Experience versus Reality

[arinochka123]

I had the following thoughts and would much appreciate and feedback:

Pain is an experience, as well as rage and hallucination (daydreaming).
The three-dimensional room/sphere I am now aware of sitting in – is not an experience.
Q: Isn’t the phrase ‘I am now aware of’ from the previous proposition another way of saying ‘perceive’? And if so, isn’t the object/qualia/nature of perceiving an experience?
A: No. a ‘picture’ is a two-dimensional object, whether a photo, a drawing, or a painting. Tere is, however, the picture and there is the content of the picture. The content may be two-dimensional (a certain drawing) and it can be three-dimensional (a photo, a painting of landscape). What accounts for the difference? A photo or painting is an attempt to reflect, recreate or mimic (and maybe also to signify or suggest) something. We can of course try and design a room, which will be an attempt to recreate upon a three-dimensional “plateau”. But when we shoot [a picture] or paint [a painting], we reflect/recreate a three-dimensional form of being (reality) upon a two-dimensional plateau. Truly recreate; namely, we [consequently] perceive a three-dimensional “reality” (form of being) on (within) a two-dimensional plateau (the canvas is only metaphorically a “window”). We manage to move to and fro these two different kinds of sphere because of our innate capacity of visual perspective, namely the ability to “see” the dynamic three-dimensional sphere we are a part of (the ‘world’). Now, one might argue that we ‘experience’ both, namely an experience of a two-dimensional sphere and that of a three-dimensional sphere, wherefore there is nothing here besides two separate experiences. But then, while the only common denominator of such two separate experiences is ‘I’, the only difference between them is [eo ipso] World and [eo ipso] Object (the landscape being a world and the photo/painting an object). What is stronger (or more essential/consequential) – the common or the difference? It seems to me that the common (designating the ‘I’ for that purpose) is actually an empty box while the difference is very conclusive and possibly impeccable. Is there anything I miss or misconceive here?

[Eugene I]

My personal 2-cents opinion:
The answer depends on your metaphysical position. Let's assume it's idealism. If so, everything you described are equally experiences, whether you experience an actual landscape, a picture, or your imaginative/interpretative re-creation of the 3D image from the raw visual perceptions. So, this is what is common to all of it - the fact that they are all conscious experiences. But they differ by the content. Now, within the Bernardo's scheme of idealism we can say that the raw perceptions are caused by he MAL ideations across the dissociated boundary, while the imaginative/interpretative re-creation of the 3D image happens within the dissociative boundary. This is what differentiates them. However, looking at a the bigger picture of things, when we look at the wholeness of consciousness (MAL + alters), there is no essential difference between perceptions and ideations, they are in essence all perceptive-ideations, and also still all are conscious experiences (in a sense that consciousness can simultaneously create ideas and perceive and experience them). So basically, the whole world is a continuous unified flow of perceptive-ideational-conscious-experiences with ever-changing content. So, the fact that they are always only ideational experiences is what is common to them and what never changes.

Regarding the "I", different people and different philosophies imply different meaning related to this word. If I start elaborating on the meaning that I use for it, it will cause a long debate again that we already had on this forum multiple times

[AshvinP]

I had the following thoughts and would much appreciate and feedback:

Pain is an experience, as well as rage and hallucination (daydreaming).
The three-dimensional room/sphere I am now aware of sitting in – is not an experience.
Q: Isn’t the phrase ‘I am now aware of’ from the previous proposition another way of saying ‘perceive’? And if so, isn’t the object/qualia/nature of perceiving an experience?
A: No. a ‘picture’ is a two-dimensional object, whether a photo, a drawing, or a painting. Tere is, however, the picture and there is the content of the picture. The content may be two-dimensional (a certain drawing) and it can be three-dimensional (a photo, a painting of landscape). What accounts for the difference? A photo or painting is an attempt to reflect, recreate or mimic (and maybe also to signify or suggest) something. We can of course try and design a room, which will be an attempt to recreate upon a three-dimensional “plateau”. But when we shoot [a picture] or paint [a painting], we reflect/recreate a three-dimensional form of being (reality) upon a two-dimensional plateau. Truly recreate; namely, we [consequently] perceive a three-dimensional “reality” (form of being) on (within) a two-dimensional plateau (the canvas is only metaphorically a “window”). We manage to move to and fro these two different kinds of sphere because of our innate capacity of visual perspective, namely the ability to “see” the dynamic three-dimensional sphere we are a part of (the ‘world’). Now, one might argue that we ‘experience’ both, namely an experience of a two-dimensional sphere and that of a three-dimensional sphere, wherefore there is nothing here besides two separate experiences. But then, while the only common denominator of such two separate experiences is ‘I’, the only difference between them is [eo ipso] World and [eo ipso] Object (the landscape being a world and the photo/painting an object). What is stronger (or more essential/consequential) – the common or the difference? It seems to me that the common (designating the ‘I’ for that purpose) is actually an empty box while the difference is very conclusive and possibly impeccable. Is there anything I miss or misconceive here?

I am not sure I followed properly, but will give it a shot - what is common to these experiences is the ideal content (i.e. meaning) of the experience. The medium in which that ideal content is transmitted to us can differ, as you point out, which implies the ideal content is essential-consequential while the specific medium of transmission is not. One way we can gain confidence that the ideal content is truly shared is because when you observe your room and label it "painting of my room", and then share that painting with me or even only the label of "painting of my room" (assuming I am familiar with your room or rooms in general), we can carry on a productive discussion about this object of our experience even if we have not experienced the medium of the meaning in the same way.

[arinochka123]

Thank you very much for your replies.
I must confess that I am not familiar enough with the subtleties of Bernardo's conception of M@L (I discovered Bernardo's thought only recently), but I nevertheless want to respond to what you've written, and please forgive me if I miss something or repeat already trodden paths.
If I understand correctly, MAL ideations across the dissociated boundary are, crudely speaking, experiences which we seemingly share in real time (the landscape we both look at; the melody we both hear), whereas those that are within the boundary are experiences we do not/can not share in real time but only through deliberate communication (the association each of us may have upon seeing/hearing in the example above - what you call imaginative/interpretive re-creation). Indeed, I must learn more about the concept of dissociative boundary before I can comment on that. I would, however, ask already now: how do we know that it is at all a 'Boundary', namely something which separates between distinct entities or modes/forms of existence (I am referring, of course, to the ontological, rather than merely discursive-explanatory, status of that boundary)? Is a merely conceptual boundary a boundary at all? Isn't it that we are initially able to distinguish between, for example, dreaming, imaginative reflection, abstract reflection, corporeal sensation, optical delusions etc., only because all of them are innately ("grammatically") demarcated as distinct entities within a shared, all-inclusive sphere (which accommodates both material and non-material discourse and the ultimate nature of which we do not know), whereby their logical-conceptual affinity and, as it were, "common ground", is what makes the distinctions (boundaries) between them meaningful in the first place (as the boundary between a dream and a memory, or between calculation and curiosity, or a toothache and the awareness to one's immediate environment, namely that we can talk about the "relatedness' of all these different phenomena as parts of a common sphere)?
Hence I further ask: what is the parallel logical-conceptual (more precisely - grammatical) affinity or "common ground" between the "ontological fields" within and without the dissociated boundary? You say that what makes all these a part of ultimate reality is that they are all experiences, while their distinctiveness derives from their "content"; but this sense of distinction between form (or framework) and content is far from clear and maybe even incoherent (why is the difference in qualia "less ultimate" than some common conceptual denominator we call 'Experience'? Can we really distinguish between that conceptual denominator and the different qualias?). This is the sense in which I meant that the three-dimensional room where I sit in real-time is, to my humble opinion, not an experience while my toothache (as distinct from the infection in my teeth) is, or more precisely - that they differ on the ontological level. It seems to me the difference between the two is not captured, let alone exhausted, by the term 'content'. It is a grammatical and ultimately existential difference, which goes back to the very first of "me" as a creature that "became" a part of the environment (in the broadest sense) of which I am currently able to speak with you (since you've undergone the same process). That first period and the way "we" (as homo-sapiens) become a part of our environment - specifically through the acquisition of language via the interaction of brain and the raw physical reality at these first moments/instances/stages - strikes me as a relevant and rather neglected (philosophically) place to look for answers. But I will certainly try to get more acquainted with the nuts and bolts of Bernardo's scheme in order to understand better. Thanks again for the replies and I will be very happy if anybody has any feedback.

[AshvinP]

Thank you very much for your replies.
I must confess that I am not familiar enough with the subtleties of Bernardo's conception of M@L (I discovered Bernardo's thought only recently), but I nevertheless want to respond to what you've written, and please forgive me if I miss something or repeat already trodden paths.
If I understand correctly, MAL ideations across the dissociated boundary are, crudely speaking, experiences which we seemingly share in real time (the landscape we both look at; the melody we both hear), whereas those that are within the boundary are experiences we do not/can not share in real time but only through deliberate communication (the association each of us may have upon seeing/hearing in the example above - what you call imaginative/interpretive re-creation). Indeed, I must learn more about the concept of dissociative boundary before I can comment on that. I would, however, ask already now: how do we know that it is at all a 'Boundary', namely something which separates between distinct entities or modes/forms of existence (I am referring, of course, to the ontological, rather than merely discursive-explanatory, status of that boundary)? Is a merely conceptual boundary a boundary at all? Isn't it that we are initially able to distinguish between, for example, dreaming, imaginative reflection, abstract reflection, corporeal sensation, optical delusions etc., only because all of them are innately ("grammatically") demarcated as distinct entities within a shared, all-inclusive sphere (which accommodates both material and non-material discourse and the ultimate nature of which we do not know), whereby their logical-conceptual affinity and, as it were, "common ground", is what makes the distinctions (boundaries) between them meaningful in the first place (as the boundary between a dream and a memory, or between calculation and curiosity, or a toothache and the awareness to one's immediate environment, namely that we can talk about the "relatedness' of all these different phenomena as parts of a common sphere)?
Hence I further ask: what is the parallel logical-conceptual (more precisely - grammatical) affinity or "common ground" between the "ontological fields" within and without the dissociated boundary? You say that what makes all these a part of ultimate reality is that they are all experiences, while their distinctiveness derives from their "content"; but this sense of distinction between form (or framework) and content is far from clear and maybe even incoherent (why is the difference in qualia "less ultimate" than some common conceptual denominator we call 'Experience'? Can we really distinguish between that conceptual denominator and the different qualias?). This is the sense in which I meant that the three-dimensional room where I sit in real-time is, to my humble opinion, not an experience while my toothache (as distinct from the infection in my teeth) is, or more precisely - that they differ on the ontological level. It seems to me the difference between the two is not captured, let alone exhausted, by the term 'content'. It is a grammatical and ultimately existential difference, which goes back to the very first of "me" as a creature that "became" a part of the environment (in the broadest sense) of which I am currently able to speak with you (since you've undergone the same process). That first period and the way "we" (as homo-sapiens) become a part of our environment - specifically through the acquisition of language via the interaction of brain and the raw physical reality at these first moments/instances/stages - strikes me as a relevant and rather neglected (philosophically) place to look for answers. But I will certainly try to get more acquainted with the nuts and bolts of Bernardo's scheme in order to understand better. Thanks again for the replies and I will be very happy if anybody has any feedback.

You are correct to be skeptical of this "boundary" language. As you say, "Is a merely conceptual boundary a boundary at all?". My short answer is no, there is not a hard boundary between 'alters' in the way most people envision it. I think this essay by Cleric on going beyond "Flat MAL" to "Deep MAL" will be very helpful to you.

Flat MAL:





Deep MAL:

I'll call the above Deep M@L in contrast to Flat M@L. Even at first glance we already see that this change of perspective leads to very serious repercussions. Before I continue I would like to say that nothing of this is new. These things have been known in one form or another, for millennia by the Initiates but they really began to take the shape that we'll see here in post-Christ time, ever since the Gnostic schools began to explore these Mysteries. This secret knowledge has been carried by a spiritual stream through the centuries and only about a little more than hundred years ago it began to disseminate in the general population - simply because humans are getting ripe for this. I also want to underline that the images presented here are nothing but analogies and metaphors. Nowhere in reality we'll ever be able to discover such geometric structures. What we are interested in is to grasp some ideas through the analogies. When we have the ideas, the visual representation can be discarded. Just as 'high' and 'low' temperature is meaningless in geometric sense, so everything here must be striven for the ideas themselves. The visual aids are only an intellectual scaffold that must be dismantled after it has served its purpose. Also it must be stated that the above illustration is incomplete. It focuses only on something very specific. There are many things missing from it so in no way it should be taken as full model of reality. As an analogy we can have topological, geographical, political, etc. maps - all of them represent only specific aspects of the Earth and can't explain anything in isolation. I beg the reader to withhold any preliminary judgments about the meaning of the layers and the center in the illustration. We'll try to elucidate them only gradually.

Just as globular Earth resolves many enigmas, impossibilities and contradictions existing in the flat Earth model, so does Deep M@L in relation to Flat M@L. What will be given below can be in no way exhaustive, it can be no more than hints that would have to be studied further.

Probably the most striking difference between the pictures above is that they completely change the way we view our personal consciousness. In Flat M@L every consciousness is an individuated part of M@L. This is the first fact of experience that we habitually extend 'beyond the horizon' and make an assumption. Here we are mislead by our spatial conceptions, derived from the sensory world. Just because our physical bodies are perceived as clearly separate entities in space we extend this idea to M@L and assume that our consciousness is also an enclosed unity. That's why we easily resonate with metaphors like bubbles, whirlpools, etc. Deep M@L, on the other hand, reveals that there's really only one space of consciousness. We can take the faces to represent our Earthly ego consciousness (and not the physical face) while everything 'behind' them represents subconsciousness. Nevertheless, we should imagine that our individual consciousness spans all the way from the One Center to the face - the light cones. Viewed in this way it can be said that different beings within Deep M@L are only different perspectives, points of view of the One Center. Because of the specific stage of evolution we find ourselves in, currently most people are conscious only at the Earthly ego face level, while everything behind is shrouded in sleep. As we'll see, it's possible for modern man, through self-development, to lift that shroud to varying extents. The spheres closer to the center represent archetypal ideas of Macrocosmic nature. As we go towards the periphery they are experienced in more and more complicated interrelationships, ultimately leading to the highly fragmented human condition of today. So the 'interior' of M@L is 'made of' ideas, yet not the rigid and lifeless concepts that we juggle with in our intellect but ideas that are actual living, creative processes. These are neither only intellectual metaphors for some external (to the personal whirlpool) processes in the Flat M@L, nor materialistic metaphors for biological and social functions. They are in the most real sense the creative ideas of Deep M@L, of whose complex interactions we are currently experiencing only a very fragmentary perspective. To distinguish these living processes within M@L from the rigid concepts of our intellect we'll call the former idea-beings.

[Eugene I]

Is a merely conceptual boundary a boundary at all?

The "boundary" is a concept to reflect the fact of a limited flow of information. As an analogy, there are parallel computational process (software programs) running on your computer on the same processor, so essentially they are all running on the same "hardware" and are just flows of information. However, the information flow/exchange between those processes may be very limited (or even absent), and in that sense we can say that there is an "informational boundary" between them. From the "insider" perspective of each program, it may look like "as if" it is enclosed into its own boundary and isolated from other programs. However, in fact there is no actual isolation in the hardware and such isolation is only informational. Likewise, in the common "hardware" reality of consciousness there are semi-autonomous conscious processes (alters) that have limited informational flow and exchange between each other and not all of the content of the "internalized" information pertinent to each process can be shared across such "boundaries". Yet, there is no "actual" isolation between them other than the limited informational exchange. This is of course a very simplified analogy, since, as we know from experience, consciousness functions in profoundly more complex and rich ways compared to computational processes.

This is the sense in which I meant that the three-dimensional room where I sit in real-time is, to my humble opinion, not an experience while my toothache (as distinct from the infection in my teeth) is, or more precisely - that they differ on the ontological level. It seems to me the difference between the two is not captured, let alone exhausted, by the term 'content'.

Your perception of the room is a result of getting visual and tactile perceptions (perceptual experiences) which are further processed and overplayed with your mental pattern recognitions and interpretations of these perceptions (like "what I'm perceiving is a room"). This pattern-recognized interpretation is an imaginative idea, so it is not a direct perception anymore, but a "derivative" of it. However, if you have any thought or idea or imagination right now, you can also see that having a thought or imagination is also an experience. You literally "experience" your though just like you experience any perceptions, even though images and perceptions differ by their qualitative content and feel. The quale of a perception of red apple is different from a quale of a memory recollection of this perception, or a quale of your imagination of red apple. But still, each of those qualia are equally experienced, just because you consciously experience them. So, fundamentally, there is no difference between all those qualia in a sense that they are all conscious experiences, but their qualities and their particular content can be very different.

[arinochka123]

The "boundary" is a concept to reflect the fact of a limited flow of information.

Please allow me to raise the following, rather straightforward, objection: You purport to explain the concept "Boundary' by reference to the concept of 'Limitation'. But the very puzzle about the notion of 'Boundary' refers (specifically) to what constitutes its "quality/faculty" of limitation (a distinction between two entities is possible specifically due to each of them being "somehow" limited/demarcated). So, the suggested explanation, at least as far as I can figure out, is begging the question and therefore devoid of any explanatory/elucidative force.

Let me also address the analogy you make: you bring the example of distinct - parallel - computational processes (software programs) running on the same hardware. Then you proceed to say that (quote): "the information flow/exchange between those processes may be very limited (or even absent), and in that sense we can say that there is an "informational boundary" between them." (end of quote). But if we look into the details of that example, we should see that what you call 'parallel (presumably distinct) computational processes' is nothing of a kind ONTOLOGICALLY (namely "where" they are supposed to proceed as such). In the reality of those processes, as they are, there are no distinctions (or no ability on our part to discern or locate or identify any distinctions) - its just the "buzz" of hardware (of strictly physical - electric/chemical/other - processes) behaving in a certain way (there is even no way - no "lenses" to distinguish between different modes or patterns at that strictly physical level). The only thing that initially allows us to speak of any distinctions and 'flows of information' (in the plural), namely of a variety of distinct processes (happenings), is the fact that each software was "built" separately - by a different person (or by the same person on different occasions) - and this is the very phenomenon that begs explanation. So the "informational boundary" you wish to infer or attribute to those "flows" is there only due to the very concept that begs explication/elucidation.

On the same note: What do you mean when you say "From the "insider" perspective of each program"? When you utter such a proposition (apply such a concept), you assume that I already understand what it is - this "insider" of a program. But, as we just saw, there is no such thing (such "perspective" on the "inside" of a program's flow, so to speak) in separation from the boundary-imbued phenomenon we wish to account for in the first place. In your reply you keep on resorting to such terms/metaphors as "from the inside", "as if" and "in fact", but it is absolutely unclear why and how come you make those distinctions and further apply them in an explanatory tone, as they are metaphors to the very thing/concept you wish to explain. In other words, what grounds do you have for applying this "as if" tool and on what grounds you contrast it with the "in fact" tool? Isn't it a fact that in doing so you bear on the very processes/experiences you wish and purport to explain?

You go on to compare consciousness with the 'hardware' at the basis of computational processes and the software-flows with our separate consciousness "flows" (the Altars). But the hardware in that example/analogy is altogether (and forever, namely qualitatively) alien to the software-programs, wherefore the analogy doesn't go through (the software is not, as it were, "dispersed" or subsides in the Hardware, whereas the whole point of the analogy is the "show"/demonstrate how the altars DO subside in Bernardo's single, general "ontological" consciousness). Exactly as the electrical current is a form/property of matter and not something that "happens" to matter as such, which is an empty category (as against the 'game of basketball', which is not a property/form of its constituents - the players, the rules etc.), the processes that the hardware undergoes when software "runs" on/through it are also its PROPERTY/FORM, and they are not the same as the software itself! The "logic"/rules/design of the software (which is the software "in itself") is nowhere but in the minds of its designers, and it is not "germane" in any way to the hardware. So how can pursue an analogy whereby the altars (the semi-autonomous flows of consciousness), which are analogous to the distinct software flows, are imbued in a common domain which is "larger" than each of them separately, which is analogous to the hardware in your example?

You write that my perception of the room is a result of getting visual and tactile perceptions (perceptual experiences) which are further processed and overplayed with my mental pattern recognitions and interpretations of these perceptions. This, however, is not precise. My perception of the room is NOT a result of getting visual and tactile perceptual experiences and the latter are NOT processed and overplayed with my mental pattern recognitions and interpretations of these perceptions. What really occurs is that my body takes in, via its physiological perceptual apparatus, equally and strictly physical data (light waves, sound waves, other waves, like x-rays, tactile effects at the level of quantum interaction etc.), which via the activity of the brain (in a way which is completely not understood by us), manifests itself (or transforms into or causes the emergence of - whatever you choose to call it, since there are no words in our language to describe it or refer to it directly) as conscious/mental/subjective meaningful content/qualia. Indeed, when at a later stage I think of something, some kind of pattern-recognition takes place, and the imaginative-idea is somehow different from direct perception of the empirical world. But all such capacities for imaginative conception, and even for direct perception, are a result of the evolvement of the brain as a physiological organ, and more specifically - from the interaction of the brain, as such, with other physical processes, as such, within the biological creature in the first stages of its development. The imaginative idea is therefore, indeed, a derivative, but of what? - certainly not of anything like an 'idea'/perception (can anybody point to such a process of "deriving" from a perception to a perception?). It is a derivative of an interaction within physical reality, which "produce" (or are accompanied by or whatever other name, since it is, again - a metaphor!). I agree that what you call perceptions and conceptions - mental "content" of various types, are a part of the more general mental flow of each person (we know it because we can speak about it, which is not trivial). But I still fail to see how the idea of boundaries between different altars can be reconciled with an all embracing single and continuous consciousness.
Thank you for your replies and I would love to receive more feedback.

[Eugene I]

My perception of the room is NOT a result of getting visual and tactile perceptual experiences and the latter are NOT processed and overplayed with my mental pattern recognitions and interpretations of these perceptions. What really occurs is that my body takes in, via its physiological perceptual apparatus, equally and strictly physical data (light waves, sound waves, other waves, like x-rays, tactile effects at the level of quantum interaction etc.), which via the activity of the brain (in a way which is completely not understood by us), manifests itself (or transforms into or causes the emergence of - whatever you choose to call it, since there are no words in our language to describe it or refer to it directly) as conscious/mental/subjective meaningful content/qualia. Indeed, when at a later stage I think of something, some kind of pattern-recognition takes place, and the imaginative-idea is somehow different from direct perception of the empirical world. But all such capacities for imaginative conception, and even for direct perception, are a result of the evolvement of the brain as a physiological organ, and more specifically - from the interaction of the brain, as such, with other physical processes, as such, within the biological creature in the first stages of its development. The imaginative idea is therefore, indeed, a derivative, but of what? - certainly not of anything like an 'idea'/perception (can anybody point to such a process of "deriving" from a perception to a perception?). It is a derivative of an interaction within physical reality, which "produce" (or are accompanied by or whatever other name, since it is, again - a metaphor!).

I think you are confusing idealism and materialism. In idealism there is no such thing as "physical realities", "body" or "brain" that manifest mental states, this model is only valid within the framework of physicalism. In idealism both "physical reality" and mental states are results of the ideational activity of Consciousness.

But I still fail to see how the idea of boundaries between different altars can be reconciled with an all embracing single and continuous consciousness.

This is indeed a challenging problem, and I don't claim I have a complete understanding of it and can offer an exhaustive explanation. I only offered an analogy with computer SW and FW. I think the boundary is only imaginary and simply a concept to reflect the fact of a limited information exchange between so-called "alters". I do not think that alters exist as any "entities", but rather only as semi-autonomous conscious activities in the common global consciousness.