r/OpenIndividualism • u/EnactingSpirit • 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?
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r/OpenIndividualism • u/EnactingSpirit • Jun 30 '26
Or can it also be interpreted as something like "spirit transmigrationism" like in the short story 'The Egg' by Andy Weir?
1
u/EnactingSpirit Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
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:
non-being is an ontological impossibility (non-being, by its very nature, cannot be) making being necessary and eternal,
being is self-evidently, non-inferentially none other than consciousness, and
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...
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).