A Singular Reality

For the longest time, mystics have made the naïve error of assuming that mind and matter constitute two separate substances. "As above, so below", in a sense, expresses the confusion of this thinking - when perhaps "as without", "so within", might have been a more accurate description.

But the issue I really want to mark out is not semantics - people may still use the above phrases without necessarily implying that the mind can survive death, yet, still, this naïve fantasy has persisted for a long time, probably because the brain and the body weren't understood in any substantial way.

Camelo Castillo's book Origin of Mind seems to slam a pretty strong nail in the coffin with the idea that the "spiritual world" is some place anywhere else besides the confines of our skulls - our grey matter.

As I've often emphasized, an advancing ontology, or set of phase shifts in the evolutionary process, always follow a building up of symmetry dynamics between points of matter. To "matter", is to be made real. All things that are real are material, which is to say, emerge through a stable symmetry building process where one thing complements another thing in a nested like structure that grows larger and larger. The quark, the nucleus, the atom, the molecule, the cell - these are the points which "contain", as it were, the orientation and behavior of the activity of the energetic transformations.

Now, imagine a creature with 50-75 trillion cells, 86 billion of which are neurons, and the biggest of these neurons themselves composed of 100 billion interacting molecules. Can you recognize the complexity of such a creature i.e. the Human being?

Since at least Plato, the delusion has been: there is a "receptacle" which "receives" the form of the ideal. This, of course, is a sad little fantasy that can no longer be justified in light of the modern sciences: reality is granular, and accretes through processes of symmetry. Therefore, and quite simply, material dynamics self-organize into "substantial" forms, meaning that form and substance are two sides of the same coin: you can't have one without the other.

Aristotle pointed this out long ago, but people still held to their fantasies.

So what is the relation of relevance when we talk about matter and spirit? What is spirit, given we can say that matter are points of substance in physical space? I think spirit, in effect, constitute "gestalts" of meaning which, as per Jung, have taken on archetypal forms in the human brain-psyche (they can never be thought apart again given symmetry theory).

So when a mystic turns inwards into himself, and no longer relates within himself in terms of a 'singular' relation, but seems to take mind of the relations in between the parts, is this not then the "yin" to the normal awareness of our interpersonally embedded "yang"? I think this might ultimately end up constituting the explanation for what 'spirit' is, and best of all, it will no longer entrain all of the rest of reality into subjective solipsistic fantasies of the human, which is to say, the 'spirits' that work within a humans mind are necessarily derivatives of interpersonal connections and relations from his own life, and perhaps, the 'ancestors' which preceded us, may be found 'within' our structure as well.

The point to be heeded here is that the feats of human awareness i.e. astral travel, etc, are extensions of a potency that is present within the biological structure of the human brain-mind. With death - goes the 'double', and any idea of their being anything more after death appears to warrant a far simpler, psychodynamic explanation - or lawfulness - which obtains in human minds that have recorded much 'asymmetry', and so, pain that needs to be defended against: wishfulness.

Humans and the objects of our mind are in a relationship, and the 'spirits' which mediate that relationship appear to be nothing more than self-organizing vectors that operate between the points - or relevant object relations - set up by our living and being in the real world, and then in our thinking minds which reflexively reflect on the feelings that are produced.

Life, in this way, appears to be full of a great deal of illusions, and hence, it might be coherent to heed the oracles words: "know thyself". But knowing thyself is insufficient, because we are formed by our relations with others. In order to know yourself, you have to know how the other affects you, and so, to know yourself entails knowing the other - to be happy entails understanding the things that structure you.

Trying to "game the system" is a delusion that will ultimately prove to be the person gaming his own self.

Of course, I don't think anyone truly understands how reality works - and this, what I write, is a theory based upon solid evidence. But - beware simplistic claims, especially those not correlated with evidence from the empirical sciences! Fantasies in unequal societies like ours are endlessly produced, because the external conditions keep producing feeling-conditions that correlate reality in incoherent ways, or, because truth is necessarily related to equality (i.e. symmetry), to pretend you have 'truth', despite holding to an elitist philosophy, is just a demented mind-game.

Hmm . . . .

Hmmmm . . . .

I wonder . . . .

Is there a section in science that deals with how we interface with the world?

The actual mechanism of mind rather then the passive sensory interfaces such as eyes and ears.

There is a look that can be seen between two lovers that is a lot more then two passive interface.

I am trying to not invoke a paralel with the matrix view. However, the people who created Unix (computer scientists) knew a lot about how the human mind works. Especially networking.

There is a whole world of interfacing out there

a reply to: Whatsthisthen

Music would be an example of interfacing and improvising with other beings. I don't know if you consider it science but some might.

a reply to: Wateraven

A musician or a classical composer probably would.

In the 60's and 70's the book was Paramahansa Yogananda "the autobiography of a yoga" Books and authors come and go, enlightenment is in one's own mind. If it is for sale in some fashion, it's likely for public consumption. That is to say a commercial venture.


Trying to "game the system" is a delusion that will ultimately prove to be the person gaming his own self.
A lifetime of awareness is the only 'Fact' you will achieve. Spend your time wisely.

originally posted by: Astrocyte
Camelo Castillo's book Origin of Mind seems to slam a pretty strong nail in the coffin with the idea that the "spiritual world" is some place anywhere else besides the confines of our skulls - our grey matter.

We are the Universe's way of experiencing itself. We are made of the very substance we are experiencing. In terms of our understanding of the substance, it seems nature always turns out to be much stranger than anything we could have ever imagined. Now matter how hard we try, understanding the full nature of the substances seems like it's always one step away from our full comprehension. I think this means something important and deeply spiritual. Or ontological if you want to just use words. At the smallest measurement of the substance of our minds, waves and particles are ambiguous. I think the core of our minds is deeply connected to the deepest parts of the cosmic energy wave. Who we are and what our minds truly represent cannot be fully expressed with mere particles of words and language.

So I think it is also delusion to think we could ever actually fully understand how reality really works. Our words and language are representations of reality. Our words and language will never be the reality they represent. So it is delusion to think you will ever "know" for certain.

If you believe in the Many Worlds theory of quantum mechanics, the mind of God is composed of an infinite number of space-time dimensions where every possible quantum state is realized and expressed. Taken collectively, the mind of God represents a single point of everything and nothing at the same time.

a reply to: Plotus

I never really got into what Yogananda was selling.

a reply to: Astrocyte

You may be misunderstanding the use of the word "mind" in this context. Mind does not equal spirit. Mind relates to sentience; spirit relates to energy. The former is the capacity to be aware and thinking, whereas the latter is an entity's footprint in the cosmos.

Also, how could evidence of life after death ever be proven using the scientific method? It couldn't because the way we collect and test energy is restrictive. I doubt any type of "strong evidence" would convince you anyway. Anything other than this physical reality is just fantasy, right?