BK on the unconscious.

[findingblanks]

A man's wife makes fun of him for not grasping some geologic principle. He's mad and has trouble letting go of the scientific disagreement they've had, along with the emotional turbulence of the argument.

At work while reading an article about a certain kind of sloth, something in the wording makes him suddenly grasp what he was missing earlier in his scientific reasoning about geology.

He says something like, "My God, I realize that I've been pondering this all morning at work."

This kind of experience happens because there is something like what Bernardo calls an "impingement" of one experience upon another across a dissociative boundary.

At least one person in this group thinks that only simple experiences can impinge. I disagree. I think the example above and many of BKs examples happen all the time.

But my post is less interested in how complex and dissociated experience can be and more interested in how BKs model does and does not account for even the simplest forms of impingement.

Hence, I suggested an alternative conceptualization that fits with BKs model but doesn't introduce inflationary conclusoons (endless TWEs within an alter) and is even more accurate phenomenologically.

[findingblanks]

Okay, I read your latest response. So you heard him say (and read) that a person can realize that the experience of a fight (whichbwe know involves highly specific cognitive intricacy) was impinging on how they wrote an email. And yet you doubt he thinks dissociated experiences can include thoughts.

Honestly, I think you are crashing into some of your own assumptions. And I think itbis because you share my
intuition that something is a bit off in how he is framing "impingement."

Anyway maybe one day you'll come back to this thread and my point won't seem so dubious or disconnected to BK.

And I think others may chime in who see that I'm not making a caricature of Bernardo's claim that dissociated experience can include thoughts and very intricate knowings. Thanks for helping me clarify!

[Soul_of_Shu]

You say my example's are dubious. But you read Bernardo's words giving the example of how an arguement (highly cognitive) can impinge on meta-consciousness. It does seem a bit like you are avoiding simply taking him at his word. Hopefully you'll read Idea Of World or watch one of his videos. He covers this territory quite a bit.

All I ask is that once you see that I am fairly characterizing his view, you'll enjoy unpacking why you originally doubted that he'd claim such a thing. I bet it's because you share my concern and interest to some degree. We'll see! Happy reading.

I've read Idea of the World quite a while ago, and can't recall him stating anything differently than in the recent Essentia video I just watched and posted, or in any other presentation. So short of having an actual conversation with BK to clarify that the specific examples/extrapolations you've offered do jibe with his base claims, we're still left with our respective opinions on the matter. Again, I'm open to be convinced otherwise, but it's going to take more than what you've offered so far.

[findingblanks]

Okay, so let's put aside what Bernardo says about an argument being a dissociated experience. I promise you will eventually come across this kind of example from his mouth if you stick with him long enough, especially in his podcast conversations. But his example of an argument is in WORLD and in JUNG I believe.

Leave that aside.

You believe that hundreds of distinct phenomenal experiences are being directly experienced by me as I read my book? Okay, so tell me about how they are distinct then? And what leads you to believe they are distinct in the way Bernardo says they are when, for example, he says that you were experiencing the temperature of air in your nose before you noticed it meta-cognitively. If you believe it to be unlikely, we don't need to focus on the way thoughts might also impinge on your meta-consciousness. There would still be countless distinct sensations (each toe, angkles, back of calf, wrists, colors in background, movements, emotions) you are experiencing as such in every moment.

You say my example's are dubious. But you read Bernardo's words giving the example of how an arguement (highly cognitive) can impinge on meta-consciousness. It does seem a bit like you are avoiding simply taking him at his word. Hopefully you'll read Idea Of World or watch one of his videos. He covers this territory quite a bit.

All I ask is that once you see that I am fairly characterizing his view, you'll enjoy unpacking why you originally doubted that he'd claim such a thing. I bet it's because you share my concern and interest to some degree. We'll see! Happy reading.

I've read Idea of the World quite a while ago, and can't recall him stating anything differently than in the recent Essentia video I just watched and posted, or in any other presentation. So short of having an actual conversation with BK to clarify that the specific examples/extrapolations you've offered do jibe with his base claims, we're still left with our respective opinions on the matter. Again, I'm open to be convinced otherwise, but it's going to take more than what you've offered so far.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Leave that aside.

You believe that hundreds of distinct phenomenal experiences are being directly experienced by me as I read my book? Okay, so tell me about how they are distinct then? And what leads you to believe they are distinct in the way Bernardo says they are when, for example, he says that you were experiencing the temperature of air in your nose before you noticed it meta-cognitively. If you believe it to be unlikely, we don't need to focus on the way thoughts might also impinge on your meta-consciousness. There would still be countless distinct sensations (each toe, angkles, back of calf, wrists, colors in background, movements, emotions) you are experiencing as such in every moment.

I understand the valid concern for further elaboration on the premise that BK is attempting to explicate. But I can't claim to be qualified to do that on his behalf. Ideally, he would be engaging here with his audience and readers to address these probing questions. However, for reasons we have no control over, that isn't happening—except perhaps by signing up for some online interaction. Nevertheless, I'll give some thought as to how I might be able to better explain my own largely intuitive understanding of a process that may well be far beyond one's limited alter-mode purview.

[findingblanks]

Fair enough. I think you'll find that your intuition in this case is much more grounded than you realise. Take care.

Leave that aside.

You believe that hundreds of distinct phenomenal experiences are being directly experienced by me as I read my book? Okay, so tell me about how they are distinct then? And what leads you to believe they are distinct in the way Bernardo says they are when, for example, he says that you were experiencing the temperature of air in your nose before you noticed it meta-cognitively. If you believe it to be unlikely, we don't need to focus on the way thoughts might also impinge on your meta-consciousness. There would still be countless distinct sensations (each toe, angkles, back of calf, wrists, colors in background, movements, emotions) you are experiencing as such in every moment.

I understand the valid concern for further elaboration on the premise that BK is attempting to explicate. But I can't claim to be qualified to do that on his behalf. Ideally, he would be engaging here with his audience and readers to address these probing questions. However, for reasons we have no control over, that isn't happening—except perhaps by signing up for some online interaction. Nevertheless, I'll give some thought as to how I might be able to better explain my own largely intuitive understanding of a process that may well be far beyond one's limited alter-mode purview.

[AshvinP]

This line of thought started when I kept hearing Bernardo explain things like, "Ten minutes ago you were feeling the warmth in your nose as you breathe, the movement of your stomach in and out, the sounds of the birds, etc.,"

I knew I agreed with him in some way, but I realized that he literally means that there is a dissociated experience of each of those very distinct sensations, perceptions, emotional, and thoughts and that they each impinge upon meta-consciousness.

Maybe my view could be boiled down to the following:

Just as there is no physical mountain out there when I'm not looking at it, there isn't a distinct experience of my breathing or the sad emotion from earlier in the day. However, just as the entirety of the inanimate world is functioning as a whole even when not being actualized by an observer, so is the entirety of my phenomenal experience. Just as distinct physical properties are real once an observer actualizes them and is attending to them, so are our distinct experiences. Before they are actualized, they function implicitly as a whole. This is one place that I think Gendlin's phenomenology of experiencing can be good friends with Bernardo's model of the unconscious by giving it a new way to conceptualize how experience emerges.

So this would mean that my breathing was an aspect of how my meta-consciousness was forming before I explictly paid attention to my breathing. But my breathing was an aspect of my experience not as itself but as how it was changed (and changing) the whole field of my non-meta phenomenality. Then, like when we look at the mountain, we will explicate some aspect of what whole field of phenomenal experience. It is a mistake to then take that explication as if it is a picture of what was there but hidden before. That is like how physicalists think their perception of the mountain is basically capturing the contours of what is really 'out there' when they aren't looking.

This is why it so helpful to understand when speaking of "experience" we are actually speaking of the ideal content (meaning) of experience. For all intents and purposes, that meaning has always existed even if our localized center of consciousness was not aware of it. This example from Cleric should help illustrate:

To give a simplified example, if I think about 1 and 2, then 4 and 5, does this mean that 3 doesn't exist until it is experienced? From experiential perspective every idea exists for me only when I experience it. But still, the relation between 2 and 4 is such that they can only be what they are if there's 3 in between. That's why I've always said (when you bring the Platonism argument) that it's irrelevant to me to fantasize some abstract container for ideas, which I can never experience in its purity. The important thing is that when I discover 3, nothing really changes for 1,2,4,5 - they are only complemented, the ideal picture becomes more complete. Even if 3 was never discovered, the relation between the above numbers would be as if 3 exists. This would be different if after the discovery of 3 all other numbers change relations. Then we would really have justification to speak of ideas being created. The act of creation of the idea has measurable effect and displaces all other ideas in some way. But as long as I discover ideas and beings, which only complement my own experiential ideal landscape, all talks about if these ideas and beings exist in 'pure form' before I experience them, is pointless.

[findingblanks]

"This is why it so helpful to understand when speaking of "experience" we are actually speaking of the ideal content (meaning) of experience. For all intents and purposes, that meaning has always existed even if our localized center of consciousness was not aware of it."

I see your point and mainly agree. I stand apart from the general (but not all) anthroposophical opinion that the 'ideal content' is free from language, but I do distinguish it from the explicate side of language, for sure. One way of getting at this is to notice how an experience that is fresh and has not yet been linguistically explicated still implies language from its very core and, very often, took it's birth from within a very beautiful and intricate linguistic context. But this is off point and I do see the way you are restating my main point in speaking about 'impingement.' Thanks!

I really like the quotation you shared. It speaks to a bit of what I just said above. One way to put it might be that even before "3" has been explictly 'noticed' by my meta-consciousness, "3" is implicitly functioning within any accurate thinking I am doing about 2 and 4.

Eugene Gendlin's work tries to get us to see that what "3" really is is much more like its implicit functioning than how it appears when it is on center stage in meta-consciousness as "3".

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.

[findingblanks]

You read something about Goethe's way of seeing a fly and you realize it challenges your typical way of viewing organisms to the core. But you can't quite put your finger on this idea. You ponder it as you change for work.

Later that day as you are helping a friend solve a problem, you suddenly see a way they are making a certain kind of emotional assumption and you help them unravel the confusion.

Later that night, you realize that your inspirational moment with the friend was also a direct interaction (and carrying forward) with the Goethean idea you were pondering that morning.

The way in which so-called unconscious experiences are already together is so fascinating.

A psychology and phenomenology grounded in analytical idealism will hopefully shake off all the residues of unresolved physicalism as it explains how these 'overlapping' experiences are possible.

RUP (residue of unresolved physicalism) wants to infect idealism with the same kind of mechanical unitized thinking that puts things into neat little baskets that stand next to each other, rather than grasping how real wholistic events implicitly function in the shaping of each other by already being in each other.

[AshvinP]

"This is why it so helpful to understand when speaking of "experience" we are actually speaking of the ideal content (meaning) of experience. For all intents and purposes, that meaning has always existed even if our localized center of consciousness was not aware of it."

I see your point and mainly agree. I stand apart from the general (but not all) anthroposophical opinion that the 'ideal content' is free from language, but I do distinguish it from the explicate side of language, for sure. One way of getting at this is to notice how an experience that is fresh and has not yet been linguistically explicated still implies language from its very core and, very often, took it's birth from within a very beautiful and intricate linguistic context. But this is off point and I do see the way you are restating my main point in speaking about 'impingement.' Thanks!

I really like the quotation you shared. It speaks to a bit of what I just said above. One way to put it might be that even before "3" has been explictly 'noticed' by my meta-consciousness, "3" is implicitly functioning within any accurate thinking I am doing about 2 and 4.

Eugene Gendlin's work tries to get us to see that what "3" really is is much more like its implicit functioning than how it appears when it is on center stage in meta-consciousness as "3".

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.

Yeah, I see what you are saying. The main issue for me with analytical idealism including BK's approach is that it wants to remain at the lowest possible resolution on these questions. The basic concepts are generally true, like we in 'alter state' are dissociated from many experiences of MAL which can "impinge" on us but we are not aware of, but still so low resolution as to be little more than another form of Freudian psychoanalysis, and maybe not as useful as even that in practical experience of the world. On the other hand, encountering BK's work played a significant role in motivating me to look Beyond Flat MAL, so I hesitate to even make that criticism. It's a great tool to use on our spiritual journey, but if we get stuck at this stage of understanding then it was really of no use.