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enactivism
August 2008 
Enactivism, Integral Theory and 21st Century Spirituality
Posted on Aug 14th, 2008
by 
james
james
Heart
A PREAMBLE….AND APOLOGY
I’m a slow typer, s-l-o-w…Yet I still managed a coherent and relatively well-argued and well-referenced piece of writing – even if I say so myself! -of over 3,000 words (yes I counted every-single-one) in preparation for Day 2. I even managed to make several visits to Bruce’s piece while finishing mine off, and even picked up on the comments made and incorporated them in my final draft. Lots of self congratulation going down.
Then, at 4.24am UK time, as the day peeped through the blinds, at the very moment I was saving this final version, Gaia, MS Word and I enacted what I have chosen to see as “a frickin computer meltdown!” Now my piece was never going to be a particularly scholarly affair, but given that Bruce has served up such a masterly overview, and after last night’s tecnonightmare, my piece will probably be even more colloquial. Hopefully, given the weighty themes, this does not come across as flippant. It’s a bit too rambling and shapeless in parts but hey I’m a drummer. Apologies to all for the late posting - hope it doesn't disturb the smooth running of the Symposium.Thanks are also in order to Julian and Bruce for coordinating everything.
So here goes.I’ve been reading up a little on cognitive science and the philosophy of mind in the last 2 years. From what I have read so far it’s Varela who really does it for me. (Varela is one of many enactivist writers - my piece admittedly focusses on Varela a bit too much). Anyhow, I particularly appreciate the embodied pragmatic emphasis, illustrated in this quote from the first section of The Embodied Mind:
“Let us emphasize that the overriding aim of our book is pragmatic. We do not intend to build some grand, unified theory, either scientific or philosophical, of the mind-body relation. Nor do we intend to write a treatise of comparative scholarship. Our concern is to open a space of possibilities in which the circulation between cognitive science and human experience can be fully appreciated and to foster the transformative possibilities of human experience in a scientific culture.”
Woohoo! If that’s what enactivism is about then give me plenty!
MIND YOUR LANGUAGE: CONFLATING “HUMAN KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD” WITH “THE WORLD”
One key question I had in mind when I started reading up on Enactivism was the question “Does it recognise the reality of a physical world outside of the subject observer?” and if yes, what language does it use to do so?
Perhaps even by the words I have just chosen, my take on this could be viewed as being fundamentally Cartesian. Maybe I am still so enmeshed with the Orange world view that I like to think I can see beyond it, but really I still view the world through an Orange lens. Maybe.
In any case I was still interested to find out. So I looked closely at the language used by Varela and co. whenever the topic seemed to be about what is regularly referred to as “the real world”. And I found some pretty clear statements rejecting the extreme Idealist view that the world is purely a construct of the mind. Again in the opening section of The Embodied Mind Varela says: “Critiques of such a position (Orange scientific view), however, can easily go to the opposite extreme. The indeterminancy principle in quantum mechanics for example, is often used to espouse a kind of subjectivism in which the mind on its own constructs the world…neither of these positions…is at all adequate.” (my underlining)
Despite this rejection of extreme Idealist positions about a purely mind-constructed reality, there still seem to be many commentators who, through the use of confused language, seem to lean towards this extreme Idealist view. In particular I have noticed discussions which start off using the specific language of looking at “how human beings develop knowledge of the world”. The language then morphs into “how human beings interact with the world”, which becomes “how human beings enact their world” which morphs into “how human beings enact the world” (spot the difference) which morphs into “how human beings co-construct the world” which, no surprise, turns into “we create our own reality” and lo and behold we have The Secret.
Now this morphing process is most likely due to sloppy thinking & writing. As Bruce has pointed out, that’s not Varela’s fault, unless he’s the one being sloppy and not just his commentators. We shouldn’t judge enactivism on the work of those who misinterpret it.
So what’s the best language we can use in this and subsequent discussions with regard to the aspect of “the world” that is “out there”, as opposed to “the world as we interpret it through our various human lenses”. By “out there“ I mean genuinely independent of any observers, existing separately from human beings whether or not we observe them or interact with them. I’m thinking for example of the 450 million year old rock underlying the hills outside my house. It’s “there”! Honest! In previous exchanges Matt and I have used the phrase “the natural world”. Maybe it’s going to be hard to find agreement on the language because perhaps we don’t all agree that there actually is an aspect of the world that is “out there”?
Looking closely at an example in Bruce’s essay: “Using the example of color perception research, for instance, Varela, Lakoff, and other cognitive scientists point out that color is not a quality that exists "out there" in the world; it is not an observer-independent, objective quality of things-in-themselves. Rather, it is a particular experiential domain that emerges through the interaction of our color cones, our neural circuitry, our embodied history of structural coupling (our particular evolutionary trajectory in time and co-determinative relationship with our environment), the reflective properties of objects, and electromagnetic radiation. Our words do not point to observer-independent, self-existing objects, unrelated to our activity in the world; our categories do not simply reflect what is already there.”
In the list of factors involved in colour perception, Bruce includes the reflective properties of objects and electromagnetic radiation. Whatever names we choose to give them, and however mutable our understanding of these things are, the reflective properties of objects and electromagnetic radiation are “out there” and do exist independent of observers. It’s these “out there” factors that I feel get overlooked in the rush to point out the interactive dynamic of all the other factors. In some cases our words do point – however inadequately or however shaped by our own lenses – to observer independent, self existing objects AND these objects are not unrelated to our activity in the world.
LET’S GET PHYSICAL…
I think basically I could be called a physicalist. I remember reading in 2002 in A Brief History of Everything the following:
"Q: So reality is not composed of say subatomic particles.
KW: Yikes. I know that approach is common, but it is really a profoundly reductionistic approach, because it is going to privilege the material, physical universe, and then everything else – from life to mind to spirit – has to be derived from subatomic particles, and this will never never work.”
I wrote why not? In the margin, twice.
In the intervening 5+ years I have yet to be shown convincingly by Wilber’s writings or anyone else’s why not? Life, mind & spirit would have to be derived from the physical universe? Wilber seems appalled…. Why? Take away the physical body, there is no life as we know it. Take away the brain, or brains, the mind cannot operate. Spirit? I’m not even sure what he means by Spirit, but I don’t know of anyone claiming to live a spiritual life that is doing so without a physical body.
The current hard science of subatomic physics doesn’t explain how life started, or exactly how free will works, or what spiritual inspiration looks like under an electron microscope – but, take away the physical and what’s left? No thoughts cos there’s no brain or mind to have them, no emotions cos there’s no heart to feel them, no culture or noosphere cos there are no books, no newspapers, no computers. In that sense I am a physicalist.
I think Varela is a physicalist of sorts too. In his work on the immune system he is looking at ways in which it interacts with its environment or its “medium”, its “background”. He doesn’t put attention into wondering about whether the cells or their environments actually exist or not. He takes it as agiven.
Here he is talking about cells: “a self-organizing network of biochemical reactions produces molecules, which do something specific and unique: they create a boundary, a membrane, which constrains the network that has produced the constituents of the membrane. This is a logical bootstrap, a loop: a network produces entities that create a boundary, which constrains the network that produced the boundary. This bootstrap is precisely what's unique about cells. A self-distinguishing entity exists when the bootstrap is completed. This entity has produced its own boundary. It doesn't require an external agent to notice it, or to say, "I'm here." It is, by itself, a self- distinction. It bootstraps itself out of a soup of chemistry and physics.” (my underlining)
But he’s obviously not just a physicalist in the traditional stereotype. Here he is taking a more postmodern view: “The brain can't be understood as a computer, in any interesting sense, and I part company with the people who think that the brain does rely on symbolic representation. …..The same intuitions cut across other biological fields. Deconstruct the notion that the brain is processing information and making a representation of the world. Deconstruct the militaristic notion that the immune system is about defense and looking out for invaders. Deconstruct the notion that evolution is about optimizing fitness to live in the conditions present in some kind of niche.”
And here’s where the language we all choose comes into play, because I would insert the word “just” or “simply” or “merely” in all of the above points that Varela seeks to deconstruct. In other words, I believe it would be more helpful to write: “Deconstruct the notion that evolution is merely about optimizing fitness to live in the conditions present…” And the reason I’m being so pedantic is because it is easy to conclude from Varela’s words here that evolution has nothing to do with optimising fitness, or that the immune system has nothing to do with defense and looking out for invaders, when in any human sense of the meaning of these words, one aspect of evolution is about optimising fitness, and one aspect of the immune system is to look out for invaders.
Again here I think he goes too far with his choice of language: "We have to abandon the enormous deadweight of the materialism of the Western tradition, and turn to a more planetary way of thinking.”
I don’t think we need to abandon materialism; instead we need to keep what’s good and then move on to the planetary. Even when we reach a planetary thinking stage, we’ll still be living on it, it’ll still be under our feet. And without its physical existence to support us there’d be no human beings capable of such planetary levels of thinking. I remember Julian using a phrase “the primacy of the physical” – I think that’s what I’m looking to flesh out here. I’m sure others will do a more lucid job.
Ken Wilber has talked about how virtually the whole of the Tibetan culture has been an ongoing experiment in self-reflection. And the results of this show that individual after individual can attain knowledge of higher experiential truths and that these are replicable. (Whether one can then extrapolate propositional knowledge of “Reality” from such repeatable subjective experiences is a moot point I feel, perhaps it just signifies that these higher states exist, and noting else, but that’s another discussion!)
Similarly I believe that every minute of everyday human beings are carrying out billions of experiments which I see as confirming the primacy of the physical, and confirms the reliability of our models of reality and their close or “close-enough” correspondence to the “out there” qualities of “the natural world”. Everyday, billions of people step out on pavements, roads, paths and you know what, they don’t fall through the ground. Billions of people drop things and guess what, they don’t fall up. Billions of experiments confirming that, despite the uncertainty principle, despite postmodernism, on the human scale our interaction with the physical world is pretty reliable, and our understanding of it, even in a conventional scientific sense, is close enough to allow us to thrive.
POST-WHATEVER THEORISTS - DIRTY ROTTEN SPANDRELS?
Sometimes I am impatient on seeing all the energy poured into seemingly pointless thought exercises by extremely intelligent thinkers, specifically into those extreme Idealist perspectives about supposedly mind-constructed reality. I wonder if it’s a case of people having too much time on their hands and ending up with a bunch of spandrels!?
Spandrels -what are they I hear you ask?
Let’s go over to Andrea–Diem Lane courtesy of Integral World:
"At this point I chimed in with Stephen Jay Gould's notion of spandrels, the unintended consequences or secondary effects of a more primary adaptation. If consciousness is an evolutionary adaptation which allows for any sophisticated strand of DNA to develop a virtual navigating device within itself, thereby increasing its odds by allowing for a prior contemplation of varying strategies before making a decisive and decidedly empirical decision, then it is quite reasonable to expect that there should be much in a virtual simulator which is merely imaginary and has no real world correlate. This would easily explain why many of our projections are delusional. If consciousness is a probability adjustor (played out in our minds replete with an emotional feedback loop), then sometimes we will opt for strategies that are indeed wrong, misguided, and illusionary.”
DARWIN WAS FROM SHROPSHIRE YOU KNOW…..
When Kant said “the object is external to me, and the knowledge is in me, I can only judge whether my knowledge of the object agrees with my knowledge of the object.” he is hitting on something pretty fundamental, to say the least!. But I also I think he was underestimating the ability of his senses to “know” at least something pretty reliable about his external environment. I want to say to him in response to his famous quote: “Yes that’s right, but your knowledge of the object is pretty bloody close to how it is in “reality”."
We’ve had millions of years of evolution helping us hone our interaction with our environment. I like to look at the ways in which evolution shows us both the part and the whole, what is separable and what is inseparable about our existence.
From Andrea Diem-Lane again: “If consciousness is simulating its environment so as to better its odds when it does indeed make a real life choice, then much of its success is due to how well it actually matches up with and predicts the incoming stimuli. Consciousness could never have survived the brutal machinations of natural selection unless it was somewhat accurate in how it modelled its exterior environment. If it came up with simulations that were continually mistaken, it would have been eaten up by a predator long ago. No, consciousness must be on whole a fairly accurate modeller of the outside world in order to confer the benefit necessary to evolve as a significant adaptation. That there will be glitches and mistakes and illusory detours is to be expected, but overall those have to be kept at a minimum since otherwise the very advantage that consciousness confers as a virtual simulator would be automatically lost. If consciousness was merely projections of our temporal lobes, it wouldn't have any real world benefit, but would act as a punishing (and ultimately eliminating) detriment.”
SEPARATION AND NON-SEPARATION:
Extreme versions of the Myth of the Given say subject and object are totally separate and when human beings look at those object we see them for what they are. Myth of the Framework says subject and object are not separate, and in fact it’s all one big subjective indistinguishable mush. Enactivism claims to be looking at “a middle way”.
If so I think it needs to be clearer on what ways we are connected AND in what ways we are separate. I get the feeling that since things have moved on from the simplistic orange scientific world view somewhat harshly described by Cook-Greater earlier, that no one wants to go back and look particularly closely at questions regarding the ways in which we are separate, and to do so within the context of an awareness of how we are also all interconnected.
To link this in rather clumsily with Integral Theory, it reminds me of a comment Julian made about transcend and include when he said the process equally involves transcend and exclude – exclude the unhealthy, exclude the “less adequate to reality”. This excluding involves a separation of what is or is not …., um, I choose the word, helpful. But it seems to me the effectiveness of our tools for separating the helpful from the unhelpful are what is in need of closer scrutiny.
WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER:
What might a clearer understanding of our commonalities look like or sound like? For me it lies in something that Varela touches on so beautifully and powerfully in this interview in 2000 with Claus Otto Scharmer, about holding others perspectives, allowing an empty space and allowing compassion to come through:
“COS: What's the role of love in developing the capacity of the virtual self?
Francisco Varela: Well, if you mean by love open compassion, the way in which one can be of service in a social context, it has everything to do with it. Now let me take this perspective, which is either the Western perspective of phenomenology or a Buddhist perspective. Both of them coincide there. which to me is one of the really deep, interesting observations that we can have. The more the fragile self-subject deploys itself, the more compassion deploys itself because that's what it is. The more there is the opening into space to accommodate or to take care of the other, there is kind of an intrinsic decenteredness, and therefore the other appears closer. Solidarity, compassion, care, love – all of the different modes of being together – appear when the self owned is decentered. Now that, to me, is a great gift of the universe. Since we are not solid and private and centered, the more we get close to all our reality, the more we are who we are. That is, both you and I. Not just me, but the "us-ness" in us. Which is another way of saying that my mind is not my mind. It is a mind that requires that interbeing. There is naturally that kind of concern and care and solidarity. But it is not just how nice I am, or how good a guy I am. It has nothing to do with this. It has to do with how real things are, in reality, that non-distinction between the intersubjective network of things. When it's considered for what it is, when it is absorbed, or lived, or embodied for what it is, it works precisely in that mode of care and concern. So you see the Buddhists have a wonderful message, saying that compassion is the natural condition of what one really is.”
Of course we don’t have to choose to do this. We don’t have to feel obliged towards what Varela calls being “of service in a social context”. But I think most of us here feel an “evolutionary impulse” of sorts to offer out what we know, and to make efforts in our own daily lives to open to the very compassion that Varela talks about. Here's to more of that for all of us.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ADDENDUM: LANGUAGE AND CONTEXT EXPECTATIONS or ”THE ENACTERS” VERSUS “ THE REAL WORLDERS”
I’d like to look at some aspects of the recent online communication on this subject leading up to this symposium. Adam just made a comment on Bruce’s essay about a growing consensus here, us surfing a wave, and helping each other avoid the rocks in the future. In that spirit I’m now looking at some “rocks” that we’ve been hitting.
This next section is also written with apologies to those non-regular visitors at Julian’s, Bruce’s, Matt’s blog, because this next bit is just a little bit “cliquey”, sorry - hopefully one outcome will be to open up the discussions even further.
[deep breath] In recent discussions, I sense that Bruce, Matt (and maybe others? Let’s call them The Enacters for now) seem just a little too ready to classify Julian (and me and others? Let’s call ourselves The Real Worlders) as something akin to dyed-in-the-wool materialists who are trying to “deny” the value of the mythic and other levels. We are too easily compared to the orange rationalists of the enlightenment, as opposed to people who are tending towards integral but with a robust approach to applying the healthy rational where appropriate, (at least that’s how I like to see myself!). I’ve seen this in other online discussions on similar subject matter too.
Unlike Matt and Bruce, who go gently on us, Cook-Greuter does not pull her punches: “By most modern Western expectations, fully functional adults see and treat reality as something preexistent and external to themselves made up of permanent, well-defined objects that can be analyzed, investigated, and controlled for our benefit. This view is based on a maximal separation between subject and object, thinker and thought. It epitomizes the traditional scientific frame of mind that is concerned with control, measurement, and prediction. It also represents the goal of much of Western socialization. Most adults have little or no insight into the basic arbitrariness of defining the objects and are completely unaware that according to Koplowitz “the process of naming or measuring pulls that which is named out of reality, which itself is not nameable or measurable.”3 They operate under the assumption that subject and object are distinct, and that by analyzing the parts one can figure out the whole. From the conventional Western perspective, the acquisition of this scientific, rational mindframe (or formal operations in Piaget's model) is seen as the goal of socialization and defines what it means to be a fully grown adult.”
Despite the truths in here, to me it’s something of a caricature, and if applied too rigidly, it’s an unhelpful one. Such a stereotype can contribute to the unfortunate situation where someone focussing on the rational in a discussion is almost pigeonholed as being an example of Cook-Greuter’s description.
Actually there is a wider point I’m trying to make, and Hokai made this point better than I can when he said: “At the same time, rational as an available structure and potential should be distinguished from rationalism in any of its calcified expressions and formulations, conditioned during the initial breaking-away from the mythic order by means of desacralization”.
One of the causes of past misunderstandings I have observed on Julian’s and other blogs, is simply the desire and expectation of the Enacters among us to hear strong rational arguments always put in the context of the whole spectrum. (Examples of this kind of dialogue are Hokai http://hokai.info/2008/07/transformative-power-of-development.html just asking for qualification re Santa Claus, or (and I paraphrase Bruce here) Balder saying to Julian “just put it in context and you’ll get less beef from us”).
However, as we all know, it’s a big demand to make that on each entry all writers need to always refer to almost the entire breadth of their knowledge and range of perspectives lest they be too readily labelled as lacking in the perspective they have perhaps knowingly chosen not to include. This is especially true when, if we are regular contributors or readers, we know from other entries that the writer does indeed have a deeper understanding.
On the other hand, for some less familiar readers, that particular entry is all they have to go on. I have seen similar critiques on the i-i pod about a David Deida audio clip. I was initially baffled as to several comments all pointing out Deida’s lack of understanding of vertical development (in Wilberian terms). I later realised the reason for my confusion was that because I am such a regular reader / listener to his material, and have therefore heard him make so many references to this vertical aspect, that I always take it as a given that he has an in depth understanding of the vertical. So I thought those critics were being pedantic or even deliberately choosing to miss the point! However, I soon realised the validity of their criticism because within the short time allowed on the audio clip in question, he did indeed give no mention of the vertical and so gave the impression that his depth of understanding stopped at simply an intense level of horizontal experience/awareness.
So my request is to readers / commentators not to assume a lack of understanding on the basis of, say, one blog. And for writers, if we are going to put out a piece of writing into the public domain, we make the effort to present it in as wide a context as possible, with as many qualifications as possible… then after that you can make your point and no one will get hung up on what you aren’t referring to!! I see most of us trying to do this, but methinks a little bit more of the same from all sides would help us surf more waves together.
And so to beddybyes.
Access: Public
James…i loved this…you make your points with such humor; easy to read; easy to understand…just wanted you to know this for now…there were a few things that were not completely clear, but i want to read it at least one more time before zeroing in on any questions i might have…
again, this was such a pleasure to read…thank you…always, star…
so glad it's up!
Phew … thanks.
Star I'm really sorry about the bad link - that must have been what blew my computer last night. I'll get to that link and take it off Matt's blog.
James,
Sorry to hear you had computer trouble… that damned physical world seems to care very little for our plans!
You've brought up some rather juicy points regarding the benefits/detriments of materialism. Let me try to express where I stand here…
I would say that yes, there is a physical world that doesn't require an observing consciousness to create it in every moment. When I turn my head away from the wall behind me, it doesn't disappear. What enactivism wants to suggest is that we consider this issue from an evolutionary perspective. So instead of the quantum mysticism idea that, simply by looking, I collapse the wavefunction of reality into some specific form in that instant, Varela et al. are trying to call our attention to the fact that organisms (including their conscious awareness) play an active role in selecting their environments, and aren't merely (as the reigning paradigm of neo-Darwinism would have it) the products of environmental selection. There is a two-way selection process going on, which is why enactivism talks about the co-emergence of subject and object. This emergence happens, again, on an evolutionary time scale. It is not an instantaneous creation of reality from nothing in every moment.
I must say, though, that I agree with Varela when he says that we ought to abandon the dead weight of materialism. Materialism is the status quo worldview for most Westerners, and it is absolutely destroying the planet and making psychological health impossible. I, and Varela, mean something pretty specific by materialism. It is the ideology which posits that ONLY particles of matter and quantities of energy are real, and that anything else (like consciousness, emergent systems, emotions, etc) is an illusion that anyone with half a brain would dispense with. Besides being self-contradictory (how can we know that reality is composed of atoms without being conscious?), materialism does seem to imply much of what Cook-Greuter suggested. The goal of human existence for a materialist becomes centered on gaining more and more control over the material world. Because what other aspirations are there?
Now, I never considered you or Julian to be materialists in this vain. Not even for a second. There are, of course, many nuanced physicalist perspectives that one could profess, and I think what you have expressed suggests you accept something like physical emergentism. A position like this is far more realistic in my mind, in that it accepts that, for instance, consciousness is not just an illusion. It still ultimately sees all emergent properties as reducible to physical properties, but nonetheless admits they exist in their own right.
Enactivism is a form of physicalism, in that is definitely sees consciousness as necessarily related to a physical body of some kind. But it stops short of saying that the brain/body causes or creates consciousness. All we know empirically is that a correlation exists. Anything more than this remains metaphysical speculation, not science.
This is an important point, that materialism is a metaphysical perspective and not a scientific/empirical one. That a physical world exists is beyond doubt, but how exactly it relates to the seemingly non-physical properties of consciousness has yet to be satisfactorily worked out.
As for the quotes from Andrea Diem-Lane, I'm not entirely sure where she is coming from. From the standard Darwinian view of biology, consciousness can not be selected for at all because we don't even know how or if it is reflected in the genetic sequence. She seems to be coming squarely from a representationalist perspective, which Varela et al. completely reject. Consciousness, for Varela, is most definitely not a virtual navigating device or a probability adjuster, and its function is not to simulate or model the environment. Consciousness is, instead, an emergent property of ongoing sensorimotor recursions and structural coupling with an environment (including other organisms). The nervous system is what Varela calls “operationally closed,” meaning its activities are circular and do not respond to the environment like an input-output processor. I'll touch on this more in my essay on Monday.
That's all for now… Let me know how all this sits with you.
thanks again for participating in this with us!
Matt
james, it didn't mess my pc up…no need to apologize…i regret that you and erin are having such a time…adam too i think…
you have really given me some things to contemplate…within my own thinking and awareness…logically…and i thank you for that.
i think the implication of sharing the mind from the view of interbeing, or interconnecting with another is very realistic…what has never been realistic, is that my awareness is your awareness…because of the very thing you pointed to…we are looking at it from different human perspectives…and sense we have our own condtioned awareness that does that, i don't see that changing completely…
i also appreciate the fact that you brought nature to the table, and the FACT that that rock was here long before we were, and we have scientific proof of that…
these are things that are so simple really, but they have great depth and the potential to make us think…for ourselves…
i agree with what you said concerning quantum physics and subatomic particles, and i don't have a problem with it.
i like how you acknowledge that maybe we would have some discomfort going back and really looking at just how we are seperate…and i think that may be true to a great degree for many.
now i am a big systems theorist, but i don't see how that is in opposition to anything in your presentation. in fact you kinda threaded the needle on that…
i will say this concerning change, which is not in disagreement with what you said…
i can change 'my' world…and i have…now that does not mean that i have changed how the world is…i don't care how long i meditated, or prayed to whatever god…little ole me can't do a damn thing about the war in the middle east…except educate myself on the issues and vote…i have to take action and be responsible for the circumstances that i find myself in…by changing my unhealthy reactions concerning it…or, my lack of awareness…
and so, my world has changed…because i make healthier decisions today; my life is joy-filled…b/c i live in the moment, and deal with reality of the moment…much like what you were talking about when you mentioned what julian had said and you used the word helpful instead…
anyways, when i was reading it the second time, i didn't see the questions that i thought i had, and realized that the only questions i had, were the ones i needed to ask myself…so, you done good as far as i am concerned…much joy…always, star…
beautiful work james - you touched on the very important piece that seems to get glossed over in the rush to enactivism as the brave new paradigm that totally and conclusively subverts the myth of the given…
you took much of what i might write at this point directly out of my mouth.
great piece!
At this point all I would like to say is thanks for your perspectives.
I REALLY liked your addendum, the meta-level perspectives about the previous aspects of this conversation. It has become clear to me that this symposium represents the middle of a conversation, and making it public simply invites people in who lack the history of dialogue that some of you have together. This does make for a bit of disconnectedness….
Fabulous point, the caveat to readers not to assume that a writer is ignorant of something, or ignoring something, just because it does not appear in a particular piece. And a recommendation to writers to perhaps start wide and then narrow down.
Also, thanks for writing in a way that I could understand !!!!!!
Your thoughts definitely contribute some variety to the central ideas/concerns raised in Bruce's presentation and the comments there.
Blessings, OM Bastet
take away the physical and what’s left? No thoughts cos there’s no brain or mind to have them
James, I think the difference between the two positions is based on different ideas of what constitutes the “real world”. For you, the real world, the world independent of consciousness, is made up of physical stuff, and I don't think anyone disagrees that that world exists.
But I would say that we actually don't know that world at all.
The reason that I say that is because I want to use the word “know” to refer strictly phenomena that appear in consciousness, and this world is what I want to consider as real, as fundamental to our lives.
To illustrate this further, consider this example: I take a glass of water, put a straw in it, and look through the glass. I see that the straw appears distorted, as if it had a break in it. I know very well that the straw is not broken “in reality”, but in the reality of my consciousness, it's broken, and simply becoming aware of how it exists in reality doesn't cause the straw to snap back into its correct shape, so rather than seeing “a whole straw distorted through a glass”, I actually see “a broken straw”. Now, I may know, based on my experience with straws and glasses of water, that in the real world, I am perceiving an illusion and the straw is not broken, but I only know this indirectly!
This is how I understand the idea that we don't know the world independently of consciousness. You might say that this is a bit of an exaggeration, surely we know something about the real world, and there is some truth to this. But consider this: however reliable and sophisticated our indirect knowledge of the world is, that way of knowing is always derived from direct experience of phenomena within consciousness.
In the above example, I know my perception of the straw in the glass is very likely an illusion based on other direct experiences, in relation to a theory that I have constructed about how reality works.
So there's a sense in which you are correct that the physical is primary, but there is also another sense in which our indirect knowledge of the physical ultimately rests on consciousness, so consciousness is also primary - not in the sense that the physical world depends on consciousness, but in the sense that the world-within-consciousness depends on consciousness, and our knowledge of the physical world depends on that.
At least, I think that's it :)
On a final note, I'd like to point out that in your interpretation of consciousness co-constructing reality, you seem to be assuming a Cartesian subject, that consciousness is fully transparent and in command of itself. Really, you are equating consciousness with something like free will, or self-consciousness, or a sense of selfhood or ego, and I think this is incorrect. In your critique of the viewpoint “human beings enact the world”, you put emphasis on “the world” as the crucial flaw. In fact, it is “human being” that is the problem, where individuals can sneak in a Cartesian subject into the picture. It is the assumption of modernity that I am the same as “my” consciousness, so of course “consciousness creates reality” becomes the narcissistic “I create reality.” This is deeply problematic, but is actually a symptom of modernity's subject-object dualism. Descartes doubts anything exists but the self, and is this not really the basis for the above narcissism?
teacup in the mix - awesome!
glad you made it over too vector!
teacup,
It is the assumption of modernity that I am the same as “my” consciousness, so of course “consciousness creates reality” becomes the narcissistic “I create reality.” This is deeply problematic, but is actually a symptom of modernity's subject-object dualism. Descartes doubts anything exists but the self, and is this not really the basis for the above narcissism?
I thought this was very insightful. A lot of the time, supposedly “postmodern” green narcissism is really a kind of “hypermodern” irrationality that results when Descartes' subject/object divide is taken to its logical conclusion. The anything goes attitude of a lot of postmodernism seems to be the result of subjectivity having completely detached itself from reality, floating free in its own imaginary dream world. I think when properly unpacked, the enactive paradigm offers us a kind of post-postmodernism, where we begin with a new ontology all together, rather than continuing to push to greater extremes the same old mind/matter dichotomy. I wouldn't say consciousness creates reality. Rather, consciousness and reality co-emerge through a tightly knit history of evolutionary development.
I think I've mentioned my thoughts on Kant's phenomenology to you before, but I'll bring it up again. I think he was still working from within the Cartesian paradigm, and really only helped to further fracture the dualism that we all chastise poor Descartes for. The only reason Kant is more trendy is that he got rid of Decartes' hubristic certainty about the true nature of reality, which is music to the ears of those who pray to inclusiveness.
Just my two sense… let me know what you make of it!
-Matt
Thanks to every who has commented so far.
Back soon with my own responses.
Matt
You've given me lots to chew on!
I like your example here:
“When I turn my head away from the wall behind me, it doesn't disappear.” :-) So succinct.
Thanks for the clarification re. materialism and physicalism. Yes the unhealthy aspects of the purely materialist worldview is a major contributor to environmental destruction. I think I was trying to distil what is healthy from that worldview, i.e. “the wall is still there when you look away”, which to me is healthier than “the world is not there unless I'm looking at it”.
Again, thanks for clarifying to me my own position(!) with this:
”I think what you have expressed suggests you accept something like physical emergentism. A position like this is far more realistic in my mind, in that it accepts that, for instance, consciousness is not just an illusion. It still ultimately sees all emergent properties as reducible to physical properties, but nonetheless admits they exist in their own right….Enactivism is a form of physicalism, in that is definitely sees consciousness as necessarily related to a physical body of some kind. But it stops short of saying that the brain/body causes or creates consciousness. All we know empirically is that a correlation exists. Anything more than this remains metaphysical speculation, not science.”
Yes this is great description of where I'm coming from.
Two points to check with you. You make a distinction between materialism and physicalism. And then you say:
This is an important point, that materialism is a metaphysical perspective and not a scientific/empirical one. That a physical world exists is beyond doubt, but how exactly it relates to the seemingly non-physical properties of consciousness has yet to be satisfactorily worked out.”
Did you mean to say ”physicalism is a metaphysical perspective”?
Re. Andrea Diem-Lane's comments, I think you are dismissing them too readily because she seems to be in a certain camp. What if she is able to see consciousness from a number of different perspectives, including an enactive one, but is just choosing in this quote to focus on that element of individual consciousness that is involved in the survival of separate self? I understand of course that these quotes are all you have to go on for now, but I believe in the rest of that very lengthy essay she may well be making referneces to views on consciousness that are not purely representationalist.
You said: Consciousness, for Varela, is most definitely not a virtual navigating device or a probability adjuster, and its function is not to simulate or model the environment. Isn't it more accurate to say: “Consciousness, for Varela, is not just a virtual navigating device….” Are you, and Varela, saying that there is no aspect of consciousness, not even from the level of evolutiuonary biology, that is at all concerned with navigating the environment in order to better it's chances of survival?
Oh and one last point which seems like a contradiction. At the start of your comment you say:
“Varela et al. are trying to call our attention to the fact that organisms (including their conscious awareness) play an active role in selecting their environments, and aren't merely (as the reigning paradigm of neo-Darwinism would have it) the products of environmental selection. There is a two-way selection process going on,…”
But then later you say: “The nervous system is what Varela calls “operationally closed,” meaning its activities are circular and do not respond to the environment like an input-output processor.”
How can Varela be saying that organisms are involved in a two-way process and yet the nervous system be operationally closed?
Thanks Matt .These are great points you are bringing up - I really appreciate how our interaction brings real clarity for me. I'm always willing to stand corrected by more coherent and deeper points of view, and I often feel that's what happens with our exchanges.
Star
So many posiitve comments! Thank You! Or as us Welshies say… thankew!
I'd love to hear more about how any of the discussions so far fits in with your systems theory. I'm pretty ignorant of that area.
And indeed how your own meditation / mindfulness practice relates to it too. I've read a little on your other site and it sounds like great stuff.
James
1Vector3
I'm glad you appreciated my attempts to recognise potential disconnection for those not familiar with previous similar dialogues, but I guess that's inevitable when something is building up in an online community, there's inevitably a history there that not everyone can be involved in to he same degree. I didn't want that to distract from the main points I was trying to make, hence tagging it on at the end.
I'm also glad you got my points about online writing /reading , i.e. starting wide and then narrowing down, but also not rejecting something on the basis of what's not there!
Lastly glad that I kept the jargon to a minimum!
I really appreciate your comments, thanks.
James
Mr Teacup
Great to hear from you.
I completely get where you are coming from with the glass in the straw scenario. It's a great example.
You said: “we don't know the world independently of consciousness. You might say that this is a bit of an exaggeration, surely we know something about the real world, and there is some truth to this. But consider this: however reliable and sophisticated our indirect knowledge of the world is, that way of knowing is always derived from direct experience of phenomena within consciousness.”
Actually i don't think it's an exaggeration - I agree we can never really know anything about “the physical world” other than through our consciousness.
You also said:
“So there's a sense in which you are correct that the physical is primary, but there is also another sense in which our indirect knowledge of the physical ultimately rests on consciousness, so consciousness is also primary - not in the sense that the physical world depends on consciousness, but in the sense that the world-within-consciousness depends on consciousness, and our knowledge of the physical world depends on that.”
Wow, nice n' meaty! To use one of Marmalade's phrases, “my brain has got stretch marks” but let me see if I can get right into your statement cos I sense it's really important…
- “So there's a sense in which you are correct that the physical is primary…” phew, thanks, glad someone gets that.
- “our indirect knowledge of the physical ultimately rests on consciousness, so consciousness is also primary” - yep, OK….
- “not in the sense that the physical world depends on consciousness,” - yes very important qualification!
- “but in the sense that the world-within-consciousness depends on consciousness” - this is what I'm struglging with. Can you suggest another way to say “the world within consciousness”?… ( I think I'm experiencing what I pointed to in my main essay about confusions over the exact meanings behind our words, e.g “knowledge of the world” cf “the world” etc.)
- “and our knowledge of the physical world depends on that.” Yes I sense I'll be able to get that fully once I get clarification of the above phrase.
On another point you said:
“in your interpretation of consciousness co-constructing reality, you seem to be assuming a Cartesian subject, that consciousness is fully transparent and in command of itself. Really, you are equating consciousness with something like free will, or self-consciousness, or a sense of selfhood or ego,”
Yes I can see that, as opposed to, say, Varela describing consciousness as more expansive or even non-local, as “decentred” - is that what you mean?
Great comments- thanks.
Matt
You said to Mr T:
“I wouldn't say consciousness creates reality. Rather, consciousness and reality co-emerge through a tightly knit history of evolutionary development.”
When you say reality co-emerges with consciousness here, by the word “reality” do you mean “the hills outside my window”? If you do, then I don't see how they have co-emerged with consciousness. Other than having enclosed sheep pasture on the surface, wouldn't those hills be there in their current form, regardless of any interaction with human consciousness?
systems thinking…
my experience, has been a journey of integration…a journey of discovery…a journey of uncovering what was 'not helpful' along that journey as a 'real' and living, breathing, thinking, human being, co-existing in a 'real' living, breathing, universe, with other 'real' and living, breathing, thinking human beings, and all life forms that inhabit our wonderfully 'real' living, breathing, thinking planet…i am evolving…a work in progress…but all of the universe is changing too…evolving…constantly into 'something else'…
to say that we are separate and apart from that, or to escape into fantasy land, whether it be chemical or spiritual or whatever, is to miss the wonder-filled journey that unfolds before us each instant, and imo, miss this awesome 'real' dance of energy-play…
having said that, my process is not separate from what that process is enveloped in…even if i 'think' it is…everything i do, affects everything else…and everything else affects me…
i am a human being…i have a body, a mind, and energy…my thoughts can affect that energy, as well as my physical body, and my body can in turn affect my mind and energy.
circumstances surrounding me, can affect 'all' of me, and 'all' of me, can affect circumstances around me…
the greatest thing imho, that quantum physics has brought to science, is the 'fact' that everything is connected at the very basic level…we may not be able to see how our energies connect and 'mesh' with our environment or another human being or life form, but science tells us that it does…and if we pay attention…and open that space you were talking about…we can sense it…not in some emotional psychological way which is based on reaction to what we think about this or that causing us to 'feel' one way or another…and then 'react' to what we 'feel'…but with our entire 'being' kinda way…it's nothing magical, yet as julian says…it is the magic of the real…we just have to tune in completely with our being…our very own awareness is a mystery that weaves a tapestry of real..
a systems thinker will look at a tree, and see how the tree reacts within the whole of its environment…and within itself…i have a poem on my blog that describes this accurately, called Source…
i'll come back in a little while and address your other request…hope this is clear…joy…*
James, thank you very much for this. I really enjoyed reading your thoughts and I think you've raised some issues and questions that will help take this discussion forward in a helpful way. I will respond to some of your observations and questions in detail in my next comment, which I will post a little later this morning. For now …. kudos!
Best wishes,
B.
Star - thanks for this. I still need to check out some of the links in your last comment.
Bruce - good to hear from you. Glad to hear there was something in it for you. Really looking forward to your further input.
I'm just about to revisit the comments section of your Symposium piece, see what's cooking there!
James,
I'll go through your questions/comments one at a time.
Did you mean to say ”physicalism is a metaphysical perspective”?
I didn't mean to single out materialism. Any “ism” is a metaphysics, something that you come to the facts with already, and that, in many ways, conditions the facts for you. Depending on whether you are conscious or not of your ideology, you may or may not alter the metaphysical assumptions underlying it in light of new evidence. So materialism, physicalism, enactivism, idealism, dualism, etc. are all metaphysical perspectives. Which one we adopt depends upon many factors, but I think it would be a good idea to be open to revising ours if the facts don't seem to be lining up with it.
Physicalism and materialism are similar, but I think the former is a bit less extreme than materialism, in that it accepts emergence and complexity, while materialism tends to see everything as just another permutation of atoms.
About Andrea Diem-Lane's comments, I think you are absolutely right. I didn't read her whole essay and was just responding to the two quotes you pasted. So take my criticisms as only very narrow responses to what I did read.
Isn't it more accurate to say: “Consciousness, for Varela, is not just a virtual navigating device….” Are you, and Varela, saying that there is no aspect of consciousness, not even from the level of evolutiuonary biology, that is at all concerned with navigating the environment in order to better it's chances of survival?
If what is implied by “virtual navigating device” is that the brain/consciousness builds an internal representation of external reality, then yes, I am rejecting that anything like that goes on. Concerning “bettering its chances of survival,” read on, as your next question will allow me to better address that.
How can Varela be saying that organisms are involved in a two-way process and yet the nervous system be operationally closed?
Varela speaks of “natural drift” instead of “natural selection” when referring to how evolution operates on organisms. He does this because he thinks it is misleading to see the environment as pregiven, as well as because the metaphor seems to discount the degree to which organisms are autonomous systems. Saying they are “operationally closed” is another way of saying they are “structurally determined.” Both of these phrases point to the sense in which an organism's responses to perturbations from an environment are based on its own structure and organization, not on anything intrinsic to the environment. So to see the environment as shaping the organism is to completely neglect the role played by the self-organizing dynamics that are the autopoiesis of the organism. Organisms don't struggle to survive. Surviving is just what they do naturally. So long as the organism maintains its autopoiesis and reproduces, it can take on whatever forms and behaviors it wants. In The Tree of Knowledge, Varela and Maturana liken the environment to a pile of sand and the evolution of an organism to the path taken by a drop of water dripped on its peak. This image seems more fitting than that of Darwin's, where organisms are seen as wedges trying to squeeze there way into a niche.
A good example of the dialectic of organism-environment evolution is to think about Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis. We now know that the Earth's atmosphere only maintains its current far from equilibrium chemical state because of the ongoing exchange of gasses by various forms of life. So the environment, as soon as life came on the scene, was drastically altered by life's presence.
Does any of this help?
James,
I said to Mr T:
“I wouldn't say consciousness creates reality. Rather, consciousness and reality co-emerge through a tightly knit history of evolutionary development.”
You asked:
When you say reality co-emerges with consciousness here, by the word “reality” do you mean “the hills outside my window”? If you do, then I don't see how they have co-emerged with consciousness. Other than having enclosed sheep pasture on the surface, wouldn't those hills be there in their current form, regardless of any interaction with human consciousness?
Keep in mind that the co-emergence of consciousness and reality (or organism and environment) takes place on an evolutionary time scale. We aren't talking about human consciousness collapsing the hills outside your window the instant you look. We are talking about how, after many generations, sheep grazing on a hill can alter its topology and the foliage that grows on it, etc.
well done yourself my friend
i really like the way you corrected for some of the excessive claims of enactivism. there is much of value in it i think however, especially on an experiential psychological level, and it's a valuable aid in reconsidering things previously taken for granted.
now back to the saltmines…
Matt
You said: “If what is implied by “virtual navigating device” is that the brain/consciousness builds an internal representation of external reality, then yes, I am rejecting that anything like that goes on.”
Wow. Can you point me to the kind of literature or research that convinces you that nothing like this is happening in the brain / consciousness? I can't see it myself. To me at the moment it is obvious that one function of the brain / nervous system is to navigate the environment and that it uses an internal respresentation to do so.
Thanks for the examples and metaphors - I find them really helpful. The pile of sand analogy makes complete sense. And the point about the balance of gasses etc. and the point about the evolutionary timescale, and the idea of human/ animal consciousness and activity impacting on the topology of a given environment……
In fact I am more than familiar with these ideas… perhaps I've been expecting enactivism to be pointing to something somehow more profound or mysterious or earth shattering. My current feeling is “Oh, is that it? That's just common sense. Environment affects organism - organism affects environment. And…..?”
Hmmmm…..
hey guys
enjoying the conversation here.
i wonder matt if varela (in rejecting the representationalist model) is talking more specifically for the purposes of understanding how cognition functions, rather than denying any pre-given world whatsoever.
there seems to be a way that you and bruce (and possibly varela et al) make a leap that i (and perhaps james and adam and most mainstream evolutionary and philosophical theorists) just don't find warranted… i am still formulating exactly what the leap is - more on tuesday.
but for now: just because there is a complex set of relationships between organism and world, and just because organisms have aspects of their systems that are structurally determined doesnt mean that organisms are not interacting with an actual external world (pre-given in the sense that it would be out there as it is regardless of whether or not the organism existed) that they are learning to navigate - take varela's poor little kitty in the basket for example…. he failed to learn to navigate the external world because his visual sensing wasnt adequately co-evolved with his embodied action in the world - so when he started walking around he bumped into pre-given 'things”….right?
to return to james' question above - surely we must acknowledge that at the most obvious basic level if the kitty wonders off the edge of the cliff he will he crushed on the jagged rocks below and if he had learned to develop his cognition as part of his embodied action he woudl de facto have adequately completed the task of learning to navigate a pre-given world….. now it gets more complex and there are really interesting observations and daunting questions varela is raising - but they do not negate this basic level and saying so certainly doesn't mean we are involved in some kind of cartesian anxiety complex and are too afraid of groundlessness, no-self and no-world to face the 'truth!” :O)
i am cross posting this from bruce's as it seems appropriate to this conversation too:
bruce, you said:
”Enactivism assumes neither that there are independent, disembodied subjects capable of generating or opting out of worlds, nor that any given “world” (scientific, materialist, spiritual, animist, whatever) exists in itself, independent of all perspectives. ” (emphasis mine)
so the first half (seeing as we are between scylla and charybidis): ”Enactivism assumes neither that there are independent, disembodied subjects capable of generating or opting out of worlds…”
that would be both what my reading suggests and what i perceive as accurate. no subjects without bodies, no bodies without worlds, or subjects/bodies capable of magically manipulating worlds in am extreme, omnipotent, solipsistic way…… great.
the second half: ” nor that any given “world” (scientific, materialist, spiritual, animist, whatever) exists in itself, independent of all perspectives. ”
as you might guess this part is more problematic for me - and i don't know if it is a good complement to the first half.
a) i don't think that my reading of varela actually agrees with this, nor b) do i think it is accurate to my perceptions.
fist: ”any given world” - now perhaps this is different than ”any given “world”
if by “world” we mean the world around us and by “”world”” we mean enacted perspective on the “world” around us….
are we talking about (as james mentions) the rock beneath our feet, the oxygen, nitrogen and co2 we are breathing, the crows, trees, ocean, etc….or are we talking about our perception/representation of /perspectives on same?
surely we agree that what we call the ocean, the mountain etc were there before i (as matt said) turned my head to look at them - and surely we agree that the sun was there objectively even though the first baby troglodyte born at night didn't see it until morning?
perhaps your sentence really means to say: ” nor that any given “worldspace” (scientific, materialist, spiritual, animist, whatever) exists in itself, independent of all perspectives. ”
because i think here perhaps we are getting into the problem of the impossibility of “knowing” any “world” independent of our perspective/experience, right?also the impossibility of directly perceiving a world we are not actively co-enacting, correct?
we can't get outside of our experience to know for sure, but this still sounds too idealistic/solipsistic in your sentence, because it seems to imply that there isn't any world independent of subjects - and this statement is clearly not correct in the most obvious sense, right? we can imagine a nuclear holocaust that killed every subject and there would still remain a post-apocalyptic landscape with no-one to perceive it…
as sophisticated as we can get with epistemological, integral and enactivist ideas - somehow we have to pragmatically acknowledge the dependence of consciousness on bodies (but not bodies on consciousness) and of bodies on environments (but not environments on either consciousness or bodies) - where by “dependence” i mean you can't have this without that - but that can exist without this..no?
there were supernovas (or what we call supernovas - or whatever it is we experience with our limited range of visual perception etc ) before there were subjects to observe them, just as there were bacteria eating away at the gums of scurvy ridden sailors before we had microscopes capable of detecting them…. there is to a very significant extent a pre-given world out there we are developing clearer and more complex representations/understandings of…..and i don't actually think that varela would disagree with this, but i think in terms of the specific subjects of cognition and of evolution there is something very important he is pointing out viz the relationship between environment and organism, subject and object.
the tricky thing is to not go all the way into either objectivism or subjectivism, but also to not arrive at some fallacious and fanciful middle way in which subject and object are seen to sort of literally co-manifest out of nothing in an act of mutual creation. this is where we start to see the kinds of cobbling together of bad readings of quantum physics, enactivism, postmodernism, buddhism, non-dual vedanta etc to arrive at the new age confused position that elevates itself to being “proven” by contemporary science and ancient philosophy..
co-enactment must mean something other than this to be plausible, right?
here i am again asking that we draw reasonable lines around fascinating ideas and their applications.
what do you think?
james…
i wanted to address this response as simply and honestly as possible…i don't want it to 'sound' like anything that it is not…
concerning dzogchen atiyoga, and it's over-all effect on my life and how i live that
life…i cannot express completely how indebted i am to it's very basic principles…
and i must also include here my gratitude for the 12 steps of recovery…
these simple principles have taught me to recognize what is true within my own being, and prevents me from going off into fantasy land, because it requires that i incorporate my entire body, mind, and energy to actively participate in 'my' world…and it makes me responsible for all of it…especially the recognition of what my 'true condition' is in reality…and it keeps me honest with me…
when i pay attention to my being or my own true nature; remain in that; stabilize that;
and carry 'that' into my very living experiencing, then my very life path becomes my
awakening journey, and a path of contemplation, no matter if i am having wild sex,
or walking though a park, washing dishes, playing with children, watching a movie,
typing this, or trying to deal with the physical pain that i am sometimes called on
to deal with…
if i pay attention intelligently to what i am aware-ing, while remaining present with my body, mind, and energies…i can question why i am 'feeling' what i am feeling, and why i am reacting or responding in certain ways, and logically question what my awareness is reacting to as truths and whether or not they are really true…critical thinking has also helped this process along…and i find it to be liberating…(in dzogchen circles that might also be called tregchod and thodgal, or cutting through illusion, but those terms for my purposes are outdated).
as with any spiritual practice, one can become closed within the teachings, and not live
the message…i find myself learning and growing every which away today…sometimes so
fast that i am wondering if my brain can keep up…and yet it does…but it is because i
remain open to the message…and then actively participate in understanding that message as it applies to my life experiencing…
i am not a typical dzogchen practictioner, and i don't label myself as that now either…
i accept the basic three precepts:
recognizing my own true nature, remaining there with no doubts, and carrying that state
into my very life experiencing…
i do not agree with the tibetan buddhist baggage that comes along for the ride…and remain open to other avenues that can take my awareness into this 21st spirituality i keep hearing about…LOL…but i am very cautious not to just build myself another cage…
whether it be spiritual or intellectual…
everything else, awareness is teaching me as i remain open to the process…
i find for myself, that it does infact relate to enactivism and integral theory somewhat,
but is not bound by it…
the only secondary practices that i use today, are deep breathing to balance my energies
when they get out of wack…relaxing deeper into my own true nature and embodying that within my body, mind, and energy…
today i am able to mostly maintain this presence at my own level…i deal with my conditioning as it arises…i allow the universe to unfold…and dance in it.
i don't run from sorrow or pain and i fully experience my joy…i live life on its own terms to day as much as i possibly can…and don't sweat the small stuff…when life gives me a mountain today…i climb the damn thing the best i can! LOL…there are times when my energies just need to recoup like anyone elses…but i find my own true, ever-present, ever-deepening nature…is never far…
hope that clarifies my spiritual practice…my very living is it! joy…*
James,
Can you point me to the kind of literature or research that convinces you that nothing like this is happening in the brain / consciousness? I can't see it myself. To me at the moment it is obvious that one function of the brain / nervous system is to navigate the environment and that it uses an internal respresentation to do so.
Look into the A.I. research of Rodney Brooks. He has discovered, through actual attempts to build a robotic cognitive system, that the representational model of the brain is way to slow and clumsy to even come close to functioning in the real world.
Varela, and other embodied cognitive scientists, point out that the environment is its own best representation. Or, put another way, it presents itself just fine and doesn't need to be re-presented internally. That kind of operation is just too expensive and would not allow organisms to get around the world as adroitly as they do using nothing but highly coupled sensorimotor loops.
Nice job, James! My deepest sympathies to you for your loss (the original 3,000 words) – that totally sucks! A painful lesson on nonattachment, I suppose. But the fact that you pulled through and came up with this piece is fantastic, so kudos to you!
One thing you mentioned here is that transcending equally involves excluding and including, and I have to say that I think this is a misunderstanding of “transcend and include.” When we transcend, we don't exclude the “less adequate” or unhelpful aspects of ourselves, but rather we become disidentified with (not dissociated from) them. In other words, we include them without being bound by or limited to them. This is related to what Ken Wilber's assertion that in growth, the subject of one stage becomes the object of the subject of the subsequent stage. This is different than excluding – it's including without identifying with. I think this is an important distinction, and one that differentiates Integral Theory from others.
BTW, I loved how you took us through the devolution from “how human beings develop knowledge of the world” to The Secret – that was hilarious and, unfortunately, too true.
Julian,
you said:
i wonder matt if varela (in rejecting the representationalist model) is talking more specifically for the purposes of understanding how cognition functions, rather than denying any pre-given world whatsoever.
Hopefully I can quell your fears a bit. Yes, there is an environment which exists regardless of whether any particular organism enacts it. But Varela views this as an abstraction, as a kind of “as if” statement that we are required to make, though, for reasons I'll explain, we really don't have any idea what this external environment is like. That all organisms without wings will fall off cliff ledges to the death is obvious, but on a more subtle level, an organism's understanding of reality is constrained by its own structure and organization. This is true whether we're talking about hydra or humans.
Let me quote Varela at lenth on this very issue:
“The basic bio-logic that is central to focus our discussion is the nature of the relationship between autopoietic autonomous unities and their environment. It is ex-hypothesis evident that an autopoietic system depends on its physico-chemical mileu for its conservation as a separate entity, otherwise it would dissolve back into it. Whence the intriguing paradoxicality
proper to an autonomous identity: the living system must distinguish itself from its environment, while at the same time maintaining its coupling; this linkage cannot be detached since it is against this very environment from which the organism arises comes
forth. Now, in this dialogic coupling between the living unity and the physico-chemical environment, the balance is slightly weighted towards the living since it has the active role in this reciprocal coupling. In defining what it is as unity, in the very same movement it defines what remains exterior to it, that is to say, its surrounding environment. A closer examination also makes it evident that this exteriorization can only be understood, so to speak, from the “inside”: the autopoietic unity creates a perspective from which the exterior is one, which
cannot be confused with the physical surroundings as they appear to us as observers, the land of physical and chemical laws simpliciter, devoid of such perspectivism. In our practice as biologists we switch between these two domains all the time. We use and manipulate physico-chemical principles and properties, while swiftly shifting to the use of interpretation and significance as seen from the point of view of the living system. Thus a bacteria swimming in a sucrose gradient is conveniently analyzed in terms of the local effects of sucrose on membrane permeability, medium viscosity, hydromechanics of flagellar beat, and so on. But on the other hand the sucrose gradient and flagellar beat are interesting to analyze only because the entire bacteria points to such items as relevant: their specific significance as components of feeding behavior is only possible by the presence and perspective of the bacteria as a totality. Remove the bacteria as a unit, and all correlations
between gradients and hydrodynamic properties become environmental chemical laws, evident to us as observers but devoid of any special significance. I have gone into this lengthy harangue because I believe that this truly dialectical relationship is a key point. In fact, it might appear as so obvious that we don’t appreciate its deep ramifications. I mean
the important distinction between the environment of the living system as it appears to an observer and without reference to the autonomous unity—which we shall call hereafter simply the environment —and the environment for the system which is defined in the same movement that gave rise to its identity and that only exists in that mutual definition— hereinafter the system’s world. The difference between environment and world is the surplus of signification which haunts the understanding of the living and of cognition, and which is at the root of how a self becomes one. In other words, this surplus is the mother of intentionality. It is quite difficult in practice to keep in view the dialectics of this mutual definition: neither rigid isolation, nor simple continuity with physical chemistry. In contrast, it is easy to conflate the unit’s world with its environment since it is so obvious that we are studying this or that molecular interaction in the context of an autonomous cellular unit, and hence to miss completely the surplus added by the organism’s perspective. There is no food significance in sucrose except when a bacteria swims upgradient and its metabolism uses the molecule in a way that allows its identity to continue. This surplus is obviously not indifferent to the regularities and texture (i.e. the “laws”) that operate in the environment, that sucrose can create a gradient and traverse a cell membrane, and so on. On the contrary, the system’s world is built on these regularities, which is what assures that it can maintain its coupling at all times. What the autopoietic system does—due to its very mode of identity—is to constantly confront the encounters (perturbations, shocks, coupling) with its environment and treat them from a perspective which is not intrinsic to the encounters themselves. Surely rocks or crystal beads don’t beckon sugars gradients out of all the infinite possibilities of physico-chemical interactions as particularly meaningful—for this to happen a perspective from an actively constituted identity is essential. It is tempting, at this point, to slide into some vaporous clouds about “meaning” reminiscent of the worst kind of vitalism of the past or informational jargon of the present. What I emphasize here is that what is meaningful for an organism is precisely given by its constitution as a distributed process, with an indissociable link between local processes where an interaction occurs (i.e. physico-chemical forces acting
on the cell), and the coordinated entity which is the autopoietic unity, giving rise to the handling of its environment without the need to resort to a central agent that turns the handle from the outside–like an elan vital–or a pre-existing order at a particular localization–like a genetic program waiting to be expressed.”
So, basically, the only meaningful world we know is the world we enact. We humans have developed a language which allows us, as observers, to talk about an environment existing independently of the organisms within it. But we ourselves are still organisms, and so despite our nifty linguistic tricks, we remain embedded in the world brought forth by our particular kind of cognitive systems, which themselves have co-evolved with the environments of our ancestors.
This should clear some things up! Sorry for such a long quote, but it seemed necessary.
You can read the whole paper where I drew this quote from here.
Star
Thank you so much for this deep response. It sounds like a great practice.
I can also identify with the way in which you are not a conventional practitioner, and avoid the labels that go with it. I am the same about my own TM practice.
I liked this:
“i do not agree with the tibetan buddhist baggage that comes along for the ride…and remain open to other avenues that can take my awareness into this 21st spirituality i keep hearing about…LOL…but i am very cautious not to just build myself another cage…
whether it be spiritual or intellectual…
All The Best
James
hi matt
“So, basically, the only meaningful world we know is the world we enact.”
by meaningful do you mean which has meaning to us, or which exists independently of our interest in it, or awareness of it?
“We humans have developed a language which allows us, as observers, to talk about an environment existing independently of the organisms within it. But we ourselves are still organisms, and so despite our nifty linguistic tricks, we remain embedded in the world brought forth by our particular kind of cognitive systems, which themselves have co-evolved with the environments of our ancestors.”
where is the nifty trick in language? in what way does naming an environmental element external to us suggest that the environment exists independently of us? examples?
what do you see as the primary function of language? in what way does language seek to diminish the fact of our being in the world?
james, matt, and julian…awesome discussion…i am amazed that i can keep up…lol…and understand what you guys are getting at…james, you are able to ask the most honest and thought provoking questions, matt comes along and outlines the general answer, then julian breaks it down into specifics…even further…wow…awesome…thnx guys…star…
Adam,
I mean that the world we experience is the world we enact. There is a land of physical stuff, as Varela says, but we know it only by way of our organism's particular structure and organization.
you asked:
where is the nifty trick in language? in what way does naming an environmental element external to us suggest that the environment exists independently of us? examples?
what do you see as the primary function of language? in what way does language seek to diminish the fact of our being in the world?
I won't say too much about this now, because I spend a whole section in my essay talking about it. But suffice it to say that the nifty trick is essentially the recursivity of language. We can label certain phenomena, abstracting them from their gestalt, and then manipulate the abstraction as though it had an independent existence of its own. When I say, for instance, “the sky is blue,” I bring forth a noun called “sky” and an adjective “blue” which really are nothing external at all, just the reflection of light interacting with our human visual system to produce a phenomenon we can distinguish linguistically and discuss with one another.
Language doesn't necessarily diminish or conceal our being in the world, but it certainly has the potential to do this. Nietzsche put it wonderfully in Human, All Too Human:
“The significance of language for the evolution of culture lies in this, that mankind set up in language a separate world beside the other world, a place it took to be so firmly set that, standing upon it, it could lift the rest of the world off its hinges and make itself master of it. To the extent that man has for long ages believed in the concepts and names of things as in aeternae veritates he has appropriated to himself that pride by which he raised himself above the animal: he really thought that in language he possessed knowledge of the world.”
James:
Can you suggest another way to say “the world within consciousness”?…
By this I mean the world that shows up for me as phenomena within consciousness. We all agree that it is possible for our senses to deceive us, but I want to highlight the fact that when this happens, it is not an error in judgment. When I see the broken straw, it really appears broken to me, and this appearance is co-created by mind and world together, the world within consciousness.
This co-creation is true of ordinary experience of non-illusions as well. Going back to the example of color, color is part of the world-within-consciousness, not the world-out-there. What is out there is called electromagnetic waves of particular frequencies, but no-one can perceive the EM waves that co-create the subjective experience of color independently of subjective experience. We can make observations and ultimately derive mathematical abstractions that describe and predict how EM waves work, but that is a model of the world, not the world itself.
Taking the co-creation equation of Mind + World = Reality, when I turn my back on a red ball, the reality of redness ceases to exist for me. That doesn't mean that whatever is in that World part of the equation goes away, but that I can't really know anything about it, directly. I can't ever subtract Mind from both sides of the equation, and get World = Reality - Mind, which is essentially the realist position, the omniscient view from no-where.
if the ball hits me in the head, it doesn't matter whether or not i see that it is a red ball…it is still gonna hurt…so i am not certain that i see what you and matt are seeing, although i am very familiar with the idea…
Starlight, there is something there, and when you look at it, you see a red ball. Physics tells us that really, there is no ball, just a collection of molecules which are a collection of atoms which are made up of various sub-atomic particles, etc. - that's what is real. But you perceive a red ball, and you also perceive that it hit you, when from the point of view of physics, the ball never touched you, the electromagnetic forces in your head repelled the electromagnetic forces in the atoms of the ball, and those forces triggered nerves that generated electric impulses through your nervous system, etc.
So where are you getting the idea that you were hit by a ball?
thanks matt - i'll look forward to monday. i'm loving the distinctions that are coming up here : )
good to see you tely!
i know you were talking to james but you were responding to a reference he made to something i said, so:
you bring up an important point viz transcend and include.
i think it turns quite heavily on context.
in many ways yes we transcend and completely include - especially in the sense of holons - atoms, cells, organs etc… this might also be said in terms of other developmental structures - wherein transcendence without inclusion would leave no foundation - and this is precisely the error of exclusively transcendentalist spirituality as one example…
however i think “to transcend” in some ways implies letting go off, moving beyond or getting free (particularly of either identification or erroneous perception) - so contained within the formulation “transcend and include” is the implication of excluding or going beyond something as well as including something - i think in the SES and Integral Psych phase wilber makes (as you perhaps are pointing out ) the point that too much transcendence = dissociation, while too little transcendence results in being undifferentiated. (in the SDi and Integral Spirituality phase i think the phrase has been used more inclusively and in a more LL and less UL way..thus less emphasis on the “letting go of” aspect of transcendence regarding development.)
in the sense of cognitive development, it is not a dissociation to transcend the aspects of concrete operational thought (for example) that were limiting our ability to think in formal operations - and while we would include our ability to think concretely when appropriate we would also transcend our rigid misapplication of concrete thinking to metaphors and symbols..
by the same token we transcend our belief in magical thinking as we grow up (if all goes well, we do not expect it to work say when driving or checking our bank account) but hopefully we can still enter the child's realm and play as-if games when called upon to do so - even get very involved and absorbed and have access to our inner child - but have transcended identification with it and belief in it as an adequate map of perhaps how cause and effect works …and we can come right back into adult mind if we need to make decisions and function responsibly in the world - which someone of adult age who is however developmentally disabled cannot do.
we also transcend (if all goes well) the healthy narcissism of earlier stages as we grow and by transcending we do mean exclude, let go off, surrender, even as we include whatever good stuff we can still use from that stage…hopefully an internalized sense of self-worth that no longer needs the narcissistic mirroring!
in the sense of transcendence viz transformational practice, personal growth and healing i think we transcend (go beyond) perspectives/perceptions like say magical thinking (narcissistic omnipotence) or defensive denial around certain things, or perhaps mythic literalism regarding the one true god etc and do not include these in our evolving self-sense - though we may not be dissociated from them, because by definition we have included them in our awareness and are no longer identified with them - in this sense we have included them in awareness and included the healthy and useful material they were related to in our functioning system, but have transcended our identification with them as self, and also let go of the erroneous perceptions and they were creating of self, other and world…..as well as their attendant pathologies.
i think the distinctions between pathology vs health and truth vs falsity are important aspects of developmental models, as well as healing models - and in addditiona to being an egalitarian statement of important wide embrace, “transcend and include” has an intimate relationship to these distinctions.
i think so much is wrapped up in this powerful phrase and it deserves unpacking in different contexts…
what do you think?
Hi Tely
Good to see you here. Glad you enjoyed this piece and thanks for the positive comments.
You said:
“When we transcend, we don't exclude the “less adequate” or unhelpful aspects of ourselves, but rather we become disidentified with (not dissociated from) them. In other words, we include them without being bound by or limited to them. This is related to what Ken Wilber's assertion that in growth, the subject of one stage becomes the object of the subject of the subsequent stage. This is different than excluding – it's including without identifying with. I think this is an important distinction, and one that differentiates Integral Theory from others.”
What a great comment. This is the kind of feedback and close analysis of the point in hand that I myself want to hear. Thanks.
So I am considering the implications of your distinction between “disidentified” and “dissociated”. I wonder if by using the word exclude I also meant “dissociate”. Being a psychotherapist maybe the word “dissociate” has wider implications for you than for me. (I'm really musing here as I write…) and also perhaps that you are thinking in terms of one's own individual growth?
To use a different example: Integral Life portal has just opened in beta, and I was listening to the opening “What is Integral?” video blurb. It said - and I paraphrase closely here - “Can we create a map of human existence in which everyone is at least partially right? The answer is yes.”
Now as I was listening to this, my head shot up and my jaw dropped somewhat…. “everyone is partially right”….everyone…partially right…Hmmmm.
So the usual extreme examples came into my head…. Heinrich Himmler spending all those years working out how to exterminate as many people as possible as efficiently as possible…. in what sense was he being partially right when he was doing that? None that I can see. In working towards a better moral world, I would not want to include the “partial truths” of the KKK. I would want to exclude them, not in the sense of pretending the KKK aren't there or avoiding looking at the factors contributing to their creation and continuation and where they might be in terms of the Spiral…by exclude I don't mean “burying them in the collective subconscious”. I mean lookng at such thinsg face on, and getting clear on why you exclude them, and then saying so.
I get the feeling you may have studied Ken's writing more closely than I have, and it's always great to have another voice in the mix. What do you think ?
I'm just now getting to this blog. I've only skimmed it and the comments, but will need to read it more thoroughly. Offhand, I was glad to see the view brought up by Mr. T. Consciousness is very central to this discussion.
I found humorous starlight's response about the ball hitting her head. That is a commonsense argument I've heard many times before. We know reality by our interaction with it or in some cases its interaction with us. It hurts so its real. Its a good thing this discussion is online or else starlight might be throwing that hypothetical ball at Mr. T's head. *whack* Consider yourself enactivated! :)
mr. t…i totally get what you are saying and agree completely; however; my point is more to the fact that we do not live at the subatomic level, and when what we call a ball, red or not, ball or not, hits us in our head, whether we see it or not…it hurts like hell…that is the reality we live in…no matter what i understand or don't understand about metaphysics…and i am certain there is much i do not understand….
i agree it has been a very important break through, but it has led to many, including myself once upon a time, to live in spiritual fantasy land, trying to deny that the whatever that did not hit me in the head…still hurt like hell…then it led me to thinking that i was not meditating properly or something…and that i needed maybe to join a buddhist sect, or go live in a tibetan cave…then there was that matter of learning about all those other conceptual buddhist hells, that made christianity look good again…NOT…
LOL…today, i want the facts…of this reality…the one in which i live on a day to day basis…the one that has wars and children starving…i do not wish to close my eyes any more and just tell myself that it is just illusion…i would like to be able to take my experience and help others that are still suffering…
you telling me what i already know, does not help me deal with the reality that i live in…especially when a little child asks me, 'why does this hurt'?…may i ask you, when you don't get hit in your no-head with a nonred, nonball, does it…not hurt? if it doesn't, then that info would be helpful…
thank you for responding…always, star…
marmalade…rotflmao…i have to keep it simple…it is real…especially to someone that is feeling it…and no…not wanting at all to hit mr. t in the head…i am having a blast!
now concerning this aspect of transcending the inadequate…not leaving it behind…well that does not quiet work in my experience…when i got sober, i had to totally dissociate myself from the behavior that was continually getting me drunk…and completely leave it behind…
if these abstract concepts have no simplistic application, then they serve no real purpose except to confuse and keep us trapped in our own mind play…even if it is considered to be at a 'higher' level…
Man I'm loving this discussion!
Star - I loved this: my point is more to the fact that we do not live at the subatomic level, and when what we call a ball, red or not, ball or not, hits us in our head, whether we see it or not…it hurts like hell…especially when a little child asks me, 'why does this hurt'?…may i ask you, when you don't get hit in your no-head with a nonred, nonball, does it not hurt?
Mr T - my response to your reducing a red ball to just subatomic particles and therefore not a ball is the same as Star's - we don't live at the subatomic level, therefore such a perspective - while accurate - has limited use for us, unless we happen to actually be a subatomic physicist!
Or more specifically, it's fascinating and possibly productive to be able to freely access the perspective of “it's not really a red ball it's just a bunch of subatomic particles”, but it's also what KW might call inadequate to reality for human beings - I can see it now, David Beckham at LA Galaxy shouting to his defender in the middle of a crucial match “pass the undifferentiated group of subatomic particles that happens to look to the human eye like a ball!”
Mr T you also said: “Taking the co-creation equation of Mind + World = Reality, when I turn my back on a red ball, the reality of redness ceases to exist for me. That doesn't mean that whatever is in that World part of the equation goes away, but that I can't really know anything about it, directly. I can't ever subtract Mind from both sides of the equation, and get World = Reality - Mind, which is essentially the realist position, the omniscient view from no-where.”
Thanks for this…. I'm still pondering….How about:
World - Mind = Unobserved Noninteracted Reality
World + Mind = Observed or Interacted Reality, ….and the obsevrer or interacter is intrinsically already part of that Reality… and the Reality is basically the same in both cases except that in the latter there's a bit more interaction with mind/ consciousness/ organisms.
Enjoying your involvement here.
James
james…pssssssst…even a subatomic physicist might find himself at a Cubs game, if he/she happens to be a fan, and get whopped up side the head with a stray ball…lol
i can guarantee they'll be more concerned with making it to the ER than with the physics of what just happened or didn't happen…
i am totally enjoying this discussion!
But what if you put that ball in place of the cyanide in Schrodinger's box. Did the cat get or not before opening the box? And since the cat is color blind, is the ball really red? hmmm :)
James, I just posted this on my blog post, but I thought I'd post it here, too. It's in response to this question of yours, which it seems was posted ages ago. Feel free to respond here or on my blog…
James, I don't mind your pushing further – except for the fact that it's keeping me here, instead of over on your blog, where I want to be commenting!
First, I want to say that I agree with Matt's answer to your question. What I am saying does not contradict what he is saying, but it is on a different level of generalization and abstraction.
So, to try to clarify…
On the one hand, I fully agree that the worldspaces or domains of distinction we enact are constrained by biological and evolutionary factors. The “world” I perceive is a product of my biology and the long history of my species' development in interaction with this local planetary environment…ultimately, even on the conditions that existed nano-seconds after the big bang, the balance of which have impacted how the entire universe has unfolded over billions of years. Had the expansion of the universe been even a tiny bit faster or slower, for instance, we would not be having this conversation or enacting this shared worldspace.
On the other hand, I think we need to be careful not to take any of these things, any language we may use and any particular domain of distinctions we may enact, as pre-given, observer independent portraits of reality-in-itself. In a sense, it's the simple recognition that biology, evolutionary science, and so on, are particular languages – that the distinctions they draw are not inherent in things themselves, but rather are particular complex perspectival enactments involving multiple (AQAL) factors. They are modes of ab-straction – modes of carving up wholeness, and activities or “enactments” in which we as the speakers or investigators are inextricably involved.
I used the phrase indeterminate, unbounded wholeness to refer to reality, rather than the language of any particular paradigm (scientific or otherwise), in an attempt to acknowledge that “something is there” while also acknowledging that that something is, in an important way, indeterminate and multiple. It was an attempt to acknowledge, from the perspective that we are exploring here, that we live in and among the overlapping, complexly interrelated, AQALly arising worldspaces of sentient beings – worldspaces which, as enactivism points out, aren't simply passive reflections of self-existing, pre-given objects or environments, but participatory enactments.
Now, what is being challenged here is not the idea that there is something outside of given organisms. But even to start with the presupposition of “organism” and then attempt to consider whether any world exists outside of it in reality or not is to start out already caught up in the network of presuppositions we are attempting to challenge. As I believe I mentioned earlier, enactivism challenges both the foundations we have habitually sought in either subjectivism or objectivism.
James, you mentioned in your blog entry that we need to pay attention to how things are separate in addition to celebrating, through perspectives such as enactivism, the ways that they are connected. I think this is a good point. One thing that I want to suggest in response to this is that, given the constructed, enacted nature of our worldspaces, there will always be a degree of separation, of incommensurability among worlds and perceptions. We can find consonances and homeomorphic resonances - we can trace out a sufficient degree of objective grounding that we can still communicate across languages and cultures and disciplines - but our multiply enacted worldspaces will also always be incommensurable, to a degree. Taking a cue from the Bon Dzogchen view that I referenced earlier, I don't see this as evidence of ultimate fragmentation; rather, the play of multiplicity, of differance, speaks also to unbounded wholeness.
There are several reasons this “wholeness” is described as indeterminate and unbounded in the Bon tradition. (Forgive me for going a bit astray from Varela's enactivism; I do think it relates.) One of them is that it can never, in itself, be taken as an object in itself; we cannot stand outside the whole and make any uninvolved pronouncements about it. Really, the notions of both an independent subject capable of “standing outside” and the world as a pre-given, self-existent, monolithic totality are both called into question.
There's a bit more I wanted to say, but I'm posting this much later than I wanted. I wrote most of it at work, but just haven't had time to wrap it up or post it. I'll put this up for now and of course will leave the door open for further discussion and/or clarification.
Best wishes,
Bruce
it's fascinating and possibly productive to be able to freely access the perspective of “it's not really a red ball it's just a bunch of subatomic particles”
Here again, we should be careful to not insert the Cartesian paradigm into the discussion. In pointing out the illusions of ordinary experience, I'm not taking a skeptical position that suggests that we are stupid for being deluded and must seek out the underlying truth - any truth we discover is always enacted!
From a purely practical standpoint of day-to-day living, it's necessary to assume the realist standpoint, or you wouldn't survive, but that doesn't mean it's an accurate perception. This again is the Cartesian paradigm, where truth puts us in control, and control implies that we understand the truth. You include a quote in your essay: ”Consciousness could never have survived the brutal machinations of natural selection unless it was somewhat accurate…” This is actually false - my model of reality could be useful without being true, and could certainly evolve and improve. As long as my model causes me to make good decisions, or at least better decisions, conferring a selective advantage.
A metaphor for this might be watching a foreign film with English subtitles. Just because the subtitles (the model of reality) tell a coherent story and seem to match up with what the characters are doing doesn't mean they are an accurate translation. Or even a translation at all. For all you know, the story told with the subtitles is completely different from the real one (reality in itself), and there's plenty of obvious points in the movie where the subtitles don't match up at all.
To reunite this with my earlier equations, the real script of the movie is the World in itself; Unobserved, non-interacted reality. The movie with the English subtitles is (Mind + World); Observed, Interacted reality. We have no way of knowing if they are the same; all we really know is that if we assume they are the same and don't pay too close attention, the story makes sense.
At least one reason to adopt this position (if I'm reading Varela correctly), is that it could frame mystical experience in such a way that its central philosophic claims can be made sense of. So we might be able to distinguish between genuine mystical experiences, psychosis, wishful thinking, etc.
Hi, James!
So I am considering the implications of your distinction between “disidentified” and “dissociated”. I wonder if by using the word exclude I also meant “dissociate”. Being a psychotherapist maybe the word “dissociate” has wider implications for you than for me. (I'm really musing here as I write…) and also perhaps that you are thinking in terms of one's own individual growth?
I'm not sure what implications “dissociate” has for you, but for me, it means distancing oneself, denying, excluding, or otherwise saying “no” to. As opposed to disidentification (or perhaps a better word would be non-identification), which can say “yes,” but hold what it's saying yes to very loosely, with no need to attach to it or deny it – simply to be aware of it, not giving it any power or trying to overpower over it. With non-identification, there's not much charge around an issue, either positive or negative, whereas with dissociation, there's a charge – usually very negative, but sometimes positive. When we dissociate from a part of ourselves (“transcend and exclude,” which isn't a true transcendence), it goes into our shadow, and it starts unconsciously influencing our decisions, behavior, thoughts, and feelings. But if we transcend and include a part of ourselves, we don't deny having that in ourselves, but we just don't feel much charge around it, nor give it much power.
Heinrich Himmler spending all those years working out how to exterminate as many people as possible as efficiently as possible…. in what sense was he being partially right when he was doing that? None that I can see.
The terminology of “right” is tricky, because it puts us into a dualistic right-vs.-wrong framework, which is an either/or framework that doesn't allow for true transcendence/expansion. But if we think in terms of transcend and include, we might, for instance, note that there is a brutal, cruel, vicious, uncaring part such as Himmler in all of us. “Transcend and include” could mean non-judgmentally noticing that part within ourselves, but not giving it any power – not identifying with it. So that in choosing our behavior, we wouldn't have to act from that part of ourselves – we would act from the level of development with which we're identified (which hopefully is a lot higher than that one). Same with the KKK example. We all have hateful, fearful, narrow-minded aspects of ourselves, but transcending and including them would mean recognizing (as opposed to denying or judging or fighting with) them without needing to act on them – having the choice to act from a more expansive perspective. And presumably in such a situation, if we had that expanded perspective, we would choose to act from it).
“Transcend and exclude” is a great recipe for feeding one's shadow, whereas “transcend and include” allows all the parts of ourselves, including the less skillful/useful/effective ones, to be there, but gives us a choice to act from a more skillful, effective, expanded-perspective place.
Hope that's helpful!
nice to read your excellent distinctions tely!
i wonder if you saw my response to you above ?
i dont think either james or i are suggesting “transcend and exclude” as an alternative to transcend and include - rather we are pointing out the nuances of what gets transcended (or excluded/left behind) and what gets included… again this is more from the wilber period where he was focused more on UL stuff a la his integral psychology book, especially it's spectrum of pathology etc…. this is less of a focus in the current, more LL focused work - and i think often gets missed!
i think too that his nazi example is a great one and goes to the problem of pathology. a problem that often gets glossed over in our relativist excitement about everyone being partially right and all perspectives being included in the integral embrace..
while we wouldnt want to disown and thus repress into our shadows the part of us that is nazi-esque, we also don't want to psychoanalytically (or relativistically) reduce the healthy value judgment of such pathology to merely being some kind of shadow projection, right?
i think too that one can be in touch with non-duality and still make these sorts of healthy distinctions/value judgments - in fact it might be an imperative!
I resonate with this middle ground - between a scientific real world view and a subjective mind constructed world. This rings true for me that it isn't wholly either but a bit more complex than saying it is only this or that and it is the same with most things In life - neither black nor white but both needed for wholeness. I would agree about the source of the morphing process (how human beings develop knowledge to The Secret) being sloppy thinking and writing. I believe there was a world and non-human inhabitants before humans became part of that whole creation.
My experience with my FILs death last fall though does lead me to believe in something “else” not necessarily attached to the physical body. Though un-provable, I felt the residual energy within the house that he died for at least days afterward, an energy I could define as not those physically present, an energy that felt like him. I felt his energy soar immediately after his death and sensed his elated awareness with everything at once - the falling leaves, the cardinal in a bush, the preparations in the house, me and the kids outside the house. Yet, the animating principle was set free from the body and he was ecstatic. I believe that perhaps this energy dissipates over time, if nothing is lost, then it “goes” somewhere. If it has been embodied, it's energy form may take a bit of time to totally spread out and the” then what” I can't answer but that was how it felt. He announced a couple of weeks before his death, when he would die and then did exactly that. He announced his leaving just moments before but those with him didn't understand.
Now, I come back full circle with your “how are we separate” and “how are we interconnected”. In the personal case just presented, my FIL did not become “part” of me, yet my awareness remained aware of his awareness, perhaps his consciousness as it drifted out into space. We were interconnected by the experience, by being geographically in proximity but still separate individuations, each with a separate experience of the event. I could not take that final step into death with him, he could not take anyone along with him. It was this that frightened him, the letting go of those he loved.
I think my favorite statement from your essay is this ”It has to do with how real things are, in reality, that non-distinction between the intersubjective network of things. When it's considered for what it is, when it is absorbed, or lived, or embodied for what it is, it works precisely in that mode of care and concern.”
I myself have to get to beddybye, so no time now for comments that have come in today on Balder's or any that have come in here at all. I won't be able to catch up until Sunday, if I am able at all. My point of view is likely not to resonate with Integralists because I've no education in it and I'm just me/who I am in a place here where I don't quite belong, adding a perspective that never was asked for. Still, some of you I know and others I've seen around. Beyond that, it's interesting to dip my toe into your world for a little while, thanks to your symposium.
Deborah
<humor alert>
OMG, my gmail just showed me this
Funny Quote of the Day - Carl Sagan - “In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.”
</humor alert>
OM Bastet
James,
Somehow, perhaps because I didn't have internet access for a while, I never had the pleasure of experiencing your writing voice in full-on fashion like this. I'm blown away man. You have a way of expressing yourself that is so refreshing, candid, embodied. I'll be checking out your blog on a regular basis from now on. What a gem.
I love your comment:
My current feeling is “Oh, is that it? That's just common sense. Environment affects organism - organism affects environment. And…..?”
That you are able to dive in so deep and engage so whole-heartedly with all these commenters, then step back like this. So refreshing. I'm not in philosophical mode these days, so it's hard for me to plug into the discussion on that level. Your quote above pretty much sums up my response to the discussion so far. It's the “And…?” part that has me stirring. We'll see where that goes. For now I'm enjoying just reading, and smiling whenever you brighten the discussion with your humor and embodied insight.
–Bob
Hi All
Thanks for all comments here.
Just to say I'm temporarily busy with activity in molecular space rather than cyber space.
I'll be back v.soon. Keep talking… :-)
we're waiting on you! i want to see you expound on your idea that talking about how we are separate will prove to be difficult for many…bruce agrees with me that this is a very important aspect…
i see it as detrimental in addressing not only 'new age', but also many aspects that arise within the buddhist and dzogchen traditions…
Mr. T - I liked what you said here:
“From a purely practical standpoint of day-to-day living, it's necessary to assume the realist standpoint, or you wouldn't survive, but that doesn't mean it's an accurate perception.”
This is an essential distinction, but its also rather complicated. Evolutionarily speaking, our understanding of reality is focused more on the practical than on accuracy. To see the world with perfect accuracy probably would be an impediment to survival. I like the idea that our perception is more about filtering information than gathering information.
Hi, James,
Sorry to pile on the posts to you. This is my second in a row and I'm planning a third … but you've given us a lot to talk about!
I enjoyed your whole essay and appreciated the clarity of your questions. I'm going to respond to a few parts now and will return to others later. First, this comment about physicalism…
You wrote: I think basically I could be called a physicalist. I remember reading in 2002 in A Brief History of Everything the following:
“Q: So reality is not composed of say subatomic particles.
KW: Yikes. I know that approach is common, but it is really a profoundly reductionistic approach, because it is going to privilege the material, physical universe, and then everything else - from life to mind to spirit - has to be derived from subatomic particles, and this will never never work.”
I wrote why not? In the margin, twice.
In the intervening 5+ years I have yet to be shown convincingly by Wilber's writings or anyone else's why not? Life, mind & spirit would have to be derived from the physical universe? Wilber seems appalled…. Why? Take away the physical body, there is no life as we know it. Take away the brain, or brains, the mind cannot operate. Spirit? I'm not even sure what he means by Spirit, but I don't know of anyone claiming to live a spiritual life that is doing so without a physical body.
The current hard science of subatomic physics doesn't explain how life started, or exactly how free will works, or what spiritual inspiration looks like under an electron microscope - but, take away the physical and what's left? No thoughts cos there's no brain or mind to have them, no emotions cos there's no heart to feel them, no culture or noosphere cos there are no books, no newspapers, no computers. In that sense I am a physicalist.
I think Varela is a physicalist of sorts too…
Yes, I believe we've had several conversations on this subject. And I think it is fair to qualify Varela as a physicalist of sorts. He certainly isn't arguing for an Idealist perspective. He finds his form of emergentism to be consonant with certain Buddhist principles of co-dependent origination, but there are other physicists sympathetic to Buddhist ideas who find even emergentism hard to sustain. (See this essay by Michel Bitbol if you're interested.)
Regarding the quote by Wilber above, I do not believe he is dismissing physicality; I think he is saying that, starting with matter as primary and foundational, we run into the problem of how something like consciousness, subjective interiority, could ever arise - how wholly material processes could ever give rise to awareness. I believe he is saying he believes we must not try to derive the left-hand quadrants from the right, but rather that we should recognize their co-origination and interdependence. In other words, he is arguing for something like a panpsychic or panexperientialist position, though he has reservations about how these perspectives have been articulated to date. In this view, both interiority (subjectivity) and exteriority (objectivity) are present in all phenomenal expressions, from the Big Bang forward - though he is careful to point out that we should not conflate this sort of interiority with human consciousness, that we should not try to push our form of interiority “all the way down.”
There are a number of ways to approach these issues, and I might add my own qualifications, but just for the purposes of this post, I would say I also find a panpsychic or panexperientialist model to be more satisfactory than any form of reductive physicalism or materialism (which would collapse left-hand quadrants out of existence, or make them dependent on - rather than always co-implicated with - the right-hand quadrants).
Later on in this section of your essay, you mentioned the billions of experiments we do each day that “confirm the primacy of the physical.” I want to return to this section, because I think this is a key passage. In brief, and in anticipation of what I'd like to explore together later, I will just comment that the observations you mention appear to confirm the correspondence theory of truth because they presuppose it. I'll come back to this soon; it will take time for me to write about this, and I've got to get ready now to take my son to the new Star Wars movie!
The last thing I wanted to comment on in this letter is your addendum on language and context expectations. I don't believe I have every compared you, personally, to “Orange rationalists” or dyed-in-the-wool materialists; though I gather from what you're saying here that you identify with Julian's position, and so therefore may feel “targeted” by any criticisms I may have made of something Julian has expressed. For the record, I don't see Julian, either, as a dyed-in-the-wool materialist or “just” an Orange-level rationalist. I also do not expect him to contextualize everything he says in relation to the whole spectrum; that would clearly be unreasonable. When I made that comment to him (“just contextualize it and you'll get less beef from us”), I did so based on several years' experience of dialogue with him, in which I have almost never seen him contextualize certain of his strong rationalist (as opposed to merely rational) arguments in a wider, more nuanced perspective. So, I should have said, “Just contextualize it sometimes,” because that is what I meant.
Anyway, lots more to say, but I'm off to the movies for now.
Best wishes, and thanks for your excellent contribution to this symposium.
Bruce
James, I just did a post on how to prevent losing text before posting,. If the suggestions there would NOT have prevented your “frickin' computer meltdown,” please email me with what happened so I can see if I can find out how to prevent such in the future, for others, and post that. It's gotta be a great source of suffering haha and it's gotta be preventable, if enough people knew how. One of my missions in life is to make the site here more user-friendly.
Thanks, OM Bastet
Hey Bruce, I've got some questions for you.
Do you know how Wilber connects enactivism with panpsychism and panexperientialism?
And what are your personal thoughts on possible connections?
Hi, Ben,
Basically, Wilber's notion of tetra-enactivism is an expression of enactivism in a panpsychic or panexperientialist frame: holons at all levels of manifestation, all the way down and all the way up, have co-enacting subjective, objective, intersubjective, and interobjective dimensions. I think this makes good sense. If, as Christian de Quincey argues, energy or physical systems all tingle with a form of interiority, then there will naturally be intersubjective and interobjective domains as well – e.g., co-enacted worldspaces.
Best wishes,
Bruce
I appreciate that very much, Bruce. Very clearly stated. That definitely seems different from what I understand Varela to have been writing about. In what ways do you think Varela would've disagreed with Wilber?
I have one of Christian de Quincey's books. I thought his ideas might fit in with this symposium. This kind of interiority seems relevant to the embodied mind. If there is a fundamental interiority to reality, then enactivism would truly be co-dependent arising.
Julian,
I said: Enactivism assumes neither that there are independent, disembodied subjects capable of generating or opting out of worlds, nor that any given “world” (scientific, materialist, spiritual, animist, whatever) exists in itself, independent of all perspectives.
You replied: the second half: “nor that any given ‘world' (scientific, materialist, spiritual, animist, whatever) exists in itself, independent of all perspectives.”
as you might guess this part is more problematic for me - and i don't know if it is a good complement to the first half.
a) i don't think that my reading of varela actually agrees with this, nor b) do i think it is accurate to my perceptions.
fist: ”any given world” - now perhaps this is different than ”any given “world”
if by “world” we mean the world around us and by “”world”” we mean enacted perspective on the “world” around us….
are we talking about (as james mentions) the rock beneath our feet, the oxygen, nitrogen and co2 we are breathing, the crows, trees, ocean, etc….or are we talking about our perception/representation of /perspectives on same?
Yes, I think what is causing you to stumble is the idea that no universe existed at all prior to the emergence of sentient observers. I am definitely not saying that the sun didn't exist in its own right prior to the emergence of organisms capable of looking up into the sky and gazing upon it. When I said that no given world (scientific, materialist, spiritual, etc) exists in itself, independent of all perspectives, I was referring to the various worldspaces that we enact through different paradigms and perspectives. Often, when we speak of “the world,” we tend to equate our perceptions of the world, our current experience of it, with the world-in-itself. We tend to speak as if we were passive observers of an independent, wholly objective world instead of creative, co-arising participants in the enactment of worldspaces.
As I believe Matt said in an earlier post, “the world” is an abstraction; we only know enacted worldspaces. But in making this argument, we are not saying (and I include Varela in this) that the universe did not exist prior to the emergence of planetary life forms capable of enacting worldspaces.
However, I do think a couple qualifications are in order, at least with regard to my own perspective. One, when we talk about features of the universe prior to the emergence of human beings, we are retro-reading our particular human enactments, our conceptual distinctions and perceptions, back into the past - essentially universalizing our humanly enacted worldspace(s). Because we can conceptually expand our temporal frame, we are able to do this, to imaginatively place ourselves in the position of “witnesses” (or, more technically, co-enactors) of the pre-human Kosmos. But in so doing, we make it, still, the human Kosmos.
Two, when I speak of the sun-in-itself, or the world-in-itself, I am doing so for particular rhetorical purposes. It's a useful shorthand and certainly a valid way to speak, particularly in everyday contexts. But technically, I don't think that any particular object we can point out in our world actually has inherent (wholly independent) self-existence. Even if you leave the left-hand quadrants out of the picture, I think the more you inquire and mine down into the objective world, the more it recedes before you - you find relations upon relations but no-thing inherently self-existent (independent of causes and conditions). I do not believe any objective foundational object or substratum, out of which everything else is built and upon which everything else rests, will ever be found. So, when we point to any “thing” we point to a nexus of relationships, and the more we trace out its connections, the more it continues to unfold and recede: objective groundlessness.
Three, there is the panpsychic aspect. As we've discussed before, while the universe has a long pre-organic history - a very long evolutionary stretch of development prior to the emergence of planetary life forms - I do not believe the “universe” during that time was actually devoid of the left-hand quadrant perspective-dimensions. The forms of interiority that were present were likely as ineffable and “negligible,” from our perspective, as atoms themselves are - they don't even register. But I do think it is reasonable to speculate that, from the very beginning, the “world” has been infused with interiority, some level of proto-subjective resonance, and therefore, even then - from our current Integral, enactive perspective - we can retro-read our enactive view into the past: the primordial Flaring Forth (as Swimme calls the Big Bang) was already a blooming of worldspaces.
Best wishes,
Balder
P.S. For the record, I do not regard the panpsychic view I just offered as essential for a healthy 21st Century spirituality. I think a healthy spirituality can still be built on a worldview which sees consciousness as a late-emergent property of complex arrangements of matter. But I think there are other reasons to prefer panpsychism over emergentism.
what a thrilling, balanced and comprehensive response - thanks so much!
the way you are expressing it here - i would say i agree with about 90% and would probably only have slight qualifiers and limitations on the remaining 10%
more on that perhaps tuesday..
probably about as close as we will get to complete agreement my semantic-mirror-dancing friend!
Thanks, brother J. I'm glad we're better clarifying our common ground and our differences here. That's one of the things I was hoping this symposium would help us do.
I look forward to your offering on Tuesday!
Best wishes,
Bruce
Gaia site just ate my post, but fortunately I had it on my clipboard, and am now going to save to a word doc every paragraph, so here goes again:
I've had 60 posts facing me this evening, and have not finished reading them all, but I read one of Bruce's posts this morning, and was handwriting a response part of the day.
But I can't find the original, so I am starting now to record permalink addresses of comments I want to respond to, have a collection of those.
It appears to me that many of the ideas I have suggested are also appearing above, at least I read things that to me are the same as what I was trying to say. I think there is some convergence going on here, delightful.
When Bruce said this I flipped, in a good way:
In this view, both interiority (subjectivity) and exteriority (objectivity) are present in all phenomenal expressions, from the Big Bang forward - though he is careful to point out that we should not conflate this sort of interiority with human consciousness, that we should not try to push our form of interiority “all the way down.”
So with the caveat I have not read everything else he said, even in that post, here is the response triggered in me:
YESSSS !!!!!!!!!!!!!(Hands thrown ecstatically into the air)
This really is what I have been trying to say. And especially the last part, to which I would add let's not try to push our form of interiority all the way UP as well !!!!!!!
Thank you Bruce for what seems to me to be ultra-clear wording. This is exactly what I meant to say in my recent post about strings/information/energy/vibration/consciousness (whose permalink address I believe is http://brucealderman.gaia.com/blog/2008/8/enactivism_integral_theory_and_21st_century_spirituality#comment_304555 You guys don't make it easy, LOL !!!!)
I think the aim of a bunch of us writing here and being quoted here in this symposium is to demolish the question as to which is ontologically prior, matter or consciousness, because we question the ontological assumptions from which the question arises, assumption that must be made before the question makes any sense, foremost assumption is probably that matter and consciousness have different ontological status, are different Beingnesses-as-such.
The idea I think some of us share in differing words is, maybe they are NOT ontologically SEPARATE at all, maybe they are different perspectives on the same thing. And what I and perhaps some others are trying to say is that “same thing” could be vibration, vibration of some “thing” we choose to call “energy” (as massless and mass, as someone said) and, what if everything we detect /apprehend plus our tools of detection and our apprehension itself and our means of apprending, is all that same vibrating energy?
To me it seems a small step to say we detect/apprehend/experience something we might choose to call intelligence, some organizing/creative principle, in those vibrations or to say they appear to us AS organizing and creative and thus we call them “vibrations.” And that is also therefore what we choose to call “consciousness,” that intelligence/creative-principle/organizing-force-or-tendency.
The existence of non-material “Beings” to me follows as a logical deduction from this perspective, btw, as a commonsensical extrapolation even prior to or before actual personal experience of them. Maybe that is a “reason to believe.”
I will explain how I make the connection, but first to clarify what a “Being” is, though many of the posts I am reading today seem to moving in the same definitional direction. To me, a Being is a clump of energy that – how did someone put is – is (my words) distinguishable as foreground against a background. Maybe they don't have any firm skin or boundary, but like the sun or a star, one can apprehend a relative increase or decrease in density leading one to conclude there is an individuated articulated distinguishable (even if not “separate”) something there.
Probably most of them (I think there might be exceptions) are autopoetic, and have as someone said both an individual history and an evolutionary intersubjective context in which they exist. Beings have conditional existence; they come into and go out of existence; they are not unconditionally existent.(By which I mean eternal and requiring nothing external to continue in existence.)
And they all would have an interiority, but not our kind, nothing we could recognize easily. But a Being if one could relate to its interiority would have an identity, i.e. it would say “I.” (Though there are collections of Beings who speak and experience as one and that one says “we,” but I say this only for the record, I don't want to expatiate here.)
Now I shall try again to post, and then continue in my next post.
thanks for reading and for dialoguing,
OM Bastet
OK here's how I make the connection of the energy-vibration ontology to the existence of non-mass-matter Beings.
I think most of us agree that what we call consciousness does go up and down from human consciousness. At least down to cells or organs, and at least up to the planet. I liken human consciousness to one setting of a lens opening on a camera, or one spot in a zoom-in, zoom-out sequence.
Each person's consciousness can and does move, over a lifetime, and the “average” consciousness can and does move over millennia, to different settings or spots. The shall we say zeitgeist consciousness setting or spot into which one is born, provides, or can provide, differing starting (and ceiling) points for one. (A ceiling point is one above which one becomes weird, haha.)So each of us has experiences of more or less opening of lens, and various spots in zoom-in/zoom-out sequence. (The trend for the species seems, ThankGod haha, to be opening wider and zooming both in and out further.)
It has always seemed very anthropocentric to me, to think our form and level of consciousness is IT and nothing else is “really” conscious. Maybe we just can't RELATE to smaller or vaster places on the spectrum of consciousness. Given what we know of our own local physical universe, it doesn't seem outrageous to think there might be some variety on this!! In fact, I would go further. I think most reasonable people would expect some variety even if they have not yet found evidence or proof of it, or experienced it.
Be that as it may, if there is a spectrum of energy vibrations, and if consciousness is inherent and immanent and inseparable and inescapable in and as those vibrations, then everything is “conscious,” in its own way, and it's narcissistic of one portion or section of the spectrum to declare “I'm IT and you –a rock, a galaxy, anything invisible to my 5 senses – are NOT “IT.”
Doesn't that just make sense, prior to research, evidence, proof, experience? the next step of course, is we need to ask: How could we KNOW whether such a logical deduction COULD be researched, evidenced, proved, or experienced?
Well, for starters, we might listen with interest and curiosity rather than dismissively to the anomalous (to the paradigm of anthropocentrism) folks whose consciousness has undergone some kind of shift that brings these things into their experience, according to them. Just maybe their lens has a different setting, their zoom spot is different from ours.
That of course is not research, evidence, or proof, nor personal experience, but it would be good for starters….
Taking the next step: To me, what we call Spiritual advancement, growth, evolution, development, progress, is nothing other than opening the lens wider, or gaining more ability to both zoom in and zoom out.
What happens when you zoom in and out, or the lens widens? You see/perceive/apprehend patterns that emerge which were invisible to the smaller scope, the previous zoom setting. Some of those patterns are actually wholes, or holons. (Have you visited the Powers of Ten website? Check out the slide show. I might have time to post the link later. Quite an education.)
To belabor the point let's get specific. You are looking at a leaf. Great leaf. Then you zoom in. Oops there's bug, you didn't see it before, it was not “real.” Then you zoom in again. By jingo, there are tiny creatures living on the bug: parasites. Whoda thunk it? In leaf view, they are pure speculation. But they appear, sure as shootin', when you zoom in. Now let's start at the leaf again, and zoom out. Whoa, all of a sudden there are lots of leaves, and a trunk, and by george, it's a tree-Being. Amazing. Sure wasn't visible in the leaf-mode of consciousness. But then zoom out more, effing amazing, the tree is part of a mountain !!! A mountain, what the heck kind of Being is that???!!! A leaf could never even imagine a mountain. Ridiculous concept. Zoom out. A planet? the mountain is on a planet, in space? No way !!!!! Can't prove it to the leaf, no way. What? The planet is part of a section of a galaxy? Come on, give me a break from these wild fantasies !!!!!!
Of course the analogy is imperfect, but perhaps you get the idea….
Some of these patterns of energy/vibration/awareness that are apparent to some folks appear as what it makes sense to call non-material Beings. (and no, not humanoid inevitably, at all. Such a variety of “forms” exist in the realms of Existence…) Non-material compared to the portion of the vibrational spectrum we choose to call matter'cause our bodies are made of it (but perhaps we also include other portions of the spectrum in our human Being too, like our human level of awareness.) These Beings from their level of vibration are also composed of “matter,” which is not generally apprehended by us as such, nor do they apprehend our “matter” as theirs; to them our bodies are patterns of moving energy they might refer to as “light.” Yes, someone said, let's just say these Beings have “Light-bodies,” YAY !!!!! They don't see us as “solid” they see us as their version of matter, which we might refer to as “light.”
Can you see why, from this type of human perspective, there is nothing “weird” or “supernatural” about it at all. I repeat: Magic (or speculation or implausibility) from one view is physics (or apprehension) from another.
BTW I am switching terminology from sensing/perceiving to apprehending, to bypass or short circuit for now a discussion of extra-sensory senses!!)
To begin to summarize: all the weird stuff I have been talking about in previous posts flows/follows, for me, totally naturally, as the logical implication and consequence, of an ontology/cosmology of vibration/energy/information, and the kind of non-dual answer to the mind-body question that both enactivism and Wilber seem to be going for.
Thus despite what one might conclude from my saying our universe is the intersubjective creation of non-material Beings, I am not an Idealist – sometimes I do get sloppy and imply consciousness is ontologically prior, but in truth it's just more of interest to me; there is no separability between consciousness and matter/energy, so I can't land as an Idealist or Monist or any other ism. Whatever the damn goofy nanonanostrings are, however, matter and consciousness to US are at least distinguishable, and the label used depends ONLY on the place on the vibrational spectrum I am apprehending from and to. (As subject and object, in that consciousness.)
Not Dualism. Inseparable but distinguishable. Others have expressed the same concept here in their own words.
So, to wind up, we (and a bunch of other thinkers past and present) seem to be moving toward addressing the mind-body issue/question by saying it rests on a separation that is artifical, that can arise in some consciousnesses, but doesn't seem to arise for some of us. Let's get the least “-centric” that we can !!!!!
Re the ball as a source of pain vs empty space, I think that's been dealt with, just want to say I echo the view that our consciousness makes distinctions for various PURPOSES. The characterizations/descriptions/definitions of something for one purpose are generally quite unsuitable for other purposes, LOL !!!
Rant:
Perhaps I am arguing for, or urging, folks to continue allowing and even pursuing the expansion of their consciousness (bypassing here too that this is not a mental-achievement nor physical practice accomplishment) and really, get past this parochial “skepticism” about experiences they haven't had yet. Guess I am asking more than a level of consciousness is capable of, but I am wishing for it. Some people think others are “fooling themselves” because they (the former people) doubt certain experiences are possible for ANYONE. That, as Mr. Spock would say, is not a logical (ly valid/defensible) position. Remember the 2-d Flatlanders! Keep going !!! (No superiority here, just a journey we are all on.) It's quite fun to discover that some trees can be downright chatty!! LOL !!!!!
Me too damnright chatty. It's 1:30 AM and I'm gonna regret this (not really) when the alarm rings.
I reckon in about six weeks I will be caught up with my reading and responding. in this symposium Julian, I hope you are more merciful next time, and schedule a monday and thursday post each week for however many weeks, instead of this marathon !! I plead for mercy !!!!
Blessings, OM Bastet
Hi, Ben,
You asked: That definitely seems different from what I understand Varela to have been writing about. In what ways do you think Varela would've disagreed with Wilber?
I think their perspectives in this area are not that far apart; at least, Wilber's are generally in line with Varela's, with regard to enactivism, but he expands the notion a bit to include the influence of perspectives that Varela, in his role as a scientist, didn't focus on as much. In his written work, Varela posits an emergent view of consciousness, but in other places, such as the video interview on Matt's blog, he at least appears willing to entertain the notion of something like subtle consciousness, which is not a product of the brain.
Best wishes,
Balder
where art thou james? LOL
Hi everyone
Sorry for not being around much - all due to a combination of a poorly family member (nothing too serious) ongoing house renovations with builders turning up early or not turning up at all, negotiating the purchase of a new van for my drums, plus a previous commitment to take my son to see Aston Villa vs Man City (that's UK Premier League Soccer for the uninitiated!)
Add to that yet more computer glitches (I'm not even able to copy stuff written in Notepad across into the blog window anymore… help!)
Thanks for your concern Star!
Anyhows, you've been doing pretty well without me! Some great comments and questions to get stuck into. Starting with….
… Bruce! Thanks for all the deep engagement going on here. My responses are brief because I’m in catch–up mode and wanting to get to an overarching point later on:
- thanks for clarification of what you meant by the phrase indeterminate unbounded wholeness
- thanks also for expanding on my “Why not?” response to Ken Wilber in BHof E re. physicalist approaches
- can you expand a little on what to referred to as correspondence theory of truth with regard to my “billions of everyday experiments” comment. This is new to me and it sounds like you think it’s an important point so I am keen to hear more.
- yes I am ware that I was exaggerating slightly with the reference to being called dyed in the wool Orange rationalists, which is why I tempered it with “something akin to” dyed in the wool Orange rationalists. Almost the same I know, but at least I made an effort!
- lastly I was surprised by your comment: “I have almost never seen him (JW) contextualize certain of his strong rationalist (as opposed to merely rational) arguments in a wider, more nuanced perspective.” Never? Ah, ok you said almost never….fair enough.
Anyhow, this relates to my next and main point.
I was planning to go through each of the above points in more detail, but I think much of what I might have said has been answered and developed upon by the amazing reply you gave a little later to Julian which started with:
“Yes, I think what is causing you to stumble is the idea that no universe existed at all prior to the emergence of sentient observers. I am definitely not saying that the sun didn't exist in its own right prior to the emergence of organisms capable of looking up into the sky and gazing upon it…..”
This comment is just brilliant. Given the somewhat frustrating circular nature of many previous exchanges on this kind of topic, both prior to and during the Symposium, the fact that this reply of yours had Julian saying he agreed with 90% of it and only had minor misgivings on the remaining 10%, plus me punching the air as I finished reading(!) it seems that you have hit upon some sort of important linguistic / semantic choice of words / mode of expression which is finally starting to bridge some of the gaps we’ve been feeling.
With the hope of being able to finally start zooming in on those points which we’ve been tripping over in our discussions, here’s a snapshot of the circularity I’ve seen.
Julian (or a.n. other) says: Look at this shit. If only we applied our rational minds then half of this suffering would be overcome and people would be so much freer to move along the spiral so much more readily. Isn’t this shameful?
Balder (or a.n. other) says: Yes, yes its shameful, but what about all the other factors, levels, stages, structures involved in moving up or down the spiral that the rational doesn’t take account of ? What about those?
Julian (or a.n. other) replies: Yes, yes I know all about those, but look, look at all this suffering. What it needs is a good dose of healthy rational, not this Idealist-morphing-into The Secret-nonsense. Don’t you agree?
Balder (or a.n. other) replies: Well yes course I agree, but you’re still failing to look at all these other levels….
.. and so it goes.
So what’s going on here in terms of modes of communication and how do we get past it.
You have categorically and repeatedly stated that you do not agree with the extreme Idealist postulations about a purely mind-constructed reality, and you have done so more clearly than ever in this comment that the sun did exist before human beings were around to observe. Matt has made exactly the same points, so has Varela. It’s time for Julian and me and Adam et al time to relax on that one.
Equally, whenever Julian or I or Adam or a.n. other point out how relatively reliable the physical realm is to human beings in that if you drop something it falls up not down, and this is the same for everyone so there’s intersubjective confirmation which suggest that we’re not imagining this, then you and others no longer need to point out to us “ah yes but you have to bear in mind that no matter how concrete things seem, we can never really know the world, only the world as seen by human beings”. We know this, maybe not as deeply as you, but we do know it. We don’t need to have it pointed out to us anymore, just as you don’t need us to keep pointing out the failings of extreme Idealism or the damage done by misapplications of post-modern uncertainties.
So what do we do? Or to put it another way, as Matt said in his pre-Symposium video teaser - What’s the point? Ah that’s another question, one which is no doubt being discussed right now over on other blogs, which is where I’m heading now.
Thanks again Bruce for your massive contributions.
All The Best,
James,
Maybe the differences between Julian and Bruce are largely differences of profession. Julian teaches yoga. These ideas aren't easily translated to what Julian does in working with people and so he focuses on the practical reality trying to ground the ideas. Bruce teaches these ideas. So, he focuses on understanding the details and communicating clearly. Even so, Julian is interested in the ideas and that is why he is discussing them here. And Bruce is interested in application also, but when in a discussion like this he seems to be more in intellectual mode.
Part of the problem is differing expectations of what goal discussions should serve. It really isn't an conflict of who is being most rational or who is representing reality more clearly. The conflict is the value we put on ideas. Julian seems to think application trumps theory, but Bruce seems to think that application is only as good as one's understanding of theory.
This whole discussion seems secondary to Julian's sense of purpose in his life. He just wants to help people, and he only cares about this theory stuff because it might help him to be a better person and a better teacher. But I don't get the sense that Julian enjoys theory simply for intellectual stimulation… even though he obviously enjoys the interactive energy of debate.
Even if Bruce could somehow out-argue Julian so that Julian entirely agreed with him, it wouldn't necessarily matter. Julian might graciously tell Bruce that he is correct, and then ask him what is the point. Bruce can have no simple answer to that even though he shares Julian's desire to help people.
Maybe its profession, but the professions they've chosen are based on their personalities. So, maybe they view the world differently for more fundamental reasons that have nothing to do with theory or application. I'm always interested in how different personalities can communicate well.
Its not just that different types have different purposes of communicating, but also different styles. Julian has mentioned that he often writes on Gaia in a style that isn't natural to him. But obviously it isn't as satisfying to him to write in a less natural style and others gave him praise when he recently wrote a blog in what he said was his natural style. Julian will feel frustrated (and maybe resentful) if he has to change his natural style just to try to communicate with Bruce.
Julian, Bruce, does that seem about right or no?
Mr T
You said:
“From a purely practical standpoint of day-to-day living, it's necessary to assume the realist standpoint, or you wouldn't survive.” Thank you Thank You Thank You. For some reason I needed to hear this.
And then you said “…but that doesn't mean it's an accurate perception.” Agreed
“This again is the Cartesian paradigm, where truth puts us in control, and control implies that we understand the truth.” No no no…theres nothing Cartesian about it, I'm not talking about contolling anything. I'm talking about, as you say, assuming the realist standpoint - or the physicalist - for the sake of survival and beyond that for the sake of thriving, knowing full well that we're only ever going to know “reality” through human eyes, not reality itself….and anyway what's wrong with old Rene, he gets such a bad press!
Mr T said:
“You include a quote in your essay: ”Consciousness could never have survived the brutal machinations of natural selection unless it was somewhat accurate…” This is actually false - my model of reality could be useful without being true, and could certainly evolve and improve. As long as my model causes me to make good decisions, or at least better decisions, conferring a selective advantage.”
Ah again the devil is in the detail. She used the phrase “somewhat accurate”… not “true” as in “absloute truth about reality”. I still think our nervous systems must be able to pick up on at least some of the factors of “the world viewed from nowhere” otherwise we would not have survived.
I loved your analogy of the movie with English subtitles. And this:
“We have no way of knowing if they are the same; all we really know is that if we assume they are the same and don't pay too close attention, the story makes sense.”
Yes. And even if we do pay closer attention and not assume they are the same, aren't we still obliged by Life to come back and watch the English subtitles of our movie anyway…. :-)
Or, once we've looked more closely and seen that they do not necessarilly correspond, does that give us the new opportunity to not simply and automatically “assume the realist standpoint?” If so, hwo would that look? What might we do differently?
P.S. Thanks again for the suggestions re. sorting out my computer glitches.
Hi Tely
Thanks for your considered response and explication regarding “dissociate” cf “disidentify” / “non-identify”.
I would agree with Julian in his response to you that I wasn’t suggesting transcend and exclude as a complete alternative to transcend and include, but rather looking at ways in which we might, with discernment, exclude the unhealthy aspects of what we might be transcending.
Also you said: The terminology of “right” is tricky, because it puts us into a dualistic right-vs.-wrong framework, which is an either/or framework that doesn't allow for true transcendence/expansion.
Well I was quoting directly from the Integral Life website, so you might want to take it up with them! :-)
All The Best
Hi Deborah
Thanks very much for sharing your personal experience in this way.
I think part of what this Symposium is about for me is looking at language that can more clearly investigate this middle ground that you refer to.
It’s great that the section you quoted resonated with you too. It seems this quote is being referenced by lots of people on the Symposium as really significant and I hope it becomes even more central to the discussion here as it unfolds.
All The Best
James
Bob!
Great to hear from you!
Thank you so much for the positive comments. Yes I was bit daunted about getting into such an involved discussion since scholarly abstraction is not my forte to say the least – I prefer ACDC - but like you I was psyched by the “And..?” question. And I’m still looking to push this further during this symposium too.
I hardly ever blog actually, because I’m such a low typer and a slow thinker that I prefer to just read, or lurk, here.
Anyway, I really hope you’re well and the music is developing – thanks again for the cd.
All The Best
James
P.S. I’ve tried on occasions to check out your Gaia blog but was there a restricted access on there or something? – I couldn’t seem to leave message for you.
P.P.S. Hope the knee is better!?
Hi Star
You said: we're waiting on you! i want to see you expound on your idea that talking about how we are separate will prove to be difficult for many…bruce agrees with me that this is a very important aspect…
i see it as detrimental in addressing not only 'new age', but also many aspects that arise within the buddhist and dzogchen traditions…
A brief couple of pennies' worth, who will send me the 2 cents?LOL !!!!
Re transcend and include/exclude (in the healthy type of progression.) The way I have decided to think about it for myself is that the old doesn't get either included or excluded AS SUCH. In healthy progression it gets transformed or transmuted, from illusion/error/immature version into the wisdom or truth or more mature perspective that is its flip side, and then THAT gets incorporated into the new level. The old gets “digested,” to use another metaphor.
Anyway, the way it was before “dies,” in the Buddhist sense. It is neither included nor is it excluded. It no longer exists as it was. [If it does, we have the unhealthy progression, and even that I think involves some coloring. I can't remember the jargon, but let's say undigested bits of Beige showing up in Orange are not pure Beige, even they are colored by where they show up, the level context in which they remain as undigested bits. The same undigested bits showing up in Teal would be very different behaviorally, emotionally, cognitively. As I understand it.]
That is I believe consonant with the KW and Beck et al writings, from which I have drawn the conclusion that for example nothing from a previous level stands in a later level exactly the same as it was in the previous level. It is colored, imbued, with the new level. It is no longer what it was, but a different flavor now, a casserole, not a chicken any longer, haha.
So the image of a level being a “mosaic” of old levels is not strictly speaking valid. Everything in a level is tinted by the level itself. For example, the Magenta/Purple aspects healthily included in Orange are not at all the same COLOR as they were when the person's CoG WAS Magenta/Purple. Those Magenta/Purple mosaic tiles are now – what is the term in painting – washed with an Orange stain.
Which of course makes sorting everything out in one's own psyche, or others' psyches, even more of a complex task !!!!!!
And my take on what dissociation vs disidentify is, forgive me for not mastering all that was said above, I might just be repeating or underlining:
(But I speak as a former psychologist) (“Former” is Untrue. Once a psychologist, always a psychologist.)
Dissociation involves cutting the ties of association to a particular bit of content on any conscious level. It involves repression, not even just denial. In dissociation the dissociated material can get into behavior and into feelings, and unfortunately always does, but it cannot get into conscious awareness nor therefore be under conscious influence. Dissociation is not any kind of processing or progression or change, it is about tossing something into the garbage and closing the lid and imagining the garbage truck has taken it away.
Dissociation and dis-identification both start with something that is for at least a brief moment actually conscious, but then different things are done with that material. In dissociation,as I said, the conscious awareness puts it in the garbage can and closes the lid. Done. Gone. (NOT.) (Illusion of gone.)
in dis-identification, there is a process or progression or change. The old is not tossed but shifted to a different status in a process of expansion. The best metaphor I use in my thinking about it is, you have zoomed out a notch or two, so you can see more than the leaf, you can see the branch or even the tree – to refer to my recent post. What was subject is now object, in the jargon. What was foreground is now part of a larger picture, a background to another foreground. It is not tossed or gone, but it now is in a different and larger CONTEXT that was invisible before.
The Identity, the Where I-me-myself “stands” and speaks and lives and experiences from and AS, is in a different place, metaphorically speaking, but the old identity [the washed/stained version of it anyway] is FULLY available to any choice to be aware of it as an object of present consciousness from/by the present identity, and is now integrated into the bigger picture of Who I Am.
I hope I have been able to convey what for me are the radical and essential differences, and again if I am not adding anything to the discussion I apologize. With 61 posts pending to read, I have gone to dipping in randomly and trying to respond to a just-previous post in the interest of clarity and trackability.
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Did you guys in setting up the structure of the symposium consider the alternative structure of setting up a new public pod just for the symposium, and having each panelist be a Board, so that multiple lines of sub-conversations might be easier to follow? I'm sure there would be downsides compared to a blog+comments structure, but it might be worth a consideration for next time. Just tossing out a possibility. Maybe you thought of it and rejected it already…..
The option to Reply to post might create even more of a nightmare than tracking conversational topic threads here, I dunno.
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Marmalade, I can't right now locate which blog and exactly where was your very recent post summarizing or characterizing the reiterative-loop-arguments, and bringing in the life contexts of the folks involved, and possible differing purposes for the discussion, and personality types, but that kind of summary was first of all quite useful to give more context, for those of us coming into the middle of a conversation that's been going on much longer than this symposium, very very clarifying, and second of all, I always think going to a meta-level in ANY discussion is highly beneficial in trying to enable the accomplishment of the purpose (often unclear on the level itself) of interaction/discussion.
So that post of yours was a very bright light, indeed, and I am soooo grateful !!!!! It was a sword that cut a few of the Gordian knots here, IMHO !!!!!!!!
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Blessings, OM Bastet
P.S. One HUGE advantage to a pod structure would be the search function.
One could search for remembered phrases in a post one wanted to re-read or respond to, in order to locate it again. Now I don't even remember whose blog, let alone where among the 60 replies it might be.
.
One could turn up all the posts that mention a particular term like panpsychism.
If one always signs one's posts with the same name, one can turn up all one's own posts by searching for that name (only texts of posts are searched, not titles or posters.) Then one can find a particular one of own posts more easily.
And ditto finding all (and thus perhaps a sought-for one) the posts by someone else, if they consistently sign off with a name.
Jest some thoughts….
OM Bastet
Hi OM
I really liked this:
“nothing from a previous level stands in a later level exactly the same as it was in the previous level. It is colored, imbued, with the new level. It is no longer what it was, but a different flavor now, a casserole, not a chicken any longer, haha.”
Very clear.
Also, I actually find your analogy of zooming in and out far more helpful and clear in painting a pitcure of different levels /stages than any I have so far encountered. It's brilliant.
And for anyone who missed it: “You are looking at a leaf. Great leaf. Then you zoom in. Oops there's bug, you didn't see it before, it was not “real.” Then you zoom in again. By jingo, there are tiny creatures living on the bug: parasites. Whoda thunk it? In leaf view, they are pure speculation. But they appear, sure as shootin', when you zoom in. Now let's start at the leaf again, and zoom out. Whoa, all of a sudden there are lots of leaves, and a trunk, and by george, it's a tree-Being. Amazing. Sure wasn't visible in the leaf-mode of consciousness. But then zoom out more, effing amazing, the tree is part of a mountain !!! A mountain, what the heck kind of Being is that???!!! A leaf could never even imagine a mountain. Ridiculous concept. Zoom out. A planet? the mountain is on a planet, in space? No way !!!!! Can't prove it to the leaf, no way. What? The planet is part of a section of a galaxy? Come on, give me a break from these wild fantasies !!!!!!
Of course the analogy is imperfect, but perhaps you get the idea….”
Well done OM :-)
OM, I'm glad you liked what I wrote, but we'll see if Julian and Bruce agree with my assessment. I've been a believer that most interpersonal conflicts or disagreements often have very little to do with the subject being discussed. I'm not sure which blog you're referring to. Could you say something more about it?
On a roll here: (What can I say. Enneagram One The Improver “at your service.” “How can we make this better?”)
Another organizing advantage in a pod is that threads can actually be sub-titled, though this ability is rarely used. Just by adding a dash and then a few more words to the automated display of the thread title above the textbox, sections of a long thread can be subtitled the same. Makes finding a subtopicsub-conversation a BREEZE compared to searching a whole thread. If people don't remember to do it, the mods can do it for them post-posting.
Ooooh, another POST-x term. We needed more, too few around. ROTFLMAO.
OM Bastet
Ben, there are parts of your assessment that I agree with, but not all of it. I'm not sure, though, that this symposium is the best place for us to discuss these questions. I'd be up for it, but it might be a distraction here.
Best wishes,
Balder
P.S. OM, I like the idea of using a pod to support the symposium, but I also like using blogs, for a number of reasons.
I don't really care if anyone else wishes to discuss it. I brought it up because its how I think about the world. Its just my observation.
I know you like to keep these discussions very focused, and I'm fine with that. However, with my presentation, I promise that the subject of personality differences will come up. To me whether someone likes the idea of enactivism or not is only partly about rational analysis and maybe only a small part. Personality and communication style is part of our inherent structure that goes into the worldviews we enact.
I wasn't picking on you and Julian specifically and I wasn't trying to make the discussion personal… egads! :) You two just happen to represent two distinct styles. I find the dynamic between you two to be quite interesting… speaking as an objective observer. :)
Ah, thank you both so much !!!!
Marmalade, the blog I was referring to turns out to be this one, the post of yours I was describing is, I think, further up in this set of comments here on James' blog.
James, glad the zooming metaphor speaks to you. Actually it fits as you were using it, but in the original post I was using it as a way of thinking about the “reality” or “existence” of non-material Beings. Neither the bug, the parasites, nor the tree, nor mountain, nor planet, nor galaxies, as “Beings,” are anything more than wild speculation if even conceivable, from an identity-scope (portion of the vibrational spectrum) on the leaf level.
Of course, those are all “material” so the analogy is imperfect, unless we use not material size but vibrational frequency of energy as the spectrum/characteristic along which we “zoom” both along the dimension and at 90 degrees from it, seeing the whole spectrum.
But yes zooming does work for KW levels, and Spiral Dynamics levels. It is also one of my basic metaphors for Spiritual growth or development.
I really urge folks to explore the implications of the idea.
It is displayed here http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/ as a slide show, but it's also on wikipedia, and has its own website www.powersof10.com , and an internet search for powers of ten turns up other goodies, too.
If consciousness becomes more inclusive as individuals and societies and our species mature(s) [and less inclusive in regressions and pathologies] then this seems to me to be the best metaphor. When you really grok the sequence of pictures, and then contemplate the sequentialness while asking the question “What is REAL?” it can IMHO blast open a consciousness. (I am also using it as a tool for spiritual growth and for psychological healing!) (and Julian that metaphor used as a tool in those ways is a true paradigm-buster, and it WILL be famous and widely used, and you did read it here first. LOL !!!)
Blessings, OM Bastet
OM, you said:
I always think going to a meta-level in ANY discussion is highly beneficial in trying to enable the accomplishment of the purpose (often unclear on the level itself) of interaction/discussion.
As I learn more about the specifics of enactivism and related ideas, I can see how this demands for a different style of discourse than pure objectivity. Enactivism begins to blend the distinction between objectivity and subjectivity. The way I see it, if we attempt to not only discuss enactivism but to enact enactivism within this discussion it forces us to consider more carefully the personal and interpersonal ramifications… and hence meta-level communication. This discussion is embodied in a medium and is enacted by embodied individuals… even if the internet can cause us to feel a bit disembodied at times.
Ben, sorry, I thought you were looking for my reaction to your assessment. I agree with you that personality and related issues play a part in what attracts us to various perspectives and models, and also influence the “worldspaces” we enact. I also agree with you that our different career choices probably play a part in the things Julian and I emphasize in our discussions here. I have some (mostly minor) disagreements with your interpretation or characterization of our interactions, motives, etc, but in general terms, yes, I see the issues you've highlighted as important and look forward to your exploration of them in your contribution to this symposium.
Best wishes,
Balder
Hi Star
You said: ”we're waiting on you! i want to see you expound on your idea that talking about how we are separate will prove to be difficult for many…bruce agrees with me that this is a very important aspect…i see it as detrimental in addressing not only 'new age', but also many aspects that arise within the buddhist and dzogchen traditions…”
Sorry for the temporary absence. Now that you’ve really cut to the chase here Star….I don't actually know what to say! I know we need more focus on the ways in which we are separate and the ways in which we are not. But as yet I haven't formulated any clear ideas!! Can you believe that!? The gall of the man - harping on about the need to focus on the ways in which we are separate, and not having a clue how to follow that up!!
OK, so I guess I'll just have to come up with something off the top of my head! Some half-cooked thoughts are:
As a species, we live most of our daily lives on the human scale.
We can also delve right into the nano-level, right into the quantum level….. or peer right out into the solar or the inter-galactic realms.
We can sit and meditate and experience the oneness, and we can go out into the realms of disparate cultures and be a social whirlwind.
We can then recognize that whatever we see, and however concrete it may seem, the delving in and out shows us that our daily human scale is not as concrete as it seems.
We can also conclude that whatever we humans see, even through the lens of the most hard sciences, is not necessarily an accurate glimpse of “the world out there” as it really is if it could be seen from a totally non-subjective viewpoint – a view from nowhere.
And after going all the way out and all the way in and realizing that it is all just relatively real, guess what….
We still live most of our lives on the human scale.
This is basically all I’ve wanted to point to during this Symposium.
Nevertheless, the next question soon arises for me…. If we’ve been as far out as we are capable of so far, and all the way in as far we are capable of so far, then when we come back to the daily human level, in what way are we different? In what way can we be more of service? If we can’t be of any better service from the going all the way out and all the way in then what’s the point of going there?
This is where I’m at at the moment…. And I’m still not addressing your question directly! How are we separate, how are we the same? I guess I was hoping someone else might take up that mantle! My thoughts on this are clarifying as I write…
OK, the reason I keep coming back to “the human level” is because it is on that level that the most helpful distinctions can be made. I remember reading similar discussions between Julian and Bruce in the past and I made a comment along the lines of “Bruce seems to be more concerned with the questions “What is Truth” while Julian is more concerned with “What is true (even if it’s only relatively true) and therefore helpful on the human level”. Now that’s not to say Bruce is not also concerned with what is helpful on the human level, but the emphasis during the discussions seemed that way to me. And my focus is the same as Julian’s.
To link back to our exchange of comments with Mr T, I don’t care if it’s possible to interpret a red ball as just a bunch sub-atomic particles and therefore where did we get the idea you were hit by a ball? It’s an interesting way of looking at the world, in fact in many ways it’s a more accurate way of looking at the world than always insisting it really is just a red ball and absolutely nothing else. But it’s of virtually no use on the daily human level – as Mr T himself said, we need to assume the realist worldview in order to survive our day-to-day.
Normally I lurk on Gaia and other “integral” sites rather than post comments. And do you know the real reason I decided to take part in the Symposium? It’s because I was getting angry. I was reading other posts on Gaia and elsewhere, sometimes even those between Bruce and Julian et al, and I was starting to seethe. I have a big problem with arguing for the “it’s not really a red ball it’s just a bunch of sub-atomic particles” or the enacted side of it “it’s not really a red ball because what we are calling a red ball is just a human enacted world space and everything we see we inevitably see through human eyes and use human language to describe therefore you can’t be sure it’s a red ball” is this – get ready for an extreme example - you can end up saying its not really a missile paid for by my taxes which my government lied to me about that’s coming through the roof of a house in a shanty town in Basra, it’s just a set of sub-atomic particles that look like a missile, so where are you getting the idea that the UK is killing innocent civilians in an unjust war?
Now nobody has said anything like that yet in this discussion and I doubt anyone will, but I have seen discussions elswhere which basically use a mangled postmodern response that is downright unkind, unhelpful, adopting a kind of “higher perspective than thou” almost dehumanizing attitude. And if we (I mean we the human race) have done all this thinking and talking and gained all these insights, if there is anything useful in it then why the hell are we not coming up with better ways of helping each other?
So for a start, on this Symposium at least, let’s now all agree that nobody here is denying that there is a physical world “out there” – we agree it’s not a malleable fantasy world – and let’s now also agree that whatever we think we know of the world it’s only ever a human approximation – and then look at how this combination of perspectives allows us to be of service to each other.
Phew!
Yeah, I totally agree, Marmaladdie-eeee-oh (now where did THAT come from?)
The more the deeper perspectives are described here, the more I see the discrepancy between those views and how we operate in daily life (a discrepancy much-discussed here) and between those views and how our language forces us to communicate. I can imagine re-wording my last few substantial-content posts into enactivism-compatible languaging. OMG they would be three times as long and ten times less understandable, more obscure. Our language just doesn't permit blending subjectivity and objectivity easily (not diminishing the success of the efforts of Bruce and Adam and others to write in a blended style.) (And yeah, I could say it all poetically, but then it would be more subject to mis-interpretation, and some wouldn't connect at all. Lowest common denominator rules, as per usual.)
I'm beginning to feel like a hypocrite whenever I say anything here, because it doesn't and can't (without some stretches that seem beyond my time/skill constraints) reflect the truth of my best understanding of my experiential world, an understanding which is very close to the deeper stuff being described, the enactivist and integral perspectives.
When it all comes right down to it, while we might with some effort be able to LIVE in these deep perspectives (liken unto having both the quantum physics “red ball” and the “red ball I play with” perspectives blended or at least peacefully co-existing within my enactment of my life with the world), the effort to COMMUNICATE in both the deep and ordinary perspectives – especially with anyone operating in only the ordinary level – seems beyond the pale, out of reach, too much of a monumental effort.
And that puts me in a bind: I really want my consciousness to be best/most accurate/most useful in all the possible ways it could be, but some of the ways don't seem really very useable to me right now. The “and so what?” comes into play. Not dismissively that there is no possible “so what,” but that it seems possible but not attainable. Not without some mind-shifting that I don't have time for, hahaha!!!!
OTOH, if not us (any and all of us) pioneering new forms of consciousness, then who? Might as well start here now and take one step at a time……
How's that for a more subjective communication: I'm expanded and also frustrated. I'm delighted and also discouraged. About “enacting enactivism,” as you put it. Not that I buy the whole package of the -ism, but we are at least mucking about, as my sister used to say, mucking about in some breakthrough blends of previous false dichotomies, here in this symposium and in the circles of folks all over the world doing this kind of thinking about these kinds of matters.
Quiet here in this blog today. Has the fourth blog gone up yet? I should check.
Blessings and gratitude for all those here who are stretching. I appreciate the heck out of all of you !!!!!
OM Bastet
Ooops, that dang context thingy-doozy. I was referring to the challenge to incorporate cognitive understandings (or perhaps the apprehensions of what they point to) into my languaging. My Beingness seems to operate just fine without either. :) No effort to BE my true nature, whatever it might be I am it, and to BE whatever truths or that enactivism and any other ism is attempting to point to, we are that already. Whether reality is objective or subjective, or both or neither or inter-, it seems in our intersubjective experience to operate fine without our knowing which, eh? Even if we don't even know whether “it” “is” or not!! Something must be happening. “We're here because we're here because we're here because we're here…”
I'm sure that's “a position.” LOL !! I applaud our attempts, all of them.
Blessings, OM Bastet
James,
You said: OK, the reason I keep coming back to “the human level” is because it is on that level that the most helpful distinctions can be made. I remember reading similar discussions between Julian and Bruce in the past and I made a comment along the lines of “Bruce seems to be more concerned with the questions “What is Truth” while Julian is more concerned with “What is true (even if it's only relatively true) and therefore helpful on the human level”.
This is very interesting, because I've been viewing our positions as essentially the opposite of this. Julian has talked about the Right Quadrants as Truth with a capital T, truth which transcends perspectives and LL conditioning, and this is what I've been challenging. I have been interested in pursuing this because I think the idea that the Right Quadrants represent universal truth, relatively free of (un-co-enacted by) subjective dimensions and the other limiting, contextualizing factors that Varela and others describe, has a direct impact on how we relate to others. I am also interested in the dynamic openness that enactivism points to because it has relevance to our projects of psychological healing, human social evolution, and spiritual transformation.
I'm about to be late for the post office – a very real world constraint interfering with our intersubjective exchange here! – but I'll be back to say more later.
Best wishes,
Balder
Hi Marmalade
Great to have direct communciation!
I think this is a really relevant point about professions and types. I like your analysis re. Bruce &Julian. I wonder if either of them will!?
I'm sure whatever “type” I am significantly impacts on the way I write and on my empasis in on my own comments.
Looking forward to your Symposium piece.
James
JAMES!!!!!!! you're fucking awesome dude! lol…yummy…thnx for that meal….LOL…wow…you gotta get angry more often k? cause this is what i'm talking about…yeah…all that this isn't really real shit get's us no closer to a solution…i admit that understanding it is helpful, but not here where we are trying to survive…
and, james, i do believe that what we are doing right now, IS HELPFUL…i will tell you right now, that i have been helped so much, just to know that there are others like me, that think like i do…you can feel so alone when you do not relate to those around you…and the critical thinking aspect has just riveted my brain, just in the few short weeks that i have known about it…it is like my brain is playing catch up…and it is awesome…it's like finding pieces of puzzel that you have been looking for…forever…and having them click in place…
thank you soooooooooo much for that response…giving it my ***** rating…much joy!
one more thought…it is also helping me to help others…and that is the point right?
only when we truly understand our own human condition, can we help others to understand…joy*
James,
I have been trying to play catch up, so forgive me if this was already discussed after your post earlier today, but you wrote:
“I still think our nervous systems must be able to pick up on at least some of the factors of “the world viewed from nowhere” otherwise we would not have survived.”
Now, I understand the gist of what you're saying here, but the language is tricky for me. From the enactive perspective, survival is not centered on conforming to the outside environment (though it is that, too) so much as it is on the organism's own ability to maintain its organization, or autopoiesis in Varela's terms. How an organism responds to environmental perturbations is based more on its own inherent properties\organizational autonomy than it is on what we might call the objective features of reality.
Taking too much of a “view from nowhere” would probably be rather detrimental to an organism's survival, actually. I think our species' difficulties with living sustainably on this planet are exactly a function of our taking too much of a “view from nowhere” when thinking about the world around us. The dominant paradigm for human business is still “economy,” which is typically based on some version of the rational actor model and assumes an infinite supply of raw materials to be processed, consumed, and then thrown away. To think that such a linear system could work, and much less to value it as even coming close to
being a fulfilling and healthy way of life, requires an almost pathological degree of disembodiment and, for lack of a better word, airheadedness. What we need is less objectively modeled “economy” and more cyclically embedded “ecology,” where it is clearly recognized that human activity has an effect on the entire Earth community, human and otherwise, that can't necessarily be measured in our strictly rationalist, objective terms. In fact, in these terms, environmental degredation that doesn't happen to affect human beings is either invisible or even considered a positive sign reflecting economic growth.
I'm sure you're well aware of all these problems, and this is probably just me being picky with language. But I'd be interested to see your reaction to my feeling on how the way you worded that part of your post might be interpreted.
By the way, is any of the music I've gathered you play online somewhere? I'd love to have a listen.
be well,
Matt
Well said, OM! I'll even double that and send you 4 cents! You've said a lot of things but I'm referring to your comments about transcend and include/exclude.
I think the way you defined disidentifation is also a good way to think about transcendence – that there isn't an active exclusion of something, but rather an expansion around it. As for dissociation, it sounds like you're defining that as being 100% cut off, where it's not just about denial but involves total repression and is completely out of awareness. So then what would you call it when something is not totally repressed, but rather denied/”excluded,” like when a person says, “I'm no longer that way, since I've 'transcended' that,” but what it really means is that they've just cut off from that part of themselves/shadowed it rather than digested/incorporated it or expanded themselves around it (which would be a truer transcendence)?
Wow, Matt, I couldn't disagree with you more about one thing in your comment. I hope you would reconsider your characterization of what “rationality” is. (Maybe this is off topic, but you have pushed one of my buttons and I can't let your view go unchallenged. Especially as I think it's a common error in thinking which gives “rationality” a bad name.)
[What?? This New Age weirdo who touts non-material Beings is now defending rationality? Well, yes, in a way. I am advocating discernment, making distinctions, not package-dealing and not mis-labeling. Plus I spent 10 years living and breathing Ayn Rand's worldview, so I know a trifle about rationality, LOL!]
In a word, I maintain that just because something has the reputation of being “rational” and some or many people THINK it is “rational,” doesn't mean it really IS rational !!!!!!
You said
based on some version of the rational actor model and assumes an infinite supply of raw materials to be processed, consumed, and then thrown away.
Since this assumption is patently false, how can it be rational???!!!! Not that rationality can't make mistakes, but true rationality is always alert for its own mistakes; rationality takes that self-correcting process ultra-seriously. I can't imagine a rationality which does not seek and take into account all the relevant facts of a situation, which persists in denial of facts, which doesn't see systems relationships, etc. And which doesn't take into account emotions and well-beings, since those are present as objective facts in situations, in the world.
To think that such a linear system could work, and much less to value it as even coming close to being a fulfilling and healthy way of life, requires an almost pathological degree of disembodiment and, for lack of a better word, airheadedness.
And in dealing with nature, it is – and has obviously been, for a long time – irrational to use linear systems and models. And since when would disembodiment and airheadedness be considered rational ???!!!
What we need is less objectively
This is not objectivity but obliviousness. Objectivity requires taking all factors into account, no? Looking at WHAT IS. ALL of what is.
modeled “economy” and more cyclically embedded “ecology,” where it is clearly recognized that human activity has an effect on the entire Earth community, human and otherwise, that can't necessarily be measured in our strictly rationalist, objective terms.
It is extremely irrational and non-objective to not recognize the results of one's actions in as wide a scope as possible. It is extremely irrational not to take into account the effects of one's actions “unto the 7th generation.”
In fact, in these terms, environmental degredation that doesn't happen to affect human beings is either invisible or even considered a positive sign reflecting economic growth.
Not in any truly rational “terms.”
I have heard many versions of the views you put forth here, and my analysis is that you all are taking at face value the Orange declaration that because it says it values rationality, everything it does is in fact rational or based on rationality, if it says that's so. NOT!!!!!!!
Does my perspective make sense?
As per usual, comments, feedback welcome.
I am not at all disagreeing with what you would like to see people doing. In fact I am declaring that the perspectives/behaviors you are endorsing, far from being “irrational” are the only truly rational perspectives/behaviors !!!!!!
The “dominant paradigm for human business” is not creating havoc because it is based on rationality. It is creating havoc because it ignores and denies facts, allows or encourages dishonesty and deceit, and doesn't give a shit about how its actions are going to affect even itself, in the long run. All of which are irrational. [These are not inherent in business or in true capitalism, but in the current VERSION of the latter, which is a long story. Every system is subject to human faults, perversions, obliviousness, greed, etc. Don't blame the system for these; they are found in EVERY system].
Nuff on this little side trip.
Blessings to all, OM Bastet
Hi Tely, nice to meet you. Isn't it great when something we say “lands” for someone else, they dig it!!?
And ooops I forgot we are not allowed to ask for money here in the community. My bad !!!! LOL!!!!!
I think the way you defined disidentifation is also a good way to think about transcendence - that there isn't an active exclusion of something, but rather an expansion around it.
Expansion around it is not interactive enough to express my view precisely, Tely. The thing itself gets “digested,” or “transmuted” or “colored,” not just imported/surrounded. In both transcendence and dis-identification. Does that difference make sense to you?
Hmmm. How do transcendence and dis-identification differ? I'd say in my view the latter is a more complete, whole, and radical process. Dis-identification might be an early stage of transcendence. I think KW discusses the two in some kind of sequence, don't remember where.
As for dissociation, it sounds like you're defining that as being 100% cut off, where it's not just about denial but involves total repression and is completely out of awareness. So then what would you call it when something is not totally repressed, but rather denied/”excluded,” like when a person says, “I'm no longer that way, since I've 'transcended' that,” but what it really means is that they've just cut off from that part of themselves/shadowed it rather than digested/incorporated it or expanded themselves around it (which would be a truer transcendence)?
I would call it just what you did: denial or rejection or exclusion or cutting off. But the fact that they can talk about “it” means it is not dissociated, not out of awareness!!!! See the diff??
To me “shadow” includes stuff that is dissociated, and stuff that is repressed, and stuff that is being denied, and anything else the person is unwilling to be or own. It's the basket label I lump all that stuff into. Others might choose different terminology, and I am not attached to this, it just seems sensible to me.
I'm not sure if pressed to the wall that I would insist dissociation be 100%. But you get the idea, to me it's a more radical denial than ordinary denial !!!!
What you describe, the false claim of transcendence, is of course all too common. It saddens me because I know the person is suffering, and feeling guilty, both yukky.
Thanks for your response !
Enjoying all the posts here !!
Blessings, OM Bastet
OM,
I haven't even read your whole comment yet, but wanted to correct something real fast before going on. I said nothing about rationality. What I mentioned as detrimental was being narrowly “rationalist.” There is a big difference, at least as I understand the terms. A rationalist is one who adopts the ideology of rationalism, which suggests that experience is irrelevant and all that matters is rational/discursive conceptualization. Rationality, on the other hand, is just the faculty of rational thought, which in many contexts is useful and in fact necessary. I am criticizing a restricted ideology, not a particular mental faculty that when integrated with many others can be quite beneficial.
I'll finish reading now!
OM,
I appreciate your comment and I should have been more clear about what I meant.
true rationality is always alert for its own mistakes; rationality takes that self-correcting process ultra-seriously. I can't imagine a rationality which does not seek and take into account all the relevant facts of a situation, which persists in denial of facts, which doesn't see systems relationships, etc. And which doesn't take into account emotions and well-beings, since those are present as objective facts in situations, in the world.
Well, as I said in my preliminary comment above, there is a difference between the faculty of rationality and the ideology called rationalism. I think what is dangerous about Orange is not the rationality it heroically helped to stabilize, but the rationalism this can turn into as it ossifies and fails to be transcended and included in the further evolution of consciousness. Rationality is not an end in itself, but a means. As an end (as rationalism), it tends not to be self-correcting or capable of recognizing systems, relationships, or subjective qualities like emotion and well-being. It instead focuses on errecting sharp boundaries between subjective, typically unimportant factors, and objective, typically more important factors (think ratio and the duality it implies). If something cannot be measured in a numerical or mechanical way, rationalism tends to dismiss it as not real enough to matter. Now again, ratio and measurement and rational discursive thought are awesome and I have spent most of my academic life thus far trying to hone my abilities in this regard. But I see rationality as a tool; I do not adopt it as my sole guiding principle in all matters of life. There are some cases when it just doesn't apply, and otheres where it actually does harm.
Rationality can help us understand nature in some sense, surely. But I think it is an inherently linear way of viewing the natural world until it is supplemented by other more embodied or intuitive ways of knowing. To think dialectically, one cannot get very far with a strict rationalist perspective, as when everything is constantly being divided up into either/or categories, you miss the both/and involved in so much of systems theory and ecological relationship.
I realize the tendency you are referring to in many “eco-minded” people to reject rationality. Let me assure you that I am not rejecting the faculty! I am rejecting it as a be all and end all ideology to cover every aspect of life, theory, and practice, etc. I notice the opposite tendency sometimes too, which is to conceive of the words rational and “good” as basically synonymous. This doesn't do justice to the underlying complications of what rationality actually means, in my opinion. It can be good, but so can it be bad. it all depends on how and where it is used.
So what do you think, was this a misunderstanding or do you still disagree with me deeply?
let's explore it!
-Matt
AHA !!!!!
Now yer preachin' to the choir, Matt. I think you covered just about all the points I would think of to say on the subject, too.
Those 10 years were 1963-73. I have “transcended and included” Rand's worldview since then, LOL !!!!! [As one might surmise from my other posts here in the symposium, which would have AR spinning in her grave, LOL !!!]
I'm sorry I didn't read your post precisely to catch the distinction between rational and rationalism/ist, but I think it's good this clarification was made explicit for future readers.
TNX !!!
Blessings, OM Bastet P.S. Don't I know you from Love Bomb pod-Vancouver James days? Are you still in touch with him?
Yeah, OM. You do! That Pod was really grabbing my attention for a while, I'm not sure why I have neglected it so. It was really James' baby, and I'm not sure where he has gone off to. I tried contacting him a month or so ago through YT, but haven't heard back.
No need to apologize about the rationalityismistness. I think it would have deepened the context of my original comment if I had been more explicit, but then I guess that's why I am blogging and not journaling, so that you can come along and make sure nothing gets left out : )
Hi Matt
You quoted me here: “I still think our nervous systems must be able to pick up on at least some of the factors of “the world viewed from nowhere” otherwise we would not have survived.”
You asked about my reaction to your pointing out how my wording could be interpreted - I’d say my reaction is twofold.
The first is that in the sentence you quoted, I think in your response you’ve focused on my reference to the view from nowhere rather than my main point, which was the ability of nervous systems to pick up on at least some of the objective factors in its immediate physical environment.
I appreciate your reminder of the importance of the organism’s autonomy with this:
“From the enactive perspective, survival is not centered on conforming to the outside environment (though it is that, too) so much as it is on the organism's own ability to maintain its organization, or autopoiesis in Varela's terms. How an organism responds to environmental perturbations is based more on its own inherent properties\organizational autonomy than it is on what we might call the objective features of reality.” (My underlining)
I agree, and I’ll try again to make my main point, which I think is kind of embedded in your underlined words in your quote, and see if you agree.
Bearing in mind what you’ve previously pointed out to me with regard to the evolutionary timescales Varela was thinking in, let’s imagine a life form that needs plenty of water to survive. Over time due to climate change in the environment of this organism, drought conditions become more prevalent. If the organism interprets this change in its environment as “oh it’s still nice and wet around here” because it is not able to accurately measure / interpret / read / navigate the change in its physical environment and just stays in these dry conditions, it’s going to die. It’s going to be unable to maintain its organisation because it needs water to do that. So built into an organisms ability to maintain itself is the ability to accurately read with some degree of accuracy what’s going on outside if its own “bootstrap”. That’s all I was pointing to. Do you think that’s correct?
My second reaction is to feel that you’re making quite a big leap from me trying to point out mechanisms within living organisms to help them navigate their environments, to the current business paradigm of produce, consume, throwaway. I’m a bit taken aback. (sniff sniff) I was only referring to how organisms might differentiate variations in their immediate environment (sniff..) so that they wouldn't get squished (poor little darlins..), and suddenly that makes me eligible to be a member of the board at Halliburton! ;-) I know that's not what you intended, but since did you ask, that's how it felt!
Lastly, I kind of disagree with your apparent linking of the view from nowhere with the rigid rationalist worldview. I know it’s turning the conventional associations with the view from nowhere on it’s head because of its apparent relationship to typical Cartesian subject /object dualism, but if we really had a view from nowhere we wouldn’t be deluding ourselves that the planet has infinite resources because it hasn’t, nor that everything is not really interlinked because it is - and we would be able to see that more clearly if we really had a view from nowhere. But of course we can’t ever do that because as Varela said, even the idea of us having a view from nowhere is an abstraction, because as we know whatever we would see would be through our human eyes using our human language to describe it.
All The Best
James
P.S. I don't have much music up on the web at all yet… I'm just slow…You could try this. That’s me in the background. Poor quality vid but gives you an idea. This is a section of a rhythm I wrote, played on me big set of drums :-) with Keisuke and Shingo, 2 ex-students of mine.
Matt - I just found this too. We brought my taiko teacher over from Hirohsima to London last Sept. This is us playing a traditional taiko piece from Hiroshima. I'm the skinny white guy with the grey hair!
Wow Bruce - thanks for this.
“This is very interesting, because I've been viewing our positions as essentially the opposite of this. Julian has talked about the Right Quadrants as Truth with a capital T, truth which transcends perspectives and LL conditioning, and this is what I've been challenging. I have been interested in pursuing this because I think the idea that the Right Quadrants represent universal truth, relatively free of (un-co-enacted by) subjective dimensions and the other limiting, contextualizing factors that Varela and others describe, has a direct impact on how we relate to others. I am also interested in the dynamic openness that enactivism points to because it has relevance to our projects of psychological healing, human social evolution, and spiritual transformation.”
It's really got me thinking. I need to sit and digest this a bit…. :-)
Rationality is not an end in itself, but a means.
matt, are you trying to also drive the point home that even our ability to rationalize…is conditoned? and as long as we remain 'human', everyone say it…”I have a body, mind, and voice…i am still human”…we remain condtioned to some degree… (you guys are killing me with the color crayon box conditioning and all it's quadrants). LOL
james you're getting snot all over your presentation…LOL…good conversation though…*
james, i had another thought concerning physics…it seems to me, that when it comes to the hard truths of this reality which we are actually living, many that practice buddhism and other forms of spirituality that are designed to take the mind 'out of' the reality of life, love to use this apsect of physics to escape things like suffering and war, poverty, starvation, human abuses…yet in their very practice, they spend hours meditating conjuring up their deities, transforming this or that…and praying to buddha or their guru or whatever…let's not leave out the christconsciousers….they do the same thing…
i want to scream in their ears…HEY, THEY DON'T EXIST! LOL
feel to heal…keep it real…
while we are at it, why don't we take all those colors out the box and make a quadrant rainbow? LOL…if you guys are gonna talk about all that jazz, the least you could do is relate it to a 'real' experience….my rant for now…lol
Hi, OM! Thanks for your thoughtful responses.
Expansion around it is not interactive enough to express my view precisely, Tely. The thing itself gets “digested,” or “transmuted” or “colored,” not just imported/surrounded. In both transcendence and dis-identification. Does that difference make sense to you?
Yeah, I totally get it. I think I try to be a little bit careful about using change-related terminology (even words as seemingly benign as “transmute”), because the vast majority of people will misunderstand that to mean excluding the old thing. But I like this termed “colored,” because it doesn't imply getting rid of anything, but rather, a new thing being born from the old stuff that isn't other than the old stuff, but also is different. There's a continuity implied in this, rather than a disjunction.
I would call it just what you did: denial or rejection or exclusion or cutting off. But the fact that they can talk about “it” means it is not dissociated, not out of awareness!!!! See the diff??
Of course. I think I've generally used the word “dissociate” to mean any degree of cutting off – sometimes 100%, but sometimes partial. That's usually how it's used in the professional (psychotherapy) circles I'm a part of. But I was interested to know if you've got some better terminology to distinguish the 100% cut off from the partial. I think we're totally seeing eye to eye on these issues, even if we use different words to describe the processes.
James, I look forward to your thoughts on that paragraph…
In the meantime, it looks like we have this in common. Kinda sorta! Though I expect you are a lot better at taiko than I ever was on changgo…
Star said:
“when it comes to the hard truths of this reality which we are actually living, many that practice buddhism and other forms of spirituality that are designed to take the mind 'out of' the reality of life, love to use this apsect of physics to escape things like suffering and war, poverty, starvation, human abuses…”
Yep, this is what Julian and others are regularly pointing to.
On the other hand there are also plenty of people who combine their meditation or whatever practice with a fearless ability to look into the face of suffering, their own and the world's, and use this suffering alongside their spiritual practice as a portal into a deeper relationship with the world.
Let's try to do the latter, and find compassionate ways of pointing it out to those we see as stuck in the former.
I've got a bit more to say on this but I think it's a bit off topic so I'll send it as a PM
James
i don't see how it is off topic, but i will respect that you see it that way…and will just say this:
i am not one to tiptoe around conceptual-ism…and i think that IS compassionate…and the overall purpose of this entire symposium…to my understanding is to differentiate between what is conceptual bullshit and what is not…and to take what is not…and build on it…but these are my interpretations…
this idea that compassion is always warm and fuzzy needs to be re-evaluated…the truth hurts and we don't want to face it…if something hurts us or makes us uncomfortable…we need to examine it…i like this: feel to heal…keep it real…
always…*
Matt,
so that you can come along and make sure nothing gets left out : )
Not hardly!!! but
Deep bow.
Enneagram One, at your service !!
ROTFL
OM Bastet
Star
What I meant was “the additional info & examples I am about to add next are a bit off topic” hence sending them to you as a PM.
James
Hey James,
Over time due to climate change in the environment of this organism, drought conditions become more prevalent. If the organism interprets this change in its environment as “oh it’s still nice and wet around here” because it is not able to accurately measure / interpret / read / navigate the change in its physical environment and just stays in these dry conditions, it’s going to die. It’s going to be unable to maintain its organisation because it needs water to do that. So built into an organisms ability to maintain itself is the ability to accurately read with some degree of accuracy what’s going on outside if its own “bootstrap”. That’s all I was pointing to. Do you think that’s correct?
Hmm, I would say that the water drying up and leaving the organism without the possibility of maintaining autopoiesis is not really about a failure of the organism to represent its reality accurately. It is just a natural consequence which often arises when you have systems within systems. Sometimes the background system (environment) changes beyond what the foregrounded system (organism) can cope with. I would agree, though, that through many generations of structural coupling with the environment, an organism should be capable of distinguishing when the water dries up and begin trying to finds new digs. If it doesn't, this is the end of the organism. We as observers could say that the organism failed to correctly identify a feature of its environment, but from the perspective of the organism, it knew of no distinction to make.
My second reaction is to feel that you’re making quite a big leap from me trying to point out mechanisms within living organisms to help them navigate their environments, to the current business paradigm of produce, consume, throwaway. I’m a bit taken aback. (sniff sniff) I was only referring to how organisms might differentiate variations in their immediate environment (sniff..) so that they wouldn't get squished (poor little darlins..), and suddenly that makes me eligible to be a member of the board at Halliburton! ;-) I know that's not what you intended, but since did you ask, that's how it felt!
That was a big leap, you're right. I didn't mean to accuse you of any of these things, though. I really believe this is just an issue about the way we each like to word things and how these ways of wording may imply certain things we don't always intend. I drew the connection only because “view from nowhere” makes me think of those kinds of value systems that pretend they are not value systems, kind of like capitalism. In mainstream newspapers, we don't talk about “capitalist economics,” we just talk about economics, as though capitalism offered a view from nowhere and was not an ideology in itself, and so doesn't need to even be mentioned.
Varela makes a distinction between an organism's environment as it appears to an observer, and an organism's world as it appears from their own perspective. It is only from an observer's point of view that a creature's cognition is representational, functioning to allow it to correctly interact with the environment. But remember what counts as an observer: a languaging being, who, because of their ability to consensually produce and refer to abstractions is able to describe the world in terms of subjective/objective dichotomies. These dichotomies are not features of the world, though, of the organism's world or our own world. They are grammatical constructs we agree to use because they help us perform useful measurements. These are useful, though, as distinct from truthful. Logically, truth is about the content of a proposition, about its correspondance to a matter of fact in the environment. Truth cannot have this meaning from the enactive perspective, because the environment is always already an abstraction in language having little to do with the reality we experience from within our own organism.
I'd much prefer the usefulness of “objectivity-in-parenthesis” over an attempt at the value free truthfulness of a “view from nowhere.” I think it takes more of an embedded, embodied view to recognize ecological problems, and that a purely objective view from nowhere tends to obscure them, making them almost invisible.
But again, maybe we just like to use our own favorite phrases, even though we don't mean something too different?
-Matt
oh and thanks for those links, James! I dig it!
Star,
matt, are you trying to also drive the point home that even our ability to rationalize…is conditoned?
Yes, that is big part of it. As I was saying to James above, sometimes the rationalist view, to the extent that it assumes a “view from nowhere,” likes to think that it can find an objectively true perspective free of all value judgments and subjective inclinations, etc. I don't think this is possible.
james, i don't think compassion can be determined by our outdated 'ideas' concerning it…
there is a saying in my circle…'you can actually LOVE someone to death'…
i don't see anyway for there to be a new way…while clinging to the baggage of the old way…but that is just my perception…and maybe it is good that it is being challenged…joy*
i am up and ready to play!
i am up and ready to play!
Sorry Star, I'm not sure what you're referring to with this:
“james, i don't think compassion can be determined by our outdated 'ideas' concerning it…”
hi james…what do you 'think' it means?
Matt
I'm struggling with finding a langauge that we can all share. I feel we are still going round in circles. So for now, I'm just going to agree with you on this:
“But again, maybe we just like to use our own favorite phrases, even though we don't mean something too different?”
And also, really keen to see this from you as promsied over at Julian's:
“You're essay presents a number of poignant criticisms to the enactive paradigm, and I want to respond with just as much depth as you presented them with. I should be able to do this tomorrow afternoon! ….I think the biggest struggle for me will be to find a way to evoke exactly what Varela et al. mean when they say that there is no pregiven world. It admitedly sounds a bit suspect, and hopefully rewording the way it is presented will make what I find to be a very important, even paradigm breaking insight more apparent.”
I really hope you can find the language to break through this. I still think phrases like “enacting a worldspace” or “bringing forth a world” don't do a good job of making clear what enactivism is about. And when you put alongside that “there is no pregiven world” it does sound close to the Idealist position of “it's all just mind - there is no physical world out there at all”.
And yet I also sense that Varela clearly doesn't go along with this… I'm tired of going round and round, so I hope you can help us get past it.
Unfortnately I'm away working in a field for the next 4/5 days and so will miss the next part of the Symposium.
I'll be back!
All The Best
James
I'll see what I can do, James!
Have fun enacting the tribal way of life ; )
Matt
james, if compassion is our very true nature, then by that definition alone it is non-conceptual…so our perspectives concerning it are limited…
in my experience, compassion is not limited to, but does include what i like to call 'the hatefulness of love'…iow…sometimes, we just need to hear the truth…no matter how bad it hurts, or how non-compassionate it may seem….this has certainly been true in my life…had i not had those that cared and dared enough to tell me things about myself and the beliefs i use to cling to so…that were painful and harsh…i'd be a bigger mess than i am today…LOL
to truly embody the equanimity that compassion entails, is to also embody an aspect of it that may be less pleasant, and surely less understood, and therefore, not really contained within our outdated 'ideas' concerning compassion…
compassion can be painful…for the one doing the giving…as well as for the one on the receiving end…
did you have fun banging on your drums?