Drawing the line between feeling and fact

Actualism
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The following line of thought brings up a few avenues of inquiry: (1) Is the term ‘actual’ as defined by the AFT truly synonymous with the term ‘physical’? (2) Are feelings physical? If so, are they actual? (3) Do illusions, delusions, feelings, and beliefs exist beyond this physically infinite, boundless universe or within it? (4) If within, then must not they be physical as well else a boundary forms?

Richard has repeatedly stated that feelings (and the self) are not facts i.e. they don’t actually exist.

Richard (1997): ‘I’ , as an emotional ‘being’ am not a fact … ‘I’ am a belief. (…) A feeling is not a fact.

But what of us who still experience a self and feelings? Are these feelings not factually occurring? If I’m angry is it not a fact? Does not sadness actually exist?

Richard says a feeling has no substance, and is thus not actual.

Richard (1997): By actual I mean tangible, substantial. ‘I’ am not tangible: ‘I’ am a belief, not a fact.

But aren’t mental images intangible? Aren’t abstract concepts insubstantial? Yet imagination and abstract conceptualization exist in the actual world. How can one say that feelings are exempt from being categorized as physical? How could that which is non-physical be experienced in this physically boundless world?

I am imagining a unicorn. The image of the unicorn actually exists. It is a physical manifestation that required physical processes to take on its form. If I am deluded, I might mistake that internal image as not merely existing in my physical head but outside where it can be sensately perceived by others. I might say, look, there’s a unicorn, when there is no form for others to see. The assertion that unicorns exist outside my mind would more accurately be classified as perhaps an error of reasoning, or even a pathology that leads one to assert that they exist in a manner sensately observable to others. But in any case, if I imagine the unicorn then it must actually, physically exist, if only as an image produced by the physical processes of this brain.

Furthermore, if for whatever reason there is a fear of this imagined unicorn, then the fear must be physical, it must actually exist as well.

Richard (n.d.): This physical universe is infinite and eternal (boundless and limitless).

The fact that this physical universe is infinite and eternal means that it is a mistake to draw a line between the physical world and the imaginary world, between the sensate tangible realm and the affective emotional realm. There cannot be anything which is not physical. Therefore feelings must be physical. And if it is physical, then it is factual. If factual, then actual.

To drive the point: there is nothing, absolutely nothing that is not physical and thus actual. If I experience desire, then that desire is physical i.e. actual.

Of course, if one stops experiencing feelings, it would be correct to say that feelings are not actual, not physically existent. They are simply not there. But to say a feeling, despite experiencing it, is less a fact than the mental image of the ‘number 4’, strikes me as a misapprehension or an error of reasoning.

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@rick The way I see it is that feelings are in the psyche and therefore not actual just like beliefs are in the psyche and not actual. Richard makes a distinction between what’s real and what’s actual. For example Santa Claus is real but not actual.

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Hi James - yes, Richard says the psyche, the emotions, the passions, etc, have no existence in actuality.

Richard (2013): 1. Feeling-beings have no existence in actuality. 2. Emotions and passions have no existence in actuality. 3. Affective vibes have no existence in actuality. 4. Psychic currents have no existence in actuality. 5. The ‘psychic network’ has no existence in actuality. 6. The psyche itself has no existence in actuality. 7. All of the above is an illusion. 8. Hence no scientific evidence for any of the above. 9. Paying lip-service to illusions is just that (lip-service).
… [the ‘psychic network’ refers to] an elementary aspect of animalistic interconnectedness.

Likewise he would say that Santa Claus, being a product of passionate imagination, has no existence in actuality either.

Richard (2000): There is no such entity as ‘Santa Claus’ outside of passionate imagination let alone a ‘North Pole’ home where such a phantasm lives.

Richard correctly identifies the nature of Santa Claus: a product of passionate imagination. But does this mean that the product of passionate imagination cannot be considered a physical product, and therefore actual, given that Richard equates the two terms ‘physical’ and ‘actual’?

Since the physical world is boundless and limitless, then Santa Claus, the product of passionate imagination, must be just as physical as the brain organ that produced it, else there be a border between that which is physical (the brain organ) and that which is purported to be not-physical (passionate imagination and its contents), rendering the physical world bounded and limited to the supposed border of a ‘non-physical’ world. A ‘non-physical’ world does not and cannot exist except as a conceptual abstraction or a passionate belief both of which are physical occurrences arising from the natural processes of a wonderfully complex physical organ.

Given that passionate imagination does not occur within Richard’s brain organ, except as a memory or a conceptual notion, he is correct to say that passionate imagination has no existence in actuality other than as something for which he pays lip service to. It is simply beyond his direct experience. Richard underwent something that resulted in radical and permanent change to his brain organ wherein passionate imagination would no longer materialize.

For those who have not gone through that change, reptiles, mammals, and humans alike, who still experience instinctual passions like desire, is not that experience physically occurring, and therefore actually occurring?

How can there possibly exist something that is not physical when the physical universe is boundless and limitless?

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@rick Those things exist in the real world (psyche) but not in the actual world. In a pce we can see that those things (feelings,etc) do not exist in the actual world.

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That is an accurate representation of what Richard has stated. He distinguishes between a world which exists in actuality (the actual world) and a world which does not exist in actuality (the real world).

But what are the implications of considering the physical world as equivalent to the actual world? Of seeing no distinction between that which is physical and that which is actual.

When one considers that all brain activity, including feeling, is physical,
Feeling = physical
Then as physical = actual,
Therefore feeling = actual
As actual = fact
Then feeling = fact

The desirous feeling, the appetitive drive, for consuming a fresh hot donut would exist in fact. Where then is the line between feeling and fact?

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@rick The line between feeling and fact is between thinking/feeling about the donut and actually having the donut.

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But would you say that the appetitive desire for the donut is occurring in fact? That the feeling is factually existent?

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Hmmm, I’m not sure about that. Would like to hear what Richard says about that. My thinking is that the desire/feeling for the donut is real but not actual.

Gone to lunch. Back later.

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Or maybe factual but not actual?

Okay, until later.

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I have more of a problem with the opposite in a way. To me it is obvious that emotions are not actual. There are physical sensations produced by emotions which are physical but the emotions themselves are not physical but rather something that you feel intuitively in an existential way. I actually have a problem with seeing thoughts and imagination as actual. It seems to me there are things happening in the brain that are actual that produce thoughts and images which are not actual. However it is not lost on me that thoughts happen in a pure conscious experience and in an actual Freedom From The Human Condition. So insofar as Richard’s reports are experiential reports I do understand why he chooses the words that he has chosen.

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The difference is that thoughts (and the experience of being alive) is the brain neurons firing and generating that experience. The experience of sight is not a tangible thing that is touchable, but in a PCE it is actually happening - it is the brain generating consciousness.

Similarly for example if one were to stimulate an actually free person’s visual cortex that would cause visual effects – those would be actual.

While emotions are not actual, they don’t exist in this way ^. The emotions have the effect of causing brain neurons to fire (some of which then cause hormones to be released etc.), but the emotion itself, the intuitive experience of it, and all it entails, is not actual.

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That’s a really good description @claudiu so essentially the point is that emotions are only experienced intuitively by the ‘self’ or they are the ‘self’ but that intuitive experience of a self having/being emotions is not actual, it is an illusion which arises out of the affective faculty. Yet the chemicals and the physical sensations which are associated with emotions are actual.

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And to answer this question…

Not exactly. Though I can’t find the quote now, I once asked Richard about what scientists discover, and how they are discovering properties of the actual world. And he corrected me saying that scientists discover properties of the physical world, not the actual world, as the actual world is invisible to them.

e.g. how can they discover and empirically determine properties of the actually-existing pure intent, when this pure intent is invisible to them? etc…

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@rick I think you might have nailed it “factual but not actual.”

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@rick I would say the word ‘actual’ denotes ground reality as it is experienced in the absence of feelings or self to obscure it. Whereas ‘physical’ is a term that has long been used to describe objects that have a material reality in contrast to non-physical things such as mathematical concepts, fairies, thoughts and feelings - at least as far as we buy some sort of Cartesian dualism that separates these out. It sounds like you are proposing a kind of monism, where thoughts, feelings, images and abstractions are on an equal footing with physical objects in the world which they seem to be a part of - at least in some sense.

But aren’t mental images intangible? Aren’t abstract concepts insubstantial? Yet imagination and abstract conceptualization exist in the actual world. How can one say that feelings are exempt from being categorized as physical? How could that which is non-physical be experienced in this physically boundless world?

This is the age old ontological problem. The way I think about it now, even as an actualist it doesn’t matter whether you are a philosophical monist or a dualist. The fact remains that in life you intuitively treat images, concepts and feelings quite differently from physical objects e.g. reacting to being actually shot at with a gun vs. reacting to a child making a ‘gun’ with his hand and saying he will ‘shoot’ you. I wonder if - in another way - you are also asking here how consciousness can come about from dead physical matter? Ah but matter is not dead. Far from it.

I am imagining a unicorn. The image of the unicorn actually exists. It is a physical manifestation that required physical processes to take on its form. If I am deluded, I might mistake that internal image as not merely existing in my physical head but outside where it can be sensately perceived by others. I might say, look, there’s a unicorn, when there is no form for others to see. The assertion that unicorns exist outside my mind would more accurately be classified as perhaps an error of reasoning, or even a pathology that leads one to assert that they exist in a manner sensately observable to others. But in any case, if I imagine the unicorn then it must actually, physically exist, if only as an image produced by the physical processes of this brain.

Again a monist might make this case. But to me regardless of whether you give the unicorn in your imagination agency or not, it doesn’t actually exist. And if wishes were horses, many children will be riding a pony. Your imaginary unicorn can’t be ridden, doesn’t eat, copulate etc. Its existential status vs. the actually existing brain of yours that produced it is just not comparable.

The fact that this physical universe is infinite and eternal means that it is a mistake to draw a line between the physical world and the imaginary world, between the sensate tangible realm and the affective emotional realm. There cannot be anything which is not physical. Therefore feelings must be physical. And if it is physical, then it is factual. If factual, then actual.

To drive the point: there is nothing, absolutely nothing that is not physical and thus actual. If I experience desire, then that desire is physical i.e. actual.

Of course, if one stops experiencing feelings, it would be correct to say that feelings are not actual, not physically existent. They are simply not there. But to say a feeling, despite experiencing it, is less a fact than the mental image of the ‘number 4’, strikes me as a misapprehension or an error of reasoning.

Ok so have it your way. Be a monist lumper that sees everything as a manifestation of the physical. But as someone seeking to be actually free the question then becomes what makes you want to even seek an actual freedom from the human condition in your undifferentiated world? One answer could be that you are tired of negative emotions and simply want to be happy - and that doesn’t depend on what you think of the status of unicorns :slightly_smiling_face:. But that by itself isn’t enough, you still have to be able to separate ‘reality’ from actual in order to make the right choice. The risk with your philosophy is that the line gets so blurry, the right choice would never be apparent. Gods and unicorns then are on a somewhat equal footing with apples and trees. So would feeling beings and flesh and blood bodies. One way out of this (and this is why I think ontological agnosticism about the nature of reality isn’t necessarily a problem) is to maybe realise that your philosophical position doesn’t in any way change how you experience the world. So when you choose actual freedom when the time comes, you recognise that in some way that the actual you, this flesh and blood body is gloriously substantive in a way that feeling being fictional ‘you’ never can be. After-all one can be absorbed in a novel and still recognise that it is not actual or substantial when we put it down, get up, stretch and walk to the refrigerator to get something to eat.

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I wonder what the difference is between the status of thoughts vs feelings as actually existing things. Seems like both are virtual. A product of brain activity, but producing experiences that are very different. One is more like a voice or a string of words. The other is a phantom-like bodily experience. But feelings have a way of wrapping us up in an alternative world in a way thoughts cannot. Okay, meditators would claim something different, but they tend to ignore feelings or see them as a byproduct of thought.

To throw a pretty big and controversial spanner in the works, it seems increasingly likely now that the brain rather than rendering reality faithfully is more of a constructive, modelling and prediction engine - which has to do a lot of work with a rather limited sensory input. So a lot of stuff is made up and filled in (e.g. peripheral vision) rather like a half finished video game where it’s all just chunky pixels.

Tbh, it doesn’t really make a difference at all whether this is true or not. Accepting or not accepting this will not get in the way of actual freedom. I’m an empiricist for the most part and I really don’t care when I’m speaking to someone, drinking a cup of coffee or looking up at the night sky how my brain is putting that experience together. Living an actual freedom is just glorious and magical in its own right regardless. The difference between living like this and as a feeling being is day and night.

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Hi Ron (or do you prefer actualron?) - I have always had this problem as well. How can thoughts exist in the actual world when they seem to be as immaterial as anything else that occurs internally? Yet still Richard described thoughts in the same manner he would describe an externally perceived physical object like a ceramic bowl or a mountain vista.

Richard (2000): Thoughts are sparkling … coruscating.

All the while he maintained that mental images and sounds, including subvocalization, which appeared to me to be related thoughts, did not exist in the actual world.

Richard (2006): What I am reporting above, as having no existence in this actual world, is the mental imagery – be it visual, audile, haptic, olfactory or kinaesthetic imagery.

That is until all that mental imagery which definitely did not exist in this actual world, did exist in the actual world. Since mental imagery was now being perceived as factual, what might be next? Why couldn’t emotions be factual as well? Perhaps we’ve been conditioned to regard selective aspects of the internal world as less substantial than the external world? If thoughts are just as palpable as a tooth ache, having properties which can be perceived as “sparkling … coruscating”, and now that mental imagery occupies the same status, why not go a little further and add emotions?

This is not to say that emotions and mental imagery cannot come to an end. Indeed, the imaginative faculty, which is an actual physical phenomenon, one day ceased operating for Richard. To be sure, one’s experience may well improve by orders of magnitude upon the dissolution of self, emotion, and even imagination; but if something is being experienced, whatever it is, then it must be material as well, or else it violates the position that only the physical world exists. A (seemingly) contradictory state of affairs, in other words.

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This is some really cool information, thanks @Srinath. Something you wrote got my interest. You wrote “one is like a voice or a string of words”, is this how you experience thought operating? For example if you were thinking about composing the post you did, would the thoughts be like a voice inside the brain but with no ‘thinker’ behind them? I guess I’m trying to wrap my head around the experience of thought operating when actually free. Ofcourse there is no thinker but can the thoughts be ‘heard’ like a voice? In the same way when I am writing this now I hear the thoughts being composed in my mind. Or equally when I am thinking about something I may ‘see’ the image in my mind. The difference would be that for me there appears to be a thinker behind those processes whereas for you they are simply the product of this brain? This is really interesting for me because I seem to have this belief that all this stuff goes when actually free, as if the mind itself dissapears. However I remember in PCEs there was still the mind doing what it does but there was no longer a little person behind it all, it was all happening of its own accord, it seemed smoother.

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Just to provide some more information about this as I wrote the post rushing to work in the morning.
I am aware of the issues of duality but it seems like I have gone the other way and imagined actual freedom to be a zombie like state with no mind operating at all.
I remember a PCE I had quite a few months ago happened where I started contemplating that the actual world is so very close. There was a shift that happened which seemed to put the mind into the ‘correct gear’ however the mind did not dissapear, it was finally operating as it is meant to. All the processes that are associated with the mind were still operating but it is just that the being went into abeyance. Because of this the mind had not much else to do but to delight at the wonder of being here.

I was driving to work just now and contemplating all this and I was beginning to get a taste of this again. Experiencing just how close the actual world is, that the shift is not of the mind disappearing but the being which has taken residence inside this body going into abeyance.

This seems very important because it appears at times I am still going after the wrong thing, imagining actual freedom to be something it is not and as a result also doubting my experiences.

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@Kub933 Just to clarify, my description of what a thought is like was a generic one applicable to everyone and not a description of my own thoughts. The answer to your question is only a PCE away. Have you had thoughts in a PCE? It’s quite similar, especially in extended PCE’s. Only I’d say that in actual freedom the stillness is deeper and more profound. Thoughts do happen, but they are far fewer and have this quality of coming ‘out of nowhere’ (not exactly but closest I can describe) Thoughts don’t seem to come from some homunculus, some person within you like in a feeling being state. As a feeling being I was constantly besieged by thoughts and feelings 24/7

Also some of what I wrote above is conjecture and not necessarily consistent with the AFT. Feel free to have your own thoughts about it.

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