Saving the materialists

[Federica]

I'm not under the impression that ML is attracted by fragmentation and randomness. As a matter of fact, in his late interviews he regularly speaks about how we should get comfortable with the idea that we could be parts of greater wholes. As we have spoken before, I think that in his case he simply is not willing to question the methods of science. Although he speaks of 'cognition all the way' he seems to believe that our human cognition is largely biologically conditioned and as such we have no choice but to use the intellectual tools (as bestowed by the conditioned framework) and model the other eventual modes of being. Thus one goes on by making intellectual theories and putting them against experiments.

Given that his life revolves around this, it is understandable that he's not eager to explore ideas that may render his approach obsolete. It is possible that in his private explorations he considers the deeper spiritual implications of his ideas. I don't know. As we have spoken, the most worrisome seems to be his 'freedom-from-embodiment' ideal, where human beings become so technologically advanced that they can shape their biological bubble (and thus the cognitive constraints that come with it) in any way they desire. It would be interesting to hear how he harmonizes this with his own idea that we may be integrated into greater unities. I'm not sure what role he sees these greater wholes could be playing (for example, whether they could be directing evolution and we should in fact comprehend and harmonize with their intents).

Ok, yes, I have seen now, in the video Ashvin has posted, how he speaks of “platonic space”, a space of ideas which is ordered and not random. In another recent video I heard him say that future man will look back and pity us for being forced to keep the random body we find ourselves with, unble as we are to rewire it.

But in any case, I’ve listened to all he says in the video here. He says: if we can't do interventional experiments (which in general we can’t in the cosmos) nothing can be concluded. However, there is so much more to experiment with in cells, algorithms, and other earthy systems, that this doesn’t seem to disturb him at all (his goals span on Earth). The platonic space is for him a working hypothesis to spark intentional experimental directions that can give way to new functionalities in the future, that's all. It’s not about human knowledge. There is no platonic aspiration there, he’s very clear. If it doesn't lead to experiments, he’s not interested. By the way, to him “human” means very little in the grand scheme of things (as he sees it). It’s a random kind of agency within a continuum of cognitive light cones. And from the flipped perspective of the data or patterns, it’s not even sure it means anything at all. In this sense I mean his vision is highly fragmented and random.

If it’s not possible to make "interventional experiments", not just observations, then nothing at all can be said. The cosmos could be cognitive or not, no idea, and he will continue to have no idea until he can test it. In this sense its worldview seems random and extremely fragmented to me, and based on this video I believe he shouldn’t have any interest in, and no view on how we might harmonize with collectives in which we may be nested, surely if these lie outside the perimeter of experimentable reality.

Speaking of Levin, this interview with him and MS is interesting. Clearly he is attracted to the Platonic morphospace of ideal forms with some kind of cognitive agency which plays a role in evolution. For him, the evolutionary process is highly patterned and can never be found contained in physical-sensory content.

Ashvin it seems to me you are giving him a lot of benefit of the doubt. He's 100% in the Newtonian mindset Cleric has described above. And with confused ideas on ethics...

[Cleric]

The platonic space is for him a working hypothesis to spark intentional experimental directions that can give way to new functionalities in the future, that's all. It’s not about human knowledge. There is no platonic aspiration there, he’s very clear. If it doesn't lead to experiments, he’s not interested. By the way, to him “human” means very little in the grand scheme of things (as he sees it). It’s a random kind of agency within a continuum of cognitive light cones. And from the flipped perspective of the data or patterns, it’s not even sure it means anything at all. In this sense I mean his vision is highly fragmented and random.

If it’s not possible to make "interventional experiments", not just observations, then nothing at all can be said. The cosmos could be cognitive or not, no idea, and he will continue to have no idea until he can test it. In this sense its worldview seems random and extremely fragmented to me, and based on this video I believe he shouldn’t have any interest in, and no view on how we might harmonize with collectives in which we may be nested, surely if these lie outside the perimeter of experimentable reality.

Yes, in this sense it is fragmentary. As a matter of fact, this can go into even more contradictory degrees. Even here on our forum we have heard "Oneness, oneness, oneness" while at the same time at the foundation are conceived fundamentally distinct soul interest groups, with no point of overlap (there's no center to existence). In that sense, it is easy to see how one can be talking about greater wholeness, while at the same time maintaining fundamental separateness within themselves.

If we try to see things more broadly, it can be said that ML's approach is in a certain sense regressive, in the sense that it leads humanity back into divination. Instead of throwing beans and interpreting the will of the gods, highly technological experiments are devised where biological cells play the role of the beans. One tries to indirectly interpret (or in the beginning at least prove the existence of) other orders of mind. Of course, today instead of conforming to the will of the gods, one would much rather capture it for their own purposes, in the way we capture solar or wind energy, or the sought-after free energy. And this happens in an age where it is of vital importance that humanity finds its concentric existence embedded within these other orders of being.

On the other hand, we can't be exceedingly critical of ML. It's simply that his whole professional life is enmeshed in this technological approach. We should try to feel how it's not easy to turn all this around. We can be more critical of BK because, at least it seems to me, he's in a much more relaxed position to pursue the path further. Yes, he has cemented many things in the books he has written and the interviews given, but they are more or less open-ended and it could be possible to continue going further without fundamentally contradicting previous ideas. Especially with EF, one would imagine that he even has the platform to do so.

[AshvinP]

I'm not under the impression that ML is attracted by fragmentation and randomness. As a matter of fact, in his late interviews he regularly speaks about how we should get comfortable with the idea that we could be parts of greater wholes. As we have spoken before, I think that in his case he simply is not willing to question the methods of science. Although he speaks of 'cognition all the way' he seems to believe that our human cognition is largely biologically conditioned and as such we have no choice but to use the intellectual tools (as bestowed by the conditioned framework) and model the other eventual modes of being. Thus one goes on by making intellectual theories and putting them against experiments.

Given that his life revolves around this, it is understandable that he's not eager to explore ideas that may render his approach obsolete. It is possible that in his private explorations he considers the deeper spiritual implications of his ideas. I don't know. As we have spoken, the most worrisome seems to be his 'freedom-from-embodiment' ideal, where human beings become so technologically advanced that they can shape their biological bubble (and thus the cognitive constraints that come with it) in any way they desire. It would be interesting to hear how he harmonizes this with his own idea that we may be integrated into greater unities. I'm not sure what role he sees these greater wholes could be playing (for example, whether they could be directing evolution and we should in fact comprehend and harmonize with their intents).

Ok, yes, I have seen now, in the video Ashvin has posted, how he speaks of “platonic space”, a space of ideas which is ordered and not random. In another recent video I heard him say that future man will look back and pity us for being forced to keep the random body we find ourselves with, unble as we are to rewire it.

But in any case, I’ve listened to all he says in the video here. He says: if we can't do interventional experiments (which in general we can’t in the cosmos) nothing can be concluded. However, there is so much more to experiment with in cells, algorithms, and other earthy systems, that this doesn’t seem to disturb him at all (his goals span on Earth). The platonic space is for him a working hypothesis to spark intentional experimental directions that can give way to new functionalities in the future, that's all. It’s not about human knowledge. There is no platonic aspiration there, he’s very clear. If it doesn't lead to experiments, he’s not interested. By the way, to him “human” means very little in the grand scheme of things (as he sees it). It’s a random kind of agency within a continuum of cognitive light cones. And from the flipped perspective of the data or patterns, it’s not even sure it means anything at all. In this sense I mean his vision is highly fragmented and random.

If it’s not possible to make "interventional experiments", not just observations, then nothing at all can be said. The cosmos could be cognitive or not, no idea, and he will continue to have no idea until he can test it. In this sense its worldview seems random and extremely fragmented to me, and based on this video I believe he shouldn’t have any interest in, and no view on how we might harmonize with collectives in which we may be nested, surely if these lie outside the perimeter of experimentable reality.

Speaking of Levin, this interview with him and MS is interesting. Clearly he is attracted to the Platonic morphospace of ideal forms with some kind of cognitive agency which plays a role in evolution. For him, the evolutionary process is highly patterned and can never be found contained in physical-sensory content.

Ashvin it seems to me you are giving him a lot of benefit of the doubt. He's 100% in the Newtonian mindset Cleric has described above. And with confused ideas on ethics...

I think it's also important to see how the 'interventional experiment' approach is also continuois with and utilized on the spiritual scientific path. In fact we (and Steiner) often criticize spiritual thinkers who want to speak of realities independent of experimental research, as in modern academic idealism. It's just that we allow our thinking to take unfamiliar 'shapes' and explore inner degrees of freedom in the intuitive experimental process. ML doesn't suspect such intuitive shapes can be taken and his thinking can experiment with becoming a higher order of mind as a way of investigating such minds and our relation to them.

With the proper inner shift in perspective, such an experimental approach to the 'Platonic space' of irreducible ideal forms-processes, which is most interested in practically significant and transformative knowledge, would align nicely with the spiritual scientific approach. All of us on this forum have engaged in this approach insofar as we try to observe the course of our thoughts, feelings, impulses, etc. in relation to sensory life, to formulate questions about the lawful relationships, to control for certain variables and notice how that modulates the meaningful feedback, and so on. Or we do it even more directly experimenting with meditative exercises.

So ML's intuitions are generally quite keyed into what is needed in our time, but the perspective is inverted as is typical for a modern scientist and intellectual thinking in general. And the longer this persists, the more experimental solutions will be aggressively sought within the narrow sphere of sensory experience where alone they are suspected. The intellect will remain torn between its intuition that meaningful reality ('information') is not contained within perceptual forms but incarnates from the 'opposite direction', and its inability to do anything but manipulate those forms in a relatively blind way and see what patterns feed back. Since the whole academic scientific establishment is oriented toward pushing for fast and lucrative and highly computable results, the latter gets more and more the upper hand and the intuitions remain ghostly speculations that take a back seat.

[Federica]

Yes, in this sense it is fragmentary. As a matter of fact, this can go into even more contradictory degrees. Even here on our forum we have heard "Oneness, oneness, oneness" while at the same time at the foundation are conceived fundamentally distinct soul interest groups, with no point of overlap (there's no center to existence). In that sense, it is easy to see how one can be talking about greater wholeness, while at the same time maintaining fundamental separateness within themselves.

If we try to see things more broadly, it can be said that ML's approach is in a certain sense regressive, in the sense that it leads humanity back into divination. Instead of throwing beans and interpreting the will of the gods, highly technological experiments are devised where biological cells play the role of the beans. One tries to indirectly interpret (or in the beginning at least prove the existence of) other orders of mind. Of course, today instead of conforming to the will of the gods, one would much rather capture it for their own purposes, in the way we capture solar or wind energy, or the sought-after free energy. And this happens in an age where it is of vital importance that humanity finds its concentric existence embedded within these other orders of being.

On the other hand, we can't be exceedingly critical of ML. It's simply that his whole professional life is enmeshed in this technological approach. We should try to feel how it's not easy to turn all this around. We can be more critical of BK because, at least it seems to me, he's in a much more relaxed position to pursue the path further. Yes, he has cemented many things in the books he has written and the interviews given, but they are more or less open-ended and it could be possible to continue going further without fundamentally contradicting previous ideas. Especially with EF, one would imagine that he even has the platform to do so.

I understand what you say about divination: since the top portion of the space, with its higher beings, is (conveniently) out of reach (untestable) its presence remains at the level of working hypothesis, or formulation - that is, somewhat magical, in the same sense you refer to divination - so that its principles are merely hijacked, for application in the lower layers (human light cone and below) but with conveniently reset goals and ethics.

On the other hand I can’t make myself agree that we should be more severe with BK than ML. True, turning attention inward would probably look less of a U-turn for BK than for ML. But this is only because we live in a society where scientists are way more revered and admired than philosophers. Scientists do real, useful things, while philosophers muse at their leisure (I'm a bit exagerating, but not too much). We can measure this quite precisely, even only by paying attention to the attitude of hosts and other guests in discussions and interviews. People dare to question BK much more, while ML is invariably admired and revered. And so: yes, it looks more accessible to revert a philosophical system than a natural-scientific experimental practice, although in both cases we are talking about exposed and now mature personalities in their 50s, meaning they have both invested a major part of their life of ideas in their respective direction of research.

Moreover, ML actually could find new ways into moderate and face-saving redirections, if he really was willing to, if he really had those private reflections and doubts that you evoke, especially now that he's built such an amount of flattering reputation. For example, he could delve into mathematics and (instead of understanding it in the typically flawed way you pinpointed) he could test quantitative methods by integrating quantum event generators, as you once suggested. He could also perhaps orient more towards neuroscience, not with the purpose of augmenting the brain, but of testing the effects of inner experiences. Justin Riddle comes to mind. He could also discuss more with philosophers, not with the purpose of influencing and rallying them towards his goals, as he does today, but to enquire consciousness from an inner perspective, in parallel with the experiments. And I suspect a well-read neuroscientist or philosopher could imagine more ways ML could rewire, not biological life, but his own research orientation, while also preserving his scientific credibility and success, if he was willing to do so.

I think it's also important to see how the 'interventional experiment' approach is also continuous with and utilized on the spiritual scientific path. In fact we (and Steiner) often criticize spiritual thinkers who want to speak of realities independent of experimental research, as in modern academic idealism. It's just that we allow our thinking to take unfamiliar 'shapes' and explore inner degrees of freedom in the intuitive experimental process. ML doesn't suspect such intuitive shapes can be taken and his thinking can experiment with becoming a higher order of mind as a way of investigating such minds and our relation to them.

With the proper inner shift in perspective, such an experimental approach to the 'Platonic space' of irreducible ideal forms-processes, which is most interested in practically significant and transformative knowledge, would align nicely with the spiritual scientific approach. All of us on this forum have engaged in this approach insofar as we try to observe the course of our thoughts, feelings, impulses, etc. in relation to sensory life, to formulate questions about the lawful relationships, to control for certain variables and notice how that modulates the meaningful feedback, and so on. Or we do it even more directly experimenting with meditative exercises.

So ML's intuitions are generally quite keyed into what is needed in our time, but the perspective is inverted as is typical for a modern scientist and intellectual thinking in general. And the longer this persists, the more experimental solutions will be aggressively sought within the narrow sphere of sensory experience where alone they are suspected. The intellect will remain torn between its intuition that meaningful reality ('information') is not contained within perceptual forms but incarnates from the 'opposite direction', and its inability to do anything but manipulate those forms in a relatively blind way and see what patterns feed back. Since the whole academic scientific establishment is oriented toward pushing for fast and lucrative and highly computable results, the latter gets more and more the upper hand and the intuitions remain ghostly speculations that take a back seat.

Yes - in a way he is a true scientist, in a much more pregnant sense than BK. Not a spiritual scientist, but an emblematic natural scientist of our time - with an inverted perspective, as you say, compared to what must happen. True, he’s not afraid of change and innovative ideas - wild ideas, as he puts it - definitely his sharpest weapon. It is also what makes his work infinitely more dangerous than BKs, turned as it is toward infernal goals, as you said. To make things worse, these goals are presented in the most appealing fashion, and get propelled by the instinctive admiration and reverence that we in general long to pay to deserving scientists - the advancers of humanity - above all other professions. All these stocks, he consistently reinvest in the more and more consensual adversarial goals. In comparison, BK is not very dangerous. Actually, he’s not dangerous at all in my opinion.

I believe I said it before (and it's still the case), to me BK evokes the impression of a vocal, whining child. That's how he looks to me if I try to see through him. There is a mood of complaining, asking, protesting, and whining in his expressions. ML is completely different. I do feel the two are in a kind of polar opposition. Almost anyone can get on a podcast or blog and criticize BK almost lightheartedly. And many do. In the worst case, there's an animated back and forth, and that’s it. Rather low risk. On the other hand, one surely doesn't want to mess up with the drive that animates ML and his mysterious, almost intimidating researching machine, that pumps experimental material and results in the societal open, from the background of the interviews and podcasts, where, if you notice, he never fails to establish its presence, in all modesty. And notice how he’s extremely intentional, not only in his experimental directions but also in communicating very largely about his work, according to a carefully thought-through strategy. He says he's super busy with the experiments, which he surely is, but he is probably just as busy with developing and delivering his influencer agenda. He also knows exactly what he wants to say in interviews, and often gently guides and adjusts the discursive flow. Bluntly said, he uses that ‘angel face’ of seriousness, humbleness, moderation, conscientiousness, and super hard-working caring disposition for the good of humanity (“the radius of kindness and compassion”) to methodically establish core transhumanist ideas.

[Cleric]

Speaking of how radically twentieth-century physics have changed our conceptions of reality, the following recent video may be of interest:



These are things that we have mentioned before. Yet it's worth reminding them in the context of the recent few posts. Consider how utterly insane it would have sounded to physicists at the turn of the 20th century, who aliased reality through the conceptual sieve of space, atoms, and EM fields, all interacting strictly locally by exchanging momentum through bumping into each other. That's why I said above that anything described through classical physics can never be anything more than a parable of reality. If this is true (as it is concluded at the end of the video) in the case of modern physics - classical physics is a Maya picture of the principle of least action - then what's left for the deeper insights!

However, these things still stare us in the face and we somehow cannot take them in. And this is not without justification. Our everyday conscious experience indeed consists of Moire patterns that move around and seem to interact horizontally through exchanges of forces (Coriolis effects). We can conceive of the simultaneity of potential only through the proxy of patched mathematical-intellectual movements. Nevertheless, today we are at the threshold of this deeper reality and it is of vital importance that human consciousness grows in there. It's not in the least an overstatement that our future depends on this, the other alternative being degeneration and the collapse of the Earthly matrix.

As said, the first step is to assume our con-centric position within the phenomenal World-flow and realize how our intuitive willing feeds back in the way the state transforms - first and foremost in the ripples of our mental modulations over the carrier flow. Gradually, through growing intuition of the way the flow condenses, the 'many paths' become something tangible, although not directly in the way we may naively expect (as a perception of everything overlaid on each other). Instead, this happens as a gradual liberation of our inner intuitive movements, through the realization of the ways in which we have been hitherto constrained and thus we have implicitly assumed that 'this is what reality is and how it functions'. Part of the secret is not to think of us, human beings, as 'things' within the universe who have subjective experience and build a private representation of reality but instead feeling our most intimate I-activity as a focal point through which the Cosmos turns inside out, so to speak.

Gradually, it becomes clear to deeper insight that the principle of least action, when discovered in its more archetypal nature, is not about how 'things' move through space but about what our next phenomenological 'frame' of existence, among the infinite possibilities, could be. And in the same way, as a kind of intellectual stretching exercise, we can assume that all those transitions are explored simultaneously, however, only those can be experienced as the new state, which recursively contain within themselves the reverberations of previous states (as in the video feedback metaphor), such that the sense of continuity of conscious existence can be maintained.

[Federica]

Speaking of how radically twentieth-century physics have changed our conceptions of reality, the following recent video may be of interest:



These are things that we have mentioned before. Yet it's worth reminding them in the context of the recent few posts. Consider how utterly insane it would have sounded to physicists at the turn of the 20th century, who aliased reality through the conceptual sieve of space, atoms, and EM fields, all interacting strictly locally by exchanging momentum through bumping into each other. That's why I said above that anything described through classical physics can never be anything more than a parable of reality. If this is true (as it is concluded at the end of the video) in the case of modern physics - classical physics is a Maya picture of the principle of least action - then what's left for the deeper insights!

However, these things still stare us in the face and we somehow cannot take them in. And this is not without justification. Our everyday conscious experience indeed consists of Moire patterns that move around and seem to interact horizontally through exchanges of forces (Coriolis effects). We can conceive of the simultaneity of potential only through the proxy of patched mathematical-intellectual movements. Nevertheless, today we are at the threshold of this deeper reality and it is of vital importance that human consciousness grows in there. It's not in the least an overstatement that our future depends on this, the other alternative being degeneration and the collapse of the Earthly matrix.

As said, the first step is to assume our con-centric position within the phenomenal World-flow and realize how our intuitive willing feeds back in the way the state transforms - first and foremost in the ripples of our mental modulations over the carrier flow. Gradually, through growing intuition of the way the flow condenses, the 'many paths' become something tangible, although not directly in the way we may naively expect (as a perception of everything overlaid on each other). Instead, this happens as a gradual liberation of our inner intuitive movements, through the realization of the ways in which we have been hitherto constrained and thus we have implicitly assumed that 'this is what reality is and how it functions'. Part of the secret is not to think of us, human beings, as 'things' within the universe who have subjective experience and build a private representation of reality but instead feeling our most intimate I-activity as a focal point through which the Cosmos turns inside out, so to speak.

Gradually, it becomes clear to deeper insight that the principle of least action, when discovered in its more archetypal nature, is not about how 'things' move through space but about what our next phenomenological 'frame' of existence, among the infinite possibilities, could be. And in the same way, as a kind of intellectual stretching exercise, we can assume that all those transitions are explored simultaneously, however, only those can be experienced as the new state, which recursively contain within themselves the reverberations of previous states (as in the video feedback metaphor), such that the sense of continuity of conscious existence can be maintained.

Yes this is of interest, thanks. Cleric, how do you feel, from a place of understanding these things exactly, not only phenomenologically but also in terms of the path of convergence (and we know it’s not a path) science is taking/not taking, around this threshold of deeper reality? Do you know anyone else alive in this world who also can bridge the current mathematical patching with the other side of inner experience? And would you mind telling us from your list what is the most proximate next step that needs to happen in science to secure some fruitful progression at this point? Then perhaps one can figure out what sort of emotional resistances are keeping that step disintegrated and what kind of collective facilitating activity needs to happen to stimulate fruitful realization. Please don’t say that one needs to turn inside and work on oneself first, and all else will follow. We know that’s the first step. But other steps need to happen concomitantly. I am personally constantly fighting against resistance, both in myself and outside. As you said, emotional resistance is the great barrier. Where should efforts be focalized, collectively, right now? I am focusing on Steiners guidance, but as we said, it’s already getting out of phase. I still plan on spending most of my free time on these lectures, since, at my level of understanding, they are exceedingly useful, but what else needs to be done?

[AshvinP]

Yes this is of interest, thanks. Cleric, how do you feel, from a place of understanding these things exactly, not only phenomenologically but also in terms of the path of convergence (and we know it’s not a path) science is taking/not taking, around this threshold of deeper reality? Do you know anyone else alive in this world who also can bridge the current mathematical patching with the other side of inner experience? And would you mind telling us from your list what is the most proximate next step that needs to happen in science to secure some fruitful progression at this point? Then perhaps one can figure out what sort of emotional resistances are keeping that step disintegrated and what kind of collective facilitating activity needs to happen to stimulate fruitful realization. Please don’t say that one needs to turn inside and work on oneself first, and all else will follow. We know that’s the first step. But other steps need to happen concomitantly. I am personally constantly fighting against resistance, both in myself and outside. As you said, emotional resistance is the great barrier. Where should efforts be focalized, collectively, right now? I am focusing on Steiners guidance, but as we said, it’s already getting out of phase. I still plan on spending most of my free time on these lectures, since, at my level of understanding, they are exceedingly useful, but what else needs to be done?

Offering a few brief thoughts here, I think it is very important for all our scientific concepts to become imaginative symbols for inner realities. This helps us begin discerning the continuity between ordinary Earthly experience and higher realities, our native soul-spiritual existence. As we know, art is also a means of purifying the emotional resistances, of lifting the Spirit toward its moral intuitive experience, so approaching the scientific domain imaginatively and artistically has a dual function of bridging the seeming outer-inner knowledge gap and simultaneously transforming deeper soul blockages that habitually desire for the gap to remain open.

For example, when the author gives the example of the person taking a path to their friend in the ocean, the superimposed potential of paths can be discerned more truthfully if we imagine, not a manifold of spatial-sensory paths and linear temporal frames superimposed, but something more like the narrative meaning of traversing a path to save a friend. When contemplating such a narrative, we dimly experience the qualities of courage, risk-taking, heroism, and so on, and also perhaps hesitance, fear, uncertainty, etc. These are the inner movements and qualities that are truly superimposed in our soul life when we instinctively will toward the infinite potential states into which our present state can metamorphose. The spatial-sensory qualities simply anchor that deeper soul-spiritual flux.

Generally speaking, we are constantly evaluating our speech and deeds in our imaginative space to see how things may play out based on past experiences. Usually we focus mostly on the sensory element of our mental pictures, the visual element of our deeds or the audio element of our speech, and this anchors the deeper emotional and volitional qualities that are implicit in the mental pictures of the potential states. For example, we may simulate some speech to another person and evaluate whether it will lead to shame, criticism, guilt, anger, and so on. So here is one intimate place where we can start relating the ordinary flow of experience to QM science in an imaginative way. Collectively, we have become scientifically-minded beings and so our efforts will bear the most fruit if our scientific explorations can be recruited and redeemed in this way. Everything explored scientifically can become a more faithful mirror for the inner movements through which it was discerned. I just came across this:



Can we experience our intimate thoughts as harmonic oscillations which reflect back the meaning of inner musical movements (or, under certain selfish soul pressures, decohere into chaotic oscillations)? I think it always comes back to some kind of phenomenology, because that's the only way to safely orient toward the truthful flow of experience without lapsing into the plethora of assumptions, preferences, expectations, and overall mental habits that steer our thinking into dead ends. It is the only way for our thinking to gradually become the content of its metaphysical thought pictures when probing the inner realities. All such phenomenological efforts require great patience and persistence. The spiritual considerations must necessarily begin as abstract and relatively floating in the air, since we have very few points of overlap in our ordinary intellectual gestures, but through persistent imaginative efforts they gradually are felt more and more as testimonies to the dynamic and rhythmic flow of first-person inner experience, which is also a fractal image of the collective flow.

[Cleric]

Yes this is of interest, thanks. Cleric, how do you feel, from a place of understanding these things exactly, not only phenomenologically but also in terms of the path of convergence (and we know it’s not a path) science is taking/not taking, around this threshold of deeper reality? Do you know anyone else alive in this world who also can bridge the current mathematical patching with the other side of inner experience?

I don't understand the first question very well. About the second, I should say that my feeling at the moment is that the mathematical approach will not be something of the nature today's mathematicians and physicists expect - as a clearcut formal (and thus closed) intellectual system. It's rather an intuitive paintbrush, not unlike what you attempted with PoF and the function. I know you know this but I mention it because above you say "understanding these things exactly" and I want to emphasize that this 'exactly' is not like the exactness of a mathematical equation (which is a feeling of being fully constrained). It's really an imaginative paintbrush. If we start looking at the 'exactness' of the fractal boundaries, we'll lose the living artistic message.

As far as other people - unfortunately I'm not aware of any. I'm not saying this as if implying that we're doing something unique here - I'm sure that there are other people exploring the same areas, but those that I know are pretty much those that we all know and comment on here. Levin is close because his morphic spaces represent precisely the idea of navigating state-space. Alas, it still remains externalized and bottom-up. Of course, in his view the higher orders are not merely the sum of the parts, they are novel perspectives that navigate state-space according to the intuitive sense of orientation at that level, but these spaces (if I understand his position from what I have watched) coalesce around the physical spaces, so to speak. So like with BK, the physical spacetime lattice is seen as somewhat fundamental and evolution starts from there, gradually accommodating higher-order Platonic patterns. Another person I've mentioned before is Kerri Welch and her Fractal Topology of Time. Her approach is much more intellectually free-floating, it still doesn't lead very convincingly into the phenomenological flow, let alone the experience of thinking as part of that flow, but nevertheless, it is one of the very few places that at least recognizes the contextual nature of Time-Consciousness.

And would you mind telling us from your list what is the most proximate next step that needs to happen in science to secure some fruitful progression at this point? Then perhaps one can figure out what sort of emotional resistances are keeping that step disintegrated and what kind of collective facilitating activity needs to happen to stimulate fruitful realization. Please don’t say that one needs to turn inside and work on oneself first, and all else will follow. We know that’s the first step. But other steps need to happen concomitantly. I am personally constantly fighting against resistance, both in myself and outside. As you said, emotional resistance is the great barrier. Where should efforts be focalized, collectively, right now? I am focusing on Steiners guidance, but as we said, it’s already getting out of phase. I still plan on spending most of my free time on these lectures, since, at my level of understanding, they are exceedingly useful, but what else needs to be done?

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an easy way. Even from the very beginning, one needs to take seriously that our inner process is the hands-on laboratory where we have the most direct experience of the World process. As long as one insists that gauges, meters, colliders, ECGs, EEGs, etc. give us a more objective picture of reality, it would be very difficult to make any progress.

As non-serious as it may sound, one needs to get a feeling for reality like a video game that one approaches with enthusiasm, interest, and joy. Just like we explore how our inputs on the gamepad translate to pixel movements on screen, so with the same wonder we should approach our inner process as if we have never really taken the trouble to see what kinds of inputs we are able to actuate, and how this affects the phenomenal volume. In opposition to this stands the inner soul mood of man that sees life as something painful that we would love to get distracted from by seeking pleasurable sensations. And this obviously holds true for scientists too, where there's clear separation between the personal inner process, and the scientific theory that is patched from sharable mental images.

The fact is that for a large part of today's thinkers, the inner process still remains a taboo. Of course, we're not talking about just exposing our inner life to everyone. No one needs that. And as we can see from our own exchanges here, there's infinite inner depth that is perfectly sharable, even without touching on personal specifics. But the trouble is when one is unwilling to expose this inner process even to themselves. A valuable practical tip in this direction is to feel that this process is already exposed to a higher mind that occupies our very inner space. Not only this makes us more conscientious to observe what we are exposing but it also can help us maintain this openness that there are many more things that are exposed in our unconsciousness that we are yet to find out about.

I know that you were hoping for something else - believe me, I wish I had such an answer too! I said few posts ago, I've always wanted to find an intellectual gem that when presented to someone (with at least some goodwill) would spark their interest. As I have shared, there was a period when I thought that psychedelics could provide just such a spark, yet I soon realized how individual that is, and how those who insist on treating the inner process as a taboo, will do that even at peak experience, even if that means to fight the demon for what seems an eternity (re: BK). I'm still open to the possibility that even more intellectually engaging metaphors can be found, which could spark the interest with greater probability, but at the end, it seems that things are still largely in the power of karma. Thus, maybe we shouldn't be focused so much on finding that thing that will serve as a bridge for everyone, a bridge that once presented with, cannot be unseen, but simply building and experimenting with this emerging vocabulary and language, which when exercised from the proper inner stance, allows us to meaningfully communicate about the shared aspects of the inner flow, and in fact, feel that we meet there, that we are together in this flow.

[Cleric]

For example, when the author gives the example of the person taking a path to their friend in the ocean, the superimposed potential of paths can be discerned more truthfully if we imagine, not a manifold of spatial-sensory paths and linear temporal frames superimposed, but something more like the narrative meaning of traversing a path to save a friend. When contemplating such a narrative, we dimly experience the qualities of courage, risk-taking, heroism, and so on, and also perhaps hesitance, fear, uncertainty, etc. These are the inner movements and qualities that are truly superimposed in our soul life when we instinctively will toward the infinite potential states into which our present state can metamorphose. The spatial-sensory qualities simply anchor that deeper soul-spiritual flux.

That's a great example, Ashvin! I guess such things, even though none of them in isolation can be effective in all cases, nevertheless give us examples of practical observation and orientation in the inner flow. My hope is that there's not a small number of people who do not explore the inner process simply because they don't have the right approach. If we try to grasp it through our ordinary sensory habits, it's something slippery and indefinite that we are dealing with. But, for example, in my own experience, trying to grasp thoughts as 'clips' of inner experience (even if symbolized with rigid tokens - standing waves in the flow) continues to prove very fruitful to me. Fundamentally, we either assess (remember) and contemplate clips (even if verbally described) or in our imagination we experiment with alternative clips - how they may have possibly better fitted the past or fit the future. Basically, we can turn this into a game - catch a thought and ask "Alright, what clip of existence does this thought represent/symbolize?" All this helps us see the total inner existence as a flow, and our thinking and imagination as a secondary mental flow (although it could be called primary when judged by the proximity to our intuitive activity) where we experiment with different clips as if we try to assemble a temporal bridge or ladder that connects the ends of a greater curvature representing the dim intuition of the goal/ideal that we are pursuing. In the end, all practical life is about having this contextuality of intents (many of which unconsciously bent), nourishing the greater ideal curvatures, and using thinking and imagination to 'tile' the curvature with concrete mental clips, which can also be amplified to our will and thus the fuller flow.

[AshvinP]

For example, when the author gives the example of the person taking a path to their friend in the ocean, the superimposed potential of paths can be discerned more truthfully if we imagine, not a manifold of spatial-sensory paths and linear temporal frames superimposed, but something more like the narrative meaning of traversing a path to save a friend. When contemplating such a narrative, we dimly experience the qualities of courage, risk-taking, heroism, and so on, and also perhaps hesitance, fear, uncertainty, etc. These are the inner movements and qualities that are truly superimposed in our soul life when we instinctively will toward the infinite potential states into which our present state can metamorphose. The spatial-sensory qualities simply anchor that deeper soul-spiritual flux.

That's a great example, Ashvin! I guess such things, even though none of them in isolation can be effective in all cases, nevertheless give us examples of practical observation and orientation in the inner flow. My hope is that there's not a small number of people who do not explore the inner process simply because they don't have the right approach. If we try to grasp it through our ordinary sensory habits, it's something slippery and indefinite that we are dealing with. But, for example, in my own experience, trying to grasp thoughts as 'clips' of inner experience (even if symbolized with rigid tokens - standing waves in the flow) continues to prove very fruitful to me. Fundamentally, we either assess (remember) and contemplate clips (even if verbally described) or in our imagination we experiment with alternative clips - how they may have possibly better fitted the past or fit the future. Basically, we can turn this into a game - catch a thought and ask "Alright, what clip of existence does this thought represent/symbolize?" All this helps us see the total inner existence as a flow, and our thinking and imagination as a secondary mental flow (although it could be called primary when judged by the proximity to our intuitive activity) where we experiment with different clips as if we try to assemble a temporal bridge or ladder that connects the ends of a greater curvature representing the dim intuition of the goal/ideal that we are pursuing. In the end, all practical life is about having this contextuality of intents (many of which unconsciously bent), nourishing the greater ideal curvatures, and using thinking and imagination to 'tile' the curvature with concrete mental clips, which can also be amplified to our will and thus the fuller flow.

Beautifully stated, Cleric, and AI has contributed a remarkable image to anchor the intuition of what you described! When you write to Federica,

"...but simply building and experimenting with this emerging vocabulary and language, which when exercised from the proper inner stance, allows us to meaningfully communicate about the shared aspects of the inner flow, and in fact, feel that we meet there, that we are together in this flow."

Personally, it always helps for me to pause and contemplate the fact that I could read your last two posts, for example, and pretty seamlessly follow the vocabulary and phrases to the intuitions being conveyed. Can we imagine doing that even a few short years ago? Probably it would all sound like fanciful gibberish, needlessly convoluted and floating in the air, like it did for some others on the forum. Recursively, contemplating this intimate reality is a great way to start recovering and emphasizing the wonder and reverence for our ordinary imaginative experience. And if we work on our soul stance in this way, the effects will surely reverberate into the wider karmic organism over time, even though most of those effects are aliased by our intellectual vision. The soul force of faith is always needed to keep us open to new kinds of inner movements and experiences and inspired to continue the great work even if the results are not immediately evident.

The key part of the bridging story is, of course, the Christ narrative. In a sense, he already gave us the whole artistic and moral technique of bridging the phase spaces of experience as imagined through scripture, although the details for any particular circumstance in our modern times, we will need to continue revealing from within. The broad principles are still very instructive, such as that of leading evolution forward by example. Our time is marked by souls who want to 'fix the world' and 'fix others' by moralizing speech, by political policy, by scientific discovery, and so on. And we can also fall into such a trap if we start focusing too much on bridging the worlds by the perfect metaphor, illustration, examples, and so on. What is 100% within the sphere of our creative responsibility is focusing on our inner process and patiently building the language to anchor it, explore it, and increasingly manifest its higher currents in our thoughts, speech, and deeds, trusting that revealing this liberating truth within by example also coincides with the Good of humanity.