A minimalist view of transcendence.

[felix dakat]

felix,

The issue isn't anti-anything. We aren't trying to obtain nothingness. It is simply letting ego and dualism go on a walkabout for a little while. It is what we discover in their absence that might give us insights not otherwise available. Ego and dualism aren't destroyed, we just don't let them dominate being. If this sounds too simple, it is because it IS simple- and ego hates simplicity. Ego and mind are the stars of the show and take umbrage in being dismissed, but that is what transcendence accomplishes.

Having just passed through Bob's post I am on board with ego shuffling for the moment, if you agree with him that we are talking about ego in the sense of a self-survival mechanism run amuck.

[Moreno]

felix dakat wrote:That reminds me of when I was in a Christian cult where thoughtful people were said to be "in their mind" and were frequently exhorted to "get out of their mind and into the spirit". I didn't find mindlessness attractive so I left the group. I'm not interested in going back to that now. . . .
. . . . So what, shall we call that proposition? A non-thought thought? A thought to end all thought?

The idea of being in your mind can be misused as a mindfuck - if you'll pardon my anglo-saxon. But on the other hand it can be a useful heuristic. Though I tend to use ' get out of my head' 'not be so up in my head' as phrases. Not staying focused on mental verbal thinking. This can interfere with a golfer's swing, with intimacy of pretty much any kind and with dealing with tasks we can handle more intuitively or are learning. Cults often use it to isolate objections, concerns, criticism and the people with these things.

Interestingly you can defend this 'getting out of your head' in fairly mundane terms. We know humans have incredible amounts of tacit knowledge, we know that thought and thinking can interfere with experiencing new things, so when we transcend the thinky portions of the mind - which is not the same as supressing them - we are transcending the ego but not the self or the organism. My point is that a naturalist can think of this as transcendance without assuming anything supernatural. And of course you can take out transcend and use 'go beyond'. Or you could come at it the other way: including more of the self in focus. Identifying with more of yourself.

[V-OutOfTheWilderness]

There is a presupposition here, I think, that an adequately functioning observing ego is necessary to healthy social and occupational functioning. Assuming that anti-ego wisdom teaching addresses the value of observing ego, how do they deal with it? Is there a teaching about this phenomenon that you find most helpful?

"I only know myself as a human entity; the scene, so to speak,
of thoughts and affections; and am sensible of a certain doubleness
by which I can stand as remote from myself as from another. However
intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism
of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but
spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it; and that is
no more I than it is you. " - Thoreau - Walden - Solitude

[V-OutOfTheWilderness]

It is what we discover in their [ego & dualism] absence that might give us insights not otherwise available.

That's a great realization well stated. So far, for me, all insights worth their salt have revealed how little I know, with any certainty.

[Bob]

Maybe not anti-ego but you and tentative and Typist have all identified the ego as a problem. Tentative has virtually stated that the ego is THE problem and that transcendence in so far as it is anything is a matter of dealing with the ego. Wouldn't you agree that we'd all be better off without egos?

I doubt whether we would survive without “ego”, but it is all about assessing reality as it is and accepting that the way nature is probably is the way it is meant to be – unless there is some clear reason why it should be questioned. Probably the one natural given is the fact that life is change. There are numerous aspects of human life which we can question but the fact that things change should belong to those universal laws. The ego is trying to make a precedence case of our lives, saying that this time it is all different and nobody has understood as well as I have. “This is it!” you might find yourself saying. “This time it's going right”, but “it” is a polarisation of the natural duality and an attempt to ignore the other side.

Because “ego” tends to do that, it is a bit like the punk daughter at a family re-union who is always making a scene. It needs attention, but it always wants attention – especially when we have other things to do. We can't shoot and bury our ego (or the daughter), but we take it (and her) into consideration. After you have genuinely cared for your ego, it has to be ignored in favour of other things, whether during meditation (when the whining slowly starts to get quieter or fades off), or when you have some utilitarian task you want to do, and ego wants to go to the cinema, it has to be ignored.

Would you object to me referring to your position as anti-identity of the basis that you believe that identity is a facade? So identity is unreal as compared with the notion of the collective? So the collective gets preeminent ontological status? I don't know. My consciousness is largely one centered in my individual point of view. Are you saying that yours isn't?

I need my identity because it is the role I play in the drama that is unfolding. But I don't believe what I tell others in that role without “a pinch of salt”. I think Alan Watts spoke of the “element of rascality” which is given to us all as a kind of lubrication in coping with our existence. But the role I'm playing has characters with which it plays, who are also playing a role and they are just as much façades as I am. The collective is therefore the drama itself, where all of these characters are interacting, creating with their minds the reality we experience. No single person is creator, but all are – often without even realising it, and your “point of view” is just your perspective from where you are standing. Mine is too, except that I know that it is, and I try to prevent myself falling into the traps of assuming that where I am is the only centre of the universe, since on a globe, everywhere could be the pole.

Yes this is clear. The term ego is used in so many different senses that we must repeatedly disambiguate the sense in which we are using it now. Kind of lke transcendence. I am on the same page with you in the last quote.

Are you one of them there God particles? Just kidding. I gotcha.

Now you come to mention it ….

[Typist]

Maybe not anti-ego but you and tentative and Typist have all identified the ego as a problem.

To quibble just a bit. My perspective is that thought is the primary obstacle to transcendence. Ego is just one of the products of thought. Neither are a problem necessarily, just an obstacle to one particular goal. I feel it's most constructive to look at is this way because...

Unraveling ego is probably somewhere between incredibly complicated and impossible. Maybe some uniquely talented people can accomplish this, I really don't know. But surely this is rare at best, and thus largely irrelevant. However...

Pretty much anybody can manage the volume of thought if they are so inclined.

There's an inherent conflict between making this entertaining for philosophers, and making it widely accessible for human beings in general. The later goal interests me more.

[Typist]

Because “ego” tends to do that, it is a bit like the punk daughter at a family re-union who is always making a scene. It needs attention, but it always wants attention – especially when we have other things to do.

Ha, ha! This is great. Well done Bob, great image. Yes, ego is the inner three year old that never was quite tamed by Mom and Dad. They drove it underground, but it lives on.

Except in me of course, because I am bigger and better than everybody else, and the center of the universe.

[V-OutOfTheWilderness]

Except in me of course, because I am bigger and better than everybody else, and the center of the universe.

You can't be the center of the universe because I am.

[Typist]

You can't be the center of the universe because I am.

No! Me! ME ME ME ME ME! I am the winner of the most egoless poster prize, ME!!!

[Ierrellus]

Ego becomes a controversial topic only when reified, only when seen as an abstract entity.
Origins of what we call ego are found in human evolution. At some place in our evolving we acquired a mind that is conscious of itself. Consciousness of self does not indicate dualism of mental properties. It indicates a mind's ability to envisage both itself and what is other than itself. This ability allows critical thinking and mental revisions of false starts.
No separate ego falls prey to enticements of self-worth that involve hypocrisy. No separate ego estranges one from spiritual awarenesses. It takes the entire mind, with its needs and desires, to succumb to hubris at the expense of nemesis.

[tentative]

This has been a good thread. Did anyone notice that somehow, metaphysics didn't dominate the conversation and god is-isn't disappeared? This is the sort of conversation that allows each person their spiritual sensitivities without devolving into us-them fractious bickering.

felix, I don't know if this is what you were looking for in your OP, but it's one of the first (only, perhaps) thread that aimed at letting people express thoughts of freedom instead of the usual "this is the way it is" crap that dominates religious forums. Good stuff.

But now that we've beaten transcendence into the communal soup, it's mat time... Ommmmmm.....

[felix dakat]

felix dakat wrote:That reminds me of when I was in a Christian cult where thoughtful people were said to be "in their mind" and were frequently exhorted to "get out of their mind and into the spirit". I didn't find mindlessness attractive so I left the group. I'm not interested in going back to that now. . . .
. . . . So what, shall we call that proposition? A non-thought thought? A thought to end all thought?

The idea of being in your mind can be misused as a mindfuck - if you'll pardon my anglo-saxon. But on the other hand it can be a useful heuristic. Though I tend to use ' get out of my head' 'not be so up in my head' as phrases. Not staying focused on mental verbal thinking. This can interfere with a golfer's swing, with intimacy of pretty much any kind and with dealing with tasks we can handle more intuitively or are learning. Cults often use it to isolate objections, concerns, criticism and the people with these things.

Interestingly you can defend this 'getting out of your head' in fairly mundane terms. We know humans have incredible amounts of tacit knowledge, we know that thought and thinking can interfere with experiencing new things, so when we transcend the thinky portions of the mind - which is not the same as supressing them - we are transcending the ego but not the self or the organism. My point is that a naturalist can think of this as transcendance without assuming anything supernatural. And of course you can take out transcend and use 'go beyond'. Or you could come at it the other way: including more of the self in focus. Identifying with more of yourself.

Moreno-- what a perceptive thoughtful insight. Yes initially the "get out of your mind and into your spirit" exhortation resonated as a means of transcending a problem of obsessive thought diminishing participation and appreciation of the spontaneous flow of life. But over time, for me, it became an implied criticism of verbalizing thoughts including reasonable ones. It became an intrusive command to shut up, stop thinking and conform with whatever the group was doing at the moment. On the minimalist side I would also point out, that given a hard theistic interpretation, "turning to one's spirit" would imply that one had the capacity for direct contact with the unitary personal creator of the universe. As an article of faith, I don't have a problem with that myself, but it makes a maximal claim that is unconvincing to some who might nonetheless benefit from participating in transcendence more modestly defined.

[felix dakat]

There is a presupposition here, I think, that an adequately functioning observing ego is necessary to healthy social and occupational functioning. Assuming that anti-ego wisdom teaching addresses the value of observing ego, how do they deal with it? Is there a teaching about this phenomenon that you find most helpful?

"I only know myself as a human entity; the scene, so to speak,
of thoughts and affections; and am sensible of a certain doubleness
by which I can stand as remote from myself as from another. However
intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism
of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but
spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it; and that is
no more I than it is you. " - Thoreau - Walden - Solitude

This strikes me as a description of our capacity to think objectively rather than egocentrically. This kind of thinking is involved in our ability to understand human events from an historical perspective. From such a context we understand that we are but one tiny participant is a vast flow of event. We are no different than other individuals who have been swept a long by events greater than ourselves. Of course, we do not reach true objectivity. Every actual historical account is ineluctably tied to a time and place. But at the moment of participation in a historical perspective one does seem to be in a state of self forgetfulness and relative transcendence. It's one that terminates when one remembers one is reading about dead people, that one is uncertain of many if not all the alleged facts one is reading, and that you, the reader, will soon be dead as well.

[V-OutOfTheWilderness]

There is a presupposition here, I think, that an adequately functioning observing ego is necessary to healthy social and occupational functioning. Assuming that anti-ego wisdom teaching addresses the value of observing ego, how do they deal with it? Is there a teaching about this phenomenon that you find most helpful?

"I only know myself as a human entity; the scene, so to speak,
of thoughts and affections; and am sensible of a certain doubleness
by which I can stand as remote from myself as from another. However
intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism
of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but
spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it; and that is
no more I than it is you. " - Thoreau - Walden - Solitude

This strikes me as a description of our capacity to think objectively rather than egocentrically. This kind of thinking is involved in our ability to understand human events from an historical perspective. From such a context we understand that we are but one tiny participant is a vast flow of event. We are no different than other individuals who have been swept a long by events greater than ourselves. Of course, we do not reach true objectivity. Every actual historical account is ineluctably tied to a time and place. But at the moment of participation in a historical perspective one does seem to be in a state of self forgetfulness and relative transcendence. It's one that terminates when one remembers one is reading about dead people, that one is uncertain of many if not all the alleged facts one is reading, and that you, the reader, will soon be dead as well.

Hanks observation and statements of the inner spectator strikes me as the seat of awareness within us ... whatever that is ... that's been aware-ing since we were born ... and behind all we experience,

[Moreno]

Moreno-- what a perceptive thoughtful insight. Yes initially the "get out of your mind and into your spirit" exhortation resonated as a means of transcending a problem of obsessive thought diminishing participation and appreciation of the spontaneous flow of life. But over time, for me, it became an implied criticism of verbalizing thoughts including reasonable ones. It became an intrusive command to shut up, stop thinking and conform with whatever the group was doing at the moment. On the minimalist side I would also point out, that given a hard theistic interpretation, "turning to one's spirit" would imply that one had the capacity for direct contact with the unitary personal creator of the universe. As an article of faith, I don't have a problem with that myself, but it makes a maximal claim that is unconvincing to some who might nonetheless benefit from participating in transcendence more modestly defined.

Sure, though I hopped in the middle of an exchange. Consider my post a tangent. I wasn't thinking of Spirit or monotheist God contacts. And I totally agree with the mindfuck use of 'get out of your mind'. There are a lot these kinds of admonitions, and not at all restricted to cults - those formally labelled as such. I think I may start a thread on that topic.

I have seen the maximal claim work for many people and then just seem to be a mind game with others. I will bring back the black box term. We can black box what the ego allows itself to merge with. It could be simply allowing more unconscious skills to be present. Instead of trying to logically work out where to run to to get under the footbally, we trust the intuition of the body/organism. perhaps when addressed a person in pain we merge with enter some connection with something beyond what science would say is the organism, and we say something that startles us and helps. did I really say that? Where did that come from? But in the context of the thread, we can black box the thread. Whatever the source - intution based on a role model we don't think of much anymore, God, nature spirituals, one's no longer living grandmother, whatever - it was beyond what we usually identify with as 'i'. I think with time one can actually learn to identify with more of the organism, but that's another issue.

A less tangential point is that for some people it works to have what others would call a hallucinated agency as the source.
Other people may work just fine by saying 'I am now in the Zone'.
Or 'I quieten my mind and stay open.'

But the point I am stressing is that how the individual conceives the beyond source may actually be necessary for them, but not for others. Here in this thread, we can black box it or call it transcendent. But I think it would be counterproductive to try to get everyone to use the same term. Some like their specific choices and trust the whole process as it is. Some can think *oh, it's really just a part of themselves* but still respecting another's choice seems important. We can dismiss it as a kind of placebo effect, but then....
the placebo effect is real, so again leaving them alone around how they define entities seems respectful and likely more epistemologically sound then the alternative anyway.

I mean, unless they said God told them to kill their kid. But if it helps them write, give advice, dance, play football, get insights into how they can improve or grow, look for solutions in new places, great, who cares if their terminology puts them outside our paradigm.

[felix dakat]

I doubt whether we would survive without “ego”, but it is all about assessing reality as it is and accepting that the way nature is probably is the way it is meant to be – unless there is some clear reason why it should be questioned. Probably the one natural given is the fact that life is change. There are numerous aspects of human life which we can question but the fact that things change should belong to those universal laws. The ego is trying to make a precedence case of our lives, saying that this time it is all different and nobody has understood as well as I have. “This is it!” you might find yourself saying. “This time it's going right”, but “it” is a polarisation of the natural duality and an attempt to ignore the other side.

Bob--

Yes Freud saw the ego as "the reality principle". Of course, in philosophy "reality" is a loaded and questionable term. But the ego was seen as having a mediating and practical function with survival value. So one question for some kinds of alleged transcendence including meditation is: Is it merely a means of escape? Escaping the ego could be escaping reality. You know you have heard this accusation before in various forms. And it can not be answered definitively. Even if it is not that for you, it may be escape for someone else, even for one you may at the moment you believe that their transcendence is real. The monk may be hiding out in the monastery trying to escape reality not experience it.

[felix dakat]

To quibble just a bit. My perspective is that thought is the primary obstacle to transcendence. Ego is just one of the products of thought. Neither are a problem necessarily, just an obstacle to one particular goal. I feel it's most constructive to look at is this way because...
Unraveling ego is probably somewhere between incredibly complicated and impossible. Maybe some uniquely talented people can accomplish this, I really don't know. But surely this is rare at best, and thus largely irrelevant. However... Pretty much anybody can manage the volume of thought if they are so inclined. There's an inherent conflict between making this entertaining for philosophers, and making it widely accessible for human beings in general. The later goal interests me more.

Typist--

OK Got it. Thought is the basic problem and the ego consists of thought I so is a secondary problem. Isn't seeing thought as a problem dualistic? Why isn't the natural flow of thought merely part of the natural flow of life? Why kill, stifle, turn down, let go of, stop,
drown out with Om, the natural flow of thought? Why not accept it and flow with it as it happens? I'm having a problem seeing the upside of your position.

[felix dakat]

Ego becomes a controversial topic only when reified, only when seen as an abstract entity.
Origins of what we call ego are found in human evolution. At some place in our evolving we acquired a mind that is conscious of itself. Consciousness of self does not indicate dualism of mental properties. It indicates a mind's ability to envisage both itself and what is other than itself. This ability allows critical thinking and mental revisions of false starts.
No separate ego falls prey to enticements of self-worth that involve hypocrisy. No separate ego estranges one from spiritual awarenesses. It takes the entire mind, with its needs and desires, to succumb to hubris at the expense of nemesis.

Ierrellus-- Your statements seem crystal clear to me until I get to "hubris at the expense of nemesis". Please expound on that for me. Also do you have a solution for that dilemma?

[felix dakat]

This has been a good thread. Did anyone notice that somehow, metaphysics didn't dominate the conversation and god is-isn't disappeared? This is the sort of conversation that allows each person their spiritual sensitivities without devolving into us-them fractious bickering.

felix, I don't know if this is what you were looking for in your OP, but it's one of the first (only, perhaps) thread that aimed at letting people express thoughts of freedom instead of the usual "this is the way it is" crap that dominates religious forums. Good stuff.

But now that we've beaten transcendence into the communal soup, it's mat time... Ommmmmm.....

It is what I was looking for. Jerome Stone and others who have worked on a naturalist philosophy of religion have some interesting concepts. But the concepts almost seem to beg for people who are having experiences to which they can be applied or to which they can be compared. Of course they can be throw out too-- if they don't resonate with the reader. A minimalist philosophy of transcendence would be about what works for the individual. That's part of what I'm getting out of this. I'm thinking of writing to Stone and telling him about this thread.

What I didn't anticipate is that rather than being a thread about what is possible to experience, it is more a thread about what people are experiencing. That surprises me and pleases me. It's exponentially richer than I imagined.

[obe]

Why is seeing thought dualistic? Or is it? How can you 'see' thought? Thought can only be thought. So where is the dualism but you probably meant that. However if you are "thinking" thought, the picture of reoccurs, once the "thinking" stops, and conjures the picture. So its PICTURE~thought~PICTURE. The thought can not be pictured except through representation. So you can only say "I re-present this or that. So in your sense, it seems, thought does not cause duality. Only a representation. Thought itself does not cause the duality, only representations of it.(Starting from its nemesis. So. Transcendence is the "thought" of it, and even "it" begs itself. I see this as the major resolve with duality, as a very early started series of misrepresentations.

[tentative]

Why is seeing thought dualistic? Or is it? How can you 'see' thought? Thought can only be thought. So where is the dualism but you probably meant that. However if you are "thinking" thought, the picture of reoccurs, once the "thinking" stops, and conjures the picture. So its PICTURE~thought~PICTURE. The thought can not be pictured except through representation. So you can only say "I re-present this or that. So in your sense, it seems, thought does not cause duality. Only a representation. Thought itself does not cause the duality, only representations of it.(Starting from its nemesis. So. Transcendence is the "thought" of it, and even "it" begs itself. I see this as the major resolve with duality, as a very early started series of misrepresentations.

There is a difference between talking about the... and THE. This whole thread is dualism. Talking about transcendence isn't transcendence. That's the irony of language itself, and yet we all participate, don't we?

[Moreno]

Why is seeing thought dualistic? Or is it? How can you 'see' thought? Thought can only be thought. So where is the dualism but you probably meant that. However if you are "thinking" thought, the picture of reoccurs, once the "thinking" stops, and conjures the picture. So its PICTURE~thought~PICTURE. The thought can not be pictured except through representation. So you can only say "I re-present this or that. So in your sense, it seems, thought does not cause duality. Only a representation. Thought itself does not cause the duality, only representations of it.(Starting from its nemesis. So. Transcendence is the "thought" of it, and even "it" begs itself. I see this as the major resolve with duality, as a very early started series of misrepresentations.

There is a difference between talking about the... and THE. This whole thread is dualism. Talking about transcendence isn't transcendence. That's the irony of language itself, and yet we all participate, don't we?

The only dualism I can see is if the transcendent is considered to be another kind of substance/essence. I don't think language and thing referred to constitutes a dualism, just two different things. IOW materialist recognize that words refer to things, but they consider all this material phenomena. A map of LA and LA are two different chunks of matter. And the materialist stays a monist.

If, like in many religions, the transcendant, is spirit as opposed to matter, or something similar, there's a dualism.

But it seemed like Felix's naturalist foundation avoids at least making any such claim.

[felix dakat]

Why is seeing thought dualistic? Or is it? How can you 'see' thought? Thought can only be thought. So where is the dualism but you probably meant that. However if you are "thinking" thought, the picture of reoccurs, once the "thinking" stops, and conjures the picture. So its PICTURE~thought~PICTURE. The thought can not be pictured except through representation. So you can only say "I re-present this or that. So in your sense, it seems, thought does not cause duality. Only a representation. Thought itself does not cause the duality, only representations of it.(Starting from its nemesis. So. Transcendence is the "thought" of it, and even "it" begs itself. I see this as the major resolve with duality, as a very early started series of misrepresentations.

I mean viewing thought as THE problem. One "sees" thought by being conscious of it. "See" is usually metaphoric when used in this sense, although it is possible visualize thought in one's mind, at least for me. The dualism, if that's what it is, is in viewing what may be a natural occurrence a problem. Your statement that thought itself is not dualistic agrees with my statements above, as far as I can understand.

[Moreno]

I mean viewing thought as THE problem. One "sees" thought by being conscious of it. "See" is usually metaphoric when used in this sense, although it is possible visualize thought in one's mind, at least for me. The dualism, if that's what it is, is in viewing what may be a natural occurrence a problem. Your statement that thought itself is not dualistic agrees with my statements above, as far as I can understand.

Thought may be natural to us, but there is so much swing room for how that thinking is carried out, how much of it there is, how it is prioritized, what the rules of for the parts of thinking one respects in one's own mind, what metaphorical and paradigmatic forms are emphasized and so on. And that's just within the verbal based thinking. The variation gets even broader when you take in all the non-verbal, but still conscious 'thinking'. All this very affected by individual temperment and psychology and culture and parenting and then any tensions between these two. A child will think rather differently if raised as a Navaho, on the reservation, than the child middle class lawyers who live in the suburbs of NYC, than a kid raised traditionally in Japan. The thinking will be very different and at times utterly incomprehensible to the others, even with excellent interpreters. Eradicating thought, especially if we mean it in the I think therefore I am sense of all cognitive activity, needs to be done with something like a handgun. Meditation will not get you there. But how one thinks, that can be affected strongly.

[felix dakat]

There is a difference between talking about the... and THE. This whole thread is dualism. Talking about transcendence isn't transcendence. That's the irony of language itself, and yet we all participate, don't we?

The only dualism I can see is if the transcendent is considered to be another kind of substance/essence. I don't think language and thing referred to constitutes a dualism, just two different things. IOW materialist recognize that words refer to things, but they consider all this material phenomena. A map of LA and LA are two different chunks of matter. And the materialist stays a monist. [/quote]

That clarifies the subject for me as long as you are using materialism to be illustrative rather than ultimate. The immaterialist can stay monist too, theoretically.

If, like in many religions, the transcendant, is spirit as opposed to matter, or something similar, there's a dualism.

The minimalist view would remain agnostic on that point. We don't know with certainty that what we call spirit is not a subtle physical phenomenon.

But it seemed like Felix's naturalist foundation avoids at least making any such claim.

Hopefully we can remain naturalistic in the sense of looking for minimalist explanations that don't rely on the supernatural without sacrificing what is valuable about our experiences of transcendence.