Sawfish wrote, "I see daily transactions as being rooted in the material world, following physical motivations once they are translated from thought to action. The 'thought' part might be considered to be a manifestation of the mystical, or at least the impetus for the initial physical action."
I don't know if this is the place to get into these matters, but I think what you say points to a key problem for the materialist philosophy, that a materialistic explanation of
consciousness is elusive, and yet one doubts that a "solution" is to be found in writing off consciousness as an illusion or something (though there's at least one philosopher who has been willing to pay that price; I forget her -- I think the philosopher is a woman -- name).
You've used the word "mystical," but for some readers, like me, that word suggests something more specific than what I take you to mean. From your point of view, I'm a "mystic," but from the way I use the word, I would hesitate to say that I remember ever having had a "mystical" experience.
I'd say that consciousness, imagination, thought are not necessarily "mystical," but that they are "elusive" for materialism.
You can observe my
brain, but you can't observe my
mind (unless, perhaps, you are telepathic).
So we have this dimension of experience that by its nature can't be "observed" objectively. We have a situation in which there is ever-growing knowledge of the brain, while the mind, or consciousness, baffles us.
There are also, btw, some bizarre observations of the brain that may surprise us. I'm not going to get my copy right now, but Rupert Sheldrake has some pertinent remarks in
The Science Delusion. As I recall, he wrote about a brilliant student of math whose brain, however, was little more than a thin film surrounding a reservoir of water inside the skull.
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www.theguardian.com]
If we keep discussing consciousness, I'm bound to bring in Owen Barfield.
But yes, do we want to return the focus to literature -- and biography -- specifically Lovecraft's? Is there agreement that Lovecraft was fundamentally a divided person?
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11 Oct 19 | 02:51PM by Dale Nelson.