04-26-2020, 02:09 AM
Before that 2015 turning point, and apart from involvement in any spiritual community, there's a scattered collection of things which also enter into my spiritual approach and "story". It's difficult to group into a single clear "theme".
One trail, from around 2005 and on, is a clear interest in hobby software programming, and a changing interest in computer science topics afterwards. Metaphysically, I've developed a vaguely "Platonist" bent, deeply attracted by an inner vision of abstract patterns and processes at different levels of reality.
It ties into a curiously divided attitude I've had towards spirituality my whole life. Too rational for religion, too mystical for atheism, and in two minds about various "New Age"-like topics.
One the one hand, I'm submerged in intense inner experience with mystical elements. On the other hand, in most cases I instinctively maintain a mental distance from embracing frameworks, explanations, and beliefs. Often I feel torn, sometimes pendulating.
There's the "objective mind" and the "subjective mind", and the contrast is often very sharp, and I can ignore neither.
Why did the "Cassiopaean" information (the whole associated synthesis on the web) look so great? Because it looked like a great leap towards bridging that gap, reconciling the rational and mystical. But that's how it looked before I had more knowledge and experience. Now it appears to be a "synthesis" which inverts and destroys both science and mysticism, instead of furthering them and bringing something greater.
I'm still striving towards at least a personal greater synthesis of the rational and mystical. But I have different expectations now; it will have to be looser and more tentative, for starters, because otherwise it seems impossible to avoid painting oneself into a corner. (My new bias is to be extremely skeptical as soon as something is simplified into ideology, as ideology amounts to an oversimplified approach to reality. Systems thinking seems a promising way to grow insight beyond ideological boundaries.)
Maybe some themes will develop in the thread "Computer science metaphors for the spiritual". I also posted about a current personal software project, though this community is an unlikely one for discussion of command-line audio generation.
One trail, from around 2005 and on, is a clear interest in hobby software programming, and a changing interest in computer science topics afterwards. Metaphysically, I've developed a vaguely "Platonist" bent, deeply attracted by an inner vision of abstract patterns and processes at different levels of reality.
It ties into a curiously divided attitude I've had towards spirituality my whole life. Too rational for religion, too mystical for atheism, and in two minds about various "New Age"-like topics.
One the one hand, I'm submerged in intense inner experience with mystical elements. On the other hand, in most cases I instinctively maintain a mental distance from embracing frameworks, explanations, and beliefs. Often I feel torn, sometimes pendulating.
There's the "objective mind" and the "subjective mind", and the contrast is often very sharp, and I can ignore neither.
Why did the "Cassiopaean" information (the whole associated synthesis on the web) look so great? Because it looked like a great leap towards bridging that gap, reconciling the rational and mystical. But that's how it looked before I had more knowledge and experience. Now it appears to be a "synthesis" which inverts and destroys both science and mysticism, instead of furthering them and bringing something greater.
I'm still striving towards at least a personal greater synthesis of the rational and mystical. But I have different expectations now; it will have to be looser and more tentative, for starters, because otherwise it seems impossible to avoid painting oneself into a corner. (My new bias is to be extremely skeptical as soon as something is simplified into ideology, as ideology amounts to an oversimplified approach to reality. Systems thinking seems a promising way to grow insight beyond ideological boundaries.)
Maybe some themes will develop in the thread "Computer science metaphors for the spiritual". I also posted about a current personal software project, though this community is an unlikely one for discussion of command-line audio generation.