The soul, suffering, healing, learning, and spirituality [Night Shift split]

Isn't this like asking how a person can be separate from their car?

Neutral Monism isn't denying a soul/body distinction, it's saying both the soul and the body are made of the same ultimate "stuff".

Admittedly the discussion of "substance" is itself a bit confusing here, because we often demarcate substances by their causal interactions. Yet it seems that what we have in this reality is varied characteristics of stuff that interacts via different rules.

For example, when a person able to do PK moves something with their hand & arm it seems to be different than when they move it with their mental effort. Yet there do seem to be some parallels here. Similarly when you see with your subtle body (soul), it has to be work different than when you see via your physical eyes but the result seems to be similar.

For Dualism you have to posit more and more ad hoc rules to try and account for these different yet parallel situations, which ultimately leads to the conclusion that there is some greater, more transcendent substance that makes up the spiritual and physical domains. Which is just Neutral Monism in actuality with a Functional Dualism.

To make this even "worse", there are aspects of mind that are arguably wholly "immaterial" - one of the important ones being the fact that physical stuff has no intrinsic meaning yet a thought about something is intrinsically about whatever you are thinking of. For example a picture of a tree could be interpreted as some alien animal, or turned upside down so its branches can now be a family tree. But a thought of a tree is always just that.

Another are the mathematical and logical truths, which we clearly interact as humans to apply the sciences and give them value. But they also are mental, and apparently exist in a way divorced from space & time in that their truths don't change in the way material things change nor do they have any real spatio-temporal location. One can add other Universals to maths & logic, in fact noted atheist Bertrand Russell thought colors were also Universals.

I don't think we can simply posit a new substance to deal with that which is immaterial, but whatever makes up reality does have to take account that which is immaterial in a philosophical sense along with the parapsychology data + data from mainstream sciences (biology/chemistry/physics). Neutral Monism of some kind *seems* like the best bet though this a term that encompasses a lot of possibilities.

Indeed, it makes sense to me that the physical is derivative from the non-physical ~ but not in the sense we understand mind. It requires an existence, a beingness far beyond what is known to us. Something the religious might call deities. Something Animist and Shamanic cultures might call spirits ~ though they have a vast "hierarchy" of spirits, depending on the culture. In some cases, a spirit will be vastly more powerful and so higher in the "hierarchy" than another ~ those are usually classed as creator spirits in some terminology or another.

Having encountered an entity whose scope of existence is far beyond my comprehension, I can begin to understand these concepts. Using religious terminology for the sake of "hierarchy", you could consider the creator spirits to be "arch-angels", which is a grossly inaccurate term, but it should paint some sort of really vague picture.

They cannot be fundamentally separate if the disincarnate NDEr is able to experience physical qualia like sight and hearing still. My problem is that fundamentally separate substances simply cannot interact without a common medium.

You have posited the idea of divine providence allowing for such interaction before, yes? There's your neutral substance in this example ~ the source of that divine providence, which created mind and the physical world, along with their capability to interact, albeit in very particular ways.


You're making the mistake of thinking that the physical form is part of the person's nature ~ it's not, not fundamentally. It's more like an avatar that the incarnate soul seems to require to be able to experience properly in this reality. That is, this reality is properly known and experienced through the limitations and filters imposed by experiencing through the reality filter the physical form imposes as part of incarnation.

The physical form is partially molded, and fully animated by the incarnate soul throughout incarnation, but the incarnate soul is not the physical form. The experiences the incarnate soul has through the physical form are not the physical form's, because the physical form has no innate life, will or existence ~ those aspects belong purely to the incarnate soul that is animating the physical form. We may leave imprints upon the physical form, but it is still not what or who we are in any sense of the word.

I hope this offers some answers.

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. 

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. 

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.

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. 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.

Direct psychic sensing of configurations of reality was decreed by fiat to be without interaction

But how could this "by fiat" be accomplished? If it is simply an act of will that directly impacts reality it seems Idealism must be true?

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.

We've no idea how fine tuning was accomplished. The lack of perfection and the Problem of Evil suggest the designers were not capable of making a perfect reality, or even an overall pleasant one. The vastness of cold void suggests either a lack of concern or perhaps a genuine limitation in their abilities.

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. 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.

It seems to be the case that souls don't always get a choice in what happens to them. CORTs definitely suggest that choice is only a partial factor.

As for the me who exists here being possibly substantially different from the "Real Me"....for better or worse this seems to likely be the case. But this also seems to be what I would expect if in the afterlife I am able to remember the experiences of many, many lives stretching across eons...

But how could this "by fiat" be accomplished? If it is simply an act of will that directly impacts reality it seems Idealism must be true?


We've no idea how fine tuning was accomplished. The lack of perfection and the Problem of Evil suggest the designers were not capable of making a perfect reality, or even an overall pleasant one. The vastness of cold void suggests either a lack of concern or perhaps a genuine limitation in their abilities.

Except if this is a 'training reality'. I have written about this before, but I really think there is an analogy between deliberately exposing yourself to extreme discomfort and danger by climbing a mountain and other such activities. People call it 'Character Building'!

It seems to be the case that souls don't always get a choice in what happens to them. CORTs definitely suggest that choice is only a partial factor.

Agreed!

As for the me who exists here being possibly substantially different from the "Real Me"....for better or worse this seems to likely be the case. But this also seems to be what I would expect if in the afterlife I am able to remember the experiences of many, many lives stretching across eons...

This concept - strange though it is - comes up over and over again in the literature.

As to being able to reflect back over large numbers of lives, it is interesting that we have an ability to learn from a large number of examples and keep what we have learned but discard the memory of all the individual cases. For example, we all learned to drive, but we have kept much of the information we learned in the lessons and subsequent driving experiences but not the explicit memories.

Considering specific phenomena such as CORT's seems to me to be MUCH more valuable than haggling over philosophical concepts such as Neutral Monisms.

Finally, I had to spend some time to remind myself what CORT stands for. I think it would be great if this forum had an explicit acronym glossary.

David

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Do you think there is any point to all this learning? Is there an ultimate realm where the soul remains eternally a soul and can combine and use all of its learning or does it just keep on incarnating and learning indefinitely for no purpose?  The human population is growing rapidly so are new souls created from new bodies?  If not, where do they come from?

Do you think there is any point to all this learning?

Yes. I feel like I can say that with more certainty now, after some of my rather profound spiritual experiences on Ayahuasca where I was shown some past lives and then had my current self compared to those past lives as a commentary that I've made a significant amount of progress from being far more rigid and anxious to having become much less so.

Is there an ultimate realm where the soul remains eternally a soul and can combine and use all of its learning or does it just keep on incarnating and learning indefinitely for no purpose?

The Soul is both in the Soul realm, and in this one. A whole Soul is much too vast to be contained in a limited physical form, so only a portion of Soul incarnates, to grow and learn, while the rest of the Soul is also out in the Soul realm, doing whatever Souls do. Souls can multitask without a problem, apparently. But I am not capable of reaching anywhere close to that. I don't think I could, not while incarnate. Not sure what the point would be, when there's always just waiting until after my body dies.

The human population is growing rapidly so are new souls created from new bodies?  If not, where do they come from?

Souls reincarnate ~ all of the time. Souls can have multiple incarnations simultaneously ~ but I've only experienced that in the sense of the other incarnation being in a parallel reality. I have no idea whether there can be multiple incarnations in the same reality. Maybe.

As for where they come from ~ reality is infinite, God is infinite, so there are infinite Souls. There's no "resource limit" in the context of non-physical reality. There's just... infinite expression. And I'm only vaguely aware of this, having encountered some stuff that still baffles me, because I have no reference point in this reality to compare it to.

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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.

The "veil of forgetfulness" would seem to prevent learning by the human, not enable growth, since for the human there is little or no accumulation of wisdom painfully acquired in past incarnations. Wisdom requires having the accumulated collective partial memory of a large array of past experiences, good and bad so as to know from experience what is good and works, and what is bad and doesn't work.

But each current human incarnation has to mostly learn the same lessons all over again. Such a system would seem to be extremely inefficient and unfair to the human, but can be understood if as you imply, it is the Soul that does the learning, a mostly different and vastly greater being (essentially another distinct being) that has total recall of all the previous incarnations, and has all the time in the worlds to achieve greater wisdom (so it doesn't care about inefficiency). 

So in this model the Soul, unlike the human, can truly learn from past mistakes and successes. Unfortunately this scheme is profoundly unfair to the human due to the human not being his soul in any humanly meaningful way - which is mainly due to the no memory of past lives issue and to the lack of participation in future life planning issue. But what is, is, and we have to accept it. It was established by powers vastly greater than our own.

I would even go farther and suggest Survival seems to be a natural phenomenon.

This isn't to discount the evidence of Cosmic Fine Tuning, but just as a city can become part of the wild landscape so too could the universe and even larger segments of reality be designed yet now left to some natural order. There could be some Ur-Mind behind all realities but I don't know if It has plans or interests...perhaps Narratives and unfolding Story?

What seems to be most important to me is the question of what is it that actually survives long term in survival and the afterlife. As I implied in the previous post, logic at least (which may be sadly limited), implies that what actually survives long term is the vastly different and greatly expanded Soul consciousness, not the human person that we instinctively identify with.

What seems to be most important to me is the question of what is it that actually survives long term in survival and the afterlife. As I implied in the previous post, logic at least (which may be sadly limited), implies that what actually survives long term is the vastly different and greatly expanded Soul consciousness, not the human person that we instinctively identify with.

I don't know if it is "vastly" different in a Total Recall sense, but it seems the soul is accumulating experience over a vaster time scale.

Could I be a much more evil being at the soul level than I am here? It doesn't seem to work that way, though I suppose it could be possible.

Unfortunately it isn't even clear everyone incarnates from the same place to here, or departs from here to the same place.