Adjutant intellect

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  • #34085
    Bonita
    Bonita
    Participant

    So rather than random, maybe “endless possible arrangements”?

    Yes, I agree that potentials are endless; but human mind is limited to certain potentials because of the presence of personality and it’s inherent ability to freely choose which requires spiritual over control providing certain limitations.  Likewise, even though the body may have mechanical physical reactions, the mind has over control.  Spirit over mind; mind over matter.

    118.8.1 In the time-space creations, free will is hedged about with restraints, with limitations. Material-life evolution is first mechanical, then mind activated, and (after the bestowal of personality) it may become spirit directed. Organic evolution on the inhabited worlds is physically limited by the potentials of the original physical-life implantations of the Life Carriers.

    118:8.2 Mortal man is a machine, a living mechanism; his roots are truly in the physical world of energy. Many human reactions are mechanical in nature; much of life is machinelike. But man, a mechanism, is much more than a machine; he is mind endowed and spirit indwelt; and though he can never throughout his material life escape the chemical and electrical mechanics of his existence, he can increasingly learn how to subordinate this physical-life machine to the directive wisdom of experience by the process of consecrating the human mind to the execution of the spiritual urges of the indwelling Thought Adjuster.

    118.9.2  Mechanisms produced by higher minds function to liberate their creative sources but to some degree unvaryingly limit the action of all subordinate intelligences. To the creatures of the universes this limitation becomes apparent as the mechanism of the universes. Man does not have unfettered free will; there are limits to his range of choice, but within the radius of this choice his will is relatively sovereign.

    Nigel Nunn wrote:I think the idea Bohm was trying to convey is that much of what currently passes for “thinking” can be reduced to more-or-less clever juggling of pre-existing “protoplasmic memory material“?
    But does he equate that with intelligence?  Intellect has control over protoplasmic memory material; there would not be memory material without intellect of some kind and intellect, or mind, is unity, meaning orderly, balanced and organized.  Intellect is turning the wheel of the kaleidoscope with a purpose and a direction.  And when wisdom is functioning, all of those kaleidoscopic pieces are coordinated into idea-decisions striving for supernal ideals.(101:6.7)  There is order and purpose inherent in mind, as there also is in the purely electrochemical physical living substrate it gently rests upon.
    I tend to think the word perception has to do with conscious meaning.  I’m not sure animals appreciate meanings, but in humans, meaning is a higher adjutant function which has the capacity to appreciate value, a superadjutant function.  For certain there are different levels of perception.  Some perceptions are false, some are true, but all are relative to experience.  What an animal perceives is clearly different than what a human perceives, and that is because of the activity of the two higher adjutants and their overlap with the Holy Spirit in the soul.  Man is capable of perceiving with spiritual eyes.   Anyway, that’s how I see it.
    #34087
    Avatar
    Nigel Nunn
    Participant

    Bonita wrote:

    “But does he equate that with intelligence?”

    No, just the opposite. Maybe you misread those original quotes? To clarify, here they are again, in context.

    From David Bohm, “Wholeness and the Implicate Order” (1980)

    Chapter 3, Section 2

    THOUGHT AND INTELLIGENCE (page 49)

    “To inquire into the question of how knowledge is to be understood as process, we first note that all knowledge is produced, displayed, communicated, transformed, and applied in thought. Thought, considered in its movement of becoming (and not merely in its content of relatively well-defined images and ideas) is indeed the process in which knowledge has its actual and concrete existence. (This has been discussed in the Introduction.)

    What is the process of thought? Thought is, in essence, the active response of memory in every phase of life. We include in thought the intellectual, emotional, sensuous, muscular and physical responses of memory. These are all aspects of one indissoluble process. To treat them separately makes for fragmentation and confusion. All these are one process of response of memory to each actual situation, which response in turn leads to a further contribution to memory, thus conditioning the next thought.

    One of the earliest and most primitive forms of thought is, for example, just the memory of pleasure or pain, in conjunction with a visual, auditory, or olfactory image that may be evoked by an object or a situation. It is common in our culture to regard memories involving image content as separate from those involving feeling. It is clear, however, that the whole meaning of such a memory is just the conjunction of the image with its feeling, which (along with the intellectual content and the physical reaction) constitutes the totality of the judgment as to whether what is remembered is good or bad, desirable or not, etc.

    It is clear that thought, considered in this way as the response of memory, is basically mechanical in its order of operation. Either it is a repetition of some previously existent structure drawn from memory, or else it is some combination arrangement and organization of these memories into further structures of ideas and concepts, categories, etc. These combinations may possess a certain kind of novelty resulting from the fortuitous interplay of elements of memory, but it is clear that such novelty is still essentially mechanical (like the new combinations appearing in a kaleidoscope).

    There is in this mechanical process no inherent reason why the thoughts that arise should be relevant or fitting to the actual situation that evokes them. The perception of whether or not any particular thoughts are relevant or fitting requires the operation of an energy that is not mechanical, an energy that we shall call intelligence. This latter is able to perceive a new order or a new structure, that is not just a modification of what is already known or present in memory. For example, one may be working on a puzzling problem for a long time. Suddenly, in a flash of understanding, one may see the irrelevance of one’s whole way of thinking about the problem, along with a different approach in which all the elements fit in a new order and in a new structure. Clearly, such a flash is essentially an act of perception, rather than a process of thought (a similar notion was discussed in chapter 1), though later it may be expressed in thought. What is involved in this act is perception through the mind of abstract orders and relationships such as identity and difference, separation and connection, necessity and contingency, cause and effect, etc.

    We have thus put together all the basically mechanical and conditioned responses of memory under one word or symbol, i.e. thought, and we have distinguished this from the fresh, original and unconditioned response of intelligence (or intelligent perception) in which something new may arise. At this point, however, one may ask: ‘How can one know that such an unconditioned response is at all possible?’ This is a vast question, which cannot be discussed fully here. However, it can be pointed out here that at least implicitly everybody does in fact accept the notion that intelligence is not conditioned (and, indeed, that one cannot consistently do otherwise).

    Consider, for example, an attempt to assert that all of man’s actions are conditioned and mechanical. Typically, such a view has taken one of two forms: Either it is said that man is basically a product of his hereditary constitution, or else that he is determined entirely by environmental factors. However, one could ask of the man who believed in hereditary determination whether his own statement asserting this belief was nothing but the product of his heredity. In other words, is he compelled by his genetic structure to make such an utterance? Similarly, one may ask of the man who believes in environmental determination, whether the assertion of such a belief is nothing but the spouting forth of words in patterns to which he was conditioned by his environment. Evidently, in both cases (as well as in the case of one who asserted that man is completely conditioned by heredity plus environment) the answer would have to be in the negative, for otherwise the speakers would be denying the very possibility that what they said could have meaning. Indeed, it is necessarily implied, in any statement, that the speaker is capable of talking from intelligent perception, which is in turn capable of a truth that is not merely the result of a mechanism based on meaning or skills acquired in the past. So we see that no one can avoid implying, by his mode of communication, that he accepts at least the possibility of that free, unconditioned perception that we have called intelligence.

    Now, there is a great deal of evidence indicating that thought is basically a material process. For example, it has been observed in a wide variety of contexts that thought is inseparable from electrical and chemical activity in the brain and nervous system, and from concomitant tensions and movements of muscles. Would one then say that intelligence is a similar process, though perhaps of a more subtle nature?

    It is implied in the view we are suggesting here that this is not so. If intelligence is to be an unconditioned act of perception, its ground cannot be in structures such as cells, molecules, atoms, elementary particles, etc. Ultimately, anything that is determined by the laws of such structures must be in the field of what can be known, i.e. stored up in memory, and thus it will have to have the mechanical nature of anything that can be assimilated in the basically mechanical character of the process of thought. The actual operation of intelligence is thus beyond the possibility of being determined or conditioned by factors that can be included in any knowable law. So, we see that the ground of intelligence must be in the undetermined and unknown flux, that is also the ground of all definable forms of matter. Intelligence is thus not deducible or explainable on the basis of any branch of knowledge (e.g., physics or biology). Its origin is deeper and more inward than any knowable order that could describe it. (Indeed, it has to comprehend the very order of definable forms of matter through which we would hope to comprehend intelligence.)

    What, then, is the relationship of intelligence to thought? Briefly, one can say that when thought functions on its own, it is mechanical and not intelligent, because it imposes its own generally irrelevant and unsuitable order drawn from memory. Thought is, however, capable of responding, not only from memory but also to the unconditioned perception of intelligence that can see, in each case, whether or not a particular line of thought is relevant and fitting.

    One may perhaps usefully consider here the image of a radio receiver. When the output of the receiver ‘feeds back’ into the input, the receiver operates on its own, to produce mainly irrelevant and meaningless noise, but when it is sensitive to the signal on the radio wave, its own order of inner movement of electric currents (transformed into sound waves) is parallel to the order in the signal and thus the receiver serves to bring a meaningful order originating beyond the level of its own structure into movements on the level of its own structure. One might then suggest that in intelligent perception, the brain and nervous system respond directly to an order in the universal and unknown flux that cannot be reduced to anything that could be defined in terms of knowable structures.

    Intelligence and material process have thus a single origin, which is ultimately the unknown totality of the universal flux. In a certain sense, this implies that what have been commonly called mind and matter are abstractions from the universal flux, and that both are to be regarded as different and relatively autonomous orders within the one whole movement. (This notion is discussed further in chapter 7.) It is thought responding to intelligent perception which is capable of bringing about an overall harmony or fitting between mind and matter.”

    – – – – – [ end of Chapter 3, Section 2 ] – – – – –

    From David Bohm, “Wholeness and the Implicate Order” (1980)

    Nigel

    #34089
    Bonita
    Bonita
    Participant

    No, just the opposite. Maybe you misread those original quotes?

    So he’s saying that intelligence is non-mechanical but memory is?  But he is also saying that intelligence is an additional or superimposed energy source that can determine if memory is relevant to a given situation. The problem, as I see it, is that memory is part of the intellect.  Memory is an intellectual process and memories cannot be accumulated without intelligent recognition, so he’s talking in circles.  He’s separating thought/memory and intelligence when they are all the same thing.

    65:6.8 The ability to learn, memory and differential response to environment, is the endowment of mind.

    111:4.1 Recognition is the intellectual process of fitting the sensory impressions received from the external world into the memory patterns of the individual. Understanding connotes that these recognized sensory impressions and their associated memory patterns have become integrated or organized into a dynamic network of principles.

     

    #34090
    Bradly
    Bradly
    Participant

    How does Mr. Bohms propositions fit in with the following?  I’ve been fascinated lately with this third type of revelation I only recently discovered or re-discovered but had forgotten in the text – self-revelation appears to be the inherent function of mind by curiosity, the compelling need to understand and know, imagination, reason, insight, and inspiration all of which are innate in the function of mind itself, none of which is apparently mechanical in nature but requires all the Adjutants connection.  I believe metaphysics is a natural and inherent byproduct of self-revelation….the revelation of reality by mind as it is observed, considered, organized, understood, and explained by the observing mind.

     

    16:6.4 (191.7) There exists in all personality associations of the cosmic mind a quality which might be denominated the “reality response.” It is this universal cosmic endowment of will creatures which saves them from becoming helpless victims of the implied a priori assumptions of science, philosophy, and religion. This reality sensitivity of the cosmic mind responds to certain phases of reality just as energy-material responds to gravity. It would be still more correct to say that these supermaterial realities so respond to the mind of the cosmos.

    16:6.5 (192.1) The cosmic mind unfailingly responds (recognizes response) on three levels of universe reality. These responses are self-evident to clear-reasoning and deep-thinking minds. These levels of reality are:

    16:6.6 (192.2) 1. Causation—the reality domain of the physical senses, the scientific realms of logical uniformity, the differentiation of the factual and the nonfactual, reflective conclusions based on cosmic response. This is the mathematical form of the cosmic discrimination.

    16:6.7 (192.3) 2. Duty—the reality domain of morals in the philosophic realm, the arena of reason, the recognition of relative right and wrong. This is the judicial form of the cosmic discrimination.

    16:6.8 (192.4) 3. Worship—the spiritual domain of the reality of religious experience, the personal realization of divine fellowship, the recognition of spirit values, the assurance of eternal survival, the ascent from the status of servants of God to the joy and liberty of the sons of God. This is the highest insight of the cosmic mind, the reverential and worshipful form of the cosmic discrimination.

    16:6.9 (192.5) These scientific, moral, and spiritual insights, these cosmic responses, are innate in the cosmic mind, which endows all will creatures. The experience of living never fails to develop these three cosmic intuitions; they are constitutive in the self-consciousness of reflective thinking. But it is sad to record that so few persons on Urantia take delight in cultivating these qualities of courageous and independent cosmic thinking.

    16:6.10 (192.6) In the local universe mind bestowals, these three insights of the cosmic mind constitute the a priori assumptions which make it possible for man to function as a rational and self-conscious personality in the realms of science, philosophy, and religion. Stated otherwise, the recognition of the reality of these three manifestations of the Infinite is by a cosmic technique of self-revelation. Matter-energy is recognized by the mathematical logic of the senses; mind-reason intuitively knows its moral duty; spirit-faith (worship) is the religion of the reality of spiritual experience. These three basic factors in reflective thinking may be unified and co-ordinated in personality development, or they may become disproportionate and virtually unrelated in their respective functions. But when they become unified, they produce a strong character consisting in the correlation of a factual science, a moral philosophy, and a genuine religious experience. And it is these three cosmic intuitions that give objective validity, reality, to man’s experience in and with things, meanings, and values.

    16:6.11 (192.7) It is the purpose of education to develop and sharpen these innate endowments of the human mind; of civilization to express them; of life experience to realize them; of religion to ennoble them; and of personality to unify them.

    #34091
    Bonita
    Bonita
    Participant

    self-revelation appears to be the inherent function of mind by curiosity, the compelling need to understand and know, imagination, reason, insight, and inspiration all of which are innate in the function of mind itself, none of which is apparently mechanical in nature but requires all the Adjutants connection.

    Well first of all, if you read the descriptions of the adjutants you will not find the word revelation or reveal anywhere.  They are not in the business of revelation or of revealing anything.  They are mental instincts, urges, coordinators and directors, but they are not revealers. If you’re looking for revelation of any kind you have to go to the soul where the revealers live.

    But yes, wisdom, the coordinator and integrator of all the other adjutants, must function in order to get to the soul because that is where the overlap in mind ministry occurs.

     

     

    #34092
    Bradly
    Bradly
    Participant

    As I understand….self revelation does not derive by the Adjutants or any Spirit manifestations.  It’s not given as in personal and epochal revelation.  It is an inherent function of mind itself.  All mind has the capacity to perceive, consider, discern, and determine by its own innate nature.  This is why the name….”self” revelation….revelation by the self and to the self and for the self by the very function of the self and the mind itself.  Personal revelation comes by the TA.  Epochal from a celestial personality to a world.

    Mortal minds, morontial minds, and spirit minds all have self revelation so I don’t agree that the soul is the only self for mortal self revelation or for epochal revelation either.  Is it our soul devouring the facts and knowledge of the UB?  Does the Jesusonian Gospel only have meaning and value to our soul but not also our minds?   I do think the soul ALSO experiences self revelation and the truth realized by epochal revelation learned and applied….all mind experiences self revelation as described in Paper 16 and all mind can discover and discern and learn and be educated with knowledge as self revelation and epochal revelation provide.  It is innate also in the human mind 6.11 and not just morontia mind.

    #34093
    Bonita
    Bonita
    Participant

    It is an inherent function of mind itself.  All mind has the capacity to perceive, consider, discern, and determine by its own innate nature.

    Yes, mind can perceive and process but discernment is a feature of personality.   All of the cosmic mind reality responses require the presence of a personality to associate with them.  These reality reflexes are not mind associating with mind, what good would that do? The reality recognition response is between mind and personality.  After all, it is the personality that is striving to become more real, not the mind. Secondly, the Adjuster is a necessary component.  Note in the next quote that there are three criteria that must be met.  There must be a personality endowed with an individualized circuit of the cosmic mind which is hosting an Adjuster.  Note it says cosmic mind, not adjutant mind.  The adjutants are just part of the cosmic mind. They’re talking the whole shebang within an individualized little nebula.

    16:9.1   The cosmic-mind-endowed, Adjuster-indwelt, personal creature possesses innate recognition-realization of energy reality, mind reality, and spirit reality. The will creature is thus equipped to discern the fact, the law, and the love of God. Aside from these three inalienables of human consciousness, all human experience is really subjective except that intuitive realization of validity attaches to the unification of these three universe reality responses of cosmic recognition.

    111:1.2 There is a cosmic unity in the several mind levels of the universe of universes. Intellectual selves have their origin in the cosmic mind much as nebulae take origin in the cosmic energies of universe space.

    This is why the name….”self” revelation….revelation by the self and to the self and for the self by the very function of the self and the mind itself.

    Think about that for a moment.  What usefulness would that have in the universal scheme of things?  When it comes to the universe, there is no such thing as a single self.  A single, isolated self is a dead self.  Furthermore, quote 16:6.10 says that self-revelation is a cosmic technique.  Cosmic implies something greater than one’s own little self but rather the entire cosmos. For instance, evolution is a cosmic technique, and evolution is huge, it includes everything within time and space I think.  Cosmic self-revelation is part of the process of cosmic self-realization, which simply means the self recognizing cosmic reality and becoming part of it.  It’s all part of the cosmic circles of self progression where the self, or personality, becomes more real.

    Personal revelation comes by the TA.  Epochal from a celestial personality to a world.

    How are the words self and personal different?  Self-revelation requires an Adjuster.  Personal revelation requires an Adjuster.  Seems pretty much like calling the Creative Spirit the Divine Minister.  Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

    Is it our soul devouring the facts and knowledge of the UB?

    First of all, TUB is a revelation of TRUTH.  And yes it is our soul where the meanings of all the millions of words in TUB are made real.  Even the authors say that they have no hope of us understanding their words without the indwelling Adjuster and the Spirit of Truth.  So yeah, it is our soul devouring the words.  Have you ever wondered why you can’t stay away from it even if you try?

    The words in TUB  are things/facts.  When we reflect on these things/facts we are forming ideas and attempting to discover ideals or value. How do we recognize the value/truth? By allowing the Spirit of Truth to assist in lining up all the relationships between things and persons with cosmic reality. (Actually quote 101:6.7 says the Adjuster spiritizes them first and then passes them off to the Spirit of Truth.)

    After we recognize these realities and realize how they relate to our lives through their interrelatedness, we then have to give them meaning by making them part of our mortal experience.  We do that when the self/personality identifies with them and tries to live them.  Meaning is what experience adds to value and happiness results from the recognition of truth because it can be acted out.  Reality may exist outside of the soul but the reality recognition response occurs in the soul as a self or personal revelation of something of value, something so real and vital you can’t not want to live it and share it as part of your personality experience.  Otherwise, reality recognition is a big waste of time. Who cares if you recognize the reality of a rock unless you do something with it that contributes to the cosmos. The purpose of reality recognition is to create a well balanced, socializing, personality with a noble character capable of correlating things, meanings and values on a cosmic scale for cosmic problem solving, and that’s what we call circle progress. It’s all interrelated.

    Does the Jesusonian Gospel only have meaning and value to our soul but not also our minds?

    Your soul is your higher mind, but that aside, the mortal mind is on loan and gets weaned off the more you use your soul mind.  The two higher adjutants stay on board full force until you’re dead though because they overlap the soul.  They’re sorta the umbilical cord between material and morontia existence.  But don’t forget that the soul is were everything is made new, where the mind is transformed, where the constant spiritual renewing of your mind takes place.  If you’re not doing that, you’re dying.

    143:2.4 “By the old way you seek to suppress, obey, and conform to the rules of living; by the new way you are first transformed by the Spirit of Truth and thereby strengthened in your inner soul by the constant spiritual renewing of your mind, and so are you endowed with the power of the certain and joyous performance of the gracious, acceptable, and perfect will of God.

     

     

    #34094
    Avatar
    Gene
    Participant

    “Have you ever wondered why you can’t stay away from it even if you try?”

    Good observation and question worthy of a thread by itself.

    Yeah. But I don’t try very hard.

    UBG – ravity

    i keep thinking I will understand it all in it’s intended entirety  before this life ends or my brain dies first.

    That’s assuming the various authors and the folks that authorized the revelation are united in their intentions.

    #34097
    Bonita
    Bonita
    Participant

    That’s assuming the various authors and the folks that authorized the revelation are united in their intentions.

    That’s an odd thing to say.  Can’t imagine what you mean by that.

    As I understand….self revelation does not derive by the Adjutants or any Spirit manifestations. It’s not given as in personal and epochal revelation. It is an inherent function of mind itself. All mind has the capacity to perceive, consider, discern, and determine by its own innate nature. This is why the name….”self” revelation….revelation by the self and to the self and for the self by the very function of the self and the mind itself.

    I’ve been thinking about this all night and the more I think about it the less logical it becomes.  First you say that mind is doing its own revealing because revelation is part of its very nature. Then you say that the self is revealing to itself.  Is it the mind or is it the self that is revealing?  Personally I don’t think either one are capable of revealing squat.
    Why is the word self used in self-revelation, you ask.  Because a personality is involved.  How else would you have a self?  If the personality is doing the revealing, then the personality is functioning as a god.  The personality doesn’t have that power; it’s just a unifying pattern capable of choosing and recognizing other selves.  First the self chooses the mind where revelation takes place; then after it’s glommed onto the reality of the revelation it chooses to find a way to make it work within the other mind it has access to.  That’s where the Spirit of Truth comes in handy getting it ready for action within the life of the personality.
    9:5.5 Because the Third Person is the source of mind, do not presume to reckon that all phenomena of mind are divine. Human intellect is rooted in the material origin of the animal races. Universe intelligence is no more a true revelation of God who is mind than is physical nature a true revelation of the beauty and harmony of Paradise. Perfection is in nature, but nature is not perfect. The Conjoint Creator is the source of mind, but mind is not the Conjoint Creator.
    Mind is not the source of revelation.  Personality is not the source of revelation. Spirit is the source of revelation.  Mind interprets the meaning of revelation which leads to personality real-ization when acted upon.

    Bradly wrote:I don’t agree that the soul is the only self for mortal self revelation or for epochal revelation either.

    The soul isn’t a self unless the personality elects to claim it as part of its selfhood.  The soul is a mind with a character but no personality.

    Bradly wrote:all mind can discover and discern and learn and be educated with knowledge as self revelation and epochal revelation provide. It is innate also in the human mind 6.11 and not just morontia mind.

    Actually, it’s not the mind alone that does the discovering and discerning when it comes to revelation.  A dog can discern the difference between a rock and a piece of meat, but it cannot discern revelation.  Personality must be present and also a soul.  A personality without a soul is an animal.  Revelation comes to us as a gift through spiritual insight, which is also a gift.

    #34100
    Avatar
    Gene
    Participant

    That’s assuming the various authors and the folks that authorized the revelation are united in their intentions.

    That’s an odd thing to say. Can’t imagine what you mean by that.

    Simple humor, no real meaning.

    #34114
    Bonita
    Bonita
    Participant

    Hey Nigel,  I’d like to get back to discussing the Bohm thesis.  Would you mind if I dissect each paragraph and share my ideas as to how it pertains to TUB?  Here’s the first one . . .

    “To inquire into the question of how knowledge is to be understood as process, we first note that all knowledge is produced, displayed, communicated, transformed, and applied in thought. Thought, considered in its movement of becoming (and not merely in its content of relatively well-defined images and ideas) is indeed the process in which knowledge has its actual and concrete existence. (This has been discussed in the Introduction.)”

    So I take it he’s asking how knowledge is assigned meaning.  He states that all knowledge is a form of thought, and I agree with that.  He then says that thought evolves which I also agree with.  Finally, I think his last sentence is a little vague. It seems to me like he’s saying that the evolution of thought is the process by which knowledge itself exists, which makes no sense to me.   My opinion is that all thought is in search of meaning, and it naturally evolves in that direction.

    But I am taking liberty with definitions here.  I do have to wonder how he’s defining knowledge and understanding.  Is all knowledge automatically understood?  No it is not.  Scientists have warehouses of knowledge but only understand a thimbleful.  So I hope he means that thought is always attempting to attach meaning (understanding) to perceived data (knowledge).  If so, I concur.  How about you?

    #34133
    Bonita
    Bonita
    Participant

    “What is the process of thought? Thought is, in essence, the active response of memory in every phase of life. We include in thought the intellectual, emotional, sensuous, muscular and physical responses of memory. These are all aspects of one indissoluble process. To treat them separately makes for fragmentation and confusion. All these are one process of response of memory to each actual situation, which response in turn leads to a further contribution to memory, thus conditioning the next thought.” Bohm

    My theory is that baseline human thought is provided by the cosmic mind itself.  Our minds, after all, are described as an individualized nebula of the cosmic mind. (9:5.4; 111:1.2) I don’t think the adjutants are individualized, but are rather circuit-like contacts which minister to and work in conjunction with that underlying mind.

    9:5.4 The Conjoint Creator is the ancestor of the cosmic mind, and the mind of man is an individualized circuit, an impersonal portion, of that cosmic mind as it is bestowed in a local universe by a Creative Daughter of the Third Source and Center.

    111:1.2 There is a cosmic unity in the several mind levels of the universe of universes. Intellectual selves have their origin in the cosmic mind much as nebulae take origin in the cosmic energies of universe space.

    (483.11) 42:12.11 The liaison of the cosmic mind and the ministry of the adjutant mind-spirits evolve a suitable physical tabernacle for the evolving human being.

    So the process of thought would be something  provided by the adjutants themselves, arriving sequentially as brain growth provides capacity. I don’t think thought can be the active response of memory because that would mean thought is always looking backwards.  We know that human mind/thought is capable of looking three ways: past, present and future.  Even animals can think using both the past and present.  So the idea seems a bit retrogressive to me.

    With this statement: “We include in thought the intellectual, emotional, sensuous, muscular and physical responses of memory. ” Bohm is implying that memory is a mechanical feature involving both mind and body, a totally integrated and “indissoluble” event. Yet from my quote above (42:12.11), we know that evolution of the body is the result of mind ministry. The body is not the cause of mind evolution, but the other way around.

    I’m wondering if the memories we take with us to the mansion worlds include the “sensuous, muscular and physical responses”?  I doubt it, so I don’t think all memory has “indissoluble” components. Aside from that,  I do think the body can be trained to perform in a certain pattern, but I don’t think I would call that memory.  I’d call that physical patterning.

    Going on, Bohm claims that dissolution of the parts of memory would cause a horrible mess and the individual would not be able to form the next thought if it occurred.  Yet we know that the emotional mind does segment memory quite frequently.  Psychiatrists have all kinds of names for the emergence of fragments of repressed memories. Most make their living on it.

    I honestly cannot accept that all thought is completely dependent upon previous indissoluble memories from the past. Every thought would be based upon one single initial memory.  I wonder what that memory would be specifically, in the womb perhaps?  It seems that evolution would be ridiculously difficult if that were the case.  I can’t picture it.

    #34138
    Bonita
    Bonita
    Participant

    One of the earliest and most primitive forms of thought is, for example, just the memory of pleasure or pain, in conjunction with a visual, auditory, or olfactory image that may be evoked by an object or a situation. It is common in our culture to regard memories involving image content as separate from those involving feeling. It is clear, however, that the whole meaning of such a memory is just the conjunction of the image with its feeling, which (along with the intellectual content and the physical reaction) constitutes the totality of the judgment as to whether what is remembered is good or bad, desirable or not, etc. – Bohm

    I don’t think Bohm has any proof whatsoever concerning the first thought of an infant, or even a fetus.  Pleasure and pain are only two of the many senses available to humans, and animals too.  If the mind is working at birth, then it’s also working before birth.  What is the source of pleasure and pain in utero? I’d say the opportunity for pain and pleasure in utero is infrequent. If Bohm is correct, one would have to surmise that a fetus has no brain activity most of the time other than the growth stimulated and determined by DNA.

    So, meaning is derived from memory which is a combination of images, feelings, intellectual content and physical reaction.  But wait! Didn’t Bohm also say that intelligence is an additional or superimposed energy source that can determine if memory is relevant to a given situation?  How can intelligence be an actual part of memory and at the same time be superimposed upon that memory?  Talking in circles again, I think. So now all of  these 4 constituents of memory are also the source of judgment?  I thought he said intelligence determined relevancy?  More circles?

    Bohm continues to say that all memories fall into only two categories, good /desirable and bad/undesirable.  Are there no other kinds of memory available to humans?  Perhaps the lowest animals only have these options, I don’t know, but what about humans?  Doesn’t judgment require the self observing itself, or its memories, in order to determine if they’re worth anything at all?  Or is this stuff wholly unconscious?  I can’t make heads or tails of it, to be honest.

    #34144
    Bonita
    Bonita
    Participant

    It is clear that thought, considered in this way as the response of memory, is basically mechanical in its order of operation. Either it is a repetition of some previously existent structure drawn from memory, or else it is some combination arrangement and organization of these memories into further structures of ideas and concepts, categories, etc. These combinations may possess a certain kind of novelty resulting from the fortuitous interplay of elements of memory, but it is clear that such novelty is still essentially mechanical (like the new combinations appearing in a kaleidoscope). – Bohm

    I’ve already commented on this paragraph, but again I see “the chicken or the egg” situation.  First Bohm tells us that the earliest thought is a memory, but then goes on to tell us that thought is a response to memory. Well, which one is it? Is thought the cause of memory or the effect of memory?  How can thought be both the cause and the effect of itself? (Circles again.) Bohm solves this problem by making thought mechanical and memory a mystical indissoluble experience of the senses, it just happens. Puff!  Like magic.  (I wish I could solve all my problems that way.)

    Also, if all thought is just a mechanical kaleidoscopic rearrangement of past memories, then what happens with the present and the future? Does that mean that all thought is only about the past?  I guess new memories are magic too?  I’m pretty sure that thought begins with the here and now, then uses the past and future to reflect on the present before personality decides what to make of it.  Also, human thought is capable of dreaming things up out of nothing.  Where does that come from?   I think it’s better than magic, it’s a superpower.

    RELATED QUOTES

    12:5.10 Unspiritual animals know only the past and live in the present. Spirit-indwelt man has powers of prevision (insight); he may visualize the future. Only forward-looking and progressive attitudes are personally real. Static ethics and traditional morality are just slightly superanimal. Nor is stoicism a high order of self-realization. Ethics and morals become truly human when they are dynamic and progressive, alive with universe reality. 

    118:1.4 Experience, wisdom, and judgment are the concomitants of the lengthening of the time unit in mortal experience. As the human mind reckons backward into the past, it is evaluating past experience for the purpose of bringing it to bear on a present situation. As mind reaches out into the future, it is attempting to evaluate the future significance of possible action. And having thus reckoned with both experience and wisdom, the human will exercises judgment-decision in the present, and the plan of action thus born of the past and the future becomes existent. 

    160:2.9 The present, when divorced from the past and the future, becomes exasperatingly trivial.

     

    #34145
    Avatar
    Nigel Nunn
    Participant

    Hi Bonita,

    Thanks for working through these paragraphs. You raise lots of interesting points!

    One comment for now: your comments do not seem to relate to what he wrote; you appear to be addressing your misunderstandings, not his meanings?

    Regarding human memory, and the more or less mechanical juggling of that “protoplasmic memory material“,

    The evolutionary type of knowledge is but the accumulation of protoplasmic memory material; this is the most primitive form of creature consciousness. […]” (1111.8, 101:6.4)

    recall that for us (Adjuster-indwelt humans), our “memories” only survive the death of our psycho-somatic system in the form of a spirit transcript woven by the Adjuster:

    […]: Mortal memory of human experience on the material worlds of origin survives death in the flesh because the indwelling Adjuster has acquired a spirit counterpart, or transcript, of those events of human life which were of spiritual significance. […]” (see 450.6, 40:9.4)

    […]. The seraphim of assignment sponsors the new body, the morontia form, as the new life vehicle for the immortal soul and for the indwelling of the returned Adjuster. The Adjuster is the custodian of the spirit transcript of the mind of the sleeping survivor. […]” (341.5, 30:4.15)

    Thus nothing from our material-memory subsystem needs to be salvaged.  Which brings us back to our original exploration: what really is it that the Life Carriers have built, that the Adjutant circuits can animate such biological systems?

    And what is the relationship between (A) that measurable, “protoplasmic memory material” (101:6.4) and (B) the intellect that resides in the “rhythmic pulsations (117:5.7)” of that level of consciousness (36:5.4) of the Divine Minister?

    PS: I bumped into this (later) work by Bohm while looking for more about his (links: “pilot wave“, “movie” ) alternative to the Copenhagen confusion of Heisenberg and Bohr. Of all physicists, Bohm is the one most likely to have incorporated (unacknowledged) insights from the Urantia Book. Which makes both his physics and philosophy (hmm, and even his metaphysics) more interesting…  :good:

    I’ll add something soon,

    Nigel

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