More philosophical ruminations

Continuing this post, I agree with the main point both Traleg Kyabgon and Wilber make in that any meditative experience is not a thing or experience in itself, that interpretation is part and parcel of it. So it matters a great deal how we interpret it, hence postmetaphysics of the sort Habermas explains and the WC lattice. Which is a prime directive in this forum, btw, challenging the metaphysics of the thing in itself and that we have direct, unfiltered, privileged access to it.

Cognitive science is also helpful in this contextualization, exploring how we categorize in the first place and how that relates and filters reality per se. That includes Thompson's work from 1st, 2nd and 3rd person perspectives with his scientifically empirical, phenomenological and philosophical approaches with adepts in Tibetan Buddhism, himself a 1st person meditative explorer.

I have no quibble with all the varieties of meditative experience or their unquestionable benefits, just with traditional interpretations that include the myth of the given. I have worked such practices for over 4 decades now and appreciate the benefits so derived.

We might also explore Zak Stein's recent IR paper on metamodernism, which lists some of its tenets. E.g.:

"To be anti-essentialist, not believing in 'ultimate essences' such as matter, consciousness, goodness, evil, masculinity, femininity or the like – but rather that all these things are contextual and interpretations made from relations and comparisons. Even the today so praised 'relationality' is not an essence of the universe" (189).

Granted the apparent contradiction between "all these things are contextual and interpretations and comparisons" while not being "relationality" is a story for another day, possibly related to the emptiness of emptiness doctrine from a certain interpretation!? Or perhaps he criticizing "the today" version of relationality, conflated with that evil green pomo version?

He also said:

"To see that the world is radically, unyieldingly and completely socially constructed, always relative and context bound. To no longer believe in an atomistic, mechanical universe where the ultimate stuff is matter, but rather to view the ultimate nature of reality as a great unknown that we must metaphorically capture in our symbols, words and stories. To accept the view of a world being newly born again and again."

Again, this is where the cognitive science of basic categories, image schema and metaphor come in to help us understand how we are shaped by our neurology and body, our interactions with culture and the environment, in understanding how and why we interpret things as we do. Being the science of both interiors and exteriors it doesn't offer ultimate answers, just conditional ones that are "newly born again and again" with experiment and experience.

He also said this directly related to this IPS thread inquiry:

"To explore visions of panpsychism, i.e. that consciousness is everywhere in the universe and 'as real' as matter and space. But panpsychism should not be confused with animistic visions of all things having 'spirits.'"

Again I'd qualify that perhaps all things have interiority like Bruce described, which goes all the way up and down, but not consciousness, which is maybe what he's implying by "spirits?" Recall that per above consciousness is not an "ultimate essence," nor is matter, for that matter.