(2024-02-17, 05:20 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: [ -> ]On physical qualia, technically there are no such things, since qualia by their very nature are immaterial perceptions, experiences in awareness. Of course, in body, physical things engendered these immaterial qualia. However, the discarnate NDE OBEr is still perhaps experiencing the color red quale for instance, and hears a voice, another normally physically caused immaterial quale. As I have explained, I think this is really direct psychic sensing having no interaction, combined with a subconscious "translation" of that psychically derived information into physical Earth perception format, accomplished because that is what the human NDEr entity has been accustomed to for a lifetime.
Is it not simpler for it to be a one-way direct sensing of the physical?The disincarnate NDE OBEr is in a higher state, so they're able to still experience physical visual and auditory qualia, but because they have no functional physical shell, they cannot interact very easily with the physical, if not at all. I am unsure if there are any examples of NDE OBErs being able to affect the physical world rather than merely perceiving it, so that's why I am uncertain.
So, I agree with you on this point. It seems logical enough. Neutral Monism and Idealism have no trouble with this point. It is to be expected with predicted different neutral or mental substances like physicality.
(2024-02-17, 05:20 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: [ -> ]As to the need for a common medium for this physical/spiritual/mental interaction, that need does not seem to me to be necessary, because the very high "powers that be" that designed and emplaced this system simply by fiat (your "Divine Providence"), decreed by fiat that interaction between the two fundamentally existentially different substances could in fact still occur, but only in certain particular cases (especially embodiment). The most important such special case is embodiment and physical interactional experience on the Earth, since that is the basic purpose of the whole system. This is simply the way this reality is set up by decision of a higher power.
Direct psychic sensing of configurations of reality was decreed by fiat to be without interaction, whereas physical perceptions while embodied were established as requiring a certain special form of mental/physical interaction primarily in the brain. This embodiment interaction in turn requires a very extremely complicated neural receiver/transducer apparatus, the overall function of the billions of neurons and trillions of synapses organized into the multiple coordinated and specialized neural structures of the brain.
I really have to question where there is a seemingly ad hoc need for a Divine Providence to make Substance Dualism workable through decree by fiat, when it's really just simpler to have Divine Providence as the Neutral Substance who then created the existences of physicality and mind, then allowing mind the capability to interact with physicality, albeit only effectively and efficiently through attachment to an appropriate physical medium.
With Neutral Monism, you can logically have both Idealism and Substance Dualism rolled into one, albeit in different forms than classically envisioned.
(2024-02-17, 05:20 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: [ -> ]In principle this is analogous to the simultaneous existence of gravity as extremely successfully explained by general relativity, and subatomic interactions, extremely successfully explained by quantum mechanics, despite these two systems being fundamentally incompatible. Just the way things were established - by fiat by a much higher power and intelligence regardless of human desires for logical consistency.
It is also analogous to the obvious "fine tuning" of the enormously complex laws of physics for the existence of life. This beginning origin of the detailed nature of our reality must have been in the design and creation of the system by an inconceivably intelligent and powerful Being or Beings, by intentional purposeful fiat.
I'm not sure any of this can support the rather frail logic of how two entirely different base substances can interact without a common medium, raising endless questions of how they can ever logically interact in any sense. Appealing to decree by fiat through Divine Providence just seems rather odd, anyways, because that just implies Monism ~ a Creator who is neither mind nor matter. It's not even a leap to just assign that Creator as the Neutral Substance of Neutral Monism. Maybe even as the Absolute in Objective and Absolute Idealism.
(2024-02-17, 05:20 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: [ -> ]Your picturing of the human person as really being the "Earth avatar" of the immortal Soul which has a very much higher consciousness, is certainly possible and may well be true, but we should be aware that this also has the significant downside in that it makes the human person to be only very tangentially and subtly also the Soul being.
In my model, only a portion of Soul incarnates into the physical form, as a Soul is much too vast to fully inside such a limited scope of existence.
(2024-02-17, 05:20 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: [ -> ]How then can the human validly visualize him/her self as being his Soul? This is evidenced by the fact that the human person would never make the very common between-lives (Soul?) choices that ensure great suffering by that human person in the next life. This also appears to make survival and the afterlife somewhat less reassuring and meaningful, since apparently what survives is a mostly different being than the human, the soul. I certainly hope this somewhat bleak conclusion is invalid for some plausible reason.
The Soul is fully aware of everything that its incarnate aspect goes through, so it can see everything that the incarnate aspect cannot. It experiences every joy and sorrow its incarnate aspect does ~ as it is that incarnate aspect, albeit the incarnate aspect is unable to sense or know that. The veil of forgetfulness appears to be a consequence of incarnation ~ a function of such an intimate interaction with physicality.
The Soul is sometimes misleading perceived as being uncaring and cold, but that is anything but the case... the Soul knows what it needs, which is why it seeks particular experiences that are only truly understood in context when the dissociation from the whole dissolves. Only during incarnation is the incarnate aspect of Soul unawares and anxious, but that the veil of forgetfulness is also part of being able to grow ~ to fill the cup, you must first empty it...
If we remembered our past lives and our Soul memories, we could not grow or forge new insights, as we'd be too influenced by those memories and experiences. So, the Soul has an opportunity for growth through fresh experience, even if it is painful ~ not just for the incarnate aspect, but for the Soul in full.