If reality were truly radically different, it would be unrecognizable, unintelligible. We cannot even imagine such a scenario, so it is effectively meaningless. The 'real' reality is always 'brains in vats' or 'mad scientists" or "demons" in other words constructed out of familiar elements taken from the reality we do experience. Our imaginations have access to no other material.

I actually largely agree with your position, but I don't render the unknown reality as unrecognisable, unintelligible, or effectively meaningless. This is principly for two reasons; that it can be considered as an undescribed necessary being, in terms of its necessary roles in our known reality. Also that it is possible for our imaginations to access other material through both creative activity and revelation. Such revelation can be accessed through dreams to which I can testify myself.

Nice, do you plan it out, draw it spontaneously, or is it more like a doodle?

Aldeburgh in a squall

Saw a nice bird rabbit the other day.

I have had similar experiences, when I was a teenager I became fascinated by dreams, I studied dream interpretation, tried to cultivate lucid dreaming etc. I didn't really get very far in learning to understand the process, I think because I was going through adolescence at the time and had a lot of emotional angst. What did happen though was that I began to dream more, at times it felt like living a week in dreams every night and I was getting short of sleep, so stopped and poured all my resources into drinking and partying at college.

In hindsight I can see how what I was dreaming about and the form of the dreams I was having were dictated by what was going through my head at the time and that age in my life, with a strong component of emotional anxiety.

So in reply I would say that although the dream state is experienced as quite real, it is entirely determined by, reflective of, your mental life and state in your body. Also it is entirely reliant on your brain activity for it to happen atall. If it were to be a true alternative reality as you speculate, it would require an equivalent hardware to produce the mental activity.

Although in principle I agree with you, in your speculation, which is partly why I was so fascinated by it myself in my youth.

I really like your abstract and impressionist works, Archie, semiosis and topos. I think you've got something there. I must say, I was struck with the way in which they suggested to me an aboriginal theme, could be a direction perhaps.

Oh I forget to answer your question about prints. If you have a painting that is good enough or is suitable for becoming a print this increases the income from one painting, also some people prefer a print, sometimes due to cost. The standard printing technique for professional artists is Giclee printing. This uses a high resolution scan, or photograph and real paint inks to produce a print which can look as good as the original, without the same surface texture. If I have a good painting I would look to have the software of the image produced which costs around £50, then I can have copies printed on demand, between £10 and £30 each. There are cheaper printing techniques, which are appropriate on ocassion.

If I may ask, which region of Australia are you in?

Here's one of my favourite Portishead tracks, Roads. A suitable prayer for those suffering in Syria right now.

http://youtu.be/Vg1jyL3cr60

It's hotting up in Aleppo now, this means that The Russians are getting irrefutably involved in a genocide, I hope the reaction around the world is not to incendiary.

I just want to say a word for the people of Aleppo who are literally experiencing hell right now. There are news reports that as of this morning there are 2 million people in a desert without water, being attacked with barrel bombs.

Please join me and say a prayer and think of them.

Yes they sell for reasonable money, the following painting took about 4 hrs and sold for £200 the other day, to a friend, if I had put it in a gallery I might have asked for £300 or £400 and they would add commission of 20%.for example.

The difficulty is in finding your market.
You either have to generate followers yourself or attempt to fit in to a tradition from which a wider audience will purchase. For example in my case, there is a tradition of landscapes in East Anglia where I live. With many galleries, many buyers, and tourists and holiday makers, who have followed and developed an appreciation of the local styles and tradition. If you were to visit just about any house around here you would find original works from this tradition on the wall, with much appreciation. You just tap into that market.

Another route is through art competitions, local art schools, local galleries. These routes are not easy with mixed success. Sometimes something controversial or striking can get local media attention, but again difficult.

Ideally you would just want to produce paintings that people want to buy at first sight, but this requires an exceptional talent, or something very unusual.

Are there any artistic traditions in your area?

Nice work there. Yes my photography was a bit spontaneous, also I didn't crop them to show that they are canvases. The wide landscape is supposed to be unframed which is popular these days.
Once I have a body of work sufficient and which I judge are suitable, I will have them printed in Giclee, but I mainly sell them as unframed canvases at the moment. They are quite popular.

Thanks for the links, I'll listen to them later today. And thanks for giving some idea of what you're about, it's interesting. I know a guy like you, I spent a lot of time (24/7 at times) with him in the 90's we went questing in the Himalayas too, some wild times. As I see it you folks are at a certain stage in your "spiritual"* awakening where the intensity of experience is greatly heightened. There is a sense of breaking out, hitting out at walls, recoiling into the shadows etc...

It is a great experience provided you are able to avoid getting into trouble. However you will I expect, and certainly in the case of my friend, not find it easy to get into disciplines like meditation and quiet contemplative periods. If this is the case (I can't tell without meeting you in person), then that is ok, just enjoy the ride. You shouldn't struggle to achieve what your body is not in the right phase of activity to engage with. I return to what I said earlier, our bodies are finely tuned machines(spiritually as well as materially) you have to learn to work with your body, rather than struggling against it. Many folk have to struggle against it to get some impetus, but in your case the intensity comes naturally. For me the stillness and contemplative phase comes naturally at the moment and I did have to struggle to gain intensity when I was younger.

* by spiritual, I am using to word loosely to refer to a deeper part of yourself than the material, but not in any sense tying it to any precise spiritual school or belief system.

Hey! Portishead Dummy is one of my favourite albums. Get some good speakers and turn up the volume and you're away. An ocean of emotion.

But who has died, was it the badges of personality, was it the I that never changes?if the former, I would argue that that wasn't the person anyway, just a mask being worn by the I. If the later, how can it die? it is still alive in the next person to be born, or those that are still alive in bodies.

In reference to what WhiskeyWhiskers is saying, it can be described in a different way by analogy.

If one imagines that when a being is reborn, the body of the baby they become is rather like a suit of clothes(a vehicle of incarnation). During the beings life they attach experiences to the suit like badges, or stylistic details. These badges are like the personality of the being shaped by experience and learning. When the being dies they leave behind the suit and get a new one and in the next life they attach new badges. The being has not changed, it is the same person, but wearing a different suit. All the suits are the same to begin with and all beings are the same, that is you, or me. It is only the badges of the personality where there is variation.

Yes it is a complex subject and the truth of it is currently veiled from us. For me what is of interest is seeking a broader wisdom of the nature of existence rather than the detail, which we will only know when the veil is lifted. Also I am not interested in the specifics of my own development, or what will happen to me, I passed the point of affirming "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done" many years ago. So in a very real sense, my development is out of my hands, but this does not prevent me from fully developing my interests, such as the pursuit of wisdom and creativity.

Yes I had that thought too at an early age, long before I knew what philosophy, spirituality or religion was.

it seems obvious that consciousness has evolved, both from an evolutionary perspective and also, culturally and quite radically, as Hegel has shown, as the Western philosophical tradition

Yes and considering a spiritual cosmogony is quite reasonable, provided one remembers that it is not known to be the case other than through the personal experience of some people and even there it might come across as an idiosyncratic interpretation and that any spiritual school is likely to be the same.

Anyway I have come to consider this approach on my own through personal experience and contemplation. All we know is that we find ourselves here, how we got here and what is going on is unknown to us, so a considered interpretation of the nature of the world we find ourselves in may provide an understanding of what is going on behind this veil of ignorance. Surely this pursuit is one path followed by the mystic.

Banks should seperate the gambling wing from the primary role of the bank which should be to provide banking facilities to their private customers etc. If they are going to gamble they should do it only with profits they have made and separated from their banking responsibilities and capital.

Hopefully appropriate regulation is being put into place.

Thanks Metaphysician Undercover and John for rehearsing these ideas.

As I see it one would have to include animals in our passing time and present, indeed the entire biosphere. Although I am not saying that these entities are or are not aware of it, they are present here with us. Simply I feels it necessary to group the whole biosphere as one entity in this phenomenological realm, an entity which has developed into seperate organisms, which operate as seperate entities, but members of a common community.

Where you say there is duration, it is this moment of duration which I am referring to as the eternal moment. A phenomenon which does sweep forward through phenomena like a wave of present. But it is the experience we have of the moving wave of now which we can't easily conceive of as an fleeting glimpse of something broader and more permanent. If one considers our spacetime bubble as confining us in this wave of now. Then the moment I am referring to is transcendent to it, while present in it in part.

I also had memories of a previous life, well more feelings of emotional atmospheres and certain Victorian furnishings and effects would have a strong and mysterious impact on me.
For me I was always from a young age fascinated by these ideas even before I had words for them. As I grew up, I would avidly seek out any literature on the topic read them and look for something more meaningful just like a pig sniffing out truffles. I ended up at the Theosophical society in London which felt like finding my way back home.

I am aware of the way in which it might be wishful thinking, it was only a stepping stone for me anyway. The ideas take their place along with all the others I have found and developed myself in a kind of virtual library in my head.

I turns out that Leary arrived in Kasa Devi (cranks ridge) a few months before my conception. Does that make me a spring chicken I wonder.

Aha! I was once under the influence of something very strong in a quiet valley in the Himalayas. I was told shortly afterwards that that is where Timothy Leary used to go to drop acid. A place called cranks ridge, a magical place indeed.


I would point out that I was meditating a few hours a day and only indulged at weekends. It wasn't all decadence and debauchery.

Quite that's what I thought you meant.

I tend to refer to the Theosophical or Hindu tradition as a framework to work from. As I am not well versed in the Hindu cannon, the Theosophical will do.

The idea is basically that each entity progresses or evolves from the atom to a god through a long period of "incarnations". Humanity is at a key stage in this progression, that of individuation*.

Mysticism is the manifestation of folk(souls) who are of the disposition, or chose, to play an active role in the progression of the group. This does on ocassion result in a mystic reaching a prominent position in the progression of the group of humanity, or any of the other kingdoms of nature( such as the Christ or the Buddha).

I am interested in your view of where in this scheme the "direct route" of Buddhism would fit, if atall, or if this scheme is not applicable?

*By the use of individuation I am referring to a development of mind as well and all the consequent issues, which we know all to well. Or to put simply, metaphorically,- To climb up into the branches of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and eat of its fruits.

Yes, I am not familiar with "intergral spirituality" are you using it to describe spirituality in general?

Anyway I agree with the emphasis on the transfiguration of the person of the seeker as the primary goal, while living an ordinary life. The transformation being internal with a consequent expression externally, which would take the form of a kind and constructive member of the community. One could be living next door and you wouldn't know.

You've lost me, in both paragraphs were you mention sophomoric. I just can't work out what your saying.

Anyway as I said, what I am doing, while it could argued that it is believing things, is an intellectual act which could also be described with other words like accept, or in my opinion. I use these words rather than belief and I know I don't hold any beliefs in things which can't be verified in principle, because I have actively rid myself of such notions and would have to actively opt into them anyway.

There are no beliefs here, don't you believe me?

Try telling someone who believes in God that it's a sophomoric misunderstanding.

Justified true belief is an analytical device. I don't use it and I have no beliefs around the movement of the planets around the sun. I don't have a problem with you believing that I have a belief that the sun will rise tomorrow. But do you really believe that I do? I don't believe that you do.

The word belief is just a word to describe the attitude of a person in a situation. That attitude can be described using other words.

For me being born was rather like waking up. There was in some sense a me already formed who discovered myself in this world in a little body.

Nice post, pointing out the primary goal of what I would label "Western mysticism". This self actualised being is I expect the mystic who "becomes one with God", or who "becomes God". What could be described as the science of mysticism( within faith schools, or channelled through mediums), or esoteric teachings, layout systems of treading this path.

From my perspective the aspirant will at some point find their own level in treading this path. A level dictated by the evolutionary state of their being and only a very few would reach the stage of becoming one with God at any one time in the development of humanity(although I would expect it to be an organic progression through the development of the species). While the majority of aspirants would fall short in some way and would reconcile themselves with playing a constructive part in the whole and performing service of some kind( or at least to be a constructive person).

Esoterically one could view this process as a loose network of individuals following the will of God and collectively forming metaphorically the hand of God in the world.

My point is that it seems interesting that we associate this idea of 'I' with a very limited perspective of the totality that we occupy (our bodies).

There are many people who don't conclude that the limited perspective given to us by science and the fashion for scientism based common thought, is the reality. I live in a predominantly irreligious community, I wouldn't say atheist, but perhaps agnostic. Many of these people readily consider reincarnation, souls and the supernatural as a possibility. There is a predominant predisposition that such cannot be determined either way and folk just get on with their lives.

Actually it is only in recent history in the west that there are a sizeable number of folk who don't take an afterlife, or reincarnation (and from there perhaps resurrection) as a possibility.

Could you explain what you mean when you say that all time, space, and being, are present in one point? is this an extremely large point, or what type of "point" are you talking about here, some type of black hole

It is something like the "one thing" of Parmenides*. Or spacetime reduced to one point rather than extended, rather like it might have been at the point of the Big Bang. The size of it does not have meaning in the absence of another thing to compare it to. Also in terms of mind, it is the equivalent Brahman, infinite while indivisible, transcendent yet present. Or one could describe it as the single point of origin in a monism.

This is why I mentioned it as a mystical view. I work with many concepts like this, which are tools in developing perspectives beyond our conditioned knowledge and understanding.

*In comparing my concept with that of Parmenides's one thing. I view it only as a local thing amongst other things in some transcendent, or eternal realm.

I do buy "Justified true belief", but I think the use of the word "belief" is technical and precisely defined. In reality the belief in this use is equivalent to what is understood in the word "acceptance", acceptance of a view, perspective or condition.

So it isn't really a belief in the way belief is used in reference to things which can't be tested, or determined,like God. A use much closer to the spirit of the word.

The other common use of belief, is I think entirely unnecessary and sloppy language. Namely I believe the sun will rise tomorrow. Belief is not required here, rather I know the sun will rise tomorrow. I don't require belief in this to accept that the sun will rise tomorrow and hence to know that it will rise tomorrow, while I do not believe it will rise tomorrow.

I don't see the relevance of politics in mysticism other than in its absence, apart from ecological concerns. Surely any mystic would be a member of the Green Party, as I am. If ever I am political it is always over the concerns of climate change, biodiversity, protection of habitat and the avoidance of pollution. Each one just as important as the big political issues we repeatedly see splashed across the headlines.

Is it not the desired aim, or the destiny of humanity in the mind of a mystic, to become a custodian of the biosphere of the planet. Along with seeking sociopolitical strategies which will aid in bringing this about and making it work.

I don't see us any way near this trajectory at the moment, but at least there are a minority of people concerned with this, so that potentially we have the intellectual knowledge and technology to follow this course. There are serious issues and problems pressing on humanity at the moment*, the most of which is blindly ignored or dismissed by our leaders and the majority. It's looking as though it will require some catastrophic crises of some sort, resulting in a dramatic culling of population, which is going to be very painful before we even find ourselves in a position to follow this course. The balance of probability though is a fall of civilisation and a return to a dark age, something which has happened many times before and is the default state of humanity, between cultural flowerings.


*The problems we face are manifold, but near the top of the list would be population, some kind of stable global politics, some means of successfully educating the populous to, ln a phrase, "love thy neighbour and the planet"and sociocultural structures which add stability and longevity to such projects.

Big ambitions indeed, and who is raising them, seeking to implement them?

I know it along with many other things I know. Why would I add an affirmation of belief to such knowledge?

A surrealist way ahead of his time.

I don't believe it, it's just an idea, expressing some concepts arrived at while contemplating time, along in this case with a unity.

Actually I don't hold any beliefs, I regard them as a kind of halt, or full stop in the development and refinement of ideas.

Yes I am aware of those perspectives, also the phenomenological interpretation provided by John. I suppose my perspective as I am presenting it here is a mystical conception in which all time, space and being is present in one point in space and time and what we experience as the present and the passage of time is a fraction of the whole, rather like a thread following an incarnate arc across the span of a certain combination of parts of the whole. The eternal present is immanent in that thread of now, whereas the past and future are also in that one point, but inaccessible to us due to us being experientially locked into that thread.

The above is a physical description, I would also give a mental description in which the one point is a transcendent God like being to which we are attached by a thread of spirit, embodying and sustaining a fraction of meaning and experience of the one being. In which we experience time similarly as in the physical description. But different in that the mental thread is straight and immanent, rather than an arc and the physical thread is curved tangential and causally distant.

Interestingly this conception describes a cross, the upright in the mind and the cross piece in the body, with the present in both meeting at the crossing point in the moment.

Some Dali
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