LukeJTM wrote: ↑Thu May 04, 2023 9:53 pm
I noticed how this abstraction happens in Bernardo Kastrup's model of "temporal dissociation". As far as I understand it, he hypothesises that we are all connected by temporal rhythms in the Mind At Large, but as dissociated alters. He claims as "alters" we are occupying different moments in time, however that time is only linear or sequential. So we sort of flicker through these sequential moments... the theory gets confusing to me, honestly, so forgive if my explanation doesn't do it justice. Anyway, I point this out because it seems like an example of the idealisation of linear time into something rigid and objective happening in idealist circles. Nothing wrong with that, but my point is it shows areas in our unconscious that have not been shone a light on, so to speak, and therefore worth a look at.
Luke,
These are really interesting points you raise. I may have some more comments on Gebser's framework later, which is an outer conceptual perspective on the spiritual evolution Barfield and Steiner explored as well, from a more inner perspective. There are many interesting alignments and Gebser also noticed the critical importance of the Christ events, without which none of this spiritual evolutionary progression really makes sense.
I wanted to mention that I was recently discussing this 'TD model' with Elk on Discord. I will simply share the comments below for now (I am posting a few different ones for context, so it is a bit lengthy). Elk has a strong intellectual capacity for these things, so it is interesting to hear his perspective. Basically, I think your assessment is correct and the TD model seems like a ceiling to the analytical idealist approach.
(btw, he is familiar with Steiner, PoF, spiritual science, higher cognition, etc., as we have discussed it before, so that's why I don't give more background of what I am speaking of in the comments below)
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Elk: If MAL is a Mind of its own, and it is where this logical structure is implemented, but it is also not, exactly, or own personal Mind RN, then the decommbination problem still remains, time or not time
But if it is our own Mind (or, more precisely, our experience) RN, then new questions arise, which I have never seen Bernardo address, like where or how is this logical structure (or as I call it, the world memory) implemented (cuz seemingly my experience is of being a person in a room, not of being a Mind that knows it all)? Or how does the process of alter switching take place if it is not done volitionally by us, or how are the perceptions of others animated as if they have a life of their own, when only our personal thoughts and feelings are present in this exact moment
Etc., etc., etc.
There are so, so many great avenues of inquiry with the theory of temporal dissociation. I just hope he is not stuck on some incoherent conception of daddy MAL in the sky...
me: What your thoughts on how we can go about investigating those questions (which I agree are important to ask)? Do you agree that we will never find satisfactory answers for them by more conceptual modeling? If not, I wonder how the TD model can be further refined to shed light on such questions.
Also, I am assuming you agree the ideational process responsible for our heart beating is not always present in our personal thoughts and feelings, in so far as we are aware of them. And furthermore that this process does not halt while we are unaware of it. How is that fact encompassed by the TD model?
Elk: Hi, Soul. I'll respond to your previous comments later. But, about this: I think that both first person experience and conceptual modelling are important here. However, the satisfaction conceptual models give is ultimately dependant on the intellect that is conjuring or conceiving of them. Or, to put it in other words, for a given intellect, any one model can be satisfactory, even as it may fail to be satisfactory to another (which is exactly what happens to an extent with all these metaphysical wars we seem to wage). So even if I find what I would call "satisfactory" answers, I'm not under the complete delusion that my intellect is infallible.
Now, about direct experience, the problem remains that something like dissociation can only be observed while it is not there,, it can only be observed indirectly, because it entails a lack. Even if I go up the ladder of consciousness and become a Mind capable of seeing my past personality and that of others as an integrated whole, this in itself does not yield absolute proof of the process of dissociation, because all I would have then would just be my present experience, and no access to an actual past or future, nor to a third person perspective that would allow me to see the "fragmentation" of my own consciousness. I would have to believe then, in my memories, etc.
So, from where I'm standing, both paths need faith if they are to yield any truths relating to anything but the present moment of experience. However, I'm accutely aware (even if this belief is faith based too) that the experiential path can yield a convincing power and a capacity for restructuring of one's own cognitive scaffolding that simple theorizing is not able to produce, AFAIK, and, more importantly, it is more meaningful.
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Do you remember the (G) diagram I posted earlier? analytic-idealism
There is more to this, however, that I'm yet to elaborate on in a more formal way. But, basically, there is the element of "mental inertia", via which the determinator in the past (G) will put into movement some of my experience (like perceptions), so that the illusion of being a separate self-determining intellect confronted by a self-animated world arises. Even this illusion is not unbreakable, as experienced meditators can attest, but this would help explain how other persons, animals, cells, etc., can (indirectly) inform the behavior of the "alters" in my perception. Their past behavior informs (G) (or whichever other determinator), which then puts into motion my perceptions as if it was them directly behind them, even as solipsism remains true. And, soon after, my experience would collapse (or inflate) again into a determinator higher in the hierarchy (all the way up to the Godhead), from which another alter would be incarnated next.
So, in such a way, my heart can beat even as I'm not aware of it, or consciously directing it, and my perception of its beating can remain in sync with the whole orchestra of my body and enviroment, etc., and even with the actions of each individual cell, if they are to be alters themselves.
Of course, besides the possibility of elevating oneself to the level of a higher determinator (which esotericism may call an angel or what not), be it now or after death, there is also the possibility, by greater human minds than mine, to turn this or a similar theory into a formal mathematical model with actual predictive power like the models of physics (maybe even a TOE), like what Bernard Carr may be trying RN, which would be really fucking cool, and points towards the possible uses of the purely conceptual tinkering.
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The biggest remaining question that comes to my mind RN is that of the world memory, or where the logical structure of the world is hidden as we are the presently incarnated alter...
This may be where the model breaks, but I do think that the best answer is that it is, at some level, a subconscious process, colloquially speaking, like what Possum suggests. It is there, in our present awareness, but hidden by the grossness of form that is perception, sensation and human thought. "In exactly the same way we don't see the stars in the day's sky."
Well, maybe not the exact same way, though I'm open to that, of it being always in the background. But maybe it is the very gross form we experience itself, it is just that these gross forms hide within themselves a complexity that would absolutely boggle our intellects if we were to grasp it, and, even as they constantly transform, twist and turn, the key information is preserved by what could be described as some extremely complex mathematical or logical process. Just like the information in quantum physics never truly goes away, only transforms, so the memory of the world is constantly changing, taking the form of our protean human awareness, but in it remains all the information of eterntity, hidden in plain sight, ready to be unpackaged by a mind less constrained than ours.
It is a funny thought, anyway, that the whole of the mythical akashic records is always at our full disposal, right in front of our noses, but we are just too dumb or ignorant to read the print.
Me: Let's take the analogy of dreaming. I'm not sure if you have ever become lucid in a dream, but this is probably the closest we come to normally experiencing the transition from a 'dissociated state' to a more integrated one, such as we can also experience by awakening from our 'waking state' into higher cognitive experience. It's not a direct comparison, but close enough for our purposes now. The dream character, who has not become lucid, feels himself to live in a fully consistent landscape of experiences which are self-contained, oblivious to the waking self whose fears, anxieties, hopes, unresolved ideas, etc. are shaping the dream landscape. He is fully identified with his dream character. Only when the character becomes lucid within the dream does he realize the dream landscape is shaped by the waking self who belongs to a ‘higher plane’ of activity, which before was completely unsuspected.
There was zero chance of the pre-lucid dream character of modeling the waking self, no matter how mathematically formal his models became. The awakening within the dream was the only possible 'proof' of this higher self in which all the dream experiences are embedded. Indeed, it is like not being able to see the stars during the day because the light of our conceptual activity is too strong in comparison to that which emanates from the supra-conscious, at our current stage of evolution. The modeling activity leans further into that light which dims out the supra-conscious. To evolve further is to awaken to higher stages of cognitive lucidity in which the sky becomes transparent and we are able to perceive the stars in full daylight (thinking consciousness). In esotericism, there is the concept that initiates are able to perceive the Sun at midnight as well, because the Earth becomes transparent. These are literal capacities which can be developed.
I am fine with calling those capacities a matter of faith for most people, but would you call the principle of lucid dreaming a matter of faith? Is the dream character who awakens within the dream still confined to his faith in the waking self? If so, what exactly in our experience is not a matter of faith? Or, if we are defining 'faith' this broadly to encompass the penetrating insights we gain to further our spiritual evolution into higher levels of integrated Be-ing, then maybe 'faith' is exactly the same thing as true knowledge.
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Don't sell yourself short - you have modeled this thing as far as it can go. I think that's evident from the fact that, when trying to elaborate it to encompass experiential facts like the heart beating,
you are forced to regress back to linear time assumptions as part of the explanation. This is what happens with all the models, including BK's dissociative alter model. Eventually it must default back to the very assumptions it was developed to overcome, such as naive realism of space-time as we experience it. That is baked into the cake of our conceptual activity.
Now if we assume for a moment that MAL, God, the One Mind, or whatever we call it, is not really interested in us forming somewhat accurate models of its activity, but growing into that activity so we can participate in fulfilling its intents, then it makes greater sense why our conceptual activity has this ceiling which impels us to adapt and evolve. The explanation for these provisional limits is found within the intentional structure of reality itself. The limits are there to be taken seriously inwardly, rather than postulated as metaphysical properties outwardly (a la Kant). I know there is a strong antipathy for such an intentional structuring, or for submitting to it in any way, as we have discussed before re: the Luciferic rebellious impulse. That's why I say to only assume it for a moment for the sake of argument. Does this make some sense?
(he hasn't replied yet)