What more do you think there could be than being always awake to your true Self, and knowing it (i.e., yourself) to be infinite and blissful? Here is a clue: In Cosmic Consciousness, individuals have stabilized Transcendental Consciousness and always experience their true identity as Pure Consciousness. This remains essentially unchanged. “I” have changed (or rather, I have learned my true identity), but the world around, the relative sphere of people, trees, cars, clouds, birds, and everything else, remains the familiar world I’ve always known. In other words, one has gained the ability to perceive and experience the ultimate, Pure Consciousness, in oneself but not anywhere else.

An individual’s evolution from this stage onward involves increasing refinement of perception toward the ability to perceive Singularity or wholeness in the objects of perception as well as in oneself, to raise the objects of perception to the same infinite value as the subject. This is accomplished by elevating what we might call the “perceiving ability” of the Observer, through refining the process of observation. This is a very beautiful and rewarding phase of growth, in which the richness and splendor of the subtler realms of nature and creation begin to be perceived and enjoyed, and a sixth state of Consciousness unfolds.Studies have shown that very many people, at some time in their lives, have enjoyed wondrous moments like this description by the nineteenth-century English poet William Wordsworth, when “meadow, grove, and stream, / The earth, and every common sight, / To me did seem/ Apparelled in celestial light.” The most recent findings available from Pew Research Center show 49 percent of Americans say they have had such experiences.¹These few lines of Wordsworth reveal much of the essence of what TM Founder Maharishi Mahesh Yogi called Glorified Cosmic Consciousness or God Consciousness, in which perception of the subtle levels of nature becomes increasingly possible and real. If and when these glimpses give way to a lasting mode of being—perception of the deep beauty of creation along with inner awareness of Self at all times—this new and further elevated state of Consciousness is born.

It is a state in which the steady persistence of the Pure Consciousness characteristic of Cosmic Consciousness continues as one’s inmost, subjective reality, and alongside it, perception of all of objective reality begins to be transformed into something glorious. Again, the reality of what is there does not change; one’s perception changes to incorporate more of the truth. To an ever-increasing degree, the individual sees the perfect orderliness of the whole range of life and living, and the perfection of what is felt to be the Divine nature, in all the objects that appear to be “not-Self”—in other words, the whole field of relative creation.

The refinement of perception catalyzes the growth of love. When we see something or someone who is beautiful—a glorious sunset, a shimmering jewel, or a drop of water catching the light in myriad colors; or when we hear beautiful music, understand an equation in an “aha” moment, or grasp a fact about nature that reveals the astounding orderliness underlying all things—our hearts just naturally swell with appreciative love. It’s a normal, wonderful human experience.Love is a force that links, binds, and puts together similar as well as dissimilar and even potentially contradictory things—values, ideas, and people. In our model of Observer, Observing, and Observed (Subject, Process, and Object; Knower, Knowing, and Known; or Subject, Verb, and Object), love in its broadest meaning is the verb. It is the process. It is the link that puts together the subject with the object. There are innumerable ways two entities can be connected, bound, or linked to each other.

Jackson Kang

7/31/21

Cavendish’s motion argument argues the point that the mind is material through four premises, consisting of (1) the mind moves; (2) In order for anything x to move, x must be in space; (3) therefore, the mind must be in space; (4) if the mind is spatial, the mind is material. All of these premises conclude that the mind is material. Cavendish supports premise one because she thinks that the mind and body move as a unit, so naturally, whenever the body moves, the mind must follow it. Premise two essentially states that anything that moves has to be in, or take up, space in order to move. Cavendish supports this premise because she believes that there can only be physical motion and no immaterial motion (when immaterial objects move). Premise three states that the mind is in space: this conclusion is derived from premise one and two. Cavendish states that since the mind moves, and anything that moves is in space, the mind must be in space. Premise four states that the mind is material if spatial: Cavendish believes if an object is spatial or takes up any kind of space, then it must be a physical object and material matter, leading to the conclusion that the mind is material. While Cavendish’s motion argument is certainly valid, its soundness is debatable. Despite objections to Cavendish’s motion argument, one has many reasons to think that Cavendish’s motion argument is sound.

Cavendish’s motion argument, however, is still susceptible to objections from those who believe immaterial motion exists, and therefore premise two of the motion argument is false. Cavendish states that “though Matter might be without motion, yet motion cannot be without matter; for it is impossible that there should be an immaterial motion in Nature”, as her explanation for not believing in immaterial motion: in other words, Cavendish believes that it is impossible for objects that have no physical form to move. However, one can argue that immaterial objects can move, and such matter exists yet is primitive and will be discovered in the future. For instance, in the future a scientist would discover a type of “dark matter” that would have no properties of matter, but would still be present and moving nevertheless. Such a “dark matter” would prove immaterial motion exists, and that cavendish’s argument is unsound. Cavendish would likely respond to the “dark matter” objection by stating that scientists would not be able to discover this “dark matter” in the first place without the “dark matter” having some physical property of matter; or in other words, it would be impossible to discover/detect such a substance without it having some physical property.

In conclusion, Margaret Cavendish’s Motion Argument is sound and thoroughly supports the belief that the mind is a material substance. Cavendish’s premises and conclusion were proven to be sound and her response to the dark matter objection provides evidence as to why the mind is material.

My experiences with Covid-19 over the past year have opened my eyes to the recurring problems of the world, and the harsh realities still present in modern society. As an American American living in the United States, I have not been exposed to many anti Asian American sentiments throughout my childhood, so the 164% increase in Asian American hate crimes in 16 of the nation’s largest cities and counties(CNN) ever since the Covid-19 pandemic has revealed the many racist beliefs against Asian Americans in our society to me. For example, on March 5, 2021, an Asian woman was attacked with a hammer, causing a laceration to the head, after refusing to take off her mask despite the shouts of another woman. Other instances of Asian American hate crimes include a grieving family receiving a hateful letter on the day of their father’s funeral, telling them to “pack your bags and go back to your country where you belong”, a school board candidate of Vietnamese descent in Portland, Oregon, who found a note with the words “Kung Flu” on her doorstep, and a medical worker of Filipino descent in Los Gatos, California, who was shoved to the ground from behind by an assailant who told her to “go back to China”(BBC). Moreover, Asian racial attacks are also happening in Europe and Africa, such as a 22-year-old man punching a 24-year-old Asian man and accused him of being “the cause” of coronavirus in Brussels, Belgium (The Brussels Times) or in Cairo, Egypt, where store clerks have been hesitating to serve Japanese customers, and “corona” has also become a new slur with which to abuse Japanese people on the street (The Japan Times). It is no surprise that all of these attacks happened in 2020 and 2021, during the Covid-19 pandemic. These attacks are on the rise because of the racist conclusion that some members of society make: all Asians are to blame for the Covid-19 pandemic and the interruptions in society. It is widely accepted that Covid-19 originated in Wuhan, China: the discovery of this fact combined with the many severe Asian stereotypes that are embedded in our society, led to the increase in prejudice against Asian Americans that is resulting in the steep uprising of Asian American attacks. It is completely unjustified and racist to blame Asian Americans for the Covid-19 pandemic because we had nothing to contribute to the origins of Covid-19, yet I learn that we still get the majority of the blame in society. Day after day, Asian American racial attack after Asian American racial attack, I learn that the world around me is filled with harsh truths and racial injustice. I know, from the overwhelming amount of Asian American attacks, that society always finds a scapegoat to blame for their problems, instead of joining together to come up with solutions. I now know that in order to improve as human beings, we have to let go of our mistakes and outdated beliefs as fragments of our past, and instead look to change what is wrong in the present to create a better future. Instead of fighting over our differences we have to acknowledge that the door to change is open: we just have to take the first step towards a better society. Society must come together, express our problems and differences, and come up with solutions instead of arguing amongst each other and picking a scapegoat. Clearly, my experiences with Covid-19 has brought my attention to the racial prejudice and divisions against Asian Americans in our global society.

Jackson Kang

7/24/21

The Divisibility Argument

Rene Descartes was a firm believer in Cartesian dualism, or the belief that mental phenomena possess non-physical properties, while physical phenomena possess physical properties. Descartes attempts to provide support for Cartesian Dualism in the form of the Divisibility Argument: an argument that aims to prove that the body and mind are separate entities by providing three different premises. Furthermore, Descartes provides explanations regarding the truth of the premises, and responds to objections to the Divisibility Argument.

Descartes’ three premises of the Divisibility Argument are (1) the body/brain is divisible; (2) the mind is not divisible; (3) Leibniz’s Law is true, which eventually proves the conclusion: the mind and body are separate entities. As a believer of both substance dualism (The view that minds are immaterial substances and that there are also physical substances and properties that exist in the universe) and interactionism (the view that mental phenomena causally interact with physical phenomena), Descartes believes all his premises to be true. Premise one of the Divisibility Argument states that the body/brain is able to be divided, and is stated because the body can be physically separated into parts. Premise two of the Divisibility Argument states that the mind is not divisible: or in other words a mind cannot be divided into pieces like a physical body can. Descartes believes premise two because one’s mental consciousness and thoughts will never be two separate “voices”(normally), but instead one voice that is thinking to itself. Premise three of the Divisibility Argument states that Leibniz’s law is true. Leibniz’s law states that if two objects have the same properties, they are identical. Leibniz’s Law is essential in the Divisibility Argument because it proves soundness and validity of the argument. 

However, one could raise doubt towards Leibinz’s Law, for there are core flaws present in the law. Leibniz’s Law states that “there cannot be separate objects or entities that have all their properties in common and vice versa”: while one could not argue that there cannot be separate objects or entities that have all their properties in common, one could argue that the opposite is invalid. For example, if there are identical twins that are born from the same egg and sperm, share the same exact DNA, and look the same, their minds/mental phenomena will not be the same: in other words, they will not be carbon clones that act exactly the same. The “twins” example that was previously mentioned provides evidence as to why two identical entities do not have identical properties, thus proving Leibniz’s Law is false, further proving that the Divisibility argument is not sound. Moreover, one could argue that the premises beg the question, and one would only believe that they are true if they believe in mind-body dualism, discrediting the Divisibility Argument further. However, Descartes could counter the previous counter argument by stating that while the twins example could be used to prove Leibniz’s Law false, the twins minds were different from their identical bodies, proving that the mind and body are different entities. Either way, Descartes’ conclusion that the mind and body are separate entities are still proven true regardless of the counter argument. In conclusion, the Divisibility argument and Descartes’ response to the “twins” example provides validity and soundness to Descartes’ belief that the mind and body are separate entities.