Miguel’s Questions - Part 1
I. Background
The context of your questions:
II. Response to Questions One (in part), Two (in part), and Three (in full)
Looking through Richard’s Journal I found the following ways in which he referred to the actual world:
- actual world, physical actuality, material world, physical world, actuality, this universe, benevolent world, benign world, miraculous world, external world, perfect world, genuine world, authentic world, fairy tale-like world, sensate world, world of the senses, sensory world, sensorial world, world of factual splendor, world of actual splendour, magical world, world-as-it-is, world of people-things-and-events, a world of purity, my world, another world, wonderful world, friendly world, world of natural delight, the world I live in, natural world
Richard’s Journal, 2004
These are some of the ways in which he referred to the ‘real world’:
- real world, normal reality, reality, inner world reality, normal world, psychic world, imperfect world, unnecessarily complicated world, grim and glum world, socialised world, dream world, ‘my’ world, ‘human’ world, ‘inner world’, ‘outer world’
Richard’s Journal, 2004
Lastly, these are some of the ways in which referred to the Divine World:
- Divine World, Greater Reality, Reality, Metaphysical World, Other-World, After-World, Mystical World, Divine World, World of Collective Conscious, psychic world, dream world, Supernatural World, esoteric world
Richard’s Journal, 2004
It would seem that the “world” in “actual world” refers to either the direct/unmediated experience of the actual world/universe or it refers to the the actual world/universe in of itself, depending on context (which context might be difficult for the reader to discern at times given how in apperception there is no separation between the experience and the universe); whereas the “world” in “real world” or “Divine World” refers to a feeling-being’s illusory or delusory experience of the one and only actual world/universe. There are thus three different experiences (i.e. three different worlds) of the one and only world (i.e. the one and only universe) but only one of those experiences (i.e. one of those worlds) is actual (i.e. non-illusory or non-delusory).
Richard (n.d.): There are three worlds altogether but only one is actual; there is nothing other than this actual, physical universe (the normal ‘reality’ as experienced by 6.0 billion human beings is an illusion and the abnormal ‘Reality’ as experienced by 0.0000001 of the population is a delusion born out of the illusion because of the self-aggrandising tendency of the narcissism born of the survival instincts).
A Précis Of Actual Freedom
The entirety of your 3rd question and the latter halves of your 1st and 2nd questions have been addressed. Proceeding.
III. “Only the actual world exists”: A Closer Look
Despite my estimation of that sequence of words being a suitable representation of my understanding and experience, it is those very same words, when used by the man who first expressed them, which correspond to something categorically different when understood as he intends them. The manner in which that sequence of words corresponds to Richard’s experience can be understood by accounting for his idiosyncratic association with the term “actual.” Richard fused (or maybe expanded upon) its common-held connotation along with his own idiosyncratic association which, when put together, articulates a novel dimension of experience, namely, that of a human animal devoid of both affect and affect-based identity whose person, intelligence, and consciousness is literally (not metaphorically) infinite.
Richard’s intelligence is unlimited:
Richard (1998): This is one’s native intelligence in operation, and this intelligence is the intelligence of this universe. It is unlimited in its scope; it knows no boundaries; it is infinitude personified.
Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 22
Richard’s consciousness is unlimited:
Richard (2002): … the apperceptive brain in action in the human skull is a ‘self’-less consciousness … as such is an unlimited consciousness automatically conscious of the perfection and purity of the infinitude of the universe as an on-going awareness.
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 3
Richard’s consciousness is boundless:
Richard (2005): An apperceptive consciousness – a flesh and blood body only (sans identity in toto) being conscious – has no boundaries as it is the centre of normal consciousness (identity) which creates same.
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 25
Richard himself is boundless:
Richard (1998): An insight into the infinite and eternal character of this universe and the implications of that in regards to one’s situation in the scheme of things can indeed set something profound in motion. Speaking personally, I have no boundaries.
Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 12
I would now like to delve a bit into the idiosyncratic connotations he has for “actual”, “actuality”, and “actual world.”
A. Connotations of “Actual”, “Actual World” and “Actuality”
1. Dictionary Meaning
In actualism the meanings of “actual” and “actuality” appear to be composites of standard dictionary denotations and Richard’s idiosyncratic connotations. Here are some examples where Richard is subscribing to the dictionary meanings of the words, which comprise part of the composite:
The Actual Freedom Trust website (n.d.): Actual: Existing in act or fact. Oxford Dictionary
Topics Actual
Richard (1998): …‘actual’: truly existing.
Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 22
Richard (1998): … actual means: ‘already occurring; existing as factually true’.
Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 14
Richard (2000): … actual (existing in fact) …
Mailing List 'C' Respondent No. 3
Richard (2001): … the word ‘actual’ commonly means ‘existing in act or fact …
Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 19
Richard (2016): … the word actual definitively refers to that which exists, or occurs, as a matter of verifiable fact …
http://actualfreedom.com.au/richard/listdcorrespondence/listd46.htm#07Feb16
Richard (2004): … actual (as in having objective existence).
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 49
2. Actualism Terminology
And then there are the idiosyncratic connotations unique to actualism, not found in dictionaries:
Richard (2013): … the word actual has a specific connotation in actualism terminology …
Mailing List 'D' Respondent No. 36
The “specific connotation” for “actual” and “actuality” in “actualism terminology” refers to what Richard calls the “sensate world.” That idiosyncratic association has remained intact over the years:
Richard (2013): … in actualism terminology […] the word actual refers to what a flesh-and-blood body only […] experiences … namely: the world of the senses, the sensate world, the sensorial world …
Mailing List 'D' Respondent No. 36
Richard (1998): … I am using the word ‘actuality’ to refer to the sensate world only.
Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 21
Richard (1998): … actual means of the senses.
A Dialogue With Konrad (Part Two)
Richard (1998): … this actual world of the senses …
Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 21
Richard (1998): … this physical universe … the actual world of the senses.
Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 12
Richard (1998): … in the actual world of the senses …
Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 12
Richard (1998): Actual means ‘things’ ascertained sensately …
Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 22
Richard (1999): … only one [I] is actual (sensate) …
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 4
Richard (2000): … in the physical world actuality (which is ascertained sensately).
Mailing List 'C' Respondent No. 3
Richard (2000): … the actual world of the sensate faculty …
Mailing List 'C' Respondent No. 4
Richard (2000): … actual as in the sensate world …
Mailing List 'C' Respondent No. 6
Richard (2001): … actuality is what sensory perception directly experiences …
Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 12
Richard (2003): … actuality is a sensate world …
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 44
Richard (2004): … the actual world (the world of the senses) …
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 78
Richard (2004): … in this actual world, the world of sensation …
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 44
Richard (2005): … actuality is the world that is apperceived at the senses …
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 97
Richard (2005): … this actual world (the sensate world) …
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 97
Richard (2006): … this actual world – the sensate world …
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 49
Richard (2006): … this actual world, the world of the senses …
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 25
Richard (2006): This actual world – as ascertained sensately …
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 25
Richard (2006): … actuality (the world of the senses).
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 87
Richard (2009): … this actual world – the world of sensuous delight …
Mailing List 'D' Respondent No. 6
Richard (2010): … the actual world (the world of sensorial delight) …
A Long-Awaited Public Announcement
Richard (2015): … this actual world (i.e., this sensate world; the world of the senses …)
Mailing List 'D' Respondent No. 32
Richard (2015): … the sensate world/ the actual world …
Mailing List 'D' Martin
Richard (2016): … the unadulterated actual world (i.e., the world of the senses, the sensate world …)
http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/listdcorrespondence/listd46.htm#07Feb16
Richard (n.d.): … this actual world of sensate experiencing.
Richard's Personal Web Page
Richard (n.d.): … this actual world, the sensate world
Richard's Personal Web Page
Richard (n.d.): … this actual sensational environment … the world of the senses.
Attentiveness And Sensuousness And Apperceptiveness
B. Implications of Connotations
For Richard, then, as the ‘real world’ is an emotional-conceptual construct it naturally does not exist in actuality (aka in the sensate world). In addition, while it may appear to everyone one else on earth that the occurrence or happenstance of emotion is actual inasmuch as it unquestionably exists and occurs in sentient beings throughout the animal kingdom as a matter of verifiable fact (else asking yourself “how am I experiencing this moment of being alive” in order to discern your existent mood or emotion would be a meaningless exercise), it is not actual in actualism because it is not considered a sensate phenomenon.
Despite Richard’s adherence over the years to conveying a strict association between the “actual world/ actuality” and sensate-only experiences, the rigid associations become strained when considering other non-sensate aspects of the apperceptive experience. If during apperception non-sensate phenomena such as thoughts and concepts continue to occur, then they must also be considered actual as they are occurring in the actual world/ in actuality. (note: nowadays other actually free people report occurrences of mental imagery in their apperceptive experiences as well):
Richard (1998): Such thought – apperceptive thought – is always pure … this is innocence in action. […] Without the ‘thinker’ any brain activity is clear and clean and pure … which includes thinking.
Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 12
Richard (1998): I am referring to thought. In particular: apperceptive thought.
Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 20
Richard (2004): Here in this actual world thoughts are sparkling … coruscating.
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 62
(2004)
RESPONDENT: [Would you have claimed to be] free from concepts, illusions and delusions [during this 30+ months]?
RICHARD: Free from illusion and delusion … yes; concepts are another matter, however, as many of them were fed in from an early age (the sun, for instance, being a giant ball of nuclear fusion … or, for another example, tobacco use being the cause of various illnesses).
RESPONDENT: You took time to evaluate these concepts in that duration then?
RICHARD: No …it did not occur to me it was a concept, and not a fact, that the sun was a giant ball of nuclear fusion until about five years ago; it did not occur to me it was a concept, and not a fact, that tobacco use was the cause of various illnesses until about two years ago (which is why I said that concepts are another matter).
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 66
Richard (2012): … ‘he’ sussed-out how that inner world/outer world consensus reality was of an affective/ psychic nature … and how the sensate and cognitive faculties (sensuality and thinking) were needlessly copping the blame.
Mailing List 'D' Respondent No. 28
Curiously, despite the existence of both sensate perceptions, cognitive processes, and conceptual phenomena in the actual world, the actual world is adjudged to be a sensate world “only” and not a cognitive or conceptual world, nor even a sensate/conceptual world.
Richard (1998): … I am using the word ‘actuality’ to refer to the sensate world only.
Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 21
So despite the explicit association made between the “actual world/ actuality” and the “sensate world” it is apparent that phenomena other than sensorial perception occur in actuality and in the apperceptive consciousness that is aware of same.
IV. In Context
I would like at this point to reorient those statements which you sought clarification about along with their alternately expressed equivalents (i.e. “only the actual world exists”/ “there is only this actual world”/ “there is no ‘the real’ in actuality”/ “the ‘real world’ does not exist”) into the original context from where I had referenced them in my last post to you (relevant parts bolded):
March 10 2004
RESPONDENT: The universe itself does not distinguish between the physical and the metaphysical.
RICHARD: As there is no ‘the metaphysical’ in actuality this is hardly surprising.
RESPONDENT: The universe contains physical things, and some of these physical things (eg. human bodies) give rise to metaphysical entities (eg. minds, souls, ‘selves’).
RICHARD: There is nothing metaphysical about minds … a mind is a human brain in action in a human skull. As for ‘souls’ and ‘selves’: each and every human being is genetically endowed, at conception, with instinctual passions […] which passions automatically form themselves […] into an amorphous feeling being […] within the flesh and blood body. […]
RESPONDENT: Hence, the universe generates metaphysical beings who are capable of creating metaphysical simulations of themselves and the universe.
RICHARD: It is the amorphous feeling being […] who generates metaphysical beings/metaphysical simulations and not the universe per se … […].
RESPONDENT: This is what the actual universe does. Is the universe doing something wrong?
RICHARD: As the universe is not doing what you conclude it is doing – as in your ‘hence’ – your follow-up question is a non-sequitur.
RESPONDENT: Implicit in actualism is the value judgement that the physical is superior to the metaphysical.
RICHARD: Ha … implicit in actualism (the direct experience that matter is not merely passive) is that there is only the physical in actuality and, as an appraisal requires comparison, no such value judgement as you speak of can take place in this actual world.
RESPONDENT: ‘You’ (the metaphysical entity) decide this.
RICHARD: If I may point out? In the direct experience that matter is not merely passive there is no ‘you’ (no ‘metaphysical entity’ whatsoever) … there is only this actual world (aka this actual universe).
RESPONDENT: And having decided this, the totality of the universe is then divided up into the ‘actual’ and the ‘real’.
RICHARD: I would hazard a guess that it is ‘you’ (the ‘metaphysical entity’ who decides) who has decided that ‘the ‘actual’’ and ‘the ‘real’’ together make up a whole … otherwise known as ‘the totality of the universe’.
RESPONDENT: The ‘real’ is minimised to the point where only the ‘actual’ remains.
RICHARD: In the actualism process, as detailed on The Actual Freedom Trust web site […snip description of actualism process …] apperception reveals that there is only this actual world/universe. In short: there is no ‘the ‘real’’ in actuality to minimise (let alone to the point that only ‘the ‘actual’’ remains).
RESPONDENT: So this (actually non-existent) division between the physical and the metaphysical becomes a concept in the mind of ‘you’, a metaphysical entity.
RICHARD: As there is no ‘the metaphysical’ in actuality, as evidenced in a pure consciousness experience (PCE), there is no division to be either existent or non-existent … the entire argument being presented (above) is but a conceptual contention created in the feeling-fed mind of ‘you’ – ‘a metaphysical entity’ – for reasons as yet unstated but bearing at least some of the hall-marks of the ‘Tried and True’ (as in when the division is seen to be false there is only the totality/whole) as made popular by Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti.
RESPONDENT: The division only exists in the minds of metaphysical entities. The universe knows nothing of such divisions.
RICHARD: Possible translation: that which is the totality (the whole) knows nothing of such divisions.
[…]
RESPONDENT: … and so you aim to strip away the naturally-occurring metaphysicality because you think it is ‘better’ that way.
RICHARD: May I ask? Are you of the school of thought which maintains that, just because something is natural, it is somehow better than that which is unnatural? I only ask because it is natural, for example, to injure, maim, or kill one’s fellow human being in a fit of anger and I am somewhat nonplussed as to how that is better than, say, there not being any anger in the first place (nor any ‘self’ which is the anger in motion of course) such as to occasion that course of action.
RESPONDENT: The question is why?
RICHARD: Is it because it is actualism which is being discussed, and not spiritualism in yet another guise, perchance?
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 64
A. Analysis
In the above March 10 2004 correspondence, according to Richard:
- The feeling being is a metaphysical being:“‘you’ – ‘a metaphysical entity’” …“‘you’ (the ‘metaphysical entity’)”.
- The feeling being – a metaphysical being – exists in the flesh-and-blood body: “an amorphous feeling being, an inchoate intuitive presence, popularly known as a ‘self’ or a ‘soul’ (or ‘spirit’) in the human animal, within the flesh and blood body.”.
- The feeling being – a metaphysical being – does not exist in actuality: “there is no ‘the metaphysical’ in actuality”.
- The flesh-and-blood body generates instinctual passions: “each and every human being is genetically endowed, at conception, with instinctual passions”.
- The instinctual passions generate the feeling being – a metaphysical being: which passions automatically form themselves […] into an amorphous feeling being”.
- Although it is flesh-and-blood bodies which generate instinctual passions which generate feeling beings – which are themselves metaphysical beings – it is feeling beings (metaphysical beings) which generate metaphysical beings: “It is the amorphous feeling being […] who generates metaphysical beings”.
- While it is the universe that generates flesh-and-blood bodies that generate instinctual passions that generate feeling beings – which are themselves metaphysical beings – that generate metaphysical beings it is not the universe that generates feeling beings or metaphysical beings “per se”. (“It is the amorphous feeling being […] who generates metaphysical beings/metaphysical simulations and not the universe per se”).
To adopt the rationale exhibited in the last paragraph (point No. 7) is to say then that nothing – not a single thing – is generated by the universe per se. One could assert then, for example, that it is “lumber and labor” which generate houses and not the universe per se. Additionally, to say both that (a) a metaphysical feeling being exists in what is actual (“an amorphous feeling being […] within the flesh and blood body”) and (b) does not exist in what is actual (“there is no ‘the metaphysical’ in actuality”) is beyond my comprehension. Lastly, as there is no separation between flesh-and-blood bodies and the actual world/universe, and because the identity and its ‘real world’ are unequivocally acknowledged to exist in flesh-and-blood bodies, then it directly follows that the ‘real world’ exists in the actual world/universe. To put it another way: since the flesh-and-blood body is an actuality, and since the identity and its ‘real world’ reside there (“the identity residing inside the flesh and blood body”) then both identity and the ‘real world’ it manifests very literally exist in actuality.
Richard (2004): The identity, ‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul, can best be described as either a psychological or psychic parasite living inside the body.
Richard’s Journal: Article 13
Richard (2004): It is handy to bear in mind, on occasions such as this, that a scientist is an identity inhabiting a flesh and blood body …
Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 25
Richard (2002): ‘I’ am an entity inside the flesh and blood body.
http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/listbcorrespondence/listb39b.htm#07Nov02
Richard (n.d.): It is ‘me’ as an identity – an alien who has a parasitical existence in the psyche of the body …
http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/generalcorrespondence/page06.htm
For anything to inhabit or to be inside a flesh and blood body (parasitically or otherwise) is for that thing to inhabit or to be inside the universe – inside space, inside form, and inside time.