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The Metaphysical Consciousness

Limbo said:
So by being skeptical of your assertion, I attain perfection?

If you are skeptical of my claim that the fourth state of consciousness is real and valuable, you could always test my empirical claim by duplicating my methods of meditation and yoga.

If I am skeptical of your claim about skepticism, how could I test it?
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There is no perfection to attain.

Your meditation and yoga are but vanity of vanities and all is vanity, generations come and generations go, wisdom achieved and lost yet the Earth moves on regardless of our wishes.
 
tsig said:
There is no perfection to attain.
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So you're speaking for Dani now? I didn't claim there is perfection to be attained. Dani did.

Your meditation and yoga are but vanity of vanities and all is vanity, generations come and generations go, wisdom achieved and lost yet the Earth moves on regardless of our wishes.
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Is that an empirical claim? How might I test it?
 
It seems to me the that all these different states of mind or consciousness are variations on a theme; the particular experiences one has depend on which areas and functions of the brain are fully active, partially active, or suppressed.

So when you're alert, with a conscious focus of attention, the default mode network (DFN) is suppressed and frontal cortical areas are active; when you're daydreaming, the default mode network is active with less frontal activity; when you're asleep other combinations are active or suppressed, depending which stage of sleep you're in; and so-on.

Unusual or abnormal combinations of activity & suppression will variously produce lucid dreaming, sleep paralysis, sleep walking, hallucination, catatonia, narcolepsy, transcendent euphoria, disorientation, etc.

It's recently been shown that the influence of magic mushrooms (psylocibin) causes a move toward a pattern of activation similar to that of dreaming (see magic mushrooms induce a dreamlike state).

I have little doubt that, with extensive practice, certain unusual patterns of brain activity can be achieved, and interesting experiences can result. It's all in the mind, and I don't see the need to wrap it all in some exotic mystical or religious narrative waffle, but it does seem to be a human tendency to manufacture mystery and complex narratives out of abnormal states of mind and the experiences that come with them.
 
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Limbo said:
There is scientific evidence that a set of experiences is behind the mystical literature of the world. That means we should acknowledge the obvious.
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That means footnotes -- I don't see any.
"Yet if we acknowledge what is to me obvious, that there is a mystical process or set of experiences ‘behind’ what we read, this makes our work as scholars considerably more difficult. If everything is merely “text,” well then we need only play with it or analyze it as text. A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse. But it quickly becomes clear to those with eyes to see that when we look at the field of esotericism, we are dealing with very complex currents of thought and kinds of experiences that do not always conform at all to contemporary perspectives.
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No footnotes?
What are we to make of Böhme’s immensely complex and often circular expression of a visionary cosmology deeply indebted to alchemy and astrology? What are we to make of Pordage’s visionary journeys into spiritual realms, or of Fowler-Wolff’s accounts of absolute transcendence? Here I would answer: as much as possible, we should seek to avoid making much of their accounts, and instead concentrate on seeking to imaginatively understand them on their own terms.
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Why do we need imagination? It's true or false.
Here I’m arguing that in the study of esotericism more generally, and specifically in the field of mysticism, it is essential for scholars to engage at minimum in a process of imaginative participation. Sympathetic empiricism represents a middle ground between historiographic objectification on the one hand, and phenomenological subjectification on the other.
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I don't see the word truth in that paragraph.
Sympathetic empiricism means that one seeks, as much as possible, to enter into and understand the phenomenon one is studying from the inside out. The further removed historically that one is from such a religious phenomenon, the more valuable historiography is in recreating context, but without a sympathetic approach, in the field of esotericism, misunderstanding and reductionism become inevitable."

-Arthur Versluis
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This guy is full of the woo. Why quote him?
 
Limbo, on the off chance that you missed the edited addition to my original post, I will reiterate my question.

Let us set aside the general issue of whether this mystical stuff is real or not, and look at the diagram you provided.

To begin with, the terms "gross, subtle and causal" are provided, but no suggestion of what is meant. One can, of course, get a general idea of what the difference between gross and subtle is, but any connection of those with "causal" remains a mystery without some substantive definition.

In addition, the progression is given "conscious > unconscious > subconscious. Again, what is meant by these terms? We have a general understanding of their usual meanings, but the usual understanding of these terms would place "unconscious" at the extreme end of any consciousness continuum, since we generally understand "unconscious" to mean something approximating the inability to think, such as we get when the brain is switched off or dead, and nobody I know of has come up with a reasonable way to distinguish between one nothing and another.

It is, of course, easy (as I'm sure you've noticed) to dismiss this whole enterprise as silliness, but before we do so, we might as well see whether there is some rationality in the organization that can be explained, or whether it is just a random construction of words that suggest meaning without containing any.
 
Limbo said:
Are you suggesting that there is a fundamental disharmony between the esoterica of Taoism and that of the other major religions?
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I am suggesting that whoever labeled that chart is either completely unfamiliar with the various native Chinese religions, or is an idiot. Are you suggesting that Taoism is the sole Chinese religion?

But yes, there is a fundamental disharmony between the esoteric components of different schools of Taoist thought, much less between Taoism and, say, Zen Buddhism. For example, Zen Buddhism esoteric practices are meant to divorce one from everyday experiences, where Taoism requires synthesis.

Have you ever read any of the core Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian, or other primary documents? Judging by the contents of that chart, the person who created it most likely read about other religions, rather than reading what they actually documented.

I strongly recommend reading not just the Tao de Ching, but also a collection of the writings of Chuang-Tzu, to get a true feel of the variance within just Taoism. This variance is minor compared to between Taoism and Confucianism.
 
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Bruto, by consulting the second illustration in my OP, you can see the rough Christian equivalents of gross, subtle, and causal.

No doubt there is room for improvement in the model, just as there is with any model.
 
Limbo said:
Bruto, by consulting the second illustration in my OP, you can see the rough Christian equivalents of gross, subtle, and causal.

No doubt there is room for improvement in the model, just as there is with any model.
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I'm not even sure what you mean by the term "model."

I see further vague information, which helps little in explaining the choice of words in the diagram, especially considering that one diagram has three stages and the other four. Precision is hard to find here. The word "causal" for example, generally is understood to have a meaning. Saying it's roughly equivalent in your mind to the Christian term "spirit" means nothing by itself, even allowing for the obvious difficulty of figuring out how the adjective "causal" fits with the noun "spirit." Why Causal, not "stippled" or "lacustrine" or "callipygian?"

There seems to be a circularity here that is going to be very hard to escape. What can the terminology possibly mean to someone who does not already believe the thing being spoken of.
 
Limbo said:
"Yet if we acknowledge what is to me obvious, that there is a mystical process or set of experiences ‘behind’ what we read, this makes our work as scholars considerably more difficult. If everything is merely “text,” well then we need only play with it or analyze it as text. A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse. But it quickly becomes clear to those with eyes to see that when we look at the field of esotericism, we are dealing with very complex currents of thought and kinds of experiences that do not always conform at all to contemporary perspectives.
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I tried to run this through Babelfish, but they have no setting for gibberish.
 
Loss Leader said:
I tried to run this through Babelfish, but they have no setting for gibberish.
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In this case, the gist is that mystical writing is mystical, I think. It's gibberish because it is, as always, circular. If you're already a mystic you'll find mystical content. If you already believe stuff, you'll find it where you want it.
 
bruto said:
In this case, the gist is that mystical writing is mystical, I think. It's gibberish because it is, as always, circular. If you're already a mystic you'll find mystical content. If you already believe stuff, you'll find it where you want it.
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The mystic:

I've had an experience totally beyond words, completely beyond description, let me tell you about it.

Me:

Huh?
 
Limbo said:
So by being skeptical of your assertion, I attain perfection?
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Of course, you should be skeptical of my assertion if you practice skepticism. Anyway, it's necessary, but not sufficient. Skepticism is not just about my assertion.

If you are skeptical of my claim that the fourth state of consciousness is real and valuable, you could always test my empirical claim by duplicating my methods of meditation and yoga.
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I think what you refer to could be real and valuable, but the labeling and hierarchy is arbitrary. States of mind alone have proven to be not very reliable, and what a state of mind means to one person can mean an entirely different thing to another person. The fact that I could feel that I'm one with the universe could be trivially true depending on the level of abstraction I'm using in my description, but if the claim is about something science hasn't discovered, it'd better not be a vague statement so that someone can scientifically know what exactly should be duplicated.

To sum up: if the claim is about something that you feel in your mind, fine; if the claim is about something you feel in your mind that entails an external truth about the universe, let's examine it scientifically.

If I am skeptical of your claim about skepticism, how could I test it?
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That's the problem. And my point. A hypothetical state of mind that told me skepticism is the ultimate state of perfection would be insufficient to convince other critical thinking people because it's a pompously vague statement without any external reference and ultimately circular.
 
Limbo said:
So you're speaking for Dani now? I didn't claim there is perfection to be attained. Dani did.

Is that an empirical claim? How might I test it?
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To test tsig's claim, take your own advice and do what you yourself just suggested - follow whatever tsig decides to say he does & whatever he says he believes (e.g. like your "Yoga" & your meditation upon the “metaphysical“), and by that route test his ideas for yourself (just as you advised others to do with Yoga and meditation).
 
Self-induced endorphin high. That'd pretty much explain it. It's chemicals in your brain, not something mystical.
 
Limbo said:
Hello old friends! I have a little too much time on my hands at the moment, so I thought I would swing by and spend some time in a thread.

In this thread I would like to present a model of consciousness to discuss.

First, there are three main 'usual' states of consciousness. Waking, dreaming, and deep dreamless sleep. In this thread, I would like to add and discuss a fourth state. The 'unusual' state of the meta-physical.

There isn't much that needs to be said about the three main 'ususal' states. We all know them. They are normal and easy to talk about, because we all have them all the time. Language can handle them easy.

The fourth state of consciousness, or metaphysical state, is harder to talk about. Not many people reach it so there is little frame of reference. But I'm going to try to talk about it, or perhaps only around it, because I've been there via meditation, yoga, and contemplative prayer. And maybe a little help from above. :p

Here's an illustration of what I mean.

http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/img/wx52de9a4b.gif


The fourth state of consciousness is called turiya in Hinduism. The Mandukya Upanishad says, 'Turiya is not that which is conscious of the inner (subjective) world, nor that which is conscious of the outer (objective) world, nor that which is conscious of both, nor that which is a mass of consciousness. It is not simple consciousness nor is It unconsciousness. It is unperceived, unrelated, incomprehensible, uninferable, unthinkable and indescribable. The essence of the Consciousness manifesting as the self in the three states, It is the cessation of all phenomena; It is all peace, all bliss and non—dual. This is what is known as the Fourth (Turiya). This is Atman and this has to be realized.'

And here is an illustration of cross-cultual equivilancies of Turiya.



http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/img/jq52e31b2e.gif

As a level of self-hood, Turiya or Atman, is equivalent to Buddha-nature existing in in a level of reality equivalent to the Godhead or Dao. The core of world religion and myth is the same. Underneath the surface phenomenology of the world, there is a metaphysical, transcendent mystery source that shines through all things, all religions. We just argue about our names for it.

'All religions
all this singing
is one song.

The differences are just
illusion and vanity.

The sun’s light looks a little different
on this wall than it does on that wall,
and a lot different on this other one,
but it’s still one light.

We have barrowed these clothes,
These time and place personalities
From a light, and when we praise,
we’re pouring them back in.' -Rumi

So, I invite questions or comments.


Edited by Loss Leader: 
Edited for Hotlinking
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Hi Limbo.

Higher states of consciousness are scientifically treated for the past 30 years by researching Transcendental Meditation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_Meditation_technique.

For example:

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=881277&show=abstract

https://www.mum.edu/pdf_msvs/v01/alexander.pdf

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289601000708

http://www.tm.org/published-research-studies

In other words, nothing is mystical about higher states of consciousness.
 
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Argument ad tl;dr.

(But I DID slog through and read it anyway. It seems to me to be rather meaningless, but that's just because I don't find metaphysics to be substantial at all. :( )
 
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How do you distinguish something that exists that is unperceived, unrelated, incomprehensible, uninferable, unthinkable and indescribable from something that doesn't exist?
 
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