Consciousness: Meta or Epi?

[RAMHALite]

More and more, neuroscience is relegating consciousness to
"epiphemenon status." IOW, consciousness is not considered an
essential part of mental functioning, but more as a byproduct, like
smoke from a steam engine or the shadow of an object. Juxtapose this
against Dr. Wolff's very convincing arguments for consciousness, or
Consciousness, as being the Root of All.

Is consciousness totally irrelevant, just something that the physical
brain spews out as some neuroscientists contend, or is it so essential
that the physical world exists (or appears to exist) merely as a field
for its activity? Who ya gonna believe: the brass instrument
scientists who have shown that it's all neural and not mental, or the
transcendentally brilliant philosopher-mathematician-jnana-yogin who
says that at the highest level it's as though the physical world never
was?

No room for compromise in this debate. Methinks the Aristotelian Law
of the Excluded Middle applies here.

I'd be very interested in hearing from the philosophically trained/
inclined among you. After all, this is THE debate. Didn't Descartes
find that the only thing in existence he was unable to exclude by the
Method of Doubt was that there was doubting (thinking) going on, IOW,
that consciousness was active? It's the most intimate, constant,
undeniable fact of our existence. So...is it smoke or Root? Shadow
or All?

--RAMHALite

[berlake]

Before I begin, please understand that I have no formal training in
ANYTHING!!! :-) But I feel I have somethnig to say on the subject....

The only reason I was compelled to investigate consciousness at all
was as a result of haplessly stumbling into the proposition that it is
a neurological (and therefore physiological) epiphenomenon. At the
time I felt powerless to offer an argument to the contrary, despite
the fact that I knew, almost instantly, that life was simply too
absurd and empty if consciousness could be reduced to such status. It
doesn't take much of a leap in imagination to see that everything
humanity holds dear (however presumptuously) is sent up in smoke when
the subject is done away with - and this is the logical conclusion of
the epiphenomenalist perspective. Hence Hume's admission that he could
only find a "bundle of sensations" when looking for the self.

It seems to have become a macabre kind of mark of scientific and
philosophical maturity for empirically oriented philosophers to "face
the harsh truth" and admit that the world is mechanical (material),
meaningless (blind and unknowing) and purposeless (random and
chaotic); while at the same time allowing for the fact that life finds
itself aware enough of its own indomitable urge for continuation to
inspire the same philosophers to develop philosophies and write
naturalistic treatises which speak in trembling awe of the grandeur of
"nature". Treatises which wouldn't exist or have any "meaning" without
the very consciousness they refute (for to call it an epiphenomenon
is, ultimately, to deny it at an ontological level). But this is
simply absurd!! How there could possibly be any awareness of a
sensation or a memory or a thought without it existing in or for
consciousness is completely inexplicable, let alone illogical. And
this is really Wolff's main point, I think. It's really just a bit
bonkers to try and do away with the only thing humans cannot possibly
escape while being alive - consciousness!! Any discussion about any
thing requires the thing to exist in or for consciousness and the
people discussing it to be aware of it. Again, as Wolff said, it's
entirely impossible and irrelevant to claim that something can exist
outside consciousness, because one would need to be the thing itself
and be aware of being unaware of one's own existence - which is
ludicrous! It amounts to saying that the thing doesn't exist, which is
the same as saying that it doesn't exist outside of being known; which
leads back to the simple and obvious conclusion that nothing exists
outside consciousness!

But that's just the beginning..... Wolff is very clear about the fact
that consciousness isn't simply the bare field of empty awareness
which some people seem to propagate. If consciousness is simply bare
awareness, how could there even be an illusory universe, let alone an
eternal (though ultimately derivative) Self which is identical with
all Knowledge and Value? How could consciousness have any detectable
quality at all if it's just a limpid field of awareness? It seems to
me that consciousness must ultimately be utterly beyond any
possibility of definition (including existence and non-existence,
consciousness and non-consciousness) for it to be Ultimate, otherwise
it would be imprisoned by definition. If it is truly Free and is truly
the Ground and Container of all possible states and definitions, and
is eternal, infinite and unconditioned, then it could never be reduced
to any form of knowing, or it would become known.... and therefore not
Free.

So, I have no trouble with the possibility that consciousness is
Primary, despite the fact that it undermines practically everything
I've ever been taught!

One last thing: I find it pretty telling that no-one has ever
attempted, seriously, to attain to fully enlightened consciousness who
is of a materialistic bent, preferring as they do to resort to
analysing the psychological or philosophical contexts in which the
experience might be viewed. It strikes me that there's little ground
for empiric investigation to stand upon if it can't see its own
limitations in light of the evidently overwhelming evidence form
someone like Dr. Wolff. The nearest anyone has come is, I feel, U.G.
Krishanamurti (I don't recommend looking him up if you're not familiar
with him), but, in the end, even he can say nothng at all about
enlightenment or the Self, because all he knew was what it was like to
lose self and become unified with the objective pole of consciousness.
His case, though, does show what it would be like to live in a world
which did away with the total view of consciousness that people like
Dr. Wolff have tried to explicate and people like Daniel Dennett try
to deny, and it's a world I would rather die than experience.....

B

[Kanefire]

Neither am I trained at ANYTHING :)

Science can only measure what has manifest, can only measure to the
degree of its technology, and tends to only measure what we are
interested in measuring.

It seems that the answer to your question lies in this question:

Would we even have the technology to measure if we didn't have the
question to which we were looking for the answer?

Mind creates body to experience mind in infinite biofeedback.

The more questions we have, the more technology we create that answer
some questions, but usually wind up creating more than we answer. So
we make more technology to have more questions

It is true, consciousness may have come first, but it would never know
because it needs some form of feedback to even be conscious of itself.

Or so it seems.

[RAMHALite]

Kanefire and Berlake,

Awesome replies. For self-proclaimed, not-trained-in-anything
posters, you offer a great deal of food for thought.

I was hoping that someone on this list could post something that would
*absolutely* refute the proposition that there has NEVER been a
published study in a refereed psychological or neuroscience journal
that demonstrated an event in consciousness that did not have a
physiological correlate, IOW brain functioning.

As shocking and repugnant as this might be, the above seems to
demonstrate that consciousness is merely a REGISTERING of brain
activity, and not its cause.

So....here's my challenge: Just as stomach rumblings/gas/acid
discomfort are the result of purely physical activity, so are ALL
conscious events the results of PHYSICAL brain activity. Prove me
wrong.

I'll give you a head start: FMW states that all scientific systems are
merely concerned with relationships among phenomena. My psych
professor, Raymond Katzell (NYU), once gave us the pronouncement that
science is concerned with describing, predicting, and controlling
phenomena. FMW states, however, that it is impossible for science to
make ANY statement regarding the cause or ultimate nature of
phenomena.

So...Is consciousness an epiphenomenon or not?? And how does this
question relate to FMW, whom we all admire as THE jnana yogin of our
modern age?

Hey, get off your duffs and weigh in on these issues. This is what
our list is about, and this is why FMW dedicated his entire life to
his work on CONSCIOUSNESS W/O AN OBJECT. He wanted you to engage with
him, or his ideas, about these ultimate questions.

He put it out there. It is incumbent upon YOU to respond.

--RAMHALite

[Kanefire]

What does one say to the nail attempting to nail itself?

"Good Luck"

[Kanefire]

If you look into a mirror and see your eyes, but can't see them
anywhere else, do you believe that the mirror is creating them?

[berlake]

RAMAHLite, you're asking for alot!! David Chalmers and Daniel Dennett
(among many, many others) are at the spearhead of this debate, and
they're not really making any progress on the fundamental issue at
stake here (if one considers the fundamental issue to be the
production of final and unequivolcal proof that conscious is either
primary or derivative). Chalmers has said that neuroscience has helped
in the understanding of the "easy problem" of consciousness, i.e.
cognition, but it hasn't even begun to explain the "hard problem",
i.e. qualia. Chalmers also offers a thought experiment as a
demonstration of his point involving zombies, but I’m not familiar
enough with the detail to go into it reliably - nor do I have a link,
I'm afraid - but you'll find it soon enough if you google David
Chalmers..... Dennett, on the other hand, thinks there's no hard
problem to explain! He's a materialist, of course. I don't really know
what either man's ultimate philosophical position is, as I lost
interest once I realized that no-one can really say much about
consciousness from a purely objective point of view, save for the fact
that one is, somehow, what we commonly refer to as "conscious"......

So, I agree, RAMAHLite, it is THE question..... However, I personally
feel (am thoroughly convinced) that the "discovery" of neural
correlates - and the potentially limitless sophistication of the
interpretation of the information they offer - adds absolutely nothing
to the oldest debate in history.

Here’s an attempt to explain my (limited) understanding of the
problem….

For an object to exist within space-time, it must necessarily be in
and of that space-time. A brain, therefore, is as dependent upon this
principle as anything else, and it would be odd to imagine that the
argument is reduced to one which only requires consciousness to
fulfill the demands of cognition and motor functioning alone. I think
the problem is simpler and more obvious than a problem founded on the
particulars of human physiology or the brain‘s ability to make
pictures of the world. For example, one might reasonably ask whether a
plant's response to its environment requires consciousness or not. The
question then isn't even concerned with so-called cognition or, for
that matter, agency, but begs the question, "how is consciousness
defined?" If consciousness necessarily requires a brain, then any
sensate object without one (back to our plant) suddenly becomes
unconscious. This means that all its sensory functions (and they
clearly are sensory) operate without any conscious awareness of them,
as if there were the capacity for sensory response, but no sense of
the thing it is responding/reacting to or the response itself. It
means that a leaf's recoil from heat (or its process of
photosynthesis) or a tree limb's clamour for a clearer patch of
sunlight are only apparently sensory actions, when really they are
utterly blind and numb; dead, dead, dead mechanical responses.....
Which is crazy!! What this (sommonly held) position would have us
accept is that for any sense to be registered, there must be
cognizance of it, which necessarily requires a brain and a central
nervous system. So a microorganism which requires sunlight for it to
photosynthesize somehow achieves this without any awareness whatsoever
of the light it depends upon; and a tree sheds its leaves in winter
without any recognition whatsoever that it is winter……

Show me, then, a rock or a mote of dust or a vacuum that doesn't
exist, in some sense, as an object for the senses. And don't try and
argue that if a rock were on a planet with no sensate life-forms
inhabiting it then it would exist outside of any sensory recognition -
because I would say, "prove it!!". If you could see that rock, or
touch it or smell it, then consciousness is present. To argue that it
is still there when there is no sensory acknowledgement of it AT ALL
(and no-one has yet laid claim to defining every conceivable sense
form, as far as I'm aware) is meaningless, because it is only possible
to speculate. Now tell me that you can prove that any thing exists,
whether animate or inanimate, which is entirely unconscious on every
single level and in every single way...... I believe this is
impossible, for we can only really say that it is likely that
something is not aware of ITSELF, which is entirely different from
arguing that it is not aware, or that it's being is not dependent on
being known by some sensory recognition (even if it is only the
recognition of another conscious being) - OR…… That consciousness IS
and every object is only an instrument of its limitless and infinitely
dimensioned potential, all the way through to transcending even the
notions of consciousness and non-consciousness or being and non-being.
Something which would be necessary for there to be any resolution to
the dichotomy of eternal life and absolute oblivion.


Anyway, there’s nothing I’m saying here which hasn’t already been said
by the great man himself - and in much more convincing and lucid
terms, too! And this, really, is the point. Once one is convinced of
the possibility that consciousness is primary, then it seems that the
matter can be lent no authority by merely becoming convinced. It
remains to look elsewhere for some form of verification. Luckily, we
have it in abundance in Wolff’s works. But it doesn’t end there! There
are, as we all know, many other people throughout history who have
said effectively the same thing (or at least an aproximation of the
same thing), and so an argument which would otherwise have been
decided on a personal level by mere preference now becomes something
much more, because the only thing which can really adequately enable
someone to explain away consciousness as an epiphenomenon once and for
all would be for that individual to become enlightened and to then
say, from an insider’s point of view, that it’s a state of delusion.
As I said before, I don’t know of anyone who has yet achieved this -
and, even if they had, how would we know that they’re genuinely
enlightened!? It seems insane to imagine that someone who is
intelligent and rational would enter into some kind of state of
consciousness which has simply “deluded” them into believing that they
exist outside of time and space and are a somewhat which somehow IS,
but it entirely beyond the mind’s competence to define! This is why I
believe that Franklin Merrell-Wolff and his philosophical works
together make for a quite overwhelmingly complete representation of
life’s true nature, as he was clearly a man of authenticity and
integrity, not to mention high intelligence and deep sanity.

B

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[berlake]

Reading back over my last post, I realize that I'm repeating myself in
many ways, but I believe what I'm trying to say (or to recapitulate/
plagiarise!) is worth repeating ad nauseum, as it's at the centre of
the whole travail. Either consciousness is, as RAMAHLite puts it,
"meta or epi". Once one is TRULY and THOROUGHLY convinced of its
"meta" status, then a colossal and pivotal battle has been won. All
that remains then is for the (as Kanefire puts it) nail to nail
itself..... Simple ;-)


This, I feel, is why it's important for people, like me, who need to
be convinced beyond an arbitrary belief, to reach a point of relative
security in their thinking, as it prepares the ground in a profound
sense for the trust and commitment required to die consciously. Which
is bloody huge!!!!

B

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[berlake]

:-)

[Kanefire]

ahahah I was just thinking of :) your post.

> Either consciousness is, as RAMAHLite puts it,
> "meta or epi".

I "intuit" that it is both. This is hard to perceive from a linear
mind (a circle pretending to be a sphere) but when I let go of
requiring mental constructs, the understanding always forms itself in
a way I can perceive...just not accurately articulate, so please see
more than the words here.

Orientation must first be factored in.
One man says into the telephone, "Wyoming is east" the person on the
other end replies, "No, it is west." Then the operator buts in and
says "Well one of you is in California and the other in New York, so
you are both right."

Imagine first of all that consciousness has infinite forms...fractals
seem to best represent this. "I" am a point of consciousness on this
planet. Each cell is a point of consciousness within me. Each molecule
is a point of consciousness within a cell. Each atom is a point of
consciousness within a molecule...etc.
To me, the earth seems inanimate, to the cell, I see,
inanimate...etc.
When looking from one quantum level to the next, consciousness may
seem contained and "epi" from that level looking reverse, it seems the
container or "meta"

This is not nor will ever be a favored perspective because it means
that there will never be a static answer that we can rely upon. I have
come to peace with not knowing.

[Jeffrey Paige]

In an effort to “get off my duff and weigh in on these issues,”
Monday’s USA Today had an interesting article, “The God Choice,”
pertinent to this discussion: http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/06/the-god-choice.html#more

A further discussion of the article is found on the forum:
http://transcripts.usatoday.com/Chats/transcript.aspx?c=2037

The underlying question is the relationship between the brain and
consciousness. There are two sides to the argument—for lack of better
terminology, one orientation could be called the “materialist” side
and the other the “idealist” perspective.

Barbara Bradley Hagerty in her article represents the dichotomy as
seeing the brain either like a CD player or a radio. In the former
consciousness emerges from the brain like music emerges from a CD
player. In the latter the brain is symbolized as a radio, receiving
information depending on how well it is tuned to ever-present
interpenetrating frequencies. Modern theorists on the “materialist”
side include Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), Christopher Hitchens,
Daniel Dennett, George Lakoff & Mark Johnson (Philosophy of the
Flesh), Thomas Metzinger (Being No One), and others. In the
“idealists” corner are FMW, Ken Wilber, Alan Wallace, and Einstein, to
name a few.

Both sides of the argument need to be fully considered—in the spirit
of FMW’s use of “enantiodromia,” as in Aphorism 24 (E & P, p. 386).
Certainly, mystical realization, an interior experience, has exterior
correlates that can be measured by modern science. This is the essence
of Ken Wilber’s four-quadrant model (AQAL). According to KW,
individual interior experience, or “imperiences” as FMW called them,
have physical/exterior, social, and cultural correlates. (See Integral
Spirituality)

The debate seems to be a classic dialectic. FMW admired the “triadic
dialectic” of Fichte and Hegel—always looking for the resultant
position which resolved the conflict on a higher level of integration.
(See T in C, pp. 125-127+)

Ramhalite presents a good challenge to us. Where’s the proof?
According to FMW and others in the “idealists” camp, proof won’t be
found in the perceptual or the conceptual realms, but only through
“introception,” or the equivalent sometimes called “profound
introversion,” gnosis, mystical realization, etc. In other words,
Western science based on a combination of empiricism (perception) and
reason (conception) will take one only so far, as Kant pointed out.
To go beyond Kant and Western science, one needs to develop the
ability to “introceive.” A good way to do this is with meditative
practice and contemplative insight.

Some say meditation is a way to activate the “Mute Button within”
which has the effect of setting aside the conceptual mind long enough
to introceive the underlying music. In FMW’s case, the conceptual
mind was not completely silenced but used harmoniously with the
introceptive. The ultimate integration is illustrated by the triad on
page 32 of E & P—Sat-Chit-Ananda.

Barbara Bradley Hagerty says that science probably cannot answer the
question of consciousness definitely—it is currently beyond the tools
of science to measure. She refers to the research of Alan Wallace at
the Santa Barbara Institute of Consciousness Studies: http://sbinstitute.com
and
http://alanwallace.org

Many say eventually science and religious thinking will converge.
This is essentially the view of FMW, Ken Wilber and Alan Wallace,
among others.

At the very least—whether our brains are like CD players or radios,
its function can be enhanced by daily meditation according to many
experts. Barbara Bradley Hagerty says, “the brain is “plastic”—i.e.,
that it changes according to our experience…that people who meditate
an hour a day can literally change their brain functions, and their
level of spirituality, within two months or even two weeks…any kind of
spiritual practice will change your brain and make the spiritual more
accessible—and maybe change the “God Shaped Void’.”

Would anyone like to comment on Hagerty’s article as it relates to
FMW?

Jeffrey Paige

[Flier]

You are quite right. This is THE question. I think philosophy has
given up on it though, finding that there it no solution. Or, they say
that somehow mind and body are two expressions of the same thing, but
never quite say what that means.

Speaking of which, Spinoza argued just that, saying that everything is
Infinite Substance, and modifications of that. But, how can one know
something infinite? I do not know if there's an answer to that.
Everything is God to Spinoza, which is natural law, impersonal. There
is One substance, and modifications thereof. So, mind and body are
expressions of a single thing. They are not connected to each other
directly, as I recall, but occur together. There is no free will in
Spinoza, and all is determined totally. The only freedom is to know
you have no freedom; at least that's how I get it. He was a response
to Descartes's dualism. Most philosophies have subordinated one to the
other; I think Spinny is the first modern one to not do that.
What kind of being does thought have? Can one say it exists? It
doesn't have extension and I am not sure it is in time, though it
seems to take place in time. But, isn't thought a kind of nothing, or
almost nothing? Only imagination? It does seem a hell of a lot less
real than the computer keys I am pounding. So many of our ideas turn
out to be illusions or misperceptions anyhow; for example, we may have
been fooled into our understanding of WW2, and be living in an
illusion so to speak. We may think God does or does not exist, and one
of us would have to be wrong, in illusion. So, what to do with
thoughts which are not on the mark? Are thoughts only real if we
notice them? Do thoughts exist if you do notice?

Nisargadatta says the only thing we can know for sure is that I am.
Not I am this or that, or even a single individual, a this one. Not
that you have a body. Just the sense of being. I am not sure if
Descartes took it that way, or if he posited an individuality. My
French is not good enough, and what's more, his cogito was Latin.
Cogito ergo sum: I think therefore I am, but I am not sure what's
implied here.

Da Free John said that the brain's job is to filter out thoughts from
the universe, not to think it. Like an eyeball can look in a direction
but not 360 degrees. I am not too clear on some of this anymore.

NO one knows why what IS created anything. Why didn't it just stay
content. Why the many?
Can thought arise from chemicals and on-off nerve impulses? It seems
more likely that everything is a modification of consciousness. It
seems easier to go from the higher to the lower, than the reverse;
can't get something from nothing. So, everything is a stepped down
One, a philosophy as old as Plato.
But consciousness is so...what can one say about it? Can something
exist without extension in space, and if so, what stops me from saying
all kinds of thins exist, if I don't have to show that they occur in
space? How would something NOT exist then? Do thoughts exist or do we
just think they do? But, if thoughts don't exist than neither does
love or any emotion. Anyway, I have no choice but to say this, as
Spinny says. I don't think there are any real individuals there since
there is only one One, and modifications of it, all determined.

Anyway, that's what comes to mind now on this most profound of
subjects

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[Jeffrey Paige]

“I have no choice” but to reply to Flier’s good points… As Marlon
Brando said in One-Eyed Jacks, “…he gave me no selection…”

“Infinite Substance” of Baruch “Spinny” Spinoza and that “everything
is a modification of consciousness” seems to relate to FMW’s
Realization that Root Consciousness is original, self-existent, and
derivative of all things. How can body and mind be of one substance?
How can Samsara and Nirvana be of one substance?

The problem can be handled with the trialectic flow which resolves the
dialectic on a higher level of integration. The metaphorical
“substance” that integrates it all is Root Consciousness.

Modern physics may provide other metaphors. While FMW said physics is
the obverse of the Real (E & P, p. 137), it seems the material aspect
of physics is the obverse of the Real, but the discipline can provide
some useful conceptual metaphors pointing to the Real—Dzogchen-type
“pointing out instructions.” One such conceptual metaphor is the Wave
Structure of Matter (WSM) theory described in Schrodinger’s Universe
by Milo Wolff (no relation to Franklin as far as I know). Milo Wolff
cites William Clifford, a brilliant mathematician and astronomer, who
said, “All matter is simply undulations in the fabric of space.” (p.
71) Schrodinger adopted the view of Clifford and sided with Einstein
saying, “What we observe as material bodies and forces are nothing but
shapes and variations in the structure of space. Particles are just
schaumkommen (appearances).” (p.20) Einstein also rejected the
“discrete point particle” and stated that matter must be spherical
entities extended in space.

That sounds a lot like “Spinny,” Flier, and FMW. To paraphrase using
FMW terms one might say, “Samsara is simply undulations in the fabric
of Root Consciousness.” Again, physics is not metaphysics but offers
some nice conceptual metaphors. From this point of view there is no
distinction between Samsara and Nirvana—they are “equipollent” as FMW
said. The idea that no real distinction exists between Nirvana and
Samsara is depicted on the surface of Tom McFarlane’s spherical
mandala: http://www.integralscience.org/sphere.html

Jeffrey Paige

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[Flier]

Interesting reply. However, let's get clear on some things. I am not
sure you are saying that conceptual metaphors explain or not what we
are seeking. Perhaps you are saying that we can only speak in
metaphors about what ultimately is. I do not think that this
represents the perspective of science, from which you are deriving
this however. If we take it as literal when they speak of wave theory,
which you referred to, then I am still at a loss to see how waves
relate to consciousness. It is clear to me that particles nor waves
can account for consciousness. If waves are something vibrating, or
just vibration itself somehow, would that result in thought, idea?
Even if it led to sensation on the body's sensory system, how could we
go from sensation to reflection and awareness? So, I am not clear on
what you are trying to get at, I am afraid.
I am not sure that Spinny's Infinite Substance is acceptable
philosophically. By that I mean infinity cannot be defined or thought,
so how can we use such a term as an explanatory vehicle? It's like
putting God into your scientific theory, or saying the Mystery. You
set up your whole theory and then at the critical point you say that
the Mystery does it, or God does it. Maybe God does do it, or the
infinite substance does it, but it's not scientific, nor is it
logical, since one cannot understand how the infinite substance
functions. So, it seems we are stuck. If the mind cannot think the
infinite, how can we approach reality, if reality is permeated by the
infinite? If the infinite exists, can it be known or measured,
defined and understood? I am not sure if Spinny did more than posit
this; he deduced it, I think. I just thought that, what's wrong with
a system that deduces or logically arrives at the idea that infinity
must perforce exist? Would one then have succeeded philosophically, by
proving logically that infinite substance must exist, as the only
explanation? Not if one can't explain it; something would remain
undigested, so to speak. And, it leaves us with the sad fact that the
Real is not knowable. I don't know if Spinny said he realized the
infinite or only deduced it. I think it's more like he had faith in
that conception and lived by it, but I doubt he claimed to have had
imperience of it, to use FMW's word. If you notice in the Aphorisms,
he begins with saying the consciousness is senior to all objects,
which by the way, would indicate that the brain is within
consciousness and not vice versa. His position is close to that of
Spinoza I think, and FMW did not posit a separate God with a
personality, as in the O.Testament. Somehow I never quite get
convinced that consciousness could be the source of the brain; how
would that ever happen? And who is the one thinking all this, before
there are brains to think it? Can there be thoughts without a
thinker? it's hard to see that. One can say that brains think
thoughts, but that the thoughts were in consciousness latently,
unmanifested. Even space and time would have to be subordinate to
consciousness. Perhaps we are here like elbows, in the sense that we
are here to form a limit on the infinite, so it can entertain
finitude. The brain is a filter perhaps, allowing consciousness to
focus on things and not be immersed in the All?
It's interesting to bring Schopenhauer into this, with his dark view.
He saw us finite beings as driven by a dark force of UNconsciousness,
blind will, which only knows how to seek endlessly, insatiably with no
telos other than to continue. And the dopes, that would be us, all
think that the will is theirs alone, but that's all an illusion, a
parlour trick. In Schope the Will is not benificent and full of light;
he saw it as a horrid Blind will of desire, best ended in the oblivion
of nirvana (as he saw nirvana). There are moments where one can
perceive oneself as both the finite individual and the greater will,
but these are few and far between. I don't think there is any
liberation for him, other than death, and that only unless there is
reincarnation. Most of the time, though, philosophers see the will or
the absolute as a good thing. However, it's troubling to know it.
That's what's so good about FMW. As can be seen however, even
realizing the absolute does not shed all ignorance nor give one
perfect discrimination in all matters. But, getting back to the nature
of explanation; we would have to say that Reality is beyond
explaining. But doesn't that bother you, that reality, which we know
exists, cannot be explained? Doesn't it seem that if something is
real, that it MUST be intelligible? If we cannot know the Real, then
what DO we know, the unreal? Do we know that either? Flier

[Flier]

Does someone want to talk about the following apparent inconsistency?
FMW says that reality is inversely proportional to ponderability, but
he also says that abstract thought, such as math and physics is
transcriptive, participating in both the noumenon and relative
thought, bringing one closer to the reality as such (introception of
the reality). I am not able to comprehend how he can say that
conceptuality is inversely proportional to reality, while also holding
that geometry, calculus and physics, which are completely conceptual,
lead one to the imperience of the abstract, unutterable reality.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding somehow. If they are inversely related,
fine, but how would one lead to the other, rather than away from it,
for the sake of logical consistency?

And what about sense data, which are not even conceptual in nature. Is
that even further from reality, since it is below conception, or
closer to reality, since it is not conceptual, and the formula says
"ponderability" not "tangibility?" He also says appearance is
inversely proportional to reality, which would apply more clearly to
tangibility, but his more formulaic statement is about ponderability.
Let's ponder that for awhile. I wonder about the use of the word
"ponderability" versus "conceptuality" which is more clear. Why did he
choose that rather less-used and less-clear word? Is he stressing the
unclear nature of the term by avoiding the word conceptuality? And
yet, he seems to mean conceptuality. Does he mean the more that
something can be conceived, that is, understood conceptually, the LESS
real it is? The more intelligible, the LESS real? The more we
understand things the less real they are, but the less we understand
them, the more real? Can you ponder a taste? If you just experience
it, wordlessly, is that more real, since it is not pondered? Is it
less real if one names it and describes its component tastes,
rendering more light? These are imponderables.

And furthermore. Did anyone catch when he says that if one enters the
universal consciousness he would be able to move a mountain? He seems
to say that on the high indifference lecture on the site. Has anyone
ever moved a mountain? It seems odd to make reference to something
totally unexperienced and speculative, such as that. How does he know
that this is possible? I find it troubling that such statements are
made, apparently more for dramatic effect than for clarification. It's
just too extraordinary. Perhaps he follows up on it somewhere?