Steiner and Schrodinger's Equation

[AshvinP]

Thanks for sharing, Federica. I am sure you realize most of this already, but perhaps it is an opportunity to further strengthen our intuitive orientation for these ideational realities. We should be careful with some of these assertions, such as what follows, not because they are 'wrong', but because they merge with our normal habits of thinking in misleading ways:

Taking this logic at face value, nothing we see around us really exists; there are no particles or physicists or cats or dogs. The only thing that truly exists is the Universe as a whole.

The aliased perspective of consciousness that views the interference of spiritual relations as discrete units interacting through the 'laws of nature' in spacetime, is a real intuitive stream with a real moral purpose in the Cosmic telos. I would say that is a big part of the (appropriate) resistance to the 'Oneness' spiritual interpretation by modern scientists - it seems to sweep under the rug the fact that everyday life for most people proceeds from a definite relational perspective, with definite utilitarian and moral tasks. For the fulfillment of these tasks, the reality of particles, physicists, cats, and dogs and their interaction through laws of nature cannot be ignored. There is something great lost if the scientists stop doing research, probing to see how the Oneness lawfully expresses itself in various domains of experience from the microscopic to the macroscopic, the inner to the outer, and just declare that they have now come back to the reality of ancient monism and rest satisfied.

As we know, what quantum physicists are really probing, as all modern scientists, is their own thinking activity-structure. The first step for awakening is for them to simply recognize that they were the ones who intricately designed the experiments that unveiled the 'strange' quantum effects of interacting states that otherwise would have gone unnoticed. Nature can only present these subtle effects to us once human consciousness has reached into the layer of more archetypal ideas and can therefore resonate with the former. The reality that our thinking consciousness has now reached (back) into that layer is reflected by the conception of the various experiments that cleverly provide opportunities for us to discern more of Nature's mysterious secrets. At the level of the microscopic, our thinking cannot rest on the sense-perceptible spectrum (already manifested thoughts) anymore so it begins chasing its own thought-forms abstracted from the spectrum (sub-atomic particles, quanta of energy, etc.), trying to catch up with them in real-time. It is similar to what we try to attain directly in concentration/meditation from a much different spiritual angle, when we focus on a thought-image unrelated to normal sensory experience.

Because they are chasing their thinking in an indirect manner, through the confines of the intellect designing outer experiments, they cannot make the connection between the effects of what they are observing and their own first-person activity and states of being across the rhythms of Time-consciousness. I think a few of them, like perhaps Bohm and Wigner, have traced it to the 'agency of the mind' in the abstract, but that's about as far as they get. If all these quantum effects are taken as metaphorical for spiritual (moral) inner processes that structure our souls and outer nature, on the other hand, then we get closer to their real meaningful significance. It's interesting how many aspects of the QM paradigm can be used as metaphors for our dream experience - nonlocality, entanglement, superposition, path of least action, etc. Our dream states are often nonlinear, with 'strange' time experiences, objects and characters in the dream are entangled with no clear delineations of quantitative 'properties', with more multi-layered qualitative experiences, and so forth.

Ashvin,

Yes, I follow your warning that we should be careful not to fall in mysticism and not to remain satisfied with the abstract idea of one universe, one universal wave function, etcetera. I would add: the few words you have quoted from the essay, when read in the context of the paragraph and in the context of the whole essay, don't suggest that scientists should stop investigations because materials, forces, researchers and experimental hutches alike don't exist.

Federica,

I don’t think anyone is suggesting to stop scientific investigations, but I think someone like BK would suggest that we will gain no concrete and vitally important insights into spiritual reality from such investigations. He would say that these investigations can help develop technology for various Earthly purposes but they won’t take us beyond the spiritual truths of ancient monism. That probably doesn’t apply to the Aeon author, but again, the way of presenting the QM research and its spiritual implications is something that can subtly influence our thinking, so it helps to work through these subtleties and avoid the most common traps. The BK position is only half correct and, as we know, the intellect often feeds on these half-truths to mislead itself.

Greater insight into spiritual reality comes from the strengthening of our inner forces, both through the work of inner cleansing/concentrating and through dedicated investigation of outer nature. Here we mean “insight” not only as receiving passive knowledge and wisdom, but also as morally transforming impulses that seed new imaginative worlds through which the One will manifest its potential. The very structure of Nature is designed so that it embeds the spiritual forces that are needed for us to create a new Nature. We could say for ex. that the results of research and experiments provide feedback to the higher hierarchies so they more effectively work on shaping the curvatures of Earthly destiny that they are responsible for, not because they study the mathematical outputs of experiments like we do, but due to what they reveal about the quality and course of human thinking at any particular stage of its development.

I previously used the example of when we are agitated or in a hurry and reach out recklessly for some object like a glass, knocking it over and shattering the pieces. The consequences that we observe then provides feedback for us to adjust our spiritual activity so that we are more calm, collected, patient, and so forth when interacting with objects in the future. It provides the opportunity for our “I” to reflect on its current organization and better harmonize the various layers of its being (although these days it seems people are more likely to blame the glass breaking on their ‘bad luck’ or the ‘tyrannical patriarchy’ that resulted in civilization and glass formation than their own activity). So that is a crude metaphor for how our higher self works with the results of our rigorous thinking to move towards the goal of inner-outer perfection, not just for us personally (like in the case of the glass), but the whole Earthly landscape. These are the sorts of things that I feel are too readily ignored by thinking that leans towards mystical reduction of the phenomenal realm.

The other thing ignored is the possibility of higher cognitive research that is informed by the results of natural scientific experiments, i.e. the latter provides hints and clues, especially when contradictions and paradoxes emerge, as to where spiritual researchers should concentrate their efforts. Of course, I am not engaged in any such clairvoyant research, so that is just my speculation of how it may proceed based on my reasoning through things I have encountered from others who are so engaged.

Normally most of our dream experiences escape the stream of memory and the ones that are embedded in that stream fade into unconsciousness rapidly because the "I" is hardly present for them (spiritual science reveals exactly why this is the case). Through higher development, our "I" can remain present in the dream state which unfolds during sleep but is also superimposed on our waking state. This gives us a much more concrete sense of what QM has been outwardly exploring - the cognitive rhythms of feeling that narrow down our thinking-perceptual states from the 'quantum potential'. If we were to intensely remember most of our dream experiences (like they are almost present with us in our current state), then we would discern interfering patterns of feeling that structure our waking life.

These rhythms guide our states of being along certain curvatures that lead our waking experience to deviate more or less from the 'path of least action', i.e. the most effective stream of experience for the perfection of our thinking-feeling-willing activity. (keep in mind the examples from Cleric's post referenced before). With that higher knowledge, we would start to understand many of the real reasons we think-perceive the way we do and the content that we perceive, i.e. we would begin to know the real reasons how the Newtonian, discrete, linear, particles-as-apples perspective emerges from the disorganized currents of our soul-life. And we begin to realize how Nature is so intelligently and wisely structured that true knowledge of her secrets is only that which tends towards inner moral transformation-perfection.

These last two paragraphs are the most interesting to me. I'm not sure I properly understand the connection you are making between QM and rhythms of feeling. I do see how our subjective soul life of preferences and affinities seamlessly pushes us towards certain constrained patterns in our flow of becoming, and that remain opaque to us (we don't see how our flow could have evolved very differently if free from those constraints and we imagine external causes).
I do see how QM provides a portrait of this 'randomness', this instability bias generated by our arbitrary soul qualities, but is this the meaning of the "rhythms of feeling"? Also, I am not sure what post by Cleric you are pointing to?

I will say here that my intuition of the comparison is not sufficiently developed to flesh it out with lucid concepts a whole lot more. The basic question is, where do we qualitatively experience the sort of things pointed to by QM science and philosophy? Through the lens of the latter, the classical physical world becomes something more unified, more flowing, more overlapping, less rigid in space and time, and so forth. I would say the average person only experiences the feeling-imbued qualities of this new worldview in their artistic imagination or in their dream states. When we are able to remarry the qualitative dimension of feeling with these abstract scientific outlooks conceived in thinking, then we come closer to their underlying spiritual significance. The deeper rhythms of feeling, with their more universal ‘time-signature’, are what the QM scientists are probing without knowing it, yet.

Remember the bomb experiment – the experimental setup allows us to gain insight into the state of the bomb without ever directly interacting with it. What is that a symbol for? One could even call it a very rudimentary and outward-quantitative form of clairvoyance. If those same thinking forces were to be redirected inwardly, then we would eventually come to the reality of spiritual beings who weave the curvatures of destiny that precipitate from our life of feeling and thereby provide imaginative and inspired insights into the physical states of systems around us, such as light-color phenomena. Quite independently of QM, cognitive scientists have begun to realize that the seeds of all such insights we attain in waking consciousness are planted in our life of sleep and dreaming, i.e. the life of intuitions, inspirations, and imaginations. We know that is also confirmed by spiritual science.

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA225/En ... 22p02.html

This leads us, through a right conception of ordinary human existence to recognise that, bordering on this ordinary world that is interwoven by natural law, there is another world where these laws are no longer valid.

If these matters are looked at rightly, we can only infer that, adjoining the world ruled by the laws of nature of which we make a study, there is another world independent of these laws and ruled by quite different ones of its own. By sinking into the world of dreams in a realistic way we come to a world where natural laws are no longer effective. That the human being, with his ordinary consciousness, perceives this world as fantastic, is due to his inability to understand the conditions he meets there. He himself introduces the fantasy. But what weaves and lives in it belongs to an altogether different world-sphere, and it is this sphere into which a man sinks in his dreams.

This leads us on directly to another thing. If we talk to somebody wedded to the usual world-conception of today, he will say: I study what law it is that governs the fall of a stone, and discover the law of gravitation. Then I go further out into the universe and apply the same law to the stars. – And this is what thinks: Here on earth I discover the laws of nature; there outside is the cosmos (drawing is made). The laws I have discovered for the earth I imagine still to be valid for the nebula of Orion, or anything else.

Now everyone knows that, for example, the force of gravity diminishes in proportion to the square of the distance, becoming weaker and weaker; and he knows that light too decreases. I have already told you that the truth of our natural laws also diminishes. What down on earth is true as regards them is no longer true in the cosmos; it is true only for a certain distance. Beyond that distance, out in the cosmos, the same law begins to hold sway which we meet with in our dreams. Hence we should be clear that, looking out at Orion with its nebula and in order to understand it, we must not think in accordance with the experimental method of physics, but begin to dream – for Orion shows its conformity with dream-law.

Could this principle also apply not only at the macroscopic scale but also when we go into the microscopic quantum realm? It seems to me that QM scientists are also dimly creating opportunities to probe phenomena that obey a mixture of natural law and ‘dream-law’ within a sort of threshold between the physical world and the spiritual proper. The realm of dream-law can give us direct insight into the realm of natural law (but not the other way around), because it is more attenuated to the pole of cohered meaning than the pole of fragmented perception, provided that we can bring our "I"-consciousness into the dream world. Otherwise, the experiences remain too fragmented, dim, chaotic, and short-lived to provide much insight. What we do with our imaginative insights in the realm of natural law feeds back into our capacity to gain further insights into the higher realms and discover-invent or re-create their spiritual architecture through humility, reverence, faith, and love, which are modes of being that can only be properly incepted and cultivated in the realm of natural law.

The post by Cleric that I was referring to is the one quoted on the other thread about the prospects of phenomenal idealism, also quoted on this thread a few posts back, where he discusses the curvatures of feeling that narrow down our thinking-perceptual states from the higher, superimposed Time-potential.

[Federica]

Federica,

I don’t think anyone is suggesting to stop scientific investigations, but I think someone like BK would suggest that we will gain no concrete and vitally important insights into spiritual reality from such investigations. He would say that these investigations can help develop technology for various Earthly purposes but they won’t take us beyond the spiritual truths of ancient monism. That probably doesn’t apply to the Aeon author, but again, the way of presenting the QM research and its spiritual implications is something that can subtly influence our thinking, so it helps to work through these subtleties and avoid the most common traps. The BK position is only half correct and, as we know, the intellect often feeds on these half-truths to mislead itself.

Greater insight into spiritual reality comes from the strengthening of our inner forces, both through the work of inner cleansing/concentrating and through dedicated investigation of outer nature. Here we mean “insight” not only as receiving passive knowledge and wisdom, but also as morally transforming impulses that seed new imaginative worlds through which the One will manifest its potential. The very structure of Nature is designed so that it embeds the spiritual forces that are needed for us to create a new Nature. We could say for ex. that the results of research and experiments provide feedback to the higher hierarchies so they more effectively work on shaping the curvatures of Earthly destiny that they are responsible for, not because they study the mathematical outputs of experiments like we do, but due to what they reveal about the quality and course of human thinking at any particular stage of its development.

I previously used the example of when we are agitated or in a hurry and reach out recklessly for some object like a glass, knocking it over and shattering the pieces. The consequences that we observe then provides feedback for us to adjust our spiritual activity so that we are more calm, collected, patient, and so forth when interacting with objects in the future. It provides the opportunity for our “I” to reflect on its current organization and better harmonize the various layers of its being (although these days it seems people are more likely to blame the glass breaking on their ‘bad luck’ or the ‘tyrannical patriarchy’ that resulted in civilization and glass formation than their own activity). So that is a crude metaphor for how our higher self works with the results of our rigorous thinking to move towards the goal of inner-outer perfection, not just for us personally (like in the case of the glass), but the whole Earthly landscape. These are the sorts of things that I feel are too readily ignored by thinking that leans towards mystical reduction of the phenomenal realm.

The other thing ignored is the possibility of higher cognitive research that is informed by the results of natural scientific experiments, i.e. the latter provides hints and clues, especially when contradictions and paradoxes emerge, as to where spiritual researchers should concentrate their efforts. Of course, I am not engaged in any such clairvoyant research, so that is just my speculation of how it may proceed based on my reasoning through things I have encountered from others who are so engaged.

I appreciate your ‘insistence’ on this point, Ashvin. It's not redundant.

BK would suggest that we will gain no concrete and vitally important insights into spiritual reality from such investigations

That would depend if he got asked before or after he receives our parcel
Half jokes aside, I guess another reason why it’s necessary to pursue scientific research is - in addition to the useful feedback it can give the higher worlds and the inquiring spiritual scientists: these waves of progression and discovery, that promise to bring scientific and spiritual understanding in asymptotic relation with each other in the future, have to be surfed somehow. The discoveries to come require some trajectory to be shaped, from the current state of the art towards the future. In the same way that real thinking activity is not physical, but requires a physical brain, so real knowledge is not material, but still requires a foothold in continuous material inquiry.

I will say here that my intuition of the comparison is not sufficiently developed to flesh it out with lucid concepts a whole lot more. The basic question is, where do we qualitatively experience the sort of things pointed to by QM science and philosophy? Through the lens of the latter, the classical physical world becomes something more unified, more flowing, more overlapping, less rigid in space and time, and so forth. I would say the average person only experiences the feeling-imbued qualities of this new worldview in their artistic imagination or in their dream states. When we are able to remarry the qualitative dimension of feeling with these abstract scientific outlooks conceived in thinking, then we come closer to their underlying spiritual significance. The deeper rhythms of feeling, with their more universal ‘time-signature’, are what the QM scientists are probing without knowing it, yet.

Remember the bomb experiment – the experimental setup allows us to gain insight into the state of the bomb without ever directly interacting with it. What is that a symbol for? One could even call it a very rudimentary and outward-quantitative form of clairvoyance. If those same thinking forces were to be redirected inwardly, then we would eventually come to the reality of spiritual beings who weave the curvatures of destiny that precipitate from our life of feeling and thereby provide imaginative and inspired insights into the physical states of systems around us, such as light-color phenomena. Quite independently of QM, cognitive scientists have begun to realize that the seeds of all such insights we attain in waking consciousness are planted in our life of sleep and dreaming, i.e. the life of intuitions, inspirations, and imaginations. We know that is also confirmed by spiritual science.

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA225/En ... 22p02.html

Now everyone knows that, for example, the force of gravity diminishes in proportion to the square of the distance, becoming weaker and weaker; and he knows that light too decreases. I have already told you that the truth of our natural laws also diminishes. What down on earth is true as regards them is no longer true in the cosmos; it is true only for a certain distance. Beyond that distance, out in the cosmos, the same law begins to hold sway which we meet with in our dreams. Hence we should be clear that, looking out at Orion with its nebula and in order to understand it, we must not think in accordance with the experimental method of physics, but begin to dream – for Orion shows its conformity with dream-law.

Could this principle also apply not only at the macroscopic scale but also when we go into the microscopic quantum realm? It seems to me that QM scientists are also dimly creating opportunities to probe phenomena that obey a mixture of natural law and ‘dream-law’ within a sort of threshold between the physical world and the spiritual proper. The realm of dream-law can give us direct insight into the realm of natural law (but not the other way around), because it is more attenuated to the pole of cohered meaning than the pole of fragmented perception, provided that we can bring our "I"-consciousness into the dream world. Otherwise, the experiences remain too fragmented, dim, chaotic, and short-lived to provide much insight. What we do with our imaginative insights in the realm of natural law feeds back into our capacity to gain further insights into the higher realms and discover-invent or re-create their spiritual architecture through humility, reverence, faith, and love, which are modes of being that can only be properly incepted and cultivated in the realm of natural law.

Thanks so much for presenting your insights before the moment they are perfectly developed and tested! I have tried to build on them for the purpose of strengthening the inner forces, as you say. So I am not in any sense challenging what you have shared, but more like seizing the opportunity for an exercise and hoping it's not too much off the mark.

With your new comments I better see how you intend the meaning of QM, though I can’t say I understand why it relates to the world of feeling/soul/dreams more than to the spiritual world proper/the world of will, except perhaps that the former stands closer to our standard cognition in which humanity lives today.

In fact, reflecting on the lecture you quote, it seems like the laws of nature rule only over the mineral sphere, and only to the extent that it is experienced at the human-earthly scale, via the senses. So basically the natural laws rule our sensory perception of matter in the current epoch. Which is why our physical body, like that of an animal or plant, does not obey natural laws, but only its mineral components in isolation do. Regarding the point highlighted in the lecture - that the laws of nature don’t apply out in the cosmos - I understand that the reason is because there’s no man to perceive matter there, there is no human-earthly context there - Orion is outside of our human-earthly scale. In other worlds, the laws of nature apply to our perception in standard cognition, where our physical senses can operate.

In this sense, I don’t think there's a direct connection between the laws of nature and the macroscopic/microscopic scale per se (where they wouldn't apply). The reason why they don’t apply either to macro Orion scale, or to the atomic microscopic scale, is not because these are macroscopic and microscopic realities, but because the laws of nature are basically the laws of human nature, i.e. the laws of human sensory perception of matter in the earthly context. (So earthly context extends to the physical Moon, since man has been able to extend it there, and I guess the same would apply to Mars and to other portions of the cosmos: the laws of nature would apply there, as soon as humanity were able to reach there). What I am trying to say is that I don’t clearly see the path leading to this:

Could this principle [Dream-law apply to Orion] also apply not only at the macroscopic scale but also when we go into the microscopic quantum realm? It seems to me that QM scientists are also dimly creating opportunities to probe phenomena that obey a mixture of natural law and ‘dream-law’ within a sort of threshold between the physical world and the spiritual proper.

If I try to think about QM qualitatively, I would say: QM experiments actually don't regard or measure perception. Therefore, I would not expect the laws of nature (laws of human perception) to apply for this reason (not because it's microscopic, and maybe one could also discuss if it really is). These experiments explore alternative events, where their respective perceptual qualities are only used to disambiguate the events, not as intersting measurements in themselves. These are explorations of alternative events, of their mode of precipitation in the flow of becoming of the experimenters. What is inquired is thus the quality of True Time itself, the form of the now-wave, the Time-consciousness spectrum itself, I would say. In other words, isn't this a direct exploration of thinking potential living in the etheric realms that substantiate thinking activity? In this case, these etheric realms extend across the spiritual, soul, and physical worlds, though the various qualities of ether. This is why I would rather think that these experiments are not limited to the soul/dream world, ruled by dream-law, but have more of an extended etheric quality?


PS:

The realm of dream-law can give us direct insight into the realm of natural law (but not the other way around), because it is more attenuated to the pole of cohered meaning than the pole of fragmented perception, provided that we can bring our "I"-consciousness into the dream world.

Here I wonder: doesn’t this clash with the idea of feedback from material researchers to spiritual researchers that you mentioned at the beginning of your post?


PS bis: You said "re-create"?

[AshvinP]

Federica,

I don’t think anyone is suggesting to stop scientific investigations, but I think someone like BK would suggest that we will gain no concrete and vitally important insights into spiritual reality from such investigations. He would say that these investigations can help develop technology for various Earthly purposes but they won’t take us beyond the spiritual truths of ancient monism. That probably doesn’t apply to the Aeon author, but again, the way of presenting the QM research and its spiritual implications is something that can subtly influence our thinking, so it helps to work through these subtleties and avoid the most common traps. The BK position is only half correct and, as we know, the intellect often feeds on these half-truths to mislead itself.

Greater insight into spiritual reality comes from the strengthening of our inner forces, both through the work of inner cleansing/concentrating and through dedicated investigation of outer nature. Here we mean “insight” not only as receiving passive knowledge and wisdom, but also as morally transforming impulses that seed new imaginative worlds through which the One will manifest its potential. The very structure of Nature is designed so that it embeds the spiritual forces that are needed for us to create a new Nature. We could say for ex. that the results of research and experiments provide feedback to the higher hierarchies so they more effectively work on shaping the curvatures of Earthly destiny that they are responsible for, not because they study the mathematical outputs of experiments like we do, but due to what they reveal about the quality and course of human thinking at any particular stage of its development.

I previously used the example of when we are agitated or in a hurry and reach out recklessly for some object like a glass, knocking it over and shattering the pieces. The consequences that we observe then provides feedback for us to adjust our spiritual activity so that we are more calm, collected, patient, and so forth when interacting with objects in the future. It provides the opportunity for our “I” to reflect on its current organization and better harmonize the various layers of its being (although these days it seems people are more likely to blame the glass breaking on their ‘bad luck’ or the ‘tyrannical patriarchy’ that resulted in civilization and glass formation than their own activity). So that is a crude metaphor for how our higher self works with the results of our rigorous thinking to move towards the goal of inner-outer perfection, not just for us personally (like in the case of the glass), but the whole Earthly landscape. These are the sorts of things that I feel are too readily ignored by thinking that leans towards mystical reduction of the phenomenal realm.

The other thing ignored is the possibility of higher cognitive research that is informed by the results of natural scientific experiments, i.e. the latter provides hints and clues, especially when contradictions and paradoxes emerge, as to where spiritual researchers should concentrate their efforts. Of course, I am not engaged in any such clairvoyant research, so that is just my speculation of how it may proceed based on my reasoning through things I have encountered from others who are so engaged.

I appreciate your ‘insistence’ on this point, Ashvin. It's not redundant.

BK would suggest that we will gain no concrete and vitally important insights into spiritual reality from such investigations

That would depend if he got asked before or after he receives our parcel
Half jokes aside, I guess another reason why it’s necessary to pursue scientific research is - in addition to the useful feedback it can give the higher worlds and the inquiring spiritual scientists: these waves of progression and discovery, that promise to bring scientific and spiritual understanding in asymptotic relation with each other in the future, have to be surfed somehow. The discoveries to come require some trajectory to be shaped, from the current state of the art towards the future. In the same way that real thinking activity is not physical, but requires a physical brain, so real knowledge is not material, but still requires a foothold in continuous material inquiry.

I agree with that additional reason, Federica, but I would hesitate with the bold wording. Obviously, it depends on how we mean it, but I think many people would take it in a misleading way. It is better to say, in my view, that real thinking and real knowledge is the interplay of the spiritual-physical or ideal-material. But we also need to recognize that the physical and material is not simply a 'substance', rather it's a mode of ideational activity. As we have discussed before, the lowest supportive level of a being's spiritual activity is sustained by the highest forces of its Cosmic evolution. When the human lowest supportive level becomes the etheric that has reabsorbed the mineral, that will remain the case and will remain the case all the way throughout our Cosmic evolution.

I will say here that my intuition of the comparison is not sufficiently developed to flesh it out with lucid concepts a whole lot more. The basic question is, where do we qualitatively experience the sort of things pointed to by QM science and philosophy? Through the lens of the latter, the classical physical world becomes something more unified, more flowing, more overlapping, less rigid in space and time, and so forth. I would say the average person only experiences the feeling-imbued qualities of this new worldview in their artistic imagination or in their dream states. When we are able to remarry the qualitative dimension of feeling with these abstract scientific outlooks conceived in thinking, then we come closer to their underlying spiritual significance. The deeper rhythms of feeling, with their more universal ‘time-signature’, are what the QM scientists are probing without knowing it, yet.

Remember the bomb experiment – the experimental setup allows us to gain insight into the state of the bomb without ever directly interacting with it. What is that a symbol for? One could even call it a very rudimentary and outward-quantitative form of clairvoyance. If those same thinking forces were to be redirected inwardly, then we would eventually come to the reality of spiritual beings who weave the curvatures of destiny that precipitate from our life of feeling and thereby provide imaginative and inspired insights into the physical states of systems around us, such as light-color phenomena. Quite independently of QM, cognitive scientists have begun to realize that the seeds of all such insights we attain in waking consciousness are planted in our life of sleep and dreaming, i.e. the life of intuitions, inspirations, and imaginations. We know that is also confirmed by spiritual science.

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA225/En ... 22p02.html

Now everyone knows that, for example, the force of gravity diminishes in proportion to the square of the distance, becoming weaker and weaker; and he knows that light too decreases. I have already told you that the truth of our natural laws also diminishes. What down on earth is true as regards them is no longer true in the cosmos; it is true only for a certain distance. Beyond that distance, out in the cosmos, the same law begins to hold sway which we meet with in our dreams. Hence we should be clear that, looking out at Orion with its nebula and in order to understand it, we must not think in accordance with the experimental method of physics, but begin to dream – for Orion shows its conformity with dream-law.

Could this principle also apply not only at the macroscopic scale but also when we go into the microscopic quantum realm? It seems to me that QM scientists are also dimly creating opportunities to probe phenomena that obey a mixture of natural law and ‘dream-law’ within a sort of threshold between the physical world and the spiritual proper. The realm of dream-law can give us direct insight into the realm of natural law (but not the other way around), because it is more attenuated to the pole of cohered meaning than the pole of fragmented perception, provided that we can bring our "I"-consciousness into the dream world. Otherwise, the experiences remain too fragmented, dim, chaotic, and short-lived to provide much insight. What we do with our imaginative insights in the realm of natural law feeds back into our capacity to gain further insights into the higher realms and discover-invent or re-create their spiritual architecture through humility, reverence, faith, and love, which are modes of being that can only be properly incepted and cultivated in the realm of natural law.

Thanks so much for presenting your insights before the moment they are perfectly developed and tested! I have tried to build on them for the purpose of strengthening the inner forces, as you say. So I am not in any sense challenging what you have shared, but more like seizing the opportunity for an exercise and hoping it's not too much off the mark.

With your new comments I better see how you intend the meaning of QM, though I can’t say I understand why it relates to the world of feeling/soul/dreams more than to the spiritual world proper/the world of will, except perhaps that the former stands closer to our standard cognition in which humanity lives today.

In fact, reflecting on the lecture you quote, it seems like the laws of nature rule only over the mineral sphere, and only to the extent that it is experienced at the human-earthly scale, via the senses. So basically the natural laws rule our sensory perception of matter in the current epoch. Which is why our physical body, like that of an animal or plant, does not obey natural laws, but only its mineral components in isolation do. Regarding the point highlighted in the lecture - that the laws of nature don’t apply out in the cosmos - I understand that the reason is because there’s no man to perceive matter there, there is no human-earthly context there - Orion is outside of our human-earthly scale. In other worlds, the laws of nature apply to our perception in standard cognition, where our physical senses can operate.

In this sense, I don’t think there's a direct connection between the laws of nature and the macroscopic/microscopic scale per se (where they wouldn't apply). The reason why they don’t apply either to macro Orion scale, or to the atomic microscopic scale, is not because these are macroscopic and microscopic realities, but because the laws of nature are basically the laws of human nature, i.e. the laws of human sensory perception of matter in the earthly context. (So earthly context extends to the physical Moon, since man has been able to extend it there, and I guess the same would apply to Mars and to other portions of the cosmos: the laws of nature would apply there, as soon as humanity were able to reach there). What I am trying to say is that I don’t clearly see the path leading to this:

Could this principle [Dream-law apply to Orion] also apply not only at the macroscopic scale but also when we go into the microscopic quantum realm? It seems to me that QM scientists are also dimly creating opportunities to probe phenomena that obey a mixture of natural law and ‘dream-law’ within a sort of threshold between the physical world and the spiritual proper.

If I try to think about QM qualitatively, I would say: QM experiments actually don't regard or measure perception. Therefore, I would not expect the laws of nature (laws of human perception) to apply for this reason (not because it's microscopic, and maybe one could also discuss if it really is). These experiments explore alternative events, where their respective perceptual qualities are only used to disambiguate the events, not as intersting measurements in themselves. These are explorations of alternative events, of their mode of precipitation in the flow of becoming of the experimenters. What is inquired is thus the quality of True Time itself, the form of the now-wave, the Time-consciousness spectrum itself, I would say. In other words, isn't this a direct exploration of thinking potential living in the etheric realms that substantiate thinking activity? In this case, these etheric realms extend across the spiritual, soul, and physical worlds, though the various qualities of ether. This is why I would rather think that these experiments are not limited to the soul/dream world, ruled by dream-law, but have more of an extended etheric quality?

I think we are pretty much in agreement here and I like your thoughtful characterization above. It is clear to me that your intuition for these differentiations has strengthened.

Indeed we can't draw any sharp lines between the astral/dream world and higher worlds, i.e. between imaginative and higher cognition. Our conceptual activity is exploring the higher structure of all of them at the same time, in a sense, but certain portions are more 'in focus' than others based on our "I" stage of evolution. As you say, the soul world stands closer to our current cognition than the spiritual world proper. When we develop imaginative capacity, the first domain of experience revealed is our personal soul-structure (that is also an image of the universal soul) and, correspondingly, we gain insight into our normal thinking-perceptual states. For ex. we may gain qualitative insight into the light-color phenomena (their soul qualities) that structure our visual perception. What holds good for the gradient of individual development also holds for the collective.

The reason there is a connection to the micro- and macro- scales is because these represent the limits of our normal sensory cognition. That is where our sensory interface simply gives up trying to resonate with the spiritual influences, as Hoffman would say. Then we are forced to project our inner soul-structure into these voids or liminal spaces of perception and that is what we end up studying in astrophysics and quantum physics. We are also doing that with the normal sensory spectrum but there is less depth of soul-structure reflected in that spectrum. Instead, it is a more flattened and therefore stable and predictable reflection of the combined Cosmic forces. Once we begin to probe sense-free domains, perhaps represented by the limits of the black hole (macro) and the Planck scale (micro), the layers of the Cosmic forces start to delaminate and things become more 'strange', i.e. more fluid and interwoven.

A confusion here may also arise when we try to categorize things too strictly, which I have learned the hard way myself. My current understanding is that "I"-consciousness that imaginatively experiences through the etheric body is actually reaching up into the soul/astral plane. The current life of our thinking is therefore unfolding through the etheric body and on the astral plane. That is where our "I" resides when it experiences dreams at night. When it ascends into the spiritual world proper, it drifts into dreamless sleep. I don't think it matters too much right now if we get all the categorizations/associations right, as long we understand the principle that much of what people think-perceive in the domains of 20th to 21st century philosophy, science, art, and spirituality in waking consciousness, at least to the extent it is challenging old classical paradigms, is what they are experiencing in the form of higher cognitions imbued with feeling and will within their dreaming and sleeping organism.

PS:

The realm of dream-law can give us direct insight into the realm of natural law (but not the other way around), because it is more attenuated to the pole of cohered meaning than the pole of fragmented perception, provided that we can bring our "I"-consciousness into the dream world.

Here I wonder: doesn’t this clash with the idea of feedback from material researchers to spiritual researchers that you mentioned at the beginning of your post?


PS bis: You said "re-create"?

That is why I added the word "direct" The realm of natural law doesn't give us direct higher insight, but it feeds back into our dreaming and sleeping organism which, over the course of some time-rhythms, filters back through into waking consciousness as impulses of higher insight. Of course, all of this depends on our level of consciousness, and I am speaking of the average consciousness at our current stage. A higher developed consciousness contracts the time-rhythms so what is gained in the manifest realm more directly translates to higher insight, and what is developed in the higher worlds of dream and sleep more directly translates into manifestation, so eventually there is complete continuity of consciousness and we become world-creative agents within the Solar organism.

Yes, I added re-create to indirectly comment on your discussion with Scott I think eventually we need to go beyond the duality of discover vs. invent and encompass both simultaneously, like the behavior of Light can manifest as particle and wave/field simultaneously. When we discover, we behave like particles bumping our thinking will into the Will of the triangle imagination, feeling out its contours, and when we invent, we behave as waves/fields that re-create or re-present the discovery from a new imaginative perspective, so it works into the foundation of truly new worlds.

[Federica]

In the same way that real thinking activity is not physical, but requires a physical brain, so real knowledge is not material, but still requires a foothold in continuous material inquiry.

I agree with that additional reason, Federica, but I would hesitate with the bold wording. Obviously, it depends on how we mean it, but I think many people would take it in a misleading way. It is better to say, in my view, that real thinking and real knowledge is the interplay of the spiritual-physical or ideal-material. But we also need to recognize that the physical and material is not simply a 'substance', rather it's a mode of ideational activity. As we have discussed before, the lowest supportive level of a being's spiritual activity is sustained by the highest forces of its Cosmic evolution. When the human lowest supportive level becomes the etheric that has reabsorbed the mineral, that will remain the case and will remain the case all the way throughout our Cosmic evolution.

I agree it would be better expressed with more gradual and smooth language as you propose. To explain, in my choice of language I had in mind some MS lectures, in particular this note about physical brain and pineal gland:

Everything that incarnates falls asleep, decades, down to the animal. The animal is an incarnation of forces. Man is an incarnation of forces, and the heaviest level of falling into sleep lives in man, which is the most physicalized being. The animal is less physicalized than man, because the I stands higher. This is why the I, in order to be able to freely operate in man’s head, needs a calcareous concretion, which is found by the epiphysis, in the pineal gland. If that wasn’t there, the I wouldn’t have any chance of freedom in the head, because that is the only spot in which the I is not forced to incarnate - really a minuscule spot. Where is it not forced to incarnate? Where man is able to liberate thinking from the cerebral organ in the head. Then the I finally manifests its I-ty, so to say. Maybe… in German: “Ichheit”, here we have it - it means its “egoity”, but this word doesn’t render the meaning. It’s the freedom of the I, because it finally has an entity that doesn’t force incarnation. Where it incarnates, it goes to sleep. We are awake, because we push the etheric away from the head. We fall asleep because at a certain point, tired, we finally abandon ourselves and the etheric forces of the head regain possession of the brain, and we fall into sleep. What is thinking that sets itself free? It is thinking that begins to live in the etheric sphere without falling asleep.

But we also need to recognize that the physical and material is not simply a 'substance', rather it's a mode of ideational activity. As we have discussed before, the lowest supportive level of a being's spiritual activity is sustained by the highest forces of its Cosmic evolution.

Yes. I have to thank in particular Oskar Kürten here (after Cleric’s posts on the fourfold nature of reality and your additions too, of course) because it’s by struggling through his super accurate, almost obsessive use of short Steiner quotes in alternation with his notes, that I’m gaining a somewhat better grasp of the great scheme of reality, through its complexity. Cleric provided the bird’s eye view and the large-scale metaphor (the sock) but I needed to “get my hands dirty” (for sure there must be a better expression) through the elementary kingdoms and their almost exasperating manifoldness, to make the intuition of fourfoldness more concrete, and hopefully some more sticking.

My current understanding is that "I"-consciousness that imaginatively experiences through the etheric body is actually reaching up into the soul/astral plane. The current life of our thinking is therefore unfolding through the etheric body and on the astral plane. That is where our "I" resides when it experiences dreams at night. When it ascends into the spiritual world proper, it drifts into dreamless sleep. I don't think it matters too much right now if we get all the categorizations/associations right, as long we understand the principle that much of what people think-perceive in the domains of 20th to 21st century philosophy, science, art, and spirituality in waking consciousness, at least to the extent it is challenging old classical paradigms, is what they are experiencing in the form of higher cognitions imbued with feeling and will within their dreaming and sleeping organism.

Not that I understand the principle, but I take note. As said, proximity is my main cue to this principle for now, or as MS could say: remaining conscious in sleeping (dreaming) state, that is, once ether has reclaimed his role of carrier of thinking. MS doesn’t specify what type of ether, but here Kürten would probably speak of chemical (or tone) ether, in the soul-waters of the astral plane, as a step up for the I, compared to the level of life-ether in which we are generally awake today, where the I simply witnesses the etheric activity of sun-fueled life at the physical-solid level of condensation - in other words, where the I incarnates at the lowest level compatible with human quality (thought-awake individuality).

I think eventually we need to go beyond the duality of discover vs. invent and encompass both simultaneously, like the behavior of Light can manifest as particle and wave/field simultaneously.

Yes, since both discovery and invention are about otherness and separation. I am not preaching discovery in the discussion with Scott, only trying to highlight the separation/abstractness I see in: “my thought is the triangle, my own re-creation/re-imagination”.

[AshvinP]

In the same way that real thinking activity is not physical, but requires a physical brain, so real knowledge is not material, but still requires a foothold in continuous material inquiry.

I agree with that additional reason, Federica, but I would hesitate with the bold wording. Obviously, it depends on how we mean it, but I think many people would take it in a misleading way. It is better to say, in my view, that real thinking and real knowledge is the interplay of the spiritual-physical or ideal-material. But we also need to recognize that the physical and material is not simply a 'substance', rather it's a mode of ideational activity. As we have discussed before, the lowest supportive level of a being's spiritual activity is sustained by the highest forces of its Cosmic evolution. When the human lowest supportive level becomes the etheric that has reabsorbed the mineral, that will remain the case and will remain the case all the way throughout our Cosmic evolution.

I agree it would be better expressed with more gradual and smooth language as you propose. To explain, in my choice of language I had in mind some MS lectures, in particular this note about physical brain and pineal gland:

Everything that incarnates falls asleep, decades, down to the animal. The animal is an incarnation of forces. Man is an incarnation of forces, and the heaviest level of falling into sleep lives in man, which is the most physicalized being. The animal is less physicalized than man, because the I stands higher. This is why the I, in order to be able to freely operate in man’s head, needs a calcareous concretion, which is found by the epiphysis, in the pineal gland. If that wasn’t there, the I wouldn’t have any chance of freedom in the head, because that is the only spot in which the I is not forced to incarnate - really a minuscule spot. Where is it not forced to incarnate? Where man is able to liberate thinking from the cerebral organ in the head. Then the I finally manifests its I-ty, so to say. Maybe… in German: “Ichheit”, here we have it - it means its “egoity”, but this word doesn’t render the meaning. It’s the freedom of the I, because it finally has an entity that doesn’t force incarnation. Where it incarnates, it goes to sleep. We are awake, because we push the etheric away from the head. We fall asleep because at a certain point, tired, we finally abandon ourselves and the etheric forces of the head regain possession of the brain, and we fall into sleep. What is thinking that sets itself free? It is thinking that begins to live in the etheric sphere without falling asleep.

Right, and I think it's fine to speak of liberating our thinking from its physical support for higher development, but we should realize that is a temporary unfolding of the 4th convolution (it's interesting how the physical brain actually has enfolded convolutions) and our actual higher development across time comes from a rhythmic process of enfolding-unfolding, as Cleric spoke of in that metaphor. Once we get to the Jupiter stage, the 4th physical convolution will be unfolded, but then we can imagine the 3rd convolution acts as the new bottom-level support for spiritual activity and our consciousness can also extend a stage higher than it currently does in the upper direction.

My current understanding is that "I"-consciousness that imaginatively experiences through the etheric body is actually reaching up into the soul/astral plane. The current life of our thinking is therefore unfolding through the etheric body and on the astral plane. That is where our "I" resides when it experiences dreams at night. When it ascends into the spiritual world proper, it drifts into dreamless sleep. I don't think it matters too much right now if we get all the categorizations/associations right, as long we understand the principle that much of what people think-perceive in the domains of 20th to 21st century philosophy, science, art, and spirituality in waking consciousness, at least to the extent it is challenging old classical paradigms, is what they are experiencing in the form of higher cognitions imbued with feeling and will within their dreaming and sleeping organism.

Not that I understand the principle, but I take note. As said, proximity is my main cue to this principle for now, or as MS could say: remaining conscious in sleeping (dreaming) state, that is, once ether has reclaimed his role of carrier of thinking. MS doesn’t specify what type of ether, but here Kürten would probably speak of chemical (or tone) ether, in the soul-waters of the astral plane, as a step up for the I, compared to the level of life-ether in which we are generally awake today, where the I simply witnesses the etheric activity of sun-fueled life at the physical-solid level of condensation - in other words, where the I incarnates at the lowest level compatible with human quality (thought-awake individuality).

I think eventually we need to go beyond the duality of discover vs. invent and encompass both simultaneously, like the behavior of Light can manifest as particle and wave/field simultaneously.

Yes, since both discovery and invention are about otherness and separation. I am not preaching discovery in the discussion with Scott, only trying to highlight the separation/abstractness I see in: “my thought is the triangle, my own re-creation/re-imagination”.

One way to consider these relations is to think about how our I -activity manifests itself in the physical spectrum. From spiritual scientific research, we know that our current physical organization is a result of I-deeds from our previous incarnation while our current I-deeds will work into the manifestation of our physical organization in the next incarnation (we can set aside the heredity forces for our purposes here, but these can also be traced to I-activity). In that sense, our I-activity and its creative manifestation in the perceptual spectrum is out-of-phase and we experience that misalignment between idea and perception as the gaps in consciousness that establish the temporal rhythm of “previous, current, and next incarnation”. The relation between our I-activity and the etheric-astral spectrum, the life of thinking and feeling, is also out-of-phase but not as much as it is with the physical spectrum. When we say “spectrum”, basically we are speaking of the continual metamorphosis of states of being within our emotional, life, and sensory configuration spaces.

The only place where our I-activity is completely in-phase with its creative manifestation is in the imaginative thought-space. We intend a thought-image like ‘triangle’ and it manifests immediately for that reason. From this imaginative point of contact, our I-activity can radiate back outwards into the concentric spaces of cognitive feeling and cognitive will, the liminal spaces of our dreaming and sleeping consciousness. Once all of these layers of our being are brought back in-phase, then our I-deeds will be able to immediately manifest the physical spectrum like they currently do with our thought-images. Then our “previous” and “next” incarnations will be experienced as unified and so there is complete continuity of consciousness. The mystical trap here is that we project our current experience of manifestation into our future evolutionary states and imagine we will be manifesting rocks, trees, animals, and so forth into existence as discrete objects. I think Cleric has written about this trap pretty extensively, so I will just refer to his posts, such as this one, for anyone who wants to understand why that is a misconception.

If we imagine that this process takes place not only at our personal soul-level but across the collective soul of humanity, then we can discern why our current I-deeds that imaginatively discover-explore the ideal landscape are seeding the foundations of new Earthly epochs, globes, rounds, and planetary incarnations (aeons). One of Steiner's lectures speaks of this process in terms of the ‘moon man’ (imaginations - dreams), ‘sun man’ (inspirations – dreamless sleep), and ‘saturn man’ (intuitions – comatose sleep) within us that provide the building material for the 3rd hierarchy to weave the animal (imaginations), plant (inspirations) and mineral (intuitions) kingdoms of the Jupiter aeon. These kingdoms will all exist at a more etheric level of substance, like a spiritualized watery condition. Even our spiritualized intellectual concepts will play a role in providing soul impulses for the human kingdom of Jupiter. So I don’t think we need to stop speaking in terms of discovery and invention or re-creation, but simply start experientially tracing exactly what these words mean - how we discover-invent with our spiritual activity within various configuration spaces of experience and what it practically means for steering our stream of becoming with our I-activity today. That, of course, is practically what spiritual science is geared towards elucidating.


https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA162/En ... 03p01.html

And so, during waking life on earth, we experience by means of our physical earth-man, but we also have in us the Moon man. This Moon man is incapable of serving us as a direct instrument of perception. Upon the Moon he could build up the old dreamlike perceptions; but today he is unsuitable to form the clear perceptions of waking life. And yet this Moon man resides in us, and he is not idle! How is he occupied? Well, he continues what he did on the Moon: he dreams. And because, during waking life, we do not usually perceive these dreams within our subconsciousness, we fail to take notice of them. As we go through the world with our waking consciousness, the burden of this dreamer also accompanies us. Even though you are perfectly unaware of this dreamer, other Beings know him, and they are the Beings of the Hierarchy of Angeloi — and the dreams of this dreamer are transposed by them into their own conceptions.

Thus, during the Moon age this dreamer developed the only possible consciousness that could evolve on the Moon. As earth man came, the dreamer entered into him; but his experiences in the earth man are developed into clear, conscious ideas, which, for them, are imaginations. Our dreams are transformed into imaginations. In other words — the dreamer in us becomes ideas for the Angeloi Beings, and they change these to imaginations: what man dreams, the Angelos imagines. (Diagram I.)

We may now go a step further to something that can be depicted by diagram, which this time is true to fact. The man in us has a still duller consciousness — one similar to that of the plants (Diagram II). Thus, we carry not only the dreamer in us, but also a kind of plant man, who always sleeps like the plants. His dull imaginations are transmitted by the Beings of the Hierarchy of the Archangeloi to inspirations. So: what the Sun man experiences in sleep, the Archangelos inspires.

In a still deeper sleep is our Saturn man; so deep is it that it can be likened to the sleep of the minerals. This Saturn man, in his turn, with his deep-sleep consciousness, gives the Beings of the Hierarchy of Archai the material — the means to create intuitions. Hence: The Saturn man in his deep sleep becomes intuition of the Spirit of Personality. (original Force) (Diagram III)

And so it is to-day. But the earth will pass through another evolutionary period in the future. Then will the intuitions of the Spirits of Personality become more and more densified. In our own age they still are extremely attenuated forms, but as we progress from the 5th to the 6th and 7th earth-periods these intuitions become denser. The earth will pass away, but these intuitions are preserved within the Spirits of Personality. But when Jupiter begins to exist, these Spirits of Personality advance to the rank of Spirits of Form, and. the impulses they have learned to form during the earth-age now become actual forms; and because they are Saturn forms, they will be mineral. Thus: at the end of the earth period these intuitions become densified cosmic impulses and later, forms. (Jupiter) (Diagram III.) And when they become forms upon Jupiter, they constitute the mineral foundation of Jupiter. During the second evolutionary half period of the earth the Spirits of Personality continuously work there — penetrate — into our Saturn man; they win for themselves the impulses which they then ray forth into the world; and these again send out forms, but these forms are the Jupiter; Jupiter will be constituted of nothing but these forms. We have in us the Saturn man, but as this Saturn man is in close connection with the activity of the Spirits of Personality, he is the germ for Jupiter. Jupiter will obtain all his mineral foundation from the Saturn man we carry in us.
…
With all that we absorb from Spiritual Science, the Sun man in us can really do something. He can transmute his dim, sleeping, vegetable-like sensations and conceptions into inspirations, which will become more and more densified during the remainder of the earth period; and these will ensure, that not only indefinite sphere harmony shall enclose Jupiter, but that this harmony of the spheres definitely becomes growth of vegetation, as this took place also in the case of earthly plants: they are created by the sphere harmony and drawn out by light.
…
But the experiences of the dreamer in a future age will be grasped and reformed by the Beings of the Angeloi and carried by them to Jupiter, to further enrich Jupiter by adding, upon the mineral and vegetable foundation, another kingdom, the equivalent of the animals. And we say: The dream conceptions of the Moon man (or the dreamer in man) becomes for Jupiter condensed imaginations, foundation of an animal kingdom through the Angeloi.

And finally, something further will appear during the evolution of the earth. We look forward into a future where we can sense something very wonderful. That which will then come to pass will produce the germ which will enable the human being of the earth himself to erect his kingdom upon Jupiter, and it will be something entirely new.

Thus, all that to-day can be developed with the help of the earthly man will progress further, and then, after the ages during which something new will have continually been developed, will arise something which this earth man can now conceive as the highest flower, the apex of the Spiritual evolution of the earth. And out of this conception will be born the power by which earth man upon Jupiter can continue his progress through himself. Thus, we can say: The conceptions of earth man become impulses — through the Soul-contents of the most evolved of humanity — for the evolution of humanity upon Jupiter.

[Federica]

...

Ashvin,

Thanks for these further opportunities to think through these relations. I follow. Regarding the mystical trap covered in Cleric's post, I believe I understand it properly. Coincidentally, I have tried to express some similar thoughts on the other thread.
Besides, I am grateful for the references that, in a way or another, have recently emerged with regards to dream consciousness and lucid dreaming, both in your posts and in Cleric's, since it's a state of consciousness I have been reflecting on recently and these reminders have helped.

Unrelated to the most recent discussion, and more to the original topic of this thread, I was wondering whether you think it's necessary to refresh or learn some mathematical theory and practice in order to improve spiritual understanding of mathematical thinking (which would be quite a task for me, since my mathematical background is both limited and largely unpracticed), or do you think it's reasonably possible to do it only in intuitive way, and through ordinary imagination?

[AshvinP]

...

Ashvin,

Thanks for these further opportunities to think through these relations. I follow. Regarding the mystical trap covered in Cleric's post, I believe I understand it properly. Coincidentally, I have tried to express some similar thoughts on the other thread.
Besides, I am grateful for the references that, in a way or another, have recently emerged with regards to dream consciousness and lucid dreaming, both in your posts and in Cleric's, since it's a state of consciousness I have been reflecting on recently and these reminders have helped.

Unrelated to the most recent discussion, and more to the original topic of this thread, I was wondering whether you think it's necessary to refresh or learn some mathematical theory and practice in order to improve spiritual understanding of mathematical thinking (which would be quite a task for me, since my mathematical background is both limited and largely unpracticed), or do you think it's reasonably possible to do it only in intuitive way, and through ordinary imagination?

Federica,

My mathematical background is also quite limited and unpracticed. I have approached it several times only to put it on pause and procrastinate. For example, I bought a book on “projective geometry” by Oliver Whicher that is currently collecting dust on my bookshelf. I may try to return to it this weekend and see if my intuitive resonance has strengthened. There is a certain amount of pain and discomfort that I feel when approaching abstract mathematics, which is probably a sign that I should endure and push through to reap the inner benefits. At the same time, though, we can probably minimize the amount of unnecessary pain by finding more spiritual perspectives on the mathematical landscape. Besides Cleric’s posts, so far the book by Whicher is the only one that I have come across that also interacts with esoteric science (at a very broad level).

At a more principled level of analysis, if we have the time and opportunity to enhance our understanding of the thought-structures in any domain of natural philosophy or science, then it is generally a good idea. Besides strengthening our inner forces via actively willed thinking, the overall goal is to enhance our soul-resonance with other beings who weave in the creative ideas responsible for structuring these domains of thinking-perceptual space. For example, if we only think-speak-read in one language, then our soul life is constrained to only resonating with the thought-gestures of souls who weave in the same linguistic space. If we expand our thinking to weave in the gestures of a few more languages, then we can resonate with a broader realm of souls and ideas. Due to the evolution of abstract thinking in the Western world, most of us can already resonate with soul-spheres beyond our own language to some extent, but we can deepen that by weaving in the ‘universal language’ of mathematics. We can imagine how many new worlds encompassing mathematical ideas out there would begin impressing into our own sphere on the basis of that common language and understanding. When the ‘aliens’ arrive on Earth, the first thing we always try to communicate with them is some form of mathematics

When it comes to resonating with disincarnate beings across the threshold, however, our mathematical thinking cannot remain flattened and quantitative but must reintegrate the qualitative feeling dimension. The ‘aliens’ simply don’t weave in our purely quantitative thought-structures. The latter need to become more imaginative, symbolic, and artistic like they were for our ancient Indian, Persian, Egyptian, and Greek ancestors. We have all the resources to make that possibility an actuality – we have arrived at the restaurant, the table is set, the plate is in front of us, our knives and forks are in place, the water is poured, and the only thing missing is the juicy steak (with impossible meat). That steak is our conscious awareness of how mathematical thinking points to the metamorphosis of cognitive states of being on the ‘same side’ and concentric with our own. It points to the deeper layers of our feeling- and will-imbued experience just outlined by Cleric on the Meditation thread. As long as we can keep that reality in our consciousness, I have no doubt that exploring mathematical thinking will be of great value for spiritual growth. If you come across any interesting resources to that end, I would also appreciate it if you share them here. I will also let you know if I come across anything else.

[Federica]

...

Ashvin,

Thanks for these further opportunities to think through these relations. I follow. Regarding the mystical trap covered in Cleric's post, I believe I understand it properly. Coincidentally, I have tried to express some similar thoughts on the other thread.
Besides, I am grateful for the references that, in a way or another, have recently emerged with regards to dream consciousness and lucid dreaming, both in your posts and in Cleric's, since it's a state of consciousness I have been reflecting on recently and these reminders have helped.

Unrelated to the most recent discussion, and more to the original topic of this thread, I was wondering whether you think it's necessary to refresh or learn some mathematical theory and practice in order to improve spiritual understanding of mathematical thinking (which would be quite a task for me, since my mathematical background is both limited and largely unpracticed), or do you think it's reasonably possible to do it only in intuitive way, and through ordinary imagination?

Federica,

My mathematical background is also quite limited and unpracticed. I have approached it several times only to put it on pause and procrastinate. For example, I bought a book on “projective geometry” by Oliver Whicher that is currently collecting dust on my bookshelf. I may try to return to it this weekend and see if my intuitive resonance has strengthened. There is a certain amount of pain and discomfort that I feel when approaching abstract mathematics, which is probably a sign that I should endure and push through to reap the inner benefits. At the same time, though, we can probably minimize the amount of unnecessary pain by finding more spiritual perspectives on the mathematical landscape. Besides Cleric’s posts, so far the book by Whicher is the only one that I have come across that also interacts with esoteric science (at a very broad level).

At a more principled level of analysis, if we have the time and opportunity to enhance our understanding of the thought-structures in any domain of natural philosophy or science, then it is generally a good idea. Besides strengthening our inner forces via actively willed thinking, the overall goal is to enhance our soul-resonance with other beings who weave in the creative ideas responsible for structuring these domains of thinking-perceptual space. For example, if we only think-speak-read in one language, then our soul life is constrained to only resonating with the thought-gestures of souls who weave in the same linguistic space. If we expand our thinking to weave in the gestures of a few more languages, then we can resonate with a broader realm of souls and ideas. Due to the evolution of abstract thinking in the Western world, most of us can already resonate with soul-spheres beyond our own language to some extent, but we can deepen that by weaving in the ‘universal language’ of mathematics. We can imagine how many new worlds encompassing mathematical ideas out there would begin impressing into our own sphere on the basis of that common language and understanding. When the ‘aliens’ arrive on Earth, the first thing we always try to communicate with them is some form of mathematics

When it comes to resonating with disincarnate beings across the threshold, however, our mathematical thinking cannot remain flattened and quantitative but must reintegrate the qualitative feeling dimension. The ‘aliens’ simply don’t weave in our purely quantitative thought-structures. The latter need to become more imaginative, symbolic, and artistic like they were for our ancient Indian, Persian, Egyptian, and Greek ancestors. We have all the resources to make that possibility an actuality – we have arrived at the restaurant, the table is set, the plate is in front of us, our knives and forks are in place, the water is poured, and the only thing missing is the juicy steak (with impossible meat). That steak is our conscious awareness of how mathematical thinking points to the metamorphosis of cognitive states of being on the ‘same side’ and concentric with our own. It points to the deeper layers of our feeling- and will-imbued experience just outlined by Cleric on the Meditation thread. As long as we can keep that reality in our consciousness, I have no doubt that exploring mathematical thinking will be of great value for spiritual growth. If you come across any interesting resources to that end, I would also appreciate it if you share them here. I will also let you know if I come across anything else.

Thanks Ashvin, all your points make sure sense, except the impossible meat, to which one can only say: bleah...
By the way, it reminds me that few days ago you made a questionable statement in that area, that all the most pleasurable foods are also the most unhealthy ones - highly questionable, if you ask me
Anyway, back to mathematics and science, I haven't tried to refresh or advance my basics so far. I have more than enough new books waiting for some consideration already! I can say one thing: way before becoming actively interested in spiritual matters I was fantasizing that one day I would learn some foundations of physics and chemistry, but I never went beyond the level of vague wish. Sure, I would share resources in case I find anything of particular value in this context.

For now there's actually one resource I want to mention, this recorded collection of Steiner lectures about mathematical thinking and the fourth dimension, called The Fourth Dimension: Sacred Geometry, Alchemy, and Mathematics. Yesterday I've listened to the first one, "Mathematical thinking and reality", it's a 20 minute listening (untranslated in the Archive). While I realize it's very useful intuitive practice and probably a good source of meditative images, I can't say I understand the examples he provides to conceptualize the fourth dimension mathematically, on basis of the progressive expansion of geometrical animations through the first three dimensions.

For example, he says, if you imagine a 3D space with a sphere and a point outside the sphere, the only way to bring the point inside the sphere, without "breaking it" is by leaving the third and expanding into the fourth dimension. Or, the way to put a left glove on the right hand is through the fourth dimension. I have to admit, I don't feel particularly smart when I have no clue what thinking gestures one should attempt in order to approach that step. Are you familiar with these lectures? I don't know about the remaining twelve. The first one does not require mathematical knowledge, but is nonetheless an intuitive challenge for me, already. I might give it a second try this weekend!

[AshvinP]

Ashvin,

Thanks for these further opportunities to think through these relations. I follow. Regarding the mystical trap covered in Cleric's post, I believe I understand it properly. Coincidentally, I have tried to express some similar thoughts on the other thread.
Besides, I am grateful for the references that, in a way or another, have recently emerged with regards to dream consciousness and lucid dreaming, both in your posts and in Cleric's, since it's a state of consciousness I have been reflecting on recently and these reminders have helped.

Unrelated to the most recent discussion, and more to the original topic of this thread, I was wondering whether you think it's necessary to refresh or learn some mathematical theory and practice in order to improve spiritual understanding of mathematical thinking (which would be quite a task for me, since my mathematical background is both limited and largely unpracticed), or do you think it's reasonably possible to do it only in intuitive way, and through ordinary imagination?

Federica,

My mathematical background is also quite limited and unpracticed. I have approached it several times only to put it on pause and procrastinate. For example, I bought a book on “projective geometry” by Oliver Whicher that is currently collecting dust on my bookshelf. I may try to return to it this weekend and see if my intuitive resonance has strengthened. There is a certain amount of pain and discomfort that I feel when approaching abstract mathematics, which is probably a sign that I should endure and push through to reap the inner benefits. At the same time, though, we can probably minimize the amount of unnecessary pain by finding more spiritual perspectives on the mathematical landscape. Besides Cleric’s posts, so far the book by Whicher is the only one that I have come across that also interacts with esoteric science (at a very broad level).

At a more principled level of analysis, if we have the time and opportunity to enhance our understanding of the thought-structures in any domain of natural philosophy or science, then it is generally a good idea. Besides strengthening our inner forces via actively willed thinking, the overall goal is to enhance our soul-resonance with other beings who weave in the creative ideas responsible for structuring these domains of thinking-perceptual space. For example, if we only think-speak-read in one language, then our soul life is constrained to only resonating with the thought-gestures of souls who weave in the same linguistic space. If we expand our thinking to weave in the gestures of a few more languages, then we can resonate with a broader realm of souls and ideas. Due to the evolution of abstract thinking in the Western world, most of us can already resonate with soul-spheres beyond our own language to some extent, but we can deepen that by weaving in the ‘universal language’ of mathematics. We can imagine how many new worlds encompassing mathematical ideas out there would begin impressing into our own sphere on the basis of that common language and understanding. When the ‘aliens’ arrive on Earth, the first thing we always try to communicate with them is some form of mathematics

When it comes to resonating with disincarnate beings across the threshold, however, our mathematical thinking cannot remain flattened and quantitative but must reintegrate the qualitative feeling dimension. The ‘aliens’ simply don’t weave in our purely quantitative thought-structures. The latter need to become more imaginative, symbolic, and artistic like they were for our ancient Indian, Persian, Egyptian, and Greek ancestors. We have all the resources to make that possibility an actuality – we have arrived at the restaurant, the table is set, the plate is in front of us, our knives and forks are in place, the water is poured, and the only thing missing is the juicy steak (with impossible meat). That steak is our conscious awareness of how mathematical thinking points to the metamorphosis of cognitive states of being on the ‘same side’ and concentric with our own. It points to the deeper layers of our feeling- and will-imbued experience just outlined by Cleric on the Meditation thread. As long as we can keep that reality in our consciousness, I have no doubt that exploring mathematical thinking will be of great value for spiritual growth. If you come across any interesting resources to that end, I would also appreciate it if you share them here. I will also let you know if I come across anything else.

Thanks Ashvin, all your points make sure sense, except the impossible meat, to which one can only say: bleah...
By the way, it reminds me that few days ago you made a questionable statement in that area, that all the most pleasurable foods are also the most unhealthy ones - highly questionable, if you ask me

This makes me curious, do you disagree and take great sensuous pleasure in eating healthy foods??

Anyway, back to mathematics and science, I haven't tried to refresh or advance my basics so far. I have more than enough new books waiting for some consideration already! I can say one thing: way before becoming actively interested in spiritual matters I was fantasizing that one day I would learn some foundations of physics and chemistry, but I never went beyond the level of vague wish. Sure, I would share resources in case I find anything of particular value in this context.

For now there's actually one resource I want to mention, this recorded collection of Steiner lectures about mathematical thinking and the fourth dimension, called The Fourth Dimension: Sacred Geometry, Alchemy, and Mathematics. Yesterday I've listened to the first one, "Mathematical thinking and reality", it's a 20 minute listening (untranslated in the Archive). While I realize it's very useful intuitive practice and probably a good source of meditative images, I can't say I understand the examples he provides to conceptualize the fourth dimension mathematically, on basis of the progressive expansion of geometrical animations through the first three dimensions.

For example, he says, if you imagine a 3D space with a sphere and a point outside the sphere, the only way to bring the point inside the sphere, without "breaking it" is by leaving the third and expanding into the fourth dimension. Or, the way to put a left glove on the right hand is through the fourth dimension. I have to admit, I don't feel particularly smart when I have no clue what thinking gestures one should attempt in order to approach that step. Are you familiar with these lectures? I don't know about the remaining twelve. The first one does not require mathematical knowledge, but is nonetheless an intuitive challenge for me, already. I might give it a second try this weekend!

I do recall those lectures and think they can be used as fantastic tools for inner contemplation and strengthening our intuitive orientation for spiritual reality, although I will also need to revisit them to kindle my insights. What follows are just some preliminary thoughts on what you shared. We can start thinking of these relations quite symbolically. The four dimensions can be associated with the fourfolded convolutions of intuitive conscious experience. So we say that, for a line to become a a circle or square, it must move into the two-dimensional space by meeting its endpoints together. For a square to become a cube, it must be moved into three-dimensional space, for ex. by reflecting it across a plane and 'filling in the gap' or gradually 'drawing the square out' in the third dimension. For the cube to become a 'hypercube' in the 4th dimension, it must begin to coincide in some way with other 3-dimensional objects. What could all this be a symbol for?

Could we say that it is a symbol for how the mineral forces (line) add to themselves the life forces (to become a circle or square) by not only working out from the center but also working in from the periphery? The meeting points of these invisible forces is where the square surface manifests. Then the mineral and life forces add the soul forces by reflecting themselves across a plane and creating an 'inner volume' distinct from the 'outer' surface it is mirroring. Finally, the mineral-life-soul forces add the spiritual thinking forces through reflective capacity that extends the inner volume into a stream of memory for its past states of being and a stream of anticipating its future states of being. What was previously only external impressions that come and go can be reintegrated as lasting inner memory. Now we have arrived at the 4th dimension/convolution of objective intellectual consciousness. This is only one crude way of many ways to approach the symbolic significance of the geometrical transformations.

Moving from intellectual cognition to imaginative cognition is a process of retracing the dimensional convolutions from the 4th to the 3rd. Indeed imaginative cognition leads to a more space-like experience of our temporal stream such as the memory tableau, where we live in the overarching soul qualities that animated our perceptual states of being unfolding in time. It is like what we normally experience as a stream of time becomes more like a 3-dimensional space of living images (actually the space is more flattened, so it may correspond more to 2nd dimension). Moving from imaginative to inspired cognition retraces to the two-dimensional thinking gestures that animate the superimposed memory structure, and the latter can now be read as the intended evolutionary plan for humanity. Now we have two-dimensional patterns of text, so to speak. Moving from inspired to intuitive brings us back to the 1st dimension of line-like or perhaps point-like (0th dimension) thought-seeds from which the whole evolutionary plan was intended. 

Now if we apply the qualitative approach above, symbolizing modes of consciousness and states of being, to things like what you referenced - "if you imagine a 3D space with a sphere and a point outside the sphere, the only way to bring the point inside the sphere, without "breaking it" is by leaving the third and expanding into the fourth dimension" - how do we understand it? One thing that comes to mind is the stream of memory that becomes possible through the reflective intellectual mode of consciousness - states of being that would previously be experienced as external and instinctive forces pushing our inner volume in certain directions, like they do for the animal consciousness, can now be integrated by that inner volume as its own intimate stream of memory. Now we feel like certain impulses, habits, and patterns of being are our impulses, habits, and patterns of being that can be worked upon within the privacy of our inner sphere - they have become individuated without breaking the integrity of our "I" consciousness. 

[AshvinP]

For the cube to become a 'hypercube' in the 4th dimension, it must begin to coincide in some way with other 3-dimensional objects.

By the way, if we are looking for some concrete visual image for how this 4th-dimensional step of 3-dimensional objects 'coinciding' occurs, like we had for the previous steps, I don't think we will really find it. This step can be described by abstract mathematics, since it occurs purely in the stream of (qualitative) time, but I think the only visuals we can get are what Steiner presented in that lecture, or perhaps what was presented in the video series on imaginary numbers.