BK on the unconscious.

[Soul_of_Shu]

This points to my concern with how Bernardo is framing 'unconscious experience' as if it is merely itself, a dissociated unit of experience either impinging or waiting to be noticed by meta-consciousness.

I'm still having some difficulty coming to terms with what is deemed problematic with the way BK is framing so-called 'unconscious experience'. Just for the sake of keeping it uncomplicated, let's take the train whistle example I alluded to elsewhere, and we agree, along with BK, that this percept, while registered by the psyche at a subliminal level, could still affect some metacognitive conversation about vacations to transition into an anecdote about trains, without recognizing the subliminal influence—or in BK's terms, the percept is registered by the psyche, but one doesn't know that it is registered. Yet clearly the percept, albeit subliminal, still must have some 'train whistle' quality to it, in order to evoke some meaningful association that would trigger the anecdote about trains. So what is it about the way BK would frame this particular scenario that is deemed problematic?

[AshvinP]

This points to my concern with how Bernardo is framing 'unconscious experience' as if it is merely itself, a dissociated unit of experience either impinging or waiting to be noticed by meta-consciousness.

I'm still having some difficulty coming to terms with what is deemed problematic with the way BK is framing so-called 'unconscious experience'. Just for the sake of keeping it uncomplicated, let's take the train whistle example I alluded to elsewhere, and we agree, along with BK, that this percept, while registered by the psyche at a subliminal level, could still affect some metacognitive conversation about vacations to transition into an anecdote about trains, without recognizing the subliminal influence—or in BK's terms, the percept is registered by the psyche, but one doesn't know that it is registered. Yet clearly the percept, albeit subliminal, still must have some 'train whistle' quality to it, in order to evoke some meaningful association that would trigger the anecdote about trains. So what is it about the way BK would frame this particular scenario that is deemed problematic?

The way I would frame the problematic is as follows - while technically true, the view of "unconscious experience" you describe above is so low resolution that it makes us imagine the "unconscious" realm of MAL as "dissociated" fragmented experiences floating around the "alters" waiting to be recognized by them. It is the same danger we find in various rationalistic forms of psychoanalysis, and actually psychoanalysis is more high resolution. In sticking with such low resolution framings we are in danger of forgetting the essential nature of the "unconscious" MAL as a living and unfolding organism consisting of many specified Unities of ideal relations. In a nutshell, the danger is becoming content with that low resolution because it challenges materialism-dualism just enough to win a philosophical argument and nothing more. That is my criticism, at least, without speaking for FB.

[Soul_of_Shu]

The way I would frame the problematic is as follows - while technically true, the view of "unconscious experience" you describe above is so low resolution that it makes us imagine the "unconscious" realm of MAL as "dissociated" fragmented experiences floating around the "alters" waiting to be recognized by them.

It certainly doesn't leave me with that impression. However, given that BK's main objective at this point is to sway balking skeptics away from materialism/dualism, I would suggest it's in the best interest not to complicate it to the point of being so esoteric that it becomes a territory too foreign for the skeptic to follow along. Nonetheless, I suspect that he could become much more nuanced in his explication, were he assuming an audience already on board with idealism, and well familiar with Jung, and thus inspired and primed to go much deeper. Surely DJM is indicative of beginning to take the audience yet another step further, however gradual it may be. So some patience may be warranted.

[AshvinP]

The way I would frame the problematic is as follows - while technically true, the view of "unconscious experience" you describe above is so low resolution that it makes us imagine the "unconscious" realm of MAL as "dissociated" fragmented experiences floating around the "alters" waiting to be recognized by them.

It certainly doesn't leave me with that impression. However, given that BK's main objective at this point is to sway balking skeptics away from materialism/dualism, I would suggest it's in the best interest not to complicate it to the point of being so esoteric that it becomes a territory too foreign for the skeptic to follow along. Nonetheless, I suspect that he could become much more nuanced in his explication, were he assuming an audience already on board with idealism, and well familiar with Jung, and thus inspired and primed to go much deeper. Surely DJM is indicative of beginning to take the audience yet another step further, however gradual it may be. So some patience may be warranted.

Yeah I basically agree with you on this point. Everyone has roles to play in this unfolding story and not everyone's role is to initiate others into the esoteric 'mystery' traditions which go well beyond Flat MAL. I just worry some like BK could lose sight of the need for a much deeper story by becoming too comfortable with what they are currently doing. It's not so much a specific problem to BK but a problem within these philosophical circles in general. I can't really think of any philosopher or "public intellectual" who is taking it in a direction with much higher resolution. Although BK's discussion with Vervaeke was definitely an interesting step up for both of them. I just can't see where they will find the impetus for taking it in a bold new direction, especially since doing so would certainly hurt the relationships they are working so hard to build within that community right now.

[findingblanks]

Hi Soul. I like how you phrased the question.

Regarding your practical concern that Bernardo's overall point might get lost if we get too esoteric, I agree.

That's my concern with how he makes his point. I know that to those who already share our conviction of analytical idealism, it is to problem to just hear him bluntly say that countless experiences can be dissociated from our current awareness.

But I've watched almost all of his interviews and I've never seen this point land all that well with interviewers who are not already fully on board. They often sound confused and don't really even know what to ask. That's my impression.

And I think their confusion is warranted beyond merely being that they are stepping into new ways of thinking, although that must also be at play I'd think.

If we are willing to grant that Bernardo clearly feels it is important that his listeners understand in some boiled down and basic way that what they see as clouds and moutains and buildings are not what is really out there but are 'dials on their perceptual screen' that help them stay alive; then I think we aren't overstepping the boynds of practicality if they need to have a similar understanding of the unconscious.

You don't see the idea that is manifesting as the perception of a cloud. You see a cloud, which is a dial or icon.

There is a process of translation going on between the outer mental reality and the alter. This translation process turns endogenous MaL experience into dials/perceptions to an alter.

I think it is relatively ridiculous to claim that while reading the book I am also having dozens upon dozens of other distinct experiences as such. There is no evidence for it and there can't be because when we notice, "Oh, I've been hearing that damn train whistle and that has made me feel so nostalgic!" we are noticing the whistle in meta-consciousness. Even if we remember that we quickly had noted the whistle for a split second that is also meta-consciousness.

So the notion that our meta-consciousness is always surrounded by distinctly explicated perceptions/sensations/thoughts/feelings (coffee, tightness of belt, warmth of air in left nostril, coldness in each toe, sounds in the street and forest, agitation from earlier arguement, excitement for upcoming trip, etc) that each, as such, *impinge* upon our meta-consciousness, seems to be making some errors and isn't very clear.

What is more accurate and conforms to experience and fits BKs model?

That your hearing of the train whistle is part of a field-experience that is always shaping your current meta-consciousness. Because before meta-consciousness isolates it conceptually as "a train whistle" the experience is in a (analogy alert) superposition as part of the whole unconscious field. All experience then are shaping each other not as hundreds of already conceptualized units of separated experience but as the way they change each other. This entire field of your experience is always implicitly funtioning in the shaping of your meta-consciousness. So sometimes the train whistle will evoke nostalgia, sometimes not.

Bernardo often says that everything we see outside of us that is not a living body merely a nominal distinction we make and must treat as if it is in reality an ontologically distict part. But he is right that his modle implies that in reality all of inanimate nature is just "one" thing, very intricate and complex (and in some kind of 'superposition' until an alter needs to reduce it to a perception).

Just as we can't understand his model if we think that cars are actually there as distinct realities in the real world, his model also makes no sense if we think of unconscious personal experiences as distinct entities just being experienced (all hundreds of them) in some non-meta way by some other "part" of ourselves. That error suggests some kind of DID process is necessary for understanding how unconscious experiences shape our awareness. I think that is inflationary and loses explanatory power.

This points to my concern with how Bernardo is framing 'unconscious experience' as if it is merely itself, a dissociated unit of experience either impinging or waiting to be noticed by meta-consciousness.

I'm still having some difficulty coming to terms with what is deemed problematic with the way BK is framing so-called 'unconscious experience'. Just for the sake of keeping it uncomplicated, let's take the train whistle example I alluded to elsewhere, and we agree, along with BK, that this percept, while registered by the psyche at a subliminal level, could still affect some metacognitive conversation about vacations to transition into an anecdote about trains, without recognizing the subliminal influence—or in BK's terms, the percept is registered by the psyche, but one doesn't know that it is registered. Yet clearly the percept, albeit subliminal, still must have some 'train whistle' quality to it, in order to evoke some meaningful association that would trigger the anecdote about trains. So what is it about the way BK would frame this particular scenario that is deemed problematic?

[findingblanks]

Side note comments:

"or in BK's terms, the percept is registered by the psyche, but one doesn't know that it is registered."

But why assume that the percept is registered as it appears to meta-consciousness? If the sun is having dozens of specific effects on me despite it not being the dial image of "the sun" that my eye registers, why wouldn't a percept be able to have effects on my awareness without having to treated as if it is the icon that meta-consciousness reduces it to for convenience?

Certainly I am "registering" the sun in ways that will appear as changes in chemistry and skin color-- and maybe as changes in my sense of vitality-- without thinking the sun exists by itself, segmented off from all of MaL. It is convenient to talk about it as a separate thing. But it is an error to think of it (or a car or stone) that way. This not only conforms to evidence at hand, it is how BKs model explains why cars and stones are not conscious.

I'm saying that this would also go for the unconscious field of non-meta-experiencing that has yet to be collapsed into objects for meta-consciousness to notice and name and work with, or try to ignore. Talking about the unconscious as if it is composed of hundreds (or countless) "parts" of me that are separately noticing countless "parts" of the world sounds like the kind of inflationary reasoning that makes Bernardo scoff at multi-verse claims.

My worry about my daughter's hurt ankle is most likely implicitly funtioning in how my ideas are forming as I type right now, but no need to imagine that worry as an explicated percept being experienced as such by some other fragment of my awareness. If it is implicitly funtioning then it is palpably active in the intricacy of my current experience. No need to conjure up endless percepts and sub-percievers.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Side note comments:

But why assume that the percept is registered as it appears to meta-consciousness?

Staying with the train whistle example, if that subliminal percept triggers a metacognitive conversation to unwittingly switch to an anecdote about trains, the only assumption is that the percept has a distinct quality that is associated with trains. So it would be likewise for the simultaneous subliminal percepts of the odor of sweat, and the warmth of the sun, and the greenery of the lawn, the noise of a distant lawnmower, etc, from which the train whistle was distinguished—any one of which could have triggered the conversation to go in a different direction, perhaps about golf or yard work, had the context been different. How is this inconsistent with the way BK is framing it?

[AshvinP]

Side note comments:

But why assume that the percept is registered as it appears to meta-consciousness?

Staying with the train whistle example, if that subliminal percept triggers a metacognitive conversation to unwittingly switch to an anecdote about trains, the only assumption is that the percept has a distinct quality that is associated with trains. So it would be likewise for the simultaneous subliminal percepts of the odor of sweat, and the warmth of the sun, and the greenery of the lawn, the noise of a distant lawnmower, etc, from which the train whistle was distinguished—any one of which could have triggered the conversation to go in a different direction, perhaps about golf or yard work, had the context been different. How is this inconsistent with the way BK is framing it?

If I understand correctly, FB is asking the following question - why are we assuming the "train whistle" percept is, in reality, a distinct 'unit' of sound? Are we not arbitrarily cutting off the boundary of that percept because that is how it appears to our senses on the 'physical plane'? My take is that we are really arguing over the level of resolution - if our only aim is to speak about the mere fact that we have unconscious experiences we are not always aware that we are having, which is the same fact depth psychology speaks of, then BK level of resolution is adequate. If we want to provide any finer resolution on the nature of those experiences, then it is no longer adequate and may actually become very misleading. We see the effects of that misleading perspective when people simply translate all physical sensations into corresponding fuzzy mental effects and feel that is the essence of the idealist view. Instead of standing before "a tree", I am standing before a fuzzy mental quality that corresponds to "a tree". That basically negates the value of adopting idealist metaphysics in the first place, which is to stop thinking of the world as 'things' and to stop thinking of our own involvement in the world as a passive observer of those 'things' which appear and disappear from our screen of perception. Perhaps that is not the point FB is even making, in which case just take it as my own separate criticism.

[findingblanks]

Hi Soul,

You are still thinking of the whistle as a sound being heard by a dissociated subject (sure, actually it is "you" which is actually universal consciousness).

I'll try to think of other ways to get at this. Thanks!

Side note comments:

But why assume that the percept is registered as it appears to meta-consciousness?

Staying with the train whistle example, if that subliminal percept triggers a metacognitive conversation to unwittingly switch to an anecdote about trains, the only assumption is that the percept has a distinct quality that is associated with trains. So it would be likewise for the simultaneous subliminal percepts of the odor of sweat, and the warmth of the sun, and the greenery of the lawn, the noise of a distant lawnmower, etc, from which the train whistle was distinguished—any one of which could have triggered the conversation to go in a different direction, perhaps about golf or yard work, had the context been different. How is this inconsistent with the way BK is framing it?

[Soul_of_Shu]

If I understand correctly, FB is asking the following question - why are we assuming the "train whistle" percept is, in reality, a distinct 'unit' of sound?

I propose that what is being assumed is that the percept would be isomorphic to whatever immanent ideational quality a given transpersonal activity of Mind has, absent any subject><object, spatiotemporal dynamic, and that such quality subliminally affects one's personal metacognitive activity. Certainly this invites the possibility of going much deeper into such experiences, but again that isn't BK's primary objective at this point, however much others may be inclined to feel he should go deeper, whereby, for example, he enters into Steiner mode—in which case he'd be tuned out by the academics he's trying to sway, just like Steiner has been largely tuned out, thus defeating his objective ...or so it seems.