Imagination and Reality

What I'm continually coming to realize with psychedelics is my own --entanglement, my own relation, my own ties to -- my environment, the world around me, animals. I understand my internal, biological ORGANIC, processes are coalescing into what I know as my mind. Coming to be in touch with my energy-system, my sleep-system, coming to explore alternate states of my mind, has made me realize I am a biological process, a dynamic becoming. Human beings are animals of this earth, and somehow this has been cast down the wayside in the wake of transhumanism. Was it the enlightenment? Is philosophy itself humanity's poison? So aware are we of our death, we behold that orb of Esoteric knowledge in the palm of our hands, so that we cannot see the hunting grounds before us. We project our abstractions, so that we may claim victory over death,we attempt to solve the mysteries of the universe, to conquer the celestial bodies, so that we may transcend them and fulfill ourselves as the godhead, find the ultimate state of Being, the Absolute. But these are projections of the human imagination --a mechanism emergent of physical states -- a mechanism which is a tool for interpreting, understanding, coping with reality.

So, the human being's consciousness has created in him a mechanism for the projection of that which is unattainable in reality. It is this that keeps him from submitting to the physical woes that torment him daily. He must continually fight lack -- in other words, fulfill needs. As Camus postulated, man's status as an absurd Sisyphus, constantly plagued by lack, does not cast him into the pits of nihilism because of such mechanisms within the Intellect. However, modern and postmodern (Western) civilization is structured in such a way as the basic needs of the human being are met effortlessly by a seemingly omniscient State-propagated-economic-system. If not carefully tended to, this leaves the mechanism of imagination either overactive or completely dulled as an element in a culminated intelligence.


Psychedelic trips are a projection of conscious imagination, human imagination being a survival mechanism (as one aspect of an overall Intellect), sending one into a state wherein subconscious projections overwhelm conscious awareness. Because we are the culmination of all that has come before us, imagination is composed of symbols from the collective unconscious infused into the individual through genetic mutation, as well as that which the individual himself adds through his experiences, and his Ideation which always in some way directly or indirectly refers thereto (for example, a unicorn is an ideation and is strictly unreal but is composed only of that which can be found in the real world). The imagination thus validly refers to the real world in that it is emergent of specific, long-evolved physical states which have developed over the ages in accord with the very same forces, elements, and limitations as the cosmos itself, and all the celestial bodies. Thus, when those who are especially adept at retrieving messages from deep within the psyche compose works of metaphysical and/or ethical mythology or lore, their works and ideas coincide metaphorically with actual states of affairs. This sort of understanding of reality appeals to the right-brain sensibilities and is useful. However the capability that the imagination introduces to the human mind is the capability of mis-representation (see Dretske). Those who are not so skilled in retrieving and deciphering messages from the psyche, create ideas that do not dovetail with reality, and in their incompatibility, create confusion.

Thus, the reason I believe that anthropomorphic polytheistic mythology, artwork and philosophy is important is because it casts an engaging, thrilling, lucid and personable light on the underlying forces of nature and of reality that define us and our universe. Thus we use our imagination to find our own place as the species homo sapiens sapiens (other species have other mechanisms) and also to understand how it is that we are a part of it.

The most important thing psychedelics can help you do is to observe the way you fit in with the ecology of the earth to create in your mind a firm understanding of yourself as a dynamic, biological process, and further attempt to project those observations into a lucid, clear and viable conception of your place in the cosmology of the universe.

Pondering such matters in a balanced and disciplined manner leads to spiritual wellness; which in turn leads to a drive, or a "fighting spirit" as it were, to achieve mental and physical wellness in turn. Thus, we can achieve healing through the use of naturally-occuring plant compounds, by allowing ourselves radically different perspectives on the way our imagination informs our experience as human beings with unique minds.

The Monolith; Prelude to a Metaphysics of Becoming

Human beings were invaded by the Monolith, the Other ... that is: the Knowledge of Mortality.

The Other exists inside us, as a knowledge of the opposite forces of nature.

We are synthesis of analytical models (mathematical truths) with spacial (visual) abstraction (archetypal [metaphorical] truths).

Temporal duration is the primary characteristic of the Real, or the Actual, which is in constant rebellion against the Absolute.

Temporal duration as the functional characteristic of the Actual, negates the existence of the Absolute.

All that is Actual is interrelated, resulting in a closed system [Kosmos] in which energy can be neither created nor destroyed (Conservation of energy). Energy patterns in temporal flux constitutes the Actual. This is what Schopenhauer may have referred to as the Will. As agents of the Will, our existence is necessitated only by our Death, a knowledge of which results in an imagining of the Absolute as a resolution of the temporal flux which constitutes the Actual.

The Absolute as a creation of our imagination, is merely a mechanism of the human psyche, a measure of the imagination towards resolving the conflicts inherent in existence and overcoming death anxiety.

This has reached many idealistic manifestations, from primal animistic religions, to anthropomorphic polytheism, to Abrahamic monotheism, to New Age neo-mystics, to scientific transhumanism/utopianism.

Because the arisal of conscious awareness can be explained within the constraints of current evolutionary theory [see: my paper Against Naturalism], we must understand that it plays a functional role in the survival of an organism. Because all things that exhibit temporal duration constitute the Actual, and because the Actual is a reaction against the Absolute (or non-existence, unReal), we know that consciousness is emergent from objects that display a temporal duration.

Because all energy patterns which constitute the Actual are interrelated, any object which exhibits temporal duration is simultaenously whole and non-whole: it is an entity in and of itself, while also being a part of a larger entity [e.g., a slice of ham between two slices of bread is both a single enitity (slice of ham) and part of a larger entity (sandwich)]. That goes to say, that any object, state, or event that is Actual is also self-referential. This is not the case, however, for conscious awareness. Consciousness is entirely referential-to. It is not existent in-itself but exists as a discreet value attained by its difference-to another value. Thus, consciousness emerges from the interaction of subject-object. It relies on what is Actual for its existence, and is always modeled after/co-modified with it.


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Moment of singularity?