The Central Topic

[Soul_of_Shu]

Furthermore, since I can't make much sense out of the post ...

Well, there was a time, not all that long ago, when I would have said much the same. But these things can, and indeed will, actually change.

[AshvinP]

Cleric last response directly addressed your questions about the Central Topic and so far you have avoided all his points by simply shifting to different topics and making declarations about what we "know". He is simply asking you to stop abstractly speculating for a moment and reflect on your own 1st-person experience of the world content. Don't try to jump to any conclusions about the essence of the world as seen through the eyes of modern science. Try to see these things through your own eyes with curiosity, humility, sound reasoning, and patience.

And this evokes what I see as the core impediment and conundrum we keep coming up against in this exchange, and many like it, in that, similar to Einstein's observation that (paraphrasing), we can't resolve problems (misunderstandings) with the kind of thinking that perpetuates them, likewise we can't grok integral stage thinking from the mindset of mental stage thinking. I'm also reminded of the Galileo affair, who when he implored the skeptics/cynics, still fixated in their outmoded mindset, to look through the telescope, and in so doing they would understand the cosmos in a far more expansive way, they balked at this offering, refusing to do so on the grounds that since they didn't understand what a telescope is, or how it could possibly do what Galileo assured them it could do, pretty much precluding the possibility, therefore they couldn't trust what it would reveal. Not a perfect analogy I realize, since the mind is not an object like a telescope one can offer for others to look through, but nonetheless hopefully gets the point across.

That's an excellent analogy and hits the nail on the head. There is nothing different going on here. We can grok the integral stage with mental stage thinking because they now overlap to a great degree. All we need to do is look through the 'telescope' of our own concrete Thinking activity, and everything else is excuses we conjure up to avoid looking through it.

[Jim Cross]

If everything is evolving in one direction, it would make sense that science would in some way be aiding the metamorphosis. Perhaps, instead of being an opponent to progress, it is the way of progress (as unsatisfying as a thought-form you may find it). Actually I think Gebser is suggesting exactly that. So the mineralized thought-forms of Cleric aren't really a problem. No worries.

I would suggest that, according to Gebser's ideas, it's not 'science' per se that is an impediment, but the mental stage thinking that science is currently fixated within ... see my post on the Galileo affair.

I don't know what Gebser would think but sometimes I think people project a lot of their present, both individual and societal, into their views of past and future history. It's hard to tell whether a vision is coming from an accurate reading of reality or an externalized version of seer's psyche.

You may also be blind to other ways forward.

If we must have a metaphysics (with an ontological primitive no less) for whatever utility it may serve. then the only thing that makes any sense is dual aspect monism.

Qualia are real.
Quantities are real.
There is world-stuff.
Matter is the extrinsic perspective.
Mind is the intrinsic perspective.

“Human beings are organizations of – do not let us use the philosophically tendentious word ‘matter’, but rather the neutral and philosophically non-committal term translated from the German Weltstoff – the universal ‘world stuff’. But our organization has two aspects a material aspect when looked at objectively from the outside, and a mental aspect when experienced subjectively from the inside. We are simultaneously and indissolubly both matter and mind.” – Julian Huxley

[Soul_of_Shu]

That's an excellent analogy and hits the nail on the head. There is nothing different going on here. We can grok the integral stage with mental stage thinking because they now overlap to a great degree. All we need to do is look through the 'telescope' of our own concrete Thinking activity, and everything else is excuses we conjure up to avoid looking through it.

Yes, good point, as it clarifies that only insofar as we remain firmly fixated in mental stage thinking, perhaps not yet ripe for the unfolding, it pretty much precludes integral stage thinking. However, since they are now overlapping to a significant degree, there may well be a tipping point, so to speak, that initiates the phase transition, thus facilitating the process at large. Nonetheless, it does still appear that for those who, for whatever reason, are still firmly fixated in the mental stage mindset, Cleric might as well be speaking Inuktitut for all the good it does—which as mentioned would have been the case for this mind not all that long ago.

[AshvinP]

If everything is evolving in one direction, it would make sense that science would in some way be aiding the metamorphosis. Perhaps, instead of being an opponent to progress, it is the way of progress (as unsatisfying as a thought-form you may find it). Actually I think Gebser is suggesting exactly that. So the mineralized thought-forms of Cleric aren't really a problem. No worries.

I would suggest that, according to Gebser's ideas, it's not 'science' per se that is an impediment, but the mental stage thinking that science is currently fixated within ... see my post on the Galileo affair.

I don't know what Gebser would think but sometimes I think people project a lot of their present, both individual and societal, into their views of past and future history. It's hard to tell whether a vision is coming from an accurate reading of reality or an externalized version of seer's psyche.

You may also be blind to other ways forward.

If we must have a metaphysics (with an ontological primitive no less) for whatever utility it may serve. then the only thing that makes any sense is dual aspect monism.

Qualia are real.
Quantities are real.
There is world-stuff.
Matter is the extrinsic perspective.
Mind is the intrinsic perspective.

“Human beings are organizations of – do not let us use the philosophically tendentious word ‘matter’, but rather the neutral and philosophically non-committal term translated from the German Weltstoff – the universal ‘world stuff’. But our organization has two aspects a material aspect when looked at objectively from the outside, and a mental aspect when experienced subjectively from the inside. We are simultaneously and indissolubly both matter and mind.” – Julian Huxley

Can I just request that we split this off into a separate Gebser topic? I take responsibility for initiating this particular divergence, and this is exactly the sort of confusion Cleric was trying to avoid by staying on The Central Topic (I am only referring those comments mentioning Gebser explicitly, starting with mine). Thanks Dana

[Soul_of_Shu]

Can I just request that we split this off into a separate Gebser topic? I take responsibility for initiating this particular divergence, and this is exactly the sort of confusion Cleric was trying to avoid by staying on The Central Topic (I am only referring those comments mentioning Gebser explicitly, starting with mine). Thanks Dana

Sure, if someone wants to start a separate Gebser-specific topic, I can merge relevant posts with that topic accordingly.

[Jim Cross]

Cleric last response directly addressed your questions about the Central Topic and so far you have avoided all his points by simply shifting to different topics and making declarations about what we "know". He is simply asking you to stop abstractly speculating for a moment and reflect on your own 1st-person experience of the world content. Don't try to jump to any conclusions about the essence of the world as seen through the eyes of modern science. Try to see these things through your own eyes with curiosity, humility, sound reasoning, and patience.

And this evokes what I see as the core impediment and conundrum we keep coming up against in this exchange, and many like it, in that, similar to Einstein's observation that (paraphrasing), we can't resolve problems (misunderstandings) with the kind of thinking that perpetuates them, likewise we can't grok integral stage thinking from the mindset of mental stage thinking. I'm also reminded of the Galileo affair, who when he implored the skeptics/cynics, still fixated in their outmoded mindset, to look through the telescope, and in so doing they would understand the cosmos in a far more expansive way, they balked at this offering, refusing to do so on the grounds that since they didn't understand what a telescope is, or how it could possibly do what Galileo assured them it could do, pretty much precluding the possibility, therefore they couldn't trust what it would reveal. Not a perfect analogy I realize, since the mind is not an object like a telescope one can offer for others to look through, but nonetheless hopefully gets the point across.

The analogy to Galileo (and implicitly to science) is especially ironic.

Think of all the measurements he must have done that the people didn't want to believe.

[Cleric K]

Consciousness is primarily a serial activity. We can't usually be thinking of one thing while simultaneously thinking of ourselves thinking of the same thing. We might think of ourselves thinking and recall we were thinking of something else but that's different. This is in contrast to reflexive activity or learned behavior that has become automatic that can occur while we are thinking of something else, including thinking of ourselves thinking.

Yes, indeed. This is what has been spoken of many times here. Most recently to this post to Shajan in this very thread. What you mention is the dual nature of thinking that was spoken of in the linked post. When we try to think about our own thinking in the same way we think about everything else, we actually split in ourselves - exactly as you say. What we perceive as our thinking is really already the memory picture of our thinking from an instant ago, while our current thinking is the invisible one which contemplates the recollection.

Your remark about the reflexive activity is also spot on! This at the core of all talks about Thinking around here, including at the core of this Central Topic. All attempts are to gain more lucid consciousness of this real-time thinking process instead of acting like templated thinking machines.

There's no contradiction here. The fact that we never perceive our current thinking doesn't mean that we can't understand it more closely. In certain sense we can shorten the distance between the current thinking and its past image. For example, you can imagine something, say, a small circle (needs not be particularly vivid) and you can move it in your imagination. Since this avoids the discrete nature of verbal thinking, it is possible to move the thought-circle smoothly and very tightly. In this way we feel that the movement of the thought-circle is quite immediate reflection of our thinking-will, much in the same sense that an actual mirror reflects our bodily will gestures. The more closely (with more concentration) we try to do this exercise the more lucid we become about our own activity. It's like we're constantly willing certain thinking gestures and the thought-perceptions (for example the thought-circle) are only their echoes. It's a huge victory for modern man if he allows himself to gain consciousness of this thinking gesticulation that he performs, which is echoed in verbal and symbolic thought-perceptions. It's as important as our ability to distinguish the experience of our bodily willing from the reflection in the mirror.

Aside from that, what evidence do you have that introspection provides reliable information? More bluntly, how do you know you are not fooling yourself?

Here we reach a key moment. If thinking is in its essential nature unreliable then by extension all our science and philosophy can never be reliable because they are the product of the same that thinking. I know your position here - you're interested in correlations between thoughts (theoretical models) and perceptions (including extended through scientific tools). In that case we don't ask if thinking is reliable per se but simply see if it leads to successful technologies. This is our measurement for how appropriate our thinking is.

But here's the thing: you can confirm the reliability of correlations through technological success but you can never confirm if your choice to use correlative thinking is in itself a reliable choice for seeking deeper answers about reality. The reason is that choosing the way of thinking about reality is not something that reality forces upon us. We feel forced to update our models to match perceptions but nothing forces us into correlative thinking in the first place. We chose it through thinking (or the fathers of modern science chose it for us). If this thinking has been unreliable or incomplete, then the choice of correlative science will inherit these shortcomings. Thus we choose a system of correlative thinking which in itself has fundamental limitations - that correlations in principle can never say anything about the thing in itself. As long as we're happy with developing technology we're fine with this. But the thing to remember is that correlative thinking is only a choice from within a larger palette. We should not confuse the limitations inherent in the system we chose with the limitations of thinking in general.

I hope we're together so far. We established that we operate within a correlative thinking system, which was somehow arrived at in humanity's cognitive evolution. It's obvious that this system can't give answers to the deep questions that the human soul has always asked. So one option is to say that we have been wrong all along to ask these questions. These are undecidable questions and we simply should forget about them and focus on correlative thinking producing technologies. If we do this, we practically project the limitations of the system in which we operate to human cognition in general. On the other hand, if we recognize that the limitations of knowledge are only due to the system we've locked ourselves into, we're faced with the difficult question how can we explore the wider palette of human cognition and more importantly - how can we know that we're working with something reliable, as you ask. I hope the paradox is clear. It's like thinking lives as a big tree. One of the big branches touches the grounds. This is where our correlative thinking exists. The points of contact with the ground are where our concepts meet perceptions. The perceptions are the corrective which feeds back on thinking. We don't know if thinking in itself is reliable but when we continually correct it through perceptions, it seems that it works well enough as far as technology is concerned. But we feel completely at loss if we are to explore other branches of thinking which have no immediate contact with the ground. This is the reason you ask how can we know if thinking is reliable. Without the corrective of the sense perceptions we feel that we'll be lost to fantasy.

Now we must make clear one thing here on which it depends whether there's a point to continue this dialog at all. If at this point you say that you don't care at all about anything else but correlative science then there's no real point to continue. Unless one is open for the possibility that correlative cognition is not the final and ultimate mode of knowing, we'll be wasting the time of both of us.

If we're open for that possibility then naturally we need to move deeper within the thinking tree, before we split thinking into a subject in the blind spot and thought-images (the world theory) correlated to perceptions (the ground). The initial steps in this direction are to at least allow ourselves to experience how we shape the thoughts through our thinking gestures.

The Central Topic is really about the default assumption that we can never know anything more than our mental memory-shadows and the only kind of knowing is to correlate them to perceptions. No one disputes that this correlation is absolutely necessary. Let that be clear. It's not about abandoning sense perceptions and fantasizing things. Our ideas should always be in harmony with perceptions - there's no doubt about this.

As said, in the thinking tree metaphor it is as if our thinking wants to have its feet firmly on the ground - that is, we feel secure only where the leaves (concepts) touch the ground (perceptions). But where should we place, for example, the exercise where we imagine the moving circle? Clearly, we're not having sensory perceptions, so we're not touching the ground. Metaphorically we are a little further up the branch. We're doing something there which we perceive independently of the contacts points with the ground. Now what we should realize is that this already gives us some kind of knowledge but in different way, as if polar-opposite way. We don't see the metaphorical branch as we see external perceptions but we 'touch' its interior through the degrees of freedom of our imaginative thinking. See, it's not about what 'things' there are in perceptions but about exploring the way our thinking is constrained. This gives us knowledge of the tree from the inside. To be more concrete and relate back to what was already said in the Central Topic, we can investigate how ideas, opinions, prejudices, sympathies and antipathies, hopes and fears, in fact constrain the palette of possible thoughts that we think. In the tree metaphor, all these things represent the inner geometry of the branches within which our thinking activity operates. The more we orient ourselves within these constraints, the more intuition we gain about the geometry and dynamics of our conscious experience. If we are to extend this metaphor even further, we can say that we can liberate our activity to such an extent that we become conscious even within the roots and thus of the ground. In this way we can find the inner reality of what we otherwise experience only indirectly as sensory world (where the leaf-concepts touch the ground). This is mentioned only in passing, it's more 'advanced' and not strictly needed for the Central Topic.

I'll stop here. So the main thing to feel is that through the experience of thinking and its constraints from within, we gain different kind of knowledge. It's like thinking becomes one of those modern 3D scanners that probe the interior of a building in all directions and build 3D model. Except that with thinking we don't build a model but directly explore the degrees of freedom which allow us to know the constraints within which we operate. Now you may tell if you reject that knowledge as useless or you're open that it might be valuable but is simply beyond your perimeter of interests (correlative thinking), or something else.

[Martin_]

Aren't we deviating a bit from the topic?
EDIT: no. Cleric brought it back. (didn't see that one when i posted)

[AshvinP]

Can I just request that we split this off into a separate Gebser topic? I take responsibility for initiating this particular divergence, and this is exactly the sort of confusion Cleric was trying to avoid by staying on The Central Topic (I am only referring those comments mentioning Gebser explicitly, starting with mine). Thanks Dana

Sure, if someone wants to start a separate Gebser-specific topic, I can merge relevant posts with that topic accordingly.

Thanks, here you go - viewtopic.php?t=697