Drawing the line between feeling and fact

About my statement “thoughts are actual” (and I must admit I paused when writing it, thinking whether it might bring more confusion than benefice… you guys are free to disregard it)…thoughts could be said to not be “palpable, tangible, tactile, corporeal, physical and material” as (feeling-being) Peter defines ‘actual’.
But not only can thoughts be experienced in the PCE/Actual Freedom (which is an experiential definition of ‘actual’), but…

RESPONDENT: What are your thoughts?
RICHARD: As I understand it they are an electro-chemical activity in the neurons of the brain.

I’m not sure a clear seeing of this point can be reached as long as there is a thinker in situ… but there’s no need for it. Peter’s definition of ‘actual’ is quite enough to differentiate it from one’s beliefs, fantaisies, and ‘real world’.

As one with a thinker still in situ I can say that a clear seeing of it is possible for me :smiley: . I think though that it is simply quite impossible to understand, imagine, conceive of, conceptualize, etc., just how thoroughly not-actually-existent ‘I’ as a feeling-being (and a ‘thinker’) am, together with ‘my’ emotions, without a crystal clear PCE - or perhaps without experiencing with awareness at least one crystal-clear entrance into or exit from a PCE.

And even after such an event I could say it is still impossible to conceive of it, perhaps… but I can remember that it is an actuality I experienced and that is enough :slight_smile:

But my contention is that such an experience is what is required to see this point - that ‘I’ am not actual - and such an experience is ultimately what the answer to all these questions is, as to what is actual and not actual.

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Hi Srinath - thank you for articulating the distinction you perceive between ‘actual’, ‘physical’, and ‘non-physical’ things. Until your post, I had never heard of “Cartesian dualism” or “monism”, so it was helpful of you to reference those schools thought that have been contending with these matters for at least the past 400 years. I would fully agree that, yes, 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” is what is being put forth for examination and scrutiny.

The prospect that internal images, concepts, and feelings were no different, qualitatively, to externally perceived objects occurred after pondering Richard’s repeated reference to thoughts that were “sparkling, coruscating” as if he were dazzling at the glittering mirrors on a twirling disco ball, descriptions you don’t normally use for silent, private thought processes. Had he never deleted his imagination the presumption is that he would describe imaginative events in a like manner.

Presently, experiments on how experience can be reoriented upon discernment that no fundamental distinction exists between inward-appearing and outward-appearing phenomena are ongoing. Preliminary results indicate that as this fundamental distinction between ‘in’ and ‘out’ diminishes, so does the division-line such distinction apparently sustained. A closeness and intimacy felt with the surroundings manifests and intensifies as the separative divide between what was in here and what was out there weakens and withers. This topic wasn’t tagged as an “experiential-report” for nothing.

No, not this. Not at all. It is clear that matter gives rise to consciousness; that the inanimate becomes animate before becoming inanimate again. Afterall, the fundamental essence of both inanimate and animate objects is its physicality, its existence in fact. What can’t be grasped is how that which is meta-physic gives rise to or effects that which must adhere to the rules of physics. It is not unlike the outlandish claims that demons, angels, and ghosts from the “otherside” are able to interact with people and objects in the physical world.

Doesn’t it? There it is: existent in its foggy, effervescent, majestic form manufactured from the coordinated performance of innumerable electro-chemical processes.

If you were presented with an illustration of a unicorn, you would understand that the illustration of the unicorn was not the same as an actual unicorn in that it can’t be ridden, doesn’t eat, etc. Yet there in front of you would be an actual illustration, an actual representation of a unicorn nevertheless.

Agreed.

Unfortunately, I have to object to your characterization of these explorations and discernments as a ‘philosophy’ on account of the stigmatized association that term may have among moderators with itchy trigger fingers. In addition, given that these explorations are being carried out upon firm empirical grounding it may not be an entirely accurate characterization anyway. Frankly, this exploration began one night by musing upon the nature of experience itself as an undeniably factual occurrence. In moments of quiet respite, the line of contemplation would recommence, and continues to do so, each time going a little further. Later, Richard’s words regarding a boundless and limitless physical universe, existing absolutely (alongside no other), took on a profound significance, and was consequently incorporated into the ruminations:

Richard (2000): This boundless and limitless actual universe, being beginningless and endless (unborn and undying) is absolute.

Richard (2001): This physical universe is infinite and eternal (boundless and limitless).

Which means there is no space, no room, no possibility for anything that is not physical to exist anywhere at all. And the physical absoluteness: boundless, limitless, and borderless, is inclusive of all and is exclusive none. And if a fact means anything at all, surely it must mean something that is undeniable. For example, if there is the experience of repulsion, then that repulsion is undeniably, factually occurring; if it is factual then it must be included, by definition, in the boundless absolute. To be sure, instinctual passions are not the preferred experience, and once the button that dissolves them is located there will be no hesitation to press it. In the meanwhile, these recent discernments, being examined under the eye of critical observation, have been a welcome development. It is supremely satisfying to dip into the warm baths of a physical absolute every now and again.

Essentially, yes, on account that all those are physical manifestations. However, mistakes or misapprehensions may arise as to the nature or source of each manifestation. Some may hold the incorrect notion or conviction that gods and unicorns roam the sky or earth, or that apple trees arise after human blood is spilt in sacrificial offerings, where in fact gods and unicorns arise in the calorifically-energized mind as images and hallucinations while apple trees sprout in hydrated nutrient-rich ground-soil with a pH between 6.0 and 7.0.

Again, objecting to the ‘philosophical position’ nomenclature for reasons expressed above. As for changing how the world is experienced, that was an unexpected outcome of contemplating upon that which is undeniable.

Whatever the case, substantial or insubstantial, since there is an aversion for debilitative feelings, and a preference for ebullient ones, there is a conscious orienting towards the joyful and wholesome, and since that is the essence of Actualism then it may just all lead to the same place anyway.

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Super interesting read, though I can’t help think…instead of (or in addition to) quizzing the actually free on intellectual curiosities relating to an imagined actual world…

What if we asked these former feeling beings questions on how they did what they did, how they approached various challenges etc etc :grin:.

Not a put down on this convo, just saying :man_shrugging: :blush:

That is one solution. May have some legs. But it dissociates the physical from the actual to the point where they seem to be entirely separate things, when surely there is a correspondence there? And what of the actually free scientist studying the physical world? Is his work only actual insofar as it involves the senses? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

But beliefs and fantasies would have an electrochemical basis in the brain too. As would feelings. On that basis alone we couldn’t decide if something was actual or not.

Interesting. Unlike Richard I can still visualise images after AF. But there is definitely a noticeable reduction in their vividness and how compelling I find them. I experience both sparkling, coruscating thoughts and images both. Delicate, striking abstract images in particular are noticeable at night when I go to sleep sometimes. I don’t make too much of them. But I did not think to demarcate these thoughts and images as actual, in opposition to say someone else’s non-actual thoughts and images - or maintain that they are they are the same as an actual apple or table. I think of thoughts and images both as being in the category of the virtual which I probably got from Deleuze and misappropriated. Not something I’d defend to the death. Just my sloppy way of thinking about it for now. (Virtuality (philosophy) - Wikipedia)

Rick are you talking about a non-dual experience here or is the experiment just confirming for you the physical reality of things like thoughts, ideas etc.?

As for the the rest of your post, it sounds once again that you are again making the case for a type of monism based on experience, if not philosophy. Doesn’t sound like you’ve gone completely bananas and started searching for unicorns or are trying to collect thoughts with a butterfly net so all good :grin: It’s an interesting idea. Elegant in some ways. As I mentioned I suspect that even if you are a monist of this stripe you could still make actualism and actual freedom work. Hmmm thinking about it now I’m probably a monist after a fashion too as I’m not a Cartesian. And I can’t see Decartes being too thrilled about the ‘I am the universe experiencing it’s infinitude as this body’ line :slight_smile: I don’t really have a problem with philosophy and I was not intending it as a disparaging remark to you or some ‘thinky’ thing you are doing that’s removed from reality. Infact I think we are all carrying philosophies around either implicitly or explicitly.

…but the important thing is this below :arrow_heading_down:

That will help you with actualism but is not sufficient for actual freedom. At least for me it was the realising of the unreality of feelings, imaginings, beliefs and ultimately ‘me’ - in sharp contrast to the actual world that was a crucial impetus to self-immolate. That line wasn’t blurry, so saying “Whatever the case, substantial or insubstantial” is not really an option. This is why its important for you to think this through carefully. If everything gloms together and becomes of the same substance, it will be hard to make the kind of demarcation required to choose which side you ultimately wish to fall on.

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I think what is key here is that the actual world is completely invisible to a feeling-being. Richard re-iterated this point to me a few times on my first visit. On one occasion he was telling me something about actual flesh and blood bodies. And I pointed to myself, to indicate what he was talking about. And he said no, not that body – I was perceiving a physical body, but not an actual flesh and blood body. The actual flesh and blood body I actually am was completely invisible to ‘me’. And likewise the actual flesh and blood body Richard was, was completely invisible to me.

And not only invisible to the eyes but also impossible to hear, smell, touch, etc…

And this applies not only to bodies but literally to all of experience, for a feeling-being. The actual world is completely invisible, imperceptible, not capable of being sensed.

Also see this correspondence where Richard explains the distinction between actual sensations and physical sensations. To summarize, for an actually free person there is no distinction - they are one and the same - while for a feeling-being, there are no actual sensations, only physical sensations.

Thus it is true that everything that a feeling-being perceives, be it ‘out there’ or ‘in here’, is ultimately of the same substance - whether it is a thought, feeling, sight, sound, taste, etc. It is all processed through and presented to ‘my’ affective consciousness as ‘me’ being conscious of ‘myself’. The experience in its entirety is affective, affectively-tinged. There is no portion or percentage of it that is actual. And there is nothing you can do about it. The actual world is only perceptible in a PCE or when actually free.

Thus with that in mind…

That may be so, but as you are including feelings in this unification, if you succeed in what you are doing and that divide fully disappears, you will not be experiencing the actual world, but rather an affective unity, that will, you guessed it, include ‘you’ the feeling-being in all your rotten-to-the-core glory. This is none other than the spiritual path.

EDIT: And not only that but, as the actual world is entirely invisible to you in the first place – no amount of diminishing distinctions in your (already not-actually-existing) world, will ever lead to anything actual… thus all you are doing (and would be doing if you continue this) is essentially ‘rearranging deck chairs on the titanic’, rather than getting to the root of the matter (to wit, why is there an already-separative ‘me’ in the first place?)

It is indeed not unlike that. ‘I’ ultimately have the same quality of existence as demons, angels, ghosts, and Santa Claus. Yet if you look at the state of the world, with all its wars, suicides, tortures, murders, rapes, etc. – these are all effects of these not-actually-existing (i.e. “meta-physic”) entities wreaking their havoc upon the world.

Again I contend it is impossible to truly grasp this point - just how non-existent ‘I’ am - without a firm PCE as a reference point.

When I brought up similar lines of reasoning to Vineeto - I was saying, for example, if I felt something in the past, isn’t it a fact that I felt something? Therefore what does it really mean a fact is not a feeling? And she said that I am just confusing myself, and it’s better to simply keep it straightforward – that a feeling is a feeling and a fact is a fact. This advice served me well.

@Srinath would you draw a distinction between imagination and mental imagery? I think this distinction is being blurred here. My understanding is that imagination completely disappears upon basic actual freedom, while mental imagery does not. Thus one is affective (not actual) and the other is actual.


Incidentally I love being able to highlight text throughout the posts and click “Quote”, and add them to the reply here. Makes it much easier to answer!

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Having read the topic and going back to the original post, @rick, I would like to gain more clarity on this. So, I first quote this:

(1) Is the term ‘actual’ as defined by the AFT truly synonymous with the term ‘physical’?

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.

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.

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.

After reading all the following posts and instead of getting hooked on writing about monism, dualism, emergentism, physics, reality, actuality, facts, etc., I prefer to summarize and ask you about the crux of the topic:

It apparently boils down to the fact that Richard’s assertions would lead to a contradiction or “misapprehension or an error of reasoning” on his part (if your reasoning about them is correct, of course). Right?

So, thinking about the scenario in which Richard is wrong or contradicts himself, I thought (and later wanted to ask you) about this:

  • What were the motivations for your inquiry?
  • What impact it would have that discovery on you?

I thought of three possibilities:

1 - It would provide you with an intellectual gain about AF, with no practical purposes regarding its practice (just as we often like to better understand a philosophical idea or a mathematical concept, with no intention to operate with it in the world).

On the contrary, you could see that your inquiry and the discovery of Richard’s mistake or contradiction may help you pragmatically in advancing towards your actual freedom OR in abandoning its practice, because:

2 - As a consequence of your discovery, you might be inclined to think that there is no such thing as an actual freedom of the human condition, and those who claim to have attained it are in a state induced by that or other errors (even if they actually appreciate and enjoy life in an extra-ordinary way, etc, but in any case they would be in another variant of ASCs).
So you want to continue your searching or research somewhere else.

OR

3 - You do believe that they have achieved actual freedom in despite of that error or contradiction. But nevertheless you believe that you could not do the same without first unraveling that and other potential errors or contradictions.

So, can you clarify for me if in any of these possibilities (1, 2 or 3) or in something else lies the answer to the above questions? (I.e.: What were the motivations for your inquiry? and What impact it would have that discovery on you?).

Hi Claudiu - the point is definitely not being missed. Actualism, in essence, is the direct experience that matter is not merely passive.

May 26 2005
RESPONDENT No. 71: Richard, actualism is experiencing that matter is not merely passive … what does it mean?
RICHARD: Another way of saying it is that actualism is the direct experience that matter is not inert.
[…]
RESPONDENT: How is it not passive?
RICHARD: In actuality matter is vibrant, potent … literally everything material is intrinsically active, vigorous. This fundamental dynamism, this elemental efficacy, is the very actuality of all existence – the actualness of everything – as matter itself, being of infinite perpetuance/ eternal perdurability, is anything but inoperative (passive) or inactive (inert). And wherever/whenever this perennial matter is sentient the potential exists for it to be conscious of its own essential nature.

You have reduced (or dismissed), based on how things “appear” to you, everything that I have put forth in this topic down to two things:

  1. I missed the point that actualism is experiential.

  2. I complained about actualism.

That is unfortunate. Because it is inaccurate.

Yes, completely agree. Imagination is feeling backed or impassioned. Seeing mental imagery in the minds eye is not.

The quote feature is the truly super!

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And just to clarify further, I mentioned the mental imagery I experienced mainly because I had never experienced anything like them prior to AF. These abstract, crystalline like images are not anything like the daydreams, fantasies and even wild dream like imagery I would get off on or be disturbed by as a feeling being. Obviously they are not associated with feelings.

Thanks for sharing. That actually helps me @Srinath. The main experience during my twenties that both encouraged (and later dismayed me - because i couldn’t get it back) was a experience of peace accompanied by a vivid blue crystalline image.

Hi Geoffrey - thank you for taking a swing at this. It’s amazing how human language can contribute to both clarity and confusion.

Do you consider this universe that is experiencing itself as a human being to be a physical universe?

I was thinking the same things you were a while back too, but Claudiu summed it up pretty well. Keep in mind that actualism is experiential and I think the answer will elucidate itself. The physical is the actual only when you are actually free or are experiencing a PCE. For regular feeling beings though, the physical is not the actual because they do not directly experience physicality. As far as the question “are feelings physical?”, it depends on how you want to answer it and the definition you are using.

From a pure objective point of view, feelings are actual in the sense that the subjective feeling being/feelings produce physical hormones and physical bodily reactions. But this does not make the subjective feeling being/feelings actual. If you were to cut someone open or use some sort of scan or whatever you may find the hormones or may measure the increased heart rate and what not, but you will not find fear/aggression/nurture/desire(the rudimentary self) itself. The best example may be the Santa Claus example. To a person that believes in Santa Claus, he is very real and may even be felt to be real, but that doesn’t mean that Santa Claus has actual inherent existence anywhere in the physical universe. Santa Claus has an existence in the form of a subjective feeling, but you will never find him anywhere. An imaginary world has no existence without affective feelings.

Everyone has the program for the instinctual passions encoded within their DNA and this gets passed down. This quote may be apt:

RICHARD: …the genetically-inherited instinctual passions do not have a perception of self … what they do is usurp the sensate perception of self and create the feeling of ‘self’.

Also keep in mind that this feeling self has complete control over the physical body and is felt and experienced to be something other than the physical body. You write:

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.

This is interesting because all of spirituality (and Richard himself) will tell you that the affective self is not physical. As for thoughts and mental imagery, you may find this interesting: This mind-reading AI can see what you're thinking - and draw a picture of it | World Economic Forum

Also related to this topic: Selected Correspondence: The Animal Instincts in the Primitive Brain

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

Ultimately, this does not matter. But as far as becoming free of the human condition, it may be essential to define this difference.

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Hi Srinath - this is important. As Richard points out in the quote Geoffrey provided, thoughts are neuronal; physical phenomena in other words.

Surprisingly, Richard acknowledges that the genetically inherited instinctual passions experienced by lower and higher animals, the affective package of fear, aggression, nurture, and desire, may be neuronal; even though the feeling-being formed from those affections is not.

Richard (2005): Now, whilst a case can be made that the instinctual passions have a neuronal existence the instinctual self they automatically form themselves into, by the very movement or motion of those affections, (…) does not. (…) an emotional/ passional identity is [a] phantom ‘being’ in the affective faculty, an affective ‘ghost in the machine’ (in the survival software), as it were. [emphasis added]

Allow that to sink in for a moment. The instinctual passions (the affections) are neuronal.

The instinctual self (comprised of affections) is not neuronal.

Hi Rick,

If you read my post again you will see that I didn’t say that you complained about actualism, but rather that you appear to be complaining about the presentation of actualism.

Firstly, whether you only appear to be complaining about or actually are complaining about the presentation of actualism, what I wrote in my various posts on this topic, about actualism being experiential, still applies.

Secondly, your continued posts in this topic shows that, although you might partially grasp and understand the point that actualism is experiential, you are still missing the point that the answer to the questions you are posting here are experiential answers, not thought-out or conceived-of answers… and that the experiences discussed about are not subject to change based on what anybody (be they actually free or not) writes, says or does.

For example, in the first post you wrote after mine:

This is a reasoned-out or thought-through answer, starting from the premise of the “basic principles of physics”, thereby following a logical chain of deduction that because the “actual brain neurons fire”, something that does actually exist must be causing them to fire – something with “mass” or “physical space”.

Yet the fact of emotions not being actual is an experiential actuality, which is clearly experienced in a PCE due to the previously-impossible-to-conceive, complete disappearance of ‘me’. Thus it does not matter what the laws of physics are said to be – it is via experience that you know that emotions are not, never have been, and never will be, actual.

In your next post you wrote:

Here you are looking to correspondences and definitions to find the answer to this question… when again, the answer is experiential, not one to be gotten by reading things on the internet.

Your third post contains the first experiential report from your part in the thread.

Indeed I didn’t previously recognize that this topic was an experiential-report as nothing I read before this post was a report of any experience. The opening post begins with a “line of thought” that brought up “a few avenues of inquiry” (i.e. thinking-through and reasoning, not experiencing), after all.

In any case, appreciating that you provided a report of your experience, I replied to you thoroughly on this matter in my post here, yet there has been no reply from your part, no engagement with me on this experiential matter, at all.

Instead of engaging with me on sharing and discussing and dissecting experiences, you rather dismissively/reductively brushed off everything I have written with a false assertion (that I said you complained about actualism, which I never said) and by stating it was inaccurate (without any further discussion to back it up) that you were missing the point that actualism is experiential… and given how you started the topic, and what you are and aren’t replying to, it still seems a point worth exploring to me (hence my post now).

Your latest post, for example, is another instance of missing-the-point with regards to actualism being experiential:

That is, you are reading what somebody has written, interpreting their writing (note how you began with saying “Richard acknowledges that the […] instinctual passions […] may be neuronal” and you end with saying “The instinctual passions […] are neuronal”), and then making a conclusion from it and taking that to be the case… whereas the actuality of what is the case is to be ascertained experientially, and nothing anybody says will change the fact.

Do not forget that the purpose of Richard’s writing is not to be an educational primer on the nature of the universe, with axioms to be memorized and Truths to be written down, but rather to be an evocative guide to actuality, to wit [link, emphases added]:

Be that as it may, to assist you with any further investigation and ascertainment of Richard’s words being intrinsically self-explanatory, with regards to this particular conclusion you drew of the affections being neuronal (aka actual) and the self being not neuronal (aka not actual), this quote will be elucidatory [link]:

And note how not unlike the manner in which I have been replying to you in this thread, Richard issues a similar exhortation to his co-respondent as I have been with you:

Personally speaking it took me many years of reading, re-reading, re-re-reading, thinking about, writing about, talking about, posting about, reading some more about, trying this or that, etc., doing anything but putting the actualism method (of enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive) into practice, before it finally inescapably dawned on me that doing anything but that (enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive) will not have the intended effect, will not take me to where I want to go, to that place that Richard, the other actually free people, and those having PCEs describe. It doesn’t matter how long it takes to get there, though – the experiential delight is worth it regardless, and is always available to whomever is open to it.

This is why I asked @rick my two questions

Awesome @claudiu those last 2 quotes which you provided have clarified things for alot for me. I always had it that the feeling being is a programme which causes the feelings to cluster/behave in a way as to create a self. However I see now that it is the very movement of a feeling, like the whirlpool example which which gives the impression of a feeler, ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’, there is no distinction at all between the two. I did as Richard recommends and attempted to feel this out and I can see that there is no distinction at all between the feeling and the feeler. Could it be said that ‘I’ am an impression that arises out of each and every feeling yet ‘I’ am also the feeling itself. I guess this is why the ‘being’ is not actual, it is an impression that is inherent to the nature of what a feeling is. I’m always rushing these posts before work in the morning so I hope this makes sense.

So just to clarify my earlier post. In the past I always thought that the ‘being’ is a programme which causes feelings to align together in such a way as to create the self. So the self would be the product of many feelings clustering together and as such giving the impression that there is a being, creating a ‘whole’ that is greater than its constituent parts, a ghost in the machine.

However I see now that this is incorrect and looking at it this way creates the problem of once again ‘me’ being something other than ‘my’ feelings. Once again ‘I’ cunningly hide behind another concept.

After reading the quotes I see that each feeling itself is ‘me’. This is because the very nature of what a feeling is, is the movement, this movement is subjectively experienced to be ‘me’, that is part and parcel of the affective faculty, it is the way feelings operate. Therefore ‘I’ cannot be separated from ‘my’ feelings at all, not even by being the ‘sum total which is greater than it’s constituent parts’.

Just like the whirlpool arising out of the movement of water but consisting of nothing but water itself. ‘I’ am an impression which arises out of the fundamental nature of each feeling which is movement. Hence ‘I’ do not actually exist at all, ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’.

Hi Srinath - the process of observing the movements of experience itself while musing upon the implications of a physical absolute, together with a high regard for the advances in neurochemistry, seems to have the combined capacity to shift the conventional experience of a division between ‘mental’ and ‘physical’ to one that is entirely, soley physical.

From that standpoint, I can be in broad agreement with describing that experience in the manner you suggested, as a kind of “monism”. Presuming a “non-dual experience” is the same as what “monism” refers to then I would be in broad agreement with that classification too.

Another way to explain it: a physical absolute necessitates an unparalleled materiality. A univocity of existence translates to a univocity of experience (to commandeer a term from Mr. Deleuze).

Tell that to the person who is on my case about it.

Okay, non-actual things exist in the actual world which you inhabit? Is that correct?

So it couldn’t be the case then where feeling excellent and perfect shifts into a permanent non-affective perfection, like how it occurs in a PCE?

Hi @rick, it’s an interesting topic and I remember contemplating it when I was looking into vibes and currents: Even if they are an illusion that illusion must have a psychical origin which makes them actual. However paradoxical it might sound I think the answer is quite straightforward and simple actually.

Just like a solid brain can give rise to a non-solid consciousness an actual flesh and blood body can give rise to a non-actual feeling being. So the feeling being itself is non-actual, even though it has an actual origin. That’s why Richard talks about a mutation in the brain stem upon actual freedom: an actual change that causes the flesh and blood body to no longer animate a feeling being.

I’m guessing that what you have problems conceptualizing is that there can exist a split between actual and non-actual, just like it’s hard to conceptualize a split between solid and non-solid, especially with causality connecting them. And indeed, the universe is pretty remarkable.