What exactly constitutes a “spiritual experience” or “perception” or what have you? That is—what, specifically, are you asking about? (I don’t think I’ve ever had any “spiritual experience”, but perhaps this is a mere difference of terminology…?)
EDIT: Ah, I just realized this was a question and I posted this as an answer and not a comment. Is it possible for a moderator to change it?
I’m not quite sure where the category boundaries lie. My own way of describing them is as moments of experiencing the world without the hindrance of ontology, but that is a way of framing them limited by my own experience and ontology, so I’m not very confident that’s a good, general description of the natural features of the world being pointed at here. The only way to really understand it is to experience it for yourself, although this still poses the problem of knowing if you have already had the same category of experience as others but don’t recognize it from the way they describe it.
It’s better to think in terms of ordinary versus not-ordinary … and, since you can’t experience other people’s experiences, ordinary means ordinary-for-you.
What exactly constitutes a “spiritual experience” or “perception” or what have you? That is—what, specifically, are you asking about? (I don’t think I’ve ever had any “spiritual experience”, but perhaps this is a mere difference of terminology…?)
EDIT: Ah, I just realized this was a question and I posted this as an answer and not a comment. Is it possible for a moderator to change it?
I’m not quite sure where the category boundaries lie. My own way of describing them is as moments of experiencing the world without the hindrance of ontology, but that is a way of framing them limited by my own experience and ontology, so I’m not very confident that’s a good, general description of the natural features of the world being pointed at here. The only way to really understand it is to experience it for yourself, although this still poses the problem of knowing if you have already had the same category of experience as others but don’t recognize it from the way they describe it.
(note: on LessWrong I believe you should be able to move comments and answers back and forth yourself)
It’s better to think in terms of ordinary versus not-ordinary … and, since you can’t experience other people’s experiences, ordinary means ordinary-for-you.