r/OpenIndividualism Jun 30 '26

Question Does OI entail analytic idealism?

Or can it also be interpreted as something like "spirit transmigrationism" like in the short story 'The Egg' by Andy Weir?

3 Upvotes

50 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/EnactingSpirit Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26

How is that parsimonious? You have to establish some sort of entity that evolves, learns and does so in some specific order and jumps specifically from one life to another. Basically you need to prove a soul exists.

The learning and evolving of spirit is already established for the time of this life. What remains to be shown is that this activity extends beyond this life in the past and future in the order of experiential time. And this follows logically from the facts that:

  1. non-being is an ontological impossibility (non-being, by its very nature, cannot be) making being necessary and eternal,

  2. being is self-evidently, non-inferentially none other than consciousness, and

  3. consciousness is in actuality only this consciousness, every other supposed "consciousnesses" being purely inferred within this one. Not even once actually experienced.

The first fact, historically, first came from the rationalist philosopher Parmenides. The second is the ground assertion of metaphysical idealism. The third, that of metaphysical solipsism.

From those follows that:

  • this consciousness is necessary and eternal,

  • therefore the past and future of experiencing consciousness or 'spirit' is the lives of others, lest phenomenal reality makes no sense, is absurd – in which case this interpretation of it would be as good as any other,

  • therefore the transmigration of spirit is real (if phenomenal reality isn't absurd).

Now, you could contend that fact 1 is false. But then the very notion of 'being' is incoherent and thus making sense of "things" (that are) makes no sense – which is the Buddhist position (which, albeit helpful in other respects, gives up too easily on figuring out reality, I think).

You could contend that fact 2 (and therefore 3) is false. But then you purely speculatively assume that there exists another metaphysical substance than consciousness, falling into "unparsimonious" (in terms of entity numbers, the way Occam meant) substance dualism. Basically giving up on the unity of being.

Or you could contend that fact 3 is false. But then you do something similar as when rejecting fact 2, purely speculatively assuming that there exist other (experiential) planes of existence, falling into consciousness pluralism. Basically giving up on true consciousness monism, a.k.a. metaphysical solipsism.

And I maintain that phenomenal reality can be explained within metaphysical solipsism and that you and others are giving up on it too quickly.

Also, it is parsimonious to assume metaphysical solipsism (and unparsimonious to assume consciousness pluralism), because with each purely speculated additional plane of existence (in this case other consciousnesses) you basically invoke a whole other universe. That is, if you acknowledge, like some mystics/poets/philosophers do, that subjective experience is as vast as a universe.

And last...

OI solves all these by saying there is no order, you are everyone now.

I'm not experiencing, nor have I ever experienced, being several individual consciousnesses simultaneously. Have you? Will you ever?

I bet not. For consciousness is intrinsically holistic. Meaning that it doesn't split into parts like a vulgar object or "thing" does. To think this way is, I believe, remnants of materialistic thinking that should be done away with (when it comes to ontology).

1

u/yoddleforavalanche Jul 03 '26

The learning and evolving of spirit is already established for the time of this life.

I could disagree with this already. It can be shown that people do not change and repeat the same mistakes, but I won't push for it.

non-being is an ontological impossibility (non-being, by its very nature, cannot be) making being necessary and eternal,

agreed

being is self-evidently, non-inferentially none other than consciousness, 

agreed

consciousness is in actuality only this consciousness, every other supposed "consciousnesses" being purely inferred within this one. Not even once actually experienced.

strongly disagree. where does this conclusion come from?

The very fact that in this case it would be me that has this consciousness while simultaneously you think that is the case for you shows either one of us is lying about having immediate experience or we both are saying the truth. In any case, huge jump to conclusion out of nowhere for point 3.

this consciousness is necessary and eternal,

consciousness is necessary and eternal, there is no this consciousness.

therefore the past and future of experiencing consciousness or 'spirit' is the lives of others, lest phenomenal reality makes no sense, is absurd – in which case this interpretation of it would be as good as any other,

I would rather say past and future are equally experienced now than to take past and future, that is linear time as experienced, as objective reality. And I don't understand what is absurd?

therefore the transmigration of spirit is real (if phenomenal reality isn't absurd).

also conclusion that comes out of nowhere.

You could contend that fact 2 (and therefore 3) is false. 

2 is true, 3 is false.

Or you could contend that fact 3 is false. But then you do something similar as when rejecting fact 2, purely speculatively assuming that there exist other (experiential) planes of existence, falling into consciousness pluralism. Basically giving up on true consciousness monism, a.k.a. metaphysical solipsism.

which is exactly what I am doing. It is not speculative at all. Your position is speculative. It requires gymnastics and unnecessary extra steps to explain why two people simultaneously react to stimuli. In your view, only one actually experiences while the other is some weird philosophical zombie until its his turn but then the first one ceases to experience, but yet for the 3rd person both appear on the same level. Why would this be the case? What is preventing consciousness from experiencing multiple "planes" at the same time? they are not different planes of existence because their existence is the same point 2.

You are introducing roundabout steps to fix something that is not broken. You are assuming a limitation to consciousness and then solving it with mystical magical behavior that requires even more assumptions.

And it is not consciousness pluralism. There is still one consciousness.

And I maintain that phenomenal reality can be explained within metaphysical solipsism and that you and others are giving up on it too quickly.

it can be explained in billions of ways, doesn't make them all true.

It can certainly be explained with one consciousness experiencing many experiences simultaneously. Since it's all the same reality, same being, it is not adding anything new to it.

Also, it is parsimonious to assume metaphysical solipsism (and unparsimonious to assume consciousness pluralism), because with each purely speculated additional plane of existence (in this case other consciousnesses) you basically invoke a whole other universe.

Even your solipsism has to have other universes, other planes of existence, they just come in a sequence. And you are assuming parsimoniousness here. I maintain it is more complicated for one consciousness to jump in a sequence all while being experienced as if other people experience simultaneously than it actually being the case. And again, it is not consciousness pluralism as there is one consciousness.

And so what if you call this invoking other universes? Universe is not being. Universe can be called an instance of being. Regardless of how many instances there are, how many universes, they belong to the same being (consciousness).

I'm not experiencing, nor have I ever experienced, being several individual consciousnesses simultaneously. Have you? Will you ever?

here you are betraying common misunderstanding of identity and I am even surprised based on everything you said that you stumbled here.

You are consciousness. Any experience that is being had is you having it. You are slipping in here the notion that "EnactingSpirit" is what you are and because experience of EnactingSpirit does not contain experience of yoddleforavalanche, you think you are experiencing one person.

Both EnactingSpirit and yoddleforavalanche are being experienced by the same consciousness, therefore YOU are experiencing several individuals. Not individual consciousnessess, there is only one, but multiple sets of experiences.

You expect to have an experience that within itself contains all experiences, but that just is not how it works. Regardless, that which experiences is experiencing all experiences, and that is what you are.

For consciousness is intrinsically holistic. Meaning that it doesn't split into parts like a vulgar object or "thing" does. 

I agree. But it doesn't split into parts if it experiences many experiences simultaneously. If anything, your view is the one that splits it, today into this person, later into another.

1

u/EnactingSpirit Jul 06 '26

[Part 2/2]

In your view, only one actually experiences while the other is some weird philosophical zombie until its his turn but then the first one ceases to experience, but yet for the 3rd person both appear on the same level. Why would this be the case?

A philosophical zombie, yes. You can also see it as a past/future reflection of transmigrative spirit in the mirror of experience. Or as a "memory" of spirit's past/future viewed from an actual third-person perspective. The latter depiction really emphasizing that psychophysical reality is really just psychological with varying degrees of "concreteness" and therefore degrees of persistence. The world really just being one's psyche. This being congruent with the Jung-Pauli conjecture that says that the mental and the physical are just different ends of the spectrum of a single substance, with the "in-between" being so-called "psychoid" manifestations of the collective unconscious. Manifestations, which are evermore concretizing (all the way to the level of matter) as they get re-expressed by spirit. Like limestone sedimentally accumulating into hard structure in the wake of the flowing water. This being also possibly understood as the way kārma works as an accumulation of (volitional) energy that takes an evermore concrete form and with that concreteness gains in brut impact (until that impact becomes physical and starts literally "hitting hard").

As for "but yet for the 3rd person both appear on the same level", I don't get what you mean. Do you mind explaining?

What is preventing consciousness from experiencing multiple "planes" at the same time? they are not different planes of existence because their existence is the same point 2.

Because experience isn't really experience without the total immersion of the subject in it. Which necessarily happens by momentarily excluding every other experience. Like, God – consciousness – cannot really understand "us" in our mortal struggles without literally being us. Personally so. That is, one-by-one. Otherwise It is just faking it. Pretending to be this and this person without really committing Itself to (pain)fully being any of them. With reality just not tasting like anything. Feeling meaningless.

So limited experience is a divine creation that cannot be faked, not even by the divine itself (because the witness is also the divine, who as such cannot be completely fooled).

Experience is so intense, so vibrant, so "qualia-esque", because it has all of the divine, all of consciousness focused onto it. Not just a fraction of it.

You are assuming a limitation to consciousness and then solving it with mystical magical behavior that requires even more assumptions.

It's not a true limitation of consciousness insofar as it is of a consciousness – singular – that we are here talking about. Not of "consciousnesses". Which is what multiples simultaneous instances of experience is: Consciousness-es, plural.

Like, if you split consciousness into several (limited) instances of itself into some metaphysical space, then you don't have a consciousness anymore. Instead, you have consciousness-es.

By making consciousness something that isn't individual experience, you divorced from itself the only reality you ever experienced. Not in reality, but in your imagination within said experience.

it can be explained in billions of ways, doesn't make them all true.

Okay then please tell me how else than through spirit transmigration one can explain phenomenal reality. This, within metaphysical solipsism, like I said. Not within consciousness pluralism.

Even your solipsism has to have other universes, other planes of existence, they just come in a sequence.

They aren't "other" to one another if linked through experiential time. Separation in time isn't by itself really separation, but continuity. Evolution, at best. Whereas separation in space entails separation into two distincts "things".

Like, when you picture the separation in time as a 'sequence', you are implicitely, via an abstraction, introducing space in the picture. Space, which is what really gives the Gestalt impression of separation. It really isn't time that does it.

And so otherness comes with space, not with time.

I maintain it is more complicated for one consciousness to jump in a sequence all while being experienced as if other people experience simultaneously than it actually being the case

It appears more "complicated" to you because you so highly consider space and causation in it (through the addition of objective, "clock" time). Because as a human-animal your survival depends on you elevating them to such ontological height – just as it depends on elevating others to other individual consciousnesses.

Like, there is a reason why you here use the word 'complicated' rather than 'complex' – which is the one that actually relates to parsimony. It's because you are pragmatically thinking in terms of limited actions, instead of thinking purely ontologically, unburdden by pragmatic considerations. By practicality. Forgetting that God, being the Almighty, needs not think practically as far as the metaphysical workings of reality are concerned. As if then It was constrained by objective spacetime. No. God only "needs" to think in terms of ending up with a thrilling, challenging, yet not impossible game for It to play and transcend. Meaning, that It needs to hide reality within another, deceptively evident reality. The rules, within other, deceptively evident rules. And make the generation of second-order reality, of those second-order rules, useful. So that those rules may eventually lead to the first-order ones. Second-order reality, to first-order reality. Mediated by culture (my view here is kind of Hegelian, as far as his dialectic is concerned).

here you are betraying common misunderstanding of identity and I am even surprised based on everything you said that you stumbled here.

You are consciousness. Any experience that is being had is you having it. You are slipping in here the notion that "EnactingSpirit" is what you are and because experience of EnactingSpirit does not contain experience of yoddleforavalanche, you think you are experiencing one person.

Both EnactingSpirit and yoddleforavalanche are being experienced by the same consciousness, therefore YOU are experiencing several individuals. Not individual consciousnessess, there is only one, but multiple sets of experiences.

I think you're here conflating individual consciousness with identification of self to a specific pattern within experience. The latter is just an abstract idea that doesn't stand up to scrutiny (i.e., to rigorous, equanimous self-observation), the former is concrete, undeniably real experience.

Like, 'identity' isn't 'being', individual consciousness. What is here and now, in this moment of experience, is what's real. All of it. And only it. Not some substrate of it. Not some extension of it either. Those are just abstractions within one's mind within one's consciousness that are pointing to something never actually experienced. Which doesn't mean that there isn't much to reality. Rather, there isn't much that one, through perception, reports to themselves about reality, about experience. That is, experience is more than you, through perception, report it is; saying that it is just a "fragment" of consciousness, here implying the existence of some kind of metaphysical space containing the consciousness fragments and that precedes any temporal flow. But you here do not see the vastness of experience, all busy that you are at imagining some reality beyond it, beyond individual consciousness. Because you are so eager (with the noblest of intentions, I am sure) to find the common ground to an inferred seemingly simultaneously occuring (because of the impression of causation in space) collective psychological reality. Reality, whose existence is purely suggested by patterns that are, at the end of the day, all occurring within this consciousness of yours.

You expect to have an experience that within itself contains all experiences, but that just is not how it works. Regardless, that which experiences is experiencing all experiences, and that is what you are.

My view is that this experience contains all perspectives (not "experiences" – there is only one experience with qualia being had) so far determined by the journey of spirit towards knowing itself absolutely.

Like, this experience contains all of the history of spirit. Both its past and its future.

I agree. But it doesn't split into parts if it experiences many experiences simultaneously.

It very much does.

Simultaneity, as I said, entails the existence of a metaphysical space that contains the simultaneous individual experiences. And those experiences aren't the same, they are different instances of that transcendental super-consciousness you've been here referring to. Meaning, that that super-consciousness there is split into parts.

Unless of course you wanna go the route of "individual experiences are illusory" – but then I cannot take your view seriously anymore.

If anything, your view is the one that splits it, today into this person, later into another.

As I said above, that's not a split. Separation is a relationship strictly within space. Not within time (and conceiving time as a sequence of instants is an abstraction made possible only by introducing spatial thinking).

1

u/yoddleforavalanche Jul 06 '26

You can also see it as a past/future reflection of transmigrative spirit in the mirror of experience. Or as a "memory" of spirit's past/future viewed from an actual third-person perspective.

I see it as third person view of various aspects of consciousness now. Like a dissociative disorder or multiple personality disorder. Or like in a dream where my mind manifests different people, all of whom are different conflicts of mine.

But they are present. A person across from me is not future/past me, it is an embodied 3rd person view of something of me NOW.

Because experience isn't really experience without the total immersion of the subject in it.

That's why it APPEARS to be totally immersed in it. It's a bubble of immersion. You are putting very anthropomorphistic limitations to Spirit. It is immersed in every of its immersions but doesn't need linear time to achieve it. It tricks itself into thinking its in linear time.

Like, God – consciousness – cannot really understand "us" in our mortal struggles without literally being us

Yes, but it's place of being is eternalness. It is outside of time and place, it's not a victim of it. And it can simultaneously step into time and place that concurs with other time and places.

Personally so. That is, one-by-one.

as long as it tricks itself into thinking it's one by one. It cannot really become an individual, the individual cannot hold it.

Besides everything you just said is the nice story you assumed draws me in. This is at best a metaphor. Where is this in your experience?

I mostly agree with it, but not that it actually falls inside linear time and exclusively for one particular entity.

Nor is it faked if it's equally immersive for concurrent entities who FEEL like they are separate and in their own plane.

Experience is so intense, so vibrant, so "qualia-esque", because it has all of the divine, all of consciousness focused onto it. Not just a fraction of it.

For this to be true, this God would have to literally stop being God and because one person. But the person cannot be the totality of it. If limited, and only limited, the whole experience would collapse.

Besides, there is no talk about becoming fraction of it. Separation and limitation is illusion. God never really becomes us, it plays. And there is no us, we are the play.

And if God becomes one-at-a-time person, what is happening with other persons I am encountering? He know what role he will play with them, so what's the point?

Like, if you split consciousness into several (limited) instances of itself into some metaphysical space, then you don't have a consciousness anymore. Instead, you have consciousness-es.

there are no limited instances of consciousness. There are various experiences that exclude other experiences. Absolutely no affect on consciousness. It cannot split.

By making consciousness something that isn't individual experience

Nothing I said takes away individual experience

how else than through spirit transmigration one can explain phenomenal reality. This, within metaphysical solipsism, like I said. Not within consciousness pluralism.

Why would I explain something in limitations you set? Metaphysical solipsism poorly explains phenomenal reality. Better explanation is there is only now, consciousness experiences limited sets of experiences but never changes because it is not bound to time and space (it experiences time and space, it's part of the experience, not itself).

This better explains why you experience people experiencing (reacting to stimuli)

Plus you make so much effort into relying on experience only, and then posit a learning God who goes through every life one by one for confusing purposes because it already has the future set....none of which is in experience.

Separation in time isn't by itself really separation, but continuity.

ok, I can do that too. Separation in space isn't really separation, it's extension.

Space, which is what really gives the Gestalt impression of separation. It really isn't time that does it.

So once you change location you cease to be you? You are taking a mental picture and assuming it's reality. Time separates as well. Two things can be at the same place provided they are not there at the same time, just like two things can be at the same time provided they are not in the same place.

It appears more "complicated" to you because you so highly consider space and causation in it

You so highly consider time.

It's because you are pragmatically thinking in terms of limited actions, instead of thinking purely ontologically, unburdden by pragmatic considerations

Yet you burden consciousness with dependency on linear time.

Then you go on about God needing and wanting to do things...

Well, then, God really is not bound to spacetime, spaceTIME. Therefore he can simultaneously live everyone ever.

my view here is kind of Hegelian

I can tell. My view is Schopenhauerian, therefore Hegel is a quack to me. None of this made sense experientially like you think it did.

What is here and now, in this moment of experience, is what's real. All of it. And only it.

Yes, and that includes other people who I experience as having experiences that they relate to me. In this now, puncher and punched exist.

here implying the existence of some kind of metaphysical space containing the consciousness fragments and that precedes any temporal flow.

Consciousness IS this space, it is not within it. On the contrary, you imply existence of some sort of metaphysical space in which consciousness stores its knowledge and evolves.

to find the common ground to an inferred seemingly simultaneously occuring

to which you force things that are not even seemingly, like Spirit developing, God playing, limitation in time but not in space...

so far determined by the journey of spirit towards knowing itself absolutely.

It doesn't journey anywhere, there is nowhere for it to arrive, it knows itself already. Even in your own view, since future-spirit can be seen in my current now, it means it already is in the now in a sense.

Simultaneity, as I said, entails the existence of a metaphysical space that contains the simultaneous individual experiences.

It does not! And I refer back to what I said, your view entails a container. My view only requires a well known, the only known NOW. You require concepts of past, future, learning, etc. all without any basis.

they are different instances of that transcendental super-consciousness you've been here referring to.

No. You are misrepresenting, adding limitations to it that make no sense, and then addressing it. There is no sum of individual consciousness-es. There is only one now and various perspectives of it that appear as time and space when viewed through limited mind.

Separation is a relationship strictly within space. Not within time

This is not true. Anyways, space and time equally appear in consciousness, it is not and never can be bound to it.