Wholeness

[Sculptor]

@felix dakat

As Habermas points out there is a dualism between the natural and the cultural sciences. “Whereas the natural in the cultural or hermeneutic sciences are capable of living in a mutually indifferent albeit more hostile than peaceful coexistence, the social sciences must bear the tension of divergent approaches under one roof for in them the very practice of research compels reflection on the relationship between analytic and hermeneutic methodologies.”

People who try to unite the two sciences come under attack from both sides. Although I have to say on IOP the attacks come mostly from the positivistic side.

It is common enough that the “cultural sciences” tend to use hard sciences as their handmaidens. IN the same way that physics uses maths, archaeology can use science in the collection of data, though the product of the labour of archaeology is not scientific. Much the same applies to cultural anthropology. Human geography, sociology etc also can be very empirical and empoy maths and scientific modelling but again the results sought are not science as such.
Big problems occur when the “social sciences” forget this distinction and try to impose their findings as if it were objective truth.

[Bob]

@felix dakat

As Habermas points out there is a dualism between the natural and the cultural sciences. “Whereas the natural in the cultural or hermeneutic sciences are capable of living in a mutually indifferent albeit more hostile than peaceful coexistence, the social sciences must bear the tension of divergent approaches under one roof for in them the very practice of research compels reflection on the relationship between analytic and hermeneutic methodologies.”

People who try to unite the two sciences come under attack from both sides. Although I have to say on ILP the attacks come mostly from the positivistic side.

That is what I find interesting about Bernado Kastrup, especially after reading his “Materialism is Baloney” book, where he works his hypothesis up to M-Theory, using various metaphors along the way, including the membrane metaphor for consciousness or Mind, which suddenly harmonises with M-Theory, even though there is a distinct difference in the interpretation between him and the physicists. M-Theory is a proposal that different proposed string theory variants are actually equivalent representations of the same underlying physical theory.

By 1995 problems and contradictions had arisen in the many mathematical attempts to make sense of this vibratory model of reality. But then a new breakthrough was made: a new theory postulated that, instead of countless identical but separate strings – one for each subatomic particle – our entire universe was, in fact, made of a single membrane vibrating in ten spatial dimensions. The ‘wiggle room’ – that is, degrees of freedom – provided by these ten dimensions was required by the mathematical model in order to accommodate enough modes of vibration to account for the entire variety of phenomena in nature. Of the ten dimensions demanded by the mathematics, we can only see three. The other seven are postulated to be invisible. The original strings were now seen as small sections of this universal membrane, the vibrations of which give rise to all existence. The theory was called ‘M-Theory,’ where ‘M’ may stand for ‘Membrane.’ It is the very leading edge of physics today.

The correspondences between M-theory and the vibrating membrane of mind are obvious. But we must not forget this: most physicists are realists and, therefore, interpret the membrane to exist objectively, outside and independently of mind. However, the mathematical model of M-theory does not imply such an ontological interpretation: it simply models the modes of vibration of the membrane. I thus submit that the membrane of M-theory is nothing but certain aspects of the vibrating membrane of mind. What M-theorists are doing is modeling the patterns and regularities of some of the dynamics of mind: those that we associate with the empirical world ‘outside.’ They miss the rest of the dynamics of the membrane of mind: the vibratory patterns corresponding to our inner-world of feeling, insight, passion, etc., as well as the sum-total of the personal and collective ‘unconscious.’

As I argued before, a new worldview does not necessarily need to entail new physics. It only needs to provide a framework for a new interpretation of existing physics. By taking the hyper-dimensional membrane of M-theory to represent aspects of the medium of mind itself, I trust to be doing just that.

Kastrup, Bernardo. Why Materialism Is Baloney: How True Skeptics Know There Is No Death and Fathom Answers to life, the Universe, and Everything (S.165-166). John Hunt Publishing. Kindle-Version.

Since science has produced no experimental evidence to support the concept that M-theory is a description of the real world, it is all very hypothetical, but the idea that Mind is all encompassing could be explained by aligning the theories. However, as Kastrup himself said, how can we find experimental evidence for Mind itself?

[felix_dakat]

Why do we need it? Every moment of conscious life reveals it to us. Still I ask you this Bob, will you ever be able to commit yourself wholeheartedly to metaphysical idealism?

We’ve had a full-fledged metaphysical idealist on this forum for years–phenomenal graffiti. How is his view different than Kastrup’s?

Existential philosophy was born into the conundrum of modern metaphysics dominated by a materialism that couldn’t explain the consciousness in which this theoretical discourse was occurring. Metaphysical idealism flips the script.

What are the fruits of doing that? How is it better than fully experiencing the phenomena of experience as it unfolds itself to you recognizing that behind it all is an unknowable One? Does it change our existential situation fundamentally?

[Bob]

@felix dakat

Why do we need it? Every moment of conscious life reveals it to us. Still I ask you this Bob, will you ever be able to commit yourself wholeheartedly to metaphysical idealism?

We’ve had a full-fledged metaphysical idealist on this forum for years–phenomenal graffiti. How is his view different than Kastrup’s?

Existential philosophy was born into the conundrum of modern metaphysics dominated by a materialism that couldn’t explain the consciousness in which this theoretical discourse was occurring. Metaphysical idealism flips the script.

What are the fruits of doing that? How is it better than fully experiencing the phenomena of experience as it unfolds itself to you recognizing that behind it all is an unknowable One? Does it change our existential situation fundamentally?

I think that the way I entered Christianity, through the rigid materialist view of literalism, which very soon became insufficient due to my affinity to literature and the realisation of how central the story is to us as human beings, made me prone to an Alan Watts. After six books and endless tapes, I thirsted after a more acceptable basic story that picked up loose threads that I found scattered around in spiritual traditions. I learned MBSR, a form of mindfulness meditation, read the Dhamma Pada, Tao te Ching, and umpteen books on spiritual traditions.

I accepted existentialism as the leap of faith in lieu of hard facts. One story was as good as another, but why were there so many stories, and so many varying traditions that still sounded similar? What was each proverbial finger pointing at? Why were so many people in these varying traditions right? What happened in those strange “spiritual experiences” I had? Why did meditation and contemplation throw doors and windows open, instead of clearing things up? How could it be? Was truth not one?

So many questions, and then the experiences with the dying, and dealing with the bereaved. Numerous articles and books from people who had been through the same, who had coping strategies and could tell stories of near-death experiences, of changed lives. All the time, I was still drawing from mainstream theology, using the rituals that had proved themselves as helpful, developing new ideas for new situations like the bereaving person with dementia, or for people who had separated from the church. This is where CG Jung entered my life, opening my mind for the reality of spiritual experiences and their connection with archetypes.

Suddenly, out the blue, you crash out, depression, and all of those you have been caring for are suddenly out of focus. What was that? You ask yourself. The silence of meditation isn’t foreign, but suddenly cold, and the texts of contemplation seem to be repeats, or bland slogans. Consolation, given by people meaning well, stings like salt in a wound. I formally left the church because, despite my commitment, the Pastors left me to deal with the crisis alone. Christianity, it seemed, failed me when I needed the most.

You retain a form of spirituality and move to something like Tai Chi, so that the silence is at least full of movement. You change your devotional texts, adopting the wisdom of many traditions, developing an interreligious, universal approach to spirituality. You remember your books from Thomas Merton (Zen and the Birds of Appetite, the way of Chuang Tzu), Jack Kornfield, Wayne Teasdale, Laurence Freeman. It helps you through until you start returning, tentatively, to Christian ideas, via the mystics, old and new.

After a while, you come to appreciate unconventional Christians like the biologist Rupert Sheldrake, who was awed by Bede Griffiths in India, who was also someone whose book, Christ in India, deeply impressed me. Sheldrakes theories of morphic resonance, linked to the idea of an aware universe, led me to Bernado Kastrup, with whom he shared a stage at some convention. Kastrup too, says that his Catholic background, which he had been prepared to give up for science, suddenly regained pertinence through his study of consciousness via AI.

I’m not sure where I’m going with his hypothesis, but it does tend to pick up loose ends in many cases. The question whether I can commit myself wholeheartedly is therefore too early. I do submit it for discussion, but I’m not familiar with phenomenal graffiti, so I’d have to look that up. As to the question of knowing rather than unknowing, I think that Kastrup is plain enough in his statement that he can only use metaphors, much like we all use metaphors in areas where our perceptions are feeble, to put it in context. We remain the people in the cave looking at shadows on the wall, and what we call God is still the ineffable One. However, the hypothesis explains to me why there can be such diverse mythologies and spiritual experiences, presenting truth from varying perspectives and out of diverse experience.

It makes me far removed from the rigid materialism I began with. I have always tried to capture my spiritual insights in a book, and the Christian book has been superseded by a rather more universal collection of wisdom.

[felix_dakat]

Bob –

Phenomenal Graffiti is a guy who posts here on ILP in the religion and spirituality section.

My metaphysical skepticism follows from my reading of Kant and existential philosophy. Things appear to us in part. But we do not have perceptual access to things as they are in themselves—the whole. And that includes ourselves. The Self–the whole is inferred. Such is intentionality.

Empiricists tend to attack the imagination. But without the imagination they wouldn’t know that a cube has a side that they don’t see. Imagination underpins every dialogue. The imaginal is a layer of intelligence that underlies and supports language we are speaking and writing.

The physical sciences extend and systematize the range of phenomena so that it can be predicted and controlled. Hence we have transformed life on this planet using our technology. Now we are destroying life with it. Given that ecological context it isn’t surprising that humanity is being shaken to its metaphysical core. So I’m open to hear what you and Kastrup have to say about it. Does he have a remedy?

[Bob]

@felix dakat

My metaphysical skepticism follows from my reading of Kant and existential philosophy. Things appear to us in part. But we do not have perceptual access to things as they are in themselves—the whole. And that includes ourselves. The Self–the whole is inferred. Such is intentionality.

Empiricists tend to attack the imagination. But without the imagination they wouldn’t know that a cube has a side that they don’t see. Imagination underpins every dialogue. The imaginal is a layer of intelligence that underlies and supports language we are speaking and writing.

The physical sciences extend and systematize the range of phenomena so that it can be predicted and controlled. Hence we have transformed life on this planet using our technology. Now we are destroying life with it. Given that ecological context it isn’t surprising that humanity is being shaken to its metaphysical core. So I’m open to hear what you and Kastrup have to say about it. Does he have a remedy?

The denial of metaphysical knowledge is widespread, and it is understandable, because only material knowledge can be attained through our perception of the world, and through our senses. There is also the fact that our brains filter that perception, and so it does not necessarily fully correspond with the “reality” that our brains filter out. But mystical experiences, which come in many forms, in many varying circumstances, under varying physical conditions, remain a factor that changes lives, perspectives and hopes. In the 1990’s, when I was making progress in nursing, I had a friend who was a member of a monastic order until they fell out and “divorced”. He pointed me towards the modern mystics, and the international ecumenical movement bringing traditions together. What I discovered was how the various traditions correlated in practise and experiences. It wasn’t “gnosis” or knowledge, just experience, but the fact that people from these varying traditions could communicate amongst themselves showed me how narrow my view had been. My own experiences, though not understood, were therefore not unusual.

At the same time, the “shadow” of oneself, elusive and unconscious most of the time, also became a reality, and a correlation to what some Christians called “the devil” seemed fitting. Whereas I found that I had to reconcile that shadow to become whole, the Christians around me avoided what they could not understand, sometimes dashing to prayer meetings to take their mind off the troubling part of themselves that they couldn’t face. Their imagination was excited by sermons and for a while I doubted myself. Psychology was spurned in those circles, and so I found myself drifting away from Evangelicalism, towards psychology due to professional ties, but also towards the Mystics and in fact towards a kind of “inter-mysticism”, drawing also from other traditions. I found this recently echoed in the following statement:

A common motif across many traditional religious myths is the notion that the world is the imagination of a divinity. The divinity then enters its own imaginings, taking on a lucid, self-reflective state of awareness within it. It is this that brings concreteness to an essentially dreamed-up universe.
Kastrup, Bernardo. More Than Allegory: On Religious Myth, Truth And Belief (S.33-34). John Hunt Publishing. Kindle-Version.

I am no longer the idealist I was back in the 1990’s and following years, but I haven’t fully lost hope. I find that we are in need of a different perspective, which essentially connects the “mystical” with the empirical in a way that people have done in the past, but with a modern understanding of what is going on. That is, walking in with eyes open, aware of the shortcoming of experiences, dreams, visions and also mythology, but also aware that there is something there that is valuable if we are to escape from the destruction that scientiscm and all forms of prejudice are bringing upon us. That is why, when I read Kastrup, I found statements like the following helpful:

As argued carefully in an earlier work, I believe that the logical constraints of the human intellect are very useful but ultimately arbitrary. After all, one cannot logically argue for the absolute validity of logic without begging the question. The obfuscated mind, for not being restricted to such arbitrary constraints, can embody a much greater range of cognition than the intellect. Its symbolic character should be regarded, according to Carl Jung, as an ancient mode of thought that has been superseded—or rather, obfuscated—by the relatively recent acquisition of linguistic thinking.
Kastrup, Bernardo. More Than Allegory: On Religious Myth, Truth And Belief (S.42-43). John Hunt Publishing. Kindle-Version.

Is this a remedy? No. But it is an attempt to gain a different perspective on our understanding of what is going on in this mysterious universe, and can pick up some of the loose ends dangling around. As Jeffrey Kripal (J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University in Houston, Texas) mentions in his introduction:

I had read plenty of idealists within my own historical area of research, and Bernardo sounds a lot like the comparative mystical literature to which I have given my life—except that, unlike my historical sources, he answers my e-mails. There is Meister Eckhart, the great Dominican professor and philosopher whose sermons on the always-happening incarnation of the Word in the individual soul and the Now of eternity read like medieval versions of the books of Bernardo Kastrup (or Eckhart Tolle). But Meister Eckhart died almost seven hundred years ago. There is Ramana Maharshi, the great South Indian Hindu mystic of the immortal Self, or what I like to call the Same in us all. But he left us over sixty years ago. Much closer culturally (and digitally), there is Philip K. Dick, the great American science fiction writer who realized through an encounter with the Logos or Cosmic Mind that “reality is a giant brain” that appears to work like a binary computer code network. But he died over thirty years ago.
Dick is worth dwelling on for a moment here, as his weird thought eerily reflects the more precise and calmer books of Bernardo Kastrup.
Kastrup, Bernardo. More Than Allegory: On Religious Myth, Truth And Belief (S.1-2). John Hunt Publishing. Kindle-Version.

That is why I have been occupying myself with Kastrup.

[Meno2 (Meno_)]

@Bob

@felix dakat

My metaphysical skepticism follows from my reading of Kant and existential philosophy. Things appear to us in part. But we do not have perceptual access to things as they are in themselves—the whole. And that includes ourselves. The Self–the whole is inferred. Such is intentionality.

Empiricists tend to attack the imagination. But without the imagination they wouldn’t know that a cube has a side that they don’t see. Imagination underpins every dialogue. The imaginal is a layer of intelligence that underlies and supports language we are speaking and writing.

The physical sciences extend and systematize the range of phenomena so that it can be predicted and controlled. Hence we have transformed life on this planet using our technology. Now we are destroying life with it. Given that ecological context it isn’t surprising that humanity is being shaken to its metaphysical core. So I’m open to hear what you and Kastrup have to say about it. Does he have a remedy?

The denial of metaphysical knowledge is widespread, and it is understandable, because only material knowledge can be attained through our perception of the world, and through our senses. There is also the fact that our brains filter that perception, and so it does not necessarily fully correspond with the “reality” that our brains filter out. But mystical experiences, which come in many forms, in many varying circumstances, under varying physical conditions, remain a factor that changes lives, perspectives and hopes. In the 1990’s, when I was making progress in nursing, I had a friend who was a member of a monastic order until they fell out and “divorced”. He pointed me towards the modern mystics, and the international ecumenical movement bringing traditions together. What I discovered was how the various traditions correlated in practise and experiences. It wasn’t “gnosis” or knowledge, just experience, but the fact that people from these varying traditions could communicate amongst themselves showed me how narrow my view had been. My own experiences, though not understood, were therefore not unusual.

At the same time, the “shadow” of oneself, elusive and unconscious most of the time, also became a reality, and a correlation to what some Christians called “the devil” seemed fitting. Whereas I found that I had to reconcile that shadow to become whole, the Christians around me avoided what they could not understand, sometimes dashing to prayer meetings to take their mind off the troubling part of themselves that they couldn’t face. Their imagination was excited by sermons and for a while I doubted myself. Psychology was spurned in those circles, and so I found myself drifting away from Evangelicalism, towards psychology due to professional ties, but also towards the Mystics and in fact towards a kind of “inter-mysticism”, drawing also from other traditions. I found this recently echoed in the following statement:

A common motif across many traditional religious myths is the notion that the world is the imagination of a divinity. The divinity then enters its own imaginings, taking on a lucid, self-reflective state of awareness within it. It is this that brings concreteness to an essentially dreamed-up universe.
Kastrup, Bernardo. More Than Allegory: On Religious Myth, Truth And Belief (S.33-34). John Hunt Publishing. Kindle-Version.

I am no longer the idealist I was back in the 1990’s and following years, but I haven’t fully lost hope. I find that we are in need of a different perspective, which essentially connects the “mystical” with the empirical in a way that people have done in the past, but with a modern understanding of what is going on. That is, walking in with eyes open, aware of the shortcoming of experiences, dreams, visions and also mythology, but also aware that there is something there that is valuable if we are to escape from the destruction that scientiscm and all forms of prejudice are bringing upon us. That is why, when I read Kastrup, I found statements like the following helpful:

As argued carefully in an earlier work, I believe that the logical constraints of the human intellect are very useful but ultimately arbitrary. After all, one cannot logically argue for the absolute validity of logic without begging the question. The obfuscated mind, for not being restricted to such arbitrary constraints, can embody a much greater range of cognition than the intellect. Its symbolic character should be regarded, according to Carl Jung, as an ancient mode of thought that has been superseded—or rather, obfuscated—by the relatively recent acquisition of linguistic thinking.
Kastrup, Bernardo. More Than Allegory: On Religious Myth, Truth And Belief (S.42-43). John Hunt Publishing. Kindle-Version.

Is this a remedy? No. But it is an attempt to gain a different perspective on our understanding of what is going on in this mysterious universe, and can pick up some of the loose ends dangling around. As Jeffrey Kripal (J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University in Houston, Texas) mentions in his introduction:

I had read plenty of idealists within my own historical area of research, and Bernardo sounds a lot like the comparative mystical literature to which I have given my life—except that, unlike my historical sources, he answers my e-mails. There is Meister Eckhart, the great Dominican professor and philosopher whose sermons on the always-happening incarnation of the Word in the individual soul and the Now of eternity read like medieval versions of the books of Bernardo Kastrup (or Eckhart Tolle). But Meister Eckhart died almost seven hundred years ago. There is Ramana Maharshi, the great South Indian Hindu mystic of the immortal Self, or what I like to call the Same in us all. But he left us over sixty years ago. Much closer culturally (and digitally), there is Philip K. Dick, the great American science fiction writer who realized through an encounter with the Logos or Cosmic Mind that “reality is a giant brain” that appears to work like a binary computer code network. But he died over thirty years ago.
Dick is worth dwelling on for a moment here, as his weird thought eerily reflects the more precise and calmer books of Bernardo Kastrup.
Kastrup, Bernardo. More Than Allegory: On Religious Myth, Truth And Belief (S.1-2). John Hunt Publishing. Kindle-Version.

That is why I have been occupying myself with Kastrup.

Which highlights the idealism of scholastic resilience to be an aspect of ‘faith’ we can not discount.However the intentional will to sustain some measure of the ideal in a different form doubled down in an increasing ‘objective’ of a changing, metamorphosing type. See Dali’s ‘Metamorphosis of Narcissus’ as a sort of occult proof of a visual version of a prophetic-poetical licensed enigma.

[felix_dakat]

Bob

I am no longer the idealist I was back in the 1990’s and following years, but I haven’t fully lost hope.

I’ll reply in more detail later. But I think you are conflating moral idealism with metaphysical idealism. They’re not the same thing. Nor is one necessarily dependent on the other.

[Bob]

@felix dakat

Bob

I am no longer the idealist I was back in the 1990’s and following years, but I haven’t fully lost hope.

I’ll reply in more detail later. But I think you are conflating moral idealism with metaphysical idealism. They’re not the same thing. Nor is one necessarily dependent on the other.

No, I was the other kind of idealist in the 1990’s … sometimes the double meaning of words can be a stumbling block …

[Bob]

@Meno_

Which highlights the idealism of scholastic resilience to be an aspect of ‘faith’ we can not discount. However the intentional will to sustain some measure of the ideal in a different form doubled down in an increasing ‘objective’ of a changing, metamorphosing type. See Dali’s ‘Metamorphosis of Narcissus’ as a sort of occult proof of a visual version of a prophetic-poetical licensed enigma.

I am not sure that it is really scholastic resilience that I am demonstrating here, because I am not the one who adheres to formal rules, and the people I have quoted have, by their own admission, been driven by their experience to form a hypothesis of reality that fits it. But every faith, even in the truth of a hypothesis, is tested by adversity, in whatever form.

Dali’s “Metamorphosis of Narcissus” is of course a masterpiece and captures a mystery in a way that reveals artistic genius. You are right that it captures the metamorphosis of an idea/ideal in a special way and should therefore prove how ideas can change form over time while retaining their essence. This has happened in religion over thousands of years in varying degrees of quality.

[felix_dakat]

@Bob

@felix dakat

Bob

I am no longer the idealist I was back in the 1990’s and following years, but I haven’t fully lost hope.

I’ll reply in more detail later. But I think you are conflating moral idealism with metaphysical idealism. They’re not the same thing. Nor is one necessarily dependent on the other.

No, I was the other kind of idealist in the 1990’s … sometimes the double meaning of words can be a stumbling block …

In that case it isn’t clear to me why you would say you did or didn’t lose hope in a particular metaphysical theory. What are you hoping idealism is going to do?

[Arcturus_Descending]

Felix Dakat,

Last night in my dreams I was having intercourse with a girlfriend. She wasn’t really here. Could that be part of me–my anima, my feminine side, possessing me?

lol As tab said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Could have been a residual memory.

Was there any reason for you to suspect at that time that you or your unconscious needed or wanted you to be in touch with your anima?

I kind of suspect that any man who is a wonderful, giving lover would already be in touch with his anima side. I’m just saying.

[iambiguous]

@Arcturus Descending

Felix Dakat,

Last night in my dreams I was having intercourse with a girlfriend. She wasn’t really here. Could that be part of me–my anima, my feminine side, possessing me?

Was there any reason for you to suspect at that time that you or your unconscious needed or wanted you to be in touch with your anima?

I kind of suspect that any man who is a wonderful, giving lover would already be in touch with his anima side. I’m just saying.

[b]Anima defined:

1. PSYCHOANALYSIS
   (in Jungian psychology) the feminine part of a man’s personality.
2. HISTORICAL•PHILOSOPHY
   the soul, especially the irrational part of the soul as distinguished from the rational mind.[/b]

Now, my own approach to anima like my own approach to the soul is to ask those who believe in either one or both, to at least make an attempt to demonstrate that they do in fact exist. Or that their own does. Constituting what they then construe to be “wholeness”.

My own suggestion being that they might be willing to do so in regard to a context in which animas and souls come into conflict over particular moral, political and/or spiritual value judgments. My main interest in things like this.

But first the focus would be on providing empirical evidence beyond the belief itself that they do exist.

For example, they could go to an online community of doctors or biologists or neurologists or neuroscientists, explain to them what they do believe about their own anima and soul, and ask if there has been any evidence they themselves have found that they do exist.

And then after accumulating as much proof as they can there coming back here and sharing it with us.

Otherwise those of my own philosophical inclination will be likely to suspect that this belief in an anima or soul is embedded more in the psychological comfort and consolation some sustain in merely having the belief itself that they exist.

[Bob]

@felix dakat

In that case it isn’t clear to me why you would say you did or didn’t lose hope in a particular metaphysical theory. What are you hoping idealism is going to do?

It’s complicated. I was writing my reply and thinking about the 1990’s and started looking at the books on my shelf from that time when I came upon the book by Wayne Teasdale, The Mystic Heart. I started to read the introduction and couldn’t help thinking how we thought back then, and Teasdale was very optimistic that we were entering a new age of tolerance and interaction. I thought so too, but more than twenty years on it looks very different. That is probably why the sentence popped up.

What am I hoping that metaphysical idealism will do? First of all, it helps me envision a scenario that, although it is metaphor and no better than another, I have a way of thinking of reality that releases me in a way from (from my perspective) antiquated metaphors. I find his hypothesis good for the reasons stated above. It may be that this is quite ego centrical, but it helps. Other people will probably prefer the old stories, which I respect and obviously, they are part of our culture and so we can’t just throw them out.

One thing though, although many idealists share the monistic view that material objects and the external world do not exist in reality independently of the human mind but are variously creations of the mind or constructs of ideas, the hypothesis that Kastrup is putting forward is that mind isn’t restricted to the human mind, but the human mind is a part of the universal Mind. A slight difference there.

[Bob]

Just as an addition …
https://www.skeptic.com/michael-shermer-show/nature-of-reality-materialism-idealism-or-skepticism-bernardo-kastrup/?fbclid=IwAR3ZWoFUStsAYk4sSvjQXpwQULyampqa0PYVRD3hLhQzgAR0ZRbP2bH_q5s

[felix_dakat]

@Bob

@felix dakat

In that case it isn’t clear to me why you would say you did or didn’t lose hope in a particular metaphysical theory. What are you hoping idealism is going to do?

It’s complicated. I was writing my reply and thinking about the 1990’s and started looking at the books on my shelf from that time when I came upon the book by Wayne Teasdale, The Mystic Heart. I started to read the introduction and couldn’t help thinking how we thought back then, and Teasdale was very optimistic that we were entering a new age of tolerance and interaction. I thought so too, but more than twenty years on it looks very different. That is probably why the sentence popped up.

What am I hoping that metaphysical idealism will do? First of all, it helps me envision a scenario that, although it is metaphor and no better than another, I have a way of thinking of reality that releases me in a way from (from my perspective) antiquated metaphors. I find his hypothesis good for the reasons stated above. It may be that this is quite ego centrical, but it helps. Other people will probably prefer the old stories, which I respect and obviously, they are part of our culture and so we can’t just throw them out.

One thing though, although many idealists share the monistic view that material objects and the external world do not exist in reality independently of the human mind but are variously creations of the mind or constructs of ideas, the hypothesis that Kastrup is putting forward is that mind isn’t restricted to the human mind, but the human mind is a part of the universal Mind. A slight difference there.

As the quantum physicist, Erwin Schrodinger, proposed “The number of minds in the universe is one. In fact consciousness is a singularity phasing within all beings.”

[Arcturus_Descending]

Iambiguous,

Otherwise those of my own philosophical inclination will be likely to suspect that this belief in an anima or soul is embedded more in the psychological comfort and consolation some sustain in merely having the belief itself that they exist.

How does believing in or one may even say seeing or experiencing the anima in action occurring within the man give comfort and consolation and on the other side of that coin, believing in an animus give the same comfort and consolation to a woman? Oh, okay - so you were using the word “anima” to mean the soul. I don’t see it that way. I do agree though that the thought of it can give great comfort to many.

As Jung coined the words, I can see my animus when it is at play or at the forefront. Both anima and animus do have positive sides to them. For the man it makes him more gentle, kind, compassionate, et cetera and for the woman it makes her more assertive, clear-headed, emotionally balanced.

Personally, I have no idea if we have a soul, something which lives on. I like the word psyche better which refers more to the mind and all of its conscious parts and unconscious parts, which may number more than the constellations in the Universe. lol

[felix_dakat]

@Arcturus Descending

Iambiguous,

Otherwise those of my own philosophical inclination will be likely to suspect that this belief in an anima or soul is embedded more in the psychological comfort and consolation some sustain in merely having the belief itself that they exist.

How does believing in or one may even say seeing or experiencing the anima in action occurring within the man give comfort and consolation and on the other side of that coin, believing in an animus give the same comfort and consolation to a woman? Oh, okay - so you were using the word “anima” to mean the soul. I don’t see it that way. I do agree though that the thought of it can give great comfort to many.

As Jung coined the words, I can see my animus when it is at play or at the forefront. Both anima and animus do have positive sides to them. For the man it makes him more gentle, kind, compassionate, et cetera and for the woman it makes her more assertive, clear-headed, emotionally balanced.

Personally, I have no idea if we have a soul, something which lives on. I like the word psyche better which refers more to the mind and all of its conscious parts and unconscious parts, which may number more than the constellations in the Universe. lol

Psyche and soul are synonyms. Now we can talk about theories about the psyche or soul including the dualistic theory that the body dies and the soul lives on. Or how about the monistic one in which we are all part of one soul that never dies? But, without getting into theory at all, the psyche or soul is conscious. Our dialogue proceeds in it.

The Ashtavakra Gita says " I am the infinite deep in whom all the world’s appear to rise. Beyond all form, forever still. So am I."

Sri Ramana Maharishi said " ‘I am’ is the name of God… God is none other than the Self."

Ibn-al-Arabi, one of the most revered Sufi mystics wrote: “if thou knowest thine own self, thou knowest God.”

CG Jung’s concept of the Self is consistent with the quoted propositions. He observed that empirically the archetype of the Self cannot be distinguished from the God-image

The Self may be called the carrier of the God-image that occupies the central position of authority of the personality as a whole.

Symbolically the Self occupies both the highest and the central point of the soul. This is depicted symbolically in Christian iconography.

The Tree of Life at the center of the garden of Eden is also at the top of the highest mountain. The image behind the origin myth is a mandala–a vision of wholeness.

Jung observed that the Self can burst upon the ego producing a living experience of the divine, the numinous or the sacred. That’s what the mystical writers I quoted above are pointing to.

[Bob]

At the beginning of his first chapter, ‘Fragmentation and wholeness’, David Böhm writes:

It is especially important to consider this question today, for fragmentation is now very widespread, not only throughout society, but also in each individual; and this is leading to a kind of general confusion of the mind, which creates an endless series of problems and interferes with our clarity of perception so seriously as to prevent us from being able to solve most of them. Thus art, science, technology, and human work in general, are divided up into specialities, each considered to be separate in essence from the others.
Becoming dissatisfied with this state of affairs, men have set up further interdisciplinary subjects, which were intended to unite these specialities, but these new subjects have ultimately served mainly to add further separate fragments. Then, society as a whole has developed in such a way that it is broken up into separate nations and different religious, political, economic, racial groups, etc. Man’s natural environment has correspondingly been seen as an aggregate of separately existent parts, to be exploited by different groups of people. Similarly, each individual human being has been fragmented into a large number of separate and conflicting compartments, according to his different desires, aims, ambitions, loyalties, psychological characteristics, etc., to such an extent that it is generally accepted that some degree of neurosis is inevitable, while many individuals going beyond the ‘normal’ limits of fragmentation are classified as paranoid, schizoid, psychotic, etc.

David Böhm. Wholeness and the Implicate Order (Routledge Classics) . Taylor and Francis. Kindle-Version.

[felix_dakat]

Indeed fragmentation is apparently a necessary condition in our cognition of existence. The problem was recognized by Saint Paul 2000 years ago when he said “for now we see in a mirror dimly but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.”

In that passage, even as Paul expresses his recognition of the fragmentation of his existential cognition, he envisions transcendent wholeness. But given that he envisions it from a point of view that is fragmented, the vision itself must be a fragment.

I’m curious. How far does Bohm get with the problem in the book you cited?