How does mysticism differ from religious belief?

[modest]

You started this thread under the premise that most of the world's population (religious folk) are hypnotized and apparently suffering from some mass delusion. Clearly, by your own admission, consensus does not establish ontology.

 

I said above that consensus helps but is not sufficient to establish the validity of a direct perception...

 

It's not the "validity of a direct perception" that is at issue here. I keep saying: it requires no faith on the part of the observer to believe what he/she sees. I've agreed with you that observing something and having a personal understanding of the observation 1) requires no faith and 2) is not an issue of science.

 

What is at issue is a claim of knowledge. You might imagine 20 people in a room and one person outside the room. The 20 people might all claim that their monitors turned into mutant ninja turtles, but how can the person outside the room give credence to what they're saying? To believe them simply because they all make the claim would be falling subject to a bandwagon fallacy (as it appears you agree).

 

What is needed is testable evidence preferably generated by a theory explaining the phenomenon. That kind of testable evidence is different from a "claim". An unsupported claim is not evidence. For example:

 

To what part of the following, which I have quoted before, do you object: (Mystical Traditions - Center for Sacred Sciences)

 

9. Finally, mystics of all traditions agree that their teachings about the Ultimate Nature of Reality should not be taken on faith alone. Just as scientific theories can be verified by anyone willing to perform appropriate experiments, mystical teachings can be verified by anyone willing to engage in appropriate spiritual practices and disciplines. (This, incidentally, is why we at the Center believe mystical teachings and practices are rightly said to constitute a science of the sacred.)

 

What you just quoted is an unsupported claim. It is not evidence. It is no different than if I were to say:

The bible is internally consistent, and anyone wishing to do a scientific investigation of the text will show it to be internally consistent and wholly without flaw.

That's not evidence. That is just me making a claim.

 

Relativity is a perfect example. In the spacetime thread you "claimed" many times that acceleration caused time dilation. I brought you a direct experiment showing that acceleration did not affect time dilation. While you made a claim, I presented evidence. No one is going to believe "acceleration is the cause of the phenomenon known as time dilation" unless you present falsifiable evidence.

 

Simply making a claim means nothing scientifically. Show me a prediction of mysticism and the published results of an experiment which confirm that prediction *in a credible scientific journal*. That is what is required for us to "know" the claim has merit. And, you are correct, Brane cosmology is unsupported. It is not verified. Scientists do not "know" it to be valid. It is, at this point, a hypothesis.

 

Science has very rigid requirements. Under the current philosophy of science, mysticism would need to meet these requirements to qualify as "a science" as your quote above claims it to be:

 

In order to make this idea a little more precise, we may distinguish three requirements which our empirical theoretical system will have to satisfy. First, it must be synthetic, so that it may represent a non-contradictory, a possible world. Secondly, it must satisfy the criterion of demarcation, i.e. it must not be metaphysical, but must represent a world of possible experience. Thirdly, it must be a system distinguished in some way from other such systems as the one which represents our world of experience.

 

But how is the system that represents our world of experience to be distinguished? The answer is: by the fact that it has been submitted to tests, and has stood up to tests. This means that it is to be distinguished by applying to it that deductive method [the scientific method] which it is my aim to analyze, and to describe.

Karl Popper

The logic of scientific discovery - Google Books

 

I'm not convinced that mysticism meets any of those 3 requirements. And, simply claiming "mystical teachings and practices are rightly said to constitute a science" as in your quote above, does not help it to meet those requirements.

 

~modest

[Erasmus00]

One way would be to study the whole history of mystical awakening/enlightenment, compare all testimony and verify the commonality in all such experiences** and compare those results with the whole history of mental illness... and then see if there is a credible difference between "crazy" and "enlightened."

(** I offered a sampling of that in the "Sacred Science" links above.)

 

Your sacred science link has cherry picked the quotes that work, and not bothered with the contradictions. Consider the entire tradition of Jewish/Christian mysticism- it fundamentally disagrees with much of Eastern mysticism, etc. Mystics of different traditions do NOT have a commonality. So if I take the claim of ALL mystics who have claimed enlightenment, I will not find this consensus you claim.

 

The only way you can get such consensus is to take a biased sample. A full sample seems to reveal no such consensus.

[HydrogenBond]

A mystical experience is something that occurs via the mind. The phenomena is sort of analogous to a dream. Although we have all had dreams, and can assume others have had dreams, nobody can experience [my dreams in a direct way, except me. I can never prove, what I am seeing in my dreams to others, since they can't see what I am seeing.

 

How would you set up an experiment, to express the details I am seeing in my dream, to prove to others, I am seeing these details. Since we can't run such an experiment, it is not scientifically valid to say I am having this particular dream, even if it is based on the reality of my direct experience. The problem in this case is not the reality of the details I see in the dream, but the limits of science. Someday science might be able to hook me to a machine that will play my dream on a screen. I will then say, see I told you so. Science was being irrational, sticking to its method, denying the reality of observation.

 

Mystical things need to be experienced in the first person, not the third person. If science wanted to run an experiment, they would need to learn techniques that would allow them to induce their own first hand experience. Other scientists would say, this can not be proven to them because of the limits of third person observation. Religions often try to create the internal conditions needed for people to experience first person data.

[Michael Mooney]

Modest and Erasmus,

Excuse me for lumping you both together, but I want to get at a basic issue here underlying both of your criticisms.

 

I will start with the core of the claim to verifiable knowledge by the Center for Sacred Sciences:

 

Just as scientific theories can be verified by anyone willing to perform appropriate experiments, mystical teachings can be verified by anyone willing to engage in appropriate spiritual practices and disciplines.

 

Now, as I have said, gnosis does not *presently* qualify as science, which requires *empirical evidence.

 

This brings us to the difference between a-priori and a-posteriori epistemology, a very controversial subject, as Wikipedia says:

 

Wikipedia: Main article: A priori and a posteriori (philosophy)

 

The nature of this distinction has been disputed by various philosophers; however, the terms may be roughly defined as follows:

 

* A priori knowledge is knowledge that is known independently of experience (that is, it is non-empirical, or arrived at beforehand).

 

The reason for the dispute is confusion around the phrase " knowledge that is known independently of experience ."

 

Gnosis in not "known independently of experience" but independent of empirical "experience." As I have said many times it is knowledge by resonance in identity of "part" (individual) and "whole" (you name it... Ultimate Reality.) This will make no sense to a "flatland materialist" who dismisses all mysticism as mere belief or hallucination, have never experienced "conscious unity"... Good name for a website, BTW. :)

 

So, what all mystics *know* regardless of the "Tradition" which each has *transcended is well captured in the following quotes from the Sacred Sciences site: (my bold)

 

 

The reason Ultimate Reality cannot be grasped by thought or communicated in words is that thoughts and words, by definition, create distinctions and, hence, duality. Even the simple act of naming something creates duality because it distinguishes the thing that is named from all other things that are left unnamed. However, the mystics of all the great traditions agree that all distinctions are imaginary and that the Ultimate Nature of Reality is non-dual.

 

Although mystics say Ultimate Reality is not a thing, they also agree that this emptiness or no-thingness is not a mere vacuum. It is radiant with the Light of Pure Spirit, Primordial Awareness, Buddha Mind, or Consciousness Itself.

 

The fact that distinctions are not ultimately real means that we are not truly separate selves. In Reality, all mystics declare, our True Nature is God, Brahman, Buddha-Nature, the Tao, or Consciousness Itself.

Although the Truth of one's identity with Ultimate Reality cannot be grasped by thought, all mystics testify that It can be Realized or Recognized through a Gnostic Awakening (Enlightenment) which by-passes the thinking mind altogether.

 

All mystics agree that Realizing our Identity with this Ultimate Reality brings freedom from suffering and death.

 

No, Modest, I do not claim that "verification" through spiritual discipline to realize the a-priori knowledge above... which anyone can verify through whatever discipline works to transcend the illusion o separate personal identity... is scientific evidence as science is presently defined... as based on empirical, a-posteriori evidence.

 

Erasmus,

Regarding your :

Your sacred science link has cherry picked the quotes that work, and not bothered with the contradictions. Consider the entire tradition of Jewish/Christian mysticism- it fundamentally disagrees with much of Eastern mysticism, etc. Mystics of different traditions do NOT have a commonality. So if I take the claim of ALL mystics who have claimed enlightenment, I will not find this consensus you claim.

...

 

The quotes on spiritual awakening above, and throughout the Sacred Science site are universal among all awakened mystics *from* all major traditions*... all of whom have transcended *personal self* ("This individual is who I am...")

 

(No doubt there are "traditions" like, perhaps Voodoo or various of the "Black Arts" and ego-enhancing "schools of magic" from which no true mystics have "graduated"... defined as knowing the One Identity in all forms... regardless of names for this one, omnipresent Consciousness.)

 

If you read all quotes on the whole site you will find that this includes mystics who are *from* (having transcended) all major traditions.

In particular, if you will read this section,

 

A New Worldview - Center for Sacred Sciences

 

you will find the error of your statement that:

" ...the entire tradition of Jewish/Christian mysticism- ...fundamentally disagrees with much of Eastern mysticism, etc. Mystics of different traditions do NOT have a commonality."

 

I have a very faint hope that the above will clarify the issue at hand here... and illustrate the difference between spiritual Awakening and the mass hypnosis of religious belief.

 

I felt that it was worth a try anyway.

Michael

[Boerseun]

First, they create an imaginary concept:

It is radiant with the Light of Pure Spirit, Primordial Awareness, Buddha Mind, or Consciousness Itself.

...and then they yabber on for page after page proving the existence of this imaginary entity.

 

Michael, if you cannot see how and why this entire concept is a failure, then not me nor anybody else in Hypo (and quite possibly the entire world) can help you.

 

For the love of God (or even George), what in the hell is the "Light of Pure Spirit"?

 

Saying that "It is radiant with the Light of Pure Spirit" carries as much weight as me saying that the entire universe is filled with yellow flan, but you can only see it if you're "enlightened". And then I proceed to explain the whole process by which you can become a flan prophet and reach flan enlightenment. Of all the people I tell about this, at least some will be receptive, and if I'm charismatic and persistent enough, I might just reach a few of those who are open to suggestion, and they will then see the "universal flan". They will then carry on and reach a few idiots on their own, and thus the meme will spread.

 

There is as much claim to truth to "the Light of Pure Spirit" as there is to my "Universal Flan". I dare you to prove me wrong.

 

"The Emperor's New Clothes" speaks directly to bullshit like this, Mike.

 

And bullshit like this spreads so much quicker when clad in impressive sounding (yet completely empty and utterly devoid of ANY meaning) terms like the "Light of Pure Spirit".

 

Like the Snake Oil salespeople of old, it's certainly your prerogative to fall for this crap. But please note that you do so solely at your own risk.

 

And whatever you care to say about the matter, Erasmus' cherry-picking point holds. These "mystics" you go on about differed in many more points that what they agreed on. And a lot of those "agreements" had to be pretty thinly stretched before it can be called an agreement in any way. It would seem that the author was pretty desperate to make the data fit the theory. Which we all know doesn't work.

[modest]

No, Modest, I do not claim that "verification" through spiritual discipline to realize the a-priori knowledge above... which anyone can verify through whatever discipline works to transcend the illusion o separate personal identity... is scientific evidence as science is presently defined... as based on empirical, a-posteriori evidence.

 

I agree. There is no scientific evidence for mysticism. Mystic claims are, as a whole, completely unsupported by evidence.

 

~modest

[Michael Mooney]

I agree. There is no scientific evidence for mysticism. Mystic claims are, as a whole, completely unsupported by evidence.

 

~modest

Any comment at all on the kind of knowledge epistemology calls a-priori or the way mystics arrive at that kind of knowledge as expressed in the quote,

"mystical teachings can be verified by anyone willing to engage in appropriate spiritual practices and disciplines." ?

 

Philosophically, this is an argument for expanding the present definition of science as restricted to a-posteriori evidence... to include a- priori knowledge as directly experienced by at least hundreds of enlightened mystics... those who have transcended personal ego-as-identity.

Michael

[lemit]

.... Many times I have asked you and many others here to show me the evidence in support of one of the most popular cosmologies (and growing more so all the time by the stats on higher degree applications)... based on string/M-theory.

 

There is none, yet you constantly hammer on this point with me whether I'm sharing an alternative cosmology or the direct gnosis (not belief) of dozens of mystics with identical realization.

 

Michael

 

I haven't been following things as closely as I should, so I missed your falsifiable evidence of transpersonal psychology's telekinetic capabilities. Where could I find it?

 

As always, thanks.

 

--lemit

 

p.s. We seem to love repetition in your thread, so I'll repeat the humble suggestion that anyone who claims repeatedly to be a mystic isn't one because he sure hasn't learned anything about his place in the whole of creation and of history. (Yes, I said "creation." I don't necessarily believe in the concept, but its geography is understood by everybody.)

[Boerseun]

Michael, I see you reported my previous post. That's good - and it certainly is your prerogative if you believe I have crossed a line somewhere. And don't fear, mods and admins aren't immune to infractions or above the rules and regulations of Hypography. So please use the system, its what its there for, after all.

 

If I have come across as rude, I apologize. I probably should work on my tone.

 

Yet, you have not addressed the questions I have raised in that post, namely:

 

What, pray tell, is this "Light of Pure Spirit" you go on about? How do you expect to have a fruitful discussion with us regarding that if you cannot or will not explain the terms you're using? What, for that matter, is "spirit"? I put it to you that these terms, and the belief in these terms, are just obfuscating terms to hide the fact that the preacher or prophet is just there to preach for profit... (weak geek-speak) (...and again).

 

I dare you to prove me wrong.

Any comment at all on the kind of knowledge epistemology calls a-priori or the way mystics arrive at that kind of knowledge as expressed in the quote,

"mystical teachings can be verified by anyone willing to engage in appropriate spiritual practices and disciplines." ?

"appropriate spiritual practices and disciplines" of course being determined by the mystics. You can battle your entire life following "The Path", and not receive any kind of "Awakening" at all. The mystic will tell you that you are not "at peace" with the universe, the Christian will tell you that you have "sinned", the Muslim will tell you that you have offended Allah, the Jew will tell you that the bacon you had with eggs for breakfast one morning fifty years ago have banned you straight to hell, and the Hindu will tell you that you have successfully pissed off all 1,243,899 deities who live in the higher slopes of the Kali Kandaki. Now I ask you - if you're not as gullible to the same extent as the mystic you're referring to, and he tells you to engage in certain spiritual practices and you do NOT end up connecting with this "Light of Pure Spirit" or any such hokum (merely by virtue of seeing the naked Emperor for being, well, butt-naked), how can you retrace your steps to find where you went wrong if the terms itself can't even be defined by those very same mystics? I smell a rat. I could've called it "Bullshit", but I won't - I'll rather call it fernugook (fernus are large ruminants on the fifth planet of Kaleb 1221, and when they eat lots of smirtushae, they gook quite badly - but "fernugook" is an unknown term on planet Earth, and should be pretty much neutral).

 

You see, Michael, the problem lies in this: "Mystics" lay claims to "universal truths", which they cannot describe nor explain. They then go and claim that Science has no bearing on their "Eternal Light" or "Mysticism" or whatever they keep themselves busy with. Which is all fair and fine. There is a clear line separating the disciplines of faith and science. If you want to part with your pocket money on Sundays, good for you. But when Faith makes claims that cross that line, claims that intrude on the "Real World", then it becomes the business of Science. And when those claims are disproved, then Faith must understand that they have presented a scientific hypothesis, which have been disproven using the Scientific Method, and thence Faith should understand that that particular claim is wrong. Examples of this include things like catholic transsubstantiation (which is pure alchemy), the ancient pagan belief that fire is a spirit (it's a plasma), etc. The belief in "spirits" is merely more of the same. There is nothing at all to suggest otherwise.

 

You cannot discuss "Spirit" nor the chromatic properties thereof if you cannot explain or describe this "Spirit" to begin with. And I believe that continuously deferring any such enquiries into the meaning of "spirits" and "mysticism" into a "gnosis", and a "truth" which cannot be verbalised, is merely an acknoledgement that you have no idea about what it's supposed to be, and simply cannot explain or describe it. But the rituals are cool, so you won't dig too deep into the meaning of what it is you're busying yourself with.

 

The Emperor still has not a shred of clothing on him. But he sure as hell has a lot of weavers dancing around flogging their magic threads.

Philosophically, this is an argument for expanding the present definition of science as restricted to a-posteriori evidence... to include a- priori knowledge as directly experienced by at least hundreds of enlightened mystics... those who have transcended personal ego-as-identity.

What would you include in the set of a-priori knowledge? Intuition? Deja-vu?

If two researchers have different "visions" which they can now employ as a-priori knowledge in setting up their experiment, how would they decide which one to use?

 

This proposal is lunacy. And it's another example of faith trying to cross the line into the Real World where the adults play. If faith want to play in the Science sandbox, then they should play by the rules. In which case we need a slice of spirit and/or God so we can put it to the test. If you don't, because you can't, then that is a sign from God that you should get out of the Science sandbox, and meekly and mildly turn the other cheek and cross back to your side of the line, the side where the lunatics and nutcases busy themselves with partaking in cannibalistic rituals where you eat bread and drink wine and pretend it to be blood and flesh.

 

And another thing:

 

The Theology Forum was intended to create a platform for the discussion of religion-related topics, from a scientific angle. For instance, the changing demographics of believers in the West is a proper topic to be discussed here. How many angels can dance on a pinhead, is not. And preaching or continuing a discussion where the premises are taken on faith, is not.

[pamela]

Michael, for a moment lets take a look at this from the most basic human level, all intellectual conjecture aside.

to know~

to perceive or understand as fact or truth; to apprehend clearly and with certainty

2. to have established or fixed in the mind or memory

3. to be cognizant or aware of

4. be acquainted with (a thing, place, person, etc.), as by sight, experience, or report

5. to understand from experience or attainment

to feel~

to perceive or examine by touch.

2. to have a sensation of (something), other than by sight, hearing, taste, or smell

3. to find or pursue (one's way) by touching, groping, or cautious moves.

4. to be or become conscious of.

5. to be emotionally affected by

6. to experience the effects of

7. to have a particular sensation or impression of

8. to have a general or thorough conviction of; think; believe

yesterday, my youngest son asked me did i love him.Of course he got the usual response.But then he asks, how do i know you love me?

good question.....

does simply telling him that i do, make it real? Felt? or would you say that it requires more?

So i give him a hug and a kiss.Sure he feels something now

but i ask you, does this prove i love him? does this answer the question?

I cannot prove love, even if i throw myself in front of the bus to save his life.All i prove there is the protective maternal instinct to preserve life of her young.

for your hours and lifetime of meditation in a relaxed feeling good mode, i am sure you have felt something.Calm, peaceful, etc....

Allowing yourself to quiet your mind from the stressors of the day should stimulate the brain in such a manner as to allow the imagination to provide a lightfilled tranquil surreal environment in your mind.It however, does not prove you have a spirit much less have a bound unity to something even larger . You simply feel something.You simply believe that the something exists

You choose to believe that your concept is real and my son chooses to believe that i love him.I am sure it makes you feel good Michael but remember that touch, whether that be in the form of a hug, or kind words extended on a forum, is what unifies us together and not a conceptual idea of universal identity

[Michael Mooney]

Modest, Boerseun, Pamela, and Lemit,

We all know that there is no *proof* for the "existence of God," tho gnosis is *knowing God* (as distinct from mere "belief in God") in the a-priori way without empirical evidence.

 

Let's re-consider the following exchange between Modest and myself in the "Does God Exist?" thread:

 

Edited from my Post 773:

Consider the following statement implied in most of the above criticisms of what I call Gnosis :

"Since I have never experienced transcendence of personal consciousness/identity, let alone the direct experience of cosmic or God consciousness, it is impossible and in fact merely false belief or delusion."

Do all you critics above endorse the above?

 

Modest: (Edited from post 774)

:

"I'm pretty sure none of the "critics" you're referring to would endorse that statement. To say 'I have not experienced X and therefore X does not exist' is a basic logical fallacy called Burden Of Proof or Proving a Negative. As the pithy saying goes:** "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."**

 

 

Me... post 775:

Sorry the 'source' of the quote was so obscure. It was my own fabrication of what seemed implicit (as above) "in most of the criticisms" of "believers" in this thread.

An obvious trap, really, as no one would endorse such a statement, tho the essence of it seems implied in the criticisms.

 

Previously in that thread, I posted as follows ( Edited from post 760, p.76):

If the universe is one intelligent Being, then we can call that Being "God." If it is just a mechanistic, materialistic cosmos, then there is no god.

 

As a mystic, I have experienced the cosmos ("Kosmos") as One Intelligent Being since my first memory of transcending personal consciousness and becoming "one with the Kosmos" at age five. It continues to this day, now 64 yrs old.

 

So I will go with "yes" on the question. (I see) God's body (as) the cosmos (known and beyond our "cosmic event horizon"), and God's consciousness (as) omnipresent, not just transcending It's body but manifesting/creating it perpetually and eternally. God's "outbreath" (being) the "Bang" and the "inbreath" (being) the "Crunch"... perpetually, eternally cycling... with no "beginning" or "ending"

 

 

I concluded in that thread:

I "believe" that science and mystic realization, as above, will one day find common ground and learn to "play well together"... as long as "creationism" doesn't persist in calling itself science!

(I,m half mystic and half lay scientist, and these aspects have coalesced well within... not at war in any sense.)... The dynamic creation of cosmos is an always ongoing project... always "a work in progress."

Links:

http://hypography.com/forums/theology-forum/10414-does-god-exist-78.html

http://hypography.com/forums/theology-forum/10414-does-god-exist-76.htm

 

No, there is no proof or disproof.

If this section is intended only for scientific perspectives on theology, then the above is all that can be said about either gnosis or That Which gnosis "claims" to know.

 

If, on the other hand, there is room here for discussion of the difference between kinds of knowing, then science as presently defined ('only a-posteriori knowledge is legitimate") is not the last word on what we can know... as shared in my link on gnosis "Beyond Belief" in the Transpersonal Psychology thread.

 

I'm thinking that the above is my definitive statement on the subject, so I will not keep hammering on it unless in reply to sincere response to the above... then just to address whatever replies directly.

 

Michael

[pamela]

We all know that there is no *proof* for the "existence of God," tho gnosis is *knowing God* (as distinct from mere "belief in God") in the a-priori way without empirical evidence.

i did not ask you to prove god, michael.

maybe a good idea might be for you to aptly describe what "knowing" means to you.I had thought my post might have prompted that:)

[Michael Mooney]

i did not ask you to prove god, michael.

maybe a good idea might be for you to aptly describe what "knowing" means to you.I had thought my post might have prompted that:)

I recognize both branches of epistemology (a-priori and a-posteriori) as legitimate ways of knowing.

As a lay scientist I recognize that sufficient empirical evidence establishes "knowledge" as at least "work in progress." I *trust* my eyes to convey an accurate image of my computer screen to the point that I can say with confidence that it exists and has such and so characteristics... based on my perception of incoming empirical info.

Likewise gnosis as resonance of "my consciousness" with "The Consciousness."

Here again is my webpage on that kind of *knowing.*

 

Beyond Belief

 

BTW, my last post was also addressed to Boerseun and Modest who are vehemently into mystic/gnosis bashing, and to Lemit who seems to think that my "claim" to gnosis, as a mystic, is well, quite "immodest" I suppose.

Michael

[HydrogenBond]

If I was dreaming, science could show, using machines, that I was dreaming. After I awake, if I was to describe my dream in detail, can anyone tell me how I can prove I saw these details in my dream, using science? Science does not currently have the tools to prove what I say I saw, even if what I am describing is very accurate. Dreams are common enough to infer, what I describe is possible, although we can't prove it.

 

The point I am making is, many things of the mind, are beyond the capacity for science to prove in terms of its details. We rely on common experience, second hand accounts and credibility, but we have no way to verify one person's account. This does not not mean it does not exist ,somewhere in the mind. It only means science can't prove it exists as they describe.

 

Mystical things, have the same practical problem as dreams. It comes down to the word of the person, since science has no way to verify the account using current technology. Since there are very few, if any scientists who are also mystics, science doesn't trust the word of a mystic, at the same time science can't prove this range of experience with science.

 

The work around is to gather some reliable scientists. Then we will get a mystic to teach them how to induce some of these effects, so they can describe what they observe using a first hand account. But even still, they will not be able to prove anything to those who need to see with their own eyes, while science lacks the eyes to see.

 

A medical example of a similar effect are some people feel pain, where medical science can not seem to find any cause and effect. It does not show up on any scanning device in the assumed places. Based on that science evidence, there is no direct proof of pain. It comes down the word of the person.

 

I see UFO's and aliens from other worlds in the same light as mystical things. We can better rationalize UFO's via the scope of the universe and the potential number of unproven planets with unproven life, etc.. This is a valid mystical experience for some. It sort of slid in the back door of science, because it uses science hope and expectation instead of religious hope and expectations. Anyone who sees an alien, is changed by this experience, which can't be proven. This is actually a bridge between mystical and science. One can't say I saw an angel come down a cloud. But if I saw an alien do the same thing, this is an OK mystical science experience.

[modest]

I recognize both branches of epistemology (a-priori and a-posteriori) as legitimate ways of knowing.

 

Like empiricists did before Kant, you are confusing the difference between a priori and a posteriori with the difference between synthetic and analytic. Your claims are 1) synthetic 2) a priori and 3) metaphysical.

 

The problem is not simply that you use a priori reasoning. Science does that all the time. The scientific method is essentially a deductive method. The conclusions of a proof follow deductively (through a priori reasoning) from the postulates.

 

Kant’s answer to the problems generated by the two traditions mentioned above changed the face of philosophy. First, Kant argued that that old division between a priori truths and a posteriori truths employed by both camps was insufficient to describe the sort of metaphysical claims that were under dispute. An analysis of knowledge also requires a distinction between synthetic and analytic truths. In an analytic claim, the predicate is contained within the subject. In the claim, “Every body occupies space,” the property of occupying space is revealed in an analysis of what it means to be a body. The subject of a synthetic claim, however, does not contain the predicate. In, “This tree is 120 feet tall,” the concepts are synthesized or brought together to form a new claim that is not contained in any of the individual concepts. The Empiricists had not been able to prove synthetic a priori claims like “Every event must have a cause,” because they had conflated “synthetic” and “a posteriori” as well as “analytic” and “a priori.” Then they had assumed that the two resulting categories were exhaustive. A synthetic a priori claim, Kant argues, is one that must be true without appealing to experience, yet the predicate is not logically contained within the subject, so it is no surprise that the Empiricists failed to produce the sought after justification. The Rationalists had similarly conflated the four terms and mistakenly proceeded as if claims like, “The self is a simple substance,” could be proven analytically and a priori.

Kant, Immanuel: Metaphysics*[The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]

How are synthetic a priori propositions possible? This question is often times understood to frame the investigations at issue in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. In answer to it, Kant saw fit to divide the question into three: 1) How are the synthetic a priori propositions of mathematics possible? 2) How are the synthetic a priori propositions of natural science possible? Finally, 3) How are the synthetic a priori propositions of metaphysics possible? In systematic fashion, Kant responds to each of these questions. The answer to question one is broadly found in the Transcendental Aesthetic, and the doctrine of the transcendental ideality of space and time. The answer to question two is found in the Transcendental Analytic, where Kant seeks to demonstrate the essential role played by the categories in grounding the possibility of knowledge and experience.

The answer to question three is found in the Transcendental Dialectic, and it is a resoundingly blunt conclusion: the synthetic a priori propositions that characterize metaphysics are not really possible at all.

Metaphysics, that is, is inherently dialectical. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is thus as well known for what it rejects as for what it defends. Thus, in the Dialectic, Kant turns his attention to the central disciplines of traditional, rationalist, metaphysics — rational psychology, rational cosmology, and rational theology. Kant aims to reveal the errors that plague each of these fields.

Kant's Critique of Metaphysics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

 

~modest

[lemit]

BTW, my last post was also addressed to . . . Lemit who seems to think that my "claim" to gnosis, as a mystic, is well, quite "immodest" I suppose.

Michael

 

Thanks! It's nice to be included.

 

I just think you are maybe a little too--shall we say--sure of yourself sometimes. I haven't seen that certitude in descriptions of Western Mysticism. Certainly the others around here who feel they may have had that experience don't demonstrate that certitude. I'm not sure of much except that whatever I have experienced I have experienced as an individual. I would no more presuppose your experience than I would presuppose your level of happiness absent sure signs of depression. You have shown those metaphorical signs. There are times when you tell me I should understand the world in ways that violate all I have experienced in my life. As I think I've made plain in the past, I intend you no more harm than you do to my friends, the other people around here. Well, maybe I haven't made that plain, but it's the truth.

 

What I have trouble with in this thread is that you are requiring all kinds of proof from people to defend what they pretty well know to be true while you yourself when asked for proof of your family's powers supposedly gained through transpersonal psychology became greatly offended and refused to respond. A little consistency and a little application of the Golden Rule would be nice.

 

Overall, I guess I'd have to say I'm a fan of niceness.

 

--lemit

[Michael Mooney]

Modest:

Like empiricists did before Kant, you are confusing the difference between a priori and a posteriori with the difference between synthetic and analytic. Your claims are 1) synthetic 2) a priori and 3) metaphysical.

 

It would be really refreshing if you would be more precise with your language and avoid such presumption as to declare what I am "confusing."("You seem to be confusing"... would be such an example.

 

Actually I am not confusing those elements you name at all. I studied Kant in some depth for my MA in philosophy. He did change the face of philosophy with the important distinctions pointed out in the clips you quote. He was a fine philosopher but he was not a mystic and had no idea what transcendence of personal consciousness and identity might be.

If you had grasped what I shared from Franklin Merrell-Wolff's work (repeatedly), this exchange would be passe'.

 

The mystic experience is not about synthesis or analysis, as consciousness transcends content. Mystic unity is realized after the false boundary of individual identity is transcended and one realizes that consciousness itself has no boundaries.

 

Kant was "critiquing" "pure reason', but the experience of the hundreds of mystics I have read, and my own direct experience transcends reason.

 

Alfred North Whitehead had at least an intellectual grasp of the above, and his "Process Philosophy" was a major contribution to Western metaphysics. (Process and Reality, 1929.)

 

Here is a clip about that from Wiki on Whitehead:

 

Process and Reality is famous for its defense of theism, although Whitehead's God differs essentially from the revealed God of Abrahamic religion. Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism gave rise to process theology, thanks to Hartshorne, John B. Cobb, Jr, and David Ray Griffin. Some Christians and Jews find process theology a fruitful way of understanding God and the universe. Just as the entire universe is in constant flow and change, God, as source of the universe, is viewed as growing and changing. Whitehead's rejection of mind-body dualism is similar to elements in traditions such as Buddhism.

 

Also similar to "non-dual awareness" as in integral philosophy, particularly Ken Wilber's version.

I name the same level of awareness in the positive as "conscious unity" (my website title, as you know.)

 

Also my reference to a-priori knowledge is that which is directly revealed once the analytical and synthetic realms of reason are both transcended. I have used the metaphor of the hologram to describe the experience, ... the "minutia" or individual part as a miniature of the whole, with the primary experience being integration rather than separation.

 

There is such a difference in our backgrounds, Modest, that I don't think there is any way for you to understand the essence of this experience until you find whatever way works for you to transcend your "thinking mind" and enter consciousness itself as transcending all content. Then, together with content we have the non-dual state of unity with the whole (which is omnipresent consciousness.)

 

Finally, regarding the following:

 

3) How are the synthetic a priori propositions of metaphysics possible? ...

 

The answer to question three is found in the Transcendental Dialectic, and it is a resoundingly blunt conclusion: the synthetic a priori propositions that characterize metaphysics are not really possible at all.

 

"Not possible" for him because he has never experienced the dimension of consciousness in which it is directly revealed, as in gnosis.

 

Question: How do you reconcile the above assertion of impossibility with your own statement (and embedded quote) which I recently re-quoted:

To say 'I have not experienced X and therefore X does not exist' is a basic logical fallacy called Burden Of Proof or Proving a Negative. As the pithy saying goes: "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

 

Maybe you should stick to science and leave philosophy to philosophers. You have showed me, as a scientist that Creutenden was wrong about the Sirius effect on Earth... and that my Bang/Crunch cosmology will have to wait however many billions of years for evidence of incoming clumps of matter heading for a crunch and disturbing the observed isotropic homogenaity of our presently observable cosmos.

 

For the latter two perspectives, I again thank you.

Michael