Please don’t apologise, I welcome the interest.

I thought the issue about Grok should be included here because it has been treated as a free speech issue in the press. It was the lead story in the U.K. yesterday, after Iran.

I’m not sure what to think about that, but I do think it’s a publication issue. Because People are using Grok to alter images with skinny bikinis on X, which are immediately posted on a public forum. Meaning embarrassing pictures of people which are non consensual are being published. This seems to fall foul of the U.K. online safety act.

Interestingly the two main political party’s are in agreement that it should be stopped. While only Elon Musk and Nigel Farage are claiming censureship, or a free speech issue.

Notice that I do agree with Kant that the 'empirical world' arises also from the cognitive faculties of the subject. However, I believe Kant overreaches in saying that we can't know absolutely nothing about the noumenon.

Kant is saying we can’t know anything about the noumenon with rational thought. Basically it is veiled from us. This does not negate our knowing it by other means. Kant is only talking about reason, rational thought. We are acquainted with the noumenon through our presence in the world.

So does abuse of women and girls via Grok, a freedom of speech issue in the U.K.?
Or an issue around pedophilia and abuse of women being facilitated by AI?

Nice story, I have looked very carefully for signs of physical magic throughout my life and don’t think I’ve witnessed it, or seen good evidence for it. Well apart from the time two rizzler papers that seemed to move of their own accord into position to make a joint, at a News Years Eve rave in Goa. Although I’m a bit suspicious of how that happened.

Joking aside, there is plenty of opportunity for magic to happen without violating the laws of nature. All it needs is movement and the opportunity for chance coincidences in the physical world. Or internally within the mind, or being of a person, or group of people.

I would say though, that I do think that if there is a heaven, or Nirvana, that magic is common place, or even intrinsic to what happens there and that the fact that physical magic doesn’t happen in the physical world is due to it’s structure, rather than the absence of magic at all.

Neither China or Russia would even think of invading Greenland because they would immediately be pushed back by NATO forces. Trump has nothing when it comes to a reason to annex Greenland. Maybe what he’s thinking of in 20 or 30yrs in the future when the arctic becomes less frozen and mining can be done where it is inaccessible at the moment. Although if NATO breaks up, the geopolitics will have changed by then and the US would likely be weaker.

Thanks for the clarification, I couldn’t remember the figures, but knew it was a lot.

I don’t know enough about how much ICE was active before Trump, but I saw a report the other day that ice spending has risen rapidly to over a billion dollars and they are recruiting by offering a $50,000 up front incentive for new recruits.

I bet if Europe stands united together and doesn't blink first on Greenland, nothing happens.

Yes, this is the time. Let’s hope they do and let’s face it, if they don’t, they will be a laughing stock.

The only thing that makes Trump forget Greenland is that something else captures his imagination or demands his focus.

Well at least no one is talking about the Epstein files now.

The supposed "ideological crisis" is a result of dropping any pretensions of acting ethically, in favour of just openly being inconsiderate, narcissistic twats. Trying to rake back any intellectual dignity from the mess that is the GOP is a lost cause. Intellectual dignity is not on the menu. One cannot have such an "ideological crisis" unless one is committed to at least appearing to have a standing commitment to coherence, justification, or ethical self-understanding. Those pretensions have simply been abandoned.

Yes, it’s a case of populists exploiting the phenomena of social media gaslighting along with religious fervour and dogmatism. If they can confuse the populist message with religious righteousness it can be smuggled through into mainstream opinion and work as a powerful force to divide and rule. And guess who’s the poster boy for all this. It will descend into chaos, corruption and economic failure.

Yes, it’s looking pretty bad, it looks like the republicans will have to go all the way now, because if they stop they will be finished for a generation and as you say there might strike back at the fundamentalists. But if they do go all the way, there is a risk of civil war, which will be pretty disastrous.

It does and it will likely be extended to anyone who dissents from Trump’s murmurings and opposes any action by ICE, or any other government initiative.
Now all he has to do is stimulate sufficient dissent on the run up to the mid-terms and democracy will be finished.

I don't think this assessment is accurate if the Ancient Greeks philosophers are taken into account.

Yes, there would have been a few deeper thinkers who had thought about this, but the world they were living in was steeped in the belief, to such an extent that it was as accepted as real as water and air.*

Perhaps, but 'revelation' is a loaded term―I prefer 'altered states' or 'non-ordinary states'. Kant's noumenon is specifically defined as that of which no experience at all is possible

Yes, altered states could suffice, but it leaves out the important thing about revelation. That the person is contacted by a being, who is in a transcendent relationship to himself. This requires something called hosting, in which the person is temporarily transfigured, or “sees through” the eyes of the transcendent being. Is taken up into heaven, so to speak and witnesses heaven. That when the person comes back down to earth, what they witnessed is no longer explainable, or conceivable, but is couched in a conceptual language of this world and their terrestrial conditioning. Hence allegory, now if that person discusses their experience with someone else who has witnessed similar, they are holding a discursive conversation about a transcendent state.

By comparison, and I’m not drawing a direct comparison, only hinting at a possible parallel. In the human body were we to assume a transcendent relationship between the person and the individual cells in his body, a hosted cell might be a receptor cell in the eye, or a memory cell in the brain of the person. Such that an individual cell in his body bares witness to the transcended state of being a person. Of course that cell would not “comprehend” what it witnessed, but the image perceived by the person, has possibly passed through that cell, so in an esoteric sense, the cell did witness something the person saw.

The question is whether adequate discursive articulation is possible.

Two people who have experienced revelation can hold a discursive discussion about it.

Regarding the neumenon, I still see a parallel, it’s true that we may never experience the neumenon, or have an understanding of it. But we are composed of it, hosted by it, so in a sense we have access to it. But we are totally blind of that access.

In fact I think the same about ordinary states―they are made to seem ordinary by the assumption that our talk in terms of identities adequately characterizes them, captures their nature.

I agree entirely, which may be a doorway through which it can be discussed.

*I could go on at length about how a culture, particularly a historic culture, where everyone believes something without question. Is very different to what we experience in our disparate culture. Magic does happen, religious narratives do come to life. I witnessed such myself in India.

I’m concerned about all the lives lost and suffering as a result of Trump’s behaviour.

The bromance has been souring lately.

Yes, Putin is too sensible to trust such a madman.

So like I said in my first post here, whether or not they turn over Greenland will probably also depend on how much economic pain Europe is willing to accept for it, if the US wants to play it that hard that is.

The amount of investment going into arms production in Europe will fuel an economic boost. Also if more energy is required in the short term, it will also act as a stimulus. These effects are probably already showing in Poland which is ahead of the curve in this process.

Yes, I think he could go on quite a while causing chaos. But sooner or later someone will take him out, one way, or another. It’s inevitable.

During Trump’s phone all with the president of Columbia, held in the Oval Office with three journalists present (including the New York Times). Trump announced that he doesn’t need to abide by international law any more, “he doesn’t need it”. That all he needs is his own personal moral code, to go by.
It looks like the U.S. will go over the edge at the same time as Iran. Who would have thunk it?

Members of the US government have wanted Greenland for defense purposes since the 1860s.

Yes, Trump want’s Greenland to protect him from his new besty, Putin.

For him a beyond of experience is not impossible but meaningless.

Husserl isnt just declining to speculate; he is showing that certain speculative questions rest on a confused picture of meaning and existence.

Quite, it is necessary to see the intellectually conditioned self for what it is in order to free oneself from it’s conditioning.

I would suggest though that “a beyond of experience” is not actually meaningless, but our intellectualisation of it, from within our intellectually conditioned self is. Once free of that it can be looked at afresh.

Kant would see the phrase “transcendentally constituted but mind-independent” as incoherent.

As above, but this time we mustn’t exclude what might be going on behind the scenes.

Are there? How do you know?

Again, how do you know there is reincarnation?

It’s in the iconography and teachings, although reference to this sort of thing has been toned down for the Western market. Presumably because Westerners are not inclined to take it seriously, because of the results of the Cartesian divide etc. I’m not saying that I believe it because it’s in the iconography and teachings, but acknowledging it’s presence there in.

Yes, of course they are allegorical―I was only pointing out that all our supposedly transcendent imagery really derives from what we have seen in this world.

Yes and the conversations, if they can be described that way between cells will derive from what they are familiar with in their living processes. This might seem to be facetious, but there is an important point about transcendent relationship here. The minor partner (the one who is transcended) has no idea of the nature of the transcendent partner, it is inconceivable, incomprehensible, bares no relation to their experiences.

I don't see any reason to believe that. That said, I don't deny that others might feel they have reasons to believe it. For me the idea that our world is a pale reflection of some other reality is unsupportable, since this world and our experiences in it and of it are all we know.

I’m not saying that anyone should believe it, or that I believe it. But that we should at least acknowledge that it was believed by all the adherents of these religions movements and is depicted en masse in their iconography and teachings. And was accepted as true by the whole population prior to the Cartesian divide.

This makes no sense to me. There are many religious doctrines, incompatible with one another, and I have no desire to be led by the blind.

All I’m saying is that if we are going to consider transcendence, we have to somehow translate what is revealed to people during revelation into something amenable to philosophical discourse. That there is no other way. It is rather like Kant’s neumenon. Philosophy accepts the neumenon into discursive discourse, why not transcendence? It’s rather like a positive form of neumenon.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for 2025 are of course an estimate, with the year not yet complete – but they show a mixed picture.
Emissions from fossil fuels and cement are forecast to increase yet again to 38.1bn tonnes of CO2, according to the Global Carbon Budget team, which comprises more than 130 scientists from 21 countries.
That would be up 1.1% on 2024.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c620q30w0q0o

This is the size of the problem. Perhaps if AI can bang a few heads together in the rooms where energy policies are decided, we can start to make some progress.

The U.S. has the potential for vast solar resources in her southern sun baked states. Where are the plans for these solar farms. Same for Spain, India, Australia, Brazil, even China have vast potential for solar farms in their deserts.

Let’s get AI banging these heads together.

The only way to solve the problem is to stop burning fossil fuels pronto and sequester large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere asap.
I don’t see AI coming to the rescue any time soon.

It's not so straightforward with Buddhism―there the predominant idea seems to be that there is no ground of being. On the other hand Buddhism as a whole is a multifaceted movement, and very much open to various interpretations.

I hesitate to make statements about Buddhism as I didn’t study it deeply. I would say though that the implication of a transcendent reality underlying our known world is implicit everywhere. True, there is supposedly no God and no soul as such. But there are bodhistvas galore and people who achieve a realisation of Nirvana, who are enlightened. There is reincarnation, although modern commentators seem to contort this into something that isn’t the transmigration of souls, but the transmission of some kind of common being, or essence which is undefined.

So what is going on here, what is Nirvana and Para-nirvana, for that matter. If a transcendent ground of being were not implicated these phrases and ideas would be meaningless, just novel ways of describing the annihilation of death.

Such images are always imaginary amalgamations of imagery derived from this world of course. Think about the portrayal of God in Michelangelo's work in the Sistine Chapel.

Yes, but they are allegorical of transfigured, God like beings inhabiting a heavenly realm.

It’s time we accepted that all this religious activity, iconography and religious practices are shouting from the roof tops that there is a heavenly world, a Nirvana underlaying our known world, that is primary to it and that our world is a pale reflection of this reality.

I suppose you could say that the ground of being, if it were anything more than just an idea, would be transcendent. And the idea itself is thought of as an idea of something transcendental (as opposed to transcendent) insofar as it is not empirically evident.

Yes, although I would not confine it to a ground of being. I see transcendent relationships in our world of experiences. Although it might not fit the definition in terms of being something other worldly.

For example, for the cells in my body, they live a life in a colony of cells making up a body. They have a community, of which they are a part. But they have no idea that I as the head of the community, so to speak, am thinking about moving the whole community at great speed in a vehicle to a Cathedral to look up at shaped stones at the tops of columns. My activity as a human is transcendent of their lives as cells performing a group task in a community of cells. What they do, why they do it etc bares no relation to what I do and visa versa. It is a transcendent relation in a shared body, or colony of living cells, or beings.

Now if we take this analogy and extend it upward (in a hierarchy of being) to a situation where there is a community of people equivalent to the community of cells. That community of people (cells), has no idea that the head of the community which might be God, or Gayá has some conversation going on with other exalted beings in other galaxies for example, that bare no relation to our lives and visa versa, while it is a transcendent relation in a shared body, or colony of living beings (cells).

Now Michelangelo might have been representing these God like beings in his frescos in the Sistine Chapel, but depicting them as human, because their true nature is inconceivable to us, is in a transcendent relationship with us. In which case it bares no conceivable relation to our concept of iconography.

I suppose you could say that the ground of being, if it were anything more than just an idea, would be transcendent. And the idea itself is thought of as an idea of something transcendental (as opposed to transcendent) insofar as it is not empirically evident.

This is where it becomes problematic, transcendent relationships are problematic empirically, because they cannot be reduced analytically. They need evidence of the transcendent partner in the relationship and its interaction, or co-dependence. But if the evidence of the transcendent partner can only be found through revelation, or enlightenment. It requires us to take seriously what those reports tell us. Or in other words to believe religious doctrine. It is an exercise in the blind leading the blind, in the absence of revelation.

But what is the transcendent ground of being; God, Brahman, the One, or all of the above? And how could we ever know that such a foundation exists?

We don’t know and may never know. Within the religious traditions, though, it is taught that people were given the knowledge through revelation and by being hosted by heavenly (or use another appropriate term) beings. Also in Hinduism and Buddhism people are said to achieve enlightenment, in which they become aware of this knowledge.

What if there is no ultimate ground?

This introduces two questions, is there a ground to the being we find ourselves in? and, is there an ultimate ground.
For the first question, well there must be something, whether it qualifies as a ground of being, or something else. That is part of the debate, presumably. As for the second, that might be a question too far, for now at least.

What if the very idea of a ground is merely a human desire to impose causes and explanations on the world

Yes, something to be aware of and distinguish. This might even require a bracketing out of the intellectual frameworks we are conditioned with and a new system developed. Presumably, theology has addressed many of these questions already.

Perhaps it is a question without end, an endless recursion where each answer only leads to another question.

Yes well regression is all around, it’s something we have to accommodate.

It's simple; "taboo" implies a socially conditioned introjection governing responses and the presence of fear.

Apologies for a bad choice of word. I didn’t mean taboo in that sense. I’ve only ever used it in the sense of a quiet, or unspoken, consensus not to go somewhere.

I see the issue of transcendence as fundamental when we’re looking at the bare bones of consciousness and being. This is also relevant when we’re talking about the Cartesian divide, because prior to the divide transcendence was pivotal to people’s understanding of the world. The Buddhist, vedantic and Abrahamic traditions out of which philosophy and the sciences sprang was steeped in the understanding and implicit acceptance of a transcendent ground of being. I am fortunate enough to be able to visit the gothic cathedrals of Europe. I have recently visited the Notre Dame, Canterbury cathedral, Ely and Norwich Cathedrals. Their walls are plastered with divine iconography in which a transcendent, or divine ground of being is implicitly portrayed. All the iconography of the Buddhist and Hindi religions is similarly depicting people touched by, or participating in the divine realm. Monastic life is about this, prayer and meditation is about this. Any mention, of divinity, God, faith, or belief derived from any of these religions is referring, perhaps not directly, or unknowingly to the principle of a transcendent ground of being.

Perhaps it is time to look at the elephant in the room and include it in discussions of the ground of being.

Why interpret a principled rejection of the idea of transcendence as a "taboo"?

I was commenting on my observation that no one, that I’ve noticed, includes it in any discussions. I’ve toed the line a bit, because posters just ignore it. It fits the definition of a taboo to me. I don’t know what your objection is, so can’t, or wouldn’t comment.

I don't think in terms of transcendence because the idea of a transcendent realm or reality seems unintelligible to me, or else simply a reification of a conception of this world into another imaginary register, so to speak, and I don't think the idea is at all helpful philosophically.

That’s fine by me, perhaps what I’m thinking of coincides somewhat with what you describe as immanence.

It's concerned with grasping the essential features of particulars, so as to see what they truly are.

Still chasing their own tail though.

So I would challenge this assumption. Why is the only thing we can be certain of in the “here and now”?

Forgive me, I’m new to all this phenomenology malarkey. I thought the idea was that everything is always here and now and it is our experiences which give us the impression that it is otherwise. Namely that everything isn’t here and now, except the few things we are concentrating on, in any one moment.

I would say the subject is immanent, not transcendent. I see the notion of transcendence as being purely conceptual.

Yes I can see this, although I would suggest that transcendence can be brought into the mix. But I have noticed a taboo on this forum around transcendence, so won’t push it further unless asked to.

But I don’t really get Husserl’s ‘eidetic vision’

I had a look at this and realised that what he was trying to do is what is well versed in mysticism. But the difference being and where I see it as problematic, is that he seems to be applying it to the external world, to experiences in and of the world.
I thought it was accepted, within mysticism that this can only be applied internally. Or at least that is my interpretation. And that any attempt to externalise it as a means to gain understanding would only ever reveal structures of external forms. So one would be left chasing one’s tail, endlessly.

Whereas in mysticism it is used as a means of synthesis within and transfiguration of the self. Revealing the immanent and transcendent qualities of being.

The 'primacy of consciousness' doesn't equate to acceptance of the Vedantic 'ātman' - it is grounded in the recognition that 'the world is inconceivable apart from consciousness'

Yes, I was thinking of that as I was writing, my comment was more of an aside to Janus. I struggle to limit the subject to these binary terms, ie, the world and consciousness, without looking more closely at how consciousness manifests in humanity and it’s theological implications.

Your thinking seems to align with my own, insofar as it resonates more with the Vedic tradition than the Buddhist.

Then we can presumably view the subject as transcendent to the extent that it extends to having a presence in the material world, to emotions, or feelings, to mind, to soul and to spirit. In this sense of having a presence in each of these spheres the subject is transcendent of each sphere by having a presence and reference (in their being) in the others.

So I view the subject as orthogonal to the stratification of these layers of being. Reaching across the spectrum.

As for a universal mind, I see it more as a collective mind within the kingdoms of nature. For example a person is a collection of individual cells. A civilisation, or world, is a collection of people, or organisms. It helps to, if tenuously, to regard the planet as a being, with people as equivalent to the cells in the person of the world. This principle can be extended.

What I’m saying is that there is a way of stepping out of this dualistic thought process. To develop a sense of things which can become like an alternative approach, or perspective on an issue. Over time, it becomes like a reference system, but not dualistically based, but intuitive/feeling based.
— Punshhh

I agree with that and I think we are always already not in that dualistic mode most of the time; we just may not have learnt how to attend to that intuitive mode, because the analytic dualistic mind demands a kind of spolighted precision which doesn't belong to that intuitive mode, and confusion and aporia follow.

Yes, although what Wayfarer and myself are doing here is taking a step back from the analytic dualistic thought processes and treating the subject as something external, or orthogonal to it. Or in other words somehow independent of the nature of the experience, while also essential for the experience. An onlooker, who is required to witness it, for it to have occurred. Both transcendent of and in the middle of (essential to) the experience, simultaneously.
This next bit is what I think, I can’t speak for Wayfarer on this.
So the meaning, or intimate nature of the experience is shaped by the transcendent nature of the subject. An identical experience (empirically) is different and unique dependent on the transcendental state of the subject. That the subject is in essence all subjects (an archetypal being, entirely transcendent),simultaneously, while having a unique perspective in the presence of the experience. And is uniquely necessary for that experience to occur.

That’s true, although like in the case of time, the concept of space is also a little murky. The “here and now” is a well known phrase, and seemingly go together— no question. But exactly why that is privileged over what isn’t here (or now) is the theme of this thread.

Yes that’s interesting, my first thought is that almost everything (that could be here and now), isn’t. While the only thing(s) we can be sure of is. It looks like we have the horns of a dilemma.

1, How come we are compelled to believe that almost everything that could be here and now isn’t. Whilst the only things we can be certain about are what are here and now?
2, How can we know, that there is something which isn’t here? Or in other words, how can we say that there really is something which isn’t here and now, whilst the only things we can be certain about (say something about) are what is here and now?

If I already possess that divine "information", I am not aware of it. :smile:

That was precisely my point, we are not aware of it, but our soul is, or perhaps our spirit. It might just be our outer, more physical, self conscious self which isn’t.
Anyway, for me it is a meditation, or contemplation technique. The idea that to realise truth, I don’t need to go anywhere, to do anything else. I’m already at my destination (the answer, the truth) if I could but know it, but realise it. Human nature implores us to do things, to go places to achieve things, it’s programmed into us as a survival technique. In a sense that takes us away from the inner truth. The reason people go into monasteries and retreats is to reverse that process and return to their inner selves to some degree.

Yes the author is right, we don’t know what any of those things are. We know very little about the building blocks of our world.
The reason I say electricity has probably something to do with consciousness is that it has some remarkable qualities which are not in any way present in matter, (if we are thinking of matter in isolation), it provides energy for atoms, which can be provided in relative quantities, it readily forms into fields and it behaves as though it can move around at the speed of light. It almost behaves like an omnipotent God, outside of space and time. It provides the animation in living processes, and provides all sorts of charge fields and electrical processes in living bodies.

Now going back to the idea that consciousness is fundamental like space, time, physical material. What do you think is going on in a star, in terms of consciousness. This is important because the majority of the material in the universe is either present in a star, or has been in the past. A star is like a melting pot in which matter dissolves into plasma, meaning the strong and weak atomic forces somehow merge, we can observe powerful magnetic forces at play in our local star and I can’t imagine what electricity is up to in a place like that. Where is the consciousness in all that?

As for your question about what part electricity may play in consciousness, well, I’m just guessing like everyone else. But for me it is a way in, a portal for consciousness, spirit, perhaps to come into the physical world. As I said before, I see the physical world as an artificial construct, the real world being made up of consciousness and mind, which acts out certain things in the artificial world for some reason, or other.

When I saw the thread title, my first thought was as in communion in Christianity. The presence of spirit. Then I saw that it was really about time.
Surely presence would include the idea of place as well as of time. Because for something to be present in the present, it would also be present in a place?

This is that the Buddha's teaching is like the stick used to stir a fire to help get it burning. But when the fire is burning, the stick is tossed in.

A beautiful metaphor, something I have acted out many times. Thankyou.

Unless there wasn't a time when consciousness didn't exist. If it is fundamental, a property of things, as, for example, mass and charge are, then it was always there. There was always experiencing. Yes, reality started perceiving itself when structures of perception evolved. At which point, there was the experience of perception.

I have a lot of sympathy with your stance and there is an interpretation of my stance which fits with yours. But it comes from an entirely different root to what is being discussed in this thread.

I’ve been thinking of raising the issue of electrical charge and consciousness. As you mention charge, this seems like an appropriate time.
It occurs to me that consciousness might be emergent from the presence of charge in matter (mass, or extension, ie spacetime). Or the other way around, the presence of matter (spacetime) in charge. Although when it comes to extension in space and time and charge, they are all a consequence of extension and rely on it to have existence.

To put that simply, space/time/charge emerge together. Consciousness could be emergent in the presence of charge in matter. The animating part, electricity. We can see how electricity and charge play a fundamental role in life processes. Particularly in the central nervous system, indeed in thought, sentience and the exalted state of consciousness observed in humans. We are an electrical processing device, which processes information for the purpose of increasing our chances of survival.

So rather like your train set aeroplane analogy. We have developed a processing device to be better at survival, but inadvertently produced something which could take us out into space.