if this universe is a physical universe, and I submit that it is, then since a physical universe is nothing more and nothing less than the totality of all that exists, then all that exists must without exception likewise be physical
It further goes without saying that the material bits of this universe cannot rearrange or reconfigure themselves into something that does not exist
@rick , I do think that you are saying something that is interesting and worth taking up. I am more interested in the broader conversation these doubts are indexing vs. your actual position though.
What you are espousing here seems to be a kind of extreme physical monism that claims that all things which exist are physical. Are you on the same page as Richard in this respect (barring the position on feelings)?
For me the problem with a purely physicalist model (for one) is that it does not adequately capture and describe consciousness, states of mind and imaginary objects. These would include feeling fuelled states as well as other more conventional intangibles: mythical creatures, abstract concepts, imaginary numbers and the like.
The fictional detective I could make up right now and the unicorn I say I can visualise in my minds eye - in what way can they be said to exist in the universe? Yes, you could say they are accompanied by brain activity but that is not a substantive and sufficient explanation. Furthermore I would say that this explanation is reductive and co-relative and that makes a claim of false equivalence between mind and matter.
I’m not proposing the existence of a separate substance of mind or spirit of course. I just think the way things like feelings emerge from matter isn’t as clear as we would like to pretend it is.
Another thing to remember about feelings is that they don’t occur in isolation like the feeling of pain. Instead they create a ‘world’ a ‘reality’ of ‘me’ which one can roughly say is comparable to a dream-state. It is this dream state that one wakes up from in actual freedom and the feeling is roughly analogous to waking up from sleep. In what way is a dream-state on an equal footing physically with an awake state? Is the dreamer kicking a football the same as an awake person kicking a football? Knowing there is electrical activity in the brain tells us close to nothing as literally any experience a human being has is accompanied by electrical activity in the brain.
My position is monistic but without your extreme physicalism and one that leaves some room for a sort of duality as I don’t think consciousness, thoughts, memories and feelings and can be easily be reduced to matter. Furthermore I would say that ‘me’ and ‘feeling being’ does not exist in a way that is on par with consciousness sans feelings or an actually free consciousness - to say nothing of tables and chairs. A physicalist explanation might be more elegant in the sense one could say something either exists or does not exist (as you seem to be doing). Emotions did exist once, but now they don’t now and they arose from matter in a similar way to how consciousness and thought arose from it. But I think of this approach is mechanistic in other ways and is somewhat like taking a sledgehammer to existence (plus all my objections already mentioned). I can’t pretend that I know there is any one satisfactory answer that is correct - whether it comes from the AFT or not. In terms of ultimate knowability of this stuff will I change my tune after MOL AF? Maybe or maybe not.
Where I might agree with you is that in the elaboration of actual freedom and its implications there may be some explaining and fine-tuning to do. I would submit that the moment we seek to make claims about humanity at large and the cosmos beyond the purview of the PCE or the actual freedom experience, we are venturing into the territory of the sciences, metaphysics and philosophy (and other conventional disciplines) - whether we like it or not. Also when I read the AFT there seem to be many instances where in explicit and implicit ways these disciplines are invoked to explain AF, so it has definitely been done. Rather than these considerations being antithetical to actual freedom as Richard seems to suggest, I wonder whether they are inevitable if we are going to unpack all the implications of actual freedom and give an account that is coherent – especially to other feeling beings we would like to share our experience of the world with. This would need to be done without watering down actualism and actual freedom and without turning it into ‘a philosophy’ or without compromising what it is in essence.
My suggestion is that it would need to start with experience and everything needs to flow on from there. Actual freedom is truly amazing, magical and unprecedented. It’s astounding to me how ‘me’ along with ‘feelings’ just vanished just like Richard said, leaving me in this glorious, wondrous world, so pure and still. There is something irreducible about this. Something that just cannot be communicated adequately IMO. The answer is in the living of it.
As for all the other stuff - In how many ways can AF be explained? What are its implications for humanity and the cosmos? What can we say with certainty or be somewhat doubtful of based on this? These are all interesting questions and I don’t think the answers are all known and therefore closed for any further thinking about it.
Srinath: Something that just cannot be communicated adequately IMO.
This. The experience of it is nigh-on indescribable. Richard had to basically invent an entire vocabulary to even come close.
I am not saying these discussions aren’t interesting or have no merit, but for us as feeling beings to worry about this stuff @rick is like a blind person writing an endless dissertation on the faculty of sight (whilst opting not to undergo the already invented and available…laser-eye surgery).
Hi Srinath - it would be wonderful to read every now and again an update or ‘experience-report’ or even musings from you pertaining to how your journey to MOLAF is proceeding. A dedicated topic perhaps on what you are tackling, how are you approaching it, what’s obstructing, what you are deliberating about, what is fascinating you, what you are experiencing. That kind of thing, if you ever become inclined.
Richard says it there so well. I would only add that the entire human organism – which includes the instinctual passions – comes out of the ground as a variety of carrots, lettuce, milk, cheese, air, water, sunlight, etc.
It is interesting to note that “the universe is also experiencing itself as cats and dogs” and since cats and dogs are inherently fearful and aggressive, this means that the universe experiences itself as fearful/ aggressive cats and dogs. Needless to add that the universe experiences itself as fearful and aggressive humans too. That humans can realize this, and then tip each other off to it, is incredible.
How can you ask what the point is of all this stuff when you know that the PCE is arrived at by reflective and fascinating contemplative thought?
Richard (1997): Apperception – a way of seeing that is arrived at by reflective and fascinating contemplative thought
Okay yes, the “broader conversation” could be worthwhile. That will be addressed more towards the end of this post.
Yes (aside from objecting to your characterization of ‘extreme’ for reasons I’ll explore later). As far as I can understand it, Richard maintains that all that exists is physical (barring feelings and its derivatives, that is).
But for the record, as far as dualism and nondualism is concerned this is what Richard says about that:
Richard (2005): (…) both duality (‘self’ and ‘other’) and non-duality (‘oneness’) have no existence in actuality. Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 97
Perhaps he is referring to the more typical non-dual spiritual ‘oneness’ a la Hinduism’s Atman-Brahman singular, universal spirit consciousness?
Neurophysiologists don’t seem to have a problem capturing and describing things like ‘imaginative thought’.
“In recent years, convergent evidence from the cognitive neurosciences has pointed to the neural and bodily basis of metaphor and suggested that image schemata ought to be considered “dynamic activation patterns that are shared across the neural maps of the sensory motor cortex” (Rohrer 2006, p. 72). More plainly, the evidence has begun to show that the brain is fundamentally multi-modal and cross-modal [crossmodal perception or cross-modal perception is perception that involves interactions between two or more different sensory modalities]. Examples include synesthesia, sensory substitution and the McGurk effect, in which vision and hearing interact in speech perception. This evidence will be addressed first by way of broad strokes, and then by more detailed accounts of neural development, architecture, and function that begin to describe the embodied basis of imaginative thought. Lakoff and Johnson repeatedly underscores the multimodality of actions, highlighting the way in which motor, perceptual, and somato-sensory components are coordinated. For example, these components allow an individual to respectively do an action, to perceive the action being done, and to “get the sense” of doing the action. This coordination is reflected in neural activation patterns, the study of which gave rise to the hypothesis that multimodal coordination might ground abstract thought. After exploring this hypothesis, researchers found that there is a simultaneous coordination of different neural domains that underpin the mapping between the metaphoric domains that Lakoff and Johnson began to identify in the 1980s. Specifically, recent work has indicated that there is a continual coordination between the sensory-motor domains and the neural domains that have long been regarded as the seat of abstract conceptualization. This neural multimodality has come to the fore in the study of cognitive linguistics. (…) More simply, the architecture and dynamics of the human nervous system is continuous with, and continually structures, the life of the mind and language.”
I wouldn’t say those mental visualizations you conjured up are merely “accompanied” by brain activity, they are brain activity.
The explanation that mental visualization, for instance, is absolutely physical is not reductive or relative because there is nothing non-physical to reduce it from or co-relate it to. In addition, as the mind is just the brain in action, and as the active brain is just matter in action, then it would not be false to equate mind with matter.
Understood. The precise mechanisms of how things emerge or come to pass are not always perfectly clear even, at times, for leading experts in a given field. That’s especially the case for laymen. For instance it isn’t all that clear to me how the image on a television screen manifests itself when the power button is turned on nor is it clear to me what’s involved when a woman gets her period. Same could be said for the contents of dreams or the anguish felt by a child when their dog dies. One thing is for sure though: whatever processes are involved they will always be mechanical, electrical, chemical, molecular, biological, physiological, in other words: physical.
Not sure what you’re saying. There’s a plethora of conditions involved in producing the sensation of pain so it can’t be said to “occur in isolation”.
Simply, do feelings and dreams occur in this universe? If yes, then feelings and dreams, and the experience they produce, are composed of the same material bits as whatever occurs in non-feeling or non-dream states, which means they are events which are not separate from the universe.
First, I wouldn’t say that any experience a human being has is merely “accompanied” by electrical activity rather that any and all experience a human being has is electrical activity (and/or chemical activity, mechanical activity, molecular activity, biological activity, organic activity, physiological activity, i.e., physical activity).
Second, knowing and appreciating that all experience is electrical activity (or whatever other kind of physical/ material activity) in the brain means knowing and appreciating that humans’ deepest experiences of being alive, their evilest impulses, their most generous acts, their most vivid sensations, or their wildest hallucinations are being produced by the universe, and is not anything other than the universe’s experience, which is a totally rad thing. What an amazing and extraordinary thing it is that the universe experiences itself as a dog or cat or a completely deranged madman (which many of us fear ourselves to be at times).
This is the universe’s show, not mine. Even the intuition that “it is mine” is not mine, but the universe’s. Amazing.
With respect, Srinath, these are contradictions in terms. A monistic position cannot have “some room for a sort of duality” else it is not monistic (from monos meaning ‘single’ or ‘one’). Hence there can be no “extreme” versions of a monistic position as that would imply some kind of degree or gradation of the position. It’s simply ‘one’ or ‘not one’.
Secondly, while those things you mentioned (thoughts, memories, etc.) can be reduced or broken down into their constituent parts I wouldn’t say any of those things can be reduced “to matter” as that implies those things aren’t material before being reduced. You don’t reduce a computer to matter when you break it down or disassemble it; it was already matter before you broke it down.
Unless you mean “reduce to matter” conceptually via eliminating the notion or idea that those things are anything but matter.
Lastly, of all those you mentioned, that you include consciousness as something that is not physical is particularly astounding. Consciousness is one’s only mode of experiencing anything. Experience does not happen without consciousness. By saying you “don’t think consciousness … can be easily reduced to matter” makes it appear as if you were saying that your only mode of experience is not entirely physical.
It’s more like taking a sledgehammer to non-existence. Non-existence/ nothing/ nothingness/ immateriality/ etc., does not exist. Only existence exists. ‘Non-existence’ merely exists as material concepts that existent things (humans) are capable of producing.
Richard (n.d.): If the universe was not here, then what would be here instead? Nothing? But we have no idea what nothing is without a ‘something’ to know it by … hence the universe is necessary for that concept. Ergo, the universe must be here – there cannot not be a universe. This is where philosophers get caught by their own logic. Because there is a ‘something’ – the universe – there can be a concept of a ‘nothing’ … but it is only a concept. ‘Nothing’ does not exist as an actuality … hence eastern philosophy, with their concept of ‘Nothingness’ and ‘The Void’ and ‘Emptiness’ is nothing but that … a concept. That they are then able to experience it as a psychic adumbration is nothing short of institutionalised insanity. The mind creates a fantasy, then yearns to live in it … and a rare few do! It is amazing, because there is no ‘nothing’; there is no ‘outside’ to this universe … it is infinite and eternal. Infinitude Is The Boundlessness Of Space And Time
Fair enough.
Yes, as you say, there may be.
Yes.
Inevitable, yes.
What makes it tricky is that actualism does not have a monopoly on ‘direct experience’. Of course what actualism may mean by ‘direct’ is the difference of night and day with how that term is conventionally used, but consider that a Buddhist’s ‘direct experience’ informs them of something entirely different to a Christian’s ‘direct experience’ and one begins to see that while ‘direct experience’ is critical it may not completely inform as to what the case is of a particular matter. For instance, for some matters the scientific method may need to be invoked in order to suss out what is factually the case, which requires not just ‘direct experience’ (empirical observation) but also careful, unbiased, controlled analysis of the empirical data. A multi-tool, multi-faceted approach.
Certainly. But how it all flows from there is not a small matter.
Okay, maybe start from that indisputable point and then let it flow (carefully) from that point as you venture into those territories you mentioned, such as aspects of humanity at large and the cosmos, which as you said lie beyond the purview of the experience of a condition that is “truly amazing, magical and unprecedented” and a world is that “glorious”, “wondrous”, “pure”, “still”, and “irreducible”.
This …
Richard (1997): The third alternative – actual freedom – is not an Ineffable State. Unlike The Altered State, it can be easily and adequately described in unambiguous terms. Richard's Selected Writing on Death
Agreed. Yet from wherever we are we must venture out and we must tread lightly. Whether feeling-being or free from the human condition, one must start out from that which is indisputable, that which has obvious self-evident facticity, and proceed accordingly.
Richard lays it all out here so eloquently:
(1999)
RESPONDENT: a) how do you know that ‘a human mind is [just] a human brain in action in a human skull’
RICHARD: It is very simple to know that a human mind is indeed a human brain in action in a human skull: physical death. Firstly I start with myself: as I am a human being I have fifty two years of intimate experience of a human mind being a human brain in action inside a human skull (observation). Secondly, I verify this personal experience as being global through monitoring other human beings so as to ascertain for myself that the same, or similar, activity occurs as the human brain inside their human skull (duplication). Thirdly, I objectively validate this species-confirmed personal experience by keeping up-to-date with as many of the scientifically reproducible brain-mapping studies such as MRI scans and so on and so on as possible – and there is a wealth of information on this rapidly growing new science – which demonstrates the facticity of my personal experience (confirmation). Which means: as all the energised neuronal activity (energised by a food calorific energy) of the brain (which activity is the human mind) ceases at the physical death of the body – as is ascertained both via personal observation (subjectively) and by a myriad of scientifically documented instrumental tests (objectively) – it is patently obvious that the human mind is the human brain in action inside the human skull. (…) To proceed from a sound basis, one starts with facts: to be alive (not dead) and awake (not asleep) and conscious (not unconscious) and aware and perceiving (and maybe thinking, remembering, reflecting and proposing considered action) is the human mind that every human being is born with and, as such, is similar around the globe and through all generations. Intimate access to the activity of each mind is personal (as opposed to public) but the basic activities of the mind are not individual (‘individual’ as distinguished from others by qualities of its own). This neuronal activity – consciousness itself – is what the human mind is (…). Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 45
Yet remarkably, in the same conversation, he proceeds to say the following to his correspondent who is a Krishnamurti devotee presumably advancing a Krishnamurti-inspired and thus metaphysical cause of suffering:
Richard: The crux of the issue is that you appear to be proposing a metaphysically inherent cause (…) to the problem of the human condition and thus seem to be seeking a metaphysical solution (…). Whereas I discovered that it was a physically inherited cause (a genetically inherited instinctual animal ‘self’) that created the problem of the human condition and thus promote a physical solution (extinction of instinctual ‘being’ itself) derived from my personal experience. Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 45
Please note very carefully how Richard at first appears to rebuke a “metaphysically inherent” cause. At first glance he sets the stage as if he will promote something entirely different than what his correspondent has promoted (i.e., the metaphysically inherent cause). Yet it transpires there is essentially no difference in what Richard goes on to promote after his “Whereas” wording. He proceeds to affirm a physically “inherited” cause which is not at all the same as denying a metaphysically inherent cause, as you well know. So despite at first appearing contrarian, he is in fact putting forward a cause which he just rebuked. If he truly was promoting something different the exchange would look something like this [example]:
Richard [example only]: The crux of the issue is that you appear to be proposing a metaphysically inherent cause whereas I discovered that it was a physically inherent cause.
So Srinath, the crux of the issue in this topic is the same as the one Richard engaged in back in 1999: is the cause of the human condition (i.e., the instinctual animal self) a metaphysically inherent cause, or not? We must tread carefully.
This small distinction has vast implications: for if the genetically inherited instinctual animal ‘self’ is not just physically inherited but also physically inherent, then as ‘I’ am physically inherent (intrinsically, essentially, indelibly), then the physical universe is completely, entirely inseparable from ‘me’. No isolation, no separation, no division.
This is the “metaphysically inherent” cause of the problem of the human condition: “the ego-stream existing prior to physical birth”
This is the “physically inherited” cause of the problem of the human condition: “a genetically inherited instinctual animal ‘self’”
In what way is there “essentially no difference” between these two? Because they are completely different to me:
the “ego-stream” referred to is a metaphysical entity, i.e. that ‘I’ existed before physical birth, ‘I’ then entered this body, ‘I’ will then leave this body after physical death and go on to inhabit another body, etc… the body does not generate the ‘ego-stream’ – the ego-stream existed before the body existed, and is inhabiting the body/animating the body, and once the body dies it will move on to another body, etc.
the “genetically inherited instinctual animal ‘self’” is not a metaphysical entity. It doesn’t exist before physical birth – it comes into being upon birth, due to genetic inheritance. The body generates it. And it ceases to exist upon the body physically dying. Or upon actual freedom .
It is self-evident to me that Richard was indeed rebuking a “metaphysically inherent” cause as being the cause of the problem of the human condition, and proposing something entirely different / not at all the same.
I am also not sure what distinction you would draw between “physically inherited” and “physically inherent” in this context, maybe you can elaborate?
@rick I think I finally grasp what you’re getting at. It’s taken some time due to the conflation of physical and actual at the start of the thread, which proceeded to an extent on a conceptual level even after we clarified the definitions. But once it clicked in place I re-read all your posts in the thread and I think I understand your position thoroughly now. Correct me if I am wrong
What you are saying is that as there is nothing but this physical universe, anything that is experienced must be generated by the physical universe as well, and is therefore physical – which includes consciousness and, of course, feelings and the feeling-being as well (more on this later).
What you are finding is that there is no ‘outside’ to the universe – everything that exists is within the universe or is the universe manifesting itself in some way.
This is indeed no small thing, and upon realizing this is what you were getting at I too experienced an increased intimacy in my surroundings. This means me, the feeling-being, is a physically-sourced entity – I didn’t come into being from some metaphysical plane to inhabit this body. I am generated by this body. Further there is no ‘heaven’ or ‘hell’, no ‘God’, nothing ‘out there’ to ‘get at me’, nobody ultimately ‘in control’, etc… This is a big and valuable realization that will serve you well.
However here is where it gets tricky and where there is a possibility of going ‘wrong’…
Now, I don’t think anybody writing on this thread will disagree that feelings, emotions, the ‘soul’, the ‘self’, etc., are generated by a physical body. I posit that this is not controversial, despite the many conversations and discussions in the so-far most-replied-to thread in the brief history of the existence of this new forum.
It is also uncontroversial that feelings and the feeling-being are not actual, in the special-usage definition of the word. They do not actually exist. And actuality, the actual world, is the only thing that actually exists in a substantial, tangible way (in the regular-usage sense of these words).
This, then, is the apparent contradiction that must be resolved. How can something that is physically-generated not actually exist?
Now the key thing about reflective and fascinating contemplative thought is that the purpose of it, the point of it, the goal, is to elicit an experiential answer, not a thought-out (or felt-out) answer. While it is true that reflective and fascinating contemplative thought leads to apperception, it is also simultaneously true that one cannot think or feel one’s way into actuality:
and:
So how can these things both be true - that one can’t think one’s way into a PCE, but also that reflective and fascinating contemplative thought leads to a PCE? There is no contradiction here, either. The key is to ask oneself the question, hold it in one’s mind, reflect, with great fascination, upon it, and then the experiential answer - the PCE, or something towards it - will click into place, all of a sudden, out of nowhere.
Thus to aid you with taking the “closeness and intimacy felt with the surroundings” you have been experiencing to its desired culmination - apperception – I encourage you to repeat and reiterate and ruminate over these two apparently contradictory things. I ask you to go out on a limb and consider, reflect, mull over, contemplate, with great fascination, that both are accurate and factually the case… until the experiential answer hoves into view for you:
There is nothing that exists outside of the universe. Feelings, emotions, the ‘soul’, the ‘self’, ‘me’ at ‘my’ very essence, are generated by this physical body which was formed when matter reconfigured itself into the form of a sperm and an egg, then a fertilized egg, then an embryo, etc…
‘Me’ and ‘my’ feelings are not actual. ‘I’ do not actually exist, nor do ‘my’ feelings actually exist.
As a hint to aid with your contemplation, although the consciousness generated by the body actually exists and ‘I’ feel and experience ‘myself’ to be that consciousness – ‘I’ the feeling-being am not that consciousness. ‘I’ am something other than the consciousness the body is generating.
I am reminded on my first trip to meet Richard and Vineeto, in one instance where we were conversing about the nature of time. Richard was explaining to me that time does not move, in actuality. And I couldn’t comprehend what he was saying. It didn’t make sense… I felt that time was moving. It seemed that time must be moving for things to be able to happen. But I could maybe get a glimpse of what he was saying. And I said that it seemed impossible that time doesn’t move, yet things still happen. This was seemingly impossible – for things to happen without time moving. And as I repeated that it was impossible, an experiential intimation of the actual occurred for me, everything suddenly got much brighter, crisper, clearer, cleaner, and I could see that indeed time doesn’t move (although it wasn’t fully a PCE). In this way fascinated and reflective contemplated thought yielded an answer for me.
And just for the sake of completeness, this is not an attempt to override the thinking mind, as in to accept something that doesn’t make sense, in the way a Zen koan is meant to do. Rather it is a way to get at the experiential answer, which does make sense and is logically consistent… but requires a bit of experience to fully click.
Instinctual passions are said to me ‘nonmaterial’?
There is a reason why Richard came up with the Actual vs Real split. Instinctual passions and the feeling being are real (but not actual). And like @claudiu mentions, just because something is not actual doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist in this only existing universe. As to what sort of existence a unicorn in a dream has, that’s more a question of defining ‘existence’ and a step out into philosophy.
Fair enough, this was me wrongly guessing at where you see a contradiction, because I’m still confused about your position. My next guess is what @claudiu last wrote to you so will wait for your reply on that.
Perhaps you can drill into what it is about actual vs non-actual you see a problem with?
Forgetting about actualism for a second: A dream is said to not be real, but a bed for instance, is. When you awake from a dream you realize it was not real and you find yourself in a very real bed, all without breaking any laws of the universe? Can you explain how the actual/real split (as coined by Richard to better describe his experience of living in the actual world) is different for you?
Aye and as @rick only recently discovered that ‘actual’ has a special-usage meaning in actualism, I thought it would be good to illustrate this distinction of real vs actual with an example (@rick this is to further aid with your reflective and fascinating contemplative thought).
As a starting point let’s take ‘real’ and ‘actual’ to be synonymous, i.e. standard dictionary definitions. And we’ll take the example of God.
When people say that God exists, what they mean is that there is a truly, actually, really existing (metaphysical) entity that really truly in a completely standard sense of the word exists. That there is something beyond the laws of physics and nature, and that in this other realm God exists / or God is that other realm or something of the sort.
Now everyone here knows that there is nothing outside of the physical universe - nothing metaphysical truly exists. So we would say that God does not exist.
“But wait,” the Objector says. “God clearly exists. So many people experience God’s presence and divine energy. How can you deny their experience?”
“Well,” sayeth the Elucidator. “People might have an experience of God existing. But this does not mean that God exists. The experience is misleading and misinformative.”
“But isn’t it not accurate then to say God doesn’t exist? Doesn’t he ‘exist’ in the sense that he exists in people’s minds? Isn’t the occurrence of the experience of the perception of God something that exists and is happening in this physical universe?” retorts the Objector.
The Elucidator thinks for a while and then answers. “When people say God exists what they mean is that he doesn’t exist only in people’s minds, but that he truly exists ‘out there’. However I see your point and in the sense he ‘exists’ in people’s minds (which are physical and whose experience is physically occurring), maybe it isn’t enough to make the distinction of simply existing or not. So let’s instead say that God is ‘real’ but not ‘actual’. He is ‘real’ in that he is felt to exist in the minds of billions of people on the planet. But he is not ‘actual’ because he doesn’t actually exist in the true meaning of the word.”
Thus the distinction of ‘real’ but not ‘actual’ is born, and now we can readily explain all manner of phenomena. For example, Santa Claus is ‘real’ - he is felt to exist by many children across the globe - but he is not actual - there isn’t actually a man in a red suit at the North Pole making lists.
‘Angels’ are real - many a person has had experiences of angels, many children have a guardian angel, etc - but they are not actual - there aren’t actually-existing (metaphysical) entities coming to the planet to protect our children.
And now this is the key point - ‘Rick’, ‘Claudiu’, and ‘Solvann’ the feeling-beings are ‘real’ - they are each felt to exist by their respective ‘selves’ along with the people they interact with - but they do not actually exist - the feeling-being ‘Rick’ and ‘Claudiu’ and ‘Solvann’ aren’t actually-existing entities.
When people would assert that, for example, ‘Claudiu’ actually exists, what they would mean is that there is a truly, actually, really existing physical (although some would say metaphysical but let’s go with physical) entity that really truly in a completely standard sense of the word exists. That there is a true, substantial, really existing ‘Claudiu’. And the Objector chimes in: “‘Claudiu’ clearly exists. ‘Claudiu’ clearly and undeniably experiences himself as existing. How can you deny his experience?”
The Elucidator has a ready answer now. “‘Claudiu’ and the people he interacts with might have an experience of ‘Claudiu’ existing. But this does not mean that ‘Claudiu’ exists, in a true, substantial, really existing way. The experience is misleading and misinformative. We can say that ‘Claudiu’ is ‘real’ but not actual.”
And the Elucidator continues. “However the actual flesh and blood body named Claudiu, along with its consciousness, is a truly, actually, really existing physical entity that really truly in a completely standard sense of the word exists. There is a true, substantial, really existing flesh and blood body called Claudiu. This flesh and blood body is not ‘real’ but rather is actual, in our special-usage sense of the word.”
Thus the thing to reflect and ponder with great fascination is (using the special-usage terminology now):
There is no ‘outside’ to the physical universe. There is nothing besides the physical universe. Only that which is physical actually exists.
There is an actually existing flesh and blood body Rick with an actually existing consciousness, that actually exists (as in, it is actual).
There is a ‘really’ existing feeling-being ‘Rick’ with a feeling of ‘consciousness’ that ‘really’ exists, however this feeling-being does not actually exist, in a physical way or otherwise, despite the experience of ‘Rick’ that indicates otherwise… In other words, feeling-being ‘Rick’ is ‘real’ but not actual.
And all feeling-being ‘Rick’ has to do is consider this with great thoroughness, letting it sit and reflect in his mind, until actuality can get an “edge” in and ‘Rick’ decides all-of-a-sudden to allow ‘himself’ to go into abeyance, upon which ‘Rick’ will temporarily cease to be via a “handing-off” of consciousness to actual Rick, who will have been having the ongoing experience of himself to be actually existing this whole time and will likely wonder what all the fuss was about with that feeling-being ‘Rick’ insisting he actually exists when ‘he’ doesn’t .
How can you ask what the point is of all this stuff when you know that the PCE is arrived at by reflective and fascinating contemplative thought?
@Rick I would not characterise what you/we have been doing here as reflective and fascinating contemplative thought. Although this is interesting and not pointless - it is far from that.
I think Claudiu’s writing on this topic is quite good and may well be a way of taking your musings about this subject out of abstraction, and into something pragmatically useful in regards to actual freedom.
It sounds like where we probably agree is that matter is the ultimate source of mind. But whereas you are saying mind = matter (brain), I am saying this is a false equivalence and a sleight of hand that involves swapping co-related neural activity for the experience of consciousness. In-fact the second line of the abstract you quoted was … “It opens by examining the neural correlates of bodily metaphors”. Look its an old (and new) debate with many facets and we are unlikely to resolve it here, so let’s just agree to disagree. Rather than seeking to prove me wrong - if you are interested you could read up on the critiques of your position (and those of mine as well)
For more of an elaboration of what I have been saying, you could look up non-reductive materialism, emergentism, strong emergence and the hard problem of consciousness.
[quote=“rick, post:65, topic:131”]
This …
Richard (1997): The third alternative – actual freedom – is not an Ineffable State. Unlike The Altered State, it can be easily and adequately described in unambiguous terms.[/quote]
Okay, understand that I am not saying anything different from Richard. A PCE or an actual freedom is not the same as e.g. shunyatha a nullity, a void, a rent in matrix of symbolic logic where all categories break down, finger pointing at the moon etc. It is a lived experience that I could describe in the way I could a trip to the Amazon. But how do I communicate to someone say who has never left New York City, the experience of being in this almost unbelievably large rain forest, winding my way down in a boat on a river, the air buzzing with the sounds and smells of thousand of species of flora and fauna? Even having had numerous PCE’s, as a feeling being I was not able to ‘bottle’ it the way I could with usual memories. The essential quality of it would evade me until I had another PCE or made a strong connection with pure intent that allowed me to rememorate it.
Richard (2000): This is because human suffering (malice and sorrow) being physical, has a physical cause (instinctual passions such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire) and not a metaphysical cause Mailing List 'C' Respondent No. 3
‘I’ am a physical entity.
Richard (2002): (…) whenever I put ‘I’ and/or ‘me’ in scare quotes I am not referring to a physical entity (the flesh and blood body) but a metaphysical entity Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 33
‘I’ am a metaphysical entity.
Richard (2005): I am not suggesting for a moment that ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being (which is ‘being’ itself) is a metaphysical entity Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 103
‘I’ am a physical entity.
Hi Claudiu - before proceeding, may you please review all the above and then state definitively whether ‘I’ am a physical entity or a metaphysical entity?
Hi Rick - the answer is that, as ‘I’ don’t actually exist, and the only entities that can be said to exist are those entities that do indeed exist, ‘I’ am neither a physical entity nor a metaphysical entity.
This is one of the rare cases where language will get tricky. Note that the phrase “actually exist” is actually standard, which means truly, really existing in a full, completely standard sense of the word exist - as in to have existence.
In the way you are asking the question here, to say ‘I’ am a metaphysical entity would be to say that ’I’ actually exist, have true existence, as a metaphysical entity - which is false. Nothing metaphysical exists - the only things that exist are the physical - therefore ‘I’ cannot be a metaphysical entity (as there are no metaphysical entities).
And further, in the way you are asking the question here, to say ‘I’ am a physical entity would be to say that ‘I’ actually exist, have true existence, as a physical entity - which is also false. The body and the consciousness it generates exists, but ’I’ don’t actually exist (‘I’ am not that consciousness). So ‘I’ cannot be a physical entity, as only things that exist can be physical entities. ’I’ experience ’myself’ as actually existing, and this experience of ‘me’ existing is ultimately physically generated (as there is nothing that is not physical), but ‘I’ don’t actually exist.
Note that because the feeling of ‘me’ existing is so powerful and convincing – along with the feeling of other non-existent things existing for various feeling-beings (e.g. God for a few billion people) – for this purpose Richard created the distinction between ‘real’ and actual, so we could say that ‘I’ am ‘real’ (as in, ‘I’ ‘really’ exist) but ‘I’ am not actual (as in, ‘I’ don’t actually exist). But this usage in the phrase “‘I’ ‘really’ exist” is not standard – I don’t exist, actually… but it has good explanatory power once the distinction is firmly grasped. And note that in standard usage ‘real’ should be synonymous to actual, but because people have tainted the word (by saying e.g. God is ‘real’ when God does not exist), Richard created this special-usage vocabulary.
As a curiosity note that the word “exist” itself seems to have been tainted as well as the word ‘real’ – merriam-webster.com defines it as “to have real being whether material or spiritual”.
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In any case now that this is definitively stated I can go through the examples you posted to elucidate further.
What you are saying here is “‘I’ actually exist as a metaphysical entity.” And the response is no, ‘I’ don’t actually exist.
Now incidentally as ‘I’ don’t actually exist, and neither do metaphysical entities, in a certain sense of the use of the language I could say that ‘I’ am a metaphysical entity - as neither actually exist. But in the context of our conversation this would be ascribing actual existence to something metaphysical, which is false.
The experiential query I posted here was a prompt for you to be able to find out, for yourself, that emotions are extrasensory phenomena. And this includes any sense such as thinking, proprioception, hunger, thirst, any sensation of which way ‘north’ might be, any synesthetic combination of the senses, and any other sense that humans can be said to have.
Once you recognize this salient point - that emotions are not of-the-senses - then this is a wedge which can lead to you seeing that ‘you’ do not actually exist.
What you are saying here is “‘I’ actually exist as a metaphysical entity.” And the response is no, ‘I’ don’t actually exist.
Existence does, of course, exist. Therefore, as ‘I’ don’t exist, this illusion that is ‘me’ is indeed “separate” from the rest of existence. Note that even saying ‘I’ am separate from something, might imply that ‘I’ actually exist as something that is separate - but this (that ‘I’ actually exist) is what is false.
I re-inserted the context here as it looks like you mis-parsed the meaning of that (admittedly length) sentence. I was saying that any feeling that I am not separate from the rest of existence, is an inaccurate assessment of the situation.
What you are saying here is “‘I’ actually exist as a physical entity.” And the response is no, ‘I’ don’t actually exist.
What you are saying here is “‘I’ actually exist as a physical entity.” And the response is no, ‘I’ don’t actually exist. Just because the feeling of existence that ‘I’ experience has a physical cause, does not mean that ‘I’ actually exist as a physical entity.
And of course, the feeling of existence that ‘I’ have cannot have a metaphysical cause, as nothing metaphysical exists.
You might ask, how can something that doesn’t exist “experience” anything? And that is an excellent query to run through your head while you reflect and contemplate with great fascination.
What you are saying here is “‘I’ actually exist as a metaphysical entity.” But this is not what Richard meant. You surely don’t think that Richard believes that souls, spirits, atmans, etc., actually exist?
Now because neither do ‘I’ actually exist, nor do metaphysical entities exist, one could say ‘I’ am a metaphysical entity, as ‘I’ am certainly not a physical entity (as ‘I’ don’t actually exist)… but one has to be careful with the language here.
I have added the full context here. Richard here is denying, as he has consistently in other places, that ‘I’ am caused by/generated by something metaphysical. i.e. ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is not some metaphysical (i.e. actually existing outside of this physical realm) entity that is inhabiting the body and animating the brain’s neurons and the body etc. ‘I’ have a physical cause, ultimately.
But of course just because ‘I’ have a physical cause does not mean ‘I’ actually exist as a physical entity.
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Now that that thorough review is over, I look forward to your considered response.
Hi Adam - yes, it’s an undeniable fact that feelings exist in this body and that they are derived from physical processes, interact with physical processes, and induce physical processes.
The flames of a campfire will appear to flick and snap in an arbitrary and capricious manner. We understand however that the flame’s erratic maneuvers are due to a litany of surrounding, inherent, and underlying dynamic physical conditions.
Yes, the particular structure of the belief has a lot to do with the environment – that litany of surrounding, inherent, and underlying dynamic conditions – in which it was formed.
Yes, inherent in all belief is a lack of direct knowledge as to what is factually the case of something.
Perhaps you felt those particular ways because you were assembled by the universe in such a manner that left you compelled to retract from, say, a snarling pit bull by way of the fear response as opposed to being compelled to draw-in closer to a playful puppy by way of the nurture response.
Yes, emotions (and other attributes) do manipulate organisms upon response to stimuli. That is its function. Further, it may do so in a way that is suboptimal and unpleasant for sapient organisms.
Hi Claudiu - along with giving much thought to what you have written recently in posts 67, 69, & 73, I have been thinking of how to proceed with this topic to a satisfactory conclusion. The crux of the issue is that which was raised in my response to Srinath (above):
Your response that the cause of suffering is neither metaphysically inherent nor physically inherent (not merely physically inherited); that ‘I’ am neither a metaphysical entity nor a physical entity; that emotions can be factual but cannot be either metaphysically or physically existent, leaves very little room for proceeding forward.
That is not Rick who is saying that. Please look again carefully at what Richard is explicitly saying there. That not only is malice and sorrow physical, but that the instinctual passions which give rise to malice and sorrow are physical as well.
As ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’, then guess ‘who’ is physical after all.
Diverging from the crux of the issue for a moment, one thing that is becoming clear is that a strict reliance on what a PCE informs will produce divergent positions on key issues. For example, the clearest PCE that I can recall did not inform me that the emotions and self that preceded it were ever illusory or lacked substantial existence, only that they were not existent at the time of the PCE. In another example, Richard’s PCE and actual freedom informed him that all forms of mental visualization signified the presence of ‘self’; of course it transpired that that particular bit of PCE-derived information would be entirely incorrect. As far as an identity being accurately informed by its own PCE’s it is instructive to bear in mind that all religions presumably began at some point with some chap having one or more outstanding PCE’s where ‘self’ was completely absent, and who ex post facto interpreted the experience in either an idiosyncratic manner, appropriate to his culture and epoch, or piggy-backed on a pre-existing framework in such a way that it either led to or helped shape the formulation of yet another theology with all the attendant problems. How much can the identity be entrusted with conveying information faithfully from its PCE? Also bear in mind how the PCE informs different ‘self’-less bodies of different things. One actually free person’s PCE is currently informing them of the existence of God and angels, another actually free person’s PCE is informing them that their thoughts and mental images are not actual but virtual phenomena existing in a distinct idealistic realm of virtuality as elucidated by Gilles Deleuze, and yet another actually free person’s PCE is informing them that colors and sounds are not physical, while still another maintains that sensations are purely physical. There is thus a distinct possibility that both the suspension and immolation of ‘self’ does not, in of itself, resolve all the matters that the self-less condition professes to resolve. As Srinath recently remarked (post no. 50), “these ontological matters (…) may never be resolved to everyones satisfaction – even amongst actually free persons.”
At the end, it may well be that the only thing any human being can ever attest as being factual is the infinitude of the universe:
(2004)
RESPONDENT: … your mind would no longer be the universe experiencing itself as a mind. Instead, apart from being free from the human condition you are completely clueless about the universe.
RICHARD: If I may point out? Other than being apperceptively aware of infinitude I am already ‘clueless’ about the universe. Vis.:
• [Richard]: ‘… 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.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Do you, perchance, know what the sun actually is?
• [Richard]: ‘No, virtually the only thing regarding the properties of the universe that is readily apparent here in this actual world is its infinitude … matters such as what a star/planet/moon/comet is require observation and illation.
What happened was that, whilst browsing the internet in 1998-99 I came across a web-page proposing that the sun was plasma-only (as contrasted to the mainstream science proposition it had a nuclear-fusion interior which generated the surface plasma), and it dawned upon me that I had accepted – as a fact – what I had been taught in high-school last century … just as earlier generations had accepted as fact the then prevailing wisdom that it was a giant ball of fire (spectral analysis has shown the sun to have no oxygen so it is not that).
Nor is it a god/goddess, of course, but had I been born millennia ago I would (presumably) have accepted that to be fact.
‘Tis quite remarkable just how much is fed-in from an early age. Mailing List 'AF' Respondent No. 49
In other words, its absoluteness:
(2005)
RICK: Richard, could you list as many characteristics as possible that you would ascribe to the universe, please. Such as benign, infinite, wonderful, marvellous, eternal, a veritable perpetuus mobilis etc. As many as possible would be neat to look see. I’m just curious to read what the universe is and therefore what it isn’t from a pure consciousness experiencer.
RICHARD: The fundamental characteristic, or nature, of the universe is its infinitude – specifically having the properties of being spatially infinite and temporally eternal and materially perdurable – or, to put that another way, its absoluteness Mailing List 'AF' Rick
Hi Rick - that’s good news as for the conversation to proceed forward to a satisfactory conclusion it first had to make a sharp turn and start to head in a different direction. Now that it is stopped we are halfway there… the question now is if the sharp turn can be successfully accomplished and we can proceed in a beneficial direction.
The following gets to the real crux of the issue:
That is, even though you had a PCE in which emotions and the self were absent, you haven’t yet grasped that emotions and the self are in fact illusory and lack substantial existence – and as such the self cannot be an entity (as in something that actually exists) per se, be it a physical or a metaphysical one.
Now the illusion that the self actually exists, is an incredibly strong and persistent one… so strong that a “Man from Sydney”, for example, only fully grasped it shortly before becoming actually free [link]:
It is such a powerful, deeply-entrenched belief, that even though I have been actively interested in actualism for ~10 years now and have seen much success and have had bucketloads of PCEs lately, I still live most of my day-to-day life under the illusion that ‘I’ am tangible, substantial, real, that ‘I’ am threatened by this and that, that ‘my’ survival is paramount, etc.
And the illusion is not just that ‘I’ exist now, but that ‘I’ existed in the past as well… yet not only do ‘I’ not actually exist now, but ‘I’ never existed in the first place. On a phone call with Richard many years ago, he said how upon becoming actually free, the experience is such that he (actually free Richard) had been there all along, even in the “past” when feeling-being ‘Richard’ was felt to exist. When I remarked that that is very strange he fully affirmed that yes, it is very strange indeed!
The human condition is such a bizarre and weird thing that newly-free Vineeto, for whom the instinctual passions and the feeling being formed thereof were already extinct, still experienced confusion and disorientation in her process of becoming fully free [link]:
The issue is that you have spent much time debating and thinking about and reflecting on whether the self actually exists as a physical entity, or actually exists as a metaphysical entity. And as you have seen, correctly, that nothing metaphysical exists, you have concluded that you actually exist as a physical entity (are “physically inherent”), and therefore that the physical universe is “completely, entirely inseparable from ‘me’. No isolation, no separation, no division”.
Yet you have constructed and then fallen victim to a false dilemma, a false dichotomy, an either/or fallacy. The factual state of affairs is a third one - namely that ‘I’ don’t actually exist and never actually existed in the first place.
The problem is that as it stands now, you are completely closed off to this possibility, hence seeing “very little room for proceeding forward” when I denied both options as being the case. And instead of reading Richard’s words in the manner they were written - which is essentially as direct pointers and pin-pointed advice tailored to the specific feeling-being he was talking to to get them to see this extremely salient and critical point - you are using them to support your conclusion that has been derived from cogitation and thinking as opposed to direct experiences of actuality (i.e. PCEs). And unfortunately, if you proceed in this manner, you could read the entirety of his words three times over and still not see the point.
And yet, with regards to this critical point - that ‘I’ do not actually exist and never did actually exist - everybody, be it me, @Srinath, @geoffrey, Richard, Craig, Vineeto, Peter, etc. etc. is in complete agreement. The words we use might be different, and we might conceive of the surrounding ontological matters in different ways, but the key point is precisely the same.
And yet how, where everyone else has failed, will feeling-being ‘Rick’ succeed? How will ‘he’ see where others went wrong, without using the information from PCEs they had, which experiences show where the entirety of the billions of peoples of humankind not only alive today but that were alive in the past have gone wrong? How will ‘he’ succeed before undergoing the immolation of ‘self’, which it seems would be a prerequisite for thoroughly resolving these matters, since certainly experiencing first-hand the extinction of ‘self’ would be vital information as to the nature of said ‘self’? And if ‘he’ does want to undergo said immolation, how will ‘he’ succeed in doing so without seeing that his current position is in direct opposition to those people who have succeeded in undergoing said immolation?
I am keenly interested to see whether the conversation has successfully executed a sharp turn, and if so, whether it can start to take steps in a beneficial direction… the one leading to actuality .
What an awesome post @claudiu, once more you put into words what I was thinking but could not explain as well as you. And guess what, contemplating your post along with some other correspondence I read earlier has just facilitated a PCE for me I was just sat in my car listening to Geoffreys recording of becoming free and contemplating the stuff you wrote. I then decided to go back into the office but right before going into my office building I sensed a familiar flavour, I shut the door and turned back round to look at the trees blowing in the wind and decided to walk in that direction. Before I knew it ‘I’ slipped away and the direct experience of the perfection of being here as a flesh and blood body was happening again.
‘I’ kept popping up and disappearing again but the experience was long enough, maybe 25min to soak in a lot of ramifications. It’s funny cos only the other day I was thinking that I haven’t had a PCE in a long time and wondering if I am going down the wrong path
Also just to relate to this thread, in that experience the distinction is clear between ‘me’ along with ‘my’ reality and the earthly actuality of being here as a flesh and blood body, smelling the actual grass and looking at actual human beings walking around. It cannot be mistaken that the Actual is what genuinely exists and the ‘real’ is what is concocted and arises out of the affective faculty, that whole ‘reality’ along with ‘me’ is fundamentally an illusion so the conversation about whether it is physical or metaphysical will never arrive at a conclusion because what we are talking about arises out of calenture.
That is awesome to hear and means this is all worthwhile indeed . And this discussion wouldn’t have been possible without the new forum format… looks like the change is already paying dividends!
Hi Solvann - yes, members of this forum maintain that the instinctual passions are ‘nonmaterial/ immaterial’, as in lacking materiality or material existence, and on the AFT site the instinctual passions are generally held to be ‘nonmaterial/ immaterial’, while there are occasions when they are held to be ‘material’.
Yes, Richard split phenomena into two categories: ‘real’ and ‘actual’, which is all well and good. Typologies are useful conceptual models that humans craft for beneficial purposes.
You’ll find that Claudiu mentions the polar opposite of what you think he mentions.
Actualism has then stepped heavily into philosophy when it seeks to define or professes to know the nature of the existence of a unicorn in a dream, i.e., material vs immaterial, physical vs metaphysical, actual vs real, existent vs nonexistent, phenomena vs noumena. There is no avoiding it.
My position is rather simple: the fright that a horse experiences is not non-existent.
As to what Claudiu wrote: his position is that the fright that a horse experiences does not exist “in a physical way or otherwise”.
Very simply: the fright that a horse experiences is not non-existent. It exists.
And only the physical exists.
Richard (1998): The only singulative is this physical universe itself. Being infinite and eternal, it is obvious that there can be nothing else than this … thus it has no opposite. Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 15
Okay, forgetting about actualism for a second, a dream is said to not be real because it occurs in one’s brain as if somehow that which occurs in the brain has a fundamentally different form of existence to that which occurs outside the brain. Likewise a Hollywood movie is said to not be real because it occurs with actors, and scripts, and appears on a screen as if somehow that which occurs on the screen has a fundamentally different form of existence to that which occurs outside the screen.
Richard crafted a typology wherein he split existence into two modes (or identified two modes of existence): ‘real’ and ‘actual’, not unlike biologists crafting a taxonomy to split mammals into categories such as ‘cat’ and ‘dog’, for example. Go further and remove those ascribed categories piecemeal and underlying categories reveal themselves: mammalia → chordata → animalia → eukarya → living things → (… and so on, including molecules, elements, atoms, quarks, kinetic energy, etc …) → matter (broadest category of existence). Four hundred years prior, Descartes, in a very human-centric maneuver, split all of existence into two broad categories: (human) mind and body (matter). Richard resolved the split – the separation – by eradicating the ‘real’, or Descartes’ ‘mind’, and then denied it ever existed in the first place.
But saying that emotions simply do not exist and have never existed, well …
“Try telling that to someone who has just been raped; try telling that to someone who is in a trench on the front-line; try telling that to someone being tortured; try telling that to the person on the receiving end of domestic violence; try telling that to the recipient of child abuse; try telling that to someone sliding down the slippery-slope of sadness to loneliness to melancholy to depression and then suicide. More specifically, try saying that to the Buddhist woman who is being raped by a Hindu soldier; try saying that to the Hindu mother whose son has been brutally tortured by Muslim terrorists; try saying that to a Jewish grandmother whose entire family has been wiped out by zealous Christians; try saying that to a Taoist girl whose life has been violated and ruined by Buddhist/ Shinto soldiers; try saying that a Zen monk whose whole city has been razed by an atomic explosion. If your wife and/or daughter and/or mother and/or grandmother and/or sister was being brutally raped, would you really stand by saying to her: [‘your feelings do not exist’]?”
I’m afraid we will have to simplify even further for me to understand your position because the fright that a horse experiences can involve a number of things.
What about this:
I will assume you agree with the following: If a surgeon were to cut open any given flesh and blood human body they will not find an entity within. Nothing physical at all. Still ‘I’ feel like ‘I’ am inside this body looking out.
Do you agree that feeling your self to be inside the body is not the same as physically being inside the body?
If so, you would then agree that ‘you’ then actually do not exist inside the body? In no way, shape or form, never has been never will be; having no existence whatsoever.
We all agree that brains, chemicals and nerve signals exists but how, or in what way does this feeling being exist in your opinion?
Yes, a horse’s fright, sexual arousal, appetite, aggression, vision, or sweat gland secretions can involve many things. However whether the fright that a horse experiences involves two things or two million things is beside our focus at the moment.
The matter to settle is this: does the fright that a horse experiences exist, or does it not exist?
Your assumption is correct. However the fact that a surgeon would be unable to locate anything that you experience does not prove its absence. When they open you up they wouldn’t find pain or thoughts or anything that you experience. This was touched on a little earlier:
Before proceeding, it would be helpful to the discussion if those two matters (addressed above) are settled.
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