Actual Freedom ~ Frequently Asked Questions

Okay, actualism isn’t an ideology but ...

I remember seeing something on the site like ‘matter is not merely passive’ – approximate quotation. What do you exactly mean by that? Is (all) matter (water, trees, animals, various objects) alive and intelligent when experienced in a PCE? Is there a difference (concerning the quality of the object involved) when looking at a polyester cup in a PCE compared with our ordinary experience of it? And is that perception objective, in the sense ‘that’s the way that cup really is’?

How can be reconciled the notion (for me) that the Universe is still (according to your experience of this moment) with the observable fact that matter is not passive (events taking place)?

Richard, a) actualism is experiencing that matter is not merely passive ... what does it mean? If you have a stone in your hand (matter), it is passive right? The stone in the hand does not act or operate (at the moment you are holding in the hand), right? How is it not passive?

In a PCE everything is magically animate, doing what it’s doing, in a backdrop of infinite depth and stillness. No principle, no agenda. ‘Life’ or liveliness is the way everything exists.

The ‘direct experience that matter is not merely passive’ is certainly not a moral injunction, I agree. However is the daily business of trying to abort one’s psyche identical to the direct experience that matter is not merely passive? Both seem to go by the name ‘actualism’. In case it is unclear, I am referring to the daily process of aborting oneself and one’s feelings, not the ‘direct experience that matter is merely passive’.

Do you think that being interested in actualism¹⁾ makes one less of a target for intimidation than being interested in actualism²⁾? 1) An actual freedom from the human condition; the direct experience that matter is not merely passive. 2) The process of becoming actually free from the human condition.

Do actualists view consciousness as epiphenomenon of matter? In this respect, then actualism is not different from materialism (that the universe is comprised of matter and the conscious phenomenon is a by-product of it)? I see what Peter is saying about the matter being circulated from inanimate to animate world continuously. Is that what he and you mean by matter is not merely passive? What is the aliveness, magic you are talking about? Why choose this as the defining characteristic of actualism?

Statements like ‘Matter/energy is not only primary but it is all there is’ make me questioning the Actualist’s ‘Weltanschauung’. How do you know that this is not just another belief ...? ‘Mass and Energy are pure constructs of mind having no autonomous phenomenal meaning.’ An actualist should/could never come up with words like ‘matter’ and ‘energy’ to describe ‘his/her’ reality ... Matter/energy is not only primary but it is all there is’ is as a meaningless/meaningful phrase as ‘God is not only primary but He is all there is’.