Consciousness and the Paranormal

[Tyger]

My most abject apologies for causing some sensitivity there. I don't take bait so I'll let you fellows over analyze who's who in my post about Annie Hall. Hilarious, though, huh?

Somehow I don't think you mean that. Ha!

P.S. How neatly you side-step taking responsibility for your posts' innuendos. Very slick.

As for intellectual heavy lifting, that adjective hardly fits. As for lifting, I'd call them some pretty light dumb bells.

Who - or what - is that? You are clearly positioning yourself as the superior intellect who can judge. Who - or what ideas - are the 'light dumbbells'?

As for being constructive, here's the thing about this thread. Two things:

1. It's very obvious that an elephant that is a taboo subject stands chronically in every post in which he's brought up and there are many in which it is alluded to. But always very obliquely mentioned in a cutely phrased sometimes hyphenated way that shows the cowardice that avoids a more direct mention and exploration. It is vital to this subject that's become an indecipherable bunch of gibberish. But "consciously" avoided, because.....

Not so simple - as you say nothing, but with a lot of words. What exactly do you believe is the "elephant that is a taboo subject [that] stands chronically in every post in which he's brought up" - who is the "he"?

2. That subject when brought to bear in an open way

What subject is it? This thread has hundreds of subjects.

requires some humility by its very nature

Again what subject is that, that requires 'humility'?

and additionally it requires human interaction

You have got to identify what 'the subject' is you are referring to because, I fear, you are talking 'gibberish' as a result.

and a mind that is capable, however difficult, and it is difficult indeed, of rising way, way above the so obvious, nearly pathological, emphasis I see pervasively here on I, I, I, me, me, my own growth to superior consciousness, my mind's effect on creation, my, my, my solitary, isolated "meditative" "school", etc., etc. All very hubristic and egocentric.

I assume from this that you do not feel comfortable with discussions of philosophy. If that is so, why do you read this thread?

This elephant is huge

Apparently - for you.

and to face him requires getting out of yourselves and dealing with him directly.

So who is this 'he'?

He's actually a very kind taskmaster, but he requires very heavy lifting

Kindness and heavy lifting - fascinating. What kind of 'heavy lifting' does 'he' require?

and a start is to directly acknowledge him and not dance around him with a simpering gait like a monkey with a parasol.

As you have been doing.

I've tried to help you guys with Twain and a great Woody Allen scene.

You think so?

I really and genuinely mean this constructively, and in very simple English.

Since you claim to be attempting to be constructive - why not say what you think openly - and not coyly? Since you also view yourself as pretty much having a secure grasp of the topics covered, why not engage. Be brave. Say what you mean rather than "dance around [the elephant] with a simpering gait like a monkey with a parasol."

 

[smcder]

My most abject apologies for causing some sensitivity there. I don't take bait so I'll let you fellows over analyze who's who in my post about Annie Hall. Hilarious, though, huh?

As for intellectual heavy lifting, that adjective hardly fits. As for lifting, I'd call them some pretty light dumb bells.

As for being constructive, here's the thing about this thread. Two things:

1. It's very obvious that an elephant that is a taboo subject stands chronically in every post in which he's brought up and there are many in which it is alluded to. But always very obliquely mentioned in a cutely phrased sometimes hyphenated way that shows the cowardice that avoids a more direct mention and exploration. It is vital to this subject that's become an indecipherable bunch of gibberish. But "consciously" avoided, because.....

2. That subject when brought to bear in an open way requires some humility by its very nature, and additionally it requires human interaction and a mind that is capable, however difficult, and it is difficult indeed, of rising way, way above the so obvious, nearly pathological, emphasis I see pervasively here on I, I, I, me, me, my own growth to superior consciousness, my mind's effect on creation, my, my, my solitary, isolated "meditative" "school", etc., etc. All very hubristic and egocentric.

This elephant is huge, and to face him requires getting out of yourselves and dealing with him directly. He's actually a very kind taskmaster, but he requires very heavy lifting and a start is to directly acknowledge him and not dance around him with a simpering gait like a monkey with a parasol. I've tried to help you guys with Twain and a great Woody Allen scene.

I really and genuinely mean this constructively, and in very simple English.

way above the so obvious, nearly pathological, emphasis I see pervasively here on I, I, I, me, me, my own growth to superior consciousness, my mind's effect on creation, my, my, my solitary, isolated "meditative" "school", etc., etc. All very hubristic and egocentric

That's a broad brush - I think saying folks are egotistical or self-concenred could apply to most people at some time or another - I do know living in my head and being aware of being self-absorbed is one of the things that drew me to Buddhism and meditation. I read recently that meditation is the only activity where there is no intention to get somewhere, to improve and that was helpful.

So whatever you see the elephant in the room to be - just give it a name: God? Religion? Sexuality? Only so many elephants out there in the world - I'm not aware of anyone dancing around anything - so it may not be conscious - maye you've something new ... we've covered a lot of topics - touching on some that seem pretty far afield such as Hansen's work on the Trickster and Jeffrey Kripal's Kali's Child and The Serpent's Gift - pretty sure we spent quite a bit of time on God on this thread or the Religion, Philosophy and the Paranormal thread that Randall started - (Plantinga's "properly warranted" argument for example) ... so whatever it is, let's take a look at it.

 

[smcder]

@Soupie: thought this was interesting - I found it looking up "Steiner's Cosmology" touches on some of the things in our recent posts:

Esoteric Other Worlds: Ghosts in the Flesh

Bearing in mind lines of argumentation such as these, we wish to explore questions of ghostliness and in/corporeality in a number of fields, including but not limited to the following:

• Ghosts in Literature and Cinema (Gothic Literature and its critiques, Magical Realism, the double)
• Virtual Reality and Digital Arts (virtual space, digital performance theory, MMO RPG’s, simulation games)
• Memory and Architecture
• Memory and Archaeology or History
• Theatre (repetition, embodiment)
• Philosophy and Theology (mind-body dualisms and their critiques, “difficult atheism” in continental philosophy)
• Critical theory (psychoanalytic theory, literary theory)

 

[Soupie]

OK, that's where I don't follow you ... first, non-physical material doesn't make sense the way the words are normally used - material is defined in terms of things that make other things up and physical is what we know of the perceptible universe - that it's all accounted for in physics ... so you kind of seem to be saying to me that spirit is made of "spirit matter" and physical stuff is made of "physical matter" ... ? Is that right?

Yes, but try not to think of it as matter. Think of it more as a "unit." A unit could be many different things other than a physical particle.

It's kind of like thinking differently about the terms demon, god, spiritual, holy... These things are real, but maybe not in the sense that we traditionally understood them.

I do think there is one substance with a multiplicity of properties — some that constituent what we call the "physical," some that constitute what we call "mind," some that constitute what we call "spirit," and so forth.

Seems much easier to just say there is no separate spirit world - it's some kind of continuation or extension of the physical world but still will be ultimately conceivable in terms of some kind of physics

This seems to assume that the physical world is primary, and I don't think it is. But otherwise, yes, this is my worldview.

 

[smcder]

Yes, but try not to think of it as matter. Think of it more as a "unit." A unit could be many different things other than a physical particle.

It's kind of like thinking differently about the terms demon, god, spiritual, holy... These things are real, but maybe not in the sense that we traditionally understood them.

I do think there is one substance with a multiplicity of properties — some that constituent what we call the "physical," some that constitute what we call "mind," some that constitute what we call "spirit," and so forth.

This seems to assume that the physical world is primary, and I don't think it is. But otherwise, yes, this is my worldview.

Spinoza's Theory of Attributes (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

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[smcder]

Link to an article with what I think is a clearer discussion of Substance Monism

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[smcder]

Socrates Plato Aristotle | History of Philosophy without any gaps

This is a tremendous resource.

 

[smcder]

Collingwood and the history of philosophy | History of Philosophy without any gaps

"I just came across a passage I really like, from the London Review of Books (19 June 2014), in an article describing the attitude of R.G. Collingwood towards history. This sums up how I think about the history of philosophy quite well:
"You had to put away your 'scissors and paste' as he put it, and start using your imagination: 'getting inside other people's heads, looking at their situation through their eyes, and thinking for yourself whether the way in which they tackled it was the right way.' And if, as often happens, you found yourself tempted to dismiss their notions as primitive, irrational or bizarre, you should reflect that the fault may lie not in them but in you. The chances are that the problems that bothered them were nothing like the ones that strike you as obvious or inevitable, and that they were offering sensible answers to their own questions rather than foolish answers to yours."

 

[Soupie]

I think the section on Propert Dualism captures my thinking best:

Dualism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

The difference is that 1) the orthodox view is that the primary substance is physical in nature with physical and mental properties. I think the primary substance is neutral, that is, neither physical nor mental. And 2) Propery Dualism assume one substance with two properties - physical and mental. I think such a substance may have many more than two properties which may or may not ever become known to us. It's silly to assume that the physical and mental are the only aspects of reality.

My view could perhaps be described as Property Polyism.

 

[smcder]

I think the section on Propert Dualism captures my thinking best:

Dualism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

The difference is that 1) the orthodox view is that the primary substance is physical in nature with physical and mental properties. I think the primary substance is neutral, that is, neither physical nor mental. And 2) Propery Dualism usually assume one substance with two properties - physical and mental. I think such a substance may have many more than two properties which may or may not ever become known to us. It's silly to assume that the physical and mental are the only aspects of reality.

From the SEOP article above:

1.9.1 Number of Attributes

Although Spinoza claims that there are infinite attributes, a question arises as to how many there are, because “infinity” may not necessarily refer to numeric infinity.[15] Bennett, among others, has made the case that infinity in early modern philosophy means totality (Bennett, 1984, 75–79). Spinoza's claims, then, that the infinite substance has infinite attributes can be understood as the claim that the infinite substance has all the attributes there are to be had.[16] This is consistent with there being, say, only the two known attributes. There are sections in the text, on the other hand, that seem to suggest that infinity means a numerical infinity, and thus the infinite substance has as attributes Thought and Extension, as well as infinitely many other unknown attributes. The places used as evidence for those wishing to claim there are more than two attributes are the following:

1D6: By God I understand a being absolutely infinite, that is, a substance consisting of an infinity of attributes, of which each one expresses an eternal and infinite essence.

Exp.: I say absolutely infinite, not infinite in its own kind; for if something is only infinite in its own kind, we can deny infinite attributes of it; but if something is absolutely infinite, whatever expresses essence and involves no negation pertains to its essence.

2P7Schol: Therefore whether we conceive Nature under the attribute of Extension, or the attribute of Thought, or any other attribute, we shall find one and the same order, or one and the same connection of causes, that is the same things follow one another.

Letter 56: To your [Hugo Boxel] question as to whether I have as clear an idea of God as of a triangle, I reply in the affirmative. But if you ask me whether I have as clear a mental image of God as of a triangle, I reply in the negative. We cannot imagine God, but we can apprehend him by the intellect. Here it should also be observed that I do not claim to have complete knowledge of God, but that I do understand some of his attributes—not indeed all of them, or the greater part—and it is certain that my ignorance of very many attributes does not prevent me from having knowledge of some of them. When I was studying Euclid's Elements, I understood early on that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, and I clearly perceived this property of a triangle although I was ignorant of many others.

This issue can be linked to the previous discussion regarding the ambiguities in the definition of attribute, although this is not always done. If one holds that it is the infinite intellect that is doing the relevant perceiving, there seems to be no reason to limit the number of attributes it perceives. Conversely, it might be claimed that if the infinite intellect perceives only two attributes, there must be a sufficient reason why there are only two, and why they are Thought and Extension and not other attributes. If, on the other hand, one holds that it is the finite intellect that conceives the attributes, and it only conceives Thought and Extension, then these are the only two attributes there are. In the literature, however, this line of reasoning is not always followed, and examples can be found of interpreters who hold that it is the infinite intellect that does the perceiving, but that there need not be more than two attributes (Bennett, 1984, 75–76). At the same time, there are interpreters who claim it is the finite intellect that perceives the attributes while there are infinitely many attributes (Wolfson, 1934, 226). How many attributes there are affects how one reads another central doctrine in Spinoza's metaphysics, such as 2P7 and 2P7Schol, to which we turn next.

 

[Soupie]

I think it's a mistake to use the label "God" for this theoretical, primary substance. While some people do conceive of God as an impersonal "force," many conceive of God as an anthropomorphic entity with a largely human-like personality.

Furthermore, this theoretical primary substance is not a force... It's a neutral substance whose self-organization/differentiation via self-interaction leads to the complexity and variety we see in the physical and mental domains (and likely other domains).

 

[smcder]

Steiner's dealing with I Consciousness

I think it's a mistake to use the label "God" for this theoretical, primary substance. While some people do conceive of God as an impersonal "force," many conceive of God as an anthropomorphic entity with a largely human-like personality.

Furthermore, this theoretical primary substance is not a force... It's a neutral substance whose self-organization/differentiation via self-interaction leads to the complexity and variety we see in the physical and mental domains (and likely other domains).

Do a little reading about Spinoza to get this in context - he was considered an Atheist in the sense of not believing in God in a conventional way:

Among philosophers, Spinoza is best known for his Ethics, a monumental work that presents an ethical vision unfolding out of a monistic metaphysics in which God and Nature are identified. God is no longer the transcendent creator of the universe who rules it via providence, but Nature itself, understood as an infinite, necessary, and fully deterministic system of which humans are a part.

 

[Soupie]

Very Langan-ish.

 

[smcder]

Pantheism

 

[michaelangel1453]

I'm trying, really am, but you two are a riot:

Interminable insertions of quotes and links interspersed with your own bad writing, then this:

"Very Langan-ish"

Response: "Pantheism"

Speaks volumes, but not of what you think.

 

[Soupie]

Pantheism

Why does Monism seem to be connected philosophically to Pantheism a la Spinoza and Langan (and others?), or is that just a coincidence?

 

[smcder]

I'm trying, really am, but you two are a riot:

Interminable insertions of quotes and links interspersed with your own bad writing, then this:

"Very Langan-ish"

Response: "Pantheism"

Speaks volumes, but not of what you think.

Tell us what the elephant is.

 

[Tyger]

Collingwood and the history of philosophy | History of Philosophy without any gaps

"I just came across a passage I really like, from the London Review of Books (19 June 2014), in an article describing the attitude of R.G. Collingwood towards history. This sums up how I think about the history of philosophy quite well:
"You had to put away your 'scissors and paste' as he put it, and start using your imagination: 'getting inside other people's heads, looking at their situation through their eyes, and thinking for yourself whether the way in which they tackled it was the right way.' And if, as often happens, you found yourself tempted to dismiss their notions as primitive, irrational or bizarre, you should reflect that the fault may lie not in them but in you. The chances are that the problems that bothered them were nothing like the ones that strike you as obvious or inevitable, and that they were offering sensible answers to their own questions rather than foolish answers to yours."

Love this quote! It's a good way of studying history - to really get into the mind-set of those in the past. We forget that every moment in the past was the cutting-edge - perfection - and sometimes the past leaps out at us as genuinely a perfect moment.

I recall seeing an old photograph of a certain location in my New England hometown - taken sometime in the late 1800's. I knew the area photographed well - the old rambling Victorian houses neat up against the curbsides - a very nice section of town even in my day. But as I looked at the photograph I had a moment of epiphany as to what I was really seeing - no curbside as in my day, rather the slope and sweep of the lawns in front of the one house was higher and broader. The archway that covered the entrance was in actual use for horse drawn carriages to discharge ladies in sweeping dresses. The wrap around porch had small settings of comfortable cushioned chairs with small tables between for coffee or tea or the setting down of books. The houses were newly built perhaps. The trees were smaller but still grand and graceful - and the scene beyond of the roadway surprised me - so broad, clearly dirt, but level and graded and with a natural feel to it, very organic in the way it blended with the surroundings - unlike a cement road - or tarmac road that would take up more of the lawns, become curbed. There were street lamps at various intervals - clearly not electric but graceful in style. Then there was the little girl standing near the edge of the road looking at the camera - dressed in frilly white, with white pantaloons and a white ribbon in her curled hair. It all looked white because the photo was black-and-white. In an instant I saw - it was perfect - beautiful - a cutting edge. If one was to have asked them - they would not have seen themselves as backward or primitive at all - quite the reverse.

 

[Tyger]

I'm trying, really am, but you two are a riot:

Interminable insertions of quotes and links interspersed with your own bad writing, then this:

"Very Langan-ish"

Response: "Pantheism"

Speaks volumes, but not of what you think.

I almost imagine you are the sock puppet account of a poster we all know well on this thread. Your modus operandi is very similar to his: uncomfortable with any complex philosophical discussion, pretentious regarding having 'read all the authors' and knowing everything being discussed to a greater and deeper level than any other poster (never demonstrated, mind you - just asserted), plus a drive-by-posting habit intended to be provocative (always personal - 'bad writing' in this one case).

I would suggest that you wander over to your own thread and have fun talking to yourself over there if you are not willing to make coherent posts here and really do some intellectual heavy lifting, rather than make light-weight dismissive comments that any adolescent, or illiterate, intimidated by the adults talking, would make to try to camouflage their own ignorance.

 

[michaelangel1453]

Let me ask you three, especially the one of you who I believe has described himself as an esoteric occultist who through study and implementation of wisdom and techniques in texts and through perceived wisdom has attained/is attaining a greater consciousness and a greater awareness of reality...please stop me, really, but you get the drift.

Leave the links and quotes behind and very specifically in great detail tell me what an esoteric occultist studies and practices. Not meant to be inflammatory, genuinely curious.

I see this constant reference to monism as an excuse to portray yourselves as gods in the making, because of course humans have the capacity you fellows talk about possessing to some degree to emulate because, well, you're of divine substance too.

So, would the esoteric occultist get very, very (very!) specific about what he is and does as such a person.