Well Named and Red Economist: Does "spiritual" knowledge exist?

[lovemuffin]

I will be arguing for the proposition that knowledge of a "spiritual" dimension distinct from the "material" is real and irreducible to knowledge of the material universe.

Red Economist will argue that this is wrong and there are ultimately no "spiritual" truths.

 

[Laika]

I will be arguing for the proposition that knowledge of a "spiritual" dimension distinct from the "material" is real and irreducible to knowledge of the material universe.

Red Economist will argue that this is wrong and there are ultimately no "spiritual" truths.

Let chaos commence.

I'm going to try and assert a materialist position that only matter is real and all knowledge is reducible to the material universe. There is therefore no "spiritual" knowledge as all knowledge attributed to spirit is in fact the product of the material world. For illustrative purposes I decided I will start by using Karl Marx's quote regarding "religion as the opium of the people". I have decided to use the quote in it's context as I believe this will best prepare to present a materialist position. In the next few paragraphs, Marx's words are in italics, whilst my own comments are not. Marx's now (in)famous quote is in bold.

The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

In a materialist philosophy, matter is primary and mind secondary. All phenomena, including mental ones, are ultimately derived from a material cause. In seeking idealist explanations of phenomena, human beings have gone so far as to attribute ideas themselves as the cause of material phenomena. In doing so, people have argued that there must necessarily be an original cause or motive force which is "above", "beyond" or "behind" the material realm. The attribution of original cause is therefore to made to the spirit, idea or god as the alienated essence of man. As matter is primary, there is therefore no spiritual knowledge, since there is no spiritual realm.


Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

Religion is not simply an error of judgement, but represents a systematic failure of reason. If we accept the validity of materialism, it necessarily follows that there is only this world, this material realm and that there is no spiritual realm. Materialism is a monist philosophy in which only the material world exists and that "existing things can be explained in terms of a single reality or substance." That substance is matter. According to Lenin, "Matter is the objective reality given to us in sensation". In opposing the concept of "spiritual" knowledge, I am also opposed the notion of dualism, in which the world is divided into two parts, the "spiritual and the mental" and the "material".


The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

Many materialists have asserted that the notion of "spiritual" knowledge is wholly false and have argued in response to the dualism of spirit/mind and matter, that we must necessarily eliminate the conception of spiritual and mental phenomena.
I would argue that, as a materialist, this view provides insufficient explanation as the origins of the concept of spiritual knowledge and is not logically consistent with materialism. Whilst a materialist may necessarily be hostile to the belief in the spirit, it does not follow that it is false. Rather, that the concept of spirit is an illusion resulting from asserting that primacy of the realm of ideas, and that ideas exist independently of matter in the form of a spiritual realm and in religious belief. The source of all religious illusion and therefore of spiritual knowledge lies in the material realm. Materialism is therefore presented with a burden of proof that all mental and spiritual phenomena, our consciousness and our ideas arise from the material world.

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.

To conclude, there is no "spiritual" knowledge as there is no spiritual realm. The ultimate source of all knowledge lies in the material realm. It is by recognizing the material roots of knowledge and it's acquisition that we become empowered to improve both ourselves and this world, rather than directing our efforts towards "the next".

Your turn Well named.

 

[lovemuffin]

Thanks for getting us started Red.

Before I try to address your post (or future posts) directly, I think I have a certain amount of ground-clearing to do, and background to elaborate in order to try to make my position understandable. In part this is because the predominant western culture assumes an epistemology and an associated "anthropology" of human awareness that already eliminates the "spiritual" in the way I want to define it. So I need to try to make clear what I mean by spiritual, and how it is that humans have a "spiritual faculty", or the potential awareness of realities which cannot be reduced to the physical or mental, and how the spiritual relates to those other aspects of human experience.

After that, I will try to present some evidence for the value of the anthropology and epistemology I'm going to suggest, and argue that this evidence demonstrates the insufficiency of a materialist alternative. I would like to say up front that the word "suggest" is operative in my opinion. I don't believe that I will be able to "prove" what I want to say, although I also don't believe you will be able to prove the materialist worldview correct, and I will attempt to demonstrate the philosophical issues in a general way. Here I would take "proof" to mean an epistemological justification that is beyond reasonable doubt, where I would also hold something like philosophical skepticism as being unreasonable. In other words, if I think that neither conclusion can be demonstrated with certainty, it's not because I think we must retreat to a position that denies all epistemological justification, or give up "realism", but because we should recognize the difficulty that pure reason has when it tries to justify its own foundations. This recognition has a long history in philosophy in various forms, from philosophical skepticism but also to Descartes and Kant and Hume and others. I am almost certainly insufficiently prepared to do the philosophical questions justice, but I hope to at least be able to raise interesting and challenging questions worthy of reflection.

So what I'm saying is it might take me a lot of words to try to make my point, I'm not actually trying to win by exhaustion, and I hope you'll forgive me I'll get started here in a bit.

 

[Laika]

I am almost certainly insufficiently prepared to do the philosophical questions justice, but I hope to at least be able to raise interesting and challenging questions worthy of reflection.

I feel the same way, but the attempt is none the less interesting. The ground-clearing does sound like a good place to start, so I look forward to your response.

 

[lovemuffin]

I was originally thinking I would try to summarize all this in my own words, but since my own thinking has been so heavily influenced by a single author, Raimon Panikkar, I'm going to just cite his anthropology and allow him to describe it mostly in his own words, since I think they will better. He would say first of all that what follows is not an attempt to give an objective or scientifically valid account, but to describe the human experience of reality. The categories used are not intended to "cut nature at the seams", but to draw out useful distinctions, even though those distinctions do not amount necessarily to ontological separations.

In other words, if the following describes the physical senses, the mind, and the spirit in three different ways, it shouldn't be supposed that these are three individual substances inhabiting a body. They are not separate, and the tendency to make substantives out of categories (essentialism) should be resisted, in the same way that in quantum mechanics the mental tendency to think in terms of the ontology of "wave" versus "particle" had to be overcome, because in reality fundamental particles are really "both" (in the sense of being describable using the set of properties that are conceptually tied to one or the other) and "none" (in the sense that the concepts are themselves insufficient).

What is 'reality' and how is it approached?

Thoughts on what the word means, and how it is approached:

"Reality, we have said, is all that there is. All that is in whatever form — idam sarvam (all this, this all). We are not only aware of it; we are aware of our awareness. We know, knowing that we know…

This prompts the question about such knowing of reality, which allows us to speak. We are conscious of it because in one way or another we share in that reality about which we are conscious. This is a first and fundamental step, which has often been overlooked by concentrating on the second: the means, organs, faculties, or windows that allow us to see, perceive, do, or enter in conscious contact with reality. What we say about reality depends on how we perceive it, but we would not perceive it if in one way or another we were not part of it.

‘We know inasmuch as we are known’ is a traditional way of describing this first step…‘The light of all things’ is the source of all knowledge descending from ‘The Storehouse of The Great Light’ with no need now to quote Plato, Augustine, Bonaventure, and scores of other thinkers defending the illumination theory of knowledge. In brief, we know because we are suffused in light, in knowledge. We see because there is a light that allows us to see.

This implies that the subject/object epistemology does not cover the entire field of knowledge; even though there is no denying both the heuristic value of such an epistemology, and the fact that it has been prevalent in an important part of many human cultures. Yet, before our epistemological (subject-object) knowledge there is ontological awareness" (Rhythm of Being, Panikkar)
​

"Subject/object epistemology" refers in particular to the scientific epistemology that is generally taken as the basis for various forms of naturalism, including materialism. Especially insofar as that epistemology emphasizes the value (which is truly valuable) of evidence that can be made as objective as possible: repeatable, falsifiable, measurable, etc. The subject in its subjectivity is a problem to be minimized. There is a lot more to say about this, but for now the point is to begin by saying that "reality" encompasses everything that we are aware of by whatever means, without first qualifying what those means are, or what ultimate "degree of reality" the things which appear in our awareness have. Those distinctions come later.

Further, by "ontological awareness" Panikkar refers to a mode of experience which is nearly universal in human cultures, and especially important to ancient religious thought. It is the idea of "knowledge" wrought by union between the subject and the object. The participation of the subject in the object, such that they are one reality, and the dualism is transcended. A characteristic word to describe this union in Christian tradition especially is "love", although here the word is a symbol that encompasses more than erotic or emotional attachment. Union is a loving knowledge and a knowing love, but it is a different mode of "knowledge" than the epistemic conclusion of a rational process that deals with abstract concepts. It is the direct and unmediated experience, the ontic participation between the subject and object. This is something that also will need more elaboration and justification.

A Three Part Anthropology

The preceding reflections lead back to a very traditional way of distinguishing human faculties for approaching reality, what we will call the senses, the rational intellect, and the spirit. Here is how Panikkar describes these three faculties:

The Senses (Τα αισθητά; Ta aistheta)

The experience of our senses in their widest acceptation, including sentiments as well as sensibility. The greek word (αισθησις) embraces also the aesthetic experience. We cannot doubt those experiences that are linked to a subject and refer to a particular object. We cannot deny our sensations of cold, pain, pleasure, beauty, sadness, joy… Quite a different thing is our interpretation of those experiences. Ta Aistheta stands for all that is open to us through the senses. Aisthesis is the faculty of perception.

When some philosophical schools teach that all our knowledge begins with the senses, they do not necessarily subscribe to a crude materialism (sensism) or deny that the senses know thanks to a superior illumination. They affirm that the testimony of the senses is true knowledge, and therefore that the material world is real in its own right, as it were, and not because human reason proves it.

Reason (Τα νοητά; ta noeta)

Rational experience is the experience of our mind, also in its widest acceptation. The senses know, ecstatically, as it were. They do not know that they know. The mind knows what the senses know, and it is conscious too of what the mind knows. This knowledge of the mind culminates in rational evidence, that is, that light which does not allow us to doubt our rational vision. If the locus of sensual evidence is is the singular object of a singular subject, here the locus is the universal (idea, concept, notion)...

We may reach toward rational vision by a simple act of the mind or by a long process of our reasoning reason following what is commonly called logic… Ta Noeta stands for all that is open to the mind. The ideal is the construction of what the greeks called the kosmos noetos, the intelligible world…

Spirit (Τα πνευματικά; Ta pneumatika)

Spiritual experience is the experience of our spirit, also in its widest acceptation, and some use the name intellectual enlightenment for what we see as truth without intermediaries in this experience, while others call it spiritual realization, mystical insight, the inner sense of the spirit, or many other names. It produces an existential confidence that convinces us of the truth of what we see without reducing it to rational certainty. Spiritual knowledge is based neither on any postulate nor on any logical operation derived from other principles. It is immediate self-refulgent luminosity (svayamprakasa). Cogito ergo sum is a paradigm of rational evidence, which lies in the ergo. The ergo is the power of reason. Spiritual knowledge is not of this kind; it is not derived.

Ta pneumatika stands for that knowledge of reality which cannot properly be rationally proved. Unlike rational perception, spiritual knoledge-perception does not refer to anything else “beyond.” This is why it cannot be proved by appealing to a higher instance. If such an appeal were possible, then there would be no end to it. There is a certain claim to objectivity in rational knowledge, even if it is difficult to prove it rationally. Spiritual knowledge, like sensual knowledge, simply witnesses, but with a difference. The senses express themselves with signs, which need to be interpreted by the intellectual language of reason. Reason uses concepts. Spiritual knowledge uses symbols. The intentionality of the mystical symbol does not refer to anything objectifiable outside the symbol itself and yet is not identical with the symbol.

The witness of the third eye [spiritual vision; “the eye of faith”], being an ultimate organ that makes us aware of reality, cannot have a further ground outside itself. This constitutes its power and its weakness. The sensual and the rational faculties are also ultimate in their respective fields: each experience is ultimate as experience. However, there is a hierarchy among the three. "Hierarchy" does not mean superiority or inferiority; it means order. It is an ontonomic order in which the inter-independence of the "degrees of knowledge" cooperate towards the knowledge of the whole, each by virtue of its own nature.

Three Conclusions

Again, merely quoting:

1. Reality is not exhausted by what the senses and mind disclose.
   
2. That which is disclosed in ta pneumatika is disclosed by union (henosis), and demands the preparation of our entire being. It is not just cognition, and thus is beyond dialectics. “Neither being nor non-being”, as almost all traditions say.
3. The threefold knowledge lets us surmise that “there is” a real “beyond” knowledge in advaitic relationship with consciousness, which is the ultimate seat of reality.

This, then, is the background for what I mean by spiritual in relation to the senses and mind. What should follow is some attempt to justify the reality of Ta Pneumatica beyond the mere assertion that I experience it myself, although given the definition it is clear that if we go in search of objective evidence, we have to do so obliquely, in a phenomenological way.

 

[lovemuffin]

Red: I might not write more until tomorrow. I'm a bit tired and I have to do some other work.

At the moment, with regard to evidence I plan to try to discuss
- the "hard" problem of phenomenal consciousness
- the significance of the universality of mysticism

You don't have to wait for me to dive in and pick apart anything you want either.

 

[Laika]

Red: I might not write more until tomorrow. I'm a bit tired and I have to do some other work.

At the moment, with regard to evidence I plan to try to discuss
- the "hard" problem of phenomenal consciousness
- the significance of the universality of mysticism

You don't have to wait for me to dive in and pick apart anything you want either.

No probs. I'll see what I can do. (Take your time if need be). I think its probably best for me to try to reply to this one and see where we agree and disagree and can then focus the discussion, otherwise it could be very wide ranging.

I was originally thinking I would try to summarize all this in my own words, but since my own thinking has been so heavily influenced by a single author, Raimon Panikkar, I'm going to just cite his anthropology and allow him to describe it mostly in his own words, since I think they will better. He would say first of all that what follows is not an attempt to give an objective or scientifically valid account, but to describe the human experience of reality. The categories used are not intended to "cut nature at the seams", but to draw out useful distinctions, even though those distinctions do not amount necessarily to ontological separations.

Marxism would claim to be a scientifically valid account of the objective and it is something I have been undecided on this claim if I'm honest. The logically consistent position is to accept that if matter is primary it means that materialism describes the objective world being subject to limitations arising from limits of consciousness as an illusion. Therefore a materialist position would necessarily have to be a scientific one.

In other words, if the following describes the physical senses, the mind, and the spirit in three different ways, it shouldn't be supposed that these are three individual substances inhabiting a body. They are not separate, and the tendency to make substantives out of categories (essentialism) should be resisted, in the same way that in quantum mechanics the mental tendency to think in terms of the ontology of "wave" versus "particle" had to be overcome, because in reality fundamental particles are really "both" (in the sense of being describable using the set of properties that are conceptually tied to one or the other) and "none" (in the sense that the concepts are themselves insufficient).

That is not a problem, as Marxism is based on dialectics which is deeply corrosive to solid "either-or" distinctions and instead I end up thinking more in terms of graduations of qualities rather than having fixed properties. Marxism represents as specific form of Materialism, known as Dialectical Materialism, which attempts to establish that the motion of matter arises from matter itself. i.e. the universe requires no external cause (or god). This is also true of the understanding of society and therefore directly impacts the conceptions of consciousness as determined rather than being subject to free will. In doing so, the distinction between existence and non-existence is somewhat broken down as by a process of creative destruction, things comes into being and go out of being.

I don't think it is quite the same as being "both" and "none", as this distinction is an absolute one which would render matter non-existence and hence, no longer primary. Based on latter paragraphs, this may well be an issue as the notion that matter does not exist means asserting that it is in fact a thought and represents a confusion of the object and subject (at a guess for the right terminology).

What is 'reality' and how is it approached?

Thoughts on what the word means, and how it is approached:

"Reality, we have said, is all that there is. All that is in whatever form — idam sarvam (all this, this all). We are not only aware of it; we are aware of our awareness. We know, knowing that we know…

This prompts the question about such knowing of reality, which allows us to speak. We are conscious of it because in one way or another we share in that reality about which we are conscious. This is a first and fundamental step, which has often been overlooked by concentrating on the second: the means, organs, faculties, or windows that allow us to see, perceive, do, or enter in conscious contact with reality. What we say about reality depends on how we perceive it, but we would not perceive it if in one way or another we were not part of it.

‘We know inasmuch as we are known’ is a traditional way of describing this first step…‘The light of all things’ is the source of all knowledge descending from ‘The Storehouse of The Great Light’ with no need now to quote Plato, Augustine, Bonaventure, and scores of other thinkers defending the illumination theory of knowledge. In brief, we know because we are suffused in light, in knowledge. We see because there is a light that allows us to see.

This implies that the subject/object epistemology does not cover the entire field of knowledge; even though there is no denying both the heuristic value of such an epistemology, and the fact that it has been prevalent in an important part of many human cultures. Yet, before our epistemological (subject-object) knowledge there is ontological awareness" (Rhythm of Being, Panikkar)​

"Subject/object epistemology" refers in particular to the scientific epistemology that is generally taken as the basis for various forms of naturalism, including materialism. Especially insofar as that epistemology emphasizes the value (which is truly valuable) of evidence that can be made as objective as possible: repeatable, falsifiable, measurable, etc. The subject in its subjectivity is a problem to be minimized. There is a lot more to say about this, but for now the point is to begin by saying that "reality" encompasses everything that we are aware of by whatever means, without first qualifying what those means are, or what ultimate "degree of reality" the things which appear in our awareness have. Those distinctions come later.

Further, by "ontological awareness" Panikkar refers to a mode of experience which is nearly universal in human cultures, and especially important to ancient religious thought. It is the idea of "knowledge" wrought by union between the subject and the object. The participation of the subject in the object, such that they are one reality, and the dualism is transcended. A characteristic word to describe this union in Christian tradition especially is "love", although here the word is a symbol that encompasses more than erotic or emotional attachment. Union is a loving knowledge and a knowing love, but it is a different mode of "knowledge" than the epistemic conclusion of a rational process that deals with abstract concepts. It is the direct and unmediated experience, the ontic participation between the subject and object. This is something that also will need more elaboration and justification.

Marxism would appear to be in a similar view in assuming the "unity of theory and practice" (which may be equivalent to the union of subject and object). However, I think I should be careful to the idea of "dualism is transcended" as it strongly suggests, that it is transcended by thought or spirit as opposed to objectively existing matter. This is particular true if as you indicated dualism is transcended by "love" which is a property of human consciousness and therefore is not an objective property of matter. It may well be this 'love' is a property of a god and therefore not compatible with the notion that man created god.
The mind-matter dualism in Marxism is overcome by saying that matter is primary, and that consciousness is a property of matter. Whilst consciousness is a property of matter, (e.g. signals in the brain) thought itself does not exist as a material entity as does not escape this limitation. I think you would need to elaborate on this point for me to understand how dualism is transcended.

A Three Part Anthropology

The preceding reflections lead back to a very traditional way of distinguishing human faculties for approaching reality, what we will call the senses, the rational intellect, and the spirit. Here is how Panikkar describes these three faculties:

The Senses (Τα αισθητά; Ta aistheta)

The experience of our senses in their widest acceptation, including sentiments as well as sensibility. The greek word (αισθησις) embraces also the aesthetic experience. We cannot doubt those experiences that are linked to a subject and refer to a particular object. We cannot deny our sensations of cold, pain, pleasure, beauty, sadness, joy… Quite a different thing is our interpretation of those experiences. Ta Aistheta stands for all that is open to us through the senses. Aisthesis is the faculty of perception.

When some philosophical schools teach that all our knowledge begins with the senses, they do not necessarily subscribe to a crude materialism (sensism) or deny that the senses know thanks to a superior illumination. They affirm that the testimony of the senses is true knowledge, and therefore that the material world is real in its own right, as it were, and not because human reason proves it.

Reason (Τα νοητά; ta noeta)

Rational experience is the experience of our mind, also in its widest acceptation. The senses know, ecstatically, as it were. They do not know that they know. The mind knows what the senses know, and it is conscious too of what the mind knows. This knowledge of the mind culminates in rational evidence, that is, that light which does not allow us to doubt our rational vision. If the locus of sensual evidence is is the singular object of a singular subject, here the locus is the universal (idea, concept, notion)...

We may reach toward rational vision by a simple act of the mind or by a long process of our reasoning reason following what is commonly called logic… Ta Noeta stands for all that is open to the mind. The ideal is the construction of what the greeks called the kosmos noetos, the intelligible world…

For a detailed response to the relationship between sensation of the objective world I would have to do a little bit of reading (but I know which chapter it is to look at). The implication is here that there are something which are 'unintelligible' belonging to the inner world of introspection and therefore do not possess objective qualities.
This may become more important as time goes on as the idea that sense perception constitutes a limit on knowledge is the basis for an "agnostic" criticism of Marxism [there usage of the term]; broadly, that not everything can be objectively perceived and therefore there are somethings which are by definition unknowable (to the senses and therefore to rational knowledge). That position would not be consistent with materialism.

Spirit (Τα πνευματικά; Ta pneumatika)

Spiritual experience is the experience of our spirit, also in its widest acceptation, and some use the name intellectual enlightenment for what we see as truth without intermediaries in this experience, while others call it spiritual realization, mystical insight, the inner sense of the spirit, or many other names. It produces an existential confidence that convinces us of the truth of what we see without reducing it to rational certainty. Spiritual knowledge is based neither on any postulate nor on any logical operation derived from other principles. It is immediate self-refulgent luminosity (svayamprakasa). Cogito ergo sum is a paradigm of rational evidence, which lies in the ergo. The ergo is the power of reason. Spiritual knowledge is not of this kind; it is not derived.

Ta pneumatika stands for that knowledge of reality which cannot properly be rationally proved. Unlike rational perception, spiritual knoledge-perception does not refer to anything else “beyond.” This is why it cannot be proved by appealing to a higher instance. If such an appeal were possible, then there would be no end to it. There is a certain claim to objectivity in rational knowledge, even if it is difficult to prove it rationally. Spiritual knowledge, like sensual knowledge, simply witnesses, but with a difference. The senses express themselves with signs, which need to be interpreted by the intellectual language of reason. Reason uses concepts. Spiritual knowledge uses symbols. The intentionality of the mystical symbol does not refer to anything objectifiable outside the symbol itself and yet is not identical with the symbol.

The witness of the third eye [spiritual vision; “the eye of faith”], being an ultimate organ that makes us aware of reality, cannot have a further ground outside itself. This constitutes its power and its weakness. The sensual and the rational faculties are also ultimate in their respective fields: each experience is ultimate as experience. However, there is a hierarchy among the three. "Hierarchy" does not mean superiority or inferiority; it means order. It is an ontonomic order in which the inter-independence of the "degrees of knowledge" cooperate towards the knowledge of the whole, each by virtue of its own nature.

Introspection leads to 'idealist' conceptions of thought as originating from itself, or indeed a higher source or power. The Brain exists objectively as matter, but its thoughts do not exist objectively because consciousness is a property of matter. So whilst introspection can tell us a lot, it does not tell us the source of knowledge and is therefore a source of the illusion that thought is primary and matter secondary.

Three Conclusions

Again, merely quoting:

1. Reality is not exhausted by what the senses and mind disclose.
   
2. That which is disclosed in ta pneumatika is disclosed by union (henosis), and demands the preparation of our entire being. It is not just cognition, and thus is beyond dialectics. “Neither being nor non-being”, as almost all traditions say.
3. The threefold knowledge lets us surmise that “there is” a real “beyond” knowledge in advaitic relationship with consciousness, which is the ultimate seat of reality.

This, then, is the background for what I mean by spiritual in relation to the senses and mind. What should follow is some attempt to justify the reality of Ta Pneumatica beyond the mere assertion that I experience it myself, although given the definition it is clear that if we go in search of objective evidence, we have to do so obliquely, in a phenomenological way.

The first statement is one entirely incomparable with materialism; since if everything is material, it can be perceived and hence understood.
I'm not 100% sure what to make of the second one, but it does seem to be heading towards the concept that 'matter' is in fact a perception or an idea and can therefore cease to exist, which again would make matter secondary.
I think the third one is covered by the role of introspection in leading to the illusion that thought is primary and mistaking thought for an objectively existing realm of the spirit. I hope that is a fair summary for you to work with.

 

[lovemuffin]

Two questions:

One of the things that I'm confused about, and it's most likely because I have only a very superficial notion of "Marxist dialectic" or "dialectical materialism" as Marx defined it, is the apparent blending between political and sociological notions with philosophical/ontological notions like materialism. Is Marxism essentially something like a modern scientific materialism combined with some political ideas, which could be isolated and treated separately, or is the metaphysical component also in some way specifically Marxist? If it's the former, I will probably avoid speaking about the other political or sociological ideas because I have very little familiarity with them. If the latter, I may need more clarification for the same reason.

In your first post, you began a sentence "if we accept materialism...", and following on you have often referred to it like an assumption, while clarifying which things I have said are contradictory to it. A question I have is, do you believe materialism is a position which should be supported by an argument, or do you take it purely as axiomatic? I think that I could make an argument for the abductive strength of materialism, but you may want to make an argument for it yourself.

 

[Laika]

One of the things that I'm confused about, and it's most likely because I have only a very superficial notion of "Marxist dialectic" or "dialectical materialism" as Marx defined it, is the apparent blending between political and sociological notions with philosophical/ontological notions like materialism. Is Marxism essentially something like a modern scientific materialism combined with some political ideas, which could be isolated and treated separately, or is the metaphysical component also in some way specifically Marxist? If it's the former, I will probably avoid speaking about the other political or sociological ideas because I have very little familiarity with them. If the latter, I may need more clarification for the same reason.

Marxism divides down into two philosophies; "dialectical materialism" which is a philosophy of nature, and "historical materialism" which is a philosophy of society and its historical development. This is true of 'orthodox' forms of Marxism which assert it is a science of both nature and society (as used in the USSR), but not for 'unorthodox' ones which argue it is a philosophy of society (which is more characteristic of Marxism in the west). To use a metaphor, Dialectical materialism is the foundations on which the rest of the house (historical materialism) is built. You can use the latter on it's own, but it won't be a very stable structure, so I will be using the former position (to the best of my ability) as close to the one used by the Soviets as possible.

I'm going to take a guess and say it is not like "modern scientific materialism" as the definitions of 'science', knowledge and truth is different from "mainstream" views. There is a very strong relationship between philosophy and science which means it is characteristic of the 19th century, but from my understanding 'science' today takes a lot of propositions for granted and sidelines philosophical discussions.

To help clarify, I have a very breif summary on the Marxist view of truth:

"Truth is the correspondence between ideas and objective reality. Such correspondence is usually only partial and approximate. The truth we can establish always depends on our means for discovering and expressing truth, but at the same time the truth of ideas, though relative in this sense, depends on the objective facts to which ideas correspond. We can never attain complete, full and absolute truth, but are always advancing towards it."

Here is one on Science:

"In contrast to ideological illusion, people discover truth in the course of their practical activity. The first source of such discovery lies in social production. From the ideas derived in the productive process arise natural sciences, which take the form of specialized investigations separated from production and carried on by particular classes, who introduce elements of their class ideology into the sciences. At the same time, social sciences are development, with their roots in experiences gained in class struggle, serving the ends of the general management and control of social affairs. But in the hands of the exploiting classes and the social sciences can never attain the scientific status of the natural sciences."

To clarify "ideological illusions":

"Ideological illusions have their source in the production relations of society. But they are not consciously derived from that source, but arise unconsciously or spontaneously. Unaware of the truth source of their illusionary ideas, ideologists imagine they have produced them by a process of pure thought. And so there takes place a process of inversion in ideology, by which real social relations are represented as the realization of abstract ideas. Lastly, ideological illusions constitute a class-motivated system of deception."

[I'm not sure it would help but the source for these quotations in a book by Maurice Cornforth, titled "theory of knowledge", published 1956. It's the last of three volumes, but the one most directly relevant to discussing spiritual knowledge.]

The last line is actually very crude because the 'deception' of such illusions is unintentional and therefore doesn't carry the moral weight it would conventionally do. The way in which "real social relations are represented as the realization of abstract ideas" refers directly to religious belief. If we deal with the sociological origin of religious belief would we have to discuss Marxist ideas of the relationship between 'social class' and 'ideology', but that discussion would not involve more than a cursory mention of the relationship.

To put in briefly, A marxist would argue that society is divided into classes because of the division of mental and physical labour. In such a society, those engaged in physical labour become the working classes and produce what is needed for society. They don't have the time to think for themselves and therefore passively accept the ideas of the ruling class as "false" consciousness. Those engaged in mental labour become the ruling classes, and are responsible for social organization of production. In order to subsist this ruling class "exploits" the working class since obviously they are not producing anything for themselves- it is a symbiotic relationship.

A section of that ruling class is engaged in intellectual activity of formulating ideas; in doing so they are unaware of the way there beliefs are determined and limited by the class structure of society. Overall, it is the belief in a "natural order" which is considered an illusion since it implies that the rule of the ruling class is eternal. This is often attributed to religious sources ("the divine right of kings" being the best example).

If there are any concepts you are unfamiliar with (or I am not using in a familiar way as an ameatuer philosopher), you're very welcome to ask.

In your first post, you began a sentence "if we accept materialism...", and following on you have often referred to it like an assumption, while clarifying which things I have said are contradictory to it. A question I have is, do you believe materialism is a position which should be supported by an argument, or do you take it purely as axiomatic? I think that I could make an argument for the abductive strength of materialism, but you may want to make an argument for it yourself.

I accept dialectical materialism as a working hypothesis, but have yet to reach a point where I could say it is a "scientific" world view that someone who is consistently Marxist would hold it to be. There are still areas of my reasoning which are not logically consistent with it's underlying assumptions. The reason I'm hesitant to accept materialism wholesale is that the proofs are philosophical and the very notion of "science" and "truth" are re-defined to fit this position.

Marxism started as the result of Marx's interpretation of Ludwig Feuerbach's The essence of Christianity in which Feuerbach said man created god and not the other way round. A support for Materialism would therefore heavily rely on abductive reasoning (It's a new word, so I'm using Wikipedia's definition of "a logical inference from an observation to a hypothesis that accounts for the hypothesis"). I don't think it is therefore axiomatic/self-evident and would have to provide some proofs for it.

Somewhere along the way I'm going to have to provide some proofs for materialism, but I think you should let me know what your thoughts are first and where you would feel this discussion should go.

 

[lovemuffin]

Red: I haven't read your last post yet, since I've been working on this, but I hope the discontinuity of the thread isn't a problem Here I will continue my argument...

Religion is not simply an error of judgement, but represents a systematic failure of reason. If we accept the validity of materialism, it necessarily follows that there is only this world, this material realm and that there is no spiritual realm.

It is tautological in my opinion that if we accept materialism, religion is "a systematic failure of reason". But, this is begging the question, since whether or not we should accept materialism is part of the debate.

To offer a very brief (and perhaps insufficient) summary of the philosophical arguments for materialism:

Materialism is the conclusion of an abductive argument, an "inference to the best explanation", based primarily on the successes of science and technology. This is often not stated directly, but implied by referring to its opposite, the "God of the gaps". That is, when atheists correctly point out the problems of various teleological arguments, or theistic arguments from ignorance, they point out that "God" has been an explanation for a number of "how" questions where it is now a superfluous hypothesis.

The implication is that the demythologization of cosmology, creation stories, biology, and the functioning of the physical world points inexorably towards an unknown future point where science will explain everything there is. This is not a proof, but it's a strong argument and a compelling narrative. In a sense, it constructs its own worldview, one of continual progress, and one in which superstition and religious ideology act merely as a brake against discovery and improvement.

Part of the reason this story is so compelling is because it is true that religious belief has often been superstitious, irrational, overly dogmatic, politically repressive, and etc. I do not personally doubt that scientific methodology, naturalism, and secularism have been a much needed corrective in human history, and are very valuable tools for improving human lives and societies. The question is whether or not they are the only tools that are useful or necessary.

Having found the argument compelling, in practice the conclusion becomes an assumption, and it is sometimes forgotten that while it is a foundational assumption, it is still assumed, and not proven. Reality is assumed to be only that which can be made purely objective. The "intelligible", predictable, lawful physical universe. Once assumed, this principle of "intelligibility" becomes an excuse to casually dismiss the very real difficulties this assumption has with explaining certain phenomena. Often, the invalidity of "God of the gaps" arguments is used to dismiss, without good reason, other arguments which are related only insofar as they also challenge this assumption about the "objective" nature of "reality", remembering that we have defined the "spiritual" not in reference to any particular religious ideology or specific belief, but as a human awareness of reality beyond the objectively intelligible.

The "Hard" Problem of Consciousness

The single most compelling counter-argument to materialism is probably the philosophical problem of phenomenal consciousness. Now, that said, it is also worth pointing out to begin with that the problem of consciousness, even if there is one, may not seem to immediately rise to a "spiritual" question, or that if it's taken to be such, it has a connotation that is much different from popular usage of the term "spiritual".

That is a fair point in my opinion, but I also believe it can be shown that the nature of consciousness and conscious awareness is centrally important to even traditional "spirituality", insofar that almost every traditional religion contains mysticism, and mysticism is rooted in conscious experience and its understanding. But before I try to develop that idea, first I want to describe why consciousness challenges materialism.

In a piece published in 1995 in the Journal of Consciousness Studies, David Chalmers clarifies what is meant by the "hard" problem of consciousness, and how it compares to "easy" problems:

"Consciousness poses the most baffling problems in the science of the mind. There is nothing that we know more intimately than conscious experience, but there is nothing that is harder to explain. All sorts of mental phenomena have yielded to scientific investigation in recent years, but consciousness has stubbornly resisted...

There is not just one problem of consciousness. "Consciousness" is an ambiguous term, referring to many different phenomena. Each of these phenomena needs to be explained, but some are easier to explain than others. At the start, it is useful to divide the associated problems of consciousness into "hard" and "easy" problems. The easy problems of consciousness are those that seem directly susceptible to the standard methods of cognitive science, whereby a phenomenon is explained in terms of computational or neural mechanisms. The hard problems are those that seem to resist those methods.

The easy problems of consciousness include those of explaining the following phenomena:

• the ability to discriminate, categorize, and react to environmental stimuli;
• the integration of information by a cognitive system;
• the reportability of mental states;
• the ability of a system to access its own internal states;
• the focus of attention;
• the deliberate control of behavior;
• the difference between wakefulness and sleep.

The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience.

It is undeniable that some organisms are subjects of experience. But the question of how it is that these systems are subjects of experience is perplexing..."
​

Is the Hard Problem of Consciousness Like the God of the Gaps?

Now, there are number of responses that can be made to Chalmers' position, and you can find an analysis of several of them in his follow-up paper, as well as in other sources, but the key point I want to make is that unless we simply deny the "reality" of phenomenal conscious experience altogether, against our own most basic and intimate intuitions, there is a fundamental difference between the problem of consciousness and (for example) a fine-tuning cosmological argument.

The difference is that with arguments from ignorance, there is no reason to presume the impossibility of a future explanation. But with consciousness, there is an apparent irreconcilability of scientific methodology with what it is in phenomenal experience that needs explaining. As Chalmers puts it in his followup:

"Physical theories are ultimately specified in terms of structure and dynamics: they are cast in terms of basic physical structures, and principles specifying how these structures change over time. Structure and dynamics at a low level can combine in all sort of interesting ways to explain the structure and function of high-level systems; but still, structure and function only ever adds up to more structure and function." [as opposed to adding up to experience]
​

In other words, the problem appears to be foundational. If Chalmers' argument is correct (or associated philosophical arguments), then subjectivity simply can't reduce to objective description, and thus, not to the "material" as it is contemplated by science.

What this argument does not say

A final clarification. While the argument about the hard problem of consciousness is that there is something irreducible to the physical in conscious experience, it does not mean that consciousness doesn't depend on the physical, or that there are not strong functional correlations between brain states and mental states. It does not imply libertarian free will, or cartesian dualism about the mind. To the extent that volition and mental state are indeed a matter of the "structure and dynamics" explained by scientific investigation, consciousness is also explained by those. There are also "easy" problems of consciousness. We're not describing a pure idealism. The material is also real. The argument is rather that the material is not all that is real.

The domain of the immaterial subjective conscious experience is the domain of spiritual experience, which I will have to elaborate on further.

 

[Laika]

I'll let you respond to my previous post before we carry on, as I included some definitions in there which will become important as time goes on. Good post btw, you know your stuff.

 

[Laika]

I think I am going to try to "prove" that the Hard Problem of consciousness is soluble. I'm first going to state the nature of the problem (borrowing useful quotes on Wikipedia) and then attempt to address the issue.

The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining how and why we have qualia or phenomenal experiences — how sensations acquire characteristics, such as colours and tastes. David Chalmers, who introduced the term "hard problem" of consciousness, contrasts this with the "easy problems" of explaining the ability to discriminate, integrate information, report mental states, focus attention, etc. Easy problems are easy because all that is required for their solution is to specify a mechanism that can perform the function. That is, their proposed solutions, regardless of how complex or poorly understood they may be, can be entirely consistent with the modern materialistic conception of natural phenomena. Chalmers claims that the problem of experience is distinct from this set, and he argues that the problem of experience will "persist even when the performance of all the relevant functions is explained".

...

In his book Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness, David Chalmers wrote:
“ It is undeniable that some organisms are subjects of experience. But the question of how it is that these systems are subjects of experience is perplexing. Why is it that when our cognitive systems engage in visual and auditory information-processing, we have visual or auditory experience: the quality of deep blue, the sensation of middle C? How can we explain why there is something it is like to entertain a mental image, or to experience an emotion? It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises. Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does."

...

The hard problem has scholarly antecedents considerably earlier than Chalmers.

Gottfried Leibniz wrote, as an example also known as Leibniz's gap:

Moreover, it must be confessed that perception and that which depends upon it are inexplicable on mechanical grounds, that is to say, by means of figures and motions. And supposing there were a machine, so constructed as to think, feel, and have perception, it might be conceived as increased in size, while keeping the same proportions, so that one might go into it as into a mill. That being so, we should, on examining its interior, find only parts which work one upon another, and never anything by which to explain a perception.[7]

The Argument that the hard problem of consciousness as relating to subjective, conscious experience would be insoluble is down to philosophical dualism. It is a problem in defining the subjective experience of the mind as separate from the physical existence of the brain, and therefore the physical nature of the object which is perceived by sensation from the experience of sensation itself. The problem of hard consciousness is not a property of the objective world, but our interpretation of it.

I found a series of quotes originating from Marxist sources which appear to deal with this problem directly.

"Idealism holds that mental functions are functions of a mind which can exist in separation from the body.
But Marxism holds that mental functions are functions of highly developed matter, namely, of the brain. Mental processes are brain processes, processes of a material, bodily organ.
The essential feature of mental processes is that in and through them the animal continually builds up the most complicated and variable relations with its surroundings. when we perceive things we are relating to external objects through the perceptual activity of the brain. And when we think of things, we are relating ourselves to external objects through the thought activity of the brain.
Considering that consciousness belongs to a mind which exists in separation from matter, idealism relies upon the method of introspection in order to give an account of our consciousness. This is the method of looking inside one's own consciousness, so to speak, and trying to analyze what is found there."

...

"Adopting such a method, many idealist philosophers have come to the conclusion that the perceptions and ideas which constitute the content of consciousness are a special kind of objects which have a mental existence distinct from the material existence of objects outside our consciousness.
For such idealist philosophers, what we are aware of in our conscious life is not material objects at all. We know only our ideas of things, and not the "things in themselves." Thus the English philosopher John Locke wrote; "The mind, in all it thoughts and reasoning, hath no other immediate object but its own ideas, which it alone does or can contemplate."

"Hence idealists conclude that only God knows what are the properties of "things in themselves", for they consider our sensations and ideas to be a kind of wall inside our consciousness, cutting it off from the external world. Some go a step further, and conclude that there is no reason to believe that external, material things exist at all: nothing exists except our minds and the sensations and ideas in our minds. "If there were external bodies", wrote George Berkeley, "it is impossible we should ever come to know it; and if it were not, we might have the very same reasons to think that were as we are now."

"...the essence of conscious activity is to build up complicated and variable active relations between the conscious organism and its surroundings, and this function is performed by the brain. Consequently the processes of consciousness are processes whereby we relate ourselves to the external world. Far from standing in the way of our apprehension of external things, our sensations and ideas are the means whereby we apprehend them.
"Sensation is the direct connection between consciousness and the external world", wrote Lenin. "The Sophism of idealist philosophy consists in the fact that is regards sensation as being not the connection between consciousness and the external world, but as a fence, a wall, separating consciousness from the external world."
"... Marxism therefore denies the idealist theory that when we perceive, feel or think there are two separate processes going on- the material process of the brain and the mental process of consciousness. Marxism considers that only one process is involved, namely, the material process of the brain. Mental processes are simply one aspect of the processes of the functioning of the brain as the organ of the most complicated relations to the external world.
And so Marx wrote that thinking is "the life process of the human brain". "

The Hard problem of consciousness is only insoluble when the objective source of sensation and the subjective experience of sensation are considered to be separate. This is the result of an introspective approach to understanding consciousness in terms of ones own thoughts, feelings and ideas, as opposed to seeking an objective basis for thought itself in the physical processes of the brain.

Introspection necessarily makes this problem insoluble and leads to mystical explanations for the source of sensory experience, but by seeking an objective and material cause for consciousness, it can be solved by recognizing the linear and casual relationship between the physical nature of sensation and the experience of sensation.

there is therefore no 'wall' between consciousness and the external world and therefore no hard problem of consciousness. This conclusion is consistent with materialism, because materialism is a monist theory which assumes the consciousness is a property of matter, as opposed to the dualism of idealistic theories which assume an opposition between the subjective and sensory experience mind and the physical existence of the brain.

 

[lovemuffin]

Some responses...

To help clarify, I have a very breif summary on the Marxist view of truth:

"Truth is the correspondence between ideas and objective reality. Such correspondence is usually only partial and approximate. The truth we can establish always depends on our means for discovering and expressing truth, but at the same time the truth of ideas, though relative in this sense, depends on the objective facts to which ideas correspond. We can never attain complete, full and absolute truth, but are always advancing towards it."

I think a correspondence theory of truth will suffice for our purposes. We can agree on this definition.

To clarify "ideological illusions":

"Ideological illusions have their source in the production relations of society. But they are not consciously derived from that source, but arise unconsciously or spontaneously. Unaware of the truth source of their illusionary ideas, ideologists imagine they have produced them by a process of pure thought. And so there takes place a process of inversion in ideology, by which real social relations are represented as the realization of abstract ideas.

The question of philosophical idealism (as opposed to realism, i.e the question of whether the external world is real in itself, objective) is something that I have more to say about below, but for now a brief comment: The bolded section references abstract ideas. Concepts. It is important to my discussion of the spiritual to distinguish between the experience itself, which is immediate, qualitative, and which transcends senses and mind, with the interpretation, memory, beliefs, and concepts which are formed about the experience. The latter are inextricably linked to the experience itself, because we cannot help but to form memories, interpret them, believe things about them, and derive concepts or even entire ideologies. But the latter stages are not the experience itself, and the argument for the real significance of the experience itself as spiritual is not an argument for the validity of every interpretation or concept.

Your responses to the "hard" problem of consciousness

First of all, the quotes offered as counter-arguments tend to deal either with cartesian (substance) dualism, or else with philosophical idealism. The problem is that neither of those philosophical positions is adequate as a description of Chalmers', or other modern philosophers, approach to the problem. The other problem is that those two positions are mutually contradictory, and the quotes tend to conflate them. Idealism is the position that "mind" is what is fundamentally real, and its the external "things in themselves" which are secondary, ontologically. The problem of consciousness is not a problem under idealism, because in that view only consciousness is ultimately "real". It's more like idealism has a problem of explaining objective reality and not falling into solipsism. But in any case, I am not advocating for idealism, nor is Chalmers.

Substance dualism, which is usually understood in reference to Descartes, is a realist view, quite separate from idealism. It is a view that posits "mind" as a separate ontological substance from the physical. There are very real difficulties with making sense of substance dualism. These are often referred to as the Interaction Problem. That is, it's the problem of explaining the causal relation between the two substances, the mental and the material. Again, however, the view I have described is not substance dualism. Most modern philosophers who credit that the hard problem of consciousness is real are either some form of property dualist, or panpsychists, which is similar. Property dualism is monist about "substances". There is only one kind of "stuff", we could even call it matter, but that stuff has certain experiential properties (qualia, in some sense) which cannot be reduced to the physical properties like mass, momentum, spin, electric charge, and etc.

I'll quote a few things to try to clarify some other issues

"The Argument that the hard problem of consciousness as relating to subjective, conscious experience would be insoluble is down to philosophical dualism."

As stated, this seems to assume that the philosophical position came first, and then the conclusion was reached purely in reference to the assumed position. But the argument for the hard problem of consciousness is based on an immediate perception of our own awareness. This is an awareness that is so immediate that it seems to us to be prior to any philosophical reflection. The argument is that we should posit some sort of irreducibility of conscious experience because of our own immediate and unreflective awareness, rather than that we should posit such because we assume dualism. It was the sheer unmediated quality of our own self-awareness that led Kant to describe it as a transcendental, for example. The quote has the correlation backwards.

"When we perceive things we are relating to external objects through the perceptual activity of the brain"

This is what Chalmers' would call an easy problem of consciousness. That is, it's a question about function and how physical states cause mental states. We agree that the quoted statement is true, but it doesn't answer the question of the hard problem, which is about whether or not there is more to perception than a functional relation between external stimuli and internal representational states. It is not enough to merely assert that the functional description is all there is.

"The Hard problem of consciousness is only insoluble when the objective source of sensation and the subjective experience of sensation are considered to be separate."

Referring back to the differences between idealism, substance dualism, and property dualism or pan-psychism, the response that I would make, along with Chalmers and others, is that it is not a question of them being separate, but a question of whether everything (as opposed to something) in subjective experience can be entirely reduced to physical description. The word Chalmers used in his 1999 book A Conscious Mind was that there is a supervenience between the "mental" and "physical", which is similar to reductionism in that it entails that mental states are logically dependent on physical states, they are not separate. There is a lot of philosophical analysis that goes into his distinction between supervenience and reductionism that I think is not worth covering here, at least yet, but suffice to say the point of the distinction is to clarify the idea that the phenomenal experience is dependent on the physical, but that may not entail a pure reduction in which the what-it-is-like-ness of experience can be described adequately by a purely physical description.

"materialism is a monist theory which assumes the consciousness is a property of matter, as opposed to the dualism of idealistic theories which assume an opposition between the subjective and sensory experience mind and the physical existence of the brain."

Here we see the sort of conflation I mentioned. "Idealism" isn't properly dualistic. It's usually a monism in which the only reality is "mind". On the other hand, the philosophical scheme I'm describing is also not a substance dualism which posits an ontological separation between the physical brain and the mind, as I've briefly described.

 

[Laika]

Will have to do some research and a bit of reading on this, so I can offer a specific position. However, this caught my eye when I looked up "Panpsychism" on wikipedia.

Reductive physicalism, a form of monism, is normally assumed to be incompatible with panpsychism. Materialism, if held to be distinct from physicalism, is compatible with panpsychism insofar as mental properties are attributed to physical matter, which is the only basic substance.

This could get interesting....

 

[Laika]

In reference to my previous post, the following quote makes clear that arguments regarding the compatibility of Materialism with any form of idealism is impossible because they are irreconcilably opposed views of the world;

"The great basic question of all philosophy, especially of modern philosophy, is that concerning the relation of thinking and being.... the answers which philosophers have given to this question split them into two great camps. Those who asserted the primacy of spirit to nature and therefore in the last instance assumed world creation in some form or another... comprised the camp of idealism. The others, who regarded nature as primary, belong to the various schools of materialism." (F. Engels).

Marxism therefore asserts materialism as the primacy of matter over mind in opposition to idealism, the primacy of mind over matter. This definition poses a problem because it means that the term "idealism" is applied to a number of philosophical positions that would not use it to describe it for themselves. A second problem, is that the assertion of this opposition between materialism and idealism means that Marxists have no historically engaged in great depth with the philosophical diversity outside of their own theory because it is part of a broader "them and us" mentality. The conflation of "Idealism" (that the mind is fundamentally real) and cartesian (substance) dualism (in which mind is a separate ontological substance from the physical) is a result of this (for lack of a better way of putting it) "intellectual impoverishment" of Marxist theory in respect to opposing belief systems.

Without a broader background knowledge in philosophy, I'm kind of playing a game on intellectual "battleship" and I'm going to have to make my best guess and see if I sink your battleship/argument. Working within this philosophy I should be ok, but I may be a bit slow to catch up.

Referring back to the differences between idealism, substance dualism, and property dualism or pan-psychism, the response that I would make, along with Chalmers and others, is that it is not a question of them being separate, but a question of whether everything (as opposed to something) in subjective experience can be entirely reduced to physical description. The word Chalmers used in his 1999 book A Conscious Mind was that there is a supervenience between the "mental" and "physical", which is similar to reductionism in that it entails that mental states are logically dependent on physical states, they are not separate. There is a lot of philosophical analysis that goes into his distinction between supervenience and reductionism that I think is not worth covering here, at least yet, but suffice to say the point of the distinction is to clarify the idea that the phenomenal experience is dependent on the physical, but that may not entail a pure reduction in which the what-it-is-like-ness of experience can be described adequately by a purely physical description.

Wikipedia's definition on Panpsychism is as "the view that consciousness, mind or soul (psyche) is a universal feature of all things, and the primordial feature from which all others are derived. A panpsychist sees themselves as a mind in a world of minds."

I would want to make a breif mention that the Bishop George Berkley is mentioned as panpsychist because there are almost constant references to his ideas throughout the Marxist literature that I have available so that this may act as a point of common reference, though this does not appear to be the view you are advocating WN; "The Idealist philosophy of George Berkeley is also a form of pure panpsychism and technically all idealists can be said to be panpsychists by default." His theory "denies the existence of material substance and instead contends that familiar objects like tables and chairs are only ideas in the minds of perceivers, and as a result cannot exist without being perceived" are consistently criticized in Marxism because it is incomparable with materialism. His ideas are referred to as immaterialism (but Marxists use the term "Subjective Idealism").

I think the most appropriate is reference to a form of "objective idealism" which appears to roughly correspond to panpsychism. The way in which philosophies are no doubt crudely lumped together under a single umbrella term "idealism" in Marxist literature to emphasize the common similarities of attribution of mind as prior to matter, should be self-evident;

"A more subtle and abstract form of idealism is to be found in the philosophical systems of Plato, Leibnitz and Hegel. They asserted that the basis of all things must be sought in spiritual or non-material causes, elements or essences that existed before the appearance of material things. Plato called these non-material causes "forms" or "ideas". Leibnitz considered that the ultimate basis of all things lay in a peculiar kind of spiritual "atoms" of being, spiritually active "units" (monads). Hegel saw the ultimate basis of all things in the "idea" as an objectively existing concept. "The idea", he wrote, "is the true primacy and things are what they are because of the activity of the concepts intrinsic to them and disclosed in them." According to Hegel, nature as a whole is also the product of the concept, the idea- not an ordinary human idea, but one that exist independent of man, the Absolute Idea, which is equivalent to God.
The philosophy of Plato, Leibnitz and Hegel is termed objective idealism because it recognizes the existence of some "objective", spiritual basis, distinct from human consciousness and independent of it." (Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism, Kuusinen, 1961)

The objection of Marxism to Objective idealism is that "Ideas, concepts exist only in human thought, they reflect the general features and properties of reality itself, they reflect generalized characteristics of the material world. ... Concepts, ideas that are supposed to have existed prior to nature and to have produced nature are simply a fantasy of the idealists." The proofs for this specific point are in now way deatiled, so I will have to look further to develop them if this is where the discussion goes.

Wikipedia points out that Thomas Nagel defines panpsychism as "the view that the basic physical constituents of the universe have mental properties", further arguing that it has four premises:
i) "Material composition" or commitment to materialism.
ii) "Non-reductionism", or the view that mental properties cannot be reduced to physical properties.
iii) "Realism" about mental properties.
iv) "Non-emergence", or the view that "there are no truly emergent properties to complex systems".

Non-reductionism is incompatible with Marxist views on Consciousness which is 'reductionist' in so far as "Marxism holds that consciousness is a product of the development of matter, namely, of living bodies with a central nervous system, and that perceptions, feelings and thoughts are, in fact, the highest products of matter." It would follow that arguing for Non-reductionism necessarily implies the existence of mental properties prior to matter, and hence the need for spiritual attributions of knowledge in mysticism and in god.

I think I should stop here, so you can let me know if I'm on the right track in that we disagree on this point. My suspicion is that non-reductionism is central to the 'hard' problem of consciousness. Am I getting warmer?

 

[lovemuffin]

There's more I have to respond to there, but very quickly: All idealisms are "panpsychist" (because they say mind is all that exists) but not all panpsychisms are idealist. The ones I'm interested in are more like this definition: "Panpsychism, once again, is the thesis that some microphysical entities are conscious". The reference to microphysical entities (physical particles) indicates the fact that were dealing with some form of realism where those physical entities truely exist. See http://consc.net/papers/panpsychism.pdf

 

[lovemuffin]

"The great basic question of all philosophy, especially of modern philosophy, is that concerning the relation of thinking and being.... the answers which philosophers have given to this question split them into two great camps. Those who asserted the primacy of spirit to nature and therefore in the last instance assumed world creation in some form or another... comprised the camp of idealism. The others, who regarded nature as primary, belong to the various schools of materialism." (F. Engels).

The question of thinking and being goes back at least as far as Parmenides, who equated the two: "Thinking and that because of which there is thinking are the same". This idea is quite central to my thesis, insofar that the way I understand spirituality is in opposition to Parmenides. That is, if you look at what I've said about the relation between epistemological knowledge and "ontological awareness", epistemology is the thinking side of the equation, and what I am saying is that spirituality is the awareness of "being" beyond thinking, and the human faculty that allows us to be aware of that dimension of the real beyond what is thinkable is the spirit.

Where I don't follow Engels is that I don't see how this is restricted only to a question of realism and idealism, or even monism vs. dualism. I think this might reflect a problem where the way we conceptualize problems and the way we imagine the questions already conditions the answers that we will accept. To refer back to what I said previously about the difficulty inherent in the "wave/particle duality" of QM, sometimes the apparent dichotomy needs to be transcended. In Chalmers' paper on panpsychism which I linked, he refers to his version as "Hegelian", not because it has anything to do with Hegel directly, but because in it he saw himself attempting a synthesis between the apparent opposition of a materialist thesis and a dualist antithesis. In a "spiritualized" sense, this kind of synthesis is for me a strong symbol of what the mystical apprehension of reality is like, which is why I tend so often to refer to the perichoresis of the Trinity in Christianity as an example, or the Advaita of Hinduism, at least as I understand it. So with idealism and realism, I don't deny the objective reality of the material world, but the question as I see it is whether "reality" is more (but not less!) than that objective reality. The "more" is the apprehension of Being beyond Thinking, and the denial of Parmenides.

I think the most appropriate is reference to a form of "objective idealism" which appears to roughly correspond to panpsychism. The way in which philosophies are no doubt crudely lumped together under a single umbrella term "idealism" in Marxist literature to emphasize the common similarities of attribution of mind as prior to matter, should be self-evident;

The objection of Marxism to Objective idealism is that "Ideas, concepts exist only in human thought, they reflect the general features and properties of reality itself, they reflect generalized characteristics of the material world. ... Concepts, ideas that are supposed to have existed prior to nature and to have produced nature are simply a fantasy of the idealists." The proofs for this specific point are in now way deatiled, so I will have to look further to develop them if this is where the discussion goes.

Wikipedia points out that Thomas Nagel defines panpsychism as "the view that the basic physical constituents of the universe have mental properties", further arguing that it has four premises:
i) "Material composition" or commitment to materialism.
ii) "Non-reductionism", or the view that mental properties cannot be reduced to physical properties.
iii) "Realism" about mental properties.
iv) "Non-emergence", or the view that "there are no truly emergent properties to complex systems".

Non-reductionism is incompatible with Marxist views on Consciousness which is 'reductionist' in so far as "Marxism holds that consciousness is a product of the development of matter, namely, of living bodies with a central nervous system, and that perceptions, feelings and thoughts are, in fact, the highest products of matter." It would follow that arguing for Non-reductionism necessarily implies the existence of mental properties prior to matter, and hence the need for spiritual attributions of knowledge in mysticism and in god.

I think this is a good summary. I would note again that, from my perspective, the primary flaw here is in referring to human conscious awareness purely in terms of ideas and concepts in human thought. This goes back to the distinction I made between the experience itself and the later beliefs and concepts we form about it. The latter are surely only existent in human thought, as the objection notes, but it's not the concepts themselves with which I am primarily concerned, although of course they matter very much. No one will suppose, for example, in dealing with violent fundamentalisms that the idealogies and concepts that are involved in religion are irrelevant.

From here I want to pivot slightly, although of course the philosophical problems are deep enough that they could be their own debate which we would never settle ourselves. I'm anticipating an objection to my use of consciousness as a proof against materialism (or at least reductive physicalism) that it doesn't really reach as far as evidence of a "spiritual" aspect of reality, or at least the connotations of the word seem misplaced up against the philosophical naturalism of someone like Chalmers.

I think that's a valid point, so I'd like to pivot back into describing more of the universality of mysticism, and what will emerge is that the relationship between mysticism and the hard problem of consciousness, is that if you look carefully at the writing of mystics throughout history and across various traditions, you will find that this experience of awareness as such, "pure consciousness", consciousness which is not consciousness "of" anything, prior to interpretation and belief as we have said -- this experience is something like an invariant across all these traditions and mystical views. This is the "core" of mysticism. Mystics refer to their experiences as ineffable precisely because they experience reality as "more" than Thinking. Being beyond thinking, but not separate from thinking or outside of it. It is a question of the boundaries of reality and the boundaries of thought.

So I'm going to attempt to explore that a bit in my next post (I have to compile a bunch of references), but feel free to also continue poking at the last argument as you wish.

 

[Laika]

I think I will eventually have to demonstrate that mysticism is a projection of human qualities (particularly consciousness) onto the material world, but I'll let you develop your argument in your next post.

 

[lovemuffin]

The Universality of Mysticism

I'm afraid almost anything that I'm going to write here is going to be inadequate given practical time constraints and the difficulty of trying to remember and cross-reference everything I've ever read on the topic, and so the task feels daunting. I'm going to attempt a start nonetheless.

The thesis: there is a common strand running through the mystical expressions found in many religious traditions, and this strand speaks to the objective reality of the experience which I have labeled "spiritual". Further, that common experience may be described as an experience of "pure consciousness", and as such is the experience of the reality of that which is intuited in the "hard" problem of consciousness.

The antithesis: this commonality is masked and complicated by many differences and contradictions between the various traditions. Those differences matter and can't be ignored. An overly simplistic syncretism is unconvincing. A skeptic can argue that the supposed commonality is merely something being imposed from the outside, as a reinterpretation. The skeptic argues that, in fact, the wide variety of theological conceptions, moral views, and religious practices demonstrates that there is nothing "objective" in religion at all, that it's a purely cultural construct.

A Synthesis? The difficulty inherent in religious pluralism is something I've anticipated when I drew a distinction between experience and interpretation. That is, I wrote:

"It is important to my discussion of the spiritual to distinguish between the experience itself, which is immediate, qualitative, and which transcends senses and mind, with the interpretation, memory, beliefs, and concepts which are formed about the experience."​

The argument is then that a great deal of the contradiction and variety exists as differences of interpretation and concept, which is so heavily influenced by the cultures within which the mystic writes. But, it is possible to also see the underlying unity of pure experience, even though that experience in itself is not directly available to us to inspect. What we do have is the many recorded experiences of mystics across these varied traditions, and while those mystics speak using the symbolic languages of their traditions, they often also find themselves at odds with the "orthodoxy" of their faiths because their descriptions tend towards the universal, or chafe against the boundaries of that very language. In some traditions, and I would argue that Hinduism and Buddhism may be the best examples, there are orthodox schools that already describe mystical experience very closely to how I have done so in this thread, and in others, like Christianity and Islam, it is more masked and the mystics more often at odds with "orthodox" views.

There is one other perhaps common objection, wherein the universality of mystical experience is accepted, but explained as a purely neurological phenomena. This kind of deflationary view is essentially the same as the reductive physicalist response to the hard problem. It simply denies that the experience in itself has any significance. Just as with the hard problem, this view can't be refuted as a matter of logical argument, it really comes down to how easily you are able to dismiss your own experience. The argument from the universality of mysticism is not intended to deal with it, but I think, alongside the intuitive hard problem of consciousness, it suggests that the reductive view may not be justified.

Existing Literature: This thesis is fairly well-explored, although the connection to philosophy of mind and Chalmers' arguments about the hard problem of consciousness may be a bit novel. The existing literature that deals with this kind of question does a much better job than I'm likely to do, and I'm borrowing freely from what I've read, and I haven't read everything I probably should. Here are a few references:

1. The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James (wiki)
2. The Perennial Philosophy, Aldous Huxley (wiki)
3. The Rhythm of Being, Raimon Panikkar (probably most important to my argument)

A Short Survey of Texts

Here, then, are some examples from the various mystical traditions...

Turiya, a concept from the Mandukya Upanishad, and elaborated upon by Indian philosophy, speaks about "pure consciousness" directly:

"Turiya is not that which is conscious of the inner (subjective) world, nor that which is conscious of the outer (objective) world, nor that which is conscious of both, nor that which is a mass of consciousness. It is not simple consciousness nor is It unconsciousness. It is unperceived, unrelated, incomprehensible, uninferable, unthinkable and indescribable. The essence of the Consciousness manifesting as the self in the three states, It is the cessation of all phenomena; It is all peace, all bliss and non—dual. This is what is known as the Fourth (Turiya). This is Atman and this has to be realized" (Mand. U. 7)​

The "realization" spoken of is experience. It is not first of all a philosophical reflection, but an experience that is sought. The meaning of "Atman" (Self) is given elaboration in different ways in different Hindu schools, but this "Self" is, in whatever way, also Divine, it is an experience of God. Compare this to a reflection on "pure prayer" in the 7th century writings of Christian mystic Isaac of Syria:

"Groans, prostrations, heartfelt requests and supplications, sweet tears and all other varieties of prayer, as I have said, have their boundary only as far as pure prayer. Moving inwards from purity of prayer, once one has passed this boundary, the mind has no prayer, no movement, no requests, no desire, no longing for anything that is hoped for in this world or the world to come. For this reason, after pure prayer there is no longer any prayer: all the stirrings of prayer convey the mind up to that point through their free authority; that is why struggle is involved in prayer. But beyond the boundary, there exists wonder, not prayer. From that point onwards the mind ceases from prayer; there is the capacity to see, but the mind is not praying at all." (Discourse 22)
​

There is an interesting parallel between the usage of negative language to attempt to describe a conscious state which is not consciousness of anything. Unperceived, unrelated, uninferable, indescribable. Without movement, request, desire, or longing. "There is the capacity to see, but the mind is not praying". That is, the mind is still. In both the point is in isolating that moment of pure conscious experience which is exactly the core of what the hard problem of consciousness says must be explained. But here, the contemplative and pure experience of that state, when attained and not merely referenced abstractly as a logical argument, is perceived to be, in itself, the experience of the Divine. A spiritual experience.

In Buddhism, the term Śūnyatā (Emptiness) is used in multiple ways, but one of them refers to a state found in meditation, which again seems comparable to "pure consciousness". Here again, this state is described in a particular sutta in this procession of "negative" terms. Sunyata as emptiness already describes something that is without content, and the meditate state is without direction, without signs, without form. Here also the meanings of the word samadhi could be investigated, pointing in a similar direction.

From a particular translation of the poetry of the sufi mystic Rumi:

"Although you appear in earthly form
Your essence is pure Consciousness.
You are the fearless guardian
of Divine Light.
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul."
​

"Purity" is an especially important concept in sufism (and in the middle eastern forms of Christianity) that certainly denotes more than just the technical description of consciousness which is not consciousness of anything, but again in Sufi mysticism the experience itself seems to be present, at the "root" of the soul. In a less esoteric way, "purity" in these traditions includes also the ethical precepts of a spiritual life. "Spirituality" is not separate from the other concerns of life or human understanding, as I've said in the context of describing the "senses", "intellect", and "spirit". But, as also in Buddhism, albeit in a different way, the egoic "self" of the spiritual aspirant must be stripped away, and while that includes dealing with ethics and behavior and psychology, in the contemplative traditions, in prayer and in meditation, it is also experienced as a "pure consciousness" in this immediate way.

Turiya, Sunyata, Samadhi, Pure Prayer, Purity of Heart. These are all categories of experience and religious belief that extend well beyond the connection that I'm making between them and my previous arguments. They all could be given book-length treatments about their meaning in their respective traditions. And I didn't even attempt to approach the meaning of Atman and Brahman directly. But insofar as the traditions concern themselves with a spiritual experience and not just a theoretical knowledge or a set of beliefs, the experience that is sought is in interior experience, it is an experience in consciousness. It is described almost always in similar terms, emphasizing its ineffability and its place beyond the normal senses and mind. The commonality of these descriptions points at least towards some objective reality which explains the experiences.

Distinguishing "God" and "Consciousness"

A final clarification. In an attempt to be both reasonably brief and somewhat focused in terms of making an argument, it may seem like I'm implying that "God" or the Divine is really just our own consciousness, since in all cases the spiritual experience is tied to states of consciousness. In a sense, there is some truth to that according to some understandings of some traditions. This is a matter of interpretation though, and no longer of the pure experience.

Christians, for example, don't understand God to be the experience, but rather that the experience is an experience of union with God, even though God transcends that experience. Only the "pure in heart" can "see" God. Purity is a pre-requisite, and purity of consciousness is related to purity of heart. But what is seen is not merely one's own self. This is where the religious point of view goes beyond the philosophical purpose of something like pan-psychism. When this experience wants to leap beyond a merely theoretical description, it is because in the experience itself a profound existential joy is found, which speaks of the Divine transcendence. But that is beyond the scope of this present argument.

 

[Laika]

The Universality of Mysticism

I'm afraid almost anything that I'm going to write here is going to be inadequate given practical time constraints and the difficulty of trying to remember and cross-reference everything I've ever read on the topic, and so the task feels daunting. I'm going to attempt a start nonetheless.

I feel the same way. we are both very intelligent people and I think we are both well versed and knowledgeable in our own fields and beliefs (though I think your knowledge is much wider). I think ultimately, it's going to be about what we take away from this rather than anything more profound.

The thesis: there is a common strand running through the mystical expressions found in many religious traditions, and this strand speaks to the objective reality of the experience which I have labeled "spiritual". Further, that common experience may be described as an experience of "pure consciousness", and as such is the experience of the reality of that which is intuited in the "hard" problem of consciousness.

The antithesis: this commonality is masked and complicated by many differences and contradictions between the various traditions. Those differences matter and can't be ignored. An overly simplistic syncretism is unconvincing. A skeptic can argue that the supposed commonality is merely something being imposed from the outside, as a reinterpretation. The skeptic argues that, in fact, the wide variety of theological conceptions, moral views, and religious practices demonstrates that there is nothing "objective" in religion at all, that it's a purely cultural construct.

A Synthesis? The difficulty inherent in religious pluralism is something I've anticipated when I drew a distinction between experience and interpretation. That is, I wrote:

"It is important to my discussion of the spiritual to distinguish between the experience itself, which is immediate, qualitative, and which transcends senses and mind, with the interpretation, memory, beliefs, and concepts which are formed about the experience."​

​

I think Marxism is an attempt to reach a synthesis rather than an anti-thesis. An Anti-thesis would be more characteristic of an eliminative materialism, which tries to eliminate consciousness and therefore all religious belief, whereas Marxism does recognize an objective source for religious belief in the world, only that it is material and not spiritual. It is the fact that matter is primary, which leads to the rejection of mystical concepts.

"Every illusion has its source in reality. It reflects definite conditions of material life, arises from definite social relations, experiences and activities. That is why many illusions are so persistent. It is not simply a question of the indoctrination of individuals with illusory ideas, but it is a question of existing social relations continually generating certain illusions, and of these illusions serving definite material interests.
Illusions take two forms.
In the first place, there arise illusions about real things- misconceptions of real processes and relations familiar in experience and practice. Such, for example, is the illusion that certain social relations and institutions follow from human nature, or were decreed by Reason.
In the second place, illusions develop into sheer mythology and fantasy, the invention of imaginary things. Thus people not only misconceive nature and society, both of which really exist, but they also form ideas of heaven and hell, of the spiritual world, and so on, which have no existence; they invent all kind of imaginary beings, such as gods, fairies and devils."

The argument is then that a great deal of the contradiction and variety exists as differences of interpretation and concept, which is so heavily influenced by the cultures within which the mystic writes. But, it is possible to also see the underlying unity of pure experience, even though that experience in itself is not directly available to us to inspect. What we do have is the many recorded experiences of mystics across these varied traditions, and while those mystics speak using the symbolic languages of their traditions, they often also find themselves at odds with the "orthodoxy" of their faiths because their descriptions tend towards the universal, or chafe against the boundaries of that very language. In some traditions, and I would argue that Hinduism and Buddhism may be the best examples, there are orthodox schools that already describe mystical experience very closely to how I have done so in this thread, and in others, like Christianity and Islam, it is more masked and the mystics more often at odds with "orthodox" views.

There is one other perhaps common objection, wherein the universality of mystical experience is accepted, but explained as a purely neurological phenomena. This kind of deflationary view is essentially the same as the reductive physicalist response to the hard problem. It simply denies that the experience in itself has any significance. Just as with the hard problem, this view can't be refuted as a matter of logical argument, it really comes down to how easily you are able to dismiss your own experience. The argument from the universality of mysticism is not intended to deal with it, but I think, alongside the intuitive hard problem of consciousness, it suggests that the reductive view may not be justified.

Existing Literature: This thesis is fairly well-explored, although the connection to philosophy of mind and Chalmers' arguments about the hard problem of consciousness may be a bit novel. The existing literature that deals with this kind of question does a much better job than I'm likely to do, and I'm borrowing freely from what I've read, and I haven't read everything I probably should. Here are a few references:

1. The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James (wiki)
2. The Perennial Philosophy, Aldous Huxley (wiki)
3. The Rhythm of Being, Raimon Panikkar (probably most important to my argument)

Marxism has really failed to engage with man's inner experience precisely because it focuses on the objective world. The closest Marxism comes to mysticism is 'Freudo-Marxism', which combines Freudian psychoanalysis with Marxist theories of society (and was rejected as a 'deviation' from Communist Party orthodoxy for precisely that reason in the 1930's). There are a number of authors connected with this school, but the ones I am most familiar with as Erich Fromm and Wilhelm Reich. I'm in an odd position as I've had to engage with my own inner experience through depression and have used their ideas to navigate through it. Probably the great attraction of materialism is that if something is material- it can be understood as it has observable properties. therefore this understanding of consciousness presents a rational solution to my own problems was possible and has been fairly successful by a 'trial and error' approach.

The inner experience clearly differs and changes and question is whether we can accept it comes from an objective source. Reich's theory is specifically Freudian; that we have an innate sexual instinct towards pleasure (the id). This instinct can be repressed by our internalized moral views which are themselves the reflection of social relations, such as the family (the super-ego). The nature of sexuality here is extremely broad, as it does not describe the 'act', but rather the instinct. Reich argued that the relationship between the free expression and inhibition/repression of sexuality lead to different inner states. He applied this to neurosis but it could well be applied more generally to understanding our emotional well-being.

Erich Fromm, was less explicit about the nature of sexual instincts, but did develop the theme further. In the "Art of loving" he argued that love is not something that spontaneously occurs when we find the 'right' love object (the "one" as our culture would describe it), but that love is a faculty which can be learned over time, and is an 'art'.

I feel I need to make a brief mention of Ivan Pavlov, who was highly regarded in Soviet Science and psychoanalysis. His word with classical conditioning demonstrated the existence of both unconditioned and conditioned reflexes and how our experience could be changed by interaction with the material world. For the Soviets, this was seen as validation for their worldview. Whilst it does not allow for unlimited changes in a person psychology (and therefore inner experience) since it begins with the innate biological drives (much as Reich does with the sexual instinct), it is conditioned by the external world. This process of conditioning could go some way to explain how mystical experience reflects the overcoming of objective, but material, obstacle to 'inner' or spiritual growth. granted, it is an unusual way to use the theory, but it still suggests a material and physical source for mystical experience and that is can be rationally understood.

A Short Survey of Texts

Here, then, are some examples from the various mystical traditions...

Turiya, a concept from the Mandukya Upanishad, and elaborated upon by Indian philosophy, speaks about "pure consciousness" directly:

"Turiya is not that which is conscious of the inner (subjective) world, nor that which is conscious of the outer (objective) world, nor that which is conscious of both, nor that which is a mass of consciousness. It is not simple consciousness nor is It unconsciousness. It is unperceived, unrelated, incomprehensible, uninferable, unthinkable and indescribable. The essence of the Consciousness manifesting as the self in the three states, It is the cessation of all phenomena; It is all peace, all bliss and non—dual. This is what is known as the Fourth (Turiya). This is Atman and this has to be realized" (Mand. U. 7)​

The "realization" spoken of is experience. It is not first of all a philosophical reflection, but an experience that is sought. The meaning of "Atman" (Self) is given elaboration in different ways in different Hindu schools, but this "Self" is, in whatever way, also Divine, it is an experience of God. Compare this to a reflection on "pure prayer" in the 7th century writings of Christian mystic Isaac of Syria:

"Groans, prostrations, heartfelt requests and supplications, sweet tears and all other varieties of prayer, as I have said, have their boundary only as far as pure prayer. Moving inwards from purity of prayer, once one has passed this boundary, the mind has no prayer, no movement, no requests, no desire, no longing for anything that is hoped for in this world or the world to come. For this reason, after pure prayer there is no longer any prayer: all the stirrings of prayer convey the mind up to that point through their free authority; that is why struggle is involved in prayer. But beyond the boundary, there exists wonder, not prayer. From that point onwards the mind ceases from prayer; there is the capacity to see, but the mind is not praying at all." (Discourse 22)
​

There is an interesting parallel between the usage of negative language to attempt to describe a conscious state which is not consciousness of anything. Unperceived, unrelated, uninferable, indescribable. Without movement, request, desire, or longing. "There is the capacity to see, but the mind is not praying". That is, the mind is still. In both the point is in isolating that moment of pure conscious experience which is exactly the core of what the hard problem of consciousness says must be explained. But here, the contemplative and pure experience of that state, when attained and not merely referenced abstractly as a logical argument, is perceived to be, in itself, the experience of the Divine. A spiritual experience.

In Buddhism, the term Śūnyatā (Emptiness) is used in multiple ways, but one of them refers to a state found in meditation, which again seems comparable to "pure consciousness". Here again, this state is described in a particular sutta in this procession of "negative" terms. Sunyata as emptiness already describes something that is without content, and the meditate state is without direction, without signs, without form. Here also the meanings of the word samadhi could be investigated, pointing in a similar direction.

From a particular translation of the poetry of the sufi mystic Rumi:

"Although you appear in earthly form
Your essence is pure Consciousness.
You are the fearless guardian
of Divine Light.
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul."
​

"Purity" is an especially important concept in sufism (and in the middle eastern forms of Christianity) that certainly denotes more than just the technical description of consciousness which is not consciousness of anything, but again in Sufi mysticism the experience itself seems to be present, at the "root" of the soul. In a less esoteric way, "purity" in these traditions includes also the ethical precepts of a spiritual life. "Spirituality" is not separate from the other concerns of life or human understanding, as I've said in the context of describing the "senses", "intellect", and "spirit". But, as also in Buddhism, albeit in a different way, the egoic "self" of the spiritual aspirant must be stripped away, and while that includes dealing with ethics and behavior and psychology, in the contemplative traditions, in prayer and in meditation, it is also experienced as a "pure consciousness" in this immediate way.

Turiya, Sunyata, Samadhi, Pure Prayer, Purity of Heart. These are all categories of experience and religious belief that extend well beyond the connection that I'm making between them and my previous arguments. They all could be given book-length treatments about their meaning in their respective traditions. And I didn't even attempt to approach the meaning of Atman and Brahman directly. But insofar as the traditions concern themselves with a spiritual experience and not just a theoretical knowledge or a set of beliefs, the experience that is sought is in interior experience, it is an experience in consciousness. It is described almost always in similar terms, emphasizing its ineffability and its place beyond the normal senses and mind. The commonality of these descriptions points at least towards some objective reality which explains the experiences.

Erich Fromm did deal with the relationship between psychology and ethics in terms of understanding human beings in relation to the pleasure principle, that we are motivated by pleasure. The frustration of this desire for pleasure is responsible for neurosis. Fromm did not argue that neurosis was purely confined to psychiatric field, but to society at large; that our society was governed by irrational forces which conflicted with our innate pleasure drives (such as warfare) and that society could be 'insane' or rather neurotic. His definition of sanity was not an authoritarian one of social control which was dependent on whether a person functioned in society, but a much more subjective one based on the self-realization of a person- a much more intuitive perspective. His perspective was humanist and secular, but not necessarily materialist in the Marxian sense.

Distinguishing "God" and "Consciousness"

A final clarification. In an attempt to be both reasonably brief and somewhat focused in terms of making an argument, it may seem like I'm implying that "God" or the Divine is really just our own consciousness, since in all cases the spiritual experience is tied to states of consciousness. In a sense, there is some truth to that according to some understandings of some traditions. This is a matter of interpretation though, and no longer of the pure experience.

Christians, for example, don't understand God to be the experience, but rather that the experience is an experience of union with God, even though God transcends that experience. Only the "pure in heart" can "see" God. Purity is a pre-requisite, and purity of consciousness is related to purity of heart. But what is seen is not merely one's own self. This is where the religious point of view goes beyond the philosophical purpose of something like pan-psychism. When this experience wants to leap beyond a merely theoretical description, it is because in the experience itself a profound existential joy is found, which speaks of the Divine transcendence. But that is beyond the scope of this present argument.

How did people achieve the state of purity with which to experience God? There must necessarily have been a predictable path for people to follow for religious belief to reproduce itself through the generations. That suggests that it is not ineffable, but again comes back to the question of "how" something can be known.

The materialist explanation is that god was a projection of our own sense of consciousness, not on to thin air exactly, but onto the objective world. Ludwig Feuerbach's The essence of Christianity is the starting point for this (a book I badly need to read), but his argument was that god had human characteristics and therefore must have been created by man himself. As people attribute consciousness to physical and material phenomena and thereby necessitated a god to explain existence as the result of the 'prime mover'. This is called 'ideological inversion' as we invert the world by treating ideas as independent entities rather than the products of a material process.