I am sensing a 5D perspective emerging ... is this article pointing to 5D thinking?
3D is all about the physical world of experience. What we can see, touch, and measure. Science is based on measure, patterns, words of logic with tangible conceptual outcomes. In 3D we're exploring from the physical side of duality. Flat round, right wrong, light dark, religious writings, customs and cultural ceremonies, competition and scarcity, or cooperation and abundance. It's all 3D
Right now our spiritual energies are emerging or evolving into 5D perception.
I hear this episode from Mike as a 5D inquiry. His concepts and ideas are looking beyond or throughout the physical, beyond the science of measure and patterns, tapping into something more expansive.
5D Is about seeing beyond the paradox of shadows and conflicts of the physical world. 5D is spiritually embracing our interconnectedness and aligning with higher purpose. 5D shifts the focus from physical success patterns to collectively connecting all human thought concepts into a higher harmonic resonance. The 5D perceptions help dissolve the matrix of 3D.
In 5D it's about trust, compassion, and creating a reality based on abundance, energy, and deeper connection, moving beyond the limits of 3D logic and reasoning to embrace wholeness.
Scripture presents two truths that our finite minds cannot reconcile. It should cause us to marvel in awesome wonder. But too often we neglect to grasp what it means that God is eternal, infinite and incomprehensible. We try to make God comprehensible.
Determinism cannot handle the reality that God created us as self directed individuals, and that our thoughts are our own, not put into our minds by God. And yet He remains sovereign over it all. We should marvel in awesome wonder of the incomprehensible Creator!
Freely choosing is not free will. We choose based on the desires of our nature, which, because of Adam's sin, is fallen, corrupted and sinful from conception. We are dead in trespasses and sins, the natural man who does not receive the things of the spirit. The will is enslaved to sin, not free.
God is sovereign and we are responsible. But as Jesus told Nicodemus, the bottom line is that God is sovereign in salvation. What Nicodemus should have known (John 3:10) is found in Ezekiel 36 where Yahweh declares His "I wills". We believe because God initiates redemption in us, renewing the mind of the natural man (Eph. 4) and producing a new creature (II Cor. 5).
"Free will" is actually the cry of arrogant pride in the Garden, demanding autonomy. This man centered notion deserves God's rebuke of Peter: "Get behind me... you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.” (Mark 8, Matt. 16)
Divine sovereign grace is foundational to the Gospel and to the Christian life. Marvel in awesome wonder.
Ahhh but then why would such a wonderful creator allow for his innocent children suffer such pain and misery? This is the classic rebuttal by deterministic atheists…
Why did the sovereign creator plant a tree in paradise whose fruit is the knowledge of the good and the knowledge of the evil, having the perfect foreknowledge that the fruit would be eaten, even though the sovereign creator expressly forbade its eating?
Two (of a few?) possible answers: (1) It proved that the knowledge of good and evil existed prior to the creation of man and (2) placing the first man in the vicinity of the tree was a test of the first man’s agency.
Also, don’t neglect remembering the actions of the serpent as a liar and a tempter.
I think that these (so-called) “deterministic atheists” are clueless about such concepts as innocence and pain and suffering. These “deterministic atheists” are also clueless about such concepts as atonement, lawfulness, accountability, judgement, and forgiveness. Why listen to the (so-called) “rebuttals” of atheists? It’s not like they’re expert witnesses. It’s like the mother of all living listening to the serpent’s lying words.
Not all determinists are atheists. On Facebook (which I recently quit) one Determinist claims to be a saint.
Meanwhile, God doesn't give us all the details of why He does what He does. But, because of Adam's sin, we understand from Scripture that there are NO INNOCENTS. The pain and misery are the consequence of sin and we are all subject to it. Clearly some experience much more pain and misery than others. Even believers may experience anything from prosperity to poverty, from good health to sickness and disease, and from peace to persecution, and even martyrdom.
Nothing happens unless God allows it and we have many questions about why He does what He does and allows what He allows.
No free will, if one only considers the (pseudo) reality of our sensory world. In this universe, “reality” arises from the pure existence (thus observing influence) of conscious entities in higher dimensioned spaces (or planes), which in their entirety represent the divine “universe” and - since they are not subject to any influences, exist without any dependencies - represent the “original source” of free will through their mere existence. Quasi in the act of deciding “to be” (to exist), they represent the starting point for an infinite “world of possibility”, which manifests itself through the pure “observation” of conscious entities - or respectively becomes reality.
The closer we (humans), as parts of this universal consciousness (God/All/Source/Universe...) are to the core of this primal source, the freer our will is, but the less we are individuals. Conversely, the more we mature/become a specific individual (shaped ego), the smaller our “space” to exercise free will becomes. The act of will to be (to exist) and to separate was always the greatest expression of our free will and is obviously part of the meaning of our existence, indeed, the meaning of everything (God/universe) in general.
Has Alfa Cast had Nassim Haramein on the show? If so, what is the link? If not, maybe you guys could think about asking him on your show. He links science and spirit together in a most beautiful way.
Enochian mysticism spreading from the illuminated vanity of the lesser g's to attach their spirits of confusion and fear while they roll in a new money system to once again embrace their own control and dominion on this earth.
We are so much smarter and stronger as a unified spirit of love and gratitude. Royal bloodlines and beasts of old.
This was a great conversation this morning, will tune in more often . I am just learning so I can't speak directly to the points , broad spectrum thoughts as I journey through these times with you all.
Mike, this topic likely requires a much longer conversation and greater depth than we can cover here regarding free will. And while we are in agreement on the nature of the divine as fundamental to our experience, our own essential nature, I would suggest there is a different line of inquiry we must follow to know our essential nature and freedom. This follows on a comment I posted on the non-dual nature of reality, related to your podcast, Does Matter, Matter? which in response you mentioned you would address the subject in more detail in a latter talk. Perhaps this one. At least, there seems a similar thread here to explore further.
In any case, as you seem to assert, and I would agree, the argument regarding free will vs determinism is a false dichotomy, a dualism that leads nowhere except into a prison of more reductionist abstraction. So, I would suggest that we cannot investigate this through more abstraction, but only from our direct experience. What we really want to know is who we truly are, free of the conditions and limitations that the mind imposes on our experience, to know Freedom itself. When we consider the true ontology related to this subject of free-will vs determinism we are really talking about the deeper investigation of mind and matter, knower and known, witnessing consciousness and the objectification of experience, Logos and mythos, spirituality and materialism.
So, the question is, what is the way to freedom and the happiness we seek? As Wei Wu Wei said, “The way in is the only way out” The way in, turning our attention in upon itself, mind, we return the way we came. This is always open to us. Mind includes all aspects of experience, thinking, sensing and perceiving, all mind. The senses are not the source of ignorance, but doorways to the inner (and outer) life, consciousness, which is source, substance and reality of all experience. Always our choice, once we know we have that freedom. Mind, body and world (thinking, sensing and perceiving) can reflect the infinity of knowing being, peace, love, knowing the world as our self. Without this grounding in being, our experience, fixated outward, dissolves into seeking after a chaos of random objects and conflict, the world of appearances.
Until we know the nature of that which knows our experience, consciousness, we cannot know the nature of that which is known, the mind, the body or the world. As William Blake said, “‘As a man is, so he sees”. The world is as we are. There is no inside or outside in reality.
And in this vein, I think you may have misunderstood Kastrup who comes at this from a classical non-dual understanding as it is applied to the science of pure empiricism. There is an excellence paper by Kastrup, Conflating Abstraction with Empirical Observation: The False Mind-Matter Dichotomy. When viewed from the standpoint of the allness of consciousness, matter and mind are inseparable. Matter is not what we see but the way we see. Matter is a concept. Kastrup is a scientist in the purist sense. I have not known him to readily enter into conversations about the divine, because that can be just another unverifiable concept like matter (not that it is, in essence, free of any name we may give it). The all-ness of consciousness is not a philosophical or theoretical concept, it is our most intimate, ever-present experience. We might choose to describe this as Divine or God with us, which I’m happy to do, but it’s not necessary to know the truth of our being. It does not require years of meditation to acquire or attain, but is innate, our essential nature. Meditation is what we are, not what we do. Turning the mind inward, away from objects of the mind, we notice we are aware that we are always aware. Nothing can be known or experienced without consciousness, always, already present prior to any experience.
And only consciousness is conscious. The brain or mind or body is not conscious, but made of consciousness. As Kastrup points out, to attribute any object of the mind as conscious is the error of pan-psychism. Again, Huang Po, “The perceived cannot perceive”
And regarding Parmenides, we have fragments of his work, likely greatly misunderstood, but as I read him, he seeks to unravel the nature of existence and non-existence, the Logos and mythos, two worlds, one which is, an unchanging, timeless, unified reality, and one that is not, the world of appearances, in which “one’s sensory faculties lead to conceptions which are false and deceitful”. Interesting correlation to the first and second chapters of Genesis. As Parmenides said, “whatever is is, and what is not cannot be”. which echo’s the Bhagavad Gita, perhaps more explanatory, “That which is, never ceases to be, that which is not, never comes into existence.” Again, we see here the concept of the simulacrum, the world of appearances, that which is not, an abstraction conjured in the mind’s imagination divorced (mentally) from our essential nature. Even as it may seem to be a ‘lived’ experience, it is devoid of what is. It ‘exists’ only to the extent we buy into it.
And this can be correlated to you’re the question, how can we suffer if we have free will? We could also ask, if reality is non-dual, and all is consciousness (divine), where can evil or ignorance or suffering reside? In reality it cannot reside anywhere. This does not deny suffering, precisely because of our inseparable nature in consciousness. The experience of a body/mind that suffers is an experience in consciousness, all is consciousness, but suffering is always a mind-set, a small prison we inhabit, the very definition of the imaginary separate self, leading to all the horrors man is capable of inflicting upon himself and on his fellow man. We tend to think of the simulacrum, as an external structure or a computer, AI generated simulation, and it can take that form, but orchestrated entirely in within us. As Huang Po, said, “People overlook the reality of the illusory world’ All is mind/Mind, consciousness. In truth, the amness of self, I am, consciousness, and the isness of everything is the same, infinite, eternal. And knowing this the question of free will and determinism has no basis in reality except for an imaginary separate self, a fiction, obviously incapable of willing or knowing anything, because it is non-existent, an abstraction of mind, determined, fixed within that construct.
Thanks for this well-written and thoughtful post Ed! I think the main difference here between what the classical non-dualists (Kastrup being one of them as he is essentially a Buddhist scientist) propose and what someone like Percival proposes is that there are levels to reality depending on the state of the individuated consciousness and in this specific simulacrum called the physical world, duality does indeed exist and actually serves a very important function for progression of consciousness back to the final unity. That’s a very important distinction and one I will continue to expand upon in future posts 👍
I don't think that Kastrup would call himself a Buddhist scientist. Where do you find this, and why does it matter in this discussion? How do you define 'levels of reality'? Do these levels (or duality) exist except from a personal perspective, the finite mind. I would agree that 'reality' may appear to have levels and states "depending on the state of individuated consciousness" there is no doubt of this. But these are states and levels of mind, not consciousness, which is infinite, indivisible. There is nothing wrong with the concepts of duality - time and space, self and other, etc. they are useful and practical in our everyday life. But we call this the simulacrum precisely because it tends to veil our divine essence and its reality. And of course leads to all the ways 'things' are misrepresented and manipulated in all aspects of life. The belief in self and other can be the source of all conflict and war. Again we get back to the inseparable nature of matter and mind. Formless consciousness takes the shape of form in the finite mind as thinking, sensing and perceiving, minds, bodies and worlds, but it never other than itself. Shiva and Shakti are one. We are the body of consciousness, not a limited material form.
Our 'limited material form' is all we have. If we were not 'material' our consciousness would be different. The material form we inhabit may well have fallen from grace, I for one do not 'know' first hand, no personal experience. I only truly 'know' what I have personally been through. For me life has been a voyage of discovery which has led me to find my 'faith', my spirituality. I started off as an agnostic. Is there such a thing as God? I left school at 15, I read a few philosophers and got irritated, they complicated very simple thoughts, cannot remember who they were; I gave up on them. Never read any of the classic Greek or other such philosophers, so cannot discuss them. I had to earn a living, bring up a child on my own, run my own business, but the wonders of nature, the amazingness of our human bodies, the obvious intelligence in the design of all of 'material' life led me to where I am now, together with snippets of biblical, and scientific sayings and discoveries. That everything is all One, the creative 'energy/consciousness', and its creations, has become indisputable to me at the 'feeling', intuitive(?) level, but rather more difficult to perceive when faced with some of every day life.🤔😄
Hey Mike, interesting but frustrating to hear you tying yourself in knots by trying to synthesize the physical and the non-physical. There is no physical, it's ALL non-physical Consciousness which is to say that everything is information that you are decoding to create your perception that you exist in a physical universe. The physical is the rule set of the simulation. Remember that book you read a while back - My Big Toe? Is now a good time to revisit Alfacast #73 with Tom Campbell? Or invite him as a returning guest?
Thanks for this reminder but do you mean the same guy who is making the ridiculous claim that AI is conscious and that a virus was behind COVID? Maybe this perception that the physical isn’t real isn’t too helpful in actually decoding this reality while here? And how is this not teetering on solipsism?
I guess you won't be inviting him back as a guest then! I agree wholeheartedly that he is wrong about the virus issue and I can't comment about AI as I haven't looked into that. My intuition chimes with yours that AI can never be truly conscious but I would be interested to know why he thinks it can be. At the time of the interview you seemed very much on board with his hypothesis about consciousness but I understand we can all change our minds. So maybe it IS time to invite him back so that you can challenge him on those points you have raised with me? I do not understand why you did not challenge him at the time on his view of the plandemic. There was suddenly an icy chill in the interview when he spoke about it but no pushback at all from you or Barre. It would have been very interesting to see how he reacted if you had asked him "What's your evidence that the virus exists?"
Incidentally, talking of controversies, may I please ask your opinion about The Final Experiment to settle the flat/globe hypotheses? I see that Jeran Campanella and Austin Whitsitt have agreed to go to Antarctica to take part in the observation of the sun. Or is the whole trip a psyops that won't happen? I guess we should ask Jeran and Austin. Thanks Mike, I'm an avid fan of Alfa Vedic and always interested to hear what you and Barre and your guests have to say.
Consciousness is nothing more than one of the five material and mental factors — another one of the five being “perception(s)” — which take part in the rise of craving and clinging. This “craving and clinging” causes suffering. This “suffering” is one of the three characteristics which mark all existence and all beings. One does not achieve release from suffering merely by becoming aware (or conscious) of one’s suffering and the suffering of other beings.
Sapolski,Verveake, and most other Determinists justify their position with two assumptions; first, that randomness doesn't exist, which is baked in to the concept that everything has a traceable series of causes, and second, that free will is defined as a truly random choice, which can't happen because of the first assumption. Both of these assumptions are reductive and over simplifications of that feature of reality. Sapolski doesn't deny the ability to make a choice, he just says that the result of that choice was predetermined by previous related causes.
The "middle ground" that you described near the beginning of the cast, that the circumstances leading to a choice point place constraints on the scope of our choices is the most correct view. It should really be called Free Choice rather than Free Will. And by including the possibility of randomness we are free to break the patterns of cause and effect that have led to the circumstances of the choice point.
I can't speak to Kastrup's position on Determinism. In the many hours of podcasts that I've listened to involving Kastrup that's one topic I haven't heard him speak on. His position of "consciousness as exclusively primary" strongly resembles and was heavily influenced by Buddhism, which he gravitated to after a psychedelic-like experience caused him to reject the strict materialist position he previously inhabited. (Such a sadly common occurrence, substituting one extreme for another) He essentially followed and got trapped in the same logical rabbit hole as Nagarjuna but rationalized it with modern knowledge. It would take too long to explain his model of "mentation" here, but it has the same inherent flaws as all the nondual traditions.
we're approaching the threshold of the reincarnation of ourselves within a sequel/prequel of imagined /culturally produced experience... #@this particular point, - unless not !
I am sensing a 5D perspective emerging ... is this article pointing to 5D thinking?
3D is all about the physical world of experience. What we can see, touch, and measure. Science is based on measure, patterns, words of logic with tangible conceptual outcomes. In 3D we're exploring from the physical side of duality. Flat round, right wrong, light dark, religious writings, customs and cultural ceremonies, competition and scarcity, or cooperation and abundance. It's all 3D
Right now our spiritual energies are emerging or evolving into 5D perception.
I hear this episode from Mike as a 5D inquiry. His concepts and ideas are looking beyond or throughout the physical, beyond the science of measure and patterns, tapping into something more expansive.
5D Is about seeing beyond the paradox of shadows and conflicts of the physical world. 5D is spiritually embracing our interconnectedness and aligning with higher purpose. 5D shifts the focus from physical success patterns to collectively connecting all human thought concepts into a higher harmonic resonance. The 5D perceptions help dissolve the matrix of 3D.
In 5D it's about trust, compassion, and creating a reality based on abundance, energy, and deeper connection, moving beyond the limits of 3D logic and reasoning to embrace wholeness.
https://rumble.com/c/c-1907991
I would add to that, that the damaged could be offered healing along our way to change; without healing there is no way out of the morass for many.
Scripture presents two truths that our finite minds cannot reconcile. It should cause us to marvel in awesome wonder. But too often we neglect to grasp what it means that God is eternal, infinite and incomprehensible. We try to make God comprehensible.
Determinism cannot handle the reality that God created us as self directed individuals, and that our thoughts are our own, not put into our minds by God. And yet He remains sovereign over it all. We should marvel in awesome wonder of the incomprehensible Creator!
Freely choosing is not free will. We choose based on the desires of our nature, which, because of Adam's sin, is fallen, corrupted and sinful from conception. We are dead in trespasses and sins, the natural man who does not receive the things of the spirit. The will is enslaved to sin, not free.
God is sovereign and we are responsible. But as Jesus told Nicodemus, the bottom line is that God is sovereign in salvation. What Nicodemus should have known (John 3:10) is found in Ezekiel 36 where Yahweh declares His "I wills". We believe because God initiates redemption in us, renewing the mind of the natural man (Eph. 4) and producing a new creature (II Cor. 5).
"Free will" is actually the cry of arrogant pride in the Garden, demanding autonomy. This man centered notion deserves God's rebuke of Peter: "Get behind me... you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.” (Mark 8, Matt. 16)
Divine sovereign grace is foundational to the Gospel and to the Christian life. Marvel in awesome wonder.
Ahhh but then why would such a wonderful creator allow for his innocent children suffer such pain and misery? This is the classic rebuttal by deterministic atheists…
Why did the sovereign creator plant a tree in paradise whose fruit is the knowledge of the good and the knowledge of the evil, having the perfect foreknowledge that the fruit would be eaten, even though the sovereign creator expressly forbade its eating?
Two (of a few?) possible answers: (1) It proved that the knowledge of good and evil existed prior to the creation of man and (2) placing the first man in the vicinity of the tree was a test of the first man’s agency.
Also, don’t neglect remembering the actions of the serpent as a liar and a tempter.
I think that these (so-called) “deterministic atheists” are clueless about such concepts as innocence and pain and suffering. These “deterministic atheists” are also clueless about such concepts as atonement, lawfulness, accountability, judgement, and forgiveness. Why listen to the (so-called) “rebuttals” of atheists? It’s not like they’re expert witnesses. It’s like the mother of all living listening to the serpent’s lying words.
Not all determinists are atheists. On Facebook (which I recently quit) one Determinist claims to be a saint.
Meanwhile, God doesn't give us all the details of why He does what He does. But, because of Adam's sin, we understand from Scripture that there are NO INNOCENTS. The pain and misery are the consequence of sin and we are all subject to it. Clearly some experience much more pain and misery than others. Even believers may experience anything from prosperity to poverty, from good health to sickness and disease, and from peace to persecution, and even martyrdom.
Nothing happens unless God allows it and we have many questions about why He does what He does and allows what He allows.
No free will, if one only considers the (pseudo) reality of our sensory world. In this universe, “reality” arises from the pure existence (thus observing influence) of conscious entities in higher dimensioned spaces (or planes), which in their entirety represent the divine “universe” and - since they are not subject to any influences, exist without any dependencies - represent the “original source” of free will through their mere existence. Quasi in the act of deciding “to be” (to exist), they represent the starting point for an infinite “world of possibility”, which manifests itself through the pure “observation” of conscious entities - or respectively becomes reality.
The closer we (humans), as parts of this universal consciousness (God/All/Source/Universe...) are to the core of this primal source, the freer our will is, but the less we are individuals. Conversely, the more we mature/become a specific individual (shaped ego), the smaller our “space” to exercise free will becomes. The act of will to be (to exist) and to separate was always the greatest expression of our free will and is obviously part of the meaning of our existence, indeed, the meaning of everything (God/universe) in general.
“The free will to do stupid things!” Exactly that.
Has Alfa Cast had Nassim Haramein on the show? If so, what is the link? If not, maybe you guys could think about asking him on your show. He links science and spirit together in a most beautiful way.
That sounds like a good idea!
Enochian mysticism spreading from the illuminated vanity of the lesser g's to attach their spirits of confusion and fear while they roll in a new money system to once again embrace their own control and dominion on this earth.
We are so much smarter and stronger as a unified spirit of love and gratitude. Royal bloodlines and beasts of old.
This was a great conversation this morning, will tune in more often . I am just learning so I can't speak directly to the points , broad spectrum thoughts as I journey through these times with you all.
Appreciate your time time Mike !
Mike, this topic likely requires a much longer conversation and greater depth than we can cover here regarding free will. And while we are in agreement on the nature of the divine as fundamental to our experience, our own essential nature, I would suggest there is a different line of inquiry we must follow to know our essential nature and freedom. This follows on a comment I posted on the non-dual nature of reality, related to your podcast, Does Matter, Matter? which in response you mentioned you would address the subject in more detail in a latter talk. Perhaps this one. At least, there seems a similar thread here to explore further.
In any case, as you seem to assert, and I would agree, the argument regarding free will vs determinism is a false dichotomy, a dualism that leads nowhere except into a prison of more reductionist abstraction. So, I would suggest that we cannot investigate this through more abstraction, but only from our direct experience. What we really want to know is who we truly are, free of the conditions and limitations that the mind imposes on our experience, to know Freedom itself. When we consider the true ontology related to this subject of free-will vs determinism we are really talking about the deeper investigation of mind and matter, knower and known, witnessing consciousness and the objectification of experience, Logos and mythos, spirituality and materialism.
So, the question is, what is the way to freedom and the happiness we seek? As Wei Wu Wei said, “The way in is the only way out” The way in, turning our attention in upon itself, mind, we return the way we came. This is always open to us. Mind includes all aspects of experience, thinking, sensing and perceiving, all mind. The senses are not the source of ignorance, but doorways to the inner (and outer) life, consciousness, which is source, substance and reality of all experience. Always our choice, once we know we have that freedom. Mind, body and world (thinking, sensing and perceiving) can reflect the infinity of knowing being, peace, love, knowing the world as our self. Without this grounding in being, our experience, fixated outward, dissolves into seeking after a chaos of random objects and conflict, the world of appearances.
Until we know the nature of that which knows our experience, consciousness, we cannot know the nature of that which is known, the mind, the body or the world. As William Blake said, “‘As a man is, so he sees”. The world is as we are. There is no inside or outside in reality.
And in this vein, I think you may have misunderstood Kastrup who comes at this from a classical non-dual understanding as it is applied to the science of pure empiricism. There is an excellence paper by Kastrup, Conflating Abstraction with Empirical Observation: The False Mind-Matter Dichotomy. When viewed from the standpoint of the allness of consciousness, matter and mind are inseparable. Matter is not what we see but the way we see. Matter is a concept. Kastrup is a scientist in the purist sense. I have not known him to readily enter into conversations about the divine, because that can be just another unverifiable concept like matter (not that it is, in essence, free of any name we may give it). The all-ness of consciousness is not a philosophical or theoretical concept, it is our most intimate, ever-present experience. We might choose to describe this as Divine or God with us, which I’m happy to do, but it’s not necessary to know the truth of our being. It does not require years of meditation to acquire or attain, but is innate, our essential nature. Meditation is what we are, not what we do. Turning the mind inward, away from objects of the mind, we notice we are aware that we are always aware. Nothing can be known or experienced without consciousness, always, already present prior to any experience.
And only consciousness is conscious. The brain or mind or body is not conscious, but made of consciousness. As Kastrup points out, to attribute any object of the mind as conscious is the error of pan-psychism. Again, Huang Po, “The perceived cannot perceive”
And regarding Parmenides, we have fragments of his work, likely greatly misunderstood, but as I read him, he seeks to unravel the nature of existence and non-existence, the Logos and mythos, two worlds, one which is, an unchanging, timeless, unified reality, and one that is not, the world of appearances, in which “one’s sensory faculties lead to conceptions which are false and deceitful”. Interesting correlation to the first and second chapters of Genesis. As Parmenides said, “whatever is is, and what is not cannot be”. which echo’s the Bhagavad Gita, perhaps more explanatory, “That which is, never ceases to be, that which is not, never comes into existence.” Again, we see here the concept of the simulacrum, the world of appearances, that which is not, an abstraction conjured in the mind’s imagination divorced (mentally) from our essential nature. Even as it may seem to be a ‘lived’ experience, it is devoid of what is. It ‘exists’ only to the extent we buy into it.
And this can be correlated to you’re the question, how can we suffer if we have free will? We could also ask, if reality is non-dual, and all is consciousness (divine), where can evil or ignorance or suffering reside? In reality it cannot reside anywhere. This does not deny suffering, precisely because of our inseparable nature in consciousness. The experience of a body/mind that suffers is an experience in consciousness, all is consciousness, but suffering is always a mind-set, a small prison we inhabit, the very definition of the imaginary separate self, leading to all the horrors man is capable of inflicting upon himself and on his fellow man. We tend to think of the simulacrum, as an external structure or a computer, AI generated simulation, and it can take that form, but orchestrated entirely in within us. As Huang Po, said, “People overlook the reality of the illusory world’ All is mind/Mind, consciousness. In truth, the amness of self, I am, consciousness, and the isness of everything is the same, infinite, eternal. And knowing this the question of free will and determinism has no basis in reality except for an imaginary separate self, a fiction, obviously incapable of willing or knowing anything, because it is non-existent, an abstraction of mind, determined, fixed within that construct.
'It is all at ease
Unfixable by fixations
Incommunicable,
Inconceivable,
Indivisible.'
~Nagarjuna
Ed
Thanks for this well-written and thoughtful post Ed! I think the main difference here between what the classical non-dualists (Kastrup being one of them as he is essentially a Buddhist scientist) propose and what someone like Percival proposes is that there are levels to reality depending on the state of the individuated consciousness and in this specific simulacrum called the physical world, duality does indeed exist and actually serves a very important function for progression of consciousness back to the final unity. That’s a very important distinction and one I will continue to expand upon in future posts 👍
I don't think that Kastrup would call himself a Buddhist scientist. Where do you find this, and why does it matter in this discussion? How do you define 'levels of reality'? Do these levels (or duality) exist except from a personal perspective, the finite mind. I would agree that 'reality' may appear to have levels and states "depending on the state of individuated consciousness" there is no doubt of this. But these are states and levels of mind, not consciousness, which is infinite, indivisible. There is nothing wrong with the concepts of duality - time and space, self and other, etc. they are useful and practical in our everyday life. But we call this the simulacrum precisely because it tends to veil our divine essence and its reality. And of course leads to all the ways 'things' are misrepresented and manipulated in all aspects of life. The belief in self and other can be the source of all conflict and war. Again we get back to the inseparable nature of matter and mind. Formless consciousness takes the shape of form in the finite mind as thinking, sensing and perceiving, minds, bodies and worlds, but it never other than itself. Shiva and Shakti are one. We are the body of consciousness, not a limited material form.
Our 'limited material form' is all we have. If we were not 'material' our consciousness would be different. The material form we inhabit may well have fallen from grace, I for one do not 'know' first hand, no personal experience. I only truly 'know' what I have personally been through. For me life has been a voyage of discovery which has led me to find my 'faith', my spirituality. I started off as an agnostic. Is there such a thing as God? I left school at 15, I read a few philosophers and got irritated, they complicated very simple thoughts, cannot remember who they were; I gave up on them. Never read any of the classic Greek or other such philosophers, so cannot discuss them. I had to earn a living, bring up a child on my own, run my own business, but the wonders of nature, the amazingness of our human bodies, the obvious intelligence in the design of all of 'material' life led me to where I am now, together with snippets of biblical, and scientific sayings and discoveries. That everything is all One, the creative 'energy/consciousness', and its creations, has become indisputable to me at the 'feeling', intuitive(?) level, but rather more difficult to perceive when faced with some of every day life.🤔😄
Hey Mike, interesting but frustrating to hear you tying yourself in knots by trying to synthesize the physical and the non-physical. There is no physical, it's ALL non-physical Consciousness which is to say that everything is information that you are decoding to create your perception that you exist in a physical universe. The physical is the rule set of the simulation. Remember that book you read a while back - My Big Toe? Is now a good time to revisit Alfacast #73 with Tom Campbell? Or invite him as a returning guest?
Thanks for this reminder but do you mean the same guy who is making the ridiculous claim that AI is conscious and that a virus was behind COVID? Maybe this perception that the physical isn’t real isn’t too helpful in actually decoding this reality while here? And how is this not teetering on solipsism?
I guess you won't be inviting him back as a guest then! I agree wholeheartedly that he is wrong about the virus issue and I can't comment about AI as I haven't looked into that. My intuition chimes with yours that AI can never be truly conscious but I would be interested to know why he thinks it can be. At the time of the interview you seemed very much on board with his hypothesis about consciousness but I understand we can all change our minds. So maybe it IS time to invite him back so that you can challenge him on those points you have raised with me? I do not understand why you did not challenge him at the time on his view of the plandemic. There was suddenly an icy chill in the interview when he spoke about it but no pushback at all from you or Barre. It would have been very interesting to see how he reacted if you had asked him "What's your evidence that the virus exists?"
Incidentally, talking of controversies, may I please ask your opinion about The Final Experiment to settle the flat/globe hypotheses? I see that Jeran Campanella and Austin Whitsitt have agreed to go to Antarctica to take part in the observation of the sun. Or is the whole trip a psyops that won't happen? I guess we should ask Jeran and Austin. Thanks Mike, I'm an avid fan of Alfa Vedic and always interested to hear what you and Barre and your guests have to say.
Consciousness is nothing more than one of the five material and mental factors — another one of the five being “perception(s)” — which take part in the rise of craving and clinging. This “craving and clinging” causes suffering. This “suffering” is one of the three characteristics which mark all existence and all beings. One does not achieve release from suffering merely by becoming aware (or conscious) of one’s suffering and the suffering of other beings.
Sapolski,Verveake, and most other Determinists justify their position with two assumptions; first, that randomness doesn't exist, which is baked in to the concept that everything has a traceable series of causes, and second, that free will is defined as a truly random choice, which can't happen because of the first assumption. Both of these assumptions are reductive and over simplifications of that feature of reality. Sapolski doesn't deny the ability to make a choice, he just says that the result of that choice was predetermined by previous related causes.
The "middle ground" that you described near the beginning of the cast, that the circumstances leading to a choice point place constraints on the scope of our choices is the most correct view. It should really be called Free Choice rather than Free Will. And by including the possibility of randomness we are free to break the patterns of cause and effect that have led to the circumstances of the choice point.
I can't speak to Kastrup's position on Determinism. In the many hours of podcasts that I've listened to involving Kastrup that's one topic I haven't heard him speak on. His position of "consciousness as exclusively primary" strongly resembles and was heavily influenced by Buddhism, which he gravitated to after a psychedelic-like experience caused him to reject the strict materialist position he previously inhabited. (Such a sadly common occurrence, substituting one extreme for another) He essentially followed and got trapped in the same logical rabbit hole as Nagarjuna but rationalized it with modern knowledge. It would take too long to explain his model of "mentation" here, but it has the same inherent flaws as all the nondual traditions.
Thank you Mike!
Your presentations, if you will, inspire my creative Gemini mind!
I really like this phrase “if you will”…It leaves things open, flexible. I use it often.
I may not entirely understand all that you share, but my mind and neurons are firing!
Grazie mille,
Maraika
we're approaching the threshold of the reincarnation of ourselves within a sequel/prequel of imagined /culturally produced experience... #@this particular point, - unless not !
;)