insidetheheirophant

[insidetheheirophant]

The Nature of Relation (inspired by Sartre)

Living in itself is a way of relating to the environment. The for-itself is relation. The world bears an entirely new significance because it gains a new relation through my own view. The addition of the Other (another person) delivers a certain complexity and uncertain attitude towards it. A bilateral occurrence occurs where each person sees and is seen

[insidetheheirophant]

Being and Nothingness: Translator’s Introduction

- All consciousness is consciousness OF something. It is intentional, directive, and always points to something other than itself.

- Consciousness can only reflect on itself as an object, not as subject

- Both consciousness and the world are transcendental objects.

- Consciousness possesses a magnitude and freedom that completely overflows the concept of “I”. Therefore, the term bad faith is defined as when consciousness confines itself inside of an established constructed ego.

- The power of imagination effectively determines if a consciousness exists, for it essentially is a derivative of itself. It expresses an ability of “double nihilation”: to imagine a fictional tree (first nihilation), a fictional environment must also be created in the periphery, away from conscious attention (second nihilation).

- Emotion is the personal relation or mode in which the consciousness relates to the world. And perhaps will allude to the general perception of existentialism due to its overall emotion of apathy or dread toward existence.

- Sartre’s fundamentals defends phenomenology, defeats solipsism. In other words, it is neither idealism nor realism. Being still exists even without consciousness, therefore it is not idealist nor solipsistic. However, without consciousness, the world as we know would not exist, it is rather Being undifferentiated, therefore it is not realist.

- Consciousness is itself a sort of negation, a Nothingness. It seems to act as a sort of filter. It only exists in the sense that it shapes undifferentiated Being into the present world. Therefore, a Being-for-Itself (individual consciousness) is itself a kind of nothingness.

- There can no “nothingness” without being.

[insidetheheirophant]

Like determinism vs intdeterminism, Schopenhauer’s will to power vs denial of the will to live, external and internal variables in the scientific model, how much of my thinking, conscious and subconscious, is biologically determined? How much of my state as Homo Sapiens accounts for my thoughts? It is interesting how as far as we know, we are the only species that are granted a metaphysical level of thought and expression. There is no other peer to share the expanse before us. What does that say about the validity of what I seek? Are we gods, or fell to lunacy?

[insidetheheirophant]

Notes of Meditation #2

The focus of energy is dictated by whether I am practicing in the morning or at night. In the morning, the sun’s return brings on a call to action and will in the material plane. The setting is the sky, ethereal and expansive. I take on new strength as I extend my consciousness further out from the limits of my body, interacting with the space around me. I try to sense my immediate environment as intimately I can, every sensation, every cell. Listening to the magnetic songs of the beings around me. I’ve realized that sometimes, too much expansion of self would cause a dilution, or a weakened connection, of my self. The scaling of wild animals, such as an elephant vs a tiger, and the consequent upkeep required for the organisms operation, was an effective analogy to help understand. Instead of focusing only on size and magnitude, why not concentration? Why not materialization, even to something small as a bowling ball? This morning, I’ve begun to incorporate inviting my subconscious to interact with the physical environment. Like exposing a frightened child to a playground, I clothe myself with the hidden parts of me, and let it breathe.

At night, the impending darkness and moon brings illusions, fantasies, secrets, and hidden releases. The depths of the ocean are endless, the floor unseen, with unspeakable monsters lurking underneath. The subconscious is to rule at this time, and I acknowledge my kinship to its nature. I continue to express it in ways I can in a physical state, and I anticipate communication in my dreams. I recently granted this wish with what was a dream frightening enough I think twice now about going to sleep. My interpretation could easily fit into the narrative of my subconscious taking over my self in the image of tearing of my skin and wearing it over him (and her, it was androgynous). Erratic, violent, and very strong, it didn’t seem to have an intention of sharing. Nevertheless, I let my defenses down, and try to see it from a place of acceptance. After all, it did originate from my mind.

[insidetheheirophant]

Notes on Meditation #1

I have returned to the practice of meditation more consistently for the last few days. The act has been more natural as of late than it usually had in the past. I remember times when it would almost seem like a chore. Now, I do not recall such a struggle in choice.

Visualization has been an effective tool with setting the mental stage. For the purposes of self-guidance, I wanted to write them here as best as I can. I start by taking a birds eye view of myself and gradually expanding the horizon as far as I can, keeping myself at the center. I contemplate on all the people that may be within this projected radius, and I acknowledge the sense of insignificance that I embody. By simply changing ones perspective, my existence does not differentiate from anybody else’s. At the same time, I feel how the inner pulses and articulations of my own body, silently sitting in almost a king-like pose. Slowly, my visualizations begin to change to a different dimension. I begin to imagine what I would imagine as my essence, an invisible mass that never settles in any physical state, slowly expanding and taking up as much space as possible. I have not yet tried to encourage contraction. Almost like tentacles, I expand, fill, and claim ownership of the space around me. Once I’ve achieved a desired amount of space, I sit still and maintain whatever state of mind I would find myself in before ending.

A couple of mantras I’ve developed in the past days: Manebo mecum (Latin for stay with me) for cueing to maintain a particular state, and to stay grounded, whether it is by concentrating on my contact to the floor, or through muscle contractions for improved physical feedback. One session, interestingly, I felt that my essence, for a lack of better words, was small, or depleted. There wasn’t enough to expand into the space around me. I felt groundless, like treading water in an ocean, or floating without a way to orient myself. Grounding techniques were helpful to solve the issue

Stay grounded, little one

[insidetheheirophant]

“The world of daily experience is an expanse of mind-dependent representations that, objectively speaking, is nothing more than a construction and artifact of the principle of sufficient reason. As a construction of our own mind, that world has no validity beyond the human sphere” Robert Wicks, On Schopenhauer’s WWR.

[insidetheheirophant]

TSZ 3: Overcome, Denial

Man is something that should be overcome.

You have made your way from worm to man, and much of you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now man is more of an ape than any ape.

...remain true to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of super terrestrial hopes! They are poisoners, whether they know it or not.

What the greatest thing you can experience? It is the hour of the great contempt in which even your happiness, your reason, and your virtue grow loathsome to you...it is poverty, filth, and wretched self-complacency.

What does your body say about your soul? Is your soul not poverty and filth and wretched self complacency?

In truth, man is a polluted river. One must be a sea, to receive a polluted river and not be defiled. Behold, I teach you the Superman: he is this sea, in him your great contempt can go under.

The groundwork is being set for the message. But already Nietzche delivers crushing statements such as ‘God is dead’, and the redefining of man as a beast or plant/ghost. Despite the intrigue, it’s important to not get lost in the art (for example, I’m loving to earthly references ie worm, ape, polluted river, lightning) what is the point Nietzche is trying to make? What exactly does Nietzsche want to teach to his readers?

Some of the major elements that have been introduced are 1) the Superman, 2) the ephemeral nature and corruption of man, 3) the denial and discounting of happiness, reason, and virtue as worthless (reminiscent of Schopenhauer) 4) the reversal of Christian doctrine such as denying spiritual causes, and noticing the corruption in the soul.

It’s interesting how Nietzche sets a groundwork of some kind of moral philosophy by establishing a series of “fact-truths” about man and the Superman (of whom we do not know much of yet), and subtle allusions of what to do.

Denial. Overcoming.

[insidetheheirophant]

Lenses/Mirrors

Returning to the self, Descartes would have us believe that since we experience and perhaps even generate thoughts, we therefore cannot be convinced that we do not exist, so we must exist. What exactly is the self and what are some of the ways it has been explained? A recurring point of debate in chapter 4 of Blackburn’s Think is the premise of life after death, physical reincarnation, the distinction between the soul and the mind/body (born in a different body), or previous lives as a different person.

David Hume came up with an interesting observation that every time he tried to examine his own self, all he could come up with is an accompanied experience, whether it is a memory, an emotion, never the self alone. In this particular case, he may have reason to believe that the self is simply unobservable, so elusive to ascertain that perhaps the accompanied experience is necessary for the self to exist. If you look in the case of sleep, can you tell you’re really existing when all senses, memories, and experiences are muted? Therefore, the self is nothing but a bundle of perceptions and experiences and it’s connections to each other, there is content but no container. Though the idea seems attractive, there needs to be ownership of these perceptions, otherwise thoughts would freely flow in and out. In any case, it seems clear that the self cannot be made aware of, there is no other way around it. Rather, to acquire experience of any kind, there must be an ego-centric point of view (for there to be a photograph, there needs to be a camera to capture the shot). The self would become the organizing principle, the structural requirement for an interpretation of experience

Thomas Reid, quite the naive optimist, seems to simply announce that the self exists, that it is an indivisible entity, and like everything that is indivisible, is immune to destruction (matter cannot be destroyed, only converted to something else). However, if the soul is indestructible, how can it outlive a person and still belong to that person (it can’t), so therefore it can’t be YOUR self.

John Locke brings up the idea of compositional unity of the soul. Like any organism, it is made up of a symbiosis of several systems to maintain survival of the whole. Why would this not be the same for the soul? Perhaps we are recombinations of the same communal spirit. However, how many changes can be made to a soul before it changes identity (how many parts can be replaced until you get a completely different motorcycle)? I like how John Locke thinks, but his model for analogy uses plants and animals, and by through this he is stepping very closely to neurophysiology, but how of that could really explain the ‘soul’. (I would imagine not a lot)? Locke indirectly points out how personal identity just doesn’t matter. It is so easy in philosophy to be so human-centric when it comes to our own existence. Locke proposes that perhaps we are a synthesis of spiritual parts that gets changed over time, and that our own perception of self will change either in own lifetime and beyond. Another major player, Kant, steps in and adds that it is impossible to validate the consistency of your own self, we can only place faith.

Locke continues, it is one’s consciousness (memories, experiences, thoughts) that creates personal identity. As long as the sum is the same, a change in composition could go unnoticed. However, the probability in change of the sum surely must be significant, just look at how kids mature into adults (totally different people right?). So, if consciousness is the binding link, memory is crucial to identify the link. Therefore, being a reincarnated version of someone else is out the window unless you share the same consciousness. However, this would also mean that none us will survive complete amnesia. If you don’t remember doing something, was it really you (well this is coming from an egocentric point of view, if someone committed murder last week and doesn’t remember it, the thought of him not remembering doesn’t necessarily absolve him, and would be hard to prove, though it does suck on the defendants part, but commonly the perspective rests on this ‘reality’, that a murder was committed and the human that did it should be punished...still, doesn’t sound like true justice.)? Perhaps it is possible that one person could have inhabited several consciousnesses in successive order without memory of the former.

In the end, Locke concludes, one has to decide whether the same person refers to the same human being, or the same personal identity. The first would mean consistent existence from birth to death, the other opens the possibility of multiple persons in one physical lifetime. Where this gets interesting is that from a legal or forensic perspective, one would be inclined to prefer identifying a person with the human being to justify a claim for responsibility.

On a side note, Kant curtly calls bullshit on almost all spiritual claims of life after death and physical reincarnation, since the imagination is only a hypothetical representation rather than a memory.

In the end, our self is tied to our human being (Locke), outside of that is only speculation. Our self is also a necessary ingredient for the interpretation of experience (Hume, Kant). There is the possibility of recombination and reprogramming of software, but that is outside of reason (although we can use real life analogies); the same for any spiritual transcendence after death (can’t think of any analogy, no living organism is observed to go past death and live on as spirit, or be reborn into another organism).

[insidetheheirophant]

Sins of the Father

How much does the past control the present and future? How much already has been determined? Is there such a thing as fate or destiny?

Perhaps, we are really Zombies, just derivatives of our ancestors, inheritors of the evolutionary framework. Only the strong and intelligent survive, then came us. Only makes sense that we must rely on these traits if we are to complete the cycle and create children of our own. But the element of choice is introduced, how much of our freedom is genuine?

An interesting dilemma I’ve come across is called the dilemma of determinism. The first scenario is that if everything is predetermined, freedom does not exist, and so does responsibility of my actions, since it is not I who is to blame, but my “outside of my control” predetermination of doing so. At the same time, if entropy exists, I still lose freedom since I do not gain control of my own circumstances due to random events, I therefore still lose responsibility as it is the randomness of existence that is responsible. Either way, we find ourselves lacking freedom of choice and outcome, and responsibility of whatever may come. It’s like someone who bow hunts, as his ancestors have done before him, how much of it was his own choice, and what was predetermined through genetics and social conditioning? And when the hunter shoots an arrow, how much control can he maintain given the many variables of archery such as bow and string integrity, wind direction, and the overall difficulty of the game he is targeting?

Regardless of whether predetermination exists within the decision making framework, does our consciousness reveal to us our freedom (this is starting to sound like a divergence from the previous point which may need a better transition, but it is the general turning point in this chapter)? True freedom to impose all of that we are capable is somewhat of an illusion, since absolute freedom may require exceeding the physical or social conditions placed on us (a tree bearing fruit in the winter, a still pond crashing into shore, a man deciding to renounce his current life and travel as a hermit). People choose to remain living relatively ordinary lives, business as usual, but with the perspective of freely choosing to remain so rather than being held captive in this situation. Just because we consciously and freely choose to remain in the same state, does that mean we are free? Does consciousness reveal our freedom? Schopenhauer argues against this. It is characteristic of him to be critical in the sense of free will. Our own myopic view of the basis of our decisions and behavior, though it may provide a perception of freedom and even if you were willing to accept its illusion, is not truly so at all.

Something to keep in mind that even in the dualist approach, concerning the ghost within the machine, it cannot he proved that the the ghost itself is truly free, perhaps it is also victim to random states, changes, and anomalies. On the other hand, who is to say that the the ghost is not rather subject to causations that create a behavioral effect.

This interesting conflict of freedom pit against and the dilemma of determinism is essentially incompatibilism. Everything is governed by the laws of nature, and effects shall arises from specific causes. At the same time, chaos reigns and introduces the element of entropy within the seemingly natural framework. Either way, freedom is lost. Now what would the opposite look like? What is compatibilism?

This is where things can get interesting, hopeful even. With compatibilism, there is an element of consequence and learning from one’s mistakes, a chance for the reconfiguration of one’s behavior, we have the positive and negative reinforcement, the infamous experiment of Pavlov’s dog, operant conditioning. When it comes to the premise of responsibility, it seems with hard determinism, we cannot be held responsible for things predetermined or chaotic. But with compatibilism (aka soft determinism), the relationship between determinism and responsibility can exist; indeed there is an element of autonomy and perhaps even a speck of free will somewhere in there. The phrase ‘could have done otherwise’ is often referenced in this section. It’s almost as if compatibilism allows for some justification for blame and punishment. The problem is, how can one determine truly if ones actions was hardwired or intended?

Another aspect that separates determinism from compatibilism is the position of the self within the natural order. Determinism places one’s conscious free will, the ghost, apart and distinct from the nature, but is somehow able to alter nature’s course. Compatibilism views one as situated within and as part of the casual order. The issue with this is that it impresses as a dismissal rather than a solution for the problem of freedom. As Kant puts it, it only gives the ‘freedom of clockwork’. If we analyze it far enough, there is a strong probability of perceiving a specific action or mental state based on causal regularities which strengthens the determinist argument. In which case, it becomes clearer that compatibilism is outcome-oriented, whereas determinism is process-oriented. Yet, at the same time, we know that operant learning does exist, people are in reality not so hardwired as determinism would lead us to believe (what if operant learning is part of the hardwiring).

Baruch Spinoza, among others, interestingly associate freedom with increased knowledge and understanding. The more one understands and is aware, the more freedoms and opportunities one would have. Based on this hypothetical viewpoint, compatibilism could take a more lenient stance on responsibility, based on curating one’s decision making process that would be most likely to have been represneted depending on ones situation. Reasonable expectations, though it stil allows room for uncertainty, provides a means for inferencing ones state of mind when predicting possible intentions from ones action or state of mind. Interesting how compatibilism, in a sense, detracts the locus of control from the subject compared to the distinction of self in determinism. Compatibilism introduces probabilities, expectations, ‘bad luck’. Yet it will also provide the means for change and learning. Blackburn sums it nicely when staring that interventionalist control is untenable, while inside control is inadequate.

One cannot address the possibility of free will without bringing in the nature of time. We can’t talk about strokes of a painting without mentioning the canvas. A macroscopic scale of likely predictions in behavior and action would only indicate some general form of a fixed future. A future that is symmetrical with the past, in that they cannot be changed. The paradoxes of King Oedipus sheds a confusing but thoughtful analysis on how our fates are set regardless of whatever choices we make. If this is the case, any and all effort is pointless, and even succumbing to the inevitable futilitistic state of mind would draw us closer to our destiny all the same. But it need not be like this. There is no real answer or truth that dispels destiny or an open ended future (interesting how this would also bring in transcending the fourth dimension, if one can freely travel time in both directions assuming the future is stable enough, the future is fixed, if the future is never fixed and open to change based on decisions of the present, the fourth dimension would not be so easily understood), but it does not have to automatically lead to existential dread and nihilism. Assumptions do not always justify action of this scale. Even in the midst of hopelessness, one does not have to go down without fight.

True freedom does not exist in life. The concept of freedom would not exist without consciousness, and perhaps consciousness offers a version of freedom, depending on what consciousness really is. Or rather consciousness provides structure, and with it confinement. Freedom of will inextricably is linked to action, and also to time. One cannot be decided without the other. In the end, these are only convictions, nothing has actually changed from realizing this. And because so, there must be flexibility in how people are allowed to perceive how free we really are, how little control we may have, how much is organism, how much is a ghost.

[insidetheheirophant]

Everyone seems to be attached to a personal demon these days. A sickness. Perhaps there is no escaping from it. We only get to choose what haunts us.

Suffering has always been the enemy. Pleasure the light that blinds. That never seems to change. Anticipate and strive for the opposite. As Nietzche had once said, there is a hardness that must be sought.

[insidetheheirophant]

Ghost in the Machine

What is the connection between mind and body? Brains and behavior? Do others share the same connection or perception? Do “they” even exist?

Modern neurophysiology can easily explain these mechanisms through the afferent and efferent relationships of the nervous system for both somatic, sensory, and autonomic functions. But could it be possible that consciousness is more than the sum of its parts? As far as I know, we still cannot, by clinical means, enter into the minds of consciousness of others. We are not yet mind readers, at least to the fullest extent. Consciousness is still a private and personal matter. The culmination of our sensations, experiences, and resulting behaviors and actions. It is held so intimately within our psyche, it could almost be embedded into our identity (is it really?). I would imagine how violated one would feels if that another invaded the territory of the mind.

Descartes believed in substance dualism, the belief that the subject possesses two entities: the mind-body, and the soul (the res cogitans aka the thinking thing). To believe in the opposite (one bearer for physical and mental properties) is defined as property dualism. Something interest to think about is how either classification rationalizes physical change which create mental events (physical pain creating the mental event of feeling pain).

The Cartesian ways of dualism open up other considerations of the mental-physical relationship. Is it possible for people to possess the same physiology, but not possess consciousness (zombies)? Is it possible for people to possess the same physiology and a conscious mind, but have no relation to my consciousness (mutants)? Things that are not observed/proved cannot a priori exist. We can open up as many brains as we want, but who is to say that in a given person, consciousness exists, or even is the same as ours? Also, if zombies can function exactly as one with consciousness, what is the purpose of consciousness if not just a helpless passenger within a body?

The limitations of our perceptions, between ourselves and reality, between each other even, is astounding. Perhaps this is where evolution will take us next. We take so many things that make up our reality for granted, and base it on faith that it stands.

All of this leads back to a form of skepticism, and it is no surprise that the above theories would are instantly dismissed by most people. Yet in contrast, one cannot take simply take one’s consciousness and apply it to everyone else. Not only would that argument be weak and narrow minded, one would simply not be able to think in terms of the consciousness belonging to others. Perhaps there is no distinct separation between the mental and the physical, but instead they are more closely intertwined together.

The current trends in modern neuroscience seem bring us closer to understanding the mechanisms between neurological and physical function. The nature of the psychological seems even more confusing; Sapolsky was a helpful resource in illuminating this. However, the clear answer is ever elusive, but is it ever? The only sufficient reason will stretch beyond the individual, but perhaps even to the species. Can thought arise naturally? Does it require a divine mind to create a human mind? Can the human mind be within the closed system of human physiology? It is clear, at least, that rationalizing the neurological and psychological connection will dismiss the zombie/mutant scenarios. Behavioral and neurophysiological freedom and independence is at stake here. Could everything be explained? If not, we must have room to consider Cartesian dualism. Rigorous experimentation is needed in this case. It’s interesting and perhaps a little funny that even if we could map out brain states that appear during normal consciousness, we cannot presuppose that that is what consciousness is, but merely a symptom that consciousness is tied to.

Extending from Cartesian dualism, Wittgenstein notes in Philosophic Investigations that we cannot even hold for certain the reliability of mental events within our own pasts. Our own memories, since they do not hold fast ties to the physical world, are still prone to deception, and perhaps what we remember isn’t quite exactly what was actually there. Absurd, but understandable. It would only come to emphasize the solidarity of the present moment.

[insidetheheirophant]

Descartes’ Lonely Rock

How can I know that the world as I take it to be, is the world as it is? How do I begin to think about the relation between appearance and reality: things as we take them to be, as opposed to as they are? Is reality simply a dream, a fantasy, or an illusion? If so, are these created by our own minds? Or enforced by a sinister Other?

The only logical place to start is to prove/identify the nature of my own existence.

The iconic statement established by Descartes ‘cogito, ergo sum’ concludes that as long as one is THINKING, one can never be led to believe that he/she cannot exist for one cannot think that one is not thinking (Heidegger critiques this statement in “Being and Time” as he believes Descartes overlooked a critical aspect of the nature of being ie. the temporality of being to arrive to this conclusion). The manifestation of thought becomes the evidence for existence, and the identification of the self as a “thinking thing”. Additionally, the self is identified as a logical entity, not just an empirical one through the observation of one’s physical body. This is not to completely discount the reliability of our own senses, though the ability to make errors based on what we see or feel certainly exists. Another significant conclusion made is that the senses can be self-corrective in that further observation of the senses can reveal when a particular sense experience has induced a mistake. (Prior to the next digression, the question of whether or not reality is as we perceive (ie. disproving the sinister Other) has not been answered)

However, what allows Descartes to ascertain the self as a subject of thinking? Lichtenberg (1742-1799) in the following century states ‘We should say, “it thinks” just as we say “it thunders”. The reference to an ‘I’ as a subject of thought, Lichtenberg claims, was also an illusion. Whether or not this can be immediately disproved, he has a point. If Descartes cannot confront the self in any way (experience it, imagine it) other than its supposed action of thought, how can he entitle any certainty that it exists? (The chapter does not fully answer this question, left off at page 32).

Descartes ultimately fails in reconciling the separation between perceived and actual reality. For the time being, it seems that our reason can only extend to the reaches of our present and past experiences. If we are to also question those (as Descartes attempted), we end up with nothing.

Alternative ways of thinking that were introduced in addition to Descartes’ rational foundationalism is Hume’s empiricism, and coherentism.

In the end, to be a skeptic in the philosophical sense seems justified. Descartes took the brave initiative of staking a claim on rationalizing the reliability of our knowledge of ourselves and of the world, but ultimately was left stranded to one simple, and still questionable, claim.

Perhaps, we are merely left to use whatever is in our disposal to make sense of what we can.

References:

“Think” Blackburn (1999) Chapter One

“Meditations” Descartes (1641)

[insidetheheirophant]

Reasons to Enter the Gate

1) Reflecting for the sake of itself, in the same vein as an artist. The practice of reflection is an end unto itself

2) Reflection is continuous with mindful execution of any practice (politics, medicine, sciences)

3) Reflection allows for criticism and self-correction

“Imagination abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters: United with her, she is the mother of the arts and the source of her wonders” - Goya