Speculation About the Discovery of Ideal Forms

[Apanthropinist]

Apanthropinist, yes, many experience it as darkness or "Great Void", but it really does not mater.

No, my mother wasn't involved

[Soul_of_Shu]

No, my mother wasn't involved

Perhaps if her name was Maya?

[Apanthropinist]

No, my mother wasn't involved

Perhaps if her name was Maya?

Bloody hell Shu, how did you know??? Her surname was Naise by the way....

[Cleric]

Cleric, the "living presence of a person" is a meaning, a result of the work of out thinking and imagination. There are no "persons" other than the meanings of our thoughts. Remember I gave an analogy with the picture of Santa Claus? All these "persons" are Santa-Clauses, they are as real as out meanings (and the meanings are real, no question about that!), but there is no other reality to them that we can find otherwise.

The fact that we experiences the same "redness' when we reflect on the perceptual experience is a result of the work of our memory.

You can still interpret all of those in you way, and I understand what you are saying. This is the paradigm of the objective idea-based idealism, and there is nothing wrong with that. But that is only a particular interpretation of our conscious experience and only one variant of idealism among many others.

There are no "persons" other than the meanings of our thoughts. I understand that you want to clearly distinguish our thoughts and the meanings that they may unlawfully add (read - fantasize) to perceptions but I don't see how can you so lightly drop the reality of the fact that our thoughts confront something persistent within consciousness. I don't intend for a 'person-in-itself' (Platonic or otherwise) but it's more than clear that our perceptions and thoughts confront constraints beyond our immediate control in the face of the person. In certain sense there's something of a mystery within consciousness which we approach with our perceptions and thoughts and call it 'person'. Through our thinking we touch and feel the mystery of the person. Whether we look at photograph, in person, or in thought, we can clearly distinguish that we are addressing the same mystery that we call a person (and not just any person but a particular individual).

So I'm unclear what exactly you imply with but there is no other reality to them that we can find otherwise. Do you mean that our thoughts are all that exist about what we call reality (that is there's no depth in it). Or you mean that we can never know anything more about reality besides our thoughts about it?

[Eugene I]

There are no "persons" other than the meanings of our thoughts. I understand that you want to clearly distinguish our thoughts and the meanings that they may unlawfully add (read - fantasize) to perceptions but I don't see how can you so lightly drop the reality of the fact that our thoughts confront something persistent within consciousness. I don't intend for a 'person-in-itself' (Platonic or otherwise) but it's more than clear that our perceptions and thoughts confront constraints beyond our immediate control in the face of the person. In certain sense there's something of a mystery within consciousness which we approach with our perceptions and thoughts and call it 'person'. Through our thinking we touch and feel the mystery of the person. Whether we look at photograph, in person, or in thought, we can clearly distinguish that we are addressing the same mystery that we call a person (and not just any person but a particular individual).

So I'm unclear what exactly you imply with but there is no other reality to them that we can find otherwise. Do you mean that our thoughts are all that exist about what we call reality (that is there's no depth in it). Or you mean that we can never know anything more about reality besides our thoughts about it?

Yeah, we are going back to this whole discussion about what is "self" (which we did already a few times).

I call the "reality" this ever-present flow of alive and aware qualitative conscious experience here and now. I assume it is not limited to the experiences in my field of experience, but includes unknown number of the fields of experience of other beings (including divine ones) and some deeper layers of collective sub-conscious and super-conscious and more. But everywhere it is the same kind of the flow of conscious experience, a flow of all sorts of qualia, always united into the wholeness of the experience. All ideas and meanings, whether rational and expressed in words, or deep, subtle and intuitive, are also inseparable parts of this flow or qualitative conscious reality, and in that sense they are also real but are simply qualia of experience. All of it is still the flow of qualia all across and everywhere. Can you even imagine anything you could ever experience that would be experienced not as a quale? We think we experience "things" (whether material, or astral or spiritual, or "persons", "ideas", "selves" etc), but in fact all that we experience are qualia, but we simply ignore that obvious fact and make ourselves believe that we actually experience some "realities" other than the qualia.

Now, the only thing I can find or know in that flow about "persons" (the "selves" of other people and my own "person"/"self") is my ideas and meanings about them. I certainly have an idea of my "self", or an idea of a "person" on my relative's photo. These ideas are definitely real, and they are not simply rational, but sort of intuitive. It is not simply a "thought" about myself, it's a "sense" of self. But it doesn't really make much difference, it is still a meaning/idea, just with some "depth" to it. But I can not find any evidences that there is some other layer of reality to theses "selves" other than this idea/sense of self. We typically experience this sense of self very consistently so that we develop a belief that it represents some "real and permanent entity of self" behind this sense. But as a result of the Buddhist practice I was able to see that such "sense of self" is actually not permanent and can appear and disappear, so it is essentially just an idea and is really no different than any other qualitative phenomena of conscious experience with always-impermanent content. So, you said "reality of the fact that our thoughts confront something persistent within consciousness", but based on my experience it is not persistent at all, it is impermanent. Is there any other truly permanent and persistent "layer" to the reality of self or "Self" that I'm not aware of? Possibly, I can't prove that there is not, but I have no evidence of that whatsoever, just like I have no evidence of the existence of a flying spaghetti monster, even though I have no way to prove that it does not exist. But I just don't think this whole question about "self" is so relevant after all. I think the "self" is extremely overrated (exactly because we are so much concerned about our "self" and all that pertains to it). Once such neurotic concern is gone, this whole question about the reality of "self" becomes no so important. The flow of conscious experience (that we call "life") goes on with all its amazing experiences and discoveries without requiring any "self" that those experiences would pertain to.

The only persistent thing I found in my quest of spiritual science is the persistence of the existence and awareness/experiencing in this flow of qualia. It is always present/exists and is always experienced, as a whole, and each particular qualia has that aspect of presence and experiencing. The qualitative content of this flow always changes, including these senses of "self" and all ideas and perceptions, but the presence and awareness never change. Not that I ascribe any extraordinary significance to this fact. It's just a fact. But if we want to find anything persistent and permanent in the reality of the world we experience, then the only thing permanent and persistent that I found is this - presence and experiencing (existence-awareness). Amazingly many other people found that too, in the past and in the modern time, so I don't think I'm going insane.

Adyashanti - The Experience of No Self
Adyashanti - When Spirit Wakes Up

[Eugene I]

PS: So, I don't want to hurt you religious feelings guys, you can believe in whatever you want and practice whatever you want. But from my perspective it seems like you "idolize" the ideas, make them (in your minds) a sort of the "ontic base" of reality that everything else springs from, or perhaps seeing everything in the world as no other than ideas. This is some kind of idea-based version of idealism, which is fine. And ideas are definitely a significant and amazing part of reality and fun to explore. But I can't help feeling that you are sort of overdoing it and ascribing much more price tag to them that they are really worth.

I think there is a healthy balance between two extremes that we can see in some spiritual practices. One is to despise thinking and ideas and aim at some non-thinking states as a goal of spiritual development. We can see that in some Eastern practices, but it was criticized by most of the well-known Eastern masters as a mis-practice (including Buddha, Maharshi and many others). The other extreme is to reduce the whole reality to ideas and thinking only, be it ordinary thinking or any higher-order cognition. In reality cognition of any order is definitely an innate and essential part of reality of our conscious experience, and it can and should be used for our benefit, development and enjoyment. Yet the reality is not reduceable to cognition, ideas and thinking, and they should not be too much overrated.

[Cleric]

Yeah, we are going back to this whole discussion about what is "self" (which we did already a few times).

I call the "reality" this ever-present flow of alive and aware conscious experience here and now. I assume it is not limited to the experiences in my field of experience, but includes unknown number of the fields of experience of other beings (including divine ones) and some deeper layers of collective sub-conscious and super-conscious and more. But everywhere it is the same kind of the flow of conscious experience, a flow of all sorts of qualia, always united into the wholeness of the experience. All ideas and meanings, whether rational and expressed in words, or deep, subtle and intuitive, are also inseparable parts of this flow or qualitative conscious reality, and in that sense they are also real but are simply qualia of experience. All of it is still the flow of qualia all across and everywhere.

Now, the only thing I can find or know in that flow about "persons" (the "selves" of other people and my own "person"/"self") is my ideas and meanings about them. I certainly have an idea of my "self", or an idea of a "person" on my relative's photo. These ideas are definitely real, and they are not simply rational, but sort of intuitive. It is not simply a "thought" about myself, it's a "sense" of self. But it doesn't really make much difference, it is still a meaning/idea, just with some "depth" to it. But I can not find any evidences that there is some other layer of reality to theses "selves" other than this idea/sense of self. We typically experience this sense of self very consistently so that we develop a belief that it represents some "real and permanent entity of self" behind this sense. But as a result of the Buddhist practice I was able to see that such "sense of self" is actually not permanent and can appear and disappear, so it is essentially just an idea and is really no different then any other qualitative phenomena of conscious experience with always-impermanent content. Is there any other "layer" to the reality of self or "Self" that I'm not aware of? Possibly, I can't prove that there is not, but I have no evidence of that whatsoever, just like I have no evidence of the existence of a flying spaghetti monster, even though I have no way to prove that it does not exist. But I just don't think this whole question about "self" is so relevant after all. I think the "self" is extremely overrated (exactly because we are so much concerned about our "self" and all that pertains to it). Once such neurotic concern is gone, this whole question about the reality of "self" becomes no so important. The flow of conscious experience (that we call "life") goes on with all its amazing experiences and discoveries without requiring any "self" that those experiences would pertain to.

I didn't even think about the question of selves when I was writing. I simply gave the example with a person because it's something complex with body, soul and spirit that imprints into our perspective in the most manifold ways (in contrast to a simple quality of red).

Other than that - yes, we agreed previously that no one is insisting on some self-entity. All we have is the individual perspective going through eternal metamorphosis. We can speak of self in as much as we recognize the chain of biographies, most importantly our current, which has various relations and responsibilities. So that's clear. But as you say - these biographies are real. They are what imprint into our perspective and ours in everyone's else's. It is here that things become twisted because the non-identification with the biography is used as excuse that there's no need to pursue any depth, since everything is just meanings in thoughts. But when you say this it sounds that these thoughts are of no significance, as if they only weigh us down. But is it so? Imagine that you are trekking in a foreign country and a native speaks to you in unknown language and makes signs. You smile and continue. You reach a bridge that collapses as soon as you step on it. The native wanted to warn you about the bridge. So in our case we had only a very superficial experience of the man - someone waving hands and speaking indistinguishably. Yet if we knew his language we would experience something of his soul life - his knowledge about the bridge and maybe other interesting things. In other words we come in touch with a whole new world of ideas that become the experience of our thinking and have significant consequences for our biography - as significant as life and death. They are not only some random meanings, they are revealed through our interaction with reality.

So we see that it is one thing to go with the flow but there's great difference in what way we conduct our spiritual activity along this flow. Because the flow doesn't at all present its fullest reality to us. It is entirely up to us to investigate the relations of the elements of the flow - not only the sensory but also those of ideas, thoughts, feelings, those of us and others. Otherwise we don't know if the whole flow is not warning us that we're walking towards a bridge that is about to collapse and we're just smiling and nodding along the way. We should really be weary of any philosophy which says "This is how much of the flow you need to comprehend. More than that is none of your or anyone else's business."

I already know your opinion on this, so I think we can't go anywhere further from this. My goal was simply to show that through our spiritual activity we can reveal the depth of the flow - including the flow that shapes our own temperament, character, Karma, inclinations, etc. - and this knowledge is not only some vain curiosity but can contain the keys for our spiritual survival. I also tried to show that none of this requires any Platonism - it only requires that we unveil what exists, irrelevant of what we think it's philosophical nature is.
You made it clear that you see such adventures as unnecessary and not intended by the soul and I don't have anything more to say against this. These are things that belong to deepest freedom of every individual.

PS: It's not about reducing reality to anything but unveiling the invisible part of the flow. Spiritual activity of beings - human or otherwise - is what shapes the flow, so we're not reducing it but we're elucidating the real forces behind the flow. If these forces result from ideation of beings, so be it.

[Eugene I]

I already know your opinion on this, so I think we can't go anywhere further from this. My goal was simply to show that through our spiritual activity we can reveal the depth of the flow - including the flow that shapes our own temperament, character, Karma, inclinations, etc. - and this knowledge is not only some vain curiosity but can contain the keys for our spiritual survival. I also tried to show that none of this requires any Platonism - it only requires that we unveil what exists, irrelevant of what we think it's philosophical nature is.
You made it clear that you see such adventures as unnecessary and not intended by the soul and I don't have anything more to say against this. These are things that belong to deepest freedom of every individual.

PS: It's not about reducing reality to anything but unveiling the invisible part of the flow. Spiritual activity of beings - human or otherwise - is what shapes the flow, so we're not reducing it but we're elucidating the real forces behind the flow. If these forces result from ideation of beings, so be it.

Well, that's great, thank you, there is definitely a value and much to learn in exploring the depths of both our own psyche and the structures in the collective psyche, I'm not denying that at all. But I still think there are limits to this exploration in our current incarnate state, and there are reasons these limits exists (and I have a reason to believe that we agreed to these limits). So, we can and should definitely go deeper, but at some point when we try to stretch too far, we either hit a wall of those limits (and there is no reason to keep banging our head against it), or start fooling ourselves by taking our imaginations and fleeting spiritual experiences for reality of what is really behind that wall.

[Apanthropinist]

How can the One mind fail to encompass all possible forms?

Because, as I said, the set of all possible forms is an uncountable infinity, it is impossible to encompass all of them. It is the same as to have all ideas about every single point on the line. It is impossible, the amount of points on a line is an uncountable infinity.

Or, can One mind encompass all possible pieces of music, including all possible ways of performing each of these piece of music. As a hobbyist musician, I can tell that one rendition of the same piece of music can be quite different from another rendition of the same piece, and each rendition is actually a very different piece of music. so there is uncountable infinity of all possible renditions of even one piece of music and it is impossible to imagine them all.

Going back to the beginning....this line of reasoning appears flawed to me.

This appears to me as what I believe is known as a category mistake in philosophy. Where a property (counting/number/quantity) is ascribed to a concept (infinity) that could not possibly have that property. Surely infinity has no spatial or temporal or numerical dimensions? So the concept of infinity could not possibly have those properties ascribed to it and reveals a flaw in logical construction.

The idea of counting the points on a line is a version of Nagasena's Chariot and is a reductio ad absurdum argument isn't it? But it still requires a line, a finite measurement, and then tries to divide it infinitely. It might reveal more to turn that around and suggest trying to create an infinite line. Where would you start? It makes no sense. You could start a line and keep going eternally but that is not related to infinity. Eternal is a concept related to time, not infinity. Like Plato once said "Time is the moving image of eternity." Not infinity, as infinity has no, and cannot have, temporal or spatial dimension. But theoretically, and logically, you could start a line (which would have finite quantities, height, width, a starting point etc) and keep going eternally or indefinitely, ever increasing. Rather than an infinite number, which is contradictory in terms and cannot have that property, encompassed 'at once'. An 'uncountable infinity' is a pleonasm, the word 'uncountable is entirely redundant, and misleading, as it is an explicit part of the definition of infinity. It's either uncountable or infinite, not both.

In which case you cannot have 'the set of all possible forms' because it implies a quanta of distinct elements and no quanta can be assigned to 'all possible forms' (infinite). The moment you introduce a calculation or any number, you move from the infinite to the finite.

So it is a case of mixing finite concepts like 'set' and 'single point' and 'line', which are measurements/quantities and reductive, then conflating them with the irreducible (infinite) which has no property of measurement/quantity/dimension.

It is not a valid premise to suggest that the 'set' (a quanta of distinct elements) can be 'all possible forms' (infinite), it is a category mistake.

Help me out here as I am simply a layman with an interest in philosophy.

[AshvinP]

I already know your opinion on this, so I think we can't go anywhere further from this. My goal was simply to show that through our spiritual activity we can reveal the depth of the flow - including the flow that shapes our own temperament, character, Karma, inclinations, etc. - and this knowledge is not only some vain curiosity but can contain the keys for our spiritual survival. I also tried to show that none of this requires any Platonism - it only requires that we unveil what exists, irrelevant of what we think it's philosophical nature is.
You made it clear that you see such adventures as unnecessary and not intended by the soul and I don't have anything more to say against this. These are things that belong to deepest freedom of every individual.

PS: It's not about reducing reality to anything but unveiling the invisible part of the flow. Spiritual activity of beings - human or otherwise - is what shapes the flow, so we're not reducing it but we're elucidating the real forces behind the flow. If these forces result from ideation of beings, so be it.

Well, that's great, thank you, there is definitely a value and much to learn in exploring the depths of both our own psyche and the structures in the collective psyche, I'm not denying that at all. But I still think there are limits to this exploration in our current incarnate state, and there are reasons these limits exists (and I have a reason to believe that we agreed to these limits). So, we can and should definitely go deeper, but at some point when we try to stretch too far, we either hit a wall of those limits (and there is no reason to keep banging our head against it), or start fooling ourselves by taking our imaginations and fleeting spiritual experiences for reality of what is really behind that wall.

What are the reasons these limits exist? Are they due to anything empirically verified or only abstract philosophical doctrines, or something else?