On the Given World-Picture (or 'sensuous manifold')

[AshvinP]

Because of time constraints and the large sequential amount of worthy ideas you packed into the above, I'll just have to go in bits and pieces over the next several days:

"Then, if we want to express these images more precisely to ourselves or others, we ‘condense’ them into verbal forms that are constrained by our acquired languages, our speech skills, the particular organization of our throat and larynx, etc."

I would only want to add that, for me, the original images are already shaped by the way language implicitly functioned both in its original formation (Federer learning to hit his backhand and then doing so 'unconsciously' thousands of times, some of which he may at one point remember) and it any rememberance of it. I certainly agree that in shifting from the felt-meaning to any form of explication (words, sign language, dance), it again crosses new meshes of constraints, all allowing for novelty and new insights each step of the way. Often, in modern science, constraints are only seen as de-purifying something that is pure. Whereas, I think that phenomenology shows us that 'constraints' are the essential ingredient to evolving any living process into it's (possible) next more intricate and developed form. But: the next form should NOT be taken as only it's content. There is never a division between the form and how it is in the process of being reformed, a process which is not perceptible but is deeply cognizable.

I say this to show that I'm fully agreeing with the above, but if we disagree about the implicit role language plays in even the forming of the orginal experience, we should at least mark that spot for the future. I imagine you will agree, but I know many people in our hills who talk about a kind of human experience which is yet untouched by even the implicit functioning of already had universals.

Nobody would be surprised if it after 40 years of remembering a reflexive backhand winner, Federer was able to grasp a phrase one of his mentors used when correcting a bad habit he had at one point earlier in his career. The spontaneous and seemingly only behavioral backhand has countless linguistic aspects functioning in it implicitly every time it happens. And, not that I need to keep repeating this, but implicit functioning is something we are directly always experiencing even if our current science claims that everything experienced (and real) is a finished form. I only repeat this because, sometimes, my use of this language is taken to point to merely intellectual models/concepts and not something we can notice acting in each moment of the forming of this ongoing experience.

Good point, the linguistic constraint does seem to run deep into the life of 'wordless' mental picturing as well. In our dream sequences, for ex., it's not like we can suddenly speak and understand new languages, even though our sense of 'me' is much less distinct from the imagistic environment.

I also agree that the constraints shouldn't be judged as something negative or arbitrarily limiting our spiritual activity. The more we inwardly investigate them, the more we appreciate their critical functions in various Earthly streams of development. The negative consequences arise when we remain entirely merged with the constraints, subtly identifying with them and flowing along their etched channels as they are given to us, without trying to resist that flow and thereby becoming more intuitively conscious of their implicit functions. In that sense, evolution (above and beyond imitation/replication/repetition of forms) only occurs when creative agents become inwardly conscious of the inner constraints and start to participate in their functions.

The evolution of language is a good example that was recently mentioned on the forum. To begin with, we have to admit that are born and raised into a native language that structures how we think-speak and therefore how we perceive, understand, and act within the one World flow. Yet we know that languages evolve and the way human souls conduct their thinking-speaking activity contributes to this evolution. A prime example within the English language, apart from the Biblical translation of KJ, is how Shakespeare's plays contributed so many new words and phrases. So we can intuit from these facts that the way human souls conduct their linguistic activity, how they make use of the archetypal linguistic constraints, also feeds back into those constraints. It is the same principle when we are willing our physical modulations, for ex. when driving a car and dreamily veering off to the side, and this feeds back as vibratory sensations from the highway bumps so we modulate our activity back in the other direction.

Yet a human soul that simply flows passively with the linguistic constraint as it is inherited/given won't have the capacity for this creative modulation. It is precisely our awakeness to the archetypal modulation, our intuitive sensitivity to that curvature in which our picturing-thoughts-speech unfold, that gives us ever-greater potency to work back into the curvature and influence it in a creative direction. Shakespeare, for whatever reason (as an aside, there is some interesting evidence that he was influenced by an initiate), became highly sensitive to the archetypal soul curvature of the English language. He developed a loving interest in that soul curvature and the inner lives of fellow humans who participated in and through it. Fundamentally, that is what our phenomenology should also aim toward - all the technical-sounding symbols are an artistic means of heightening our interest and sensitivity to the inner lives that comprise the intuitive curvatures (constraints) in which our existence unfolds. The only constraints we aim to 'override' are those that positively prevent us from seeking the first aim, i.e.narrow prejudices, assumptions, opinions, thinking habits, selfish desires, etc.

[findingblanks]

Well put!

[findingblanks]

Yeah, some of Steiner's stuff actually really supports the idea that de Vere wrote the works.

And de Vere and John Dee were very involved with each other. Someday hopefully we'll discover the letters they wrote to each other that John Dee mentioned.

Anyway, the esoteric Christianity aspect is enthrallingly fun to study. Here's a taste if you've never sampled:

[AshvinP]

Yeah, some of Steiner's stuff actually really supports the idea that de Vere wrote the works.

Ramsbotham makes a pretty compelling case, supported by Steiner's references, that Shakespeare wrote his own plays, but that he, Francis Bacon, and King James I were all influenced by the same initiate. Here is a talk he gave on that:





Personally, I don't find the 'hidden codes' in the works too convincing, since if we set out with a certain intent to attribute them to Bacon, de Vere, or whoever, we will surely find plenty of ways to extract 'codes' from the text supporting our idea.

[findingblanks]

Yeah, codes will never be the primary way of figuring these things out. Just fun knowing how many codes were used by esoteric groups.

[AshvinP]

Sorry, I didn't realize you had posted this comment. There is a lot to discuss here, but I will try to keep it brief for now.

I don't think that we have an intuition of what an hour is. I think we will generate an utterly unique intuition anything a context arises in which it becomes relevant to consider an hour. This explains why we can say, "I can't believe we only have one tiny hour left to wait!" or "I can't possibly wait an entire hour". I understand that a certain kind of assumption will model this in a way that suggests there is 'an' intuition of 'an hour' that THEN gets modified by the context. I don't think that is as true to the phenomenology of the process of intuitions forming in the moment. Again, these is all fascinating details but nothing that stops me from paying close attention to the exercise.

It seems to me the question of whether there is 'already intuition of an hour' or whether we 'generate an utterly unique intuition in the arising context' is somewhat irrelevant. For all intents and purposes, when we are awake, we are always living in a context in which it is relevant to intuit what an hour (or half hour, quarter hour, minute, etc.) feels like. For example, the process of writing this response provides a context in which I intuit the meaning that I intend to express and then, based on my usual 'ticking' of mental states gained from previous thinking experience, I attain some orientation as to how long it will take to sequence that meaning into verbal forms. Sometimes this intuited orientation may influence my present state such that I decide not to attempt writing the response now because I feel, for whatever reason, that I don't have enough time.

The main point was that, when I focus this felt intuition of the ticking flow of mental states into the symbol of a mental picture, the latter would not last an entire hour, half-hour, quarter-hour, or even a minute. If the symbol is the sentence, "That would take too long for me to write", it only lasts a few seconds to verbalize it. That is an example of a scaled-down symbol for a felt intuition of the temporally extended states of being (which we can say is 'utterly unique' in any given context). In this way, our symbolic mental picturing is experienced as condensing temporally extended intuition into 'encoded' forms that allow for novel degrees of freedom. We don't need to support unbroken perceiving or imagining activity for the whole intuited duration to make decisions in the here and now based on that intuition. (by the way, this reminds me of my cat who will often stare at a location she wants to jump onto for what seems to me, at my comfortable mental ticking states, like a long time before 'deciding' to jump).

On the other hand, as discussed before, the richness of the intuited states of being is obscured when focused into the symbolic mental pictures. All the qualities I would experience through the mental states of explicating my intended meaning in a response to your post are not contained in the symbol "That would take too long." So there is a trade-off here between the intuited meaning and the symbolic mental picturing that should first be clearly and inwardly recognized, and then gradually reconciled through our inner efforts. Does that make sense?

"What kinds of experiences this narrow band consists of? To answer that we need to put aside our mental assemblies for a moment and concentrate entirely on our real-time bodily and sensory life. What we find is the movements of our body, the flow of visual and auditory perceptions, the production of verbal sounds, feelings like pain, pleasure, and so on. As we explained previously, our inner life wiggles out as a kind of ‘double vision’ overlaid on these raw bodily phenomena and we can then experience mental images representing past experiences or anticipating future ones."

We've gone over this in other context and I'd rather not pursue it in this context, but I need to simply say that I don't agree that the 'movements of our body, the flow of visual and auditory perceptions, the production of verbal sounds, feelings of pain, pleasure..." are there to be turned to when we decide to focus on them by 'putting aside our mental assemblies for a moment', as if we turn to what was there before turning. That is true enough in terms of getting through the day and communicating well. I can say, "Hey, I just realized that the sounds from the fan has been bugging me." No need to become phenomenologist in that moment and says, "What I really mean to say is that I've just radically transformed one experience into another by attending to it in a very specific manner and only referred to the 'sound' as if it was 'the same' because it would be too confusing to point out the actual nature of the experience." That would be...rough But in response to such claims in this context, I do feel I should at least mark the spot where i simply don't agree that there are these visual and auditory and sensory (and inner percepts) percepts we can notice by bracketing off 'our mental assemblies' or whatever terms we use to refer to supposed conceptual structures that must be removed to see what is 'underneath' or prior or more fundamental.

The 'mental assemblies' here simply refer to all our theoretical assumptions about the 'nature of mental pictures', for ex. "they are produced by the brain" or "they are spontaneous poppings from the mysterious Consciousness", etc. We indeed need to 'bracket' these off so that we can focus attention more directly on the phenomenal experience, which is that our mental pictures ordinarily replicate bodily experiences and scale various intuited timespans of experience up or down. When I say, "That would be too long for me to write", that verbalized mental picture is a replication of my bodily experience of speaking and hearing speech. Do you agree?

Regarding the painting; I believe the interpretation isn't 'found' by our sensitive attending. I believe it is created and generated. This is far from the radical post-modern claim that interpretation or the creation of meaning is arbitrary. Just because there are countless true understandings of Hamlet, many of which will deeply contradict each other, many meanings will not carryforward the experience of reading Hamlet; those are poor. However, when a careful and sensitive reader crosses their experience with the intricacy of the text, a new and never before depth of Hamlet is both 'seen' and 'created'. Somebody once told me that 'we don't re-experience Golgotha, we evolve it in recognizing it's very nature.' Sure, this could sound just like a Yoda claim. I get that. But I think attention to even the generation of a daily metaphor (My brother is a truckload of information) is generating the similarity in the process of 'seeing'. Outside of Gendlin's work (and Barfield implicitly), nearly every idea stated about language is that a metaphor is pointing out already existing similarities between the tenor and vehical. Barfield's fundamental experience was that metaphors created new meaning and he tracked that into his study of consciousness. I know you know. I only mention these things for context.

So, yes, artistic attention to our experience is not only helpful; it is a prerequisite to actually even having and noticing the kind of experience worth having and noticing. A superficial state of selfish screen scrolling can only be actually perceived when a loving and deeply sensitive attention is already in the process of re-creating it.

The thing or process that we reflect (not intellectual reflection) upon is the reflected upon thing or process, not the thing or process. The key is to see that this isn't creating any distance between us and the supposed thing itself. The assumption typically is that if we are only ever attending upon the reflected upon process, we must not be merged intuitively. The phenomenology is that unless we are also observing the 'change' made in the re-cognition, we will miss the nature of the actual process of 'knowing'. To the intellect, noticing 'change' implies at least two static images or representations; how else could you notice a 'change.' But what many here would call the 'consciousness soul' sees this in the reverse, as mentioned above. That is my experience.

I think the red is another place where we don't need a dichotomy - our sensitive attention to the artist's intuitive movements expressed through the painting can also be considered a creation/generation of new meaning, insofar as the original meaning is experienced from our new perspective.

Regarding the blue, I think some more elaboration may be helpful. Do you agree there is no phenomenal reason to even assume any "thing or process" that is not already present in our act of reflection? Another way to put that is Lossky's quote in my footnote. In other words, the reality that we cognize in our reflective thoughts is already present in the intuitive constraints through which we cognize. Our reflective thoughts are like gentle modulations over this directly present reality that shapes and constrains the thoughts.

[findingblanks]

"On the other hand, as discussed before, the richness of the intuited states of being is obscured when focused into the symbolic mental pictures. All the qualities I would experience through the mental states of explicating my intended meaning in a response to your post are not contained in the symbol "That would take too long." So there is a trade-off here between the intuited meaning and the symbolic mental picturing that should first be clearly and inwardly recognized, and then gradually reconciled through our inner efforts. Does that make sense?"

We'll have to table this, most likely. While I can agree in some general ways, I don't feel comfortable agree with some of the details in your statement. I just don't have time (or the confidence that it is worth the time) to go into that right now.

"I think the red is another place where we don't need a dichotomy - our sensitive attention to the artist's intuitive movements expressed through the painting can also be considered a creation/generation of new meaning, insofar as the original meaning is experienced from our new perspective."

This is similar. As much as I really loved your interpretation of the painting, I don't think you were necessarily experiencing the 'meaning' that the artist had when making it. For me, this does not mean you were wrong in any way. Yes, there is a 'sharing' that happens for any good interpretation but what is explicated as 'true' is a result of that participation not a reflection of it in my experience and view.

"Regarding the blue, I think some more elaboration may be helpful. Do you agree there is no phenomenal reason to even assume any "thing or process" that is not already present in our act of reflection? Another way to put that is Lossky's quote in my footnote. In other words, the reality that we cognize in our reflective thoughts is already present in the intuitive constraints through which we cognize. Our reflective thoughts are like gentle modulations over this directly present reality that shapes and constrains the thoughts."

If you tell me about your daughter and how she's on a trip to another land, I could have reason to think deeply about her (with having only ever read the symbols coming from your typing) in order to give specific advice for her trip. We could say that 'she' is present to me via your typing, but I'd rather think of this on a spectrum from thinking about things that are not at all before us to thinking about things that are direct encounters.

When Steiner says that we must start by assuming there is something taking place 'before' cognition and we must carefully imagine this something before we can take the first step, I hold this as an example of making an unnecessary assumption.

I say we start with experience itself and see if there really is a percept that has yet to be touched by cognitive process.

It's very very different to ask people to do exercises in which they imagine what it might be like to encounter a meaningless percept than to say that before they can take the first step of genuine exploration, they must have a very clear sense of this supposed percept. Your exploration is an example of the former.

Again, this context, for me, is about noticing my experience in the context of you pointing to specific things to notice. I'm not wanting to debate Steiner's starting point. I realize by my saying that his claim about why we can't begin our exploration until we imagine the so-called directly given world picture -- I realize that we could go back down that conversation. But I feel there is much more fruitful explorations by noting our experiences in the imaginations you are providing.


So for me, when you say:

"Our reflective thoughts are like gentle modulations over this directly present reality that shapes and constrains the thoughts."

That is something we can try to sink our teeth into. Again, it sounds almost as if you are saying there is this directly present reality that we can attend to without transforming. Also, there seems to a suggestion even before it is forced into the focus of our attention, this directly present reality isn't already the result of countless prior and very specific assumptions, ideas, habits and forms that come from daily experience, as if this directly present reality is literally 'prior' or 'under' activity that skims above it.

[AshvinP]

Alright, it seems we are still quite far apart. That is at least good to know since all too often I think people proceed in these sorts of discussions simply assuming everyone is on the same page.

"On the other hand, as discussed before, the richness of the intuited states of being is obscured when focused into the symbolic mental pictures. All the qualities I would experience through the mental states of explicating my intended meaning in a response to your post are not contained in the symbol "That would take too long." So there is a trade-off here between the intuited meaning and the symbolic mental picturing that should first be clearly and inwardly recognized, and then gradually reconciled through our inner efforts. Does that make sense?"

We'll have to table this, most likely. While I can agree in some general ways, I don't feel comfortable agree with some of the details in your statement. I just don't have time (or the confidence that it is worth the time) to go into that right now.

Ok, but I would say this is one of the most important phenomenological observations we can make to better orient to the nature of our ordinary thinking activity. We shouldn't expect every detail to be immediately verifiable or resonant with our current experience. For now, I am only wondering whether you can locate this general inner experience through the examples provided.

"I think the red is another place where we don't need a dichotomy - our sensitive attention to the artist's intuitive movements expressed through the painting can also be considered a creation/generation of new meaning, insofar as the original meaning is experienced from our new perspective."

This is similar. As much as I really loved your interpretation of the painting, I don't think you were necessarily experiencing the 'meaning' that the artist had when making it. For me, this does not mean you were wrong in any way. Yes, there is a 'sharing' that happens for any good interpretation but what is explicated as 'true' is a result of that participation not a reflection of it in my experience and view.

I can see how the painting is not a great example - the intuited meaning of the Gospel scene is not immediately transparent to us or even the artist of the scene. But we can use this text as a clearer example - when you perceive the visual forms of these words, isn't it precisely your intent to reach the same intuitive meaning that I sequenced into verbal forms? It's not about reaching some independent 'truth', but resonating with the inner life and movements that are expressed through the forms.

"Regarding the blue, I think some more elaboration may be helpful. Do you agree there is no phenomenal reason to even assume any "thing or process" that is not already present in our act of reflection? Another way to put that is Lossky's quote in my footnote. In other words, the reality that we cognize in our reflective thoughts is already present in the intuitive constraints through which we cognize. Our reflective thoughts are like gentle modulations over this directly present reality that shapes and constrains the thoughts."

If you tell me about your daughter and how she's on a trip to another land, I could have reason to think deeply about her (with having only ever read the symbols coming from your typing) in order to give specific advice for her trip. We could say that 'she' is present to me via your typing, but I'd rather think of this on a spectrum from thinking about things that are not at all before us to thinking about things that are direct encounters.

When Steiner says that we must start by assuming there is something taking place 'before' cognition and we must carefully imagine this something before we can take the first step, I hold this as an example of making an unnecessary assumption.

I say we start with experience itself and see if there really is a percept that has yet to be touched by cognitive process.

It's very very different to ask people to do exercises in which they imagine what it might be like to encounter a meaningless percept than to say that before they can take the first step of genuine exploration, they must have a very clear sense of this supposed percept. Your exploration is an example of the former.

Again, this context, for me, is about noticing my experience in the context of you pointing to specific things to notice. I'm not wanting to debate Steiner's starting point. I realize by my saying that his claim about why we can't begin our exploration until we imagine the so-called directly given world picture -- I realize that we could go back down that conversation. But I feel there is much more fruitful explorations by noting our experiences in the imaginations you are providing.

I think this is very important to orient to before proceeding further because noticing our experiences in these exercises won't have much value if we are blocking/numbing the depth of that meaning with certain implicit assumptions. One such assumption is that, when you think about another person and their qualities, there is some sort of divide between your thoughts and the 'person-itself'. Clearly, there is a qualitative difference between thinking about a person we have never met in physical life and then meeting that person. We can notice that difference without introducing any additional assumptions about what it means for our imaginative activity and its constraints/possibilities.

Leaving aside Steiner and the 'meaningless percept' for a moment (as mentioned before, I don't think disconnected and not yet worked over by our thoughts necessarily implies "meaningless"), what is the purpose of the bold for you? I think we all know that we won't find any percepts in our current waking state that are yet to be touched by cognitive process. What is the significance of noticing this fact and how does it help us understand our own cognitive process better?

So for me, when you say:

"Our reflective thoughts are like gentle modulations over this directly present reality that shapes and constrains the thoughts."

That is something we can try to sink our teeth into. Again, it sounds almost as if you are saying there is this directly present reality that we can attend to without transforming. Also, there seems to a suggestion even before it is forced into the focus of our attention, this directly present reality isn't already the result of countless prior and very specific assumptions, ideas, habits and forms that come from daily experience, as if this directly present reality is literally 'prior' or 'under' activity that skims above it.

Attending to the directly present reality through the thought-modulations certainly transforms the reality, just as the blossom transforms the whole plant, yet there is also an inwardly discernable contextual depth that elucidates to what extent our ordinary thoughts will transform the depth. We mentioned that with Cleric's thinking-feeling-willing illustration before. I'm not sure you shared any thoughts on it.

If we remain faithful to experience, we have to admit that there is a sense in which our adult 'brain and nervous system' (not as any metaphysically material reality, but as the phenomenological totality of our sensory input), for example, constrain our ordinary thoughts and remain relatively stable in the presence of our thought-modulations. We can't say that our present thoughts, assumptions, ideas, etc. are significantly shaping the structure of the nervous system, and in that limited sense, the latter could be considered 'prior to' our ordinary thoughts. A similar thing could be said about the native language constraint we mentioned earlier - our present thoughts aren't significantly modulating the palette of linguistic forms that constrain them. The blossom transforms the whole plant in a significant way but probably won't transform the entire plant species or the soil and sunlight through which it grows. Do you agree?

[findingblanks]

"what is the purpose of the bold for you? I think we all know that we won't find any percepts in our current waking state that are yet to be touched by cognitive process. What is the significance of noticing this fact and how does it help us understand our own cognitive process better?"

Because if we really experience this deeply and in as many varied contexts as possible, we will directly grasp exactly why a certain kind of modern assumption would cause us to assume the necessity of a pure starting point, untouched by prior activity. Upon directly recgonzing this, we would be able to begin tracking the imprints this would make on subsequent findings. Otherwise, each finding will appear exact, and we'd expect the person or researcher to state that it is exact and uninfluenced by the method of perception. Again, I do not believe in a pure method of exact perception of any kind. If something becomes more 'clear' that is far from it being less generated by the researcher. The less meaningful a communication, the more exact the understanding of it can appear. Modern technology will be able to create incredible bridges and planes that can funtion in any environment. Any future spiritual technology will always be deeply shaped and changed by the ever chaning nature of the diverse contexts in which they will emerge. This is because grasping the meaning will require transforming the nature of the situation itself. That isn't necessary in the mathematical modeling that goes into controlling the supposedly physical world. In sum: it is of vital importance that we realize that our starting point is an always-already participatry cognitive event. Any epistemology that even suggests a 'pure' space that must be spotted and recognized as such already contains the unseen warps that we must recognize are inherent. Some epistemologies implicitly suggest a pure space. Others explicitly demand it from the start. This is why I say we really investigate if such an assumption is necessary. And we can see exactly what kind of thinking/assumptions lead to all the various versions of, "Until we see X-Pure State, we can not begin without error."

"If we remain faithful to experience, we have to admit that there is a sense in which our adult 'brain and nervous system' (not as any metaphysically material reality, but as the phenomenological totality of our sensory input), for example, constrain our ordinary thoughts and remain relatively stable in the presence of our thought-modulations."

Assuming a specific kind of process that might be called 'an adult brain and nervous system' is so far downstream that I won't be able to relate it to the phenomenology we are doing unless you tell me explicity what you want me to assume such processes are in reality. As I've said, I currently only hold 'brain' and 'nervous system' as ontological in the context of representations (partial images) of first-person experience.

"We can't say that our present thoughts, assumptions, ideas, etc. are significantly shaping the structure of the nervous system, and in that limited sense, the latter could be considered 'prior to' our ordinary thoughts."

I understand why somebody who think of the 'brain' as an actual structure that filters consciousness would frame and translate their experience in this way. However, I can make sense of this in terms of recognizing that my present attentional activity is occuring into very rich and dense aspects of my wider experiencing, thereby producing the quality of my present experience. All of the 'threads' of experiencing that are functioning implicity right now in what is forming are only occurring to the extent that they are shaping this present experiencing. They don't occur as themselves (as if the are side by side in some etherial realm) but as the whole activity of this present shaping. All to say, most likely what you are referring to as a brain and nervous system are what I mean by the direct and active functioning of the rest of my experiencing in this current formation. Some of that will take the appearence of a brain or nervous system of a certain kind of subject using certain kind of technology observe it from the 'outside'. I just don't take those apperence to refer to actual objects that 'filter' or interact with 'higher/lower' experiencing.

"A similar thing could be said about the native language constraint we mentioned earlier - our present thoughts aren't significantly modulating the palette of linguistic forms that constrain them. The blossom transforms the whole plant in a significant way but probably won't transform the entire plant species or the soil and sunlight through which it grows. Do you agree?"

Yes, my current thinking isn't transforming the entire English language, even as it adds slight new meaning to each word being used to carry it forward in this communication. If anything I've said previously implies otherwise, please re-translate it to this.

As I said previously, if there is some aspect of one of the long Cleric footnotes that you really want me to respond to, please try to summarize it in your own words. I know you prefer Clerics style to your own, but I find you much more clear and concise, and I am simply needing to make contextual decisions in responding to each communication. If you insist I read a particular passage, i almost certainly will.

[AshvinP]

Ok let's focus more on the phenomenology of the contextual depth. We can get away from discussion implying any ontological structures that constrain our activity since that has never been my intention. I am only interested in what can be verified through first-person phenomenological experience in its general outlines.

We can first notice how certain psychic constraints are formed. For example, if we get into a heated argument with a soul close to us, this is associated certain passionate inner movements, e-motions, that gradually 'cool down' and settle as a psychic constraint. For hours or even days afterward, our feelings and thoughts may keep returning to this argument even if we intend to forget about it and move on. So that is an entirely phenomenological constraint that we can locate by remembering inner experiences that we have gone through (or noticing them in real-time). 





As we broaden out into deeper aspects of the psyche, we come to constraints like our temperament and native language. Our present thoughts are quite helpless in transforming our temperamental qualities that are continuously shaping and steering those thoughts. These inner qualities are still traceable to receded constellations of activity that we (instinctively) engaged in during early childhood. Our temperament also shapes how we interact with other souls as adults, and in that sense, we can say the likelihood of forming more proximate constraints, for ex. the frequency of heated arguments we get into, is nested within this temperamental constraint. If we skew toward a highly choleric temperament, we probably end up in such arguments frequently. So there is something of a hierarchical relationship between the temperamental qualities and the modes of interacting with other souls. The former ordinarily 'bends' the space of potential in which the latter can manifest more significantly than vice versa.

There are other constraints that were shaped by our early activity and corresponding experiences that are even more difficult to transform, like our handwriting. That receded activity has been etched right into our physiology (and so have our temperamental qualities, but it is more difficult to notice exactly how). This is why handwriting analysis is considered such a stable piece of evidence in court, for example. We can also notice how, the deeper into this contextual depth we go, the more we expand into transpersonal domains of activity. When we are dealing with the receded constraint of a heated argument, we can still speak of our own personal activity in relation to one other soul. It is true that, implicit in even this argument are many transpersonal factors, but there is still a sense in which the constraint is focused within a more recent and narrower domain of intentional/attentional activity. We don't need to survey too many different experiences and interactions from too long ago to get a sense of how that constraint arose. When we expand to deeper constraints of temperamental qualities and handwriting, we would need to survey more remote activities and interactions that involved many other souls, like our parents, teachers, and the general cultural context in which we were raised. 

There are, of course, even deeper phenomenological constraints that overlap with the psychic constraints but also seem to modulate our activity relatively independently of them. No matter how we will our bodily movements, we won't perceive colors beyond the familiar visual spectrum (including those reached through technological extensions), we won't hear tones outside the familiar tonal spectrum, we won't travel in a spatial dimension outside the familiar up-down, left-right, front-back, etc. Collectively, these phenomenological facts can be symbolized by the 'neurosensory system'. We can't easily trace this constraint to childhood experiences, but I think we agree these must also proceed from first-person spiritual activity, and following our phenomenological trend so far, should implicate even remoter and wider domains of transpersonal activity. It's just that this activity has receded into a kind of 'black hole' of memory into which we are often tempted to project mindless mechanisms or some 'instinctive consciousness' that somewhat arbitrarily dreams up the constraints.

That is a very crude outline of the situation, but hopefully, it's enough to get started. To be clear, I'm not suggesting these constraints are ordered in some linear and easily delineated way - they are all overlapping in complex ways, but nevertheless, we can get a general phenomenological sense of the axis of 'pliability' along which they exist. Do you think we see a general pattern of contextually nested phenomenological constraints here, which expand from implicating relatively more personal activity to more transpersonal activity? If so, what are your general thoughts on to what extent we can know the more transpersonal constraints in the same way we know our inner experience of the heated argument or, at a deeper level, our temperamental qualities?