Are Agnostics Welcome Here?

[dafydd]

There is an esoteric current running through world religion and myth. An interpretation consistent with it can't be extraordinary, because it is universal and experiential.

No.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Go ahead and stare at me.

But let me ask you this, then... if you think it's a god, then describe that god to me.

You can't do it, because the god has no description.

It's been de-defined, and all that's left is what it supposedly did... and we know the universe was created, so unless you say what this deistic god is supposed to be, we're left with "something created the universe" just as if I'd claimed that fluxnor created the universe.

The deistic fallacy is to believe that the claim "god created the universe and then didn't interfere with it" can be a claim about god if you don't say (or know) what you mean by that term.

In other words, it doesn't change the terms of the debate one whit.

If you simply take a known even and attribute it to <whatever>, you have not produced any argument in favor of the reality of <whatever>.

Those hoofprints behind my house might have been made by a unicorn I'll never see.

So do those hoofprints constitute evidence (much less an iron-clad argument) in favor of the existence of unicorns?

No.

To propose a god you have to propose a god.

Talk about what it does later, but first say what it is.

Attributing a known event to it doesn't move anything along.

And if you say you can't know what it is... at all!... then how in the world can we be talking about it?

I think we need to take a step back and look at this from a bigger perspective again.

Of course all we can say is that the world was created (or came to be). That is because of our place in this shooting match -- we can't get 'behind the scenes' to see how it came about. And that has been my whole point. We can't say for sure that it was natural or due to a god. We can't say materialism is correct just as we can't say idealism is correct. I hope that we can say that substance dualism is incorrect but I'm not entirely sure how to do that yet.

We can believe one or the other to be the way to approach the world. Or we can withhold judgment and get on with our lives. If idealism is correct, then I don't see that it makes any difference compared to materialism. In fact, it can't make any difference. But that doesn't mean that a god doesn't exist with one of those systems.

Why do you keep asking for a description of this type of god? No one has ever provided one because it isn't the sort of thing about which one can provide a description by its very 'nature'. That is not a de-definition but rather a reconceptualization based on monotheism. There are two of these types of god to discuss: one is the Idealist Mind. It thinks what we experience as reality. It is everything. It is Brahman. The other is the substance dualist god -- it is Mind that thinks the creation of a material world into existence and controls that creation. How many times do I have to keep repeating the same thing?

Sure, religious types have taken these philosophical notions and put window dressings on them to make their versions of god immanent. But that is their problem, trying to fuse the philosophical notion of god with earlier versions of god-in-the-world. Those folks have to retreat, when challenged, to the old philosophical notion of god; they de-define god.

 

[dafydd]

I'm not suggesting anything mysterious about the painting of the Mona Lisa. I'm giving an example of the existence of thoughts, like the internet they may not occupy 3D space, but they do exist do they not?

More precisely the subjective content/concept of thoughts does exist. Or is it a mirage?

I have no idea what you mean and I doubt that you know.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

There is an esoteric current running through world religion and myth.

Yes, of course.

An interpretation consistent with it can't be extraordinary, because it is universal and experiential.

With that I disagree. There are three possible basic interpretations consistent with it and they are the same three that we keep discussing over and over. One is materialism. One is idealism. And one is substance dualism. The latter requires extraordinary evidence because it is an extraordinary claim. Materialism and Idealism are indistinguishable; they simply amount to two different ways of approaching the world.

 

[Limbo]

Yes, of course.




With that I disagree. There are three possible basic interpretations consistent with it and they are the same three that we keep discussing over and over. One is materialism. One is idealism. And one is substance dualism. The latter requires extraordinary evidence because it is an extraordinary claim. Materialism and Idealism are indistinguishable; they simply amount to two different ways of approaching the world.

Materialism is not consistent with the esoteric current of world myth. Nor is it consistent with the numerous 'paranormal' experiences I've had over the years.

The esoteric current leads to personal transformations that defy materialism. Only mental monism or neutral monism are consistent with it, imo.

 

[Resume]

If I am to be a teacher then the student has to give me the authority to assign homework and tasks. Otherwise the teacher-student relationship just doesn't work. Only you can give me or deny me that authority.

See, the thing is, you're not a teacher, you're a claimant. You keep telling what you can do when you need to be showing it. After you show it, maybe then you can teach it to a willing participant.

First show it.

 

[Resume]

The esoteric current leads to personal transformations that defy materialism.

This is another claim.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Materialism is not consistent with the esoteric current of world myth. Nor is it consistent with the numerous 'paranormal' experiences I've had over the years.

Yes, I'm afraid for you that it is. The esoteric current is a generalization of world myth, an extraction of the essence of the stories. It is a new fabulation. Paranormal experiences can, often easily demonstrated, have perfectly natural explanations. Our minds are wonderfully capable of fooling us; we are all prone to selection bias, etc.

The esoteric current leads to personal transformations that defy materialism. Only mental monism or neutral monism are consistent with it, imo.

I disagree. Personal transformations are personal transformations. There is no way that you could possibly distinguish amongst materialism, mental monism, or neutral monism in any of your experiences. If you are proposing a way to do so, then you have a mistaken notion of what these terms mean. In my experience, when closely analyzed, this is because what a person actually describes is not monism but dualism.

 

[dafydd]

This is another claim.

Without a shred of proof. Par for the course when it comes to mysticism. When will Limbo stop telling us fairy stories and present some evidence?

 

[Limbo]

Yes, I'm afraid for you that it is. The esoteric current is a generalization of world myth, an extraction of the essence of the stories.

That's a half-truth. The other half of that truth is that the esoteric current is an application of the essence. An application to your life, to your essence. It requires a participation mystique; a connection to a mystical tradition and a practice. You must anoint your soul with the extracted essence.

And then before you know it your kundalini has awoken. Do you grok what that means?

 

[laca]

Yes it is a simplified model and could be refined.

No, it is provably wrong the way you said it. That is why you need to rephrase.

I'm not suggesting anything mysterious about the painting of the Mona Lisa. I'm giving an example of the existence of thoughts, like the internet they may not occupy 3D space, but they do exist do they not?

More precisely the subjective content/concept of thoughts does exist. Or is it a mirage?

Ideas are nothing more than a specific state of a couple billion neurons. That's it. Ideas do not exist by themselves. What is your point?

 

[Resume]

And then before you know it your kundalini has awoken. Do you grok what that means?

There doesn't seem to be anything to "grok" here.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

That's a half-truth. The other half of that truth is that the esoteric current is an application of the essence. An application to your life, to your essence. It requires a participation mystique; a connection to a mystical tradition and a practice.

Yes, you are correct. It is a half-truth as I stated it when practice is included as you have done.

And then before you know it your kundalini has awoken. Do you grok what that means?

Yes, I have a pretty good idea, which is about all that I can say of anything. But none of that means that materialism is false. If materialism is false, then idealism is false and so is neutral monism. I do not make many absolute statments, but this is one I feel very confident in: there is absolutely no way that you can distinguish amongst the three propsed types of monism. None. It is impossible. If it were possible to do so I wouldn't have argued as I have in this thread.

 

[Limbo]

Yes, I have a pretty good idea, which is about all that I can say of anything.

I have a pretty intimate idea, thanks to Divine Grace. Let me tell you, there is nothing like it. Materialism has no clue.

But none of that means that materialism is false.

Along with an awakened kundalini comes various supernatural or preternatural powers. They are described pretty consistently across world religion. Including our modern space-age religion.

Space-Age Myth?

"The UFO phenomenon is unsettling enough, but that discomfort is significantly heightened when one considers its first cousins: crop circles, orbs, men in black, alien contact and abductions, telepathic communications, and so on. This phenomenological complex bears a resemblance to experiences reported in shamanic, psychedelic, mystical, religious, and psychic states, and to folklore, mythology, and religious lore.

Perhaps these apparently disparate phenomena may all be connected in some way. A comprehensive justification of this suggestion is beyond the scope of this article, but consider the following: The modern era of the “flying saucer” began in June 1947 when pilot Kenneth Arnold saw a series of flying disks performing strange maneuvers, “like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water.” The June 26 issue of the Chicago Daily Tribune quoted Arnold: “I saw . . . a series of objects that were traveling incredibly fast. They were silvery and shiny and seemed to be shaped like a pie plate.”

[...]

One of the first to explore the notion of mythology manifesting as physical reality was psychoanalyst Carl Jung, who in 1957 published the book Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky. More recently, authors Jacques Vallee (Dimensions: A Casebook of Alien Contact) and Keith Thompson (Angels and Aliens: UFOs and the Mythic Imagination) and folklorists Peter Rojcewicz and Thomas Bullard have written about the parallels among UFOs, folklore, and mythology.

“Space-Age myth” does not imply that UFO sightings or encounters with angels, aliens, fairies, sprites, elves, or demons are fantasies. Rather, it suggests that some of these experiences may literally be psychophysical, blurring conventional boundaries between objective and subjective realities.

Some may object that this proposal doesn’t account for the physical traces associated with some UFO reports, but this misinterprets what Jung and others have proposed. They suggest that the manifest world emerges from mind, that is, that mind shapes matter. Where have we heard this before? In his book Global Mind Change, former IONS President Willis Harman discussed three basic ways of looking at the world. He called the current Western scientific worldview “materialistic monism,” or “M1.” Within M1, everything—both matter and energy— is made of a single substance. From matter emerges everything, including the brain-generated illusion called mind.

In M1, angels and aliens walking through walls are fine plot points for an episode of The Twilight Zone, but they are impossible in the real world. In M1, UFOs are conceivable, but only in terms of hard, physical spacecraft with humanoid pilots. Most of the modern technological world was created based on M1 assumptions, so it carries enormous persuasive power. But the whole panoply of noetic experiences defy materialistic explanations, suggesting that M1 is an incomplete worldview. Detailed taxonomies of these anomalies are described by all cultures; they include, among others, the Hindu siddhis, the Catholic charisms, Sufi attainments, and, in indigenous societies, shamanic magic.

Harman’s second worldview, M2, represents dualism, which assumes two fundamentally different kinds of substances in the universe, matter and mind. Many scientists today reject dualism because it begs the problem of how two deeply different substances could interact at all. In addition, it seems lavish to require the universe to maintain (at least) two distinct essences, when it would be far simpler to have only one.

The third worldview, M3, is transcendental or mental monism, which Harman argued is the source of both the perennial wisdom and the emerging worldview of the twenty-first century. In M3, consciousness is primary, and matter and energy are emergent properties of consciousness. M3 accommodates everything that M1 and M2 allow for, as well as rogue phenomena like telepathic ETs, observation-shy UFOs, and collective mind–manifested UFOs. Evidence in favor of M3 has been slowly amassing for over a century. Such recent books as Irreducible Mind, Entangled Minds, and Measuring the Immeasurable (see review 0n page 41) discuss the empirical evidence in detail, ranging from psychic phenomena to creative genius to mind-body interactions to evidence suggestive of reincarnation."

 

[laca]

deleted

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

I have a pretty intimate idea, thanks to Divine Grace. Let me tell you, there is nothing like it. Materialism has no clue.




Along with an awakened kundalini comes various supernatural or preternatural powers. They are described pretty consistently across world religion. Including our modern space-age religion.

Space-Age Myth?

"The UFO phenomenon is unsettling enough, but that discomfort is significantly heightened when one considers its first cousins: crop circles, orbs, men in black, alien contact and abductions, telepathic communications, and so on. This phenomenological complex bears a resemblance to experiences reported in shamanic, psychedelic, mystical, religious, and psychic states, and to folklore, mythology, and religious lore.

Perhaps these apparently disparate phenomena may all be connected in some way. A comprehensive justification of this suggestion is beyond the scope of this article, but consider the following: The modern era of the “flying saucer” began in June 1947 when pilot Kenneth Arnold saw a series of flying disks performing strange maneuvers, “like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water.” The June 26 issue of the Chicago Daily Tribune quoted Arnold: “I saw . . . a series of objects that were traveling incredibly fast. They were silvery and shiny and seemed to be shaped like a pie plate.”

[...]

One of the first to explore the notion of mythology manifesting as physical reality was psychoanalyst Carl Jung, who in 1957 published the book Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky. More recently, authors Jacques Vallee (Dimensions: A Casebook of Alien Contact) and Keith Thompson (Angels and Aliens: UFOs and the Mythic Imagination) and folklorists Peter Rojcewicz and Thomas Bullard have written about the parallels among UFOs, folklore, and mythology.

“Space-Age myth” does not imply that UFO sightings or encounters with angels, aliens, fairies, sprites, elves, or demons are fantasies. Rather, it suggests that some of these experiences may literally be psychophysical, blurring conventional boundaries between objective and subjective realities.

Some may object that this proposal doesn’t account for the physical traces associated with some UFO reports, but this misinterprets what Jung and others have proposed. They suggest that the manifest world emerges from mind, that is, that mind shapes matter. Where have we heard this before? In his book Global Mind Change, former IONS President Willis Harman discussed three basic ways of looking at the world. He called the current Western scientific worldview “materialistic monism,” or “M1.” Within M1, everything—both matter and energy— is made of a single substance. From matter emerges everything, including the brain-generated illusion called mind.

In M1, angels and aliens walking through walls are fine plot points for an episode of The Twilight Zone, but they are impossible in the real world. In M1, UFOs are conceivable, but only in terms of hard, physical spacecraft with humanoid pilots. Most of the modern technological world was created based on M1 assumptions, so it carries enormous persuasive power. But the whole panoply of noetic experiences defy materialistic explanations, suggesting that M1 is an incomplete worldview. Detailed taxonomies of these anomalies are described by all cultures; they include, among others, the Hindu siddhis, the Catholic charisms, Sufi attainments, and, in indigenous societies, shamanic magic.

Harman’s second worldview, M2, represents dualism, which assumes two fundamentally different kinds of substances in the universe, matter and mind. Many scientists today reject dualism because it begs the problem of how two deeply different substances could interact at all. In addition, it seems lavish to require the universe to maintain (at least) two distinct essences, when it would be far simpler to have only one.

The third worldview, M3, is transcendental or mental monism, which Harman argued is the source of both the perennial wisdom and the emerging worldview of the twenty-first century. In M3, consciousness is primary, and matter and energy are emergent properties of consciousness. M3 accommodates everything that M1 and M2 allow for, as well as rogue phenomena like telepathic ETs, observation-shy UFOs, and collective mind–manifested UFOs. Evidence in favor of M3 has been slowly amassing for over a century. Such recent books as Irreducible Mind, Entangled Minds, and Measuring the Immeasurable (see review 0n page 41) discuss the empirical evidence in detail, ranging from psychic phenomena to creative genius to mind-body interactions to evidence suggestive of reincarnation."

That's nice, but it doesn't answer my point. That folks present juvenile versions of what we call materialism is not news; it's just ignorant and not worth discussing.

We see what happens in the world. There is no way to get to the underlying cause of what we see. What we see is what we see [end stop]; we can examine what the rules of the game are and that's it. No monism could possibly look different from any other monism; there is no way that you can argue for any particular monism based on experience. If you think you can then you haven't thought about this issue long enough.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Let me be more precise.

Monism means there is a single substance. Single substance means there is a single set of rules by which this 'thing' works in the world (it actually is the world). Science examines the set of rules by which this substance functions. Whatever is unexplained by science within the set of rules refers to something about which we do not have good knowledge. To be consistent, assuming monism correct, any phenomena within the world that lie outside the explanatory power of science implies a deficiency of current theory, not of science itself (example: the orbit of Mercury for Newtonian theory). This will look identical to us no matter what the underlying ontology (materialism, idealism, neutral monism). You can't get magic out of it. If you want to argue for something currently unexplained telling us about the ontology, then you don't understand the basic idea of monism. The only possibility, within monism, for the unexplained is that science needs to correct its theories.

If you want to propose that true magic (something unexplainable, even in theory, by science) exists or that we can tell the nature of the world by experiences (because the experience tells us that there is 'something else') then you are not describing a monism. You are describing substance dualism.

ETA: The only difference between idealism and materialism is that idealism assumes intention as an integral 'force' in the world and materialism denies this. There is no other difference; and there is no way to discern if intention is or isn't there. One decides which of these stances to take: intention or no-intention relating to the structure of the universe. The decision can be made for you by others; it can be conscious; or it can be unconscious; but one must decide at some level between the two notions if one wants to side with one or the other monistic ontologies. Alternatively, one can say 'there's no way to tell' so screw it. Metaphysics is a pantload.

 

[the PC apeman]

Depends!

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

 

[tsig]

Limbo, youve been told several times on this forum that there are many members who have done similar things, and come out the other end realising it was all wishful thinking.

Yeah, I could show anyone here how to replicate my results, but it would require them to read certain books and practice certain spiritual exercises. Time-consuming stuff. It requires commitment and perhaps lifestyle changes.

In theory you could do it. The only thing stopping you is yourself.

Been there, done that, got the scars