Consciousness and the Paranormal

[smcder]

Review of What is Soul? Geigerich, very helpful! The crux of it starts in bold below, six parapgraphs from the end.

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Preparation for Reading this Book
By John C. Woodcock on July 15, 2012
REVIEW: WHAT IS SOUL by Wolfgang Giegerich (2012)
by
John C. Woodcock Ph. D.

In this review I would like to share some thoughts regarding preparation for engagement with this ground-breaking book. Yes, I think some preparation is necessary! This is not an easy-to-read book for beginners. It is not a self-help book. It is not designed to give the reader some convenient ideas to make life more understandable or manageable today. With adequate preparation however I believe this book can make a very big difference to how you will comprehend the modern world and your place in it today. The author's intention is not to persuade or offer consolation or an ideology. His intent is simply to explore the nature of the soul but as he does so, I think you will find, as I did, your eyes getting opened to the real situation of modern life, in which we are each inescapably embedded, for better or worse.

The first point I want to make in preparation to read this book is the common knowledge that today, "soul" does not have any currency in the "official narrative" of the major disciplines that are shaping our modern world culture--physics, biology, economics, evolution, neuro-science, philosophy, technology, politics and so on. Religion, yes, theology yes and at the same time churches are emptying as people seem to be saying that they can get on fine today without considering the fate of their eternal soul. So although soul obviously still is spoken of in some quarters the engines driving our culture are doing fine without the need to invoke soul at all. In fact `soul' or "god" is known derisively as `God of the Gaps' meaning that `soul' is thought to be conveniently invoked whenever we have a current and undoubtedly temporary gap in our knowledge.

So, ok, most people get on without any well-thought out notion of the soul at all but for those that do still believe in such a thing, the most common idea of soul today is that of an `eternal' substance that may `show up' at various times of our lives (e.g. extreme situations) and which endures beyond our mortal death. This idea satisfies on two counts: we can draw comfort from the soul's presence at times when we feel utterly alone and we can go towards our death with some sense that it is not all over, which for many is a frightening prospect.

Giegerich's book arrives then in a time of "soullessness" and a time where the idea of a soul as a eternal `help-mate' or `angel' still works for some, even if as a simple belief. These two facts of modern existence must be addressed by any author who discusses soul. They are the two facts, perhaps the only facts about soul that inform our existence today.

Wolfgang Giegerich does address these facts and addresses them in a way that could astound you, if you are not prepared. With regards to the soullessness that characterizes our modern existence, he does not bemoan this reality or seek to console us, or compensate for it. In a far more radical move, Giegerich demonstrates that this modern condition of soullessness is still soul! This means that even though we feel ourselves to be in a world without soul, in reality we are still within soul, that this modern reality is the work of soul.

This brings me to the second point of the `eternal soul'. Giegerich demonstrates that this concept of soul was indeed true, i.e. at another time (the time of metaphysical philosophy) but is no longer true for us. Two issues emerge from these astounding responses to the "facts of life" today: how can a concept of soul be true in one age and not another and what is the true concept of soul today? Both issues are raised and answered in this remarkable book. All I can do here is to give a brief summary of Giegerich's brilliant and to my mind conclusive arguments.

Giegerich throughout his book includes a scholarly review of the concept of soul from former ages, leading to the present. This may seem quite ordinary, quite in keeping with other forms of historical research where ideas about things (e.g. planets and their motion) and the way these ideas change are reviewed. But what Giegerich is implicitly proposing throughout his review is much more radical and I believe that readers must grasp what he is saying here in order even to make sense of his arguments and conclusions. So let's unpack it a bit here.

Historical research is most commonly rooted in an assumption that history is a study of ideas about the world. Our ideas get refined but the world stays the same as it always was. We just get better at matching our concepts to the reality of the given world.

In order to come to terms with this book, you must throw out this assumption!

The soul is not an object of historical research the same way as other things in the world. Giegerich's starting point (his a priori) is that the soul is not a thing at all, it is what determines both our ideas and the world. From this startling a priori comes the corollary that when the soul changes or transforms, both our ideas (our philosophies) and the world i.e. the form of the world and our mode-of-existence in it transform. Not how does the soul change down through history but how does the soul change as reflected in historical movement--a totally different and radical view of history--soul as history, soul as historical movement itself, soul as determinative of our existence in the world, soul not as abstract concept conforming with some object in the world, but soul as living concept, just as Life is a living concept, not conforming to any one thing in the world but playing through and determining the life of each living thing.

So we can see here that Giegerich also answers the question of the `eternal' soul. Yes that idea was historically true, i.e. the truth belonging to a period of history. He demonstrates that the soul has once again transformed taking us and the world with it. The reason that we all feel the stunning absence of soul in the world today is that the living concept soul has transformed once again (roughly from the 19th century on), only this time it no longer reflects its life in any aspect of the substantial world as it once did (e.g. Medieval Philosophy regarded nature as text which could be read in order to discover truths of the soul etc.). Instead the soul has now entered and become the very form of consciousness that we are today--a radically new situation.

We have become in our depths, what we vainly seek in the world. The present "soulless" world is still ensouled because our present world and the form of consciousness that correlates with it are both products of the soul's latest transformation out of metaphysics and into positive-factuality.

To get anywhere near Giegerich's arguments I therefore believe the reader must throw overboard the universally accepted conception of history as a study over time of our human ideas about an unchanging world and also the reader must relativise the notion of an `eternal soul' to its appropriate historical context. If you can achieve these two acts of `kenosis', then I think you will find that What is Soul will indeed open up for you and become a living text that will inform you of the soul's truths, those of the past and those of today's modern existence.

 

[Soupie]

@smcder

Woodcock: [T]he most common idea of soul today is that of an `eternal' substance that may `show up' at various times of our lives (e.g. extreme situations) and which endures beyond our mortal death. This idea satisfies on two counts: we can draw comfort from the soul's presence at times when we feel utterly alone and we can go towards our death with some sense that it is not all over, which for many is a frightening prospect. ... [A] time where the idea of a soul as a eternal `help-mate' or `angel' still works for some, even if as a simple belief.

Interesting. That is not my conception of "soul." The following, from wiki, is more in line with my understanding of the concept of the soul:

The soul, in many religious, philosophical, psychological, and mythological traditions, is the incorporeal and, in many conceptions, immortal essence of a person, living thing.[1]

The former definition seems to equate all supernatural objects - soul, God, angels - as soul.

Woodcock: The soul is not an object of historical research the same way as other things in the world. Giegerich's starting point (his a priori) is that the soul is not a thing at all, it is what determines both our ideas and the world. ... Soul as history, soul as historical movement itself, soul as determinative of our existence in the world, soul not as abstract concept conforming with some object in the world, but soul as living concept, just as Life is a living concept, not conforming to any one thing in the world but playing through and determining the life of each living thing.

So how far are we to take the analogy of "soul" with "life." If I understand correctly, many philosophers believed at one time - and some may still of course - that living organisms contained a non-physical "energy" that imparts "life." This idea is no longer supported by consensus science. Now, life is viewed as a concept or a descriptor of certain states of matter. (Interestingly, describing when matter is "alive" can be pretty tricky: Are Viruses Alive? - Scientific American)

Woodcock: Instead the soul has now entered and become the very form of consciousness that we are today--a radically new situation.

We have become in our depths, what we vainly seek in the world. The present "soulless" world is still ensouled because our present world and the form of consciousness that correlates with it are both products of the soul's latest transformation out of metaphysics and into positive-factuality.

This, to me, is the most fascinating of all, and again I think it related to the belief that humans in the pre-Homeric era did not experience themselves as unified internal subjects of their thoughts and actions. (I'm still trying to wrap my head around that.)

In any case, humans seemed to experience "themselves" as one with reality. Or as they might have thought: one with God/soul. Even though they had thoughts, words, and language these were focused outward, not inward.

I'm reminded of what Jordan Peterson said about the ancient conception of God as being ineffable, thus they couldn't even speak His name. (But I'm confused about this idea of God being a personality, as opposed to a "source." Or did the ancients believe both?)

However, this ineffable source at times did differentiate into Gods and divine kings. And then there is the idea - I'm not sure when it arose - that the divine can dwell within humans. This is different from humans having souls. The Hebrews believed that humans had souls, but Jesus/the New Testament taught that the "Holy Spirit" could dwell within all humans - especially the meek and mild. That is, God himself can live within us.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 - Do you not know that your bodies are - Bible Gateway

19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?

[T]he soul has now entered and become the very form of consciousness that we are today...

Human life itself is divine. Special. The individual self, individual liberty, democracy, and many other things flow from this concept.

 

[smcder]

do a search for "Godhead" ... see also Underhills book "Mysticism" for the mystic'a relation to God personal and impersonal


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[Jeff Davis]

I have been interested in consciousness since I was about 6 years old due to a puzzling sensation that was routinely accompanying by what I call cognitive emergence. This CE consisted of relatively identical and pronounced thoughts that I would get associatively with this sensation. I would be in the act of playing as children do, or caught up in some other activity that I was invested in at the time, when all of sudden out of the blue I would get this feeling, this sensation of profound gratitude accompanied by the realization, "I'm really here, I made it" as if I had arrived at sentience's very front door or something.

1) - this is fascinating Jeff - especially the feelings of gratitude and arrival . . . is there any more you can say about the experience? Do you still have this or other experiences?

Strange, but in those moments as I was caught up in bewilderment I knew within myself that there existed a completed oneness of me, almost as if two became one. In reflection I see the "me" as a sentient signature within consciousness resulting in an awakening ID due to my budding cognitive abilities recognizing as much. I was experiencing a completed circuit of signified consciousness. I believe that this signature is actually acquired at physical birth when child is separated from mother.

2) By "awakening ID" I assume that is short for identification? And I'd like to hear more about the signature acquired at physical birth if you care to expand on this idea?

1) Once in a great while, rarely these days, I will get the sensation ever so slightly minus the child's thoughts/feelings. This "sensation", for which I am truly at a loss of words to describe, is something like deja vu, but there is nothing I recognize around me, nor is there any familiarity involved as if I had "been here, done that already". If I had to grope, or really reach for a description as to some type of orientation with respect for the feeling or sensation, I would call it a feeling of non-locality. Not in the specific sense that I became separate from my body and observed myself as is sometimes the case, but rather a feeling of oneness apart from this tactile existence. I must reiterate that this is assuredly a fleeting affair. Very quick even when I was a child, but absolutely and captivatingly so, unmistakable and very specific.

2) Yes, by ID I mean identity, and not the base psychology component that Freud described as being unconsciousness. This "signature" sounds mysterious, but it really is not in the least. I do not understand, nor do I know where this takes place. It may be a physical development within the brain itself. The newer imaging technology is stunning in terms of what it has revealed concerning the brain's ability to remodel neural pathways itself throughout our lifespans.

I believe that the scientific comprehension of this signature lies in the study of Moms carrying babies. When babies in the womb are studied in relation to Mom's behavior and emotional states, it becomes evident that Mom and baby, are at least for part of the journey, sharing the same signature.

To me, nature indicates that our very own nature is synonymous with what is our universe's most mysterious and intricate workings. I do not for one moment believe that what you see is what you get. Observation is a temporal illusion and science has more than amply demonstrated as much. To get at the "short" of it so to speak, I believe that we ourselves (the human consciousness experience) are superpositioned around the core of a singular consciousness mechanism. It is this natural configuration that creates the illusion of a temporally measured universe. There may be as many of these "cores" as there are individuals, or far more so likely IMO, there is just one and we all busy humming round the hive. The existence that we are experiencing is an organically bound temporal snap shot of one of those positions.

 

[smcder]

Interesting. That is not my conception of "soul." The following, from wiki, is more in line with my understanding of the concept of the soul:
The former definition seems to equate all supernatural objects - soul, God, angels - as soul.
So how far are we to take the analogy of "soul" with "life." If I understand correctly, many philosophers believed at one time - and some may still of course - that living organisms contained a non-physical "energy" that imparts "life." This idea is no longer supported by consensus science. Now, life is viewed as a concept or a descriptor of certain states of matter. (Interestingly, describing when matter is "alive" can be pretty tricky: Are Viruses Alive? - Scientific American)
This, to me, is the most fascinating of all, and again I think it related to the belief that humans in the pre-Homeric era did not experience themselves as unified internal subjects of their thoughts and actions. (I'm still trying to wrap my head around that.)

In any case, humans seemed to experience "themselves" as one with reality. Or as they might have thought: one with God/soul. Even though they had thoughts, words, and language these were focused outward, not inward.

I'm reminded of what Jordan Peterson said about the ancient conception of God as being ineffable, thus they couldn't even speak His name. (But I'm confused about this idea of God being a personality, as opposed to a "source." Or did the ancients believe both?)

However, this ineffable source at times did differentiate into Gods and divine kings. And then there is the idea - I'm not sure when it arose - that the divine can dwell within humans. This is different from humans having souls. The Hebrews believed that humans had souls, but Jesus/the New Testament taught that the "Holy Spirit" could dwell within all humans - especially the meek and mild. That is, God himself can live within us.

Human life itself is divine. Special. The individual self, individual liberty, democracy, and many other things flow from this concept.

many interesting ideas here - many conceptions of soul and spirit - Thomas Moore is a Jungian who writes on the soul - the concept of the soul Geigerich uses is transpersonal - the book review I posted made some sense to me. Soul has brought us here he says. Christ embraced Rome ... I want to explore that too .. but now in what do we ground the divinity of the human? we've already started tweaking the machine PEDs - strattera for academic performance steroids for cosmetic enhancement - coetic psychiatry ... one idea: what if we develop the ability to suspend mirror neuron activity? turn off our empathy chemically or with a magnetic field - to fire someone or have an affair or enjoy the depraved pleasure of the psychopath for one day? for a fee? when we have 9 billion? ten billion? how will we use them biologically? - but this is not far fetched - there are examples in mainstream media that offer something in the direction of this experience - a close friend confided part of him wanted to be Dexter. see the film Hostel - etc. go through the versions of the Most Dangerous Game ... there are many - see how the concept changes


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[smcder]

I will draw those threads together when I have done time


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[Constance]

finished with the Geigerich paper - yes I think this is what he means in a way - we move into a purely psychological state and participate in the scientific technological mode - the goal of therapy is not individual integration/healing

for most, nearly all people though, it seems to me this participation will be as a consumer, consumer-consciousness (our current fascination with zombies?) but Geigerich says this is where "soul" is going (at least in developed countries)

it reminds me of Nietzsche's "Last Man"

... curious what others thought?

I'm only halfway through Giegerich's "The End of Meaning." (I frequently grow impatient with his continual repetitions; he has badly needed an editor.) Steve, you're helping a lot by adding other texts and references to help us push through to what he's actually saying, which remains mysterious for me. His most recent book, so far as I know, is the one I ordered a year ago because its title interested me most -- The Soul Always Thinks -- and I have yet to devote much time to it. I think I should look into What is the Soul? first (thanks for the reference). I did come across a clarifying paper on Giegerich's challenge to archetypal psychology by another Jungian, Ginette Paris, linked below. She is not overwhelmed by Giegerich's challenge to Jungians but sees a way to incorporate logic and rationality into Jungian-based therapy, as I read her. Unlike Giegerich, she makes a lot of sense. I'm not sure I find Giegerich interesting enough to spend much time attempting to understand him. After reading extracts and links you've provided, I still have not seen G's attempt to link the 'soul' to life or consciousness. What then does he consider the source of 'soul'? How does it get into the world? If it's a Divine endowment of some kind, what has been the point of the endowment? What is the use of the soul if it provides no guidance in improving the terrestrial world but rather must become, like embodied humans, a victim of swift and mindless historical processes such as those we face today? I'll look at what google books offers from What is the Soul? and then find and read at least part of The Soul Always Thinks and report back if I gain any insight into what Giegerich thinks and on what intellectual bases he thinks it. I sense a system-builder in him, always a warning sign. Like anyone, he can't have investigated all prior thinking and writing and experience concerning 'the soul'.

http://jung2.org/ArticleLibrary/Paris_Giegerich-Hillman PGI2000.pdf

 

[Constance]

I've come across this discussion of Giegerich, which might be good:

Individuation as Living in the World

 

[smcder]

One has to wonder with Giegerich if he is motivated largely by "goat-getting" and tricksterism . . . but he argues his positions with conviction and relatively no sense of humor, so I suppose he means to be taken seriously. Still, I get the feeling that inside Giegerich's chest beats the heart of a mischievous child or imp. The dark puer, perhaps . . . which is (in my opinion) precisely what Jungians need to spark them into growth and adaptation.


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[smcder]

I thought that first post. was great - I don't take it they think G is up to all that consciously ... but that is even more interesting. -


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[Jeff Davis]

Sorry for the late response. The human unconscious is as topic as broad as cosmology, so I paraphrase based on my limited understanding. 1) Apprehending this is a bit like grabbing at smoke that we can see and smell, but whose pervasive shape is always changing and changed in the act of grabbing. I believe the unconscious was originally posited as an explanation for patterned choices and responses we make for reasons of which we are not aware, even after the fact. Perhaps it is an outgrowth or refinement of the arcane theory of our minds being a kind of infinite regression of homunculi inside our heads. This is an apt reminder that all science is mythology in constant refinement. At any rate, you would be correct in stating that it cannot be geometrically or mathematically mapped. It is yet another model produced by inference in observing human behavior.

I am reading over your statement about the organic temporal machine upstairs, and as understand it, see no contradiction between that and classic concepts of the unconscious. 2) I'm not quite sure what you mean my the "totality or expanse of our natural cognitive relationship to consciousness?" I would ask to what consciousness you are referring. I lean in a Jungian direction which sees our personal reality as a kind of floating iceberg with only the tip comprising our immediately accessible self-awareness, resting upon a dynamic personal process (filtered to keep us sane and functioning) which in turn floats on an ocean of infinite information we might dare call the universe. This a rather old and somewhat subjective model and I am probably mangling Jung here as well. But I think that anyone coming away smarting from a heated interpersonal argument will later wonder and be taken somewhat aback by things he or she may have said that have came seemingly out of nowhere, but were craftily targeted to injure. At least I know I have.

So I will lamely fall back on the computer analogy (a poor one since our minds are not so conveniently hierarchical) by likening what we see on our screens to immediate awareness produced by a vast underpinning of higher programming languages sitting on machine code, siting on logic states dependent on the 1 or zero status of logic gates which are in turn dependent on nuts and bolts sub-circuits made up of the most basic of simple components. So where does the information comprising the pictures on our screens actually reside? I would say in none and in all of these things, depending on what level on chooses to analyze. The real technological magic is taking place unseen. The analogy of mind as computer seems the best we currently have. But again, research indicates it to be innately inadequate and flawed.

We do things as individuals: make responses, choices and value judgements in ways that indicate a personal consistency and awareness regulated by a part of our minds of which we are consciously unaware. We demonstrate both "reflexive" real time, and complex calculated behaviors by means of processes of which the conscious "self" is largely unaware.

1) I just love the way you put stuff. IMO, it simply could not be put better. Whether referring to the paranormal or consciousness research, wow, how could one describe it any more so accurately with respect for the fascination's framework.

2) Oh boy, here comes MR. Hackittopieces and I do apologize in advance for my lack of knowing the right words to use. I can seemingly be mighty "out there" when in all reality I am standing right here on top of my twisted tongue. This totality or full expanse refers to what I believe is our non-temporally bound relationship with consciousness. The fullest extent of non-local awareness possible. I fully realize that it is not the ancient traditionally held view of the Akashic Record, but IMO, the same represents this "full expanse" or "totality" of our experiential relationship to consciousness as opposed to what is local awareness which is our individual time based consciousness experience. This is to state clearly, that via the medium of consciousness, we have access to ALL knowing. If I may again hackittopieces, I see individual cognition as being the unique portion of ourselves that makes up your personality and the rest of your individual fingerprint based upon it's interpretations. There is so much individuality in this bio-chemical, bio-electric, organic conglomeration that each of us are. In this sense, our unique cognitive interpretations formulate our personal experiences, but not in the sense that they "create" something out of nothing. Everything around us is 100% real.

However, if cognition is actually us, the individual, what the heck is consciousness? I am not sure, but I believe that it's alive more and more everyday and that we and it are integral with respect for what we call reality. We may be integral with respect to the composition of an overall organism. It seems to me that consciousness is a field state in which an informational universal memory exits.

The bottom line Boomerang is that I "see" this parallel in my mind's eye: We are a subset of operative parallels. We have individual physical cognition and memory which processes information directly via sensory input that is demonstrated and made known to us via experiential consciousness. IMO consciousness is the envelope that gives us the ability to operate physically in a universe that is informational in composition. The thing that "throws" us is time, however. This illusion is actually simple to see through, however extremely challenging to define in terms of the flow of process. The secret IMO is that there is no subconscious whatsoever, rather, we all have a universal informational collective available to us that we merely formulate to include a survival based relevance to ourselves. We are limited by the relevant physical, temporal access to our own memories. IMO, the subconscious is most likely universal consciousness, whose entrance is limited via the naturally displaced temporal adjustment of our physical existence. Possibly due to our physical existence's mortality based survival instincts, we find little critically mandated need or requirement for this non-temporal expanse of consciousness.

 

[smcder]

Possibly due to our physical existence's mortality based survival instincts, we find little critically mandated need or requirement for this non-temporal expanse of consciousness.

I think this us where the injunctions to not worry, not care for the morrow and lose your life to gain it - this doesn't guarantee physical safety, rather it is necessary to see more ...


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[Constance]

There are two more recent books by Giegerich than the ones we've looked at so far (and it turns out that What is Soul? is more recent than The Soul Always Thinks). His newer books published, respectively, in 2013 and 2014 are described at these amazon links as parts 1 and 2 of The Flight Into The Unconscious:

 

[Constance]

Myth and Mind
The Origin of Human Consciousness in the Discovery of the Sacred
Gregory M. Nixon


Abstract
"By accepting that the formal structure of human language is the key to understanding the uniquity of human culture and consciousness and by further accepting the late appearance of such language amongst the Cro-Magnon, I am free to focus on the causes that led to such an unprecedented threshold crossing. In the complex of causes that led to human being, I look to scholarship in linguistics, mythology, anthropology, paleontology, and to creation myths themselves for an answer. I conclude that prehumans underwent an existential crisis, i.e., the realisation of certain mortality that could be borne only by the discovery-creation of the larger realm of symbolic consciousness once experienced as the sacred. (Today we know the realm beyond our immediate senses as
the world
taught to us through non-sacred science). Thus, although we, the humans, are but one species among innumerable others, we differ in kind, not degree. This quality is our symbolically enabled (culturally constructed) self-consciousness – the
fortress of cultural identity that empowers cognition but also imprisons awareness."


Extract:
"The symbolic threshold is a departure from the concretehere-now world of perceptual response experience. Symbolism in this sense is always self-referential and does not merely reproduce an outer object within one’s mind. With what may be called the first leap of faith, symbolism provided the bridge to apperceive existence where and when it was not, in the strict sense, perceived. The point to be emphasized here is the gulf between ‘symbolic’ representation
(which copies or counts or refers to the actual environment) and symbolic
interaction (the liminal intersubjective‘space’ in which cultural worlds are created). The felt realisation that presences exist well beyond the duration of this moment or the space of current observation can be equated with the dawn of imagination — projecting (or receiving) symbolic images from invisible times and places. Thus, the symbolic is not representation but discovery — discovery of the imagined forms of mythic reality, still the core of human consciousness. The mythic and the sacred are thus the realising (the making real) of cosmos,
that is, the greater order of things, and the awful task of ascertaining our place within it. In any case, this is at least the thesis I am now setting out to build a case for."

"Myth and Mind: The Origin of Consciousness in the Discovery of the Sacred" | Gregory Nixon - Academia.edu

 

[smcder]

@Constance
@Soupie

I think we have a lot of good material here - one question I've always had regarding this:

"conclude that prehumans underwent an existential crisis, i.e., the realisation of certain mortality that could be borne only by the discovery-creation of the larger realm of symbolic consciousness once experienced as the sacred. (Today we know the realm beyond our immediate senses as
the world
taught to us through non-sacred science)."

why didn't we just adapt so this was no big deal? death? why the whole costly rigamarole? why didn't adaptation favor a more direct solution? maybe Geigerichs point is that it is working on it. although I suspect there have always been those tone deaf to any greater mystery - you live you die mired the pity but mores the reason to get on with it. but why this huge project? that's where mere fear of death as a monocausal explanation of religion and spirituality falls flat for me. where's the advantage in expending the enormous cost to build the pyramids? doesn't the ultimate advantage always go to the barbaric? well no - many obvious counter examples come to mind - and Geigerichs story comes out of Nietzsches idea that Christianity inverted mAster slave morality to its ultimate advantage converting the Roman Empire in the process




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[smcder]

but why not cull out those finer sensibilities in the first place? or did cultural adaptation outstrip biological and the "just so story" just is the one we get? but epigenetics and other mechanisms of rapid evolution call that into question.

but now that we are where we are - what story supports the continued divinity of humanity? on what foundation? do we will it so while we still have wills? is this the meaning behind the esoteric? behind restricted knowledge? did you ever learn anything you wish you hadn't? once one person ever did - the whole ethic had to convert to completely unrestricted knowing ... (see Shattuck Forbidden Knowledge) there should be a formula of population/resources -> value of individual life ... planet wide we are there ... this isn't a case of local overflow spurring Exodus, the stars aren't in reach - and even if the planet could hold 20 billion were still there now - if the starving masses mattered we'd have done something more the whole structure would be different or no? I. think we've arranged things quite cunningly so it IS a mess exactly the kind of mess that only continued progress can get us out of ...


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[smcder]

the surplus those without sufficient food/water are part of the machine - the messy part but now fine tuned and no way to clean it up without stopping the engine ... and each individual us given the out that it doesn't make any difference or the argument that the best way out is through - and this is the dual prong of German philosophy - misery (schopenhauer) to mania (Nietzsche) resolved through pure intellect (Kant/Hegel) that's awfully sloppy work on my part but it gets us to Geigerich and how we make meat sacred? a new Eucharist based on DNA isn't compelling ... Cosmos isn't compelling no matter how often Dawkins tells me of the awe in the natural world - it's a question of there being nothing behind it - look at that incredible diffraction pattern! etc if Geigerich is right there's no inventing new Mythos for the sophisticated and soul brought us here ... so do we'd have the new species of consciousness to thrive that you mentioned Soupie? perhaps z man machine hybrid and then those who never lost the sacred (fundamentalism is thriving - Christian, Islam and Hindu)

Heidegger at the end of his life in an interview with Der Spiegel that only a god can save us now

nur noch ein Gott kann uns retten

but do we have any ideas left that are big enough? this is all still
within Nietzsches forecast of life without God (I wonder if there is a guide that species get when this happens - a saucer comes down and they leave a book: So Your Gods are Dead - 50 Creative Responses from All Across the Universe) - Geigrich offers a path, or a temptation - phenomenology gives us access to another kind of Inness - and contemplative traditions offer a way to bring the Emissary back under the Masters control ( don't forget McGilChrist - I think he holds a large piece of it)

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[Soupie]

@smcder

I think we have a lot of good material here - one question I've always had regarding this:

"conclude that prehumans underwent an existential crisis, i.e., the realisation of certain mortality that could be borne only by the discovery-creation of the larger realm of symbolic consciousness once experienced as the sacred. (Today we know the realm beyond our immediate senses as the world taught to us through non-sacred science)."

why didn't we just adapt so this was no big deal? death? why the whole costly rigamarole? why didn't adaptation favor a more direct solution?

Funny. I was going to quote the same lines and I had the same question.

But I had a different thought: Telesis. Why evolve this ability to fear our own death? No, it doesn't seem adaptive. Either there is a trickster guiding us there and beyond on purpose, or it is a byproduct. A byproduct of the ability to use symbolic thought and language. But what an awful, amazing byproduct.

Was it on PEL that they were talking about the invention of the car being oh so much more than the invention of a way to get from point A to point B. It changed everything. We want telesis, we want meaning. But can it be that the evolved ability to mentally represent-create objects/concepts with symbols ultimately led to the "discovery-creation" of self and death of self?

 

[smcder]

Funny. I was going to quote the same lines and I had the same question.

But I had a different thought: Telesis. Why evolve this ability to fear our own death? No, it doesn't seem adaptive. Either there is a trickster guiding us there and beyond on purpose, or it is a byproduct. A byproduct of the ability to use symbolic thought and language. But what an awful, amazing byproduct.

Was it on PEL that they were talking about the invention of the car being oh so much more than the invention of a way to get from point A to point B. It changed everything. We want telesis, we want meaning. But can it be that the evolved ability to mentally represent-create objects/concepts with symbols ultimately led to the "discovery-creation" of self and death of self?

I just remembered there is a beautiful description of this awakening in Dandelion Wine -


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[Constance]

. . . This totality or full expanse refers to what I believe is our non-temporally bound relationship with consciousness. The fullest extent of non-local awareness possible. I fully realize that it is not the ancient traditionally held view of the Akashic Record, but IMO, the same represents this "full expanse" or "totality" of our experiential relationship to consciousness as opposed to what is local awareness which is our individual time based consciousness experience.

This is so clearly said that I finally understand what you've been saying when you refer to "our experiential relationship to consciousness." I didn't see that you were referring to our being part of consciousness in general. (Pls correct me if I don't follow you correctly now.) We are individually and collectively connected to a holographically integrated (and continually added to) record of all conscious (including subconscious, unconscious, supraconscious) experience that takes place in the universe. Quantum physics tells us that all information is permanent, does not escape the universe, and indeed constitutes the universe in its physical integrity and expansion. As I see it, the most profound entanglements formed in our own experience as individuals issue from our intersubjective relations with others, weaving a fabric of personal bonds that cannot be broken or dissolved even by physical distance or bodily death. Our consciousnesses survive as intricately interwoven holistic information produced in and out of our individual experiential lives on earth. Everything we feel and think and do remains part of what each of us is and is involved both with those closest to us and with our species' development as a whole. Our souls are apparently indestructible and, indications are, continue to evolve once out of the body.

This is to state clearly, that via the medium of consciousness, we have access to ALL knowing. If I may again hackittopieces, I see individual cognition as being the unique portion of ourselves that makes up your personality and the rest of your individual fingerprint based upon it's interpretations. There is so much individuality in this bio-chemical, bio-electric, organic conglomeration that each of us are. In this sense, our unique cognitive interpretations formulate our personal experiences, but not in the sense that they "create" something out of nothing. Everything around us is 100% real.

I think we need to refer equally to our prereflective experience -- which occurs in daily experience throughout our lifetimes, is precognitive, and gives way to reflection and thinking. Reflection and cognition always follow prereflective experience, which is the site at which consciousness emerges from nature and can be understood to exist in a 'chiasmic' relationship with nature as described by Merleau-Ponty in his late.

However, if cognition is actually us, the individual, what the heck is consciousness? I am not sure, but I believe that it's alive more and more everyday and that we and it are integral with respect for what we call reality. We may be integral with respect to the composition of an overall organism. It seems to me that consciousness is a field state in which an informational universal memory exits.

It seems to me that cognition {thought, values, ethics} are the highest achievements of consciousness but that they don't account for all of what consciousness is. To understand consciousness I think we need to understand it in its evolution from protoconsciousness {the sense of self/nonself beginning in the single cell as shown by Maturana and Varela and called autopoesis} and from there explore qualities of consciousness as identified in Evan Thompson's enlightening book Mind in Nature: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind, which I'm reading again after several years and highly recommend. {see link below}

The bottom line Boomerang is that I "see" this parallel in my mind's eye: We are a subset of operative parallels. We have individual physical cognition and memory which processes information directly via sensory input that is demonstrated and made known to us via experiential consciousness. IMO consciousness is the envelope that gives us the ability to operate physically in a universe that is informational in composition.

It seems to me you are trying to integrate your own ideas about consciousness as founded in experiential presence to the sensible, palpable, world we live in locally with the worldview implied in Tononi's IIT and by others in computer science and neuroscience who think of consciousness as no more than an information processing system, a computer in which 'information' is abstract and digitized, not sensed, felt, endured, enjoyed, and ultimately problematized by mind {consciousness at its peak operation studying itself}. In the view exemplified by Tononi, there seems to me to be no place for the 'sacred' or any structure of meaning outside the physical exchange of data. We more than process information existing in the physical universe; we realize the actuality of our existence as part of nature and capable of standing several degrees apart from nature in our efforts to understand it. Indeed, we "world the world" in MP's phrase, and, in your thinking and mine, we are open to more of the world than that which meets the eye, more than is simply visible.

.The thing that "throws" us is time, however. This illusion is actually simple to see through, however extremely challenging to define in terms of the flow of process. The secret IMO is that there is no subconscious whatsoever, rather, we all have a universal informational collective available to us that we merely formulate to include a survival based relevance to ourselves. We are limited by the relevant physical, temporal access to our own memories. IMO, the subconscious is most likely universal consciousness, whose entrance is limited via the naturally displaced temporal adjustment of our physical existence. Possibly due to our physical existence's mortality based survival instincts, we find little critically mandated need or requirement for this non-temporal expanse of consciousness.

Re 'time', it's a problem for physicists these days, but some of them and also some philosophers concerned with understanding consciousness recognize the reality of temporality as experienced time, not just for human consciousness but for processes in life and also in physics. Temporality is inescapable in the "lived world" as described by phenomenology. It led to Heidegger's 'being towards death' as a core element of Dasein. It founds the importance of existential philosophy as a way of coming to terms with the limits of mortal existence and meeting the challenge of how one should therefore live in the recognition and construction of value, that of other persons and animals, of the ecology on which all life depends, of the economic and political problems that must be resolved in the interests of more than mere survival for our species and others. Our temporality sets prominent boundaries for us as we live these embodied lives, but it appears that we also receive (and throughout our short history have always received) information from beyond the limits of own situated temporality -- through seers, prophets, mediums, NDEs, remote viewers, past-life regressions, reincarnation cases, and our own occasional precognitive insights. At a subliminal level, we might carry a sense of the cosmic time (or larger temporal extension) of our own consciousnesses with which we are connected through the subconscious and collective unconscious. It seems that we are not limited in what we are able to learn from the varieties of information we receive in this world to only information serviceable to our own personal or species survival, and this underscores the uniqueness and significance of embodied consciousness and mind -- the means (through processes we don't yet understand) by which we sense what-is in the local world and what might be beyond its apparent horizons. .