Theos-Talk Archives (November 1999 Message tl00351)

Nov 27th

Dear Grigor:

Perhaps my line of thinking is slightly different from yours, so
let me offer:

I am thinking of the threefold power that every human has in one
or other degree of usage and aptitude:

1.  to THINK independently.

2.  to make comparisons, and

3.  to extrapolate conclusions or potential results according to
whatever capacity he may have developed to apprehend the
operative Laws of nature and his own position in regard to the
totality of his environment.

These are broad terms and I make no attempt to describe either
their interaction or the many limitations that we impose on our
usage of them ( and this includes our evaluation of how others
frame their definitions).

I am, rather looking at the fact that we all have and use these
faculties and powers.

Being possessed of these tools (faculties) I still ask and say
WHO AM I ?

I ask myself what is the purpose of this?  How am I assisting my
own method of living.  Do I live more contentedly?  Am I better
able to adjust my own nature (Ego ?) to others?

Also is there somewhere a "norm" that would describe -- in broad
terms -- an "ideal" that could be placed as a "goad"  -- even if
that be unobtainable ?  Again, how does this help me in daily
living?

Since we deal with both finitudes (as memories of limitations of
experience) and actualities  (present experience, which
immediately enter the realm of memory), it seems to me that our
whole focus is on the future.  we are then confronted by the 3rd
and balancing aspect of our condition:  What shall we choose as
the best path to investigate, to experience, to experiment with.
In this to me, I seek to design a future for myself.  I can
narrow down to descriptive minutiae or I can widen out to broad
generalities.  But in either case I  OBSERVE THAT I AM THE ONE
WHO CHOOSES.

One may say that one's choice is narrowed or channeled by their
past.  To some extent this is true, but the ground-breaking
exploration of the whole area of experience proves two things,

1.  I choose what to explore.  (whether influenced or not)

2.  I am aware that Nature (my environment) has already
established various levels of limitations and areas of perceptive
experience for me (as I presently am) as "horizons" that I may
explore, first conceptually, and then actually by a transfer of
consciousness (if that is permitted and possible).

3.  If so, then Nature (environment) is more than a physical
milieu. It has causal as well as perceptive and reactive aspects,
which are not always bound to the purely physical give and take
we are accustomed to perceive.  One might introduce here the
experience of mathematicians and physicists who seek to define
"randomness" and the "string-theory."  I ask myself how can these
be applied to my mental Self ?

4.  If I can conceive of and somewhat understand these, then
there already exists in me that potential of understanding which
adapts vocabularies to concepts and mental visualizations.

I also agree with you that Plato's analogy of the "Cave" is a
good one, as the "shadows" seen there are like experiences that
fade into memory.  And, it is a rare one who visualizes a "source
of light" and beings that moving, cast shadows which may have
purpose.

I also think we deal with those shadows, and are seeking the
Light and also the causes of those shadows, so that we may
increase our knowledge.  And then translate that into a better
kind of living, practically.

Dallas

Dallas

-----Original Message-----
> From: Hazarapet@aol.com [mailto:Hazarapet@aol.com]
> Date: Sunday, November 28, 1999 9:24 AM
> Subject: finite/infinite/mind/meaning/definiteness/literalism/was mental events breaking

In a message dated 11/27/99 5:08:16 PM Central Standard Time,
dalval@nwc.net
writes:

> You are correct.  To make definition would require quite a lot
of
>  explanation, depending on the level of perception and
>  introspection that any one has reached.

Your claim that to make a definition would require a lot of
explanation
and depends on the level of perception and introspection I could
agree with if we are talking about degrees of finitude.  But then
this
raises a question about how clear, distinct, and definite are the
cosmological ideas of HPB for any finite mind.  This question
arose while watching you and Jerry S debate/discuss aspects
of after death experience.  Consider.

Any finite definition or bit of meaning or bit of information or
bit of
experience or bit of intelligibility is provisional, tentatively
grasped
(but not in fullness), and subject to ambivalent and/or equivocal
readings so long as its integration into the total picture is not
grasped.  Or as ancients put it, the full meaning and
significance
of a part is not definite (i.e., for a comprehending power
defined)
fully until the whole it is a part of is seen.  This was
Descartes'
error.  He clearly understood what it was to have a clear and
distinct idea but not that a finite cogito could not arrive at
that.
As Plato and the Buddhists well know, logic and conceptual
thought
and definition serves, as a means to an end, a variety of tasks.
But
it is based on the level or quality of experience or
consciousness.
In modern psych-ward there is a lot of logic.  But it is based on
lousy and bad experience.  As Plato's Cave teaches us, quality
of logic (even if valid and no fallacies commited) is based on
quality of input.  So, the finite mind is itself Plato's Cave.
As
such, its grasp of anything is not definite.  Consider:

1. The bill is too large.

This sentence is a finite bit of meaning.  It is grammatically a
well-formed expression.  But, unless one is presumptiously
or naively confident in one's first impressions (literalism) of
what
something means, one discovers it is equivocal.  Is the bill
a bird's beak, a cap's visor, or a sales ticket that is
charging too much money?  Notice in de-ambiguating
the sentence by bringing out its various senses/meanings
(actually bringing out the three semantic sentences behind
the one grammatical one), we had to provide context for it.
By adding the thought that a bird was meant as context,
we got one sentence.  By adding the thought that a cap
was meant as our interpretative context, we got another
sentence.  And so forth.  This is the process of including
a part within a bigger whole.  The question that always
arises until we are at infinity of meaning and intelligibility
(call it LOGOS) is whether we have provided the right
whole (did author mean bird, cap, or sales charge?).
Now it is easily shown that any sentence, any formula,
any concept, and theory is subject to just this same
type of process where it gains in definiteness of meaning
by providing context (i.e. putting the part into a whole) and
the vicissitude that what whole is the correct one remains
an open question until LOGOS.  At the simplest level,
as Chomsky has demonstrated, any sentence can have
"and" added to it with a new clause that changes the
overall import of the original sentence.  But there are
a variety of other ways this is done.

Now, if the the universe is not an absurd mechanism
and materialism is true, that is, if the universe is a
intelligible and meaningful whole, then at infinity the
universe IS the LOGOS.  The Real is itself the ultimate
and final meaning.  This means that there is a convergence
of meaning and reality.  That is, meaning is not one thing
and reality another ultimately.  But it also means, logically,
that literal definiteness of meaning exists only at infinity.
But if ultimately the meaning and the Real are identical,
any finite meaning or finite real will show the same kinds
of indefiniteness that we have looked at above.  Any finite
meaning, understanding, experience, or state of being
will be ambivalently indefinite.  So, here comes the
question posed to you, Dallas.  Jerry tried offering
the idea that post-mortem states might be interpreted
differently and that there was not just one normative
model (which you seemed to aver).  But isn't a certain
indefiniteness intrinsic to any finite state?  And might
any finite theory, such as HPB's, while not false may
not be literally true because literal definiteness exists
only at infinity.  This is the Dzog chen view of its
own cosmology of planes, higher bodies, and such
which is very similar to theosophy.  Short of infinity,
the nature and meaning of anything is indefinite,
open, empty of definitive self-nature, is not literally
as it seems, and not captured definitively by any
finite model that can be taken to be literal (since
the literal is LOGOS at infinity).

Grigor

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