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COSMOGENESIS: THE CREATION OF THE COSMOS
AS A DYNAMIC FUNCTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS

By: John Roland Hans Penner (johnrpenner@earthlink.net)
Location: http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Articles/LevelsCon.html
Last Edited: March 8, 2000

Prepared for:
	Annual Thomas Aquinal Philosohpy Symposium
	January 24, 1998 - 9:50am -- Cosmogenesis Lectures
	Brock U., St. Catharines (Ontario, Canada)


ROUGH DRAUGHT - requires a thorough edit
    consider it a work in progress!... :|


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--| COSMOGENESIS |-----

Modern physical-scientific ideas concerning the origins of the cosmos
generally assume the materialist view - that matter is primary, and
consciousness arises from it. However, the material view has difficulty
explaining the role and fundamental nature of consciousness. Cosmogenesis
begins with the premise that consciousness is primary, and that matter is a
manifestation of it. In order to examine the role of consciousness within
the universal creative condition, we must first understand what it is that
consciousness is, and its relation both to that which is creative in the
universe, and to that which is created. To this end, this paper begins with
an examination of the end-product: the physical electronic matter which is
usually supposed is primary, and proceeds with an examination our conscious
selves, and the role that this conscious self has in the creation.


--| The Dead Matter Universe |--- 

Physical science has been most expert in building thoughts about the
material objects within our universe, and constructing concepts in
explaining cause and effect relationships about physical electronic
phenomenon. The use of the scientific method has taught us a great deal
about the physical nature of our universe.

--| INSIDE AND OUTSIDE |---

Many people talk about consciousness in merely theoretical terms. However,
when you read this, theory is not involved in the matter at all; either you
know that you are here and reading this or not. It really does not matter
what sort of theories people make about the nature of consciousness, the
fact remains that we are here and we know it. Therefore, self-consciousness,
awareness of one's existence does not need to be determined theoretically,
it is one of the few things that can be known a-priori.

In facing the world, you have an awareness of what your sensory organs
relate to your conscious-perception. Your inside is that part of you that
can observe thoughts and feelings arise in connection with the perceptions
coming from outside.

Percepts: both sensory stimuli, and those which we can recall within our
being as memories of thoughts. They appear the same to our conscious
awareness. Percepts encompass: perception of what transpires within our
Selves, and what presents itself to our senses.

FIND: world as percept: the partridge, -- between the hearing of the
rustle in the bush, and looking for the effect, we have the THOUGHT
which seeks to unite cause and effect.


Just because the thinking subject himself is left out of the
physical-scientific conception of the universe, materialism turns to what it
knows of cause-and-effect, and therefrom deduces that thinking itself must
somehow (although the exact HOW of this is never examined too closely!)
arise from the interaction of molecules within the physical human member.
The leap from the interactions within matter to self-conscious awareness in
never actually found. If we wish to find out about this process from
perceptual phenomenon


However, this process has generally not been extended into the realm of
thinking itself. For while we are thinking about the object of our
contemplations, we leave out of the picture our very Selves.


  "The naive man... accepts life as it is, and regards things as real
  just as they present themselves to him in experience. The first step,
  however, which we take beyond this standpoint can be only this, that
  we ask how thinking is related to percept. It makes no difference
  whether or no the percept, in the shape given to me, exists
  continuously before and after my forming a mental picture; if I want
  to assert anything whatever about it, I can do so only with the help
  of thinking. If I assert that the world is my mental picture, I have
  enunciated the result of an act of thinking. and if my thinking is not
  applicable to the world, then this result is false. Between a percept
  and every kind of assertion about it there intervenes thinking.
  
  "The reason why we generally overlook thinking in our consideration
  of things has already been given... It lies in the fact that our
  attention is concentrated only on the object we are thinking about,
  but not at the same time on the thinking itself...
  
  "The first step, however, which we take beyond this standpoint can be
  only this, that we ask how thinking is related to percept. It makes no
  difference whether or no the percept, in the shape given to me, exists
  continuously before and after my forming a mental picture; if I want
  to assert anything whatever about it, I can do so only with the help
  of thinking. If I assert that the world is my mental picture, I have
  enunciated the result of an act of thinking. and if my thinking is not
  applicable to the world, then this result is false. Between a percept
  and every kind of assertion about it there intervenes thinking.
  
  "The reason why we generally overlook thinking in our consideration
  of things has already been given (see page 26). It lies in the fact that
  our attention is concentrated only on the object we are thinking
  about, but not at the same time on the thinking itself...

  "The naive consciousness...treats thinking as something which has
  nothing to do with the things, but stands altogether apart from
  them, and turns its consideration to the world. The picture which
  the thinker makes of the phenomena of the world is regarded not as
  something belonging to the things, but as existing only in the human
  head. The world is complete in itself without this picture. It is
  quite finished in all its substances and forces, and of this
  ready-made world man makes a picture. Whoever thinks thus need only
  be asked one question. What right have you to declare the world to
  be complete without thinking?"

  (Rudolf Steiner, The Philosophy of Freedom)


>>FIND: kurzwiel: 
Raymond Kurzweil presupposes this in his book "Thinking Machines"; but the
leap from interactions within matter to a grasp of consciousness as we know
it to exist in our very own being is never made. He takes the niave view of
Turring.


====

I myself do not feel there is any justification for saying that ALL acts are
simply the result of a series of cause-and-effect reactions, because if you
do, then you fail to take into account the fact that the nature of a
CONSCIOUS act MAY BE DIFFERENT than the nature of an UNCONSCIOUS ACT.
Without first making this determination, one does not have a good basis for
declaring determinism in thinking.

If one then states that a conscious act is only the result of the physical
forces that work within our brain, then you run once again into the
PRESUPOSITION: that consciousness arises from matter.

The assertion that its "all just atoms and molecules" is a theory that is
more questionable than the fact of your conscious existence itself. You are
faced with the unavoidable fact that we are self-conscious beings, because
you cannot deny the fact of your own conscious existence. However, we CAN
question whether human consciousness is a by-product of interactions within
matter or not.

Many people do maintain the belief that humans ARE nothing more than the sum
total of their bodily composition. Those that believe this will then be of
the opinion that consciousness is a by-product of a complex interaction of
molecules within the human organism, much like software running on the
hardware of a computer.

But the question is still unresolved: Is matter primary, and consciousness
an attribute of it, or is consciousness primary, and matter and energy are
the substrate into which this consciousness acts?

To simply ASSUME a-priori that consciousness arises as a by-product of
interactions within matter is simply unscientific. We therefore propose to
extend the methods of natural science into realm of thinking.


  "Materialism can never offer a satisfactory explanation of the world.
  For every attempt at an explanation must begin with the formation of
  thoughts about the phenomena of the world. Materialism thus begins
  with the thought of matter or material processes. But, in doing so, it
  is already confronted by two different sets of facts: the material
  world, and the thoughts about it. The materialist seeks to make these
  latter intelligible by regarding them as purely material processes. He
  believes that thinking takes place in the brain, much in the same way
  that digestion takes place in the animal organs. Just as he attributes
  mechanical and organic effects to matter, so he credits matter in
  certain circumstances with the capacity to think. He overlooks that,
  in doing so, he is merely shifting the problem from one place to
  another. He ascribes the power of thinking to matter instead of to
  himself. And thus he is back again at his starting point. How does
  matter come to think about its own nature? Why is it not simply
  satisfied with itself and content just to exist? The materialist has
  turned his attention away from the definite subject, his own I, and
  has arrived at an image of something quite vague and indefinite. Here
  the old riddle meets him again. The materialistic conception cannot
  solve the problem; it can only shift it from one place to another."

  (Rudolf Steiner, from Chapter 2 of The Philosophy of Freedom).




>> FIND: edit this paragraph!
Many today are of the view that all our behaviour can be explained by endless
stream of physical cause-and-effect random jumping together of the universe
ooze, mud, and a little lightning, and this from magicially appearing atoms
that come out of some nebulous big bang, of whose origin stephen halking
rounds out to a definite nothingness, and which most science will not even
deem it their task to think about origins. then, in a magically evolving
by chance permutation of atoms, they continue it into explaining this atomistic
electronic universe to be the general cause of our dispositions and feeling
to completely external causes. But this presents a one-sided picture. Through
our individuality, through what we call ourselves an "I", we are united with
another world that cannot be touched, but is active in our Thinking.
Activity in this realm -- if people cooperate or fight have real cosequences
on the existing outside physical world, its effect must be included in
the total world picture. Clearly, we can see that genetic endowment does give
us a predisposition towards certain behavioural traits, but it is in nowise
clear that All ofour behaviours stems merely from the nurture of external
circumstances andour genetic endowment.

This makes Physical science blind in one eye, because it assumes a-priori
the physical as the primal foundation of existence, and it sees
consciousness as the froth or foam which rides atop these processes. It must
do so, as it does not want to deal with the study of the inside
consciousness aspect of human existence. It is seen to be too intangible,
too unmeasureable; it can't be digitized. We seek to explain the effects of
consciousness in a long chain of action and reaction from external forces --
and that these cause by due necesity all our subsequent actions. All causes
are traced out to external realities. Only that which can be empirically
measured and quantified is given credit for existing in "actuality".

Yet, when a world view is constructed based only on physically measurable
processes, and the role of consciousness is ignored, the model that is
formed soon comes against "insurmountable limits of knowledge", and is
therefore limited and deficient. What I am writing here is not a simple
agitation against the achievments of physical science, but aims to highlight
the fact that physical science needs to have its scope enlarged to encompass
both aspects of reality.


--| The Visible Human |--- 

Because physical-science admits only to the outside material (i.e. physical
electronic) aspect of reality, it considers only the physical aspect of
things. Hence, most of what science knows about the human organism is not
gained from studying the human as a whole, but from studying only the
physical aspect--the human corpse*.

* Visible Human Project:
(http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/visible/visible_human.html)

Yet, measuring the external effects of experiences such as joy and sorrow
can only gives a partial picture. The measured physical effects produced by
an organism experiencing happiness really says nothing of the inner
experience that organism undergoes within itself. But science traces the
root of all such experiences to physical phenomena, and looks for the causes
in a chain of cause-and-effect chemical reactions within the organism. The
actual experience of joy and sorrow within the organism itself however is
not considered to be a part of the "actual" reality; they are seen to stand
outside of reality merely as limited subjective effects within our
individual being.

>> FIND: call in turring info from "mechanical animals article": Because
only the external aspects are taken into account, a test for intelligence
was proposed by Alan Turring in what is commonly knows as "The Turring
Test". However, this test is niave in that it assumes that because the
external results are similar, the inner process is the same!

If we consider the inner experience undergone by ones consciousness however,
we quickly come to realise that in order to know the true significance of a
series of external impressions, one must penetrate into this inner
experience of the conscious being, and ask oneself not only about the
content of one's thoughts as it arises in relation to external percepts, but
what one DOES with that thought content once it is there. When we penetrate
to this question within our own being, we find a silent presence standing
there behind our thoughts which observes and directs them, and it is here
where we find our Selves. With this inner experience of Being, physical
science does not deal. Yet it is with this very inner being that we develop
through to Causes which can act upon the external world in ways that are not
explicable by determination through mere external cause and effect chains of
action. We realise that although many times we may act without conscious
knowledge of the causes of our action, we have the ability to come to a
conscious grasp of the underlying causes of our actions, and alter our
course of action in an expression of our self-conscious WILL.

Within our being, we come across the widest range of possibility in thinking
and in feeling. But the direction we take in these things comes by choosing
our Attitude in thinking, and this in turn has a real effect within the
physical world. This very fact is excluded from the physical causes which
are said to be acting out and shaping the course of all events. Thus this
self conscious awareness which penetrates into the physical world through
the conscious driving of the thought process within the being of man is said
to be an illusion. Because things such as love, hate, and impatience cannot
be directly meausured, they are regarded as a mere effect rather than a
cause.



===== 

so -- we come to the point where we have ourselves in two -- a) the world
which we contain within our own conscious being, and live constantly within
by virtue of *thinking* -- from here, we can never escape, nor can anyone
enter -- it is bound up with our own ego, what we call "I" or our "self". at
the same time we live in: b) the physical perceptual world as it presents
itself to our senses. the world therefore presents itself to us in a twofold
manner: one through external percepts, and the other through inner
experience. yet this twofold world is united in our very existence!


--| What Befall Us |-----

  "That which is in a man, not that which lies beyond his vision
  is the main factor in what is about to befall him: the operation upon him
  is the event."

(George Macdonald, from "Lillith", chapter XVI, 1895).

In a footnote to "The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World
Conception", Rudolf Steiner makes the following assertion:

  "Therefore, what is said in this writing
  about the essential nature of knowledge
  holds good also for the knowledge of the spiritual worlds,
  with which my later writings are concerned.

  The sense-world in its manifestation to human perception is not reality.
  It possesses its reality in connection with that
  which reveals itself in man in the form of thought
  concerning this sense-world.
  Thoughts belong to the reality of the sensibly perceived; only,
  that which is present in the sense-existence as thought manifests itself,
  not externally in this existence, but inwardly in man.
  But thought and sense-perception are a single essence.
  While man enters the world in sense-perception,
  he separates thought from reality;
  but the thought merely manifests itself in another place within the mind.
  The separation between percept and thought
  possesses no significance for the objective world;
  it occurs only because man takes up a position in the midst of existence.
  It is to him that this appearance thus occurs,
  as if thought and percept were twofold.
  Nor is it otherwise in the case of spiritual perception.
  When this occurs by reason of processes in the soul which I have described
  in my more recent book Knowledge of the Higher World and Its Attainment,
  this then forms likewise one aspect of (spiritual) existence;
  and the corresponding thoughts of the spiritual form the other aspect.
  A difference occurs only to this extent, that sense-perception
  reaches its consummation through thought in reality, as it were,
  in an upper direction at the beginning of the spiritual; whereas
  spiritual perception is experienced in its true being
  from this beginning downward.
  The fact that the experience of sense-perception occurs
  through the senses formed by Nature,
  and that of the perception of the spiritual
  through spiritual organs of perception,
  first formed in a psychic manner,
  does not constitute a distinction in principle."

(Rudolf Steiner, from a footnote in: "The Theory of Knowledge Implicit
in Goethe's World Conception")



--| LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS: MINERAL; PLANT; ANIMAL; EGO |---

Physical science analyses only the physical phenomenon of nature, and
therefrom proposes the theory that CONSCIOUSNESS arises as an attribute
of a complex interaction of dynamic physical processes. In short, matter
is primary, and consciousness is an attribute of interactions within
matter. Consciousness is seen to be a sort of software that runs on
the CPU of the brain. This is the view of Raymond Kurtzwiel in his
book, "Thinking Machines", and many of our contemporaries.

There is another way of looking at the matter however that many
physical-scientific thinkers will not admit to, and it is this: that if you
consider conscious-sentience to be primary, and life-growth processes within
matter to be a manifestation of an active sentience working within the realm
of matter, then many of the inexplicable facts of nature are resolved rather
neatly. But in order to understand how this can be, we must delineate of
what the levels between matter and consciousness are comprised.


-- MINERAL -- PLANT -- ANIMAL -- EGO --

- Looking at a rock and a Plant, ask yourself what is the fundamental
difference between them? A rock is inanimate, it does not GROW, whereas a
plant GROWS. It takes mineral up into itself, digests the rock and soil and
GROWS into a new form.

- From this we can understand that a plant has something that a rock does
not have; and that something about the plant which causes it to grow can be
called its "Growth Attribute".

- So the difference between a plant and a rock is that the plant has both a
physical mineral structure which can be touched and measured, and it also
has another attibute which causes it to grow, and the rock has a physical
structure only without a Growth Attribute.

- When this growth attribute is removed from the plant, it is said to "die"
- it becomes a dead shriveled up piece of vegetation. It then has only a
Material Attribute, and no longer contains the Growth Attribute. It is then
nothing more than re-formed mineral substance; life has left it.

- Incidentally, all animals have a dependency on plants for their life. All
food animals eat must at some point have been grown. There is nothing that
we eat that was not at some point alive with growth. This is because humans
and animals cannot digest mineral substance. Animals depend on the Growth
Attribute of plants to transform mineral substance into edible substance.
Machines depend on external sources to convert energy into electricity. It
is a more advanced technology that can DIGEST its surroundings.

- Now, looking at a plant and an animal, we can ask the question: What is
the difference between a plant and an animal? There is something about the
animal which causes it to be able to be moved by it's passions, it's
desires, it's instincts. It's limbs and organs are formed according to this
force, and allows this force to express itself in action. An animal has
passions and desires, a plant does not. When the Passion body is removed
from the Growth and Physical bodies, an animal is said to be "asleep" (i.e.
it continues to grow, but is no longer animated by its passions and desires
for the duration). When the Passion AND Growth bodies are removed from the
physical body, the animal is said to be "dead"; only the corpse remains.

- Now compare: the plant stays in place, but unlike the stone, it grows from
the soil, and moves the soil and water along itself in such a way that it
grows. In addition to this, the animal has something about it which causes
it to move it's place, and follow it's instincts and passions. So are it's
organs formed to serve these instincts and passions. When it is hungry, it
can move itself to obtain food. The plant however must accept it's fate. If
it is stepped on, there is nothing about it that can get itself to move of
it's own volition. The animal, however, when in danger, can move itself so
that it gets out of danger. This something that causes the animal to move
about from place to place and determine it's course (which the plant does
not have) is what is called it's Passion or "astral" body; it contains the
passions, instincts, and character of an animal.

- From this we can see that if someone has offended you, and you act with
anger or desire and make a nasty sort of comment in response, this comes as
a result of feelings of sympathy or antipathy arising from within you. But
looking closely, between your perception and feeling and your response lies
thinking. As we become consciously aware of the causes of our actions, we
note the difference our attitude taken towards the thoughts and feelings
produces when *decided* upon by our "Self". Within your Self, you have the
ability to reprogramme your thought processes by determining this attitude.
The attitude you take in relation to thoughts and feelings that come to you
through your physical sensory organs can be determined by your WILL. While
it is true that outer processes can alter your course like the current in a
river, the WILL which proceeds form one's self acts as a rudder and allows
us to navigate our course as free autonomous beings.

- Thus, we have the bridge between the physical and spiritual worlds. We see
how the habits, instincts, desires, and passions extend from the
individuality, or Ego, and work down into the growth body. The Growth
organism conforms in accordance to the pre-existing HABITS of the Passion
body. Then from the modified Growth organism, a new PHYSICAL structure
results: A structure which inherently conforms to the circumstances in which
it performs its growth, just as a tree may grow right around a metal bar
lodged within it. We have increasingly dense structures conformed to the
cyclic repetition of movements beginning with Ego. Here, it is considered
that Consciousness is primary, and the material world is a substrate into
which independent consciousness acts.


If we consider Einstein's statement that, "Physical concepts are the free
creations of the human mind and are not, however it may seem, uniquely
determined by the external world."

(Einstein/Infeld in "The Evolution of Physics" 1938).

How can something be the free creation of the human mind, and not be uniquely
determined by the outside world! A rather remarkable statement. But this use
of the word "external"... what is that? -- the world within you,and the
world without you. You still cannot deny your ownconscious existence.
Whether you believe your self-awareness to "rise uplike a sort of result of
the electronic software of consciousness" -- whichis the prevalent view
today -- we can still not preclude the possibilitythat it is perhaps the
other way around -- that the electronic activity doesn't result in a
"consciousness" activity being enacted within thehardware of our brains, but
the electronic activity of this "consciousness"is created by the intrusion
of self-conscious awareness into this electronic activity called
"thinking"...


Rudolf Steiner has an excellent observation in his Autobiography: "if you
maintain that, when you say 'i think,' this is merely the necessary effect of
the occurrences in your brain-nerve system. only these occurrences are
areality. so it is, likewise, when you say 'i am this or that,' 'i go,'
andso forth. but observe this -- you do not say, 'my brain thinks,' 'mybrain
sees this or that,' 'my brain goes.' if, however, you have really cometo the
opinion that what you theoretically maintain is actually true, youmust
correct your form of expression. when you continue to speak of 'i,' youare
really Iying. But you cannot do otherwise than follow your soundinstinct
against the suggestion of your theory. experience offers you adifferent
group of facts from that which your theory makes up. your consciousness
calls your theory a lie." (Rudolf Steiner, p.56-57, Autobiography)


there is a point where your conceptions of the world have to meet your
actual existence and activity within the world. you cannot exclude the
observer and his effect on the overall system. you actually participate in
the universe that you form of as a conception but still lies outside of
your self-awareness as perceptions of a series of individual experiences
to your bodyily organs. you have that existence which remains solely bound
up with your own inidividual experience, and also that outside world which
comes to meet you through the senses and organs of your body. you have
to acknowledge that there is an inside, and an outside to your universe,
and your inside impinges on the external universe through your physical
perceptions, and your actions back out into it. a thought is a thing in
the inner-world, as much as a rock is a thing in the outer world, and
has its effect on the organisation of the outer world which is greater
than the whole, and which defies entropy. the notion of entropy is built
on the thinking that begins with precluding the self-conscious awareness,
and makes the faulty assumption that consciousness is an attribute of
matter, rather than matter a manifestation of consciousness.


| Yes, I'm aware that I exist. However, I don't believe that my existence 
| does anything for this problem but provide another vehicle through which 
| to create entropy. I don't think my consciousness has anything to do with 
| it except for the synapses firing, which causes a minute amount of heat.

Thoughts of entropy are based on the notion of the conservation of
matter and energy in the universe. However, from the other way around,
"There is no external conservation of matter! Matter is transformed into
semblance and semblance is raised to reality by the will. The law of
Conservation of Matter and Energy affirmed by physics is a delusion,
because account is taken of the natural world only. The truth is that
matter is continually passing away in that it transformed into semblance;
and a new creation takes place in that through man..." (p.60-61)

"It is nothing else than feebleness of thought into which man lapses
when he accepts the existence of fixed, ever-enduring atoms. What reveals
itself tous through thinking that is in accordance with reality is that
matter is continuously dissolved away to nullity and continually rebuilt
out ofnullity. It is only because whenever matter dies away, new matter
comes into being, that people speak of conservation of matter."

(Rudolf Steiner, "The Bridge between Universal Spirituality and the
Physical Constitution of Man", p. 62-63).


If it is true that you go by objective fact, then you cannot immediately
say that you only regard as true that which is physical-electronically
empircally proven. you can have another sort of proof -- just as you can
provide a mathematical "proof" of the validity of some formulaic statement,
you can use this to organise your thinking in as clear a manner as the
outworking of mathematics. from this, you can begin to work with thought
components just as you do with objects in the external world. a more
rigourous way of thinking is required. insurmountable limits to knowledge
presume the inability of consciousness to transform itself of its own
accord-- and therein lies life.

the movement exists; and the organ forms around it.

what is it that it that grows from ever alternating night and day;
sleep and wake; into the sea out of the sea...?
you die, and yet you live!
for you are not your body.
we persist! as Gothe so poetically puts it:

  In the tides of life, in action's storm,
  a fluctuant wave,
  a shuttle free,
  birth and the grave,
  an eternal sea.
  a weaving, flowing
  life, all-glowing,
  thus, at time's humming loom
  'tis my hand prepares
  the garment of life
  which the diety wears!

  and until thou truly hast,
  this dying and becomming,
  thou are but a troubled guest
  o'er this dark earth roaming.

  (Goethe)


Each Human then is a bridge between two worlds -- the physical universe into
which we develop our cut-off and self-conscious living activity within our
physical bodies during waking consciousness, and also a spiritual world
inwhich we also exist and can grasp only through INNER THOUGHT. It is here,
behind these thoughts and experiences, where stands mysteriously this silent
being called our Selves.  But as soon as we consider our Selves,
we immediately confront ourselves as twofold beings -- as Goethe proclaims in
Faust:

  "Two souls, alas, are housed within my breast,
  and each will wrestle for the mastery there.
  The one has passion's craving crude for love,
  and hugs aworld where sweet the senses rage;
  the other rises strongly from the gloom
  to loft fields of ancient heritage."

  (Goethe, Faust I, Scene 2)




--| Rudolf Steiner on Conscious Human Action |-----

Is man in his thinking and acting a spiritually free being, or is he
compelled by the iron necessity of purely natural law? ...It is one of the
sad signs of the superficiality of present-day thought that a book which
attempts to develop a new faith out of the results of recent scientific
research,* has nothing more to say on this question than these words:

  With the question of the freedom of the human will we are
  not concerned. The alleged freedom of indifferent choice has
  been recognized as an empty illusion by every philosophy
  worthy of the name. The moral valuation of human action and
  character remains untouched by this problem.
  (David Friedrich Strauss, Der alte und neue Glaube).

It is not because I consider that the book in which it occurs has any
special importance that I quote this passage, but because it seems to me to
express the view to which the thinking of most of our contemporaries manages
to rise in this matter. Everyone who claims to have grown beyond the
kindergarten stage of science appears to know nowadays that freedom cannot
consist in choosing, at one's pleasure, one or other of two possible courses
of action. There is always, so we are told, a perfectly definite reason why,
out of several possible actions, we carry out just one and no other.

...in combating the concept of free will. The germs of all the relevant
arguments are to be found as early as Spinoza. All that he brought forward
in clear and simple language against the idea of freedom has since been
repeated times without number, but as a rule enveloped in the most
hair-splitting theoretical doctrines, so that it is difficult to recognize
the straightforward train of thought which is all that matters. Spinoza
writes in a letter of October or November, 1674:

  I call a thing free which exists and acts from the pure necessity
  of its nature, and I call that unfree, of which the being and
  action are precisely and fixedly determined by something else.
  Thus, for example, God, though necessary, is free because he
  exists only through the necessity of his own nature. Similarly,
  God cognizes himself and all else freely, because it follows
  solely from the necessity of his nature that he cognizes all. You
  see, therefore, that for me freedom consists not in free decision,
  but in free necessity.
 
  But let us come down to created things which are all
  determined by external causes to exist and to act in a fixed and
  definite manner. To perceive this more clearly, let us imagine
  a perfectly simple case. A stone, for example, receives from an
  external cause acting upon it a certan quantity of motion, by
  reason of which it necessarily continues to move, after the
  impact of the external cause has ceased. The continued motion
  of the stone is due to compulsion, not to the necessity of its
  own nature, because it requires to be defined by the thrust of
  an external cause. What is true here for the stone is true also
  for every other particular thing, however complicated and
  many-sided it may be, namely, that everything is necessarily
  determined by external causes to exist and to act in a fixed and
  definite manner.
 
  Now, please, suppose that this stone during its motion thinks and
  knows that it is striving to the best of its ability to continue in
  motion. This stone, which is conscious only of its striving and is
  by no neans indifferent, will believe that it is absolutely free, and
  that it continues in motion for no other reason than its own will to
  continue. But this is just the human freedom that everybody claims
  to possess and which consists in nothing but this, that men are
  conscious of their desires, but ignorant of the causes by which they
  are determined. Thus the child believes that he desires milk of
  his own free will, the angry boy regards his desire for vengeance
  as free, and the coward his desire for flight. Again, the drunken
  man believes that he says of his own free will what, sober
  again, he would fain have left unsaid, and as this prejudice is
  innate in all men, it is difficult to free oneself from it. For,
  although experience teaches us often enough that man least of
  all can temper his desires, and that, moved by conflicting passions,
  he sees the better and pursues the worse, yet he considers
  himself free because there are some things which he desires
  less strongly, and some desires which he can easily inhibit
  through the recollection of something else which it is often
  possible to recall.

Because this view is so clearly and definitely expressed it is easy to
detect the fundamental error that it contains. The same necessity by which a
stone makes a definite movement as the result of an impact, is said to
compel a man to carry out an action when impelled thereto by any reason. It
is only because man is conscious of his action that he thinks himself to be
its originator. But in doing so he overlooks the fact that he is driven by a
cause which he cannot help obeying. The error in this train of thought is
soon discovered. Spinoza, and all who think like him, overlook the fact that
man not only is conscious of his action, but also may become conscious of
the causes which guide him. Nobody will deny that the child is unfree when
he desires milk, or the drunken man when he says things which he later
regrets. Neither knows anything of the causes, working in the depths of
their organisms, which exercise irresistible control over them. But is it
justifiable to lump together actions of this kind with those in which a man
is conscious not only of his actions but also of the reasons which cause him
to act? Are the actions of men really all of one kind? Should the act of a
soldier on the field of battle, of the scientific researcher in his
laboratory, of the statesman in the most complicated diplomatic
negotiations, be placed scientifically on the same level with that of the
child when it desires milk: It is no doubt true that it is best to seek the
solution of a problem where the conditions are sinmplest. But inability to
discrinminate has before now caused endless confusion. There is, after all,
a profound difference between knowing why I am acting and not knowing it. At
first sight this seems a self-evident truth. And yet the opponents of
freedom never ask themselves whether a motive of action which I recognize
and see through, is to be regarded as compulsory for me in the same sense as
the organic process which causes the child to cry for milk

...This leads us straight to the standpoint from which the subject will be
considered here. Have we any right to consider the question of the freedom
of the will by itself at all? And if not, with what other question must it
necessarily be connected?

If there is a difference between a conscious motive of action and an
unconscious urge, then the conscious motive will result in an action which
must be judged differently from one that springs from blind impluse. Hence
our first question will concern this difference, and on the result of this
enquiry will depend what attitude we shall have to take towards the question
of freedom proper.

What does it mean to have knowledge of the reasons for one's action? Too
little attention has been paid to this question because, unfortunately, we
have torn into two what is really an inseparable whole: Man. We have
distinguished between the knower and the doer and have left out of account
precisely the one who matters most of all - the knowing doer.

It is said that man is free when he is controlled only by his reason and not
by his animal passions. Or again, that to be free means to be able to
determine one's life and action by purposes and deliberate decisions.

Nothing is gained by assertions of this sort. For the question is just
whether reason, purposes, and decisions exercise the same kind of compulsion
over a man as his animal passions. If without my co-operation, a rational
decision emerges in me with the same necessity with which hunger and thirst
arise, then I must needs obey it, and my freedom is an illusion...

What distinguishes man from all other organic beings arises from his
rational thinking. Activity he has in common with other organisms. Nothing
is gained by seeking analogies in the animal world to clarify the concept of
freedom as applied to the actions of human beings. Modern science loves such
analogies. When scientists have succeeded in finding among animals something
similar to human behaviour, they believe they have touched on the most
important question of the science of man. To what misunderstandings this
view leads is seen, for example, in the book The Illusion of Freewill, by P.
Ree, where the following remark on freedom appears:

  It is easy to explain why the movement of a stone seems to
  us necessary, while the volition of a donkey does not. The causes
  which set the stone in motion are external and visible, while
  the causes which determine the donkey's volition are internal
  and invisible. Between us and the place of their activity there
  is the skull of the ass. . . . The determining causes are not visible
  and therefore thought to be non-existent. The volition, it is
  explained, is, indeed, the cause of the donkey's turning round,
  but is itself unconditioned; it is an absolute beginning.*
  (Die Illusion der Willensfreiheit, 1885, page 5).

Here again human actions in which there is a consciousness of the motives
are simply ignored, for Ree declares that "between us and the place of their
activity there is the skull of the ass." To judge from these words, it has
not dawned on Ree that there are actions, not indeed of the ass, but of
human beings, in which between us and the action lies the motive that has
become conscious. Ree demonstrates his blindness once again, a few pages
further on, when he says:

  We do not perceive the causes by which our will is determined,
  hence we think it is not causally determined at all.

But enough of examples which prove that many argue against freedom without
knowing in the least what freedom is.

That an action, of which the agent does not know why he performs it, cannot
be free, goes without saying. But what about an action for which the reasons
are known? This leads us to the question of the origin and meaning of
thinking. For without the recognition of the thinking activity of the soul,
it is impossible to form a concept of knowledge about anything, and
therefore of knowledge about an action. When we know what thinking in
general means, it will be easy to get clear about the role that thinking
plays in human action.

(Rudolf Steiner, *The Philosophy of Freedom*, from Chapter 1).

--


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--| PART II - THE CREATION AND SUSTAINED DEVELOPMENT
--| OF GOD - THE CREATOR, AND ROLE OF IN DEVELOPMENT
--| OF THE COSMOGENESIS...

After these views, I offer some of my own Interpretations and Speculations
in the following outline which relates the fact of our united Material and
Physical Existence to the process of the Outworking of the Creation in
the act of Cosmogenesis as follows:

- after establishing the differences in levels of consciousness,
  development of the terms: physical (1a); ether (1b);
  astral (2). differencens and attriubutes of.

- development of spirit (3), which allows possibility of ego - self
  awareness the "i".

- bridge of relationship between physical - conscious diety continues
  with development of: atmic-4; budhic-5; monadic-6; and logoic
  plane - DEITY (7).

- through an understanding of the relationships between the physical
  world and the consciousness that dwells within it, we come to think
  of the universe as consisting of denser and denser planes of consciousness
  begining with the most subtle in nature - pure consciousness - and
  proceeding to denser and denser forms, finally arriving at physical matter.

- from this, we arrive at an understanding of the the on-going process
  of creation - the cosmogenesis.


Now if we may turn around and look at this development from the other end of
things. Following development of the cosmos down into denser and denser
forms of conscioussness, we start a totally pure and primary creative
consciousness -- originator of causes which then work their way down into
denser and denser forms: From the realm of Archetypes, down into the being
of Thought, down into Ego (i.e. Self Aware Individualized entities that
persist), and down through Ego into Passions, Habits and Behaviours, and
from these are formed the forces of growth which determines the shapes into
which Flesh and Vegetable kingdoms recieved their Life and Growth, and then
from theses Growth forces, are shaped all the basic primary matters which
constitute physical and electronic matter. From this Living Nature, man is
united in the realm of thought to the higher realms, and thus becomes
co-creator, modifier of the planet as a social organism. Man takes the wood
and steel and air and physical matter, and through the power of thought can
manipulate them into tools and parts and products. The continuation of
evolution's creativity lies in our common ability to unite together
Consciously as once man was unconsciously.


--| First the Form, then the matter is directed to grow |--- 

FIND:In Steiner's *An Outline of Occult Science*, we have the following stages:
FIND:... spirits of form, etc.

-- 

We concieve of the creation of the physical universe to be the result of the
active process of Spirit into matter as the active inner force which imbues
all existence with Life and creation, of which man is now becoming a
conscious part through the spiritual activity of Thinking.

So stands our relation with our Creator - from out of himself, a seed of
eternal spirit is deployed into this world, as a drop of water is out of the
ocean, and this seed of eternal spirit takes unto itself sheaths of ego,
astral, ether, and physical being, and in leaving the world of spirit,
detaches itself for a time, and joins the ether and physical bodies in
development in a mother's womb at conception, and incarnates as a seperated
physical entity into this world in which we now interact. An indepent drop
of creation, we work into this world for a time, and then leave again
through death.


--| new outline |---

i) - dead matter, physical universe, build-up to explain
  all actions and what goes on.
- end w/materialism only displaces the question of THINK.

ii) - levels CON: mineral; plant; animal; ego

iii) - conscious human action

iv) - occult science: HUMANS ARE OLDEST BEINGS.
      they've had longest to develop. they've gone
      through the mineral kingdom; then plant added;
      then animals added, then ego, no consciousness.
    - animals have only gone through: min;plant,anim.
      they have not yet recieved the conscious soul.

v) what befalls us.

vi) - Entropy and Conservation of Matter


- Inside and Outside.
- Conscious Human Action
- Visible Human (Corpse)
- Materialism Displaces question of THINKING (quote)
- The Role of THINKING
- What Befalls Us
- Levels Consciousness: Mineral; Plant, Animal; Ego
- Einstein "Physical Concepts are free creation of mind..."
- Entropy and Conservation of Matter
- Spiritual World: Occult Science: Rounds of Creation
- We have: matter, plant, animal, in humans, we have again
  for the first time a bridge back to the bridge back to the
  spiritual world through the facility of THINKING.
- Steiner's Conscious Human Action

-- 

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