Physicalism Redux

That is what I would consider a truly extensionless Monad. I'm not sure whether it would be inert in casual efficacy, but might not be perceivable... though, then again, I am uncertain what a Monad would be with everything temporary stripped away. Maybe it could be perceived by other Monads, but be... dormant or still or something.

A field is perhaps a form, as it has extension and is limited in scope? Fields don't really have points of origin, as far as I am aware ~ maybe physical fields do, but with mental fields, the origin seems to encompass all of it. As for being omni-extended across all of reality... it would cease to be a perceivable field, and perhaps no longer a field at all. It would just be one with all of reality, perhaps?

Well... minds do have structures within them. Even we take our own mind for examples. It has structures, though they are entirely unlike physical structures in quality. As for souls ~ I guess they choose their structures and forms, according to their whims and interests, probably able to choose any structures or forms they desire.

As for being everywhere... well... maybe nowhere in particular? But I'm not sure whether that makes it any clearer... actually, it would require knowing more about the nature of the more fundamental reality, spiritual or otherwise.

I think a Monad is still indivisible ~ it can just do anything within itself that it wishes, while simply being the space within which it can all happen. A sort of... Pluralism within the Monism that is the Monad / Soul / Mind, where everything is just composed of that Monad's essence.

We experience an apparently external world that appears extended, so we perhaps project those qualities on the perceived external world?

So it would seem... maybe we have an intuitive understanding that there is something incomprehensibly vast and unknowable that simply appears infinite, so we end up all just believing in it in one sense or another?

That makes sense.

Ah... sounds similar to Kant's noumena, which in turn sound rather similar to Jung's Archetypes and Plato's Forms. Which does seem to imply that despite the names we give to these primal, unknowable forces, they have an existence beyond our comprehension. We just know of them indirectly. Perhaps it is the stuff of the Designers / Souls / Seities / etc. Stuff that is at the very basis of Creation itself that is simply far too rich in detail and potential to even begin to comprehend. They would appear also infinite ~ to manifest certain potential? In the sense that the incarnate mind, the Jungian psyche, can have near infinite variation, but still follows very clear themes and definitions.

Worth a read at some point. Cheers.

I think a Monad that perceives has to have active qualities, as any perception in some sense is reaching out to grasp that which is beyond itself. And to be perceived it has to be able to accept perception, since to be perceived is to accept some qualities that mark anything as being perceived are communicated to the perceiver.

This makes it difficult to think that a Monad is ever isolated, or at least to me it does.

I am also not sure if fields can be said to have a form. Perhaps if they are limited in size, but it’s not clear Psi has those limits and mystics who claim to achieve unity with Everything definitely seem to believe their embodiment was - at least temporarily - infinite.

Now if we are both Cosmically Immense, Infinitely Sized Souls….can we maintain our distinction? I think this is where the qualities of being a Person come in, because our perception and our focus of attention will shift and differ. Perhaps this may be why such vast entities would even seek out embodiment, in order to individuate?

For me Structure means some kind of measurable arrangement. So I don’t think myself as a Mind has any parts that can be arrange[d]. I mean my love is not the same as my fear, but I don’t think there is a Fear Gear or Love Web inside me? There’s no real way to cut out Love or Fear from my Person in the way you can easily identi[f]y and remove a piece of a computer?

I think our attention can be no Where in particular, but this suggests that we are Everywhere? I agree the truth of this probably requires us to no longer be embodied in this world with these biological bodies.

I think a Person is indivisible, but it is difficult to reconcile the Person with the extended world. Again the easiest “out” seems to suggest the world just *is* experiential through and through…though it’s not clear this answers the question of whether Persons have to be embodied. All to say it’s not clear Idealism - or Phenomenalism - offer clarity on whether it makes sense for there to be disembodied Minds [or if Persons have to embodied in some way].

I like the idea of there being a connection between Kantian Noumena, Jungian Archetypes, and Platonic Forms…If I understand you the idea here is that there are aspects, perhaps even entities, whose reality we need to make sense of how the world is but can only conceive these transcendent aspects of reality by way of how a limited part of them impinges on our experience?

And you are also suggesting that we are perhaps these entities ourselves?

[Laird]

So if I understand this correctly, the mind is objective and the experiences, thoughts, and so on it has are subjective.

And by objective - to put it in as metaphysically neutral terms as possible - we mean there is agreement about what is experienced, and additionally there’s some expectation of causality - that the objective can also produce new experiences that will also be part of the consensus.

So then what is subjective is what is not agreed upon by the consensus & cannot directly produce these new experiences within the consensus. 

That's in the ballpark, but here's how I prefer to frame it in the context of this exchange:

The "subjective" is that which exists only in experience, or, in other words, that which exists only as experienced (and by "in" I of course don't mean to imply extension via inner and outer parts; it's just the most apt preposition to use here).

The "objective" is that which exists regardless of whether or not anybody is experiencing it (so, not necessarily entailing agreement about it, except perhaps ideally, for "perfect" observers, and also not necessarily even possible to experience nor necessarily causally efficacious - consider, for example, a parallel universe in a multiverse but without conscious entities within that parallel universe).

So, yes, the mind is objective.

Also, to clarify - although at the risk of confusion! - experience has both subjective and objective senses. The subjective sense is that of, e.g., the imagined triangle and cube as (being) imagined; the smell of the incense as (being) smelt; etc. The objective sense is that according to which the experiencer is experiencing whatever (s)he is experiencing (the triangle; the cube; the smell of the incense; etc) regardless of anybody else's experience (of that experiencer's experience).

It's in the objective (outer) sense - absent its subjectivity; absent its interiority - that experience can't be smelt and doesn't have extension.

It's strangely difficult to express all of this even though it's very clear to me conceptually. I don't think it's particularly profound - it even seems mundane - which is why it's additionally perplexing that it does seem to be so challenging to convey to you. I hope that it makes sense at last.

I would agree that you cannot smell my experience of smell….

Good. Do you see that by the same sort of thinking, just as experience can't be smelt, experience can't be extended?

but I am not sure this means that the smell of incense is not within my experience.

Hmm. I'm not saying that it isn't though. The smell of incense is within your subjective experience.

Maybe, though, by "within" your experience you mean something different, sort of like Rupert Sheldrake's idea that vision, for example, is not solely receptive but also directed outwards, perhaps in a field-like manner; you might be suggesting that in a similar sense, the smell of the incense "out there" is really contained within your outwardly-directed field of smell which encompasses the "out there" odorous world.

Perhaps what is objective is - to put it in phenomenologist terms - the possibility to provide the experience I have when one smells incense?

Yes, that seems like a fair alternative way to define objectivity.

I think a Monad that perceives has to have active qualities, as any perception in some sense is reaching out to grasp that which is beyond itself.

@Valmar - Actually I guess you can perceive that which is thought of as "part" of your Self. Even if we separate the body from the Experiencer, we would probably at least include their capacity for perception...you can "perceive" your sense of sight by knowing that you see maybe?

It does seem to get quite tricky when we start getting into these hypothetical scenarios involving meta-cognition, possibilities of Cosmic Immensity, etc...

I think a Monad that perceives has to have active qualities, as any perception in some sense is reaching out to grasp that which is beyond itself. And to be perceived it has to be able to accept perception, since to be perceived is to accept some qualities that mark anything as being perceived are communicated to the perceiver.

That's the thing I'm unsure about ~ does it have to be so? Does being perceived, in whatever manner, mean that you have to be aware of being perceived?

This makes it difficult to think that a Monad is ever isolated, or at least to me it does.

I meant that a Monad could choose to be, if it so wished. But it's just a thought experiment that arose from this video ~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5Dz8UzFNwQ ~ where the guy talks about having had his humanity fully stripped away, and being left with the sense that he was an existence-in-isolation. I suspect that I have extrapolated that maybe too far beyond that, out of too much curiosity, heh.

I am also not sure if fields can be said to have a form. Perhaps if they are limited in size, but it’s not clear Psi has those limits and mystics who claim to achieve unity with Everything definitely seem to believe their embodiment was - at least temporarily - infinite.

That's what I consider a form to be, I guess ~ a limitation of infinity, where that finite existence has a particular set of perceived qualities that distinguish it from other things. In a mystical experience, perhaps it makes more sense to conclude that they temporarily united with their soul, which was perceived to be the godhead? I'm just guessing, because it seems to me that Souls themselves are but aspects of the Godhead / Infinity / Source ~ in the sense of being a facet on a metaphorical infinite jewel. It would be impossible perhaps to distinguish between the soul proper, and the perception from the incarnate personality side that it was the Godhead they united with, if temporarily.

Now if we are both Cosmically Immense, Infinitely Sized Souls….can we maintain our distinction? I think this is where the qualities of being a Person come in, because our perception and our focus of attention will shift and differ. Perhaps this may be why such vast entities would even seek out embodiment, in order to individuate?

It would seem that way to me. A Cosmically Immense, Infinite Soul would effectively have no identity, so perhaps that is why they seek embodiment, even if it can only happen through a fragment of itself going through that process. Perhaps it gives the Soul an anchoring to focus on. And if the Soul can have multiple embodiments... maybe the Soul seeks individuation through experimenting with what is of interest to it, what resonates with it?

For me Structure means some kind of measurable arrangement. So I don’t think myself as a Mind has any parts that can be arrange[d]. I mean my love is not the same as my fear, but I don’t think there is a Fear Gear or Love Web inside me? There’s no real way to cut out Love or Fear from my Person in the way you can easily identi[f]y and remove a piece of a computer?

No, there isn't, as far as I'm aware. The Mind doesn't have "parts" in the sense that it is composed of something else ~ the Mind is more a ground of being in which it originates things of interest.

I think our attention can be no Where in particular, but this suggests that we are Everywhere? I agree the truth of this probably requires us to no longer be embodied in this world with these biological bodies.

What does it mean to be "Everywhere" in an infinite Reality, I wonder? We clearly can't encompass Reality... but the microcosm of our Soul is potentially infinite in scope, within itself. Our dreams can be infinite in scope ~ even if our bodies are not. But where are our minds? Are we simply within our mindscape? Minds aren't physical or astral, but they seem to have infinite potential under the right circumstances, as in a mystical experience where the mystic feels themself expand to what appears to them to be infinity.

I think a Person is indivisible, but it is difficult to reconcile the Person with the extended world. Again the easiest “out” seems to suggest the world just *is* experiential through and through…though it’s not clear this answers the question of whether Persons have to be embodied. All to say it’s not clear Idealism - or Phenomenalism - offer clarity on whether it makes sense for there to be disembodied Minds [or if Persons have to embodied in some way].

Does embodiment have to mean having a physical form? What is the limit or definition of the word "world" here? Does it include just the physical, or the astral and higher spiritual realities as well? Is the Soul an "embodiment", if it can be distinguished? Or the Soul simply the pure Mind, in which case it would transcend embodiment?

I like the idea of there being a connection between Kantian Noumena, Jungian Archetypes, and Platonic Forms…If I understand you the idea here is that there are aspects, perhaps even entities, whose reality we need to make sense of how the world is but can only conceive these transcendent aspects of reality by way of how a limited part of them impinges on our experience?

It would seem that way to my understanding. I would consider many of these to be simply aspects of the incarnate psyche, all of them collectively shaping the world over time, like many interweaving threads in a tapestry, from animals (including us) to plants to fungi to bacteria to planets to star, and maybe even more.

And you are also suggesting that we are perhaps these entities ourselves?

Not so much that as these entities, aspects, are part of our (human, in our case) psyche ~ the Anima / Animus, the Shadow, the ego, etc. They would appear to be more like patterns that we embody and then shape into our own style, individuating ourselves from the collective unconscious patterns that originated our human psyche ~ transcending the collective unconscious by consciously integrating these aspects stably, though not the archetypes themselves, just their contents. Though that appears to take lifetimes.

But... I could always be wrong or incorrect or have an incomplete perspective...

But, that's what philosophy, dialogue and wrangling over words and definitions is all about, I suppose ~ seeking a clear perspective through the seeming maze... maybe that is the purpose of myth, in part...

Now I'm just rambling, so I'll pause here, heh.