#asymtote

-Gioconda Belli

The deepest problem in Spinoza, that is not discussed nearly enough.

The problem is not whether amor intellectualis Dei exists. The problem is how an organism can ever know that it has reached it rather than merely believing it has.

Spinoza assumes a distinction between adequate and inadequate ideas. But from inside your own mind, every idea presents itself as true. The organism has no built-in label saying, "This representation is genuinely adequate," or "This one is merely another adaptive illusion." This is exactly where modern cognitive science becomes much more skeptical than Spinoza. The brain does not have access to reality. It has access only to its own models. Every conviction, every mystical insight, every religious revelation, every philosophical certainty is itself a brain state. From the first-person perspective, they all feel compelling.

That creates an epistemic problem that Spinoza largely underestimates. Suppose someone says, "I experience amor Dei. I have transcended the ego." Another person says, "Christ lives in me", then "I have become one with Brahman, or "The universe has raised my vibration." Phenomenologically, these may all feel equally convincing. What criterion distinguishes them? Spinoza would answer, "The adequate idea." But then the question immediately returns. How do you know it is adequate? You cannot answer, "Because I feel peaceful." The Buddhist says the same. The Christian, the Advaitin, the psychedelic user , they all say the same. So subjective certainty cannot be the criterion.