Immaterialism

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His ideas seem similar to this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(illusion)

The right bracket has to be moved one space to the left to get the right address

I understand the Vedanta School most readily, but I'm sure if I spent time with the other theories, I'd figure them out.

I agree with this. The world is ultimately monist, but consciousness breaks the one into many.
I think I already said this.

I guess it's really not a conversation unless there are nuts and bolts of some kind to pour over. I get that you'll say more in other threads regarding your own take on these things but I think that's where I was going - ie. that I avoid throwing out blanket statements because they don't usually lend themselves to much discussion or insight.

techstepgenr8tion,
Okay, let's try this. Is there an end to the road of wisdom? Is there any meaning to the claims of "enlightened gurus"? Or is Reality unknowable, and wisdom nothing more than a direction to walk?

These are metaphysical questions that I think lend substance to my obsession with truth. As in, why would someone care about the answers.

Depends who you ask and sometimes what day of the week. You can read Rudolph Steiner and Max Heindel get one cosmlogy, read AP Sinnet and get another, read HP Blavatski and get something slightly different from that, same for Dion Fortune, Aleister Crowley, etc. etc.. I'm also noticing that with Manly P Hall it seems like the basic analogies and planetary designations change with the book. It's not that I find reading, researching, and learning unenjoyable, just that I'd have to admit personally - I have no clue how long the journey is, how far each described mile-marker is from the end of a person's journey. Buddhists believe in nirvana and paranirvana, they say destruction but really mean too far beyond our point of reference to bother describing. Qabalists talk about Ipsissimi but the trip to Kether sounds like it's a much shorter journey than the one described by the Hindus or Buddhists, much shorter also than what the Anthroposophists seem to parallel of the eastern model also.

That said with as much contradiction I see, particularly among doctrines that all achieve results and all have very competent leaders and writers all saying largely the same things about how to live your life to the fullest and engage the growth process but completely different things when they get to their cosmic models. I'd rather keep my nose to the grindstone at this point and leave grand cosmology alone unless I find a set of stable proofs that can pry once direction or another open permanently. Odds are, with what I've seen so far, it probably won't be the exact same way for any one person and everyone may eventually be able to write their own huge cosmology books about planetary evolutions, laps around rings of planets, life waves, and every one of those books will say something different!


I don't know if I can really comment on englightenment, whatever it means in the east really doesn't translate to the west anymore as it's been as badly abused at this point as terms like soul and spirit. Adeptship is at least a little bit closer to the ground, more clearly defined by the kind of merger that happens (or at least dissolution of barrier), and it's something that people can reasonably reach within a lifetime. I believe in that process, I believe in plenty of roadmap ahead of that. End games? Most of the greatest just don't touch it and seem to argue that by the time that's even a concern you'll be long gone from this earth anyway.

As for what I make of adeptship or those who've reached a considerable rank of knowledge or development in this stuff - it's a degree of competency with their own subjective realms so as far as I'm concerned yes, that competency and the changes that come with it are certainly real.

I am not an immaterialist. I live as a materialist. Or maybe not. At any rate, I distinguish between out-there and in-here. And I think one's beliefs should match how one lives, that one should avoid hypocrisy. I wouldn't know how to live as an immaterialist.

As I go through life, I assume I am a physical being moving through a physical world, as I see other humans doing. I assume there are physical things that have a bearing on my experience of the world, and on my consciousness.

There is no road of wisdom. Though if one follows a trajectory of thought that seems to make sense of the world, and it is of a particular sort, one may find it does have an 'end'.



To the individual, perhaps. At large, no.

The world is under no obligation to make sense to us.



There is no Reality, in that sense. How things seem is how they are to us, until our perspective shifts. A new perspective is not more 'real' than the old one, we are not closer to a/the 'truth', save for/as how it helps us make sense of and get a grasp on our experience(s).

In that sense, Reality is knowable.



It passes the time.

Walking out of the supermarket the other day, my younger daughter saw something hanging by some sort of wire from the roof of a house. She thought it was a dead blackbird. So did I. As we got closer we could see it wasn't, though it took a few seconds to see it was the cable from a TV aerial. What we took to be a dead bird was a tangled lump of black duct tape, presumably used to hold the cable in place, but having failed to do so under the recent high wind. For a few seconds, though, as we discussed later, both my daughter and I were wondering what kind of bird it was and what had happened to it.

I like stories.

The stablest proofs of all are tautologies. That is to say, things that are true by definition. On ontology, I can say that everything that exists is real: reality is nothing more than what exists. And, that is clearly not nothing whatsoever, by the simplest observations.

The power of deduction is also its weakness. The amount of things you can prove is directly proportional to the amount of useless things you can prove. However, if you keep your head on straight, you notice that careful deduction is certain: it is the greatest intelligence in the universe. When someone asks "do you believe in something greater than yourself?" the answer is affirmative: "Yes, I believe in deduction."
I just reclaim the word. Enlightenment is the state of having infinite knowledge about Reality. The mind, being unbound, is closest to God's infinite mind.



You behave exactly as materialists live, but for a different reason. That's all a philosophical argument is, is it not? Differences in reason?
True. Unfortunately, I'm under the obligation to make sense to the world, so I might as well make as much sense as possible.
In that sense, it's lower-case reality, not the proper noun of Reality. Let us confuse this more. Reality is singular, making it a proper noun, but not a thing, making it closer to a verb than noun. Let us call it a proper verb. Things have boundaries, whereas Reality is infinite.
If it helps you relate to my own obsession with philosophy, sure. I like stories.

Generally speaking even if the noumenal can touch our brains for just a second it seems that the phenomenal is about all that can stick. That's just part of the predicament we're in and why - especially in the west - materialism is deemed pragmatic and this stuff woo-woo nonsense.

I strongly disagree. We will never leave our galaxy. However, it is important to know our place in the universe,why there is something rather then nothing.., Just because some knowledge does not have practical consequences (such as lowering the price of toilet paper) does not make it pointless. Some knowledge is intrinsically important. That is what I call spiritual. Technology is important. But that does not mean that science is unimportant.

And further, the formation of words is itself an action. Words alone can have a profound effect on the thinking and behaviour of others.

Is there any point to immaterialism?

In the East there is a point, it is used to show people that there is no need to commit crime for example
Crime is committed by people who have a desire for something, usually money and a better lifestyle, the desire for money is an illusion because if you have enough for food and basic shelter you dont really need more,

Also you get a greater feeling of happiness from helping other people than you do leading a luxurious lifestyle, people lust after the luxurious lifestyle but its a big illusion, it actually leads to misery.

There's an unbridgeable void between experience and the cause of our experiences. For lack of any other tool, we can use logic. That's what they use in the East. They just take it farther than we do.

We can draw parallels and decide which of materialism and immaterialism is more likely true. The good thought seeks after truth. Even if immaterialism is false doctrine, it's expression clears up what materialism is.

I was thinking about this a bit on the way to work.

It seems like our very ability to harness the laws of nature - whether in science, smooth living, or simply good interaction with other people, it comes down to how well a person can conform to the laws of the universe. One of the things that AMORC and most of the Rosicrucian orders are really big on is cosmic law and finding one's way toward mastery of life through constantly bringing yourself closer to conformity with the real. Not to adamantly claim anything supernatural about it, just to point out that it does seem like there's a coherent goal to shoot for - ie. accurate living and thinking.

The immaterial is just that.

I strongly believe in the material world.

I don't believe we're an illusion.

I live in complete and utter poverty, and measure among the most satisfied people I know. I don't care about wealth so long as I can feed myself. Nothing really matters to me, pun intended. Capital does not bring happiness. Nor do material possessions.



Begging the question much? "Atheism is just that", therefore?



Strong belief without reason is bias. What makes you believe so strongly in the material world? Is your reason strong enough to convince me?