Figs do not grow on thistles

[Jesse_Schneider]

My dream avatar could never be smarter than me simply because in reality he is me. In the same way, an alter of the ground of being cannot be more intelligent and reasonable than its ground. If we are apertures through which mind at large is observing itself, then mind at large must be at least as intelligent as we are, not less.

If the absolute ground of being is seen as intelligent then, the plunge into ignorance of our true identity can be understood not as a blunder and a fall, but as a purposeful decent. But a purpose not in the human sense. If we think of the absolute as perfect and complete, such a being would have no purpose, and being eternal would not live in terms of past, present, and future. Involution, or self forgetting, and evolution, or self discovery, would not be dictated by necessity or a result of instinctual drives. The nearest human equivalent would be play. It is the “cosmological equivalent of hide and seek”, as Alan Watts quipped.

[Ben Iscatus]

Jesse, I'd say that no-one could doubt the intuitional intelligence of Mind at Large. But one could doubt it's ability to be aware of its own intelligence - doubt its metacognitive or self-reflective abilities. Analytic Idealism doubts that MAL has metacognition, partly because of the immense suffering in the world. What happens here is much darker than a mere game of hide and seek, which of course is pure fun.

[Jesse_Schneider]

My dog may not have much in the way of metacognition but he has the good sense to be wary of strangers and to greet his family with affection. Surely MAL is at least as reasonable.

[Cleric K]

Interesting thing to meditate on is, are there limits to how far our own meta-cognition can go?

As in materialism, so in MAL, man finds himself at the zenith of evolution, looking down and imagining how he raised from the depths of nature/unconscious MAL respectively. In materialism is more or less clear - we are physically determined by the body so there are hard limits to what our consciousness is and how far it can go. But in MAL we are emerging from the darkness as a self-conscious mandala.

If I've been brought up to this point of integration, how much farther can I go? Why not meta-cognition continue to expand and rise? Have I already reached the ceiling? Is there a ceiling? Or there's a ceiling only if I impose one myself?
And if there's no ceiling, can I assume that I'm the first being to achieve this height? Could there be beings within MAL that have achieved meta-cognition far before me and now they experience, say, the solar system as their own self-conscious mandala?

[Soul_of_Shu]

My dream avatar could never be smarter than me simply because in reality he is me. In the same way, an alter of the ground of being cannot be more intelligent and reasonable than its ground. If we are apertures through which mind at large is observing itself, then mind at large must be at least as intelligent as we are, not less.

If the absolute ground of being is seen as intelligent then, the plunge into ignorance of our true identity can be understood not as a blunder and a fall, but as a purposeful decent. But a purpose not in the human sense. If we think of the absolute as perfect and complete, such a being would have no purpose, and being eternal would not live in terms of past, present, and future. Involution, or self forgetting, and evolution, or self discovery, would not be dictated by necessity or a result of instinctual drives. The nearest human equivalent would be play. It is the “cosmological equivalent of hide and seek”, as Alan Watts quipped.

Indeed, under BK's idealism we are none other than M@L in ever-evolving feedback-loop/metacoginitive alter-mode expressing/exploring/experiencing, as is its immanent ontological imperative, what happens when any given Lila-inspired, noumenal idea construction is made phenomenally manifest within the apparency, i.e. Maya, of a relational subject><object, self><other-than-self dynamic ~ however suffering prone it may be. I'm not really sure how relevant the 'why' question is, given that it can't not express what is in its immanent nature to express. Best find way to make the best of it, such that it is as least suffering prone as possible under the circumstances ... clearly a work in progress.

[SanteriSatama]

As in materialism, so in MAL, man finds himself at the zenith of evolution, looking down and imagining how he raised from the depths of nature/unconscious MAL respectively.

Idealism is much more open to animistic egalitarianism than materialism, though.

[Jesse_Schneider]

Describing the manifestation of the world by MAL as an "ontological imperative" implies that the world must of necessity be the result of the very being of MAL. It would then be a cause of the world in the sense that given a certain cause an effect must of necessity follow. Necessary causality is an aspect of known and finite objects, but how does it apply to MAL, which exists in absolute freedom? We must not make the error of bringing MAL down into space and time. Rather than think of MAL in mechanistic terms as simple force, it is easier to think of it as a freely acting person wiling or imagining, remembering that this is only an analogy. MAL is simply free to include the manifest world or to not include it.

[AshvinP]

My dream avatar could never be smarter than me simply because in reality he is me. In the same way, an alter of the ground of being cannot be more intelligent and reasonable than its ground. If we are apertures through which mind at large is observing itself, then mind at large must be at least as intelligent as we are, not less.

If the absolute ground of being is seen as intelligent then, the plunge into ignorance of our true identity can be understood not as a blunder and a fall, but as a purposeful decent. But a purpose not in the human sense. If we think of the absolute as perfect and complete, such a being would have no purpose, and being eternal would not live in terms of past, present, and future. Involution, or self forgetting, and evolution, or self discovery, would not be dictated by necessity or a result of instinctual drives. The nearest human equivalent would be play. It is the “cosmological equivalent of hide and seek”, as Alan Watts quipped.

Could playful descent and ascent be the means through which MAL creates-discovers its purpose(s)? That appears to be the process for human alters to the best of our current knowledge.

[Jesse_Schneider]

If we don’t pull MAL down into time and space, then it would not have any goals or purpose in the human sense or even instinctual drives, but it could freely undergo involution/evolution and play at creation-discovery.

[AshvinP]

If we don’t pull MAL down into time and space, then it would not have any goals or purpose in the human sense or even instinctual drives, but it could freely undergo involution/evolution and play at creation-discovery.

I don't quite understand why there must be a qualitative disconnect between the evolutionary process of MAL and that of the human individual. Or why 'time', in some non-linear sense, cannot be fundamental to MAL? I am thinking along the lines of Piaget's theory of play in children:

Piaget based his theory on the idea of mental “maps” that allowed a child to build cognitive structures as they responded to their experiences within the physical environment and moved on from the simple reflexes of birth to the development of complex mental activities.

As the child develops, their experiences are measured against the mental map they have constructed. Repeat experiences are easily assimilated into the existing map, whereas new experiences upset the equilibrium and cause the child to alter their cognitive map to reflect the new experiences. Over time, the cognitive structure becomes more complex and more effective.

The central basis of Piaget’s theories on child development was based around the insight that children think in a fundamentally different way to adults: children are not just limited by less knowledge and experience—their thought processes are actually completely different. Today, even though many psychologists have criticized various aspects of Piaget’s work, this central insight has remained intact.