Collingwood's Idea of History & Speculum Mentis

[luc]

Re: Collingwood's Idea of History, Speculum Mentis & Gurdjieff's Primitive Cosmology

I hear what you're saying, but I don't subscribe to the notion of "the psychopath that lives in us". Sure, all of us have a 'shadow side', but I wouldn't go so far as to say that all of us are capable/willing to carry out those heartless things they do. Psychopaths are a completely different species, and their 'wiring' is different. What I'm proposing, and perhaps that's what you're getting at too, is knowledge and awareness of psychopathology/ponerology, of how pathological individuals think and operate – armed with that, I think there is a chance of trying to re-think the thoughts of these individuals. However, knowing how illogical e.g. psychopaths are, this could turn out to be a difficult task.

Again, this might be just the thing that you're saying? I think that all this is clear for members on this forum, but what I'm wondering is how much awareness various historians, like Collingwood, have of these things.

To clarify my thoughts a bit: From how I understood Collingwood, we need to "immerse" ourselves in the thinking of historical characters, kind of like empathy across time, if we want to understand history and ourselves. It follows, then, that besides this skill to "observe our own thinking while we think the way someone else has thought", we need a lot of knowledge as well. And because psychopathology is such an important topic to both understand ourselves and others, I think it fits very well with Collingwood's method. It's just that he lacked the knowledge.

I think Collingwood would agree with this, because he uses his - apparently not very deep - knowledge of such things in his arguments. For example, he refers to the theories of "scientific history" (such as Hegel, Marx etc.) as mere "caprice" of thinkers who were bored with just collecting sources. In other words, he recognizes a certain narcissism in those people that influences their thoughts. I think this insight comes from the fact that he knows something about himself, i.e. that he can imagine himself falling into the same trap, so he can recognize it in others. But yes, although IMO his own method demands such knowledge, he clearly (judging from "idea of history") has not a good grasp of psychopathology.

As for the "empathizing" with pathological individuals, I'm still not entirely sure. On the one hand, yes, we know that some people are "wired differently" (psychopaths) and so on. On the other hand, I'm reluctant to let myself off the hook so to speak. Although it's really an unpleasant thought experiment, I sometimes ask myself: could there have been a path for me that would have led to absolute psychopathic behavior? And I think the answer is yes. Looking back at how I felt, acted and what I believed, and indeed how I still act and think in my weak moments, I can imagine myself on a path losing all my humanity, all my conscience step by step. This possibility is at the same time terrifying and motivating to consciously choose a different path.

So maybe psychopaths represent an extreme, and one that is hard-wired, whereas normal people only have the potential to become "ponerized", yet they also have the potential of becoming "enlightened" so to speak. But the end-result of extreme ponerization is similar, if not indistinguishable, from psychopathy. And this possibility to become ponerized in various ways and various intensities may give us the ability to deliberately "think as a pathological", so to say, and obviously you also need knowledge about these things to do that. As Collingwood proposes (osit), you need knowledge and self-awareness. In this sense, we may be able to think about certain pathological historical figures using Collingwood's method: we both "emulate their thinking in our own minds" while being aware that this thinking may be completely unhinged from conscience, because it may simply not be there.

I hope this clarifies a bit what I wanted to say, but I'm not sure if I'm on the right track here. I also haven't read Raine's book, so I'm still lacking this more physical perspective.

 

[Divide by Zero]

Re: Collingwood's Idea of History, Speculum Mentis & Gurdjieff's Primitive Cosmology

The other big failing of historians (and archaeologists and related professionals) is their failure to have a handle on cosmic changes and how those things can impact earth (literally and figuratively). The figurative part would be mostly the effect on human beings and their being driven nuts by the realization (whether conscious or unconscious) that their planet is not as securely suspended in space as they might like to think it is.

Neither Gurdjieff nor Collingwood had a handle on psychopathy as it actually is. This left gaps in their understanding and those gaps were more severe in G's work than Collingwood's, I think. G used the term, but what he meant by it was far away from what a psychopath really is and does.

However, even Raine's understanding is limited. Brain dysfunction or structural abnormalities are not ontological descriptions of what we can term "evil."

There is a failure of science and history in trying to soothe the truth about our possible precarious situation.

It seems that the indigenous tribes had a clearer understanding that this planet can and does go through disastrous cycles, which we just rationalize in our worship of material science and ignorance of true history. It's like technology is the new faith that replaced religion's "heaven and hell" spiel. I suppose it is the mechanical nature of survival to be optimistic (like I read in the book "Learned Optimism") that makes a lot of people, including intelligent scientists and historians to ignore the inconvenient and scary facts that pessimists/realists see.

Maybe this default mode of optimism inherent in survival is what blinds many to the dark facts of life- we live for some years and then die, what else? Religion has a fix- heaven/hell. Atheism has a fix- post-modernism. They also believe that we can overcome these material limits, as if technology can save us from a cataclysm?

With those beliefs, there doesn't seem to be a push to find out WHY things are this why, WHY do we exist and so on. Perhaps this is one of the key "simple and karmic lessons" that the C's mentioned as requirement of graduation. Without learning these facts and relying on false hopes, the karmic wheel just keeps spinning: reincarnation over and over (3535?)

 

[Laura]

Re: Collingwood's Idea of History, Speculum Mentis & Gurdjieff's Primitive Cosmology

<snip>
As for the "empathizing" with pathological individuals, I'm still not entirely sure. On the one hand, yes, we know that some people are "wired differently" (psychopaths) and so on. On the other hand, I'm reluctant to let myself off the hook so to speak. Although it's really an unpleasant thought experiment, I sometimes ask myself: could there have been a path for me that would have led to absolute psychopathic behavior? And I think the answer is yes. Looking back at how I felt, acted and what I believed, and indeed how I still act and think in my weak moments, I can imagine myself on a path losing all my humanity, all my conscience step by step. This possibility is at the same time terrifying and motivating to consciously choose a different path.

So maybe psychopaths represent an extreme, and one that is hard-wired, whereas normal people only have the potential to become "ponerized", yet they also have the potential of becoming "enlightened" so to speak. But the end-result of extreme ponerization is similar, if not indistinguishable, from psychopathy. And this possibility to become ponerized in various ways and various intensities may give us the ability to deliberately "think as a pathological", so to say, and obviously you also need knowledge about these things to do that. As Collingwood proposes (osit), you need knowledge and self-awareness. In this sense, we may be able to think about certain pathological historical figures using Collingwood's method: we both "emulate their thinking in our own minds" while being aware that this thinking may be completely unhinged from conscience, because it may simply not be there.

I hope this clarifies a bit what I wanted to say, but I'm not sure if I'm on the right track here. I also haven't read Raine's book, so I'm still lacking this more physical perspective.

Yes, reading Raine's book will clarify many things though, as he says himself, all the answers are not there and correlation is not necessarily causation though he cites some pretty darn compelling cases for causation.

The book "Anatomy of Violence" is somewhat different from Raine & Glenn on Psychopathy. Both really need to be read because, as he points out, not all violent individuals are psychopaths and not all psychopaths are violent. The Anatomy of Violence and Psychopathy overlap in some respects, but Anatomy does discuss more or less normal people - or people who began normal and then "things happened." So certainly, there is an aspect that can be related to regular peeps, so to say. In respect of both types, primary (born) or secondary (made) psychopathy, however, it is very difficult to get into that mind even with the biological/structural information.

One thing I have noticed is how different historians do seem to give their own inner landscape away by how they "rethink" and interpret characters of the past. To me, it is almost a sure sign of some kind of mental deviance for a historian to lionize Cicero. And it is certain to me that those who describe Caesar as a power mad would-be king have control/narcissistic issues themselves. What I want to say is that there are a lot of historians trying to do this sort of thing with greater or lesser success.

There is a failure of science and history in trying to soothe the truth about our possible precarious situation.

It seems that the indigenous tribes had a clearer understanding that this planet can and does go through disastrous cycles, which we just rationalize in our worship of material science and ignorance of true history. It's like technology is the new faith that replaced religion's "heaven and hell" spiel. I suppose it is the mechanical nature of survival to be optimistic (like I read in the book "Learned Optimism") that makes a lot of people, including intelligent scientists and historians to ignore the inconvenient and scary facts that pessimists/realists see.

Maybe this default mode of optimism inherent in survival is what blinds many to the dark facts of life- we live for some years and then die, what else? Religion has a fix- heaven/hell. Atheism has a fix- post-modernism. They also believe that we can overcome these material limits, as if technology can save us from a cataclysm?

With those beliefs, there doesn't seem to be a push to find out WHY things are this why, WHY do we exist and so on. Perhaps this is one of the key "simple and karmic lessons" that the C's mentioned as requirement of graduation. Without learning these facts and relying on false hopes, the karmic wheel just keeps spinning: reincarnation over and over (3535?)

Interestingly, Raine provides a model for a solution as to why we - as a species - lie to ourselves so well; he brings in the "selfish genes" idea, and that those who don't lie to themselves, those who don't shield themselves from the dark facts of life, don't reproduce. In Gurdjieffian/Mouravieffian terms, we would call it the General Law or "Kundabuffer". In the Cs terms, we would call it social manipulation by figures in power influenced by 4D STS.

Well, we know how a lot of things got messed up at a certain point and maybe it is a case in point. At the time that the Roman Empire was going through its death throes and stuff was flying around in the skies as the chroniclers reported diligently and I have compiled as much as survived, there was a raging controversy. The pagans were accusing the Christians of being responsible for the death, destruction, and suffering because the "old gods" were being abandoned. Meanwhile, the Christians were saying that the effects were the wrath of their god being inflicted on the pagans and the eschaton was imminent with the return of Christ and the inception of the "new creation". After it was all over, massive depopulation, etc, and the chance (or 4D STS influenced) of the Christians in dominance, it was important to make people forget what had happened because they might still blame the Christians. Also, the Pax Romana became the Pax Deus and had to be protected and propagandized.

So, this, and the Aristotelian view of the perfection of God's cosmos led to the constant necessity to cover over celestial events, to ignore them, or, if that was not possible, to use them as "wrath of god" examples to scare up conversion. It's been that way ever since. You could say that the Judeo Christian conception of the creator god external to the cosmos is the main source of our blinding. And certainly, the idea that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God", i.e. that humans are equal in the sight of god, designed to equalize very unequal social factors, stands as the barrier to perceiving psychopathy as it is. Thankfully, both of these topics have been main revelations of the Cs and have given us a significant edge on understanding the reality in which we live.

 

[whitecoast]

Re: Collingwood's Idea of History, Speculum Mentis & Gurdjieff's Primitive Cosmology

Finished Idea of history, but I'm re-reading part 5 since it is extremely dense with interesting material. Would someone be able to help me with the following quote?

[quote author=The Idea of History]
Reflective acts may be roughly described as the acts which we do on purpose, and these are the only acts which can become the subject matter of history.

From this point of view, it can be seen why certain forms of activity are, and others are not, a matter of historical knowledge. It would be generally admitted that politics is a thing that can be historically studied. The reason is that politics affords a plain instance of purposive action. The politician is a man with a policy; his policy is a plan of action conceived in advance of its performance; and his success as a politician is proportional to his success in carrying out his policy. No doubt, his policy is not prior to his action in the sense of being fixed once and for all before his action begins; it develops as his action develops; but at every stage of his action policy precedes its own fulfillment. If it were possible to say of any man that he acted with no idea whatever that would come of it, but did the first thing that came into his head and merely waited to see the consequences, it would follow that such a man was no politician, and that his action was merely the intrusion of into political life of a blind and irrational force. And if it has not be said of a certain man that he doubtless had a policy but that we cannot discover what it was (and one feels inclined to say this of, for example, certain early Roman emperors), this is as much as to say that one's attempts to reconstruct the political history of his action have failed.[/quote]

Trying to bring this back to the question of psychopathy, it seems that psychopaths can engage in reflective acts in the strict sense given in that they may have a definite (if self-serving) purpose, and can therefore have a history. But a psychopath's history would certainly be impoverished when compared to that of an empathic person's, who would be able to put himself or herself into a more wide-ranging number of minds, each with different beliefs and attitudes toward the objects of their thought. Often, at least from my perspective, the intrusion of a psychopath onto the historical scene is in a sense equivalent to a "blind, irrational force", since its thinking and emotions are just so basic. But perhaps it just looks that way from the outside because of an insufficient ability to re-enact the psychopath's thinking? From that perspective I guess it is imperative that an historian learn to think at that level (while being self-aware about it) in order to understand and gain a proper knowledge of their behavior, and therefore be able to identify and deal with psychopaths who emerge in the future. As many authors in the Recommended Reading section have pointed out, psychopaths are more or less quite uniform in their behaviors and methodologies.

Interestingly, Raine provides a model for a solution as to why we - as a species - lie to ourselves so well; he brings in the "selfish genes" idea, and that those who don't lie to themselves, those who don't shield themselves from the dark facts of life, don't reproduce. In Gurdjieffian/Mouravieffian terms, we would call it the General Law or "Kundabuffer". In the Cs terms, we would call it social manipulation by figures in power influenced by 4D STS.

Yeah, this really seems like a bug in human life on earth. The people who, for argument's sake, are more self-conscious about the viability of their DNA to produce a decent enough human are the ones who should be reproducing the most, since they evidently do think about the consequences of (A) how their DNA will influence the future after they're gone, and (B) the mechanicalness of their own maternal or paternal instinct. Alternatively, the people who think that their DNA is intrinsically God's gift to earth and want to have tons of kids to reflect their own narcissistic self-image back to them are the LAST people who should ever consider having children. The only time this reproductive balance seems to be reset is when cosmic catastrophes strike.

Added: I guess another thing I find interesting about Collingwood was the distinction between Science and History, and how history seems to be superior as a method of inquiry since it is more self-conscious about the influence of the mind on thoughts. What also stuck out for me was the reservation with which a disciplined historian makes claims about the future (thinking of Hegel or Marx on this one). In comparison science really wants to construct laws and predict and control the future. But if the C's have taught us anything, it's that the future is open, and even if we can receive information from the future via channeling, it is really done in a way that resembles a negotiation, since the generation and termination point of the transmission are exactly equivalent ultimately. So our ability to know the future in any sort of real way depends on our own self-knowledge today, which depends on our ability to understand the past.

I tend to see the science-history dichotomy in the distinction between the C's cosmology and G's also. I see this primarily in G's talk about the general law and law of seven causing things to remain mechanical. Contrasting this is the C's account of there being active agencies whose conflicting 4D/6D battles generate volatilities that eventually smooth out to general historical trends (such as the ponerogenic and cataclysmic cycles). In G's former, it is written in stone, with only the possibility of one "sneaking out", while in the latter, the possibility of people working to overcome and bring STO energies into the cosmos can tip the balance in critical ways and generate a real possibility for change in life on earth. The C's account is more optimistic, in other words. Correct me if I'm wrong by all means though. :)

 

[hlat]

Re: Collingwood's Idea of History, Speculum Mentis & Gurdjieff's Primitive Cosmology

Complete free will is sadly an illusion - a mirage. I wish it were not, because I too find this perspective unsettling. But there we have it. ...

A: ... However, any and all 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th processes can be manipulated at will and to any degree if technology is sufficient.

And maybe working on ourself, to be the best we can be, despite adverse genetics and/or early influences, might set the scene for the next life to be more fruitful for spiritual advancement. It just might not happen in this life-time. So for me - despite the notion that my free-will might be quite diminished - this means that I will plod onwards nevertheless. What alternative is there, anyway?

It make sense that free will is under constant assault by manipulative forces, as entities of all kinds attempt to eat and use us up. We try to defend against the manipulative entities, and the alternative is that they destroy us.

Manipulation is one thing, and brain damage is another thing, though neither eliminate free will, responsibility, and karma.

For example, a married man who sleeps with a prostitute that he finds in his bed may be said to be manipulated to sleep with the prostitute, but his free will is still involved and responsible in making the choice to cheat on his wife and he incurs karmic debt regardless of manipulator who hired the prostitute.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

Re: R. G. Collingwood: The Idea of History

It's almost like a time machine. Well, I never experienced such an immersion but that's what Laura reported and from my observations of her writing process, I think this is indeed occurring and probably constitutes the key factor when one wants to write proper history.

To go in maybe a slightly different direction, I was really intrigued when reading that this sort of immersion into the evidence would allow an historian to "imaginatively" enter into that period in order to better understand it. I even wondered if this process might not be real time travel - i.e., if you can imagine so clearly that your consciousness actually enters into and observes those events. Like a telepathic/"Akashic records"/"collective memory"/morphic or information field kind of thing going on.

However, I had to rein myself in a bit, because there's also this to consider:

(i) History as inferential

History has this in common with every other science: that the historian is not allowed to claim any single piece of knowledge, except where he can justify his claim by exhibiting to himself in the first place, and secondly to any one else who is both able and willing to follow his demonstration, the grounds upon which it is based. This is what was meant, above, by describing history as inferential. The knowledge in virtue of which a man is an historian is a knowledge of what the evidence at his disposal proves about certain events. If he or somebody else could have the very same knowledge of the very same events by way of memory, or second sight, or some Wellsian machine for looking backwards through time, this would not be historical knowledge; and, the proof would be that he could not produce, either to himself or to any other critic of his claims, the evidence from which he had derived it. Critic, not sceptic; for a critic is a person able and willing to go over somebody else's thoughts for himself to see if they have been well done; whereas a sceptic is a person who will not do this; and because you cannot make a man think, any more than you can make a horse drink, there is no way of proving to a sceptic that a certain piece of thinking is sound, and no reason for taking his denials to heart. It is only by his peers that any claimant to knowledge is judged.

This necessity of justifying any claim to knowledge by exhibiting the grounds upon which it is based is a universal characteristic of science because it arises from the fact that a science is an organized body of knowledge. To say that knowledge is inferential is only another way of saying that it is organized. What memory is, and whether it is a kind of knowledge or not, are questions that need not be considered in a book about history: for this at least is clear, in spite of what Bacon and others have said, that memory is not history, because history is a certain kind of organized or inferential knowledge, and memory is not organized, not inferential, at all. If I say 'I remember writing a letter to So-and-so last week', that is a statement of memory, but it is not an historical statement. But if I can add 'and my memory is not deceiving me; because here is his reply', then I am basing a statement about the past on evidence; I am talking history. For the same reason, there is no need in an essay like this to consider the claims of people who say that when they are in a place where a certain event has recurred they can in some way see the event going on before their eyes. What actually happens on occasions like this, and whether the people to whom it happens thereby obtain knowledge of the past, are certainly interesting questions, but this is not the right place to discuss them; for even if these people do obtain knowledge of the past, it is not organized or inferential knowledge; not scientific knowledge; not history.

So even if entering into such a state as "second-sight time travel" is possible, it's not history. History as such can only be based on the evidence at hand, which in principle can be looked at by other historians who - if they aren't blinded by their own biases and actually follow your reasoning - can verify it for themselves. If they too could go into second-sight mode, that would be something, but I'm guessing that's pretty rare. Rare enough that it's impractical and still can't be verified. You just come up against the same problems with "history as eyewitness testimony" or "history as memory".

There's also the problem of whether such a process is in itself true. If I imagine some detail or thought process which can't be inferred from the existing evidence, am I seeing what really happened, or am I viewing just one possible past - either created by the mind in a similar way that dreams are created, or a "direct view" so to say of an actual "possible world" in the information field - that fits with the evidence I have at my disposal? If I had more evidence, would I see a different possible world?

I often wonder if some historical novelists actually get it right, and actually present a picture that is rounded out by details and personalities that maybe actually existed as they describe, but which are not supported by historical evidence. Like they're channeling, or tuning in to what really happened. But again, even if that's the case, it's still historical fiction and not history, because it goes further than what the evidence obliges us to accept, and no one can verify it. (But new evidence may come forward that supports this or that.)

"Genuine history has no room for the merely probable or the merely possible; all it permits the historian to assert is what the evidence before him obliges him to assert."

 

[thorbiorn]

Re: Collingwood's Idea of History, Speculum Mentis & Gurdjieff's Primitive Cosmology

Finished Idea of history, but I'm re-reading part 5 since it is extremely dense with interesting material. Would someone be able to help me with the following quote?

[quote author=The Idea of History]
Reflective acts may be roughly described as the acts which we do on purpose, and these are the only acts which can become the subject matter of history.

From this point of view, it can be seen why certain forms of activity are, and others are not, a matter of historical knowledge. It would be generally admitted that politics is a thing that can be historically studied. The reason is that politics affords a plain instance of purposive action. The politician is a man with a policy; his policy is a plan of action conceived in advance of its performance; and his success as a politician is proportional to his success in carrying out his policy. No doubt, his policy is not prior to his action in the sense of being fixed once and for all before his action begins; it develops as his action develops; but at every stage of his action policy precedes its own fulfillment. If it were possible to say of any man that he acted with no idea whatever that would come of it, but did the first thing that came into his head and merely waited to see the consequences, it would follow that such a man was no politician, and that his action was merely the intrusion of into political life of a blind and irrational force. And if it has not be said of a certain man that he doubtless had a policy but that we cannot discover what it was (and one feels inclined to say this of, for example, certain early Roman emperors), this is as much as to say that one's attempts to reconstruct the political history of his action have failed.

[...]
[/quote]
Just focusing on the bolded part, I take it as an attempt to examplify the thought he has explained just previously. If I split up the bolded part in two:
1:

If it were possible to say of any man that he acted with no idea whatever that would come of it, but did the first thing that came into his head and merely waited to see the consequences, it would follow that such a man was no politician, and that his action was merely the intrusion of into political life of a blind and irrational force.

Because he wrote that "that politics affords a plain instance of purposive action" so from the absense of "purposive action", one may reason there is no politics and no politician.

2:

And if it has not be said of a certain man that he doubtless had a policy but that we cannot discover what it was (and one feels inclined to say this of, for example, certain early Roman emperors), this is as much as to say that one's attempts to reconstruct the political history of his action have failed.

This I take to mean that although in the case of "certain early Roman emperors" the historian might be able to detect "purposive action", in the known deeds of these people, [confirming the emperors were politicians], still he may not be able to identify the policies behind their actions. Collngwood does not explain further, but I infer that this inability might be due to lack of evidence about the "early" period of time in which said emperors lived. Perhaps more is known of the later than the earlier and therefore it is easier to reconstruct the purposes for the actions of the later.

 

[Hesper]

Re: R. G. Collingwood: The Idea of History

It's almost like a time machine. Well, I never experienced such an immersion but that's what Laura reported and from my observations of her writing process, I think this is indeed occurring and probably constitutes the key factor when one wants to write proper history.

To go in maybe a slightly different direction, I was really intrigued when reading that this sort of immersion into the evidence would allow an historian to "imaginatively" enter into that period in order to better understand it. I even wondered if this process might not be real time travel - i.e., if you can imagine so clearly that your consciousness actually enters into and observes those events. Like a telepathic/"Akashic records"/"collective memory"/morphic or information field kind of thing going on.

I had to admit that I had a really similar impression though it was more like, at a certain level of consciousness, one is able to 'enter into' others' experience using 'facts' as a kind of portal. The way Collingwood writes about this in Idea of History really had me thinking this way:

[The historian's] work may begin by discovering the outside of an event, but it can never end there; he must always remember that the event was an action, and that his main task is to think himself into this action, to discern the thought of its agent. In the case of nature, this distinction between the outside and the inside of an event does not arise. The events of nature are mere events, not the acts of agents whose thought the scientist endeavours to trace... In thus penetrating to the inside of events and detecting the thought which they express, the historian is doing something which the scientist need not and cannot do. In this way the task of the historian is more complex than that of the scientist. In another way it is simpler: the historian need not and cannot (without ceasing to be an historian) emulate the scientist in searching for the causes or laws of events.

It's been thrilling reading Collingwood's material, as it respects yet goes far beyond the current 'scientific' paradigm which one gets hammered with in universities and even grade school. He respects not only objective systems of thought in science, but the entire human personality in its search for knowledge. And in that I think he does a tremendous service. As he writes in Speculum Mentis, cutting through the scientific/materialistic worldview with a razor-sharp blade:

When the concrete or historical point of view is achieved, this is effected by recognizing and so transcending the abstractness of the scientific point of view. Man now sees that even in calling himself a machine he had really been vindicating his own freedom, and in that discovery he grasps this freedom and makes it truly his own.

But in order to reach this point man had to travel through realms of artistic, religious, and scientific thought in order to transcend subjective assumptions in art and religion and, through difficult scientific scrutiny, make thought serve explicit and concrete ends in objective reality:

As art and religion lift man above the level of the beasts, science lifts the civilized man above the level of the savage. The material utility of science, its service in feeding and clothing and sheltering us, carrying us from place to place and providing us with comforts, is the least part of its importance. Its real gift is simply the end of dreaming and the promise of a waking life. It sweeps aside with a ruthless hand all mythology, all symbols, that are heavy with unrealized meanings and dark with the terrors of dreamland, and bids the mind face the world's mystery armed with nothing but its five senses and the sling of its wit. What that means, no one knows who has not long and carefully weighed the debt which he owes to the scientific consciousness. But when that is done, he will hardly shrink from praising the founders of science for the gift of spiritual freedom....

Once we learn, through trial and error, the importance of facts and the error of restricting everything to abstract systems, we have the possibility of transcending the abstract systems of science and come to appreciate the universe of facts - of everything that happens and even that which 'doesn't happen'.

I can see why, in that 'previous' world of Scientific Materialism, Gurdjieff's work reigned supreme. Everything had to be weighed, everything fit in an Enneagram of some sort. And maybe it was even necessary in that stage of mental development. But it's in the 'next' world/evolution of thought that FOTCM shines brightest and really leads the way, with such a heavy emphasis on history, current events, and constantly seeking to be objective to the needs of a rapidly changing world. A real step ahead, clearly!

These are just a few of my impressions so far. Collingwood was a true giant of an intellectual. I see why these works were so important to read - they do take one on an emotional roller coaster and provide a powerful incentive to investigate further.

 

[genero81]

Re: Collingwood's Idea of History, Speculum Mentis & Gurdjieff's Primitive Cosmology

"In realizing its own rationality, mind also realizes the presence in itself of elements that are not rational. They are not body; they are mind, but not rational mind or thought. To use an old distinction, they are psyche or soul as distinct from spirit. These irrational elements are the subject-matter of psychology. They are the blind forces and activities in us which are part of human life as it consciously experiences itself, but are not parts of the historical process: sensation as distinct from thought, feelings as distinct from conceptions, appetite as distinct from will. Their importance to us consists in the fact that they form the proximate environment in which our reason lives, as our physiological organism is the proximate environment in which they live. They are the basis of our rational life, though no part of it. Our reason discovers them, but in studying them it is not studying itself. By learning to know them, it finds out how it can help them to live in health, so that they can feed and support it while it pursues its own proper task, the self-conscious creation of its own historical life."

Thanks again to Altair for the quotes. This paragraph is just awesome. Perhaps it redefines, or reshapes 'The Work' for us?

 

[Anthony]

Re: Collingwood's Idea of History, Speculum Mentis & Gurdjieff's Primitive Cosmology

"In realizing its own rationality, mind also realizes the presence in itself of elements that are not rational. They are not body; they are mind, but not rational mind or thought. To use an old distinction, they are psyche or soul as distinct from spirit. These irrational elements are the subject-matter of psychology. They are the blind forces and activities in us which are part of human life as it consciously experiences itself, but are not parts of the historical process: sensation as distinct from thought, feelings as distinct from conceptions, appetite as distinct from will. Their importance to us consists in the fact that they form the proximate environment in which our reason lives, as our physiological organism is the proximate environment in which they live. They are the basis of our rational life, though no part of it. Our reason discovers them, but in studying them it is not studying itself. By learning to know them, it finds out how it can help them to live in health, so that they can feed and support it while it pursues its own proper task, the self-conscious creation of its own historical life."

Thanks again to Altair for the quotes. This paragraph is just awesome. Perhaps it redefines, or reshapes 'The Work' for us?

The whole paragraph seems to be about making a distinction between the moving, emotional and thought centers and then something that is higher or self-remembering in G.'s terminology.

 

[Laura]

Re: Collingwood's Idea of History, Speculum Mentis & Gurdjieff's Primitive Cosmology

"In realizing its own rationality, mind also realizes the presence in itself of elements that are not rational. They are not body; they are mind, but not rational mind or thought. To use an old distinction, they are psyche or soul as distinct from spirit. These irrational elements are the subject-matter of psychology. They are the blind forces and activities in us which are part of human life as it consciously experiences itself, but are not parts of the historical process: sensation as distinct from thought, feelings as distinct from conceptions, appetite as distinct from will. Their importance to us consists in the fact that they form the proximate environment in which our reason lives, as our physiological organism is the proximate environment in which they live. They are the basis of our rational life, though no part of it. Our reason discovers them, but in studying them it is not studying itself. By learning to know them, it finds out how it can help them to live in health, so that they can feed and support it while it pursues its own proper task, the self-conscious creation of its own historical life."

Thanks again to Altair for the quotes. This paragraph is just awesome. Perhaps it redefines, or reshapes 'The Work' for us?

The whole paragraph seems to be about making a distinction between the moving, emotional and thought centers and then something that is higher or self-remembering in G.'s terminology.

It seems to me that this is a discussion of observing the interfacing of psyche with genes, observing how "the machine" works in terms of something higher "driving" it; because all of those elements can be grossly distorted by pathological physiology of the brain as you will learn when reading Raine's book.

 

[Mike]

Re: R. G. Collingwood: The Idea of History

It's almost like a time machine. Well, I never experienced such an immersion but that's what Laura reported and from my observations of her writing process, I think this is indeed occurring and probably constitutes the key factor when one wants to write proper history.

To go in maybe a slightly different direction, I was really intrigued when reading that this sort of immersion into the evidence would allow an historian to "imaginatively" enter into that period in order to better understand it. I even wondered if this process might not be real time travel - i.e., if you can imagine so clearly that your consciousness actually enters into and observes those events. Like a telepathic/"Akashic records"/"collective memory"/morphic or information field kind of thing going on.

I had to admit that I had a really similar impression though it was more like, at a certain level of consciousness, one is able to 'enter into' others' experience using 'facts' as a kind of portal. The way Collingwood writes about this in Idea of History really had me thinking this way:

[The historian's] work may begin by discovering the outside of an event, but it can never end there; he must always remember that the event was an action, and that his main task is to think himself into this action, to discern the thought of its agent. In the case of nature, this distinction between the outside and the inside of an event does not arise. The events of nature are mere events, not the acts of agents whose thought the scientist endeavours to trace... In thus penetrating to the inside of events and detecting the thought which they express, the historian is doing something which the scientist need not and cannot do. In this way the task of the historian is more complex than that of the scientist. In another way it is simpler: the historian need not and cannot (without ceasing to be an historian) emulate the scientist in searching for the causes or laws of events.

There might be something to the bolded parts of what Approaching Infinity and Hesper wrote. It might be connected to this exchange with the C's, I thought of when reading the posts, about being able to talk with Caesar the session before this one.

I also remember Laura describing the huge amounts of reading and thinking she was doing on Rome and Caesar prior to this.

Perhaps connecting to a time period via an in depth understanding of the people and their thoughts that helped to shape the period allows a person to connect their consciousness to that of cosmic mind/information field in order to 'travel' back and help see the unseen parts and connections of history, which have no direct written or other evidence available.

Q: (L) Okay, let me ask a few preliminary questions before we launch onto the topics of the evening. First question: What was going on last session when we were communicating with Julius Caesar, allegedly, when Ark was having a feeling of the hair moving on the side of his and then his glasses went all wonky? What was going on there?

A: Ark is closest in frequency to Caesar; thus the EM bursts upon connection.

Q: (L) Okay, that kind of leads to my other question. I think you once told us something along the line that it's not so easy... maybe it wasn't that it's not so easy, but that you couldn't really connect with people in 5D unless there was some kind of a strong tie or a binding element that connected you to them - in other words, to be able to get them on the phone, so to speak. So, what was it that made it possible for us to allegedly contact Julius Caesar?

A: Frequency of entire group was conducive to contact.

Q: (L) And why was that?

A: Strong psychic connection and long focus period in advance of attempt. Plus, as previously indicated, Caesar volunteered to be accessible. It is a sacrifice at that level. By the way, it WAS Caesar.

 

[mkrnhr]

Re: R. G. Collingwood: The Idea of History

To go in maybe a slightly different direction, I was really intrigued when reading that this sort of immersion into the evidence would allow an historian to "imaginatively" enter into that period in order to better understand it. I even wondered if this process might not be real time travel - i.e., if you can imagine so clearly that your consciousness actually enters into and observes those events. Like a telepathic/"Akashic records"/"collective memory"/morphic or information field kind of thing going on.

It's still too early to speculate "widely" at this point since I haven't finished TIOH yet, but the building up of the idea that the past lives in the present and that historical thinking is about thought kind of hint at the possibility that present knowledge/thinking may influence unknown past "events". It is as if "time" as we perceive it flows from the known past to the present and outside these limits, there is the open possibilities (branching open to our actual universe) of the unknown future and the perhaps less open possibilities of the unknown past (branching from which our universe came from). Historical thinking from this point of view could be sort of collapsing the wave function in a quantum sense, of present thought but also extending it to the past, not on a whim but through a consolidation of the parameters given by the actual universe. Something like that.

 

[Phill4]

Re: Collingwood's Idea of History, Speculum Mentis & Gurdjieff's Primitive Cosmology

Something that was said earlier about G. hydrogen system is not fitting right in my head, I missed who posted it, but it was something like the table of hydrogens represented a food chain, and the C's indicated that it was a materialistic system...


I don't see it that way, because I did not get a pyramid picture, the table of hydrogens did not represent a food-chain to me, even if he himself have thought so, it does not add up to me, My picture was a multidimensional interaction of forces and expressions of energy in different levels at different junctions in certain configurations. and the ongoing motion of everything a sort of vibration.

I still have not been able to make it fit well how exactly the "etherial" interface between information and manifestations is, how a thought exactly transmutates into matter, but It appears to me is a fluid process, as much as we know that an object remains solid in this world, reality is held together by different people seeing different patches of it, much like millions of photons hit an object and constantly make it shine. An object does not shine by itself, many photons give us a picture of an object, just like the awareness of many people give a picture reality. That would be my analogy.

The processes of nature can therefore be properly described as sequences of mere events, but those of history cannot. They are not processes of mere events but processes of actions, which have an inner side, consisting of processes of thought; and what the historian is looking for is these processes of thought. All history is the history of thought. But how does the historian discern the thoughts which he is trying to discover? There is only one way in which it can be done: by re-thinking them in his own mind.

I am having a problem grasping this one, he is making this distinction between history and nature, but it appears (to me) that both act in the same manner, no to mention that what we call and perceive as history is the arrangement of information in a space in the mind, all are events and actions, but at different levels, different beings would effect their actions through their consciousness creating events.
events are circumstantial results of multiple factors creating a specific phenomena (specific to the context of the observer)
actions are the result of thought,

I think that what he refers to here is that actions of people have a special inner side, in other words that different beings have a set of parameters for their actions and those actions of humans are the consequential result of our special forms of thinking, and since humans do not know themselves it comes to be the challenge of recollecting events with inaccuracy that represents a folly in thinking?.

I understand what he means in the quote, but I am not sure how he is defining thought

psychology, as a naturalistic science, cannot grasp mind as it actually is; it can only study the immediate data of consciousness, our sensations and feelings; but the essence of mind is that it knows, that is, has as its objects not mere states of itself but a real world. What enables it to know is the fact that it thinks; and the activity of thought is a free or self-creative process, which depends on nothing else except itself in order to exist. If then we ask why thought exists, the only possible answer is that existence itself, whatever else it may be, is the activity of thinking.

Up until now I have been working with the idea that thought is the result of the sum and interaction of all biological, psychic , perceptual systems in relation to the environment and subjected to change a la G.

But this is interesting because i may be wrong, it is true that under different states our thoughts are affected, illness, mental or neuro chemical imbalances can certainly affect our thought and something like a chain reaction in the environment make us change along with it, and so our thoughts,
However I was thinking that thoughts are different that what we think.

When we think about saying something, we give this voice our vocal prophetical expressions, it is a construction of the personality which translates thoughts into a digestible form to ourselves, it means to me that what we think is a mere construct of the real thought we are constantly thinking. How we see ourselves vs how we are.

Also I am thinking that the brain's main job is to reunite and produce thoughts, and form our awareness in one place, a portable connector to 3D, that can tune to access areas of the filed of information and different layers of the being.

Here he is saying that thought depends only in itself in order to exist, and that a thought comes first, I can understand that maybe thoughts are wrongly defined and different schools call it different things, there are thoughts that are more composed and self aware than others, then a thought is really existing only in itself as a creation of our thinking, but independent as it has a definite form and signature in the ether so to speak, but our experiences are directly linked to our different forms of thinking, our experiences form is is formed by our history, how can a thought be independent from its creator?

PS: I am still only in the first half of the book

 

[Hesper]

Re: Collingwood's Idea of History, Speculum Mentis & Gurdjieff's Primitive Cosmology

Something that was said earlier about G. hydrogen system is not fitting right in my head, I missed who posted it, but it was something like the table of hydrogens represented a food chain, and the C's indicated that it was a materialistic system...

I don't see it that way, because I did not get a pyramid picture, the table of hydrogens did not represent a food-chain to me, even if he himself have thought so, it does not add up to me, My picture was a multidimensional interaction of forces and expressions of energy in different levels at different junctions in certain configurations. and the ongoing motion of everything a sort of vibration.

A Wikipedia entry describes how the table of elements was supposed to work:

The most detailed example of how this is said to work, given in In Search of the Miraculous, is an explanation of how Gurdjieff believed inputs to the human body ("food", "air" and "impressions", collectively regarded as types of food) are processed into the so-called "higher substances" necessary for higher consciousness to function. In Gurdjieff's view "everything is material"; consciousness and spirit are to be regarded as aspects of matter, although more refined or of a "higher vibration" than perceptible aspects. This proposition is an essential basis for Gurdjieff's view of the evolution of food into the "higher substances" necessary for higher consciousness; briefly summarized below from the account in In Search of the Miraculous.[16] The Fourth Way, a later collection of Ouspensky's talks, is a supplementary source for the same material.

At point 9 ordinary food (beginning as Do) is eaten and enters the body and digestion begins. The "density" of human food is assigned a number, 768.

At point 1 it is said to be processed in the gut as Re and is refined to a "density" of 384 the same "density" as water.

At point 2 the food is further refined to Mi and assigned a density of 192, the same density as air. It is ready to enter the blood stream.

At point 3, Mi-Fa, occurs a "shock". Air can provide this shock because it also is of density 192, and furthermore this air enters as a new Do

At point 4 the original food octave is at "Fa" but the new air octave is at Re. They are both in the bloodstream at "density" 96, the "density" of hormones and vitamins and rarefied gases and animal magnetism "and so on". At this point we reach the end of "what is regarded as matter by our physics and chemistry" [17] It should be remembered that Gurdjieff is here speaking in 1916.

The substances or energies at point 5 are assigned a "density" of 48 and used in thought. These are the So or "Sol" part of the original food octave and the Mi part of the air octave.

Point 6 being where "impressions", regarded as a type of food, are said to enter the body. "Impressions" are said to also have a "density" of 48, and can serve as a shock if they are intensified by some such means as the exercise of "self-remembering" taught by Gurdjieff, thus allowing the air and impressions octaves to proceed. Otherwise only the ordinary food octave, shown in black in the diagram, proceeds.

Point 7 represents emotional and other energies, of a "density" of 24. If "self-remembering" occurs this will be the Fa point for the air octave and the Re point for the impressions octave. Otherwise it will just be the La point for the original food octave.

At point 8, the "Si" or Ti at the end of the first "ordinary food" octave represents the sexual energies, of "density" 12; which are the "highest substance" according to Gurdjieff which the body produces naturally without conscious intervention. A desire to conserve this "higher substances" for esoteric use is said to be the original reason for religious celibacy. With the conscious intervention at point 6 of "self remembering" further and more useful "higher substances" are created, represented by the air octave's So or "Sol" at point 8 and the impression octave's Mi at point 8. This Mi of "density" 12 is the "higher substance" primarily necessary for Gurdjieff's esoteric method.[18](Ouspensky makes some further remarks on the nature of this Mi 12 and Sol 12 in his book Fourth Way.) A further conscious shock, requiring "a special type of control over the emotions" at point 9 would enable a new "higher" or spiritual body to begin to grow, this is represented by Gurdjieff as the aim of his and other esoteric traditions. Although not shown in the diagram on this page, the Air octave, if it has a shock at Point 6 in fact may proceed to La with a "density" of 6.

Ouspensky related the inner six-line figure of the Food Diagram enneagram to the circulation of the blood. Point 1, he wrote, represented the digestive system, point 2 the blood stream, point 4 the breathing system, point 5 the brain, point 7 the spinal cord and point 8 the sympathetic nervous system and sex organs, and the lines "showed the direction of the floe or distribution of arterial blood in the organism and then its return in the form of venous blood"

Hopefully that helps clarify the issue (somewhat). Though the details are complicated it is interesting to picture how events, foods, and internal processes correlate to form a subjective program.

The processes of nature can therefore be properly described as sequences of mere events, but those of history cannot. They are not processes of mere events but processes of actions, which have an inner side, consisting of processes of thought; and what the historian is looking for is these processes of thought. All history is the history of thought. But how does the historian discern the thoughts which he is trying to discover? There is only one way in which it can be done: by re-thinking them in his own mind.

I am having a problem grasping this one, he is making this distinction between history and nature, but it appears (to me) that both act in the same manner, no to mention that what we call and perceive as history is the arrangement of information in a space in the mind, all are events and actions, but at different levels, different beings would effect their actions through their consciousness creating events.
events are circumstantial results of multiple factors creating a specific phenomena (specific to the context of the observer)
actions are the result of thought,

I think that what he refers to here is that actions of people have a special inner side, in other words that different beings have a set of parameters for their actions and those actions of humans are the consequential result of our special forms of thinking, and since humans do not know themselves it comes to be the challenge of recollecting events with inaccuracy that represents a folly in thinking?.

I would agree with that last statement, that the actions of people have a special 'inner side' that cannot be reproduced in a lab. Let's look at the subject of 'politics' versus chemistry. Does any 'scientific' political or cultural theory explain the rise of Putin, his personality, what makes him work, why he does what he does? Could it predict another Putin in a specific place and time? And yet how important he is to history, and how important knowing the specific facts of history (people like Caesar, the rise of the US Empire, the collapse of Russia, the whole post-9/11 war on the world) plays in understanding the how and why behind what he does and who he is.

In the latter, in nature, the scientist has the power to pin down the phenomenon and make it tell its story, so to speak, to really interrogate it and understand everything we can about its outer nature. We gain a lot of predictive power about it - thanks largely to its lack of 'inner' nature and its mechanicalness. The scientist can never enter into the why of water - why it does what it is the way it does - because of its lack of inner nature. There really is not a lot of intention going on there, though it does different things depending entirely on what the environment makes it do. Collingwood writes that:

If we raise the question, Of what can there be historical knowledge? the answer is, Of that which can be re-enacted in the historian's mind. In the first place, this must be experience. Of that which is not experience but the mere object of experience, there can be no history. Thus there is and can be no history of nature, whether as perceived or as thought by the scientist.

In other words, the science of the mind is what the historian is after - the growing understanding of the Mind/Experience that is revealed in history. Thus he really has no place working with 'mindless' things (though we have reason to suspect nothing is really mindless, there is a definite difference between Putin and a glass of water!). This is my current understanding, so with a grain of salt as they say :)