universal consciousness

As can be plainly seen, one's foundational presuppositions determine the character of one's opinions, and that this affects everything one has to say about anything. Symbol for the square root of negative one. This is an imaginary number; it, like non-being, cannot exist, by definition. Yet there are algebraical expressions which demand its existence for their resolution. We side step the issue or beg the question, if you will, by stating the resolution in terms of the square root of negative one, as in four times the square root of negative one. Does the utilization of this number make it real? Is it real because it can be imagined even if it does not fit the algebraical definition of a real number? Is it an idea without any object? The whole science of Behaviorism, an attempt to reduce psychology to pure science by restricting its scope to observable phenomena, The theory of Materialistic Monism lends itself to a denial of free will. There are those that would attribute this theory to evil in that a denial of free will is in effect, a denial of moral responsibility. The observations of Konrad Lorenz, and Robert Audrey have great value, but do they really support a denial of spirit without prejudiced interpretation. Does one’s philosophical presuppositions determine one’s opinions. Does De Omnibus Dubitandum apply when looking in the mirror? Man is not a moral agent. Man does not make choices. He merely gravitates sensationally in one direction or another due to the electro-chemical disposition of the body at the moment. God has a mind which is greater than mine, however, the mind of God encompasses mine; absorbs it. I am part of it, therefore God understands my mind even more so than I understand myself, and since God teaches us to accept, (S)He Her(Him)self accepts. God accepts and understands me, this follows naturally and logically from the fact of our mutual existence. Inadequacy is the natural result of finitude just as excess is the result of infinity. However, the finite and the infinite are not separate; the finite is contained within and is part and parcel of the infinite. Modern research on long-term potentiation gives an appearance of a denial of Materialistic Monism in this respect. For it may well be that in making choices, we alter the manner in which individual neurons in the brain are more (or less) likely to activate in response to similar stimuli. Is the answer to the Essene reaction to the mainstream cultural movement, which was expressed in oratorical conflict and consensus, in Israel psychological or sociological? Menachim Begin bought his cabinet and his party with a concession to end Saturday flights by EL-AL. Organizational Dewey said that, “Morality is largely concerned with controlling human nature”. Nietzsche would refer to this control as the sublimated resentment and self-congratulations of the controlled. This compensation for inferiority is the obverse side of the coin of the attempt to control human nature. Common to both is the view of human nature as evil. Dewey addresses the question that Nietzsche answers perfunctorily with the concept of ressentiment. Dewey's first question concerns the ways and wherefores of the dichotomy between the nature of humans and the nature of moral control. If, he muses, morality arose out of human nature, how is it that morality is something to struggle at rather than by something as natural and "second nature” as breathing. Like Nietzsche, Dewey looks for the answer in social stratification. Whereas, for Nietzsche, morality is the compensatory denunciation of the superior by the inferior, for Dewey, morality is the level of compliance of the controlled to the controlling agency. As Dewey looks to the origin of morality, while Nietzsche examinees the evolution of a morality of consequences to that of a morality of intent and preconditions, remember Polybius' words on the restructuring of a post-apocalyptic society. Camouflage is the most effective defense against shame in a system of negative morals. Being "just like folk” as Clive Staples Lewis put it is just what Friedrich Nietzsche objected to in his condemnation of slave morality. Dewey makes use of the interaction between the individual and the environment. In issues of ethics and morality, The person and social environment; considering Vision, the eye, the optic nerve, and light. He specifically Mentions that walking presupposes a surface that is walked upon. The question remains, which is preeminent? The eye? The optic nerve? The light? The interplay in between? Or would neuroscience more recent than John Dewey's Time point as toward the visual cortex in the occipital lobe as a processing center? Is This processing center the controlling factor or merely the focus from which the emergent property are call vision arises out of the matrix of light, eyeball and neural network? Civilization presupposes infrastructure. Archaeological evidence places pottery making and food storage in northern Syria and eastern Anatolia at a very remote date. Technological improvements rapidly spread to the Danube valley. The outward spread of proto-civilization radiates from a center that would be today on the bottom of the “friendly” sea. The process of the application of the scientific method can be described as a feedback loop where in the output of one research question becomes the input of another. It has been said that with complex issues, the more answers that are found, the more questions that need to be asked. It is the important questions that are begged. The application of the scientific method is an incremental process as well. The initial step in asking the question is the formulation of the question itself. Following the feedback model, the asking of the question begins with the answering of a prior question. Indeed the examination of prior questions is essential to proceeding without unwarranted assumptions. Also, whether by design or by default, other authorities may find a produced answer insufficient. The answer to a research question may conflict with someone’s pet theory or dogma. This will stimulate further research of an adversary own nature. Furthermore, an answer may point out unforeseen aspects of the topic to a friendly researcher. Just as any debate cannot continue without common definitions of terms, any answer to a question, define some terms in greater detail, unlocking doors to greater business, so to speak. The formulation of the question is analogous to the development of an algebraic formula; the factors must be identified like discovering the roots of any square involved. The components or terms of the equation must be isolated and analyzed to determine their exact contribution to the equation. Once the component of an unknown variable is determined, the nature of that variable can be investigated in terms of known factors. A telescope may provide information in isolation, but to determine interactions a wide-angle lens is required. The formulation of a hypothesis is the same thing as converting the original question into a format that is capable of measurement. Once the question has been translated into a testable hypothesis the collection of information can begin. Whether the information is collected with a butterfly net or a windsock the resolution of the matter depends upon the replacement of variables with values. A question that cannot be put to the question, cannot be investigated. Its ineffable characteristics bring about a set of conditions upon which it can only speculated, this is the reason that it is the important questions that are begged, that these questions concerning ineffable concepts of a nebulous nature cannot be translated into measurable terms. The chemical composition of the soul cannot be determined because the soul cannot be put into a test tube and exposed to reagents. That it is the immateriality of the soul that resists the material constraints is irrelevant. In order to be measured, the soul must first be defined in measurable terms. While this has been said to be a limitation of the scientific method itself, this is not so. Consciousness is a construct postulated to claim the origins of behavior. While the mythology of consciousness may impede it does not preclude the study of behavior. The question of the nature of consciousness is a prior question whose irresolution does not prevent the continuation of investigation of phenomena from a black box perspective. To continue the algebra metaphor, the value of Y can be determined in terms of X without the determination of the value of X. This does not lead to an answer as a final value, but this is why the scientific method is a cyclical process. The coming-into-the-nearness-of of that-which-regions is a product of peripatetic dialectical perception. If I propose that there is an interactive relationship between the beating of a butterfly’s wing and wind currents, there will be someone else who will claim that the divergence in frame of reference or scale of observation between the two renders the resolution of the question dependent upon confounding variables, without the identification of potential multiplicative factors forming the bridge to any such relationship question this question will remain in the realm of articles of faith. In other words, while we may speculate about the performance of Boyle’s law as a contributing factor without common definitions in measurable terms, that remains mere speculation. A pre-experimental study may stimulate true experimental research. There is research that suggests women and men who are non-traditional in their gender orientation adjust better and more quickly to a marital breakdown. The explanation for this is that androgynous women and men have better coping skills with which to handle the trauma of divorce than do women and men who behave according to traditional gender role expectation. This latter point has major implications for how we socialize children to prepare them for adult roles. These individuals are accustomed to coping with the challenges of being different. This is a stressor and experience with stressors makes navigating stress both easier and harder. Practice may make perfect, but constant long-term stress is a horse of a different color. There is a positive and negative side to morals. In ethics it may be sufficient to do no harm, but morals go beyond mere avoidance of the contumely of society. This is the spiritual pride of the prodigal son’s elder brother. Claiming moral praiseworthiness only on the basis of an absence of blameworthiness is above all only another permutation of self-concern. Not being the cause of ill is not the same as creating a new good. Yet there are some who do not break their arm when patting themselves on the back based upon not being a killer or bringing harm with the best of intentions. On the other hand, there are those whose exaltation of an ideal world wherein imperfection could be seen as an opportunity for real positive change instead of confirming evidence of the dichotomy between the ideal and actual and furthermore a confirmation of a neo-Platonic distinction between personal realities such as that theorized by Rene’ Descartes. Indeed, the Cartesian solution for the mind-body problem leads some to give up real physical morality and ethics as a bad idea unattainable in a world not ideal, something only to be pursued within the individual consciousness. This aversion to the actual drags morality away form ethics; makes it something personal and not social. Something that is divorced from human interaction, something that is exclusively human inaction. All religions condemn this form do unto others . . . to practice compassion at all times to all creatures. Even Islam whose ideal is a religious society teaches that morality is a matter of social interaction. Dewey elucidates two theories of social change, one wherein all social improvement is founded upon the preeminent change of individual character, and one for which improved morality “trickles down” from a primary change in social institutions. Each, in promoting its preferred theory of change, asserts the impossibility of the obverse. Each limits human individual freedom. One, by exalting it to exclusive ethereality, and the other by denying it completely. Shall a person contemplate their navel until it absorbs them, or shall society be condemned to follow some law of historical evolution or dialectical materialism into the new horizon? Some would deny this dilemma. Like Dewey these would point out that human behavior is the interaction between the individual and their surroundings. Environmental psychology for the natural surroundings and social psychology for group behavior. But is group behavior the same as interaction between the individual and social environment? We see that social change can stimulate individual change and individual change can stimulate social change but is this organic change that brings reform just as planned economies fail, planned social reform brings unintended consequences. One cannot merely do one thing. Morals are a science of ends, means, and actions. Morality is not constrained to stasis as character alone. Morality is dynamic. Morality is a matter of intelligent design. It is teleological; involved with final causes. The forces of relativism confuse the actions of the individual, the interrelationship of the individual to the environment, and the individual themselves. The morality of an act is not the result of a changing environment, but the result of the individual’s choice of interaction with that environment. Relationship? The Cartesian cogito ergo sum has been the guideline to answering this question. Little attention has been paid to Nietzsche’s critique that perhaps the subject and predicate are reversed in this dictum. Since this question involves, and indeed, assumes the prior question of predication itself, this critique must be addressed. The Kantian concept of intuition is related to the behaviorist perspective on association. Kantian conceptions of space and time may well be belayed by modern experimental studies in child psychology specifically the visual cliff studies. That is to say, we cannot determine how knowledge and being interact until we have at least a working definition of subject and predicate. Am I an aspect of being because I experience thought or because thought expresses itself as an “I”? Does Peirce expand on the Kantian dichotomy of epistemology? Kant’s dichotomy starts with the debate between empiricists and rationalists, between Descartes and Locke. Kant continues this debate without resolution due to his dualistic bent. But he sows the seeds for a resurgence of empiricism in the pragmaticism of James, et al. Beginning formally with Rene’ Descartes, the arena of sensation and perception is the foundation for the superstructure of epistemology. Kant built on this foundation the concept that perception transcends sensation. A priori judgments affect our observations of the sensible like viewing the world through rose-colored glasses or a Da Vinci lens. The aggregations of sensations acquire associations which form a grid through which our conceptions are filtered. In the extreme, preconceived notions can lead to an eisegesis that may cause relevant data to be overlooked as it is filtered out of the conceptual framework to which it does not fit. Does cogito ergo sum imply that thought presupposes existence or that existence presupposes thought? The former was obviously Descartes’ intention but the latter involves a counter-tradition running from Berkeley and Hume to Sartre and Heidegger. “That-Which-Regions” involves more than mere sensation and perception. A horizon presupposes a landscape. Plotinus, in an ontological fashion, placed the perceiver above the thing perceived. But the question is does the perception of the perceiver preclude the thing perceived? The concatenation of concepts; schemas are built by the aggregation of scripts. Behaviorist interpretations of cognition reflect on Cartesian and Kantian theories on the matter from a reductionist and scientific perspective. A theory of epistemology akin to molecular chemistry may well be measurable and thus demonstrable, but willingly ignores the ineffable. Long-term potentiation is a cellular level demonstration that the unmeasurable is an integral part of the equation. Clearly mankind is more than a biological machine, perhaps even more than what can be attributed to an emergent property. Signals processing occurs in the brain in three dimensions not merely in the outer layer of the cortex. Visual processing occurs on at least four levels in the Occipitus. These four levels engage in two way communication when processing signals from the Optic arena. One level is not organized as a slave subprocessor to the next level in a series. Just as positive feedback increases signal strength, mutual coprocessing increases resolution. Visual processing involves both specialization and generalization. Specialization in that certain nerve structures are devoted to horizontal lines, some to vertical, some to movement, some to color and some to shape. Generalization in that we perceive our visual world as a seamless whole and not as a concatenation of components. Furthermore, we see our world as a seamless whole even though the connection of the optic nerve obviates the presence of rods and cones. Where there should be a zone of nothing in our vision the visual processing center has projected data to fill the blind spot by interpretation. Visual confabulation; it can be demonstrated that the blind spot is there but the mind plasters over the hole in the visual field with interpolated data. The simplest explanation of ontological predication is to break down deconstructively as be-ing or the active state of existence. So far we have proceeded in examining the question without determining our assumption that existence is active and not passive. We speak of the existence of a stone as inherent in the stone as if the stone makes no active participation in the nature of stone-ness. It is all well and good to operate from a black box perspective, especially in examination of the nature of a stone, yet we do not refrain from examining the internal nature of a stone. Such determinations as igneous or sedimentary are not made by observing the behavior of the stone, but by observations of its characteristics and composition. Its nature, if you will. The risk to validity and reliability of assuming a prior question should not be underestimated. The dedication to study human behavior without making any determinations about the nature of consciousness can lead to a mechanistic philosophy of humankind. Whether an exclusively materialistic philosophy of humanity precludes any philosophical transcendental valuation of humankind is a question whose lack of determination becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of determinism. Is freedom irrelevant? Do those who say yes squeal when their choices are removed? Is that an ad hominem argument? It has been said that to argue away from appearance is to do the impossible, but are cases wherein the appearance of that data gives us, is known to be other than factual? When one thinks of validity, one is first reminded of logical validity in that the premise and the conclusion are related such that the conclusion follows naturally from the premise. Some conclusions follow from the premises so naturally that the phrase, “goes without saying” has been generated in our culture. Cultural variance in rationality: the founding principle of Aristotelian logic; the formula X is not equal to non-X is flatly denied in some Oriental systems. In the case of Zen or Chan philosophy the point is not so much to refute this principle, but to move the cognitive apparatus beyond this principle as a parametrical delimiter. Is this more accurately described as a refutation of Kant’s categories? In one sense it is an attempt to get at a presupposed hidden reality behind labels assigned to phenomena by the interpretative filters that the mind imposes on incoming sensory data. Without scripts and schemata we would be navigating the conceptual landscape like an automobile operator in a world wherein maps do not exist. The koans of Zen are designed to advance the individual not only to the coming into the nearness of that which horizons, but also to go beyond the horizon of that which horizons to beyond the limits of individuality itself, this is also the stated goal of Samsara. But does this mean that Samsara and Satori are one and the same thing, or merely analogous? From a dualistic viewpoint, the answer to this question is predetermined by foundational presuppositions. Determinations, suppositions, and even foundations are to fall away from consciousness upon entering the blissful state. The ultimate goal is to transcend consciousness itself, but not really for an integral part of leaving consciousness behind is union with or at least apprehension of universal consciousness. Universal consciousness is a concept that contains in itself certain presuppositions. It may be helpful to think of it as hyperconsciousness rather than any sort of Jungian subconsciousness