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’.
Just for example:
“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.