are is the streams of phenomena. I used the word "conglomerates" to designate the fact that in our individuated fields of experience we have these phenomena flowing in a "bunch", or a "set" of phenomena occurring simultaneously all related to each other through the lawful structures that govern them. This is the same as the "stream of becoming" where the stream of phenomena form a living spiritual activity that is "becoming" as one of Many individuated expressions of One Consciousness. We tend to use different terminology and every time we need to calibrate our terms to make sure they bear the same meanings.

[Stranger]

This should be contrasted with the flat approach where we have to imagine 'Consciousness' to have quite incredible capabilities in order to be able to simply imagine into existence something like the human eye against the blank background of pure awareness.

Right, I also don't believe such flat approach is plausible.

[AshvinP]

!00% agreed.

So I trust you have now let go of this theory (or metaphisics, or third person view) of conglomerates of phenomena, that I don't think can be held at the same time as one agrees 100% with Cleric's bookmarked and agreed description, and I'm glad we can refer to that now.

Let Cleric correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Cleric by "streams" here meant the same thing that I meant. He mentioned "streams of becoming". Essentially, in idealism the reality is "made" of conscious experiences occurring in Consciousness that creates and experiences them. All phenomena we talk about - thoughts, intuitions, ideas, feelings, percepts, imaginations, willing gestures - are conscious experiences, or we call them "conscious phenomena". There is nothing else that we need to assume to ever exist - this is the claim the phenomenological idealism. So, the term "phenomenological idealism" may sound abstract, but it is actually very concrete statement of refusing to believe in a reality of anything other than the phenomena of our conscious experience that we all have right now in our direct first-person experience. Therefore, what we as "souls" are is the streams of phenomena. I used the word "conglomerates" to designate the fact that in our individuated fields of experience we have these phenomena flowing in a "bunch", or a "set" of phenomena occurring simultaneously all related to each other through the lawful structures that govern them. This is the same as the "stream of becoming" where the stream of phenomena form a living spiritual activity that is "becoming" as one of Many individuated expressions of One Consciousness. We tend to use different terminology and every time we need to calibrate our terms to make sure they bear the same meanings.

I think we should be clear that the individuated stream of becoming is like a cross-section of the entire depth structure of spiritual activity, from the most Universal to the most Differentiated. Cleric used the illustration of the Cantor dust fractal:





The top bar are the most Universal forces from our current individuated perspective, which in our current thinking we project upwards as something like the constellations of the Zodiac which remain stable fixtures of the Cosmos throughout human evolution. We also project them downwards as elements, atoms, quarks, etc. which all physically existing things share. In so far as we are merely physical beings, we are all exactly the same. Once we get to proteins, genes, etc., we already have enough differentiation that we can speak of unique fingerprints for each individual, yet they are still shared enough so that we also speak of hereditary lines which remain relatively stable from generation to generation. When we get to instincts, passions, emotions, thoughts, then we really become much more individuated perspectives. So, as holistic body-soul-spirit organism, we exist along the full spectrum. The layers of the dust fractal are all superimposed and only delaminated in the image so we can make pedagogical use of it.

No matter how much we grow in consciousness, our individuated stream of becoming experiences itself within the middle of known phenomena which are differentiated relative to its perspective and unknown forces which are universal-archetypal relative to its perspective. What we now experience as more 'invisible' universal-archetypal forces, like the sociocultural forces of animal or human collectives (including aesthetics and morality), are experienced as more 'visible' differentiated activity for higher-order perspectives, like for our current perspective we differentiate colors, sounds, smells, genes, molecules, atoms, etc. Of course we can't simply project our current thinking perspective across the higher order perspectives. We should also remember these higher-order perspectives which we grow into already exist, and are working their intents into what we know as our past-future. We can't really make deeper sense of even the most differentiated phenomena we know, a single thought-form, without discerning something of the holistic influences across the entire depth gradient.

[AshvinP]

So I trust you have now let go of this theory (or metaphisics, or third person view) of conglomerates of phenomena, that I don't think can be held at the same time as one agrees 100% with Cleric's bookmarked and agreed description, and I'm glad we can refer to that now.

Let Cleric correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Cleric by "streams" here meant the same thing that I meant. He mentioned "streams of becoming". Essentially, in idealism the reality is "made" of conscious experiences occurring in Consciousness that creates and experiences them. All phenomena we talk about - thoughts, intuitions, ideas, feelings, percepts, imaginations, willing gestures - are conscious experiences, or we call them "conscious phenomena". There is nothing else that we need to assume to ever exist - this is the claim the phenomenological idealism. So, the term "phenomenological idealism" may sound abstract, but it is actually very concrete statement of refusing to believe in a reality of anything other than the phenomena of our conscious experience that we all have right now in our direct first-person experience. Therefore, what we as "souls" are is the streams of phenomena. I used the word "conglomerates" to designate the fact that in our individuated fields of experience we have these phenomena flowing in a "bunch", or a "set" of phenomena occurring simultaneously all related to each other through the lawful structures that govern them. This is the same as the "stream of becoming" where the stream of phenomena form a living spiritual activity that is "becoming" as one of Many individuated expressions of One Consciousness. We tend to use different terminology and every time we need to calibrate our terms to make sure they bear the same meanings.

I think we should be clear that the individuated stream of becoming is like a cross-section of the entire depth structure of spiritual activity, from the most Universal to the most Differentiated. Cleric used the illustration of the Cantor dust fractal:

By the way, Eugene, it occurred to me that this Cantor dust post was written in response to you, but you never replied. It basically fleshes out and neatly outlines the entire recent discussion which has unfolded here and what you just agreed to in the last post. I wonder if you have any thoughts on it now, in light of the recent discussion?