I address this in another Medium essay, Is there Mind at Large? This essay interogates Kastrup's expression and compares it with Berkeleyian idealism. But then it draws on Yogācāra Buddhism, the school colloquially known as 'mind-only', to argue that it is not necessary to posit any kind of super-mind or cosmic mind.
Although I also concede that if Kastrup simply means 'some mind' or 'mind in general', then I am in complete agreement with him. Why? I think the reification trap is associated with the tendency towards objectification, to try and consider anything real in terms of it being an object or an other. This is where Heidegger's criticism of onto-theology rings true. — Wayfarer
I always thought of [alayavijnana] as a kind of collective karmic storehouse, and it is explicitly doctrinally classed as a form of consciousness. So I'm not seeing how it is not an idea of collective consciousness or mind. — Janus
Buddhists believe in the Universe. The Universe is, according to philosophers who base their beliefs on!idealism, a place of the spirit. Other philosophers whose beliefs are based on a materialistic view, say that the Universe is composed of the matter we see in front of our eyes.
Buddhist philosophy takes a view which is neither idealistic nor materialistic; Buddhists do not believe that the Universe is composed of only matter. They believe that there is something else other than matter. But there is a difficulty here; if we use a concept like spirit to describe that something else other than matter, people are prone to interpret Buddhism as some form of spiritualistic religion and think that Buddhists must therefore believe in the actual existence of spirit. So it becomes very important to understand the Buddhist view of the concept ‘spirit.’
I am careful to refer to spirit as a concept here because in fact Buddhism does not believe in the actual existence of spirit. So what is this ‘something else’ other than matter which exists in this Universe?
If we think that there is a something which actually exists other than matter, our understanding will not be correct; nothing physical exists outside of matter.
Some people explain the Universe as a universe
based on matter. But there also exists something which we call value or meaning. A Universe consisting only of matter leaves no room for value or meaning in civilizations and cultures. Matter alone has no value. We can say that the Universe is constructed with matter, but we must also say that matter works for some purpose.
So in our understanding of the Universe we should recognize the existence of something other than
matter. We can call that something spirit, but if we do we should remember that in Buddhism, the word ‘spirit’ is a figurative expression for value or meaning. We do not say that spirit exists in reality; we use the concept only figuratively. — Nishijima Roshi
They said somthing physical could be noumenal. This is flat out wrong. Noumenal cannot relate to physical in any other way than as a negative limiting concept. — I like sushi
As best I can tell, all Kant was trying to show was that the noumenal world is made up of objects which our bodies interpret through various sense organs and processes. That seems correct, on his explication of the human understanding. — AmadeusD
As best I can tell, all Kant was trying to show was that the noumenal world is made up of objects which our bodies interpret through various sense organs and processes. That seems correct, on his explication of the human understanding. — AmadeusD
There are ways around this*, you know how gravity works at a distance, but absent the theory of relativity, there is no known physical mechanism by which the force is exerted. Relativity accounts for it, but is little more than a descriptive, rather hypothetical explanation, a mathematical mapping of the relation between bodies, forces and energy. Perhaps there is the equivalent between minds**. Also there is the idea, which dovetails to an extent with idealism, of all beings/organisms, or more pertinently living entities, as one entity, branched, or budded off into separate organisms in the realm of manifestation/objectification. With the root unseen, or known by us rather like the root of gravity being unseen, or known.Regarding the Ālaya-Vijñāna there is also a Theosophical idea designated the "Akashic Records", which I think bears some resemblance to the Buddhist idea. It seems that idealist thinkers have long recognized the explanatory need for some kind of collective consciousness as a substitute for the independent actuality of physical existents.
This misses the mark because he does not talk of a noumenal world in any physical sense. — I like sushi
There's no reason to deny that physical objects cause perception of physical objects. — AmadeusD
Thanks to Husserl's analyses, we understand that consciousness is constituted at this level by diferences in protensions and retentions. — JuanZu
This implies that there is always a non-present side with which consciousness is continuously in contact. This non-present is precisely the form of the world, as something not given in consciousness. — JuanZu
But that non-present is fundamental to consciousness and its functioning. — JuanZu
….dismisses the either/or quality…. — Paine
Protension is the way that we relate to the future, and retention is the way that we relate to the past. As being at the present, we recognize a significant, even substantial difference between the two, past and future. — Metaphysician Undercover
Deterministic principles serve to dissolve this difference. — Metaphysician Undercover
We can understand that within the conscious being, the two distinct substances of past and future, are united into one, as retention and protension, and this constitutes conscious being at the present. This implies that being at the present, consciousness, "is constituted at the most fundamental level", as a combination of these two distinct things, past and future. — Metaphysician Undercover
The non-present, which is "the form of the world", must necessarily be divided into two, to accomodate an adequate understanding of it. This is due to that substantial difference between past and future, and the result is that some form of dualism is necessary in order to derive an appropriate conception of "the world" — Metaphysician Undercover
Are you referring to principles, that in which resides always and only absolute certainty? — Mww
But the flow of time implies that the relation with the past and the future is not discontinuous. — JuanZu
Here you lost me. Can you explain this? — JuanZu
They cannot be two consciousnesses as two substances. Because we have to guarantee the unity of experience, for example that the past is a past of mine just as the future is a future of mine. In this sense we are body, where non-presents and non-consciousnesses constitute us. This body is the world that constitutes us. — JuanZu
It is not a dualism it is simply two dimensions that relate to the present. But the important thing is that they are constitutive and non-present. In that sense consciousness is constituted by that which is not it. We do not perceive these dimensions in themselves unlike the present. There is something that is not conscious that constitutes consciousness. I call it the form of the world because we normally understand the world as something beyond consciousness and distinct from experience. There is an analogy with the non-present and the non-conscious. — JuanZu
So, we could all benefit from what troubled you while reading this text. — Paine
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