Descartes Dualism & the 7 Realities
Descartes Dualism. Stop falsely believing that there are two realities: mental & physical. It’s time to move beyond dualism to triality.
- Discover triality by reading World Within: The Inner Life.
- We’re All Insane! Second Edition will teach you how to think better and saner.
- Read and master the life skill of perspective-taking using the best system ever: the 5TP.
Descartes Dualism: 2, 3, or 1 Basis?
- How many basses are there for reality?
- How many dimensions are there for reality?
- How many aspects are there to reality?
Descartes Dualism: 2 Bases for Reality
- Culturally, psychologically, and philosophically, we are still under René Descartes’ (1596-1650) understanding that there are two realities: mental and physical or ontological dualism.
- Or, if you prefer, the mind and body duality.
Descartes Dualism
3 Bases for Reality
- Descartes had three realities: mental, physical, and God.
- Still, it is his dualism of mental and physical that most affect our thinking today.
Descartes Dualism
One Basis for Reality: Monism
- We also still have the two main variations of monism with us.
- Monism is the belief that there is only one basis for reality, typically mental or physical.
- The so-called rationalists—the atheists, atomists, materialists, naturalists, primitivists, reductionists, and scientismists—believe in the absurd notion that there is only matter.
- Atheism Is Superstitious
- The ancient philosophical position known as idealism under its present names of—constructivism, mind over matter, modern magic, modern voodoo, modern witchcraft, new ageism, postmodernism, shamanism, the law of abundant return, the law of affinity, the law of attraction in the thought world, the law of harmonious vibration, the power of positive thinking, and the secret—all of which believe in the equally absurd notion that the only reality is mental.
- Postmodern Foolishness
- Read and master the life skill of perspective-taking using the best system ever: the 5TP.
Descartes Dualism
7 Bases for Reality Dualism
- We would be wiser to look at seven, not two different states of being, of existence.
- There are seven because each seven can and does exist independently of the other.
- Physical: inanimate or dead things, for example, rocks and dirt.
- Mental: sensations, thoughts, images, feelings, for example, imagination and emotion.
- Consciousness: there are two types: identity for self-awareness and attention for other-awareness. For example, all sentient life has both self-consciousness and other consciousness.
- Vessel mental: plants, animals, human body, soul, angels. Those things can host the mental. Yes, even trees do think. A better question is, where is the brain in a tree? The tree coordinates and directs a lot of activities. Where is the coordination occurring?
- Vessel spiritual: human soul, angel’s soul, other beings in Heaven. See the New Testament book Revelation chapter 4 for what the other beings in Heaven are.
- Life: energy, breath, or spirit. The force that animates. The enlivening principle. The power that sustains all even matter. The difference between matter that is dead and matter that is alive is that it does not have the energy to direct or use as it will.
- Spiritual: knowledge of God from God or the Holy Spirit; the Word of God or Jesus; the Spirit or Father; and the angels of God who can carry all three to us.
Descartes Dualism
1. Physical Is Not Mental
- The physical does not have the properties of the mental.
- When you say “apple” over the phone, you transmit a mental thing, not a physical one.
Descartes Dualism
2. Mental Is Not Physical
- When you are standing on planet Earth and think you are standing on Jupiter, you are still standing on planet Earth.
- Yet, you can still imagine yourself standing on Jupiter.
Descartes Dualism
3. Consciousness Is Not Mental
- Consciousness is awareness, and mental things (sensations, thoughts, images, feelings) do not have self-awareness and other awareness of their own.
- They must steal that from vessels.
- Physical things like rocks also are not aware of themselves or you.
- On the other hand, your body’s immune system is aware of yourself and others so that it might kill others.
Descartes Dualism
4. Vessel Mental Is Not Physical
- The physical is not a vessel for the mental; for example, rocks cannot host thought.
- The vessel nature is a host nature.
- The mental cannot host as it is the mental that is hosted.
- The difference is the same as the difference between a container and the contents of the container.
- The container is the host, and the contents of the container are what is hosted.
- The vessel is not consciousness, as the vessel can and does exist independently of consciousness.
Descartes Dualism
5. Vessel Spiritual Is Not the Physical Vessel
- The spiritual vessel is the only vessel capable of entertaining the Spirit with self-awareness and other awareness.
- That is, only the spiritual vessel can be aware of itself as the host to the spiritual.
- Other vessels can indeed host the Spiritual, but not with awareness.
Descartes Dualism
6. Life Is Not a Vessel
- You can have dead vessels.
- The physical is dead, that is, without life. While consciousness requires life, you can be alive and unconscious.
- Wood was once part of a vessel, a tree.
- Now that wood is only physical, not a vessel capable of hosting the mental.
- The mental content is itself dead. Human thought is just a dead thing.
- Hence, when you identify with thought, you become one of the living dead.
- It is your vessel that is alive, that has been granted life, not your thoughts.
Descartes Dualism
7. Spiritual Is Not Mental
- The Spiritual comes only from God.
- The mental comes from Satan or the Covering Cherub.
- Read and master the life skill of perspective-taking using the best system ever: the 5TP.
Descartes Dualism
Quotations Various Sources
Listed Alphabetically
“A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and in all things.” —Eleanor Roosevelt
“All language is dualistic.” —J. Krishnamurti, Can Humanity Change? p. 22
“All opposites are born of their own opposites.” —J. Krishnamurti, Can Humanity Change? p. 23
“Any man who is under 30 and is not a liberal has not heart; and any man who is over 30 and is not a conservative has no brains.” —Sir Winston Churchill, 1874-1965
“Can a man cling to the positive without any negative in contrast to which it is seen to be positive? If he claims to do so he is a rouge or a madman.” —Chung Tzu
“Duality is necessary for things but deadly for self.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“Goodness is not born of badness.” —J. Krishnamurti, Can Humanity Change? p. 22
“I am saying anything born out of its opposite contains its opposite.” —J. Krishnamurti, Can Humanity Change? p. 24
“I’m not sure I want popular opinion on my side–I’ve noticed those with the most opinions often have the fewest facts.” —Bethania McKenstry
“If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.” —Anatole France
“If we could learn how to balance rest against effort, calmness against strain, quiet against turmoil, we would assure ourselves of joy in living and psychological health for life.” —Josephine Rathbone
“Let reason go before every enterprize, and counsel before every action.” —Ecclesiasticus 38:33
“Nothing is more certain than uncertainties: / Fortune is full of fresh variety; / Constant in nothing but inconstancy.” —Richard Barnfield
“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.” — Confucius
“The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.” —Blaise Pascal
“The worst extreme view is the extreme view that extremes never exist.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it.” —George Bernard Shaw
“There are two ways to slide easily through life; to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking.” —Alfred Korzybski
“There is no such thing as absolute certainty, but there is assurance sufficient for the purpose of human life.” —John Stuart Mill
“To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything, or nothing, about it.” —Olin Miller
“To say dualism is bad or wrong is the worst kind of dualism.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
“We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.” —Eric Hoffer
- Read and master the life skill of perspective-taking using the best system ever: the 5TP.
Descartes Dualism
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Descartes Dualism
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Descartes Dualism
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- Read and master the life skill of perspective-taking using the best system ever: the 5TP.
Descartes Dualism
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- Read and discover how CBT, REBT, & Stoicism evolved into one system: STPHFR.
- Read and discover the world’s best breathing exercise for centering and peace of mind.
- Read and master the life skill of perspective-taking using the best system ever: the 5TP.