Michael also asked:

I am not clear about what Jurgen Lawrenz calls 'instantiation of self'. How in Lawrenz's theory one
can escape the problem of illusion?

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It just occurred to me that I can give you a first rate example from 'real life' as a helpmate for
understanding what I mean by Mind (Soul, Spirit) being 'instantiated' in a Self.

I leave undefined, as a matter which is neither scientifically nor philosophically ascertainable, whether
this soul or mind or spirit therefore pre-exists or not. I'm cautiously inclined to answer this question in
the negative, although it makes it more difficult. It would be easy enough, today, to accept Erigena's
principle and suppose that the universe is infused with the spirit of God which seeks instantiation in
humans. But my scientific research has persuaded me that the solution to this enigma is not as
readily to hand. In the past, philosophers without science took the easy route of extrapolating from the
human upon the divine dimension (and this includes eastern thinkers, Indian as well as Chinese and
Arabic); but this is no longer feasible now that Kant has incontrovertibly shown the incompatibility not
only of these dimensions with each other, but that our concept of infinity is deficient, for the same
reason. One of the most important tasks facing philosophy is to work out an adequate concept of
infinity. No philosopher known to me has even begun to tackle this.

In my philosophy the human creature is an animal (a mammal); take away the mind and you have
simian showing minor somatic variations to chimpanzees. Accordingly the difference cannot be
physical. Rather, it is a question that there is A BIAS in operation in the universe, which is easily seen
in the fact that all matter in some way or another forms structures and that all the chemical elements
have 'predilections' for assembling themselves. In a word, I repudiate the notion of 'chance'.
Assembly may be undirected, but the bias sees to it that the 'chance' occurs. All of chemistry is
devoted to the study of these biases, and human chemical engineers have discovered a numbers of
artificial combinations that still work, but do not occur spontaneously: so here the human mind is
introducing another BIAS. This is one reason why I say: The concept of unilateral illusion is itself an
illusion. If we can 'interfere' with the spontaneous reality there is, then we must ipso facto have
access to that reality.

Now the important criterion is this: that among that suite of naturally occurring chemical elements
there is one, the carbon atom, whose BIAS is such as to give rise, under certain conditions
(temperature, chemically suitable environment) yet altogether spontaneously and without coercion, to
macro-molecules with the potential to transform into organisms. These entities (initially bacteria)
possess, in turn, a BIAS to 'upgrade', to 'complexify'; and thus in the natural course of evolutionary
passage, small communities which we call 'cells' arose as viable and independent living things.

At this point I'm going to jump over a few billion years of evolution. When the human being (or
hominid) turns up some 2—5 million years ago, we find that this 'upgrading' has arrived at a truly
mind-boggling complexity, not just relative to its body functions, but especially in relation to its
nervous system. The important point here is this: that the human brain is made up entirely of a
special variety of cells we call 'neurons'. Now it may be news to you that all these neurons are also
organisms and accordingly individually alive. I have been amazed to discover that in this age of
science and the universal distribution of knowledge, most peoplenot a few scientists among them
are so scientifically illiterate as to be unaware of this and instead believe that the brain is an
'instrument' or even a computer running software! In fact (let me stress this: IN FACT) the brain's 100
million plus neurons are a society all of their own, who make their living by building and working at the
structures by which we experience sensations and perceptions, who live and feed, get sick and tired
and eventually die just as we do.

It is these neurons who 'created' or 'invented', as a separate process, the mind. The conditions under
which this occurred are unique to humans, but they are in-principle a potential or possibility of
neuronal assemblies. So here is the point: that the Mind or Soul instantiated in a Self is a creative
resource of the universe, coming into effect in biological matter of a suitable complexity of
organisation.

In a strict sense, this potential or bias is already laid down in the very constitution of the carbon atom.
If you like you may therefore (as a speculation) propose that 'God' (or by whatever name you wish to
title ultimate BEING) 'seeded' the universe with carbon atoms in the 'foreknowledge' that in the
natural, spontaneous course of its evolution, this universe would then give rise to creatures which
could be endowed with the kind of self-consciousness that in turn enables the universe to attain to
consciousness of its own being. And thus to continue speculating along one further step, this would
imply that, just as we are self-conscious as a result of the combined non-conscious, yet sentitious
work of microscopic organisms, so we humans abet, through our inhabitance of the imaginative
dimension, the self-knowledge of the universe.

I need to emphasise here, that the last paragraph is evidently speculative; but the preceding are the
facts that may conduce to this type of speculation. I could easily attach other scenarios and different
speculations, as long as the facts, and especially biochemical and biological facts, are kept within
sight.

From this you may deduce that I entertain rather stringent standards on what I consider to be
admissable (metaphysical) speculations. It may serve as a guiding light to my repudiation of 'illusion'
as a modus vivendi. To have validity, this concept needs a definition, and you will find on close
examination that illusion on those terms cannot be defined without circularity. I suspect you may be
inclined somewhat to eastern mysticism; I on the other hand see in it a necessary and indispensable
stage in the growth of the human mind: a corrective to its (collective speaking) overweening ambition
which, as we know only too well is apt to relapse from time to time into its infantile state. From one
point of view, bearing in mind the addiction of millions of (exceedingly well-educated!) western people
to flippant and frivolous beliefs, the eastern philosophers can be said to have grappled more seriously
with the really fundamental issues, but that was a long time ago and since then they got stuck in this
rut.. Its value for us today, if I may put it this way, lies in having brought the fragility of the mind to its
own surface of consciousness; but of necessity we must go on and find our way, the 'golden road'
which lies somewhere between the extreme materialism and the extreme transcendentalism that are
still so characteristic of East and West.

Jürgen Lawrenz

Sydney