KARL JASPERS FORUM

TA60 (Grandpierre)

Commentary 15 (to C13)

( FUNDAMENTALISM )
by Peter Mutnick
14 December 2003, posted 21 December 2003

<1>
[Quoted from C13, Muller]

<5> Some people (not me) say they can completely void their mind of contents, so that for them the "fundamental experience" may "exist". But that, I would say, is not the main question. It is that no mind-and-nature structures would be there without the subject's activity, whether human or animal.

<2>
[Peter Mutnick]

This "subject" is then fundamental, is it not, in your way of thinking? What is the nature of this subject, from which your 0-D originates? Furthermore, how can you justify that it is fundamental, i.e., more fundamental than the structures that arise from its activity? According to Sartre, we exist only through our creations, or even the "words" that we have spoken and written. A similar doctrine exists in Christianity pertaining to the "Logos." In Platonism, it is the "Eidos," instead, but this is said to exist *independently* of human minds or subjects and transcendentally to them. Heisenberg wrote a letter to Stapp emphasizing just this fact.

Interestingly, you say that the unstructured aspect of experience must have a place within any structure aiming to embrace the whole of experience. This is of course somewhat of a contradiction, and it was the subject of a controversy between the physicists Laurikainen (a disciple of Wolfgang Pauli) and David Bohm. Laurikainen, following Pauli, wanted to allow for the irrational, while Bohm considered it antithetical to order, which Bohm presumed to pervade all of that which genuinely exists, if we only knew but how.

<3>
If one asks what kind of experience is fundamentally unstructured or apostitional (posits nothing) and what kind is fundamentally structured or positional (posits something), I believe one must conclude that neither can be identified with your fundamental "subject," which is the origin of your 0-D. That type of experience is the "kingdom come" of Christianity, like the politicians or celebrities who have become full-time actors and have lost their private lives. From the standpoint of the psychologists, with the exception of Jung, the inner life, or private life, is a kind of delusion (Einstein also believed this). The etymology of the word "idiot" has to do with one in a private station of life. Orwell's writings are about the loss of privacy and the absurdity arising from this fundamental premise of the "social" life. Evolutionary theory may have given some justification to the existence of these fundamental "subjects," but such a justification is in fact a form of mysticism. Von Neumann and others, including Bohr, did not subscribe unquestioningly to Darwinism.

<4>
You seem to have a different conception of the role of mysticism than I do. To me it is not unstructured at all, but the positing of a real objective world independent of your fundamental "subject." The reason it is mysticism (as opposed to naive realism) is that such a world of thing-in-itself must ultimately be thing-in-its-idea and hence a form of primary mentalism. The world of things is precipitated from the world of ideas - that is at the root of all Western philosophy, as Whitehead averred. It is this combined world of ideas and things, which is actually many worlds according to the Neoplatonists, that dwarfs your fundamental "subject" for all who have the clairvoyance to "see" the inner worlds.

<5>
So, your lack of definition of your "subject" causes you to presume that mysticism transcends in the direction of your "subject," rather than in the opposite direction, away from your "subject," or transcending your "subject," as I contend to be the case. Does this creation of many centers of being constitute a fragmented personality? Perhaps so, but it is a real problem all human beings attempting to be authentic must grapple with. We very likely are of disparate composition, part animal and part divine. Which subject is the true subject? Or, will the real subject please stand up? (With reference to an American TV show called "Truth or Consequences.")

<6>
[Quote from Muller :]

<6> What really exists is a decision (automatic or deliberate) of the subjects, individually and/or collectively; it results from investment of trust in created intra-experiential structures. This may but does not have to pre-suppose a mind-independent existence (MIR), which can never be proven in ways which convince everybody, but may be perceived to have auxiliary strength. How do you see your Saint-Peter connection, is he inside of you or outside ? How does fundamentalism (defined as belief in absolute validity of posited structures) work ? Some Islamic clergy have strong opinions on that.

<7>
[Peter Mutnick]

I recently had a very unpleasant experience in the court system, in which I came to find that the judges were interpreting everything without reference to the MIR structure which is the body of statutory and decisional law. They are in fact charged with implementing statutes and Supreme Court decisions, but instead they generate a body of personal opinions, shared by their fellow judges and complict attorneys, that have no reference whatever to the rule of law. I consider their modus operandi to be oppression in the first degree, non-different from the rule of nobility prior to the magna charta. I have concluded that democracy in America is a facade, without substantial reality. It is belief in the MIR of a Constitution and a body of statutory and decisional law that was meant to deliver us from the tyranny of O-D structures in the minds of judges, which of course are capricious and arbitrary, depending on the prejudices of the particular reigning cliche of judges.

<7>
Similarly, Einstein sought refuge in the MIR of natural law from the capricious character of humans and the human race. I also have sought refuge in the belief in a "higher" law, but one must of course be very careful not to imbue even divine personalities with ideal qualities, which they may or may not possess.

<8>
[Quote from Muller :]

<7> Mysticism and similar experiences can be of help for overall world-views. Actually something like that is needed for them. This is so because all mental mind-and-nature structures arise within experience, and thus experience always is (or can be) encompassing, as among others Jaspers emphasized in his later work ("Das Umgreifende das wir sind oder sein können"; Von der Wahrheit, 2.Kapitel, p.53). From this follows that mental structures cannot in turn encompass all of experience (i.e., theories of everything are self- contradictory unless they have such a component).

<9>
[Peter Mutnick]

Apositional consciousness and experience are unstructured, while positional consciousness and experience are structured, in my system. The former is God Consciousness, while the latter is Christ Consciousness or Cosmic Consciousness or even the Stream of Consciousness. There are also the bits of experience of William James, neutral between content and consciousness, and these James considered to be fundamental, in the sense of your "subject," but even they depend on a considerable superstructure to your mere "subject." One might also consider the fundamental subjects of Whitehead, which are much more complex than your "subject."

<10>
[Quote from Muller :]

<8> On the other hand, mysticism cannot take the place of instrumental and analytical thinking; if one tries to do that, everything gets fuzzy and arbitrary.

<11>
[Peter Mutnick]

One of the judges I have come to despise said just that to me, in so many words. I beg to differ, of course. Mysticism, as I define it, is necessary to deliver us from the capriciousness of the arbitrary "subject." There is nothing vague or ill-defined about genuine mysticism - it is precise like a sort of meta-mathematics. It comes from the higher source that one postulates.

<12>
[Herbert Muller, cont.]

Pragmatism can mean trying out mental structures, with feed-back during use, to see how well they work. It does not require an assumption of nature-MIR ("objective reality") to do that. Whether you feel that there is an existential void without such MIR-input is up to you.

<13>
[Peter Mutnick]

You can experiment all you like, so long as you are not in a position of power over others. If so, your "experimentation" is of the character of the Nazi scientist or the false judges I have recently encountered, sitting in the holy place of justice where they ought not to sit. (With reference to the biblical description of the Antichrist.) I believe there is not only an existential void without necessary MIR structures, but a societal void that leads directly to fascism.

<14>
[Herbert Muller, cont.]

The question is, in a nutshell, whether you (individually and/or collectively) want to make sense, or in contrast expect sense to be delivered to you, in pre-fabricated form, from outside.

<15>
Peter Mutnick]

Making sense means precisely aspiring sincerely, and with absolute integrity, toward MIR structures, whether or not they really exist. If God did not exist, man would have to invent Him. Sartre came to a similar conclusion.

<16>
[Quote from Muller :]

<6> What really exists is a decision (automatic or deliberate) of the subjects, individually and/or collectively; it results from investment of trust in created intra-experiential structures. This may but does not have to pre-suppose a mind-independent existence (MIR), which can never be proven in ways which convince everybody, but may be perceived to have auxiliary strength.

How do you see your Saint-Peter connection, is he inside of you or outside ? How does fundamentalism (defined as belief in absolute validity of posited structures) work ? Some Islamic clergy have strong opinions on that.

<17>
[Peter Mutnick]

As my previous discussion should have conveyed, I believe that your bare empiricism, or 0-D, or simple human/ animal "subject" is the root of fundamentalism, especially Christian fundamentalism, to which I, as Saint Peter or otherwise, do NOT subscribe. The Son, or simple "subject," must transcend himself toward the "Father," or God, and without that self-transcendence, the "Christ" is transformed into the Antichrist. All humans are in the position of the Son - none are in the position of the Father (although there are genuine incarnations - avatars - of the Father), but the oppressors among us usurp the position of God and attempt to lord it over the rest of us. That is the source of all misery on earth, as documented by Marx, Engels, and many others.

<18>
As for Islamic fundamentalism, I don't pretend to know much about the inner workings of that religion, being myself a product of the Judeo-Christian tradition. However, I do sense a childlike simplicity about even the worst of the so-called radicals that could spell trouble for the arrogant hypocricy of the West, karmically speaking. I sincerely believe that unless Americans awaken from their thorough brainwashing and arise in the spirit of a much needed Second American Revolution, America is finished - its days are numbered by the Almighty God Himself, who fiirst gave America succor and inspired the blueprint for a genuine democracy, which has not come to pass and is now but a facade, lacking substance. The laws are there for all to read about, but the judges do not enforce them. Instead, they enforce their own prejudices, arising from their 0-D construction of the law, and those prejudices are invariably on the side of the ruling class, impostering God, against the lower classes, suffering as the righteous or unrighteous Son of God. The righteous Son of God is of course the one who seeks his own self-transcendence and the realization of the genuine God.

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Peter Mutnick

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REPLY

<19>
The subject is fundamental in the sense that it cannot be excluded, and so are the world and others, etc. They originate together in unstructured experience (which can also not be excluded), via 0-D. None of the structures can be the basis by itself. In particular is the subject per se not fundamental as the origin of 0-D. (Something transcends all structures, as you put it, namely unstructured experience.)

<20>
The unstructured is what structures are created in, thus it is always present, and there is no contradiction in that. The inner life is only a delusion in case you expect the inner objects to be something everyone can bump into, like a stone, as some philosophers and scientists have implied (or even said - without blushing).

<21>
Mysticism can be an expression of the unstructured part of experience, and as such it can be important. But if you say the mystical experiences are very clear ("precise like a sort of meta-mathematics"), that makes the unstructured structured without further ado, thus actually abolishes it.

<22>
MIR and similar metaphysical structures can act as refuges, or temporary scaffolding, and this is fine so long as one is aware of this ad-hoc aspect, and allows others to differ.

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Herbert FJ Müller