Philosophical Speculations

Jim Cross wrote: ↑Thu Nov 11, 2021 2:51 pm ic,

When we actually look at the results of Christianity, the entire story of Christ must be completely false. Christ must be actually the son of Satan and realized this when he succumbed to temptation during the forty days in the desert. The story as told has been part of an elaborate ruse to trick people into worshipping of Satan. The result has been as would be expected: Western civilization and its most Christian nations has subjugated the world, wiping out other peoples and religions, and has destroyed the environment.

This was great humour and did make me laugh out loud, thanks for that.

idlecuriosity wrote: ↑Thu Nov 11, 2021 11:54 am

AshvinP wrote: ↑Wed Nov 10, 2021 1:27 pm

idlecuriosity wrote: ↑Wed Nov 10, 2021 11:40 am

What purpose does Christianity serve for phenomenological and spiritual idealism? It's a popular religion to be sure but I don't think there's a huge reason to believe any of the things it described actually happened, although it may be instrumental in elucidating us as to what higher consciousness or higher entities would look like if there's a parallel between what we gravitate to religiously and what 'is.' You mentioned Christ rising again in another thread, but if we're to assume cause and effect are still cognizant actors in M@L and perhaps, too, in working out how the light beyond the cave operates then how can we assume for sure biblical values weren't fabricated to manage large groups of people by serving as bulwarks between our lesser nature and visiting a pox on society?

A greater god may exist but may not take on all of the mythological presuppositions of the ancient hebrew mythology itself. It may have even been a misinterpreted visitation from such a higher entity, which could also explain why so many people gravitate to the 'idea' of God while sometimes (as decent people) shirking a lot of the minutiae from the behavioural code and conduct. 'Knowing God,' some call it. But would that be the Christian god?

Those are great questions to contemplate. They deserve a deeper treatment than I can give now, but I will make a few points and return to them later.

1 - From a phenomenological standpoint, Barfield has shown how the evolution of language ("fossils of consciousness") necessitates the Christ events, which is summed up in his essay, Philology and the Incarnation (conclusion pasted below, arguments at link).

Barfield wrote:Well, as I say, the supposition is an impossible one, but it is possible — I know because it happened in my own case — for a man to have been brought up in the belief, and to have taken it for granted, that the account given in the gospels of the birth and the resurrection of Christ is a noble fairy story with no more claim to historical accuracy than any other myth; and it is possible for such a man, after studying in depth the history of the growth of language, to look again at the New Testament and the literature and tradition that has grown up around it, and to accept [if you like, to be obliged to accept] the record as an historical fact, not because of the authority of the Church nor by any process of ratiocination such as C. S. Lewis has recorded in his own case, but rather because it fitted so inevitably with the other facts as he had already found them. Rather because he felt, in the utmost humility, that if he had never heard of it through the Scriptures, he would have been obliged to try his best to invent something like it as an hypothesis to save the appearances.

2 - What is concluded from studying the evolution of language can also be concluded from studying the evolution of mythology, philosophy, art, and religion. Moreover, it can be concluded from studying how perception-cognition evolves in our own lifetimes and immanent experience.

3 - What has been considered "ideal" (i.e. idealism) prior to the modern age has been practically synonymous with "spirit". It is the the invisible reality that is opposite pole to sense-perceptible reality. These poles can be distinguished but not divided from each other. So to say that physical images around us (or relayed in ancient mythology) point to "ideal" or "mental" realities is no different from saying they point to a spiritual reality.

3 - The entire thrust of imagistically represented evolution found within ancient mythology of all cultures in all epochs is that of the Spirit descending (kenosis), incarnating into the sense-world, and evolving back to the spiritual realms (theosis). It is true we need to be careful of anthropormorphizing the spiritual concepts found in scripture, or assuming everything described took place in the visible physical realms rather than the invisible spiritual (ideal) realms. But avoiding this common idolatry has no logical connection to denying the reality of the spiritual events described.

4 - The "laws of nature" are not static and uniform. The evolve along with perception-cognition, because they are reflecting that evolutionary process.

5 - We experience death and resurrection at a microcosmic level every day. Again, if we take the ideal reality and its logical implications seriously, for our thoughts and ego to die and be reborn through the forces of the invisible reality cannot be meaningfully distanced from what we call "physical" death and resurrection in qualitative essence, only in degree.

I'll sound spicy momentarily, I'm a bit of a joker so just take it with a pinch of salt:

...

It would be really interesting if the biggest group of people religiously back then were complicit in retrofitting reality through the sheer adulation of their faith, though. This reminds me of a known author of questionable prose and thematic versatility that I'd do myself a disservice to even bring up by name here but his universe was interesting, it centers around the idea that humans used to have more sway over reality because we hadn't yet discovered all of the 'unseen things,' so occultists would find ways to scientific reenact the unknown for the purposes of weaponry or healing. It used to be a lot stronger because we hadn't yet scientifically dissected and exposed a whole lot of reality. Most religious figures existed then. Ignoring that: I always thought about our legends at face value anyway, it's a leap but I'm not entirely discrediting your ideas to myself and I think it'd be fantastically interesting if God really did exist in the form posited by religion.

I have no problem with anyone who offers informed criticism of any of my views. My spiritual outlook encourages and welcomes that. Actually, I have found people get offended when I respond to their original criticisms with logical arguments, so I hope that doesn't happen here.

First, we should see how often we are burning down our own strawmen in these discussions. The materialist or mystical nondualist does this all the time - they hold their own experience of "ideas" as tiny mineralized abstractions existing within their own skull, and say this "idea" cannot bear the weight of the Cosmos, so idealism must be false. The Christian fundamentalist, who is a metaphysical dualist, also does this. So all these views are two sides of the same coin (over-materialized or over-spiritualized) but they never realize it. Is it a coincidence that your critiques above are the exact sort a materialist would make? Not in my opinion. They are the same critiques because they are projecting the same abstract perspective of reality onto the concrete Christian spiritual tradition. So the God who exists in "the form posited by religion" is actually the form posited by you, not by anything contained within the scripture. A common response here is, "but so many other people say Christianity thinks of God in this remote abstract way too", but my response to that is the same as before... all of these people are prejudiced by the same assumptions of the modern age.

IC wrote:

Ashvin wrote: 5 - We experience death and resurrection at a microcosmic level every day. Again, if we take the ideal reality and its logical implications seriously, for our thoughts and ego to die and be reborn through the forces of the invisible reality cannot be meaningfully distanced from what we call "physical" death and resurrection in qualitative essence, only in degree.

Kastrup proposes we have phenomenological consciousness when we sleep and experience a smorgasbord of phenomena that our memory centers just don't or can't ascribe data to. Given the apparent need for an observer for us to maintain a process, it would be a rational reason for us being the same person. I don't think we experience death and resurrection, there's an analogue to it but we are entirely contiguous with our previous 'selves', not only in form but continuity too

I think and make elaborate plans concerning fictitious writings I have while I'm out cold, I have a sort of pseudo self awareness in what appear to be worlds with a very tenuous physicality that wouldn't really map well onto photos, in the way you might describe a person without an imagination in color picturing things. Somehow I have a sense of vague lucidity as a trade off for having sleep journeys sans imagery, although I wouldn't say it's elaborate enough it beggars belief

Also, this is important:

"invent something like it"

How like it? Just physical events that would fill in the gaps? The actual occurrences of the miracles or natural disasters befalling the earth in a way that wouldn't make sense without miracles? If you disregard the above as being unsubstantive musings the real meat of my inquiry is here; what exactly does the 'negative space' left behind by his rationale - when you don't include religion - *look like?* Are we sure that rationale, sans the parts left broadly unexplained without Christ, are infallible enough to predicate such a leap of faith on? You seem to think so and I am not doubting, but I am asking.

Put up to it, what that man meant there by 'like it' is important and I wonder what you think of this.

In addendum, thanks for the food for thought. You have at least in some way reinvigorated an aspirant aghast or even childlike wonder in me and my inner adventurer, I've always had a dream of being in a storybook like the tales I've read and the idea we might exist in a reality that channels a distinct sense of wonder that could stand proudly on a bookshelf besides some of our historical literary landmarks (be they within something as childishly fun as manga or historically exalting as Zarathustra) does knock the ground beneath some of my quips earlier, given that I probably couldn't be more happier than I'd be knowing our universe *may well be* playing host to that kind of sublimity.

Yes and what you say above points to the fact that we are continuous-contiguous with our-Self across the threshold of physical death too. Again, it is only the materialist and mystical nondualist who deny this fact by adding on their own unwarranted assumptions rather than sticking with the givens of our immanent experience. BK is right about deep sleep (based on what you say above) but refuses to extend that same logic to the threshold of physical death. What Barfield is referring to is this same sort of phenomenology - based on nothing but our immanent experience and representations of the world through language and images (mythology), we can conclude that certain patterns of cognitive development are necessary at the individual and collective level to explain that experience. That extends not only to "psychology" (psyche is another word for soul-spirit) but to matters of history and cultural development as well. The mythic progression, which reflects this evolution of perception-cognition, from ancient India to the present day is clear and, if one did not have any historical accounts of Christ smack in the Center of that progression, one would need to invent some individual personality who incarnated the infinite spiritual within the finite material at that time and thereby provided an impulse towards the material world being reunited with the spiritual through our own individual cognitive activity.

Ben Iscatus wrote: ↑Thu Nov 11, 2021 3:12 pm

Western civilization and its most Christian nations has subjugated the world, wiping out other peoples and religions, and has destroyed the environment.

Don't limit yourself to bigging up the West, Jim. What about the Soviet Union (as was) and now the Chinese? Credit where it's due!

Western civilization was doing it for more than a thousand years before they came along. And the Soviet Union and modern Chinese have bought into the materialistic society that arose exactly in those most Christian of nations. The irony is that the science and materialism that dominates the modern worldview arose from the Western and the Christian world., They weren't borrowed from the indigenous or the Chinese.

Western civilization was doing it for more than a thousand years before they came along. And the Soviet Union and modern Chinese have bought into the materialistic society that arose exactly in those most Christian of nations. The irony is that the science and materialism that dominates the modern worldview arose from the Western and the Christian world., They weren't borrowed from the indigenous or the Chinese.

It's said the Chinese poured more cement in 2 years than the yanks did in the 20th century. Some good catching up there.

Jim Cross wrote: ↑Thu Nov 11, 2021 2:51 pm
lou,

Got the G&W book and started on it. Still too early to say much but not seeing a lot to change my opinion.

BTW, did you see this?

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 121622.htm

differences in the amount of meat in diets can explain why some societies were less densely populated than others. In regions with harsh winters or large dry seasons, the available edible vegetation was greatly reduced during a large segment of the year, leaving the hunter-gatherers highly dependent on meat consumption. Because animals tend to be less abundant than edible plants, they can only provide enough food for a small human population. In contrast, the populations settled in places where climate favoured the abundance of plant foods throughout the year were able to take fuller advantage of the overall production in the environment to grow more numerous.

This seasonality in availability of food resources accounts on assembling of large groups in times of abundance and then later the dispersal into smaller groups. It also explains the preference of people for areas with year round abundance of plants and the entire rationale for agriculture which creates an artificial year round abundance.

You may be constructing a strawman argument Jim. I have NO quarrel with the notion that food abundance draws larger populations and variable food scarcity forces other adaptations. The scarcities are not only caused by seasonal change. They may be because population increased beyond the capacity supported by natural abundance; it may be because deforestation disrupted the seasonal rains; it may be because of distant global events producing climate change; it may be due to catastrophic punctuations, desertification, volcanoes, rising seas, etc. There are several possible adaptive strategies when scarcity appears: leave the biome in search of a better place to hunt and gather; develop a city state with hierarchical autocratic forms, agriculture and granaries needing military defense; become barbarians with armies to attack and pillage the resources of the cities; where possible, shift forms back and forth based on the seasons. The point of G&W is that there are a range of options fitting the ecologies of different biomes and they challenge the notion of a single inexorable developmental global march toward hierarchy, autocracy, inequality like our present dominant civilizations. There are diverse possible adaptations rather than single way global hegemony. I've just started reading the book. I don't know their explanation for how things got stuck. My speculation is naively obvious: the forms best suited for militarization and conquest dominated. The rest is HIStory.

Lou Gold wrote: ↑Fri Nov 12, 2021 12:30 am

Jim Cross wrote: ↑Thu Nov 11, 2021 2:51 pm
lou,

Got the G&W book and started on it. Still too early to say much but not seeing a lot to change my opinion.

BTW, did you see this?

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 121622.htm

differences in the amount of meat in diets can explain why some societies were less densely populated than others. In regions with harsh winters or large dry seasons, the available edible vegetation was greatly reduced during a large segment of the year, leaving the hunter-gatherers highly dependent on meat consumption. Because animals tend to be less abundant than edible plants, they can only provide enough food for a small human population. In contrast, the populations settled in places where climate favoured the abundance of plant foods throughout the year were able to take fuller advantage of the overall production in the environment to grow more numerous.

This seasonality in availability of food resources accounts on assembling of large groups in times of abundance and then later the dispersal into smaller groups. It also explains the preference of people for areas with year round abundance of plants and the entire rationale for agriculture which creates an artificial year round abundance.

You may be constructing a strawman argument Jim. I have NO quarrel with the notion that food abundance draws larger populations and variable food scarcity forces other adaptations. The scarcities are not only caused by seasonal change. They may be because population increased beyond the capacity supported by natural abundance; it may be because deforestation disrupted the seasonal rains; it may be because of distant global events producing climate change; it may be due to catastrophic punctuations, desertification, volcanoes, rising seas, etc. There are several possible adaptive strategies when scarcity appears: leave the biome in search of a better place to hunt and gather; develop a city state with hierarchical autocratic forms, agriculture and granaries needing military defense; become barbarians with armies to attack and pillage the resources of the cities; where possible, shift forms back and forth based on the seasons. The point of G&W is that there are a range of options fitting the ecologies of different biomes and they challenge the notion of a single inexorable developmental global march toward hierarchy, autocracy, inequality like our present dominant civilizations. There are diverse possible adaptations rather than single way global hegemony. I've just started reading the book. I don't know their explanation for how things got stuck. My speculation is naively obvious: the forms best suited for militarization and conquest dominated. The rest is HIStory.

Jim,

Maybe this is how things got stuck.. Check out the Dutch East India Company and the nutmeg trade back in the year 1621.

Lou Gold wrote: ↑Fri Nov 12, 2021 1:50 am

Lou Gold wrote: ↑Fri Nov 12, 2021 12:30 am

Jim Cross wrote: ↑Thu Nov 11, 2021 2:51 pm
lou,

Got the G&W book and started on it. Still too early to say much but not seeing a lot to change my opinion.

BTW, did you see this?

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 121622.htm



This seasonality in availability of food resources accounts on assembling of large groups in times of abundance and then later the dispersal into smaller groups. It also explains the preference of people for areas with year round abundance of plants and the entire rationale for agriculture which creates an artificial year round abundance.

You may be constructing a strawman argument Jim. I have NO quarrel with the notion that food abundance draws larger populations and variable food scarcity forces other adaptations. The scarcities are not only caused by seasonal change. They may be because population increased beyond the capacity supported by natural abundance; it may be because deforestation disrupted the seasonal rains; it may be because of distant global events producing climate change; it may be due to catastrophic punctuations, desertification, volcanoes, rising seas, etc. There are several possible adaptive strategies when scarcity appears: leave the biome in search of a better place to hunt and gather; develop a city state with hierarchical autocratic forms, agriculture and granaries needing military defense; become barbarians with armies to attack and pillage the resources of the cities; where possible, shift forms back and forth based on the seasons. The point of G&W is that there are a range of options fitting the ecologies of different biomes and they challenge the notion of a single inexorable developmental global march toward hierarchy, autocracy, inequality like our present dominant civilizations. There are diverse possible adaptations rather than single way global hegemony. I've just started reading the book. I don't know their explanation for how things got stuck. My speculation is naively obvious: the forms best suited for militarization and conquest dominated. The rest is HIStory.

Jim,

Maybe this is how things got stuck.. Check out the Dutch East India Company and the nutmeg trade back in the year 1621.

It seems to me that G&W's examples of people assembling in large groups then dispersing again is critical to their argument. They argue this is some sort of self-conscious choice to come together then go their separate ways. But, if this is all driven by resources, it isn't actually a choice. Or rather, it might be a choice to come together but not to disperse again. In any case, it shows that people assembled when resources permitted which is the same as what they did when agriculture became possible. The details of how people assembled might vary but the facts of their assembling and disassembling would be driven by technology and resources. It wouldn't be a sort of self-conscious experimentation.

Your speculation about militarization and conquest might be correct. Once you have more than one cultural group competing for the same resources - either natural bounty or agricultural land - drivers for militarization come into play.

Jim Cross wrote: ↑Fri Nov 12, 2021 2:15 pm

Lou Gold wrote: ↑Fri Nov 12, 2021 1:50 am

Lou Gold wrote: ↑Fri Nov 12, 2021 12:30 am

You may be constructing a strawman argument Jim. I have NO quarrel with the notion that food abundance draws larger populations and variable food scarcity forces other adaptations. The scarcities are not only caused by seasonal change. They may be because population increased beyond the capacity supported by natural abundance; it may be because deforestation disrupted the seasonal rains; it may be because of distant global events producing climate change; it may be due to catastrophic punctuations, desertification, volcanoes, rising seas, etc. There are several possible adaptive strategies when scarcity appears: leave the biome in search of a better place to hunt and gather; develop a city state with hierarchical autocratic forms, agriculture and granaries needing military defense; become barbarians with armies to attack and pillage the resources of the cities; where possible, shift forms back and forth based on the seasons. The point of G&W is that there are a range of options fitting the ecologies of different biomes and they challenge the notion of a single inexorable developmental global march toward hierarchy, autocracy, inequality like our present dominant civilizations. There are diverse possible adaptations rather than single way global hegemony. I've just started reading the book. I don't know their explanation for how things got stuck. My speculation is naively obvious: the forms best suited for militarization and conquest dominated. The rest is HIStory.

Jim,

Maybe this is how things got stuck.. Check out the Dutch East India Company and the nutmeg trade back in the year 1621.

It seems to me that G&W's examples of people assembling in large groups then dispersing again is critical to their argument. They argue this is some sort of self-conscious choice to come together then go their separate ways. But, if this is all driven by resources, it isn't actually a choice. Or rather, it might be a choice to come together but not to disperse again. In any case, it shows that people assembled when resources permitted which is the same as what they did when agriculture became possible. The details of how people assembled might vary but the facts of their assembling and disassembling would be driven by technology and resources. It wouldn't be a sort of self-conscious experimentation.

Your speculation about militarization and conquest might be correct. Once you have more than one cultural group competing for the same resources - either natural bounty or agricultural land - drivers for militarization come into play.

Jim,

What I'm resisting and I suspect G&W are challenging is a reductionist single factor explanation such as "it's all resource driven" or "it's all about population." Human adaptability can be an experimental mix of individual choices and allowable conditions, a "co-arising" that may be temporary, long-term or seasonally variable. I understand their mission as a defense of diversity and elevation of possibility against a storyline of inevitable hegemony.

What I'm resisting and I suspect G&W are challenging is a reductionist single factor explanation such as "it's all resource driven" or "it's all about population." Human adaptability can be an experimental mix of individual choices and allowable conditions, a "co-arising" that may be temporary, long-term or seasonally variable. I understand their mission as a defense of diversity and elevation of possibility against a storyline of inevitable hegemony.

I'm not sure anybody is arguing for a single factor and, of course, the details are quite different from one culture to another. The issue boils down to how much is determined by ecology, technology, and the human-natural world interaction.

Lou,

One thing that does occur to me that actually may be similar to what you are suggesting.

Perhaps all sorts of societies are possible even with large groups of people and agriculture. In other words, all kinds of possibilities are actually open to us as humans even now.

So why are there hierarchies, disparities in power and wealth, nation states everywhere we look in the modern world?

It could be a simple Darwinian explanation. Organizations of people with hierarchies and power disparities assimilate organizations of people organized in a different way, probably because they are better able to concentrate and mobilize more resources with more unified a purpose.