Dualism or idealist monism as the best model for survival after death data

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In the Google group thread that Laird posted earlier, he defined Titus's objection to the notion of a unified larger mind thusly:

Titus argues that a single self can by definition, and analytically, only be associated with a single stream of phenomenal experience, and because noetic monism, to which Bernardo's idealism conforms, entails that a single self undergoes multiple streams of phenomenal experience simultaneously, noetic monism is false.

A happy synchronicity... which is admittedly influenced by the youtube's algorithmic calculations of what interests me and the types of videos I listen to recently. This video started playing automatically just now following the last one I've listened to. I was in the other room listening to it while doing a task, and then came to the computer to see the title.

"How Can Consciousness Have Multiple Experiences at Once".



The audience member who is questioning Rupert Spira is arguing, in his own experience, from the standpoint of Titus's point of view. Rupert brings some arguments to consider whether an individual mind can have two different phenomenal experiences simultaneously. E.g. the example of a pianist playing two melodies simultaneously, or how I am aware simultaneously of both my visual and my auditory experiences.

(I've just started listening to it. I recognize Laird's objection goes further into how can a unified mind hold "conflicting" perspectives simultaneously.)

Titus argues that a single self can by definition, and analytically, only be associated with a single stream of phenomenal experience, and because noetic monism, to which Bernardo's idealism conforms, entails that a single self undergoes multiple streams of phenomenal experience simultaneously, noetic monism is false.

That may be true, if we're thinking about Self in the sense of the ego-self / mind / what-have-you as we know and understand it. We only experience one stream of phenomenal experience. Even the contents of our subconscious and unconscious are part of that stream, regardless of whether we are conscious of them or not.

But... a Universal Self / Mind... why would it have to conform to such limitations? The macrocosm of a Universal Self... its scope is infinite and boundless, therefore it logically encompasses everything, including all individual Selves that exist and experience the world.

Therefore, Titus's argument would be invalid.

Actually... what about Dissociative Identity Disorder? People who supposedly have different personalities that swap in and out, each having their own memories, personalities, and even allergies, according some stuff I've read... there was one supposed case I recall of someone who's personality swapped during an operation, and that personality happened to have an allergy or something, which was consequently triggered... I'll see if I can find whatever post that was. I have a really bad habit of not keeping tabs on this kind of stuff. :|

That may be true, if we're thinking about Self in the sense of the ego-self / mind / what-have-you as we know and understand it. We only experience one stream of phenomenal experience. Even the contents of our subconscious and unconscious are part of that stream, regardless of whether we are conscious of them or not.

But... a Universal Self / Mind... why would it have to conform to such limitations? The macrocosm of a Universal Self... its scope is infinite and boundless, therefore it logically encompasses everything, including all individual Selves that exist and experience the world.

Therefore, Titus's argument would be invalid.

I have considered the Ur-Mind/God/Mind@Large/whatever-we-call-it is a special case, but I feel this is just making a claim without anything to back it up save for assigning this Mind@Large some special properties we can't actually justify...

Even with DID, it seems there is a single locus of control, a single PoV, at any particular time? Also telepathy seems to give us a different person's PoV without the frame of the telepath's PoV?

The flaw here, I believe, is the idea there is just a Single True Subject which implies we are just illusions in some sense. There's still room for other kinds of Idealism, and definitely space for a variety of Neutral Monisms.

More & more I'm coming around to the idea that maybe every conscious entity has always existed and will always exist. I don't doubt there are problems with this idea (like infinite regression) but given nobody has a good account for how conscious entities come into being...maybe they don't, instead the correct answer is they have always been around incarnating over & over?

(I believe Buddha even said the origin of souls is inscrutable, and Plato seemed to believe something similar when he said Learning is Anamnesis - the Loss of Forgetfulness?)

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Actually... what about Dissociative Identity Disorder? People who supposedly have different personalities that swap in and out, each having their own memories, personalities, and even allergies, according some stuff I've read... there was one supposed case I recall of someone who's personality swapped during an operation, and that personality happened to have an allergy or something, which was consequently triggered... I'll see if I can find whatever post that was. I have a really bad habit of not keeping tabs on this kind of stuff. :|

Yes, research on DID is what Bernardo uses in part to speculate that analogously all selves are "alters" (split personalities) dissociated from the One Mind.

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Even with DID, it seems there is a single locus of control, a single PoV, at any particular time? Also telepathy seems to give us a different person's PoV without the frame of the telepath's PoV?

I wonder if Bernardo would dispute that with the research he frequently cites for his dissociation of consciousness theory (?).

Like here:

So what do we know about the dream life of a human DID patient? Can the patient’s different alters share a dream, taking different co-conscious points of view within the dream, just like you and I share a world? Can they perceive and interact with one another within their shared dream, just as people can perceive and interact with one another within their shared environment? As it turns out, there is evidence that this is precisely what happens, as research has shown (Barrett 1994: 170-171). Here is an illustrative case from the literature:

The host personality, Sarah, remembered only that her dream from the previous night involved hearing a girl screaming for help. Alter Annie, age four, remembered a nightmare of being tied down naked and unable to cry out as a man began to cut her vagina. Ann, age nine, dreamed of watching this scene and screaming desperately for help (apparently the voice in the host’s dream). Teenage Jo dreamed of coming upon this scene and clubbing the little girl’s attacker over the head; in her dream he fell to the ground dead and she left. In the dreams of Ann and Annie, the teenager with the club appeared, struck the man to the ground but he arose and renewed his attack again. Four year old Sally dreamed of playing with her dolls happily and nothing else. Both Annie and Ann reported a little girl playing obliviously in the corner of the room in their dreams. Although there was no definite abuser-identified alter manifesting at this time, the presence at times of a hallucinated voice similar to Sarah’s uncle suggested there might be yet another alter experiencing the dream from the attacker’s vantage. (Barrett 1994: 171)

Taking this at face value, what it shows is that, while dreaming, a dissociated human mind can manifest multiple, concurrently conscious alters that experience each other from second- and third-person perspectives, just as you and I can shake hands with one another in ordinary waking life. The alters’ experiences are also mutually consistent, in the sense that the alters all seem to perceive the same series of events, each alter from its own individual subjective perspective. The correspondences with the experiences of individual people sharing an outside world are self-evident and require no further commentary.

From Bernardokastrup.com, "The many in our dreams", Oct 13, 2019.

I have considered the Ur-Mind/God/Mind@Large/whatever-we-call-it is a special case, but I feel this is just making a claim without anything to back it up save for assigning this Mind@Large some special properties we can't actually justify...

"God" has all qualities and properties, being the superset encompassing all of reality and existence, so to speak.

Even with DID, it seems there is a single locus of control, a single PoV, at any particular time? Also telepathy seems to give us a different person's PoV without the frame of the telepath's PoV?

Perhaps.

The flaw here, I believe, is the idea there is just a Single True Subject which implies we are just illusions in some sense. There's still room for other kinds of Idealism, and definitely space for a variety of Neutral Monisms.

I don't believe that a Single True Subject would render the different streams to be "illusions". They would all be real by virtue of them being experienced.

Though, I don't perceive "God" to be akin to a "Subject". The idea of "God", to encompass all of reality, existence, and every concept and idea contained within... must therefore transcend any particular idea or concept, as it is all ideas and concepts, and yet, also more than that collective. "God", therefore, cannot be identified as a subject, as "God" could therefore not also be a not-subject.

More & more I'm coming around to the idea that maybe every conscious entity has always existed and will always exist. I don't doubt there are problems with this idea (like infinite regression) but given nobody has a good account for how conscious entities come into being...maybe they don't, instead the correct answer is they have always been around incarnating over & over?

(I believe Buddha even said the origin of souls is inscrutable, and Plato seemed to believe something similar when he said Learning is Anamnesis - the Loss of Forgetfulness?)

I'm quite comfortable with the idea that every conscious entity has always existed and will always exist. I'm not referring to incarnate physical entities, rather just souls.

I wonder if Bernardo would dispute that with the research he frequently cites for his dissociation of consciousness theory (?).

Like here:


From Bernardokastrup.com, "The many in our dreams", Oct 13, 2019.

This seems there are at least two subjects with their own PoVs as alters?

Or is the idea that the underlying mind is framing the dream? But why can't that dream be a co-creation of the alters themselves?

The issue isn't that that minds can't co-create their environment or even that there is a Mind that contains all the alters. I just don't think there is any Mind experiencing all the alters' 1st person PoVs *as* 1st person PoVs.

"God" has all qualities and properties, being the superset encompassing all of reality and existence, so to speak.

Perhaps.

I don't believe that a Single True Subject would render the different streams to be "illusions". They would all be real by virtue of them being experienced.

Though, I don't perceive "God" to be akin to a "Subject". The idea of "God", to encompass all of reality, existence, and every concept and idea contained within... must therefore transcend any particular idea or concept, as it is all ideas and concepts, and yet, also more than that collective. "God", therefore, cannot be identified as a subject, as "God" could therefore not also be a not-subject.


I'm quite comfortable with the idea that every conscious entity has always existed and will always exist. I'm not referring to incarnate physical entities, rather just souls.

While still largely agnostic toward "God", I'm pretty much cool with all of this as possibility, with the exception of the Single True Subject.

I guess to me if one person is carrying another, you have two separate people where one person is helping the other. But if there's only a Single True Subject, doesn't this mean both people are actually One? This seems even more stark when one person is attacking/hurting the other?

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I've been Googling nonduality and near-death experiences and came up with this very interesting find:

It's a full, 300+ page doctoral thesis (2021) by Monika J. Mandoki in Canada called Are Near-Death Experiences Veridical? A Philosophical Inquiry that is fully available to read as well as downloadable.

It's a study of veridicality in NDEs in the light of idealism. I've just perused it and it appears to have loads of interesting commentary and analysis that relate directly to this thread. At first glance, she seems to have keen insights into the key features of NDEs and how they fit or don't fit various idealist philosophies.

Here's the abstract:

This project is a philosophical investigation into near-death experiences (NDEs). It attempts to
answer the central question: Are near-death experiences veridical? The aim of my work is to
defend the veridicality of near-death experiences within the framework of idealism. However,
this aim is not achieved simply by adopting an idealist standpoint. Instead, I present arguments
for the reason this idealist standpoint is necessary. First, I argue that the traditional way of
assessing near-death experiences is often oversimplified and carries an unnecessary bias in
favour of a materialist interpretation, which eventually sets it up for a failure to demonstrate that
an afterlife state can exist. Once this materialist bias is examined, I make an attempt to level the
playing field, so to speak, to see where this equal level can take the discussion. Ultimately, I
argue that it is best to fit all evidence and arguments into a theory that best explains near-death
experiences; and, the theory that best explains these experiences is philosophical idealism. At
the end, I provide examples of this theory and also a synthesized version of the best imaginable
theory to show in what way(s) these idealist theories can explain near-death experiences and in
what way(s) near-death experiences can be demonstrated to be veridical in nature.

She seems very knowledgeable, in detail, about the the field of NDE research, and she's got great analysis in the last section of several idealist philosophies, from ancient times (Advaita Vedanta, Plotinus) to recent/contemporary idealists that I wasn't aware of, like John Foster and Imants Baruss (her thesis supervisor). (No mention of Bernardo .)

Here's just a sample:

This lengthy exposition has provided some ideas that can satisfy the demand for an
idealistic theory that can fit near-death experiences into it. All idealistic theories examined have
fairly well-developed visions and can fit many elements of near-death experiences into them. Of
course, some have philosophical problems with their structures, some have problems with their
theories on dying and death, some have problems fitting in certain elements of near-death
experiences and some have the combination of all these problems. It seems that all can use some
help. However, if one wishes, with the proper dedication, each can be fixed in order to properly
accommodate near-death experiences.

The Advaita Vedanta that Śaṁkara develops and Plotinus' theory suffer from a structural
weakness that has an effect on the fate of individuals beyond death. Ramanuja points out in
relation to Śaṁkara's theory that consciousness needs a persistent subject, otherwise change is
not possible. Something has to be persistently present in order to be enlightened and liberated.
If this is the case, the persistent subject can never be assimilated into Brahman, which questions
the ultimate goal of reincarnation and state of existence for the liberated after death. The same
objection applies to Plotinus' idea about the soul in relation to The One. The soul needs to be
persistent in order to change but this change prevents it from returning into The One. This
structural weakness can be remedied though. It can be argued that the persistent subject exists
until liberation only. In fact, the act of liberation into Brahman or into The One frees the subject
from persistent existence and from its very state of subjectivity. This way, the persistent subject
is present to change, but upon changing, its subjectivity ceases. Thus, the ultimate goal of
reincarnation can remain the assimilation into Brahman or returning into The One, and
experiences of enlightenment such as that of Anita Moorjani's can be defended as part of the
liberation process. (...)

I'd say this sounds like a key read even for committed dualists who are interested in studying philosophical approaches to NDEs.

I've been Googling nonduality and near-death experiences and came up with this very interesting find:

It's a full, 300+ page doctoral thesis (2021) by Monika J. Mandoki in Canada called Are Near-Death Experiences Veridical? A Philosophical Inquiry that is fully available to read as well as downloadable.

It's a study of veridicality in NDEs in the light of idealism. I've just perused it and it appears to have loads of interesting commentary and analysis that relate directly to this thread. At first glance, she seems to have keen insights into the key features of NDEs and how they fit or don't fit various idealist philosophies.

Here's the abstract:


She seems very knowledgeable, in detail, about the the field of NDE research, and she's got great analysis in the last section of several idealist philosophies, from ancient times (Advaita Vedanta, Plotinus) to recent/contemporary idealists that I wasn't aware of, like John Foster and Imants Baruss (her thesis supervisor). (No mention of Bernardo .)

Here's just a sample:


I'd say this sounds like a key read even for committed dualists who are interested in studying philosophical approaches to NDEs.

It's a little late for this topic, but it just came to my attention, and I am annoyed, amazed and puzzled. The author says in her introduction,

...This project is a philosophical investigation into near-death experiences (NDEs). It attempts to

answer the central question: Are near-death experiences veridical?

This doctoral thesis looks at least on the surface to be an incredible flight of academic arrogance. Mandoki apparently is gratuitously assuming that only philosophy can decide the veridicality of NDEs, and inherently dismisses and ignores the painstaking, careful and thorough actual physical investigations by many NDE researchers over the years that have conclusively verified that many elements in NDE accounts closely correspond with what actually happened in the physical world, while the NDEer was completely incapacitated, often even with a nonfunctioning physical brain. Information about the actions and identities of the doctors treating the NDEer's body (and other goings-on) that was completely unavailable to the NDEers through their normal senses. And this is also the case for other areas of NDEs, such as Mandoki's inherent dismissal of the similarly researched and investigated NDEer accounts of having met and communicated with the spirits of deceased loved ones that they (the NDEers) didn't know had passed. 

This research and these investigations in themselves prove the veridicality (that is, the truth or the correspondence with reality) of many NDEs. We don't need Idealist philosophy to decide on the veridicality of NDEs - just careful investigation in the physical world.