What knowledge mysticism provides?

[Tournesol]

I'm afraid I have no interest in this sort of argument. It is perfectly obvious that you do not know whether consciousness is a late arrival in the universe or whether it is not.

Do I know whether or not here are
invisble fairies ? Do you ? The same
epistemology is involved either way.

It is also perfectly obvious that there is no 'scientific' (naturalistic) way to test whether it is or not. What experiment would you perform to determine the answer?

The answer to what ? To whether rocks and clouds
of gas respond to their environment ? That one's
pretty easy.

Or an answer to whether there are invisible fairies.
Well, you can't test that ...because they're invisible.

Is that a good reason fo believing in them ?

Why not just accept you don't know? This is all I'm suggesting.

I have already accepted I'm not certain. Why don't you accept
that I can have a overwhelming weight of evidence that fall
shsort of complete certainty ? Why don't you accept that such
a weight of evidence is all you ever have in sceince,
so there is no more of a case for asserting incorporeal
consciousness than for denying evolution.

 

[Pythagorean]

As far as manipulating matter and energy, well you won't receive much knowledge in physics or increase your sense of logic! Both of these things (including dreaming) are the brains interpretations of the unknown.

I think manipulating matter and energy can be done easily without a physics education.

For example, if you hear a hippie (mystic) martial artist say his punch come up through Earth through his foot into his waste, and explodes out of the end of his arm with his fist, then you may very well laugh,

Physcially however, it has been shown that that's exactly where a martial artist's power and energy come from. (They actually hooked a whole bunch of karateka's up to sensors and ran a series of tests to monitor muscle use.

When they punch, the push first with their heel, into the ground, and as the muscle tension travels up your leg and into their waist, they twist their hip into the punch and the arm flies out explosively; they've put their whole body into, pushing off of the normal force of the ground.

I think it's silly when Physicists try and tell a martial artist that he doesn't know what he's talking about. Even though the martial artist is using a different dialect to explain what he's experiencing, he still has an idea of force and acceleration, and torque, just not mathematically.

I would imagine it's no different for the relationship between mystics and scientists.

 

[PIT2]

You guys keep taking "consiousness" to mean "phenomenal consciousness". There is an Easy Problem as well.

Yes we are talking about phenomenal consciousness and the hard problem. If I've understood the mystical view correctly, they agree with science on the easy problems. That is: all the other aspects of our mind that separate us from other conscious animals can be traced back to our bodies.

 

[Pythagorean]

Yes we are talking about phenomenal consciousness and the hard problem. If I've understood the mystical view correctly, they agree with science on the easy problems, that is: all the other aspects of our mind which separate us from other conscious animals can be traced back to our bodies.

I agree. Even Bruce Li (who held a philosophy doctorate, believe it or not) claimed that you must be physically healthy and fit to become mentally healthy and fit.

 

[Tournesol]

Yes we are talking about phenomenal consciousness and the hard problem. If I've understood the mystical view correctly, they agree with science on the easy problems. That is: all the other aspects of our mind that separate us from other conscious animals can be traced back to our bodies.

So the "guess" that scientists are illegitimately making is
that the HP aspects of consc. stand or fall with
the EP aspects. Just because all the subjective and
objective evidence suggests exactly that.

 

[Mickey]

More successful in what way?

More successful in letting us succeed at the things we want to do, like curing diseases, for example. One might argue that mystically driven alternative medecine also cures diseases, but no where near the success rate of other approaches.

 

[Psykostx]

In response to pythagorean,

I sure do agree with you. But, martial artists don't learn martial arts from mysticism. They actually learned from ancient "physics" passed down from generation to generation. Like I said, you can really use mysticism to explore how your body relates to its environment and vice versa, but that's not neccessarily knowlegde. You can't learn calculus by meditation or psychadelic drugs. You can however develop emotional concentration and determination, as well as diminish anxiety. These things may help you acquire a thirst for knowledge, but they certainly don't insert it into your brain. As a matter of fact, evidence and personal experience suggest quite the opposite! Tryptamines can turn a computer science major into a burger flipper in less than a year (not me but a few genius friends of mine). I'd imagine being on a mountaintop with no social interaction for the same amount of time could equally dull your cognitive abilities.

 

[Pythagorean]

In response to pythagorean,

I sure do agree with you. But, martial artists don't learn martial arts from mysticism. They actually learned from ancient "physics" passed down from generation to generation. Like I said, you can really use mysticism to explore how your body relates to its environment and vice versa, but that's not neccessarily knowlegde. You can't learn calculus by meditation or psychadelic drugs. You can however develop emotional concentration and determination, as well as diminish anxiety. These things may help you acquire a thirst for knowledge, but they certainly don't insert it into your brain. As a matter of fact, evidence and personal experience suggest quite the opposite! Tryptamines can turn a computer science major into a burger flipper in less than a year (not me but a few genius friends of mine). I'd imagine being on a mountaintop with no social interaction for the same amount of time could equally dull your cognitive abilities.

But that's the different between mysticism and academic physics. Mysticism is about directly experiencing life, through a purely intuitive state of mind, physicists check themselves against their intuition

I'll admit that the later generations of karateka's perhaps learned most of their knowledge through rote (by what they're told and shown) but so are the majority of physicists nowadays. The actual pioneers of both physics and martial arts, however, differed greatly in their techniques for discovery.

 

[PIT2]

So the "guess" that scientists are illegitimately making is
that the HP aspects of consc. stand or fall with
the EP aspects. Just because all the subjective and
objective evidence suggests exactly that.

Mystical experiences do not suggest exactly that. All that mainstream scientists do is believe that their metaphysical assumtion is a fact (yes there are plenty exceptions, but the prevailing view is as uve described it), and then dismiss or ignore the bucketloads of evidence that directly challenges this view.

However, I am glad u agree that the mainstream science view is a guess, many would not even consider this.

 

[Canute]

PIT2 - Yes, you're right about the esoteric view of functional consciousness. It is this form of consciousness which by analysis and meditative practice is shown to have only a dependent existence, much as neuroscientists conclude. In this view the world has three aspects, the physical, the psychological and the phenomenal.

 

[PIT2]

PIT2 - Yes, you're right about the esoteric view of functional consciousness. It is this form of consciousness which by analysis and meditative practice is shown to have only a dependent existence, much as neuroscientists conclude. In this view the world has three aspects, the physical, the psychological and the phenomenal.

Im confused about one thing now though, u spoke of that some individuals will escape the cycle of life/death, while others wont. Doesnt this mean that after death there is still something left of a persons organism-ego as it existed during their life?

After all, there needs to be something that separates one persons fate(escape cycle) from the others(stay in life/death cycle) according to that idea.

 

[Tournesol]

The question is how many bucketloads of evidence
the bucketloads actually are. How many feet of shelf-space
are actually occupied by the evidence for incorporeal consciosuness ?

 

[PIT2]

The question is how many bucketloads of evidence
the bucketloads actually are. How many feet of shelf-space
are actually occupied by the evidence for incorporeal consciosuness ?

It would be useless to start discussing this evidence here, because it would end in a discussion over the theories science uses to explain them. But we can agree that any theory on phenomenal consciousness arising from the brain is speculative. The theories do not touch the core assumption, but reason from it.

 

[Tournesol]

But we can agree that any theory on phenomenal consciousness arising from the brain is speculative.

Any theory on phenomenal consciousness not arising from the brain is speculative.

Labouring mightily to estabish that your oponents theory
is less than certain does nothing to establish that yours is any
better.

 

[Canute]

Im confused about one thing now though, u spoke of that some individuals will escape the cycle of life/death, while others wont. Doesnt this mean that after death there is still something left of a persons organism-ego as it existed during their life?

After all, there needs to be something that separates one persons fate(escape cycle) from the others(stay in life/death cycle) according to that idea.

I'm not qualified to answer this but can say a couple of things. First, it is said that what passes from one life to another is not our self or ego. That would die along with our body or, rather, it never existed in the first place. Second, what is at work here are purely deterministic forces or principles (there is no great Judge in the Sky making decisions about where we end up).

When the sages advise us to die before our death this means, I think, that we should die to the part of ourself that dies on our death and by doing so awaken to the part that does not. The part that does not die would be not an individual 'soul' of which ours is one particular instance. It would be singular, a single phenomenon in which we all partake.

Thus when Schrodinger writes that the plurality of souls is an incoherent idea he is not suggesting that death is a full stop, he is suggesting that the part we all share is singular as opposed to plural. To put it theistically, as he does in places, he is proposing that we are God and God is One. However, this is only true for us if we realize it. If we do not then we will miss the boat when we die and (in some sense) return to have another go.

Buddhist writers say that there is a sense in which what returns is the same person but in a sense it is not. Along with all writers on this subject they say that this is something that can only be understood in practice. If it is not known in practice then we are speculating, which they regard as rather a waste of time. My faltering waste-of-time speculation is that what passes from one life to the next is a set of impressions made on an underlying continuum of consciousness/Being. This is a guess, but it seems to be close to what is usually said about this.

 

[Pythagorean]

\
When the sages advise us to die before our death this means, I think, that we should die to the part of ourself that dies on our death and by doing so awaken to the part that does not. The part that does not die would be not an individual 'soul' of which ours is one particular instance. It would be singular, a single phenomenon in which we all partake.

That's one of the better ways I've ever heard it worded. "A single phenomenon in which we all partake".

Good post, Canute.

I think it's important for people to remember that we're physically made out of stuff that has been around longer than our self-consciousness has. Since matter/energy is neither created or destroyed, it is recycled.

 

[Canute]

Thanks. Good point about energy. It appears that the net energy contained in the universe is zero, so score one to the mystics again.

I expect the moderators are getting restless so I'm going to drop out of this one before they strike. When I get around to it I'm going to request a new category for such discussions. You never know. The problem here is that it is (quite rightly) impossible to speak freely on the topic.

Bye for now
Canute