I wouldn't necessarily agree with the intent to convey meaning, but that may just be a matter of semantics. The reason is something close to what I belive James Baldwin to be talking about here (in an interview with Paris Review:

"When you are standing in the pulpit, you must sound as though you know what you’re talking about. When you’re writing, you’re trying to find out something which you don’t know. The whole language of writing for me is finding out what you don’t want to know, what you don’t want to find out. But something forces you to anyway."

I think the best art is an articulation which, in being articulated, reveals both to the reader and the writer its meaning - its not a message intended ahead of time. — csalisbury

Very nice quote. Yes, approaching this from my own experiences, I agree with what you address being an important aspect to the process of art creation. To use my own words and understandings here, artistic manifestation is as much a conscious as it is an unconscious goal oriented (hence, intended) processes. In my own experience at making (sometimes crappy) art, the conscious self chooses - if only emotively - between what the unconscious self throws up at it while at first having, maybe, a generalized intention of producing X; and, at the end of the process, what one ends up with is outcome Y - which resembles X only in the most basic structural ways, but is in many ways utterly different, and unforeseen at the very commencement. And this the final product, when it receives the last stamp of approval by its creator, so to speak, reveals meaning to the conscious creator as well as communicating some basic aspect of what the conscious creator intended. Revealed meaning that on occasion can leave the conscious creator in awe in terms of what is gained and learned from what was created (rather than from the egoistic sense of what “I” made). But, notwithstanding, for me the conscious self’s goal-oriented decisions between the alternatives which the unconscious self presents nevertheless play a role throughout. And in this, I'd like to think that the conscious self chooses the meaning which the final product conveys - even if the meaning is only that of a particular aesthetic devoid of conceptual content. .

Its nice to have such complex aspects of art creation brought up and discussed.

It's sort of off topic, but those mechanisms of behavioural modification are already in place. [...] it'd be able to link personal experience to words and generalise from it, just not "its own" experience. — fdrake

Most of what you say here goes without saying, but it misses the point I was making: not its own experience on account of it not being sentient, or conscious, or aware, or cognizant. That is, not until Strong AI comes about, if it ever will.

As in cordoning off poetry from machine functionality? Nah; that's super prevalent in the thread for mostly unargued reasons. — fdrake

Hmm, I’ve given an opening argument for why art, poetry included, necessitates some sentient being’s intention to convey meaning here - thereby precluding Weak AI from being creators of (authentic) poetry, for they lack sentience and thereby sentient intentions to convey meaning. These un-emotional arguments have so far not been addressed, and so have not been debunked.

For the record, I’m more than open to learning how artistic manifestations can be denoted as occurring in the absence of sentient intentions to convey meaning, this without wreaking havoc on commonsense understandings of what constitutes art.

Ego defense mechanism metaphysics everywhere. — fdrake

Seems like this is true for all sides of this issue, at least in relation to some.

Anxious about what? — Brett

There being so much data to feed gigantic models that they're getting extremely close to being functionally indistinguishable from human conduct in limited domains. The all too rapid and usually hidden encroachment of machine learning techniques (faciliated by panvasive surveillance and automated tabulation of all human experience) into the folk thought ineluctable freedoms of our souls. — fdrake

Speaking for myself, you’re projecting metaphysical issues way too much into this. When and if a technological singularity will occur, whatever sentient beings have that distinguishes them from rocks will be had by Strong AI as well in equal measure. Be this the “ineluctable freedoms of souls” or something else. Thereby making whatever metaphysical issue one has qualms about mute in this respect. And besides, anxiety is not it. Anxiety is reserved for more pertinent things.

Again speaking for myself, the issue I was mentioning earlier is that of non-autonomous, non-sentient, decoys which mimic the autonomous and sentient behavior of humans. It’s fathomable that these can be built by humans with big loads of cash and programed so as to manipulate the other humans into beliefs that serve the short sighted interests of those who spend the money on building these decoys. Don’t know about you, but I don’t like the notion of living in (or, more likely, of today’s children growing up to live in) a world of vastly greater misinformation, misinformation that is propagated by AI decoys to boot. As one example, put enough chat bots on the internet which argue for Earth being flat and you’ll have an increased number of voters who vote on the conviction that Earth is in fact flat. This being a very innocuous example.

Robots aren't conscious; and they produce interesting poems. Can we start from there, please? No one is demeaning actual poets, including me; but almost all comments seem to be defending poetry as real against the robots. Yeah, I agree, but I never for a second felt threatened by them - why do so many people here? — csalisbury

Yes, there is a bit of discomfort that I feel in seeing noteworthy aesthetics originated by a non-sentient entity with a significant degree of regularity. An aesthetics which I grant being present in the technical know-how that the AI acquired.

As to the OP’s presentation, I’m grateful for it. Thanks. Good to know such things. As to philosophical comments on what the OP presents, I think one underlying issue is the nature of what art is:

A sunrise can, on some occasions, be beautiful. Does this of itself make the sunrise art? I’ll argue that if and only if one assumes that the sunrise was the intentional creation of one or more sentient originators, one can then hold that the sunrise is art. If no such assumption is made, the aesthetics of the sunrise then does not get interpreted as an instantiation of art. Same will then apply, for example, to some dog accidentally kicking over a number of paint buckets with the result of an aesthetic arrangement of colors. Since no aesthetics was intended, the dog did not create a work of art.

On the other hand, I can mason a brick wall without any intention of conveying anything by it. I would be a sentient originator of the brick wall but, because there was nothing I intended to communicate by it, it would not be to me an instantiation of art. However, after the brick wall is finished, I then place a loose random brick on top of it with the explicit intention of conveying “the precarious nature of abstraction is always supported by a solid substratum of concreteness”. (Why not, right?) This brick I subsequently place on top the brick wall I built is now to me an artistic manifestation, thought the brick wall is not. And it will to me be art irrespective of how good an art piece it is. (In this case, not that great.)

In these scenarios, the difference between that which is and is not art is the occurrence of a sentient being’s intention to convey meaning via that which they originate. To this effect, even ordinary conversations can be deemed to be an art form. And, as goes without saying, poetry is a form of art.

Because the AI program is not sentient, it lacks this intention of conveying meaning. Yet what it produces mimics the outcomes of just such an intention.

There is discomfort in this, for me at least. A bit off topic relative to the OP, but pertinent to the issue of discomfort: AI chat bots are known to exist. They’re not perfect, but are improving by the day. The Orwellian implications of, for example, the degree of propaganda that can occur on social media platforms as a result … are for me unpleasant to think about. And present day AI’s ability to mimic human poetry to me points in such directions.

At any rate, with this I’m just trying to convey where my discomfort is coming from.

As to it being real poetry, verses mimicked poetry - and as per my previous examples - can it be real if it was not originated via a sentient being’s intention to express something of meaning?

:blush: Blushing on account of your reply, but thanks. Yea, I agree with your embellishments in terms of love poems. Definitely.

There are many reasons to engage in art, poetry included. Two of these that I’ve so far found most central are a) a need to express something this is otherwise inexpressible via commonplace language and b) a need to imbibe this expression with the closest proximity one can get to a perfect, and thereby powerful, aesthetic. To me everything else is technical know-how that can be learned via (a) and (b), but which when devoid of (a) and (b) will seem somewhat hollow.

I’ve for example worked with a visual artist that excelled at technical know-how, but was always going about asking others what he should draw or paint next—not having an internal impetus to express something of personal significance for as long as I’ve known him. To me, at least, there was always something missing form his otherwise exceptionally portrayed artwork.

The AI poetry reminds me of this high level of technical know-how sans the burning desire to express something that one holds to be important—to me, for the obvious reason that the AI is not strong AI endowed with consciousness. For example:

Between mouthfuls of apple pie,
they discuss the panda's defection,
the new twelfth-man problem, the low
cardinality of Jesus, and whether
Saint John broke the bread at the Lord's Supper
instead of the guest Aava.
Their talk is either philosophical
on the one hand, or distressing personal
on the other.
Eve, it is whispered, died of exposure. — csalisbury

At the risk of sounding stupid or snobbish—which I probably will—what is it that this stanza (or poem?) communicates? There’s a lot of technical know-how to it, but what is its content—moreover, a content whose aesthetic reaches into my being, captivating me, in manners that refuse to let go (so that I will remember it's affect upon me a long time after)? One can project abstractions into it—just as one can into a blank canvas—in this particular case, maybe something about the ennui of certain conversations. Still, why would this quoted poem not be one more case of the emperor’s new clothes phenomena?

As an apropos, for decades now, one litmus test for good quality poetry I’ve pointed out to is the poet's ability to express the positive aspects of intense romantic love via metaphorical concepts in manners that don’t result in kitsch, i.e. in something one deems to be silly if not worse. This to me is one of the most difficult things to accomplish via poetry.

I don’t foresee being elated and enlightened about romantic love by AI produced poems within my life. Still, if enough good quality love poems are poured into some AI program, and if monkeys at typewriters could type out a good quality play if given sufficient time, what AI could accomplish in the future in this respect is to me an interesting question.

So if we take the OP seriously, and think this an interesting question, and we think that I could have been other than bert1, then we must think that "I", even when spoken by bert1 does not entirely mean "bert1". — bert1

I’m having a hard time following. IMV, and in disagreement with causal determinism, of course you could have been other than who you are, but you would still be you.

You present an issue of signified and signifier, or of designated and designator, in reference to identity. “bert1” designates you as a particular conscious being – which, as such, is a composite of particular past and present experiences and cognitive actions (here overlooking complexities of body and what determined it to be it … although I’d like not to fall into a dualistic mindset in so doing).

You as a conscious being are designated by “bert1” due to your own choice, cognitive act, of which avatar name to hold. Had you chosen “bert2” instead, the designator would have been different due to your different cognitive actions. So you as designated conscious being would have held a different history of cognitive actions and would thereby now be a different you.

There is the truism that a rose by a different name is still a rose. But, firstly, this would be a different designation provided from without that which is being designated – thereby not altering the internal history, so to speak, of that which is designated. Secondly, and maybe here more pertinently, without going into the details of what you as a particular conscious being specifies, every change in your experiences and cognitive actions is a change in what you as a conscious being are. However, if we’re searching for the you that remains relatively continuous over expansive periods of time – this so as to ask why are you you and not some other – this is a fuzzy or else elusive topic. An age old question that can be simplified into the dictum, know thyself.

It seems to me that prior to premising what you as a conscious being are, questions of why you are the conscious being you are rather than being some other will be devoid of grounding.

Or if I completely misconstrued, are you by "I" referring to awareness in general? But then are we not individual instantiations of this general property, individualized by our experiences and actions?

Haven't read the whole thread, so hopefully I'm not repeating topics.

------

BTW, I have the suspicion that the OP was aiming at trying to prove solipsism. :grin: If so, I’m glad you took things in the direction that you did! A whole bunch of “solipsists” conversing and debating over why I’m me and not some other … makes for a nice rebuttal. :up:

Without the underlying logic of the soul choosing, and it being a matter of chosen opinion what is in the soul, or if the soul is real, then the concept of the soul is arbitrary meaninglessness. — Syamsu

I do find the notion of soul to be somewhat arbitrary when comparing different cultures, but not altogether meaningless. I’m guessing there might be something that, however imperfectly, is being referenced in all cultures by the notion of soul. As a very simplistic metaphor, that to which the conscious self is tethered across the timespan of an entire life as though by a rubber-band – such that one’s character can be more this or that but will always come back to some general, core attributes of character – could be likened to a person’s soul. Can’t currently think of an interpretation of soul where this wouldn’t be the case. Would be interested to find out about such.

As to the soul being that which makes choices, it might make choices, but even in common Christian theology it is held that the soul can be sold (and bought) by the choices of conscious selves. So, even here there is maintained a distinction between soul and the conscious self which chooses – although not necessarily one of otherness.

I think you could potentially square this with the buddhist 'no-soul' (I'm not sure, I know only the very basics of Buddhism) by seeing the soul less as a fixed thing (as the parameters of thought often our in our 'minds' if we've grown sclerotic) than a kind of ephemeral unfolding its own right - ephemeral, but with continuity — csalisbury

I like this interpretation. Likely because I happen to agree with it. :wink:

The ego is a kind of psychic structure that emerges (?) from the world soul. It expresses the world's potential to cling protectively to a single vantage point. — frank

I (too?) have an affinity to the world soul. On a more analytical note, this concept seems to me to then necessitate some form or other of panpsychism. But, while I like the concept of a world soul emotively, I can’t yet make heads or tails in relation to panpsychism intellectually – this once details are gotten into.

Continuing with the terminology you've used:

I placed this thread in General philosophy rather than Metaphysics due to an initial intention to not engage in debate pro or contra the significance of specific Aristotelian causes. All the same, I find a lot more significance to formal and final causes than what you’ve outlined.

As an example of formal causation: I don’t subscribe to a temporal causation between brain and consciousness. I do subscribe to a somewhat complex formal causation between the two which, as such, occurs in simultaneity between causes and effects. Complex because it encompasses both bottom-up processes and top-down processes. Yet both these process types occur in simultaneity. We might disagree in this, but maybe you can via this example understand why formal causation is to me of great significance.

As to the metaphysical significance of teleological causation, this would depend on the metaphysical significance one ascribes to conscious and mind in general – and, thereby, to cognitive actions. While there as sub- and unconscious cognitive acts of whose intentions we consciously have little if any awareness of, I maintain that mind is in significant part teleological, end-product driven. Because no efficient causations could be apprehended in the absence of minds, I then find teleological causation to be of great significance in its own right.

I’m happy to further this, but. more in line with my reason for starting this thread, do you have any qualms in terming Aristotle’s four modes of explanation four types of causes? Or would you rather that the term “causes” is reserved for only those causes/determinants that are temporally prior to their effects?

So there are determinations which are not causes. Though mathematicians will say things like "it causes the only element left to be three". — fdrake

Thank you for the example.

If meaning is use, and if the determinant can be stated via common language use to be a cause but can likewise be stated via same to not be a cause, the issue of whether it is proper for the determinant that is being referenced to be termed “a cause” still remains muddled, at least to me.

To try to better explain the equivocations I find in the term “cause”:

In Aristotelian terms, the scenario you’ve presented could be explained via formal causation: The singular form of {3} is being fixed, else established, via the property offered of “not equal to 1 or 2 in the set: {1,2,3}” – such that while the property offered is contemporaneous with the determined 3 (the two are not temporally separated) there would not be this determination in absence of the offered property. This is fully in line with counterfactual definitions of causation: X causes Y iff, where X to not be or occur, Y would not be or occur. This, then, makes this exemplified determinacy causal when going by the counterfactual definition of causation – at least, again, when causation is interpreted in Aristotelian terms. But then, as I believe you implicitly express, this is not an efficient causation wherein causes temporally precede their effects and, therefore, is not what we today commonly deed to be a causal process.

The same counterfactual definition can be applied to material causation: e.g., a wooden sphere would not have the particular buoyancy it does (its buoyancy being the given effect Y) if it were not made of the given wood (this being the material cause X to the particular buoyancy as effect Y); hence, X causes Y because were X to not be or occur Y would not be or occur; yet, as with formal causation, here X and Y are contemporaneous – and so cannot be deemed causal in the sense of efficient causation where X temporally precedes Y. Notwithstanding, it can be easily said that the sphere’s buoyancy is caused by the wood form which it is composed: the wood causes the buoyancy.

Likewise for teleological causation. An intention X causes choice Y in so far as Y would not have been or occurred as a choice in the absence of intention X. Yet the intention, the goal – which is the striven for future which occurs in the present – occurs contemporaneously with the choice that is being taken. The process is not an efficient causation. Nevertheless, although a bit more awkward to our ear, we can express that, “His desire to be win first place in the upcoming race caused him to choose practicing over the party he was invited to.”

If one defines causation as a process wherein the cause temporally precedes the effect, then formal, material, and teleological causes cannot be properly termed “causes” – for in the latter three cases that which determines is contemporaneous with that which is thereby determined. Yet – especially for someone like myself who finds value in Aristotle’s four determinants, or causes (or, at today more commonly translated, explanations) – whether or not this prescription is adequate becomes murky on account of common language use sometimes expressing these same three determinacies as causal processes.

That said, because I can only construe all causes to be determinants (of effects) – may I be corrected if counterexamples exist! – and because some determinants are often concluded to not be causes – as is illustrated in your post – I so far remain inclined to think it best to specify causes as one subtype of determinants. Namely, that subtype of determinacy wherein that which determines is temporally prior to that which is being determined.

So the short version of all this: I so far agree.

It seems to me that the difference is simply temporal. Both events are required to occur in sequence, one before the other - writing a program and then running the program on a computer - for the image to appear on the screen. You can't run a program that hasn't been written. — Harry Hindu

I agree that in both examples the processes are temporal. So, if I’m interpreting you correctly, you’re saying that (efficient) causation is necessarily temporal whereas determinacy in general is not. Hence, material, formal, and teleological determinacy can each occur in simultaneity relative to that which determines and that which is thereby determined – whereas efficient determinacy, what we today most often interpret as causation, is always temporal. If so, I agree with this as well.

Going by this, it currently seems to me that it would be more accordant with modern English use to specify causation as being a peculiar subspecies of determinacy: namely, that one subspecies of determinacy which is necessarily temporal.

So, then, we have multiple possible types of determinacy with only one such type being properly termed causation. In which case, as one example, we ought not say "material cause" but, instead, "material determinant". Or, as another example, we ought not use the phrase "teleological causes" but "teleological determinants".

When I write a dynamical systems program to obtain an image, I determine the image. When the program runs, it causes the image to appear. — jgill

Right, good example. So when you determine the image via X, Y, and Z, how do you not cause the properties of the image via these same means? And when the running program causes the image to appear, is not the image’s appearance determined by the running program?

I’m trying to figure out what, if anything, makes the two different.

If “to determine” signifies “to fix the form or character of”, how is a determinant not a cause, or a cause not a determinant?

You can either refer to a fantasy world where A does indeed cause (or determine) B.
Or otherwise if you want to refer to the 'real world' you will have to rely on statistics (and perhaps the inferred probability associated with those statistics.) — A Seagull

To be clear, in your view causation doesn’t exist? Or are you alluding to probabilistic causation? If the former, why maintain this? If the latter, I’m so far finding the same semantic difficulties between cause and determinant with probabilistic causation.

Nice OP.

If we had no memory of the previous moments how would we ever know there was a "then" to this "now", a "cause" to this "effect". — Benj96

In such a hypothetical, wouldn't inference be sufficient? Here thinking of people with certain forms of amnesia, but taken to an extreme. As I was recently expressing in a different thread, the experienced present, or now, can not so be experienced if devoid of duration. So, when I hear a hammer hitting a nail, there will be a beginning to this sound that occurs before this sound ends, even though this sound will as experience occur within the timespan of the present moment I experience, from its beginning to its end. Normally, this then gets changed into memory of what once was the present but no longer is. But sans any such memory, some befores and afters would yet be experienced to occur within the duration of the experienced present moment. From this, I'm thinking that one could then infer that what occurs in the present had a "before the present moment" to it - even if one could not remember such past moments.

Even a hiker at the base of a mountain experiences slower time passage than one at the top even if infitisimally small. Your now is different to mine. When I react instantly to something you see it occur slightly afterward at a different point in "time" due to the fact we occupy different space. — Benj96

Yet, experientially speaking - here momentarily placing aside the mathematical models of time of which we know - when we causally interact, will we not at such juncture share a commonly experienced reality of what temporally occurs during the present between us - this in contrast to what has already occurred between us? In other words, when we causally interact with each other don't we then share a commonly experienced now - a commonly shared present moment that isn't duration-devoid - wherein we act and react to each other?

You were born now and you are reading this now and you will die now. — Benj96

Even when presuming a presentist position, the now I currently find myself is neither my birth as an infant nor my death as (hopefully) and oldtimer. Even if the present is all that materially exists, the present is ever changing, such that what is memory and forethought - though only knowable in the present - reflects either former present moments that no longer materially are or, otherwise, future present moments that have yet to materially be. Not just for one or two, but for every living entity, arguably including bodily cells and neurons. For the record, I subscribe to this form of presentism.

Ah, saw that @prothero already gave a lengthy reply. I'll stop short. Save to comment on this:

I'm skeptical to believe time actually exists in the universe. — Benj96

What then is you're take on the proposition that conscious beings exist in the universe? If we exist in the universe and our so being requires that we are aware of time, then wouldn't time necessarily also exist in the universe?

I don't personally favor Cartesian dualism, so I'm inclined to believe the contrary of what this last quote affirms. I'd say that mathematical models don't require time to exist in the universe, but these are models of what is experientially evidenced: they are a mapping of the road, but not the road itself.

If reality fails to push back will the GOP march ahead in the vein of the creation of an alternate reality? Has this threshold already been crossed? Can this threshold be pinpointed? — ZzzoneiroCosm

That the Republican Party has the gall to call itself the Good Old Party - as contrasted to what? - and that others, including myself, have nowadays come to use this same euphemism in acronym form, says a lot.

Reality will always bite back - but not always in what we consider to be timely manners.

While I neither wish to bum out nor insult anyone, on the darkly humored side of things, here’s an answer to the question, “What Keeps Mankind Alive?”



I’m in agreement with the general sentiment you express. Still, sort of in line with this linked song, there are quite a bit of bestial acts which mankind engages in worldwide. In a sense, mankind is what it is due to its inhumanity, due to its cruelty, so that were all or most humans to miraculously become humane overnight, mankind as we know it would vanish and be replaced by something we can hardly imagine.

Cruelty is first bred in a person from some sort of basic want, be it of food, or warmth, or fairness. And once this cruelty comes to fruition in a person, it won’t be easily dissuaded.

There’s a lot of cruelty in the world, which plays a very significant role in breeding more basic wants in newcomers to it, which then turns into a vicious cycle. How to alleviate these basic wants in those that haven’t yet become cruel, and this in spite of the cruelty that already exists, is to me the pivotal question.

Otherwise, those that are cruel hold different goals than those who are not. And most often the goals of the former are shortsighted when it comes to humanity at large, to not mention the biosphere or the planet upon which we all depend.

I like the idea - I don't know where it originates, but it crops up here and there - of the soul as something you have a relationship with. It's like something you take care of, but which, in its turn, inspires and aids you. The soul is also you, or part of you, but you're also something in addition which tends to it. Not a philosophical definition, but I think its a nice one. — csalisbury

In a way reminds me of the Golden Compass. Haven’t read the book but I liked the movie. It's why I mention it.

How do you feel about the Latin concept of anima as soul – in contrast to the animus as mind? The anima, to my understanding, is at least in part that which causes one to be endowed with breath, quite literally. It’s there even when you’re in dream-devoid sleep and hold no consciousness. Whereas animus, mind, tmk is at least in part that which deals with conflicts at a conscious level, as in conflicting ideas and drives that one as consciousness has to contend with.

Then again, there’s the Buddhist stance of no such thing as a permanent self, the stance of no-soul, as it’s sometimes translated. Still, in fairness to the Buddhist platform, here there’s still something of semi-permanence that persists lifetime to lifetime. I take it this up to the time Nirvana is obtained.

I'm not talking about a duration devoid present. I am talking about how experience exists. I believe that understanding what I am describing, necessitates a twofold understanding of time, a two dimensional time. Time has "length", what we call temporal extension. But since the intellectualized "present" is used to divide one part of this extension from another, past from future, as a point in time (your duration-less present), yet the present necessarily has duration, as you describe, we must allow for this duration at the present, by giving time width, what I call the "breadth" of time. You can search this idea online, but it's difficult to find much information on it because it's mystical, and physicists who experiment with multidimensional time use a completely different approach with different presumptions. — Metaphysician Undercover

I’m somewhat baffled. Namely, if this was your stance all along, why all the fuss in relation to what I’ve been saying. Such as your accusation of “complete illogicality” in reference to hearing a bird’s chirp within the timespan of the experienced present - prior to this experience becoming a memory of what once was and, hence, the experienced past.

At any rate, glad to see that we agree on the temporal extension of the experienced present.

Think of a piece of music, a melody. You hear a note, then the next note and the next, and so on. — Metaphysician Undercover

Musical notes are representational models of what is heard – an intellectualization of what is experienced, so to speak. “Notes” in English usage only retroactively reference the very sound that a note otherwise represents. Otherwise, one might as well speak of sounds, and not of notes. Even so, musical notes have duration embedded in them via their note value. So each note one hears in the present holds a specific duration of time. Be it via a piano key being struck, via the plucking of a guitar string, as so on.

There is no such thing as a duration-less sound – to be even clearer, no such thing as the experience of a duration-less sound. When we speak to each other, for example, we do not apprehend what is said at any given present moment by relating past beginnings and future endings of particular verbal sounds within some duration-less present.

There are sounds we hear in the present, there are sounds we remember, and there are sounds we anticipate. Those that occur in the present can only have duration.

But how is that not completely illogical? The bird's chirp has temporal extension, so you hear the beginning of it before you hear the end of it. — Metaphysician Undercover

A bird's chirp, just like a musical note, has a duration. Like a musical note compared to an entire song, a bird's individual chirp is not the entirety of the bird's song. The temporally extended present moves through the duration of both songs while hearing individual chirps an notes in the present. But each bird's individual chirp, like each individual note of a melody - with both chirp and note having a beginning and end to a duration - will be apprehended within the experienced present, not the experience past nor the experienced future.

I'll reciprocate the same tonality by asking in turn:

How is the concept of a duration-devoid present wherein sound is experienced not "completely illogical"?

This is clearly not true, due to the nature of time. — Metaphysician Undercover

As your reply just reminded me, we disagree on the nature of time. While I don’t want to turn this tread into a discussion of time, to me the present is experienced to be extended and not duration-less – nor is it experienced to be extended via Plank lengths of time, which is already a model derived from what is experienced (and thereby experientially known) and not the experience itself. As one example, my presently hearing a bird’s chirp (to be clear about temporal extension, for a bird’s chirp has duration) occurs in the present – from the beginning of the chirp to its end; my memory of a bird’s chirp (even if one I recently heard) references an aspect of the past; and any prediction, for example, of when I might hear another bird’s chirp is an aspect of the future. Yet neither my memory of what has occurred in the world nor my forethought of what will occur in the world reference what I experience to be presently occurring in the world around me. The present is ever changing and fleeting, yes, like a current (hence, "the current moment"); and the present we adult humans find ourselves in is always typically for most and most of the time (editing the "always": a common example: when one spaces out there sometime is experienced only the present sans any past or future) in conflux with cognizance of both past and future, yes; yet the present, of itself, is experientially – is experienced to be – extended. And this experienced duration of the present occurs in manners that cannot be easily, if at all, quantified – the duration of the experienced present moment certainly cannot be plotted onto a chart.

Again, I don’t want to turn this thread into a discussion of time. But because we approach the nature of time differently, we approach the issue of experiential knowledge differently. I’m happy to leave it at that on this thread.

You're missing the point. To know that you hold the property of being requires that you conceptualize the property of being. — Metaphysician Undercover

No. The point was one of experiential knowledge. A concept is a generalized idea of which one is aware, abstracted from what else if not concrete instantiations of experience? And how can a concept be known if at least some of the concrete instantiation of experience from which the concept is abstracted are not themselves known (hence, experiential knowledge)? But I’ll reference back to the first part of this post.

Our foundational beliefs contain all the attributes of knowledge and justification. — boethius

Have to go soon, however: If a so deemed bedrock belief - such as that of experiencing two hands - can be justified, why do you then object to it being termed a known? This, btw, is what my initial post was in reply to.

As a reminder, it is widely held that the law of non-contradiction cannot be justified on account of being a first principle. Again though, if it can, why would it not then be a known?

That there cannot be a justification is the concept of bedrock beliefs. — boethius

In a way I agree. Yet, as per Aristotle, this addresses the laws by which beliefs become justified. However, as to so termed bedrock beliefs such as that of experiencing having two hands, I gave an example of how such may be justified.

Sure, but this adds no content to our idea of truth. Real is just another word for truth to add to our list; useful in certain situations to clarify ordinary language but adding no new content. — boethius

I'll acknowledge that for all of Wittgenstein's sometimes profound insights, I don't find things to be a game of words all the way down - such that turtles are replaced with words. To me, meaningful words have referents to their users - and sometimes, as with the word "real", these referents hold objective existence, rather than being the concoction of individuals who find agreement in that which they invent, or create . "What is real" is therefore to me not a word game. I'm hoping, or presuming, that we don't find too much disagreement in this.

If "real" as a conceptual abstraction has a referent that impartially applies to all - thereby, imv, making truth likewise meaningful - this referent will occur regardless of the words used, or even if any words are used at all. Yet there clearly occurs numerable disagreements of what "real" as sign signifies. That a coffee mug is real in no way addresses, for example, whether or not physicalism is real. So analysis of what is and is not real seem to me to be appropriate.

If language use via word-game rules was all there is to it, to me it would be on par to saying, "stop thinking about things and be ignorant". Yet this implicit commandment of what one must do is antagonistic to, at the very least, any and all discovery - rather than, as you say in your latter post, to the "making" of new knowledge.

I agree with the contents of your reply. My emphasis, however, was on bedrock beliefs holding the capacity of being justified to be true. And, by extension, of certain bedrock beliefs then holding the capacity to constitute knowledge in the JTB sense of the term.

and our foundational belief that some things are true and what that means has no further analytic content. — boethius

I'll argue that we are psychologically incapable, even in principle, of forsaking the notion of truth as that which is in accordance with what is real. We might abstract the term truth in multiple ways, going even so far as to say there is no truth, but in all these cases there will remain our psychological dependency on what is existentially real.

Would this not qualify as "further analytic content"?

Saying "I know..." often means that I have the proper grounds, as Wittgenstein points out. — Sam26


Yes, Wittgenstein is simply correct. "I know I have a hand" or then more basic sense experience that makeup that "knowledge" if you prefer (i.e. I know there's something I grab things with that people call "a hand"), is not knowledge but belief. It's simply the axioms that makeup our knowledge framework. It's knowledge in the sense that we believe it to be true, but it's not knowledge in the sense that we have prior knowledge to justify it. — boethius

I can think of a way around this, at least for some aspects of experience. As you later note, belief is hard to pin down, so I'll here be assuming something along the lines that all experiences are tacitly believed.

That “I know I have two hands” might not be the best example, so, instead, I’ll make use of “I know that I experience having two hands”.

As a caveat: Being a fallibilist, I could come up with a general argument for why this belief is not infallible. Rather than saying it outright, inklings of this argument might indirectly show up in what follows. That said:

The tacit belief that I experience myself to have two hands, upon enquiry, is something for which I cannot find any justifiable alternative to once I explicitly address this belief (let an unjustifiable alternative be, for example, the just-so statement that I make, without grounding in either experience or reasoning, stipulating that “I don’t so experience having two hands). Firstly, any conceived (and justifiable) alternative to the given state of affairs introduces some degree of potential error, irrespective of how small this degree of error might be. Nevertheless, one can go so far as BIVs and Cartesian daemons – and my experience of having two hands would still lack justifiable alternatives to me which so experiences having two hands. That my experience of having two hands is, to me, devoid of any justifiable alternative I can fathom relative to this experience will not of itself prove the truth of my so experiencing to have two hands with infallible certainty: The lack of justifiable alternatives can well be due to my subjective faculties of imagination being, by their very nature, limited; and were someone to hypothetically know everything there is to know in principle, maybe such alternative would then be fathomed. Notwithstanding, it could also be the case that I cannot fathom justifiable alternatives to this experience on grounds that no such alternatives in fact exist – and if no conceivable alternatives to my so experiencing can in principle exist, then my so experiencing would necessarily be true. (A tangential emphasis: this doesn't hold vice versa: sometimes what is true can be fathomed to have alternatives.) This state of affairs would then necessarily be the only actual state of affairs that is ontologically, even metaphysically, possible – and not even a supposed omniscient being could discover a scenario of how it could be otherwise.

So, I (or anybody else for that matter) can thereby obtain a JTB account of “I experience having two hands”. I cannot fathom any possible (and justifiable) alternative to my experiencing having two hands while I experience having two hands, which is what would occur were this experience to be true. My bedrock, and typically tacit, belief that I experience having two hands is thereby justified to be true. And, here taking a shortcut, I have as much reason to believe it’s true as I do to believe anything else is true. That I experience having two hands thereby is a JTB and, hence, a known.

The only potential flaw I see in this argument is going from something being justified to be true to something being in fact true. But this has more to do with epistemology in general than with particular bedrock beliefs such as that of “I know I experience having two hands”.

My cat has being (a being), she knows/is her being equally as I am and know my being. She doesn't require intellectualisation to be. Therefore neither do I, so in expelling my intellectualisation of being (putting it to one side), I can experience my being absent conceptualisation. — Punshhh

Here, you are using "know" in a very strange way. You are saying that if someone or something, such as you or your cat, experiences something, then they know that thing. So you claim that you, and your cat, each knows its respective property of being, simply by experiencing that being. But that's not consistent with any acceptable use of "knowing". — Metaphysician Undercover

To butt in slightly, there are experiential knowns. If one experiences X – though knowledge that X is as one experiences it might require more than brute experience – one’s experience of X, as experience, with be a factual given. And, hence, will be a known. For instance, I see a tree while strolling in a park. What I visually interpret to be a tree might, in fact, be an elaborate statue that someone’s placed in the park I’m in and, therefore, not the tree that I visually experience at this juncture. Nevertheless, that I visually experience seeing a tree while so visually experiencing seeing a tree will, of itself, be a known fact to me. Though maybe different in some ways, this is at the very least related to what is termed knowledge by acquaintance. To here rearticulate the point I’m making, my acquaintance with X is known to me simply on account of my acquaintance with X – this irrespective of whether or not X is in fact as I experience it to be.

Then, in reference to experiential knowledge of being: To know one is a being (which to me does not entail a conceptualization of being a thing … I, for example, experientially know that I am – hence that I hold the property of being – without in any way conceptualizing myself to be a thing) all that is required is a tacit awareness of acting and reacting relative to that which one experiences as other – which endows one with direct experiential knowledge of being un-other, or what we term a self, in relation to other. In this sense, a cat has experiential knowledge of being, even though it cannot articulate this experiential knowledge via concepts that it linguistically expresses to itself or others. Its experience of being other than, for example, the mouse it is after or the dog it is standing in relation to will be all that is required for the experiential knowledge of one's own being to occur.

This is at least my take on what @Punshhh was here saying. To the extent we differ, I'm sure Punshhh will elaborate on his own views.

Big point: There is no "self". — Heiko

Since this will be just as laconic:

An equally big point: Neither is there an absence of a first person point of view as self - a plurality of these coexisting in the world, that is.

How does the case of dreams dispel the proposition that "the transcendentally apprehensive self is neither its mind nor its body, though conjoined to both"? — javra

Because your body does not need to be there (as normal) in dreams.
You may very well be right that "dreams are dependent upon the workings of an organism's physiological body". But this is simply not what the "subject" means in trancendental dialectics. Here the perceptions are taken "as-is" without presumptions. — Heiko

Yes, our waking awareness of our physiological body is absent in most REM dreams. All the same, doesn’t there remain the same disparity between subject of awareness and that which it is aware of as other in REM dreams? For instance, if one sees something in an REM dream, does not one see this given from a visual first-person point of view? And if what one sees causes one to be in a state of being of fright, for example, is not one (as a transcendentally apprehensive self) frightened during such juncture at seeing this other during the dream?

I don’t intend to be a badger, so I’ll take a breather from the forum for now.



Just saw this.

That is to say, if “thirst” is an object of awareness and “basketball” is an object of awareness, some method must be instituted in order to tell them apart, which mandates that ideas such as thirst and sadness and such not be converted to phenomena on the one hand, and physical objects of sense not be converted into mere contingent ideas on the other. — Mww

Yes, but of course. I won't bicker too much about term use. But I'm supposing that if well enough defined for the purposes employed beforehand, what you mention shouldn't be a problem.

Thanks again for the replies.

Dreams are experienced non-physiological perceptions (and concepts, which are not percepts, but to keep things simple ...), this just as much as is a visually imagined bird, its auditorily imagined chirping, the tactilely imagined feel of its feathers, and so forth, experienced during waking states. Furthermore, unless we start to hypothesize the possibility of experiences held by incorporeal beings (ghosts, forest fairies, deities, and the like), all REM dreams are dependent upon the workings of an organism's physiological body.

How does the case of dreams dispel the proposition that "the transcendentally apprehensive self is neither its mind nor its body, though conjoined to both"?

This is merely a differentiation between mind and body. — Heiko

Yet the transcendentally apprehensive self is neither its mind nor its body, though conjoined to both. To what extent do you disagree?

I think your claim was that because of this there was no object other than the subject itself. — Heiko

I'm very surprised by this interpretation. How was it obtained from what I said? No, this is in no way what I've been expressing.

Yet the "subject" in that case means the worldly self. This is quite different from the epistemological subject of transcendental philosophy. — Heiko

I, personally, don't subscribe to a duality between a "worldly" first person point of view and any non-worldly first person point of view which one would, I presume, simultaneously be (in the same respect?). There could be both ideal and possible states of being as an aware being - there hence being a duality between what is momentarily actual and the potential as goal to be actualized in the future which one strives for - but to me the transcendentally apprehensive self is just as much worldly as it is non-worldly at any given juncture of its being.

Can you better elaborate on the difference applicable to the same "I" you've mentioned?

This seems to be a strong indicator that it cannot really be a being of the subject itself but just a stimulus among many. — Heiko

This might be a mistaken phrasing of what I have been saying. I did not claim, with great emphasis, that
thirst is what a subjective being is (!). My only claim is that when a subjective being is momentarily thirsty, that subjective being will at that juncture be in just such state of being.

I'm not here directly focused on the metaphysics of what a subjective being is - nor can be. I'm here simply stipulating - fallible though I acknowledge being - the concrete facts of what we can and do experience as subjective beings.

Why should thirst be that different from a chair or tree as perceived content? Isn't this based on presumptions? — Heiko

Hm, the easiest way for me to answer this is via reference to linguistic convention: When I tactilely feel the chair I am sitting on or else look at a tree, I am that which apprehends said chair and tree as something other – and I therefore don’t express this state of awareness as “I am chair (or chair-ness, or what have you)” nor “I am tree-y”. Yes, when it comes to physiological thirst (as compared, for instance, to an experienced thirst for life), one empirically perceives the state of being of one’s own body via interoception. Yet this culminating perception is not apprehended as other relative to oneself as subject, but instead is the state of being in which the subject momentarily finds him/herself – and therefore we express this state of awareness as “I am thirsty (as a subjective being)”.

To say "I feel thirsty" does not necessarily entail that "I am thirsty".

I'm not here addressing logic but a report of (granted, personal) experience.

In parallel, a physiological perception (as contrasted to, for example, a visually imagined perception) that might serve as a better example is the difference between “I am in pain (due to the pain in my finger from a splinter … which might cause me to sweat, or to momentarily be in some degree of shock)” and “I feel pain in my finger on account of the splinter in it (as something one apprehends of one’s own body without momentarily experiencing the sensation of being in pain as the subject of the experience – and thereby something which one can calmly address as needed)”. If this latter example doesn’t ring true as something experientially evidenced, I’d like to know. It may or may not be a good example for me to use.

Still, to the extent that it might make sense on account of being commonly experienced, when being in pain, the pain sensed would thereby be autologically experienced: indistinguishable by the subject which experiences from the subject which experiences. When sensing pain in a body part from which one as subject is removed, the pain sensed would thereby not be autological – instead being other relative to oneself as conscious subject of the experienced pain as object of awareness ... though the pain obviously would very much yet pertain to one’s total self of body and mind (of which the transcendentally apprehensive self is aware).

Kudos on originality. Under the assumption, of course, that you were not aware of the “transcendental unity of apperception”, which for all intents and purposes, fairly well describes the content of your thesis, but originated in 1787. Sorry ‘bout that. (grin)

Or....you are aware of said apperception, and found it wanting. — Mww

Thanks for the informative reply. From second-hand readings, I’m aware of transcendental apprehension, and agree with it, but on its own find it somewhat wanting. To me it’s not concrete enough to conclusively establish what it seeks to establish: the delimitations of being conscious. It’s a very challenging topic matter, so I’m grateful for any feedback I can get. And so it’s known, what autological awareness is supposed to reference is one of four general modalities of our awareness, which I then endeavor to use so as to demonstrate our three tiers of awareness, one of the latter being synonymous to transcendental apprehension and, hence, the attribute of being conscious. Hence, autological awareness does not of itself equate to transcendental apprehension. The devil’s in the details, though.

As one example, one is autologically aware of one’s own enactive faculty of sight when seeing anything – for one is (some say, "transparently") aware of being endowed with sight when seeing. And one’s own faculty of sight is not other relative to oneself which sees some given – the given seen is other, but not the sight via which it is seen. Nevertheless, one’s faculty of sight is not itself that aspect of self which is perpetually unified but ever-changing. It, instead, is one of multiple and discrete means via which the “transcendentally apprehensive self” (so to phrase), which is unitary and indifferentiable, apprehends that which is other relative to itself (not only empirically but also conceptually … for any concept we contemplate is other relative to us as transcendentally apprehensive selves). All means of apprehending that which is other, from senses such as that of sight to faculties such as that of understanding, will then be autologically known but not in themselves the transcendentally apprehensive self which knows.

Hoping that makes enough sense in its summarized form to illustrate the difference.

[edit: for added clarity, thus understood, not all autologic givens will be the transcendentally apprehensive self, but the transcendentally apprehensive self will always be an autologically known given]

These two are arguable. As to the first, because “thirsty”, “sad”, etc, are not objects, so “simultaneously the object” becomes an empty, hence impossible, judgement, and as to the second, to suggest the conjunction of the two, carries the implication that “....I must have as many-coloured and various a self as are the representations of which I am conscious....” (CPR B135), which is exactly the opposite of what the unity of consciousness is supposed to represent. — Mww

As to the first critique, a proper contextualization for me would be the otherwise existent dichotomy between a) the subject of awareness and b) the objects of its awareness. So generalized, intuitions, concepts, and one’s conscience, would hence all be objects of awareness when thus contextualized – but these are all what I’ve termed “allologic”, for they are other relative to the subject which apprehends them. In contrast, when I am glad, I as subject of awareness am aware of being glad, and my being glad is the object of awareness of which I am aware – but, here, that of which I am aware is momentarily unified and indifferentiable from me as that which is aware. So, here, there is a non-duality between the subject of awareness and its object(s) of awareness.

As to the second critique, I don’t take my being glad to of itself be a re-presentation, not until it is expressed via language which does re-present givens via concepts. So, in being conscious of being glad I am not conscious of a representation of what I am but, instead, am conscious of what I momentarily am as subject of consciousness which apprehends representations. This, then, to me remains consistent with the unity of consciousness, for while this aspect of awareness is unified and indifferentiable, it is experientially evidenced to be in constant change.

What say you?

(On soapbox) [...] (Off soapbox) — Mww

Glad you got off of the soapbox. Thanks though.

Feel like I should also mention, yours was a good point.

Bummer, but OK. :cool:

I’m working on something related to this at the moment. The difficult part is in conveying via what can only be a conceptualization what is referenced to be a first person subjective state of affairs – a state of affairs in which the subject of conscious awareness is simultaneously the object of which it is aware. Without examples of actual experience this would likely go nowhere. So here are some:

First person knowledge of being thirsty, sad, confident, elated, in pain, meditative, angry, anxious, in love, sleepy, and so on.

To express these states of being is, of course, to convey concepts which, as such, are other than the subject which holds conscious awareness of the given concepts – concepts which the utilized language conveys. Yet when one is thirsty, sad, confident, etc., that which one is aware of is no way differentiated from that which is aware. Rather it is the thirsty, sad, confident, etc., subject of awareness that then holds thus colored awareness of anything other – from physical objects, to concepts and intuitions as other than the subject so aware of them to, to awareness of other subjects, etc.

Our wording in at least the English language reflects the reality of this state of affairs: one here doesn’t feel oneself to be X (which expresses one as subject of awareness experiencing some object of awareness via feeling) but, instead, one here is X: “I am thirsty”, “I am sad”, etc.

I’ll try to further comment and support this, but for now I’ll keep it relative short.

Ps. I’m not one to believe that that which is real is created by the language(s) which we use. So, while there is no given term or phrase in the English lexicon for this mode of awareness that I know of, this of itself to me doesn’t negate the personal experiences of this, which we all have – which, as experiences, I deem to be real. In my own work I’ve termed this form of awareness “autological”. So, we are autologically aware of our own states of being as subjects of awareness. It if helps, one can critique this post’s understanding by so addressing the subject matter as autological awareness.

Ha!

Two or three angels
Came near to the earth.
They saw a fat church.
Little black streams of people
Came and went in continually.
And the angels were puzzled
To know why the people went thus,
And why they stayed so long within. — Stephen Crane

This process of alignment, orientation has various aspects including some sense of giving up ones freedom. This is something which is offered freely in the knowledge and surety that nothing is lost because what is gained thereafter is that which was feared to be lost along with the added component of being guided by some ineffable power (I am using this phrase only because it follows on from the phraseology I was using earlier). Which is known to be oneself already, but just an area of the self not realised. So as I suggested earlier, it is not a subjugation to a power over, but rather a power with and power over simultaneously, synthesised into a unity. — Punshhh

What you say resonates with me.

I take the following to be complementary to what you’ve expressed.

I’ve heard some word it as surrender to a higher power, rather than a subjugation. Even so: In my understandings it’s not about surrendering to any other. I still get bad chills of sorts when I hear people praising the virtue of obedience to others as a spiritual goal (obey your priest, your spouse (esp. if you’re a woman), your … anything and anybody that’s supposed to be of authority, sort of thing … don’t dare question anything they tell you or instruct you to do). As you express as well, to me there can be no I-thou relation in this surrender. Imperfectly phrased: if it’s a surrender, it’s a surrender to a greater version of you, one which you’ve tacitly yearned to be. Well, this is kind of Hindu slanted in that the phrasing implies there being a “greater self”, a Brahman if you will. But so articulated for a Christian audience, for example, the mystic or ecstatic experience as goal is likely that of becoming one with Christ, to be a Christ-within-er – such that Christ’s ethics, sensibilities, and virtue become one’s own, as well as the responsibilities, this in due measure. This stands in contrast to obeying Christ in an I-thou relation – which is what I most often experience in Christians. The first is a scenario of intrinsic values; here, one knows what is right and wrong and acts accordingly from one’s own volition. Whereas the latter is a case of extrinsic values, more along the lines of doing things due to punishments and rewards imposed by others: a scary thing to me ... one that in a way reminds me of Son of Sam in a worst case scenario way.

Then things can get weirder when interpreting things from along a Buddhist angle, in which this greater self one surrenders to is actually a non-hyperbolical selfless state of being, what I take at least some Buddhists to consider being the state of Nirvana that awaits to become actualized. I, for example, heard the Dalai Lama in a documentary claiming he still has very very many lives to yet live before he actualizes this state of being – and he’s said to embody the Bodhisattva of compassion. Personally, I don’t subscribe to anyone who claims to have obtained or actualized Nirvana, just because they’re still a self, an ego. But the Dalai Lama I can respect.

So in terms of loss of freedoms. Freedom is always relative to something. A flying bird is free from the requirement to walk, but is yet bound to, unfree from, forces of gravity and the flow of air currents, etc. Supposing the individual’s transcendence of his/her conditioned self can and does occur, they still remain a self, an ego, afterwards – albeit one that is no longer conditioned as they once were. And every self, ego, is yet limited by a distinction of I and other (if nothing else). I’m supposing that what the individual likely gains – here expressed differently for different cultures – is an understanding of Christ-nature, or of Brahman, or of Nirvana (the gaining of Buddha-nature), or of Ein Sof, and so forth. Which, I’d like to believe, might be different labels for the same exact given: Something that without these culturally loaded terms would best be understood as nameless, ineffable, and universally applicable – neutral to all cultural biases. But, then, it wouldn’t be communicable even in principle. Furthering this line of thought, if the individual gains awareness of this state of being to which the individual surrenders, so to speak, he or she would yet be limited by virtue of yet being a self, an ego – and would not be the limitless nature of being which was cognized. But in having gained an understanding of one’s true nature – again, which one has yet to fully actualize – to which one as a self has willfully surrendered, one obtains the freedom to pursue this desired end as one deems fit. And I gather that in this there might be a sense of freedom and serenity. This though life as always still has it pitfalls and obstacles. As one example, the Dalai Lama still hasn’t liberated Tibet, though I’m sure he’s content in having tried his best throughout.

Maybe this is too stream of consciousness. My bad if it is. Posting it anyway out of curiosity for feedback.

:grin: I like that.

I agree with the distinction you make, however as I see it there are many subtleties and nuance here. — Punshhh

I made use of “typically” and “often” with the intention of allowing for such exceptions to the generality I presented. So, yes, I very much agree.

This is an interesting introduction I think into the role of agency and purpose in mystical practice. I would be interested in exploring this further. — Punshhh

What got my interest initially was the use of term subjugation (of the ego). Not sure what avenues you’d like to explore, so I’m mentioning the first thing that came to mind:

Mircea Eliade wrote a rather long book documenting cases of shamanism, what I take to be one variant of mysticism. It can be expressed in different manners by different cultures, and its expressions are normally from pre-scientific times, so I take the following summation to be largely allegorical. From memory, and from a typical European account (Australian aborigines, for instance, express a similar process making use of jewels, best I recall), the pre-shaman enters solitude or is sometimes exiled by the village/tribe into the forest. There, the pre-shaman is, basically, torn to shreds by the spirits and deities, till all that remains is the skeleton. Here he enters into the otherworld, and is often expressed to be dead … maybe neither dead nor living? He then basically needs to place his flesh back onto his skeleton, this to become one of the living again. I interpret this as a regaining of recognizable self. Fast forwarding a bit, if he’s successful, he then reemerges from the forest back to the tribe as a medicine man or healer. OK, that said for background, I give this example of this one form of what I take to be mystical traditions so as to present a situation where the ego is not subjugated by divine power – nor obtains some form of instant bliss – but instead, in a sense, battles with greater powers so as to maintain integrity of being and, thereby, make oneself whole again. And, throughout this whole process wisdom, gnosis, is gained. Though this is very archaic and esoteric, I intuitively find parallels in this to both mythos regarding JC and the Buddha. So, both these guys supposedly underwent periods of extreme solitude (JC in the desert and the Buddha starving underneath some tree) where they gained some understanding or gnosis, after which there were great and sometimes unpleasant temptations offered to them to deviate from their newly found understanding; then, after holding fast, each emerged out of their solitude into the village, so to speak, to become healers (of the mind, to not say soul, if not also the body). I can also liken the same (non-new-age) shamanism tradition to the mythos of Osiris and Isis (guy was cut into pieces than placed back together) as well as to Nietzsche’s parable of the camel turned carnivore turned newly-birthed infant: here, the beast of burden’s broken back parallels the pre-shaman’s death and entrance into the otherworld, wherein the transformation occurs; the dragon of “thou shalt and shalt not” stands for the temptations and tribulations which must be combated or resolved; and the newly birthed infant to the same world stands for seeing the same old world for the first time with newly found eyes.

I know these are personal opinions. May they be taken with as many grains of salt as is required. And, to be explicit about things, I’m in no way here arguing for what is factual. Nor do I address the aforementioned as though it were the only mystical tradition – but, in my opinion, it does represent one well documented path. Again, my reason for expressing all this is that while there might be a sense of losing one’s self or ego, here it is plainly not about becoming dominated by greater powers one unquestioningly follows. Instead, apparently according to mythos, its about holding onto some form of integrity and gnosis despite the challenges … and coming out of it a better, and in some ways transformed, person.

That said, I'm imagining the experience of transcending one’s own (former?) ego to be something akin to what is expressed in the lyrics of a song by Dead Can Dance called Song of the Stars:

We are the stars which sing
We sing with our light
We are the birds of fire
We fly over the sky
Our light is a voice
We make a road for the spirit to pass over

Maybe (I’m guessing) those who are mystics simply think those who lack the given gnosis as just unaware of so being, and of so making a road over which the spirit passes? I’ll link to the song for context, though it’s mostly instrumental, and long.

Depatterning may threaten to disrupt whatever order presides. Nixon claimed that Timothy Leary was "the most dangerous man in America." — praxis

Very true. But implicit to this is a presiding order of "power-over" relations. No?