Edges of WINTER daylight. 0809 to 1558
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Neutral Monism
Neutral monism has a fascinating history, from Mach and Chancey Wright (b. 1830 in Northampton MA, where I happen to live) through William James, the American New Realists, including E.B. Holt and Ralph Barton Perry, many of them very much Harvard figures, Bertrand Russell, from 1919 to 1927, to Moritz Schlick and A.J. Ayer.
There is a slightly overlooked aspect to the view that fits in with the post-Hegelian preoccupations of the time. Here are a few lines from Chauncey Wright’s Philosophical Discussions:
Our own mind is not “first known as a phenomenon of the subject ego, or as an effect upon us of an hypothetical outward world, its first unattributed condition would be, by our view, one of neutrality between the two worlds.” Rather, “The distinction of subject and object becomes … a classification through observation and analysis, instead of the intuitive distinction it is supposed to be by most metaphysicians.”
The neutral monist wants us to start with neutral data, some of them having to do with the objects of sense, such as colors and sounds and so on. But also included by neutral monists such as Mach are times and pressures! This sounds odd, but it is really a testament to Mach’s powerful philosophical naiveté. The naive approach paid off well for him in science too, and he was sensitive to things that other researchers missed or did not notice. An example is Mach bands. Mach’s photography of the shock wave shows the same cheerful empirical spirit. Another fine example is the difference in appearance of shapes under rotation. An eighth rotation of a square makes the horizontal distance across the square narrower, so that what is a perceived is more of a diamond than a square.
What did this approach do for the mind-body problem? Take as an example a neutral item the color that I see, like the pale green (a very New England colour) of the door to my left. Is this color physical or psychological? It is hard to say. The natural thought is that the color is paint, so that what you buy at the paint shop are colours. On the other hand what color you see is determined by all sorts of things having to do with the psychology and physiology of the one who is looking at it. The answer of Mach and the other neutral monists was that pro tem a colour is neither physical nor psychological. Asking which it is is a bit like asking whether I am looking at the first, or second or third. An object becomes the first or second or third only by being put in some sort of order, and, according to the neutral monists, though the neutral data such as colours retain their neutral character come what may, in one series of things they can be regarded as physical (for example in connection with the action of light on the coloured surface) and in another they can be regarded as psychological (for example the saturation of colours is often different in the left and right eye).
So where does this get us? Russell, rather surprisingly, having said that physical and psychological items are distinguished “only by their causal laws” (this is in “On Propositions”) allows that unperceived material things obey only physical laws, images obey only psychological laws, and sensations obey or can obey both. So for Russell during this period sensations are the only genuinely neutral elements. His view then is a sort of sandwich, with the genuinely neutral elements only in the middle. Yet if thoughts do not obey physical laws and unperceived material things obey only physical laws, how is this a genuinely neutral monism?
I have tried to give an account in The Mind-Body Problem of the way in which the neutral monist deals with causal relations between mind and body. The neutral monists seem not to have been struck by this problem, contenting themselves with naturalistic dithyrambs about the oneness of things. But that does not tell you how a puncture in the stomach lining will give you the pain of the ulcer. What seems to me very significant is the overlap of two elements in the two different cases, here a searing. The pain is a searing one, but what the stomach acids do the lining of the stomach is searing too. Searing is something that can take a physical or psychological interpretation, and that is very interesting. The fiery aspect of searing can be seen physically on inspection of the ulcers. In connection with this sort of example I offer an account in the book of what causal relations must be for the neutral monist – I hope that readers will find it interesting.
I am also naturally very interested in the way in which images can turn into sensations. If we could get a grip on this, we would be able to understand the way in which a mental image could have an effect on the body. It is also very interesting that thoughts can become images, and the other way round, in hypnopompic and hypnogogic imagery at the borders of sleep.
A few words, as promised, about the difference between neutral monism and double aspect theories. Neutral monism has categorically physical things and categorically mental things in its ontology. If something is physical, and not psychological, it cannot be placed in a psychological series. With the double aspect theory, however, something can be viewed either as physical or as mental, either as extension or as consciousness, or whatever the “principle attributes” of matter and mind are. This difference between the two theories has an important corollary. With neutral monism there is psychophysical causation, as with interactionist dualism, but not so with with the dual aspect theory. True, we can look at a book under the aspect of economic position (it has a price of $15, say) or we can look at it under the aspect of subject matter (its subject is astronomy, say). But the economic object and the object of the subject matter do not interact. For they are the same thing, viewed under different and incompatible aspects. Double aspect theorists owe more to Spinoza, neutral monists to Leibniz and Hume.
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I am thankful for all of those who said NO to me. Its because of them I’m doing it myself. - Albert Einstein
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“It’s not stress that kills us, it’s our reaction to it.” ~Hans Selye
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B Title: WE JOURNEY FROM BIRTH ONTO DEATH. DOES LIFE OFFER SOMETHING MORE?
Theme: Life seems an inevitable movement in the field of time until death interrupts.
Amidst the myriad number of events, welcome and unwelcome, we hastily conclude the way we perceive reveals the way things are.
We might find ourselves convinced of a bend at the end of the road or not.
We base our views on notions of time, of divisions of past, present and future.
We think we are wired this way. That’s what we think.
Thought is unreliable. Receptivity outside the tiny construction of thought matters.
A single sentence can change a life.
Don’t forget a simple truth. You never thought it could happen.
And it did.
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Thank you so much for answer request.
I have been doing kundalini kriya yoga for the past 4 years on daily basis. I have been maintaining journal of my life events , mood and reflection where I can look back to get glimpse of changes occurring in my life. That being said lets get back to answering the question.
- First thing that I noted was my change in my posture. I used to have slouched and kind of curved back. It now remains straight for the most of time. even my friends note that. they ask me question like how can you maintain your back straight for so long? well sitting in slouched position is kind of pain for me. I cannot sit for long in couches and chairs where I cannot maintain my back straight.
- Second is change in air flow of nostrils. I used to have episodes of unilateral migraine headache. In the peak of migraine I could feel that air flow in that nostril corresponding to headache side the flow was occluded. Immediately after practice or lately throughout most of the day my flow of air in both nostril is now uniform. I have not had severe episodes of migraine for last 2 years.
- My abdominal fat is gone. I had large protruding belly but now it is no more.
- I used to smoke and drink which I have no desire for now.
- I get angry at times and feel sad too. But I can catch my self better when I am caught in the grip of these strong emotions. Other people may not notice it but I can feel that I can now simply be aware of those thoughts and do not have to compulsively act of many such thoughts. What used to sequence of actions are now just thought - note- gone .
- I can sit still for long. I can sit without moving in 1 hour bus ride just being aware of my whole body. I fear that other people may find me creepy so I look here and there at times but most of the time it is much peaceful to just be aware of breath in my spine.
- I am more aware of what I consume through my mind. As an example I don’t feel the desire of binge watch netflix serial. All the movies and serials that I watched before come during my Sadhana (spiritual practice) and give me trouble. So I stopped watching or feeding my mind in those. The violent movies that I watched as a teenager come to haunt me even after 10 years. I don’t know how. May be they were buried in my subconscious mind or somewhere. Whatever you watch or do with desire never leaves you.
- It is very easy now to follow the life of discipline. waking up early, getting cold shower first thing in morning, using cellphone in black and white mode, not watching YouTube more then 10 minutes in a day, deactivating Facebook , no junk food, lowering down in sugar and salt and many more such things are easier to do now. I could not have imagined myself doing these things before I started my sadhana. I find it hard to explain to people why I am doing these things.
Well there are the things that came to my mind at this very moment. Hope these inputs answer your question.
Thank you for reading.
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we have examined some of the of the main arguments for and against three philosophical views that hold that conscious minds, or their fundamental building blocks, are pervasive features of the cosmos.
The first is panpsychism, which is the doctrine that at least some of the most basic elements that make up the natural world have minds or mindlike qualities.
The second is panprotopsychism, which is the doctrine that fundamental physical entities, while not themselves minded, have unknown underlying natures that give rise to conscious minds when they are arranged into a sufficiently complex physical system.
The third is neutral monism, which is the doctrine that both minds and matter are constructed from more basic elements of reality that are, in themselves, neither mental nor physical.
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NODUEX
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- Nerve impulses sent from the brain move at a speed of 274 km/h.
Suffering is optional. Pain is compulsory.
I don't know who first came up with this saying, but it is pretty accurate.
It means that the death of the sufferer is the end of all suffering. This doesn't sound like much. I remember very clearly how disappointed I felt when I first read this.
So, suffering (as pain) doesn't end, but the sufferer ends? That sounds bloody weird! It also appears uninteresting at first blush.
But, oh, to experience this!
What a difference this makes! What a difference! It is the difference between Heaven and Hell!
Backtrack a wee bit to the Buddha's Four Noble Truths.
The Buddha taught that life is suffering. What does this mean?
There are pleasant, neutral and unpleasant experiences. Everyone without exception, the fully enlightened and the completey deluded, all experience exactly this. This is the “pain" that is said to be compulsory.
The Buddha then went on:
We want only the pleasant experiences, and we don't want the unpleasant experiences. We cling to what is pleasant, and avoid what is unpleasant. Someone who is completely identified with this way of being, is completely deluded. Someone who is completely disidentified with this way of being, is fully enlightened.
Many years ago, even before first starting meditation in 1995, I recognized clearly that the secret to the dissolution of I (the sufferer) begins with choiceless awareness. Choiceless awareness is absolutely key! Why? Because when I am not choosing pleasant experiences over unpleasant experiences, creating the classical push and pull against what is - yep: choiceless awareness! - then I am free of all suffering! This dissolves the experience of I. “I" am then beginning to be recognized as only another thought, not superior to any other thoughts!
My next question, which then formed my natural koan for the next 24 years after beginning formal sitting meditation in 1995, was:
“How do I gain access to this choiceless awareness?”
I tried everything! I especially tried to cajole myself into “choiceless awareness”, using my mind, as thought! Of course this failed! The only thing is:
I could not understand why, until this koan solved itself, on 2 July 2019.
Only at the moment of my awakening did I understand intuitively, non-verbally, that all thought is choice. Thought by its nature is the very instrument that prevents choiceless awareness, for to think is to choose.
A different faculty is needed. Awareness. Awareness is not thought. Therefore awareness is intrinsically choiceless. This is impossible to understand conceptually. It must be experienced directly!
The experiencing of this simple truth - awareness is choiceless by nature, therefore no effort and controls are required to be choicelessly aware - can ONLY come about when the yogi recognizes the limited value of the mind and thought, and stops searching for Nirvana with her mind! She is then ready for something greater: living FROM awareness.
To know “I” as awareness is the beginning of the end of I as a real, separate being. Increasingly, I as subject am intuitively seen to be merely a composite thought construct of my own making. From this essential non-verbal realisation (intuition) grows the death of I, the sufferer.
When I am not at all, I can be completely impartial. Totally objective. I can even contemplate the possibility that there may be nothing beyond this physical life form, and not balk at this possibility, therefore now unnecessarily experiencing suffering because I cannot accept reality.
Paradoxically, I as the sufferer can commit hara kiri by awareness of I as subject. Amazingly, it is possible for me to use my experiential self-delusion - personality belief, the experiencing of myself as an individual - to disembowl this self: destroy the sense of I. This never ceases to amaze me, since I discovered this simple technique!
It is the discovery that there is a Way, a Path that can be walked, to dissolve I, that prompted the Buddha to begin teaching his Dharma. A primary principle of the Path is that I, as an aspiring Bodhisattva, must begin right where I find myself now, with my delusional experience that “I" really exist!
This means: First cultivate awareness of I. Denying that I am real, doesn't lead to the experiencing of I as unreal! It just causes a pretense: a glittering, showy sham. Imitating what the Buddha taught, repeating what he says, is like a monkey 🐒🙈🙊 wearing a golden ring. The monkey retains its monkey nature, swinging from one thought tree to another thought tree with its monkey mind!
As I keep repeating, the way to begin the I-awareness, so the monkey 🐒 I can recognize I as a monkey - ultimately unreal - is to keep shifting my attention from what I am experiencing (experienced objects), to I (experienced subject). This is where the use of my mind begins and ends on this Spiritual Path of self-enquiry! Therefore, I cultivate awareness of I as subject in line with my actual self-delusional experience, without doing: without acting on what I am seeing. No comment. No analysis. No thoughts, other than a reminder to please watch what I do!
Why? How is it possible this works so incredibly well?
Well, this brings us back to your first question: “What is suffering?”
To answer this question intuitively, non-verbally, experientially, rather than getting caught in the illogical logic that to observe I is anachronistic and mistaken, turn attention to I (subject) and observe I.
Why?
Because when attention settles on I, I immediately see what I am doing: I am pushing and pulling against what is! I am trying to have only pleasant experiences, and I am trying to get shod of all the unpleasant experiences! Thus, here now, I grasp the Buddha's marvelous teaching from the inside! I really, actually see, as if I am looking at something through my physical eyes, what suffering is, and how it operates! This gives me access to the alternative: not choosing - choiceless awareness! This is how the natural koan of choiceless awareness is solved!
So (theoretically) what is suffering? Suffering is not what is. What is, is the pain, see?
Suffering is how I take anything and everything. By observing I, I begin to see this. I see my suffering lies in how I take everything, never in the thing (the pain) itself!
Vernon Howard said most beautifully, of all the description I have ever read, in his book, “Mystic Path to Cosmic Power”, what the Path is, that can be walked:
When a prisoner-of-war plans an escape, what does he do? He observes the condition he is in. He becomes acquainted with the fencing, the schedule of the guards, and so on. Upon that intelligent information, he plans a successful escape. That is also our purpose — successful escape from the prison of psychic sleep.
Try it right now. Look up from this book. Shake your head to break your present mental state, and look around. Simply notice where you are. Don’t just notice the room; see also that you are in that room. Think, “Well, I’m here.” When done correctly, it gives you an entirely new sense of yourself. Do you see the difference in your thinking as you now look around the room and the state you were in a moment ago while absorbed in the book?
Notice this: While absorbed in your reading you did not exist to yourself. There was reading, but no conscious awareness that you were reading. But now, upon detachment from your concentrated reading, you are conscious of your own existence in the room. What a tremendous secret you have here!
We want to become self-aware human beings. This happens when we seek in the right place. “You men, why do you look without for that which is within you?” (Meister Eckhart) Awareness of the inner man is, as all mystics proclaim, the Kingdom of Heaven within. It is the Truth itself. Awareness and happiness are exactly the same thing.
Impartial Self-Observation is the gate to a new sense of self. It breaks through into the dawn.
It is as if a savage from a remote jungle was taken to a merry-go-round at night and set upon one of the horses. He feels himself carried around and around but has no idea of what he is doing, or where he is going. He cringes at the surrounding shadows that seem to threaten him every time around. But as the light dawns, he understands. He sees the shadows as trees that, in reality, were never a threat. He realizes that not only is he now safe, but always was; he has only become aware of his security.
As the technique is practiced, we are bound to be a bit disturbed at what we see. We find we are not who we thought we were. We notice negativities we were perfectly sure were not within us. But we should not mind the disturbance; we should not turn away. We can take it. The new insight does not make us worse, as we might assume, but better. Why are we healthier than before? Because we have exposed to the light the very negativities that kept us unconscious prisoners. Psychic light, as any psychologist testifies, destroys darkness.
“Dwelling in the light, there is no occasion at all for stumbling, for all things are discovered in the light.” That is the testimony of George Fox, the enlightened founder of the Society of Friends.
Nothing is more valuable to the prisoner who wants to escape than honest Self-Observation. So write down, memorize and work with this key:
Impartial Self-Observation leads to self-awakening, which leads to self-liberty.
After rereading this a couple of times, I totally got this perception of the I as it feels, reacts etc.
Example: I love houses. When I usually see a wonderful cosy house, the feeling of desire arises in me to live in this house. Now, I watch myself as it begins with the desire. It was really funny and made me smile.
So I’m doing it (of course, I can’t held it up every moment, sometimes one forgets and gets involved again). Cool thing.
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Indeed. It is easy! And one forgets. I also forget often enough, just reacting. But then I remember again not to get lost in my experiences, always leaving enough awareness to include I in it.
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IF AURNGZB OR CLIVE ATTACKS, THIS TIME SHIVAJI WILL BE READY
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KS
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WITCON INNER SIVA
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KY
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LM The effulgence of the starlike dot within the imperishable Kutastha is essence of Brahma and it is imperative that constant oblation should be offered to Him only. Later the merging with Narayana the Supreme Master within the extensive Sun is extremely esoteric. Yogiraj has quoted — Kriyar dvaray cakshu unmilan haye — tahatei boliache — cakshuunmilitam yena tasmai srigurabe namah. This implies that through Kriya practice, the Third Eye is opened, Third Eye is the Guru to Whom obeisance is paid. In all living beings a spiritually perceived anu or an anu replete with consciousness is prevalent. It is subtlest of the subtle. The manifestation of the effulgent sphere from that conscious anu is Kutastha.
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LXMI
Anger is one of the most powerful emotions a human can go through and if not handled properly, it can cause destructive outcomes for you and your closed ones. On that account, people who need Maa Lakshmi’s blessings are advised to control their anger.
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- A single human brain generates more electrical impulses in a day than all the telephones of the world combined.
Uddharēd ātmana''tmānaṃ na''tmānamavasādayēt| ātmaiva hyātmanō bandhurātmaiva ripurātmanaḥ||6.5||
BG 6.5: Elevate yourself through the power of your mind, and not degrade yourself, for the mind can be the friend and also the enemy of the self.
One should uplift oneself by oneself. One should not lower oneself. For, the self alone is the friend of oneself; the self alone is the enemy of oneself.
Is everything pre-determined ? Fatalism finds NO support in our scriptures.
The confusion between fate & freewill is because of not knowing the difference between fate & fatalism.
Fate ( Prarabda Karma) is on of the factors that influences outcomes.
Fatalism means prarabda is the ONLY factor which determines outcomes.
The right attitude is to understand that outcomes are shaped by fate AS WELL AS our freewill.
Krishna emphasises the appropriate employment of our freewill, in this verse.
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That's similar to what Nietzche thought. He said the person who wants determinism just wants to escape from the responsibility of their actions, while the free will person just wants to be able to take credit for their actions; meaning both had a terrible motivation.
I think Nietzche was close to right. Many people turn to determinism to escape, and many people turn to free will to inflate their ego & self importance. Of course, there could also be some different, less common motivations for those beliefs, but those two seem like the bigger ones.
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Our Self as Consciousness has Free Will
Who-we-think-we-are does not have free will
The conditioned thinking mind tries to control the Self which gives the illusion the thinking mind has free-will
Ultimately the only choice the thinking mind has is to be in alignment or resistance to it Self
If the thinking mind is in Alignment with it Self then we proceed direct to our destiny which is the Infinite Peace of Oneness with our Self
But if the thinking mind is in resistance to our Self then we take fateful paths through karmic struggle before we are compelled by the suffering to turn inward to our Spiritual Heart and Awaken to Realize our Self
Being in resistance to our Self by thinking we are the mind-body caught up in the struggle is karmic. Whereas Realizing our Self as Consciousness is the Infinite Peace of Sat-Cit-Ananda that we are Seeking.
Consider dreams. In dreams you think you are the dream character and that you have free will, but that is an illusion of thinking we are the dream character. When you Awaken you Realize that the Dream and all that took place in the dream was Created by the Free Will of the Consciousness that was dreaming.
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