[Opinion] Are Physical Objects Actually Thoughts?

[BushWhisperer]

I was wondering what your thoughts were with regards to the nature of reality.
Do you consider reality to be an extension of thought?
Do you consider objects as being thoughts?
Or even living beings in their own right?
(Albeit a different order of life altogether.)
How does that relate to panpsychism and to animism?
Do you consider panpsychism and animism as being two sides of a singular coin?

This is an idea that I think is really worthy of consideration. We were churning this out during a conversation this weekend on a live panel.
I have time-stamped the specific part of the conversation for convenience

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

So I thought to bring it here and share it with you guys. What do you think? What are your views?
Ps. Sorry I couldnt embed the stream here as it was a livestream and WF struggles with video recordings of liveStreams

 

[Nembra]

Objects are not physical.
There exists a physical reality independent of the mind, but as you separate it into distinct things it is already inside your head several layers of abstraction deep.

 

[BushWhisperer]

Objects are not physical.

There exists a physical reality independent of the mind

Thanks for your imput!
Thats an interesting take. Might I ask:

What do you base this upon?

 

[Nembra]

What do you base this upon?

Very careful observation of commonly accessible reality.

 

[BushWhisperer]

Very careful observation of commonly accessible reality.

Now I'm intrigued.
What exactly is it ypo've observed in your "observation of commonly accessible reality", that proves that "there exists a physical reality independent of the mind"?
Is reality not observed through the mind, by the mind using the mind to formulate reality?
Is neuroscience wrong when it suggests that all the information from the senses, apart from smell, of course, all route via the Thalamus and is sent and then processed as follows?
vision via occipital lobe, hearing, the temporal lobe, Taste & Touch the parietal lobe and lastly Smell, the temporal lobe, after which the brain binds them all together in the associative regoions under control of the parietal lobe and a cohesive sense of reality is imagined. The whole process is not unlike the formation of a dream really, only difference is muscles are deactivated along with the prefrontal cortex and the senses in the lymbicd system becomes highly active.

If so, how can you experience "physical reality"without dreaming it up through your brain, which takes time btw- so even the reality you think you experience is actually retrospective, hence one can only experience the past and not the true present.
Some parts of the experience takes fractions of a second to process and render and other parts of "reality"can take as long as 2 seconds or even 3 or 4.

hence, I ask.

 

[ܡܪܓܢܝܬ݂ܐ]

Reality is a hierarchy of lights gradiated from the God. Everything is graded by intensity of light in opposition to its privation. Physical properties belong to the lower levels as real, yet dusky, corporeal particulars. These are extramental entities that receive or obstruct light; they are not relegated to mental abstractions.

 

[BushWhisperer]

a hierarchy of lights gradiated from the God.

Ooh I like that description, Very creative
Though I would ask:
When you say: " they are not relegated to mental abstractions", you are speaking about mental, tghus the mind. Is this correct?
And the mind and thoughts are very different, wouldnt you agree?
Mind is a fram whereby thoughts are catalogued and processed, however thoughts are are of a different order of being, no?
Sort of how a bread knife processes breat though is vastly of a different order of being to that of the bread it processes, no?
Hence, could those entities be thoughts or thought conbstructs and are thoughts phenomenal in their own right and can tghus influence physical reality and change it directly, right? Terlekinesis, levitation, pyromantics etc...

 

[solxyz]

Do you consider reality to be an extension of thought?

No. Thought is one kind of phenomenon that arises withing reality. Reality itself is empty in the Buddhist sense - it has no essence. There is nothing you can point to and say "this is what reality actually is." Instead, there are just phenomena that arise and pass away.

Do you consider objects as being thoughts?

No. Objects are perceived wholes, not thoughts.

Or even living beings in their own right?

No. Living beings are dynamical wholes poised between past and future and engaged in a multi-level dance with their environment by which they are ultimately constituted.

How does that relate to panpsychism and to animism?

The problem with panpsychism is that it repeats the cardinal sin of most western metaphyics, namely the hypostasization of an objective, aperspectival truth or reality. Animism, as I understand it (and which I identify with), is different: pointing us instead to a reality which is fundamentally relational. It is an invitation to relationship with the world around you and with the multitude of perspectives in which we find ourselves.

 

[BushWhisperer]

poised between past and future

Do objects not have a begining, an ending and "age",k deteriating with time? Thus are they poised between past and future?

Post automatically merged: Wednesday at 3:32 AM

No. Objects are perceived wholes, not thoughts.

Are all thoughts alike? are some not larger and more complex arangements of smaller thoughts as larger entities- like a sea sponge for example?
Why assume that thoughts aren't perceived wholes?
What is the basis for this assumption specifically?

Post automatically merged: Wednesday at 3:42 AM

hypostasization of an objective, aperspectival truth

No - pure panpsychism does not at all treat objects with as you put it: "hypostasization of an objective, aperspectival truth" at all. It suggests that the what we might deem to call the "laws of physics", are expressing intelligence, memory and has some degree of consciousness in order for such to be the case. That the viewer and that is viewed are all essentially expressions of conscious activity would be an esoteric premise. btw we arew not allowing the materialists to slant the definition with their own ideologies, though leaving the concept open ended in as much whether chicken or egg came first be irrelevent.

Post automatically merged: Wednesday at 3:43 AM

Do objects not have a begining, an ending and "age",k deteriating with time? Thus are they poised between past and future?

Post automatically merged: Wednesday at 3:32 AM

Are all thoughts alike? are some not larger and more complex arangements of smaller thoughts as larger entities- like a sea sponge for example?
Why assume that thoughts aren't perceived wholes?
What is the basis for this assumption specifically?

Post automatically merged: Wednesday at 3:42 AM

No - pure panpsychism does not at all treat objects with as you put it: "hypostasization of an objective, aperspectival truth" at all. It suggests that the what we might deem to call the "laws of physics", are expressing intelligence, memory and has some degree of consciousness in order for such to be the case. That the viewer and that is viewed are all essentially expressions of conscious activity would be an esoteric premise. btw we arew not allowing the materialists to slant the definition with their own ideologies, though leaving the concept open ended in as much whether chicken or egg came first be irrelevent.

Also the fact that reality is relational is not at all changed by the concept. Thats an inference you chose to make thats not really relevant imo.

Post automatically merged: Wednesday at 3:50 AM

Thats an assumption that cant be proved btw, so cant be stated as a fact. Its an opinion. One that contradicts most occult cosmological systems, as well as elements of mysticism. Not that thats some gospel to go by, though its pure materialist nonsense imo. Newto did away with Aether till Cern discovered the quantum field. The definitions of the two ironically dovetail, yet the materialists stubbornly hold to their religious ideologies, calling it science, though its more of a seance really.

Post automatically merged: Wednesday at 3:51 AM

Thought is one kind of phenomenon that arises withing reality

Thats an assumption that cant be proved btw, so cant be stated as a fact. Its an opinion. One that contradicts most occult cosmological systems, as well as elements of mysticism. Not that thats some gospel to go by, though its pure materialist nonsense imo. Newto did away with Aether till Cern discovered the quantum field. The definitions of the two ironically dovetail, yet the materialists stubbornly hold to their religious ideologies, calling it science, when it seems its more of a seance really.

 

[solxyz]

Are all thoughts alike? are some not larger and more complex arangements of smaller thoughts as larger entities- like a sea sponge for example?

Sure, some thoughts are more complex than others. I don't see what difference that makes.

Why assume that thoughts aren't perceived wholes?

Sure, thoughts are also wholes. And I suppose that we perceive our thoughts. But that doesn't mean that objects are thoughts. Objects are features of our environment, while thoughts are basically reflective. I don't think there is any absolute dichotomy between these, but neither one constitutes the other, and for general purposes they are pretty different from each other.

No - pure panpsychism does not at all treat objects with as you put it: "hypostasization of an objective, aperspectival truth" at all. It suggests that the what we might deem to call the "laws of physics", are expressing intelligence, memory and has some degree of consciousness in order for such to be the case.

Right. And what we might deem to call 'the laws of physics' is a hypostasization of an objective, aperspectival truth. It is a claim about an order of being that is absolutely, independently of the relationships though which we know about it. Idealism commits this error just a much as materialism. In short, I am suggesting that we drop speculative theories about "what reality is," which invite us to confuse the map for the territory, and instead pay attention to the ways that meaning, intelligence, embodiment, and materiality dance and co-manifest in our lives and experience.

Post automatically merged: Wednesday at 4:10 AM

Thats an assumption that cant be proved btw, so cant be stated as a fact. Its an opinion. One that contradicts most occult cosmological systems, as well as elements of mysticism. Not that thats some gospel to go by, though its pure materialist nonsense imo. Newto did away with Aether till Cern discovered the quantum field. The definitions of the two ironically dovetail, yet the materialists stubbornly hold to their religious ideologies, calling it science, when it seems its more of a seance really.

This ("Thought is one kind of phenomenon that arises withing reality") is about as far from an assumption as one can get. Rather, it is a fairly straightforward experiential report.

Post automatically merged: Wednesday at 4:12 AM

This ("Thought is one kind of phenomenon that arises withing reality") is about as far from an assumption as one can get. Rather, it is a fairly straightforward experiential report.

Just pay attention to your experience and ask yourself two questions: First, do thoughts arise? And second, are thought the only kind of phenomena that arises?

 

[Nembra]

Now I'm intrigued.
What exactly is it ypo've observed in your "observation of commonly accessible reality", that proves that "there exists a physical reality independent of the mind"?
Is reality not observed through the mind, by the mind using the mind to formulate reality?
Is neuroscience wrong when it suggests that all the information from the senses, apart from smell, of course, all route via the Thalamus and is sent and then processed as follows?
vision via occipital lobe, hearing, the temporal lobe, Taste & Touch the parietal lobe and lastly Smell, the temporal lobe, after which the brain binds them all together in the associative regoions under control of the parietal lobe and a cohesive sense of reality is imagined. The whole process is not unlike the formation of a dream really, only difference is muscles are deactivated along with the prefrontal cortex and the senses in the lymbicd system becomes highly active.

If so, how can you experience "physical reality"without dreaming it up through your brain, which takes time btw- so even the reality you think you experience is actually retrospective, hence one can only experience the past and not the true present.
Some parts of the experience takes fractions of a second to process and render and other parts of "reality"can take as long as 2 seconds or even 3 or 4.

hence, I ask.

Neuroscience doesn't change much here, all this would work the same if our minds were etched in crystal or dispersed across clouds of cosmic dust. Mind is a system of abstract objects and it only deals in abstract objects. Sensory input is not abstract as it is being experienced (though it is an abstract object as I am speaking about it because language is abstract; taoists have a some useful intuitions about such things). There must then exist some reality that is not mind, though it can't be directly thought or spoken about. This reality is the physical world and all that we can ever know or say about it is the realm of mental constructs.

 

[BushWhisperer]

it is a fairly straightforward experiential report.

You mean the mental experience that you are having of the physical reality? The one that happens in your mind? Or do y6ou somehow experience things idependent of the mind?LoL
Remember:
"This physical reality is a mental experience we are having and is as much effected by our thoughts, feelings and emotions, as it is defined by such." #BushWhisperer

Post automatically merged: Wednesday at 2:29 PM

Neuroscience doesn't change much here, all this would work the same if our minds were etched in crystal or dispersed across clouds of cosmic dust. Mind is a system of abstract objects and it only deals in abstract objects. Sensory input is not abstract as it is being experienced (though it is an abstract object as I am speaking about it because language is abstract; taoists have a some useful intuitions about such things). There must then exist some reality that is not mind, though it can't be directly thought or spoken about. This reality is the physical world and all that we can ever know or say about it is the realm of mental constructs.

The reason I mentioned neuroscience is because none of us ever directly experienced any "physical world"
We only experienced a dreamscape created in our minds and channelled through our brains that act as a simulcrum of reality. And thats retrospective. So we cant even say that physical reality definitely existsindependent of thoughrt at all. Equally we cant assume that it does, atn least not at face value.
Consider miracles or when mattewr conforms with thought radiation..?
And as we delve deeper into layers of mind and discover the etheric, then the astral, then the causal fields. It becomes apparent that the one is moulded upon the other and that one upon the pother and so forth. We see object56s then as thought structures. Is this absolute truth? No, thpough its a sight better than ignorance.
There are no definitive answers.
One cant say that matter is thoughts nor can one say that it isnt. That5s the simple truth.
That a very close relationship is evident is also clear.

 

[Nembra]

The reason I mentioned neuroscience is because none of us ever directly experienced any "physical world"
We only experienced a dreamscape created in our minds and channelled through our brains that act as a simulcrum of reality. And thats retrospective. So we cant even say that physical reality definitely existsindependent of thoughrt at all. Equally we cant assume that it does, atn least not at face value.
Consider miracles or when mattewr conforms with thought radiation..?
And as we delve deeper into layers of mind and discover the etheric, then the astral, then the causal fields. It becomes apparent that the one is moulded upon the other and that one upon the pother and so forth. We see object56s then as thought structures. Is this absolute truth? No, thpough its a sight better than ignorance.
There are no definitive answers.
One cant say that matter is thoughts nor can one say that it isnt. That5s the simple truth.
That a very close relationship is evident is also clear.

Thoughts are abstract, perception is not abstract, therefore there exists a reality that's not thoughts. We do directly experience sensory input that's qualitatively different from the abstract substrate of our psyche, the fact that it's channeled through our brains doesn't matter because nerves and thoughts distinct from each other. Even the recollected, projected image is, in fact, an image of something and a direct point of contact our minds have with something that's not mind - even if that something is a neurological machinery within our skulls. You very oddly claim that knowledge is impossible in a matter that seems very simple and elementary to me.

 

[solxyz]

You mean the mental experience that you are having of the physical reality? The one that happens in your mind? Or do y6ou somehow experience things idependent of the mind?LoL
Remember:
"This physical reality is a mental experience we are having and is as much effected by our thoughts, feelings and emotions, as it is defined by such."

No. I don't think that we are trapped in our heads like that (you're marching toward hard solipsism here, not animism), and I don't think it is correct to classify experience, which is primordial and is the basis for our later conceptualizations and categorizations, as either mental or physical. Mental and physical are two regions of our experience or two sides of a subject-object polarity, and they only have meanings by contrast with each other.

 

[BushWhisperer]

No. I don't think that we are trapped in our heads like that (you're marching toward hard solipsism here, not animism), and I don't think it is correct to classify experience, which is primordial and is the basis for our later conceptualizations and categorizations, as either mental or physical. Mental and physical are two regions of our experience or two sides of a subject-object polarity, and they only have meanings by contrast with each other.

Not at all, solipsism is a whole different ball game- I never stated that the only thing that exists is ones mind. I made a very different observatuion. That being that all our physical experiences of matter are coloured by the mind, as its the primary organ through which the physical senses are opperating. Solipsism is to that as chalk is to cheese. Primordial experiences are real, I have them tyhough- they are outside of the body and not bound by the physical senses as they are wired into the brain via the mind as primary processing organ.

Have you had real out of the body experiences btw?
I mean real ones- not imagined visualisation or such.. but real actual jouireys through the astral? or through the etheric? or have you leftb your body to travel through akash - in causal body into other times, what poeople call past lives?
Im am curious..

Post automatically merged: Wednesday at 5:49 PM

Even the recollected, projected image is, in fact, an image of something and a direct point of contact our minds have with something that's not mind

Yes the mind is not in contact with mind or experincing it Indeed our minds are in contact with and experiencing thought. You are at this point playing games with words, desperately trying to escape the philosophical cul-de-sac you've landed yourself in
It's a very cutew notion though.. That you thought I was saying that mind is in contact with mind experiencing mind

 

[Nembra]

Yes the mind is not in contact with mind or experincing it Indeed our minds are in contact with and experiencing thought. You are at this point playing games with words, desperately trying to escape the philosophical cul-de-sac you've landed yourself in
It's a very cutew notion though.. That you thought I was saying that mind is in contact with mind experiencing mind

Thoughts are certain substructures of the mind, very obviously. So you are, in fact, saying that mind is only experiencing itself. Kind of weird that you're laughing at something I'm literally pointing out in your own philosophy. Very bad form, I must say.

 

[aieon]

I was wondering what your thoughts were with regards to the nature of reality.
Do you consider reality to be an extension of thought?
Do you consider objects as being thoughts?
Or even living beings in their own right?
(Albeit a different order of life altogether.)
How does that relate to panpsychism and to animism?
Do you consider panpsychism and animism as being two sides of a singular coin?

This is an idea that I think is really worthy of consideration. We were churning this out during a conversation this weekend on a live panel.
I have time-stamped the specific part of the conversation for convenience

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

So I thought to bring it here and share it with you guys. What do you think? What are your views?
Ps. Sorry I couldnt embed the stream here as it was a livestream and WF struggles with video recordings

In the same sort of way we can't fully comprehend the exact experience of others, we are sort of separated. There's a sort of two-way mirror with perception- and everything outside of that fills us- and shapes us, but we can't really fully see through the cracks, know what it's like.

We're people, small, wondrous and beautiful things, with bright souls and a hundred thousand little qualities - but from a personal scale of reckoning, we can't fully escape this thing we are, mechanically. But spiritually- the spiritual world, the door within that is hidden, we live within scales of being. Layers upon layers, infinite, that being on scale with who we are- oft described as dust in the solar wind, or little cells in a petri dish, we are the individual cells of our cultures, our smaller groups. Tissues that make up the organs of being. We are small pieces of the great cosmos, the infinite can't be fully reckoned, but we are little pieces of that infinity, and so are our ideas, effect things with rituals because correspondances that relate in kind have weight- and we can be effected by- and effect these things the closer we relate to certain ideas ontologically. We are bound to the heaviest of laws- but if so laws are made by consideration of the individual will, the collective conscious, the divine, and the forces beyond, then we have a stake in such, an applied philosophy that is too, infinitely vast that we may use as well.

 

[oregano]

"thought" is a word that has definite associations. Those associations have further definite associations, which in turn have their own associations, etc. Not all of those associations are words though. Words have physical/formal referents. I can show you what "dog" means by saying the word and pointing, and I haven't defined it in terms of other words. That particular dog has its own "meaning", so to speak. Its own universe of associations such as its human caretaker(s) and temperaments.

The combinatorial explosion that results from this recursive chain of references and referents means that yes, when I utter the word, "thought", I am indeed referring to everything that exists! Who would have thought!

 

[Robert Ramsay]

I was wondering what your thoughts were with regards to the nature of reality.
Do you consider reality to be an extension of thought?
Do you consider objects as being thoughts?
Or even living beings in their own right?
(Albeit a different order of life altogether.)
How does that relate to panpsychism and to animism?
Do you consider panpsychism and animism as being two sides of a singular coin?

I know that my opinions are not popular with magicians, but I believe that there is no such thing as the supernatural, only natural things we don't yet understand, and when we label something as supernatural, all we are doing is demonstrating how little we understand about that thing.

I do not believe in panpsychism. My take on it, is that if consciousness is what you're using to explore the universe, you shouldn't be surprised if you start seeing it everywhere, like the man who goes to the doctor complaining that he hurts all over. Doctor says "show me" and the guy starts poking himself, going "it hurts here... and here... and here... and here... and here..." Doctor stops him and says "you've broken your finger."

Just because the world is malleable by thought (otherwise why bother to be a magician), it doesn't mean that it's made of thought.

 

[ewiz]

Not at all, solipsism is a whole different ball game- I never stated that the only thing that exists is ones mind. I made a very different observatuion. That being that all our physical experiences of matter are coloured by the mind, as its the primary organ through which the physical senses are opperating.

This is definitely not how your argument reads. Saying that our perception of the world is colored by the mind is entirely different from trying to argue that the whole of reality=thought. Our experience of reality very much does occur exclusively in our minds, retrospectively. But it is very clear that there is an external reality constantly sending data to our bodies, which is autonomously interpreted by multiple systems of nerves as a part of our conscious experience. I would consider our thoughts to be the parts of conscious experience which arise independent of these autonomous processes and external information, including our observation of these processes, but not the stream of information itself. I've often experienced this state in meditation, awareness of sensory input devoid of conscious thought, and I wouldn't consider the experience to necessarily be composed of thoughts, even though we would agree that it happens to be the brain unifying these countless signals into a coherent experience.

Have you had real out of the body experiences btw?
I mean real ones- not imagined visualisation or such.. but real actual jouireys through the astral? or through the etheric? or have you leftb your body to travel through akash - in causal body into other times, what poeople call past lives?

How would you define "real" out of body experiences as opposed to "imagined" ones?

I personally view journeys through whatever plane or place you may go to be a mixed experience, of both "real" and imagined information. The majority of this I feel is an illusion, to a higher degree than our experience of the external world. All of which in my view happens to be, as you most recently stated, colored by the mind.

The mind can be placed under control to a degree. By changing one's mind they can experience the illusion of an akashic records, they can change their mind again and experience the illusion of a sephirot on the tree of life, change it again and experience the illusory kingdom of a grimoric demon. And all of these experiences can seem as real as one might expect when interacting with the physical world around them, with the difference being in how malleable they are. You won't be changing your mind about the color of a stone, or how firm it is for example, and have your experience reflect this. You could change your mind about the color of the sky and experience a pink sunset, but this does nothing to confirm that the sky is equal to a thought, nor that thought alone is the mechanism through which reality operates, at least not for me.

We do not know the underlying mechanisms behind obe, but I think it is reasonable to consider that there might be some sort of external information being presented to and interpreted by our brain/nervous system. Perhaps the reason why these experiences are more malleable and less defined has something to do with less physical processes being active to recieve and process data, compared to physically walking around somewhere.

As imaginary as I do think most of these experiences are, I would not consider them to be wholly composed of thoughts. To differentiate here, an experience arising entirely from thought might be what I consider to be an imagined one (example being an obe/ld to a video game landscape, or a mind palace.) But even in this case it can be a mixed experience, if for example you would use a mental landscape to perform an evocation and successfully make contact, I think this would involve some sort of information transfer that exists outside of what I consider to be thought.