Claudiu's Journal

[claudiu]

Hi Vineeto

@Vineeto

Now the only (open) question remains – who or what do you want to give all of ‘yourself’ to?

The immediate answer I had for this question is — the very infinitude of the universe itself!

It’s as I wrote to you in an email on Nov 18, 2024:

Hi Vineeto,

Thank you for sharing that delightful conversation. I found it scintillatingly wonderful and brilliant.

The part that stood out to me most was this one:

RESPONDENT: Richard, an uncluttered space in which to clarify some key issues: What is your basis for claiming that the universe is infinite and eternal?

RICHARD: Apperception (unmediated perception) … as a flesh and blood body only one is this infinite, eternal and perpetual universe experiencing itself apperceptively: as such it is stunningly aware of its own infinitude.

And this is wonderful.

RESPONDENT: With regard to attaining ‘actual freedom from the human condition’, does it matter whether the universe is infinite and eternal?

RICHARD: It is infinitude which makes such a freedom possible … only that which has no opposite is peerless (hence perfect).

RESPONDENT: If time, space and matter had begun with a ‘Big Bang’, would PCE’s still be possible?

RICHARD: No … the peerless perfection of the pure consciousness experience (PCE) would not exist.

RESPONDENT: Would ‘actual freedom’ from the human condition still be possible?

RICHARD: No … the pristine purity of this actual world would not exist.

RESPONDENT: Ok, you experience the universe as infinite, beginningless and endless.

RICHARD: To be precise: this flesh and blood body, being sans identity in toto, has the direct experience of infinitude when awake, not asleep, when sensible, not insensible (comatose) whether thought is operating or not.

RESPONDENT: Given that eyesight is limited, range of hearing is limited, sense of smell has a shorter range, taste even less, and tactile sensation is confined to the very boundaries of the body, which sense organ in this flesh and blood body is capable of apperceptively perceiving infinity? Which sense organ is apperceptively able to determine what happened or didn’t happen in the distant past? Which sense organ is apperceptively able to determine what will or will not happen in the distant future? Which sense organ reveals the shape or shapelessness of the universe?

RICHARD: You asked ‘what is your basis for claiming that the universe is infinite and eternal’ and I answered as asked: the basis for my claim that the universe is spatially infinite, temporally eternal, and materially perpetual is the apperceptive awareness (unmediated perception) of infinitude.

Perhaps if I were to put it this way: if the infinitude directly experienced in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) is not the infinitude of the universe then what is it the infinitude of … a god (using the word ‘god’ in the ‘ground of being’ sense)?

In other words if it be not a physical infinitude then it falls into the realm of being a metaphysical infinitude. (List AF, No. 60a, 25 Jan 2004b) {emphasis added [in original email]}.

Those last two paragraphs struck me. I can’t find the proper words to express it. It is so remarkably straightforward and matter-of-fact, and even logical in the simplest possible sense. Yet it points to an undeniable fact: that the infinitude experienced in a PCE is actual, and not metaphysical (and thus illusory/delusory).

Because infinitude is experienced in a PCE (or can be if not always)… so it must be an experience of something. And it is not an infinitude of a God or other such thing, because the very substance that Gods are made out of is gone. So what is it an experience of, then? It must be the infinitude of actuality.

The reason it struck me is that it drove home that this infinitude is actual – and thus that it is something worth sacrificing myself for. [emphasis in original email]

That bold and italic part is what struck me about it.

I don’t really know how else to put it. The magnitude and significance of that was stark, immediate, incredibly meaningful, and I don’t think the words I’m using here to describe it do it justice – but perhaps you can appreciate what I am getting at regardless.

What I find a bit strange is I can’t give a satisfying thought out reason as to “why” it makes sense to sacrifice myself for the infinitude. What would the infinitude — already perfect — benefit from it? And I would be no more and such not around to benefit from this sacrifice. Nevertheless, I know it’s what I want to do

Interestingly upon rereading it, it wasn’t the part I bolder at the end that got to me but rather a part much further up:

RESPONDENT: With regard to attaining ‘actual freedom from the human condition’, does it matter whether the universe is infinite and eternal?

RICHARD: It is infinitude which makes such a freedom possible … only that which has no opposite is peerless (hence perfect).

This is what struck me this time. The universe being infinite means there is nothing outside the universe and as such nothing that is not the universe / nothing other than the universe, against which to compare the universe. Hence it is peerless, it has no opposite, and it is thus intrinsically perfect.

Again I can’t explain why this makes sense in a rational thought-out way. A denizen of the real world would quibble that just because something exists with nothing to compare it to doesn’t make it perfect, it could be bad instead or some other thing. Nevertheless it makes perfect sense that the universe being peerless, having nothing other than it against which it can be measured, makes it perfect.

I can go further and see why, too. It’s intrinsic to the very nature of existence. Existence is intrinsically perfect, marked by benevolence and benignly. As such it could not be that the only thing to exist (the universe) is not perfect. Again to the philosopher this is remarkably unsatisfying and unfounded. If our template of a philosopher said this is unsophisticated, they’d be right of course. But unfounded it isn’t… it seems axiomatic or tautological but it comes down to it being experiential. Apperceptive experience along with the pure intent sourced thereof informs me as to the facticity of this which I write here.

You wrote:

@Vineeto

Now the only (open) question remains – who or what do you want to give all of ‘yourself’ to?

Does the above make sense as the “what” of it? I already know it does haha, but it’s odd not having the thought-out answer of why it makes sense. However I don’t think I really need that piece of it… just to allow it to happen!

Cheers,
Claudiu