Meditations on the Nature of Mind-Meditation-five: The Self and Observations

by Eric Hoffmann on Monday, 11 April 2011 at 13:13

   Before proceeding to a deeper examination of the self, we must reddress the slight that was given to the classical school of the Stoa in the last meditation.
    Instead of asserting that the Stoics sought an either-or choice; it should have been said they sought a commitment. A commitment is a choice that effects an agents other choices. In other words the Stoics had developed a system of self-training, to free the agent from the vicissitudes of life. In effect the Stoics developed one of the earliest systems of self-help. The goal of the Stoic system was to free an agent from negative emotions. To accomplish this they made a distinction between impressions and how an agent reacts to the impressions. The Stoics that we have no power over what impressions we are subject to; only how we react to the impressions.
    To begin the examination fo the self, a techinical distinction must be made between the "I" and the self. The "I" is an abstraction of the continuous feeling of being alive; this is the will or the appetite to expand. Thus the "I" is a gift of being alive. The self is a creation; it is what an agent does with the appetite to expand. The self the skills and belifs an agent learns to cope with the world and ather people. The self is created from the different minds that are learned by the agent. The individual mind starts in childhood; it is how the individual agent learns how to deal with other people and the environment as an indivedual. The private mind is how an agent learns how to cooperate in groups to achiene collectine goals. There is a bigger gap between standard minds and private minds than between private minds and individual minds. Standard minds require technical training. Unlike private minds and individual minds, standard minds do not fullfill the desires of the will directly. An example would be if an individual wants to catch fish using a boat, that she has to build. Learning how to measure and boat building do not directly satisfy the desire to eat fish. This is why standard minds demand a greater level of commitment than puivate or individual minds. This commitment takes faith; that the result of mastering the mind is worth the work. There must be an expectation that the mind can be mastered. When a mind has been mastered it becomes part of the self, as when people describe themselves as Doctors, Shipwrights, etc. This is of course paralleled in atheletic activeties; where a commitment must be made to master a physical activity. A lot of atheletic activities are unnatural such as throwing a curveball or ballet moves, but can be mastered with commitment. Even though ballet moves seem unnatural to begen with, a strange alchemy takes place and the moves become fluid and natural with practice.
    The pressure young people feel in having to master standard minds may explain some of the alienation that seems to go along with youth. Most youing people when confronted with abstract disciplines feel their individuality gets lost in the discipline. To lift a term from Oswald Spengler which Spengler lifted from geology, there is a psuedomorphosis. Psuedomorphoris is when cyrstals of one type formi a cavity in a rock strata, then dissolve over time. When another type of crystals forms in the same cavity they take the same shape as the orginal crystals. Even though it is not the natural shape of the new crystals. If the student has enough commitment she makes the standard mind her own. If like ballerinas or tennis players where we observe physical changes in the musculature, there are corresponding changes in the brain and brain chemistry must be left to the scientists to discover. The self is a product of training; it is a creation of the agent in adapting to her environment.
   The above discussion gives us a clue to the phenomenon of alienation. Marx thought that alienation was caused by the exploitation of a persons labor; Heidegger held that alienation was a primordial structure of being in the world. Our explanation is more simple. Alienation happens when an agent feels that she has lost control of her life or that her life has no purpose; when either other people or the inexorable forces of the universe are in control of one's destiny.This is of course common in young people where they feel their individuality is being forced into forms they have no control over.
    The rest of this essay shall try to answer the question: Why did the ancients believe that being flowed from the top-down; instead of the bottom-up as modern people believe? Within this question is also the question : why did the ancients believe that only eternal things have true or real being. By " top" is meant the mental or thought, which the ancients identified with spiritual realties. To us moderns this seems an absurdly high standard for reality. It must be noted that the following answer is speculative, and must remaen so; since we do not have any ancient people to question. So we shall move forward in the martial spirit that holds; that even a bad plan is better than no plan. So a theory is offerid ; since a theory is better than no theory.
    We must begin with a distinction between myth and reason. (mythos and logos) There is no opposite to reason, when a person is not using reason, we do not say that the person is using "unreason" or "inreason". The fact that there are no such terma as "unreason" or "inreason" confirms thes observation. When a person is not using reason they are using myth. By myth is not to be understood any particular stories from some region of the world. Instead myth is to be understood in a criterialogical sense: mythical thinking is what underlies rational thinking, rationality grows out of myth. Rational thinking is held together by logic, myth is held together by narrative. Myth has a story structure; therefore it must have a plot. In other words ideas are held together by using a story with a plot. The four ways to enplot a story are: romance, comedy, tragedy, and setire. Although different plots are not mutually exclusive, most good stories have a mixture plot lines. Romance is when good triumphs over evil; such as the story of Christ  and Grail legends. Comedy offers a partial resolution, some problems  are overcome and these partial triumphs are celebrated. Comedies typically end in parties, weddings, and other festive occasions. In tragedy even though the hero is defeated by the forces opposed to him, the hero and the audience gain some insight into the forces opposing the hero, so again there is a partial resolution. In satire ther is no triumph, no illumination, not even partial; everything is meaningless. Now we must return to the ancients.
  The civilizations of the ancient world transmitted the knowledge of their culture in the form of myth. They had epics and stories about the gods that contained the morality and knowledge of the culture. Ancient Egypt reached a sophistication in myth that has never been achieved since.They even had gods or decans for the hours of the day. Myths all happen in time they have a story structure. All gods start out as regional spirits or individuals that excelled at a certin skill.Asclepius would be an example of the latter, he was the god of physicians in classical Greece. If one wanted to become a physician in classical Greece; he would join the cult of Asclepius. There he would learn the stories and exploits of the god Asclepius. This is how one would learn to become a physician in classical Greece. The want to be physician would try to embody the god Asclepius. This is how all specialized skills were learned. The general knowledge of the culture and morality were embodied in the epics; the specalized skills in the cults of the gods.Instead of connecting abstract ideas in logical connectives; abstract ideas were connected by a plot in a story or myth. This brings about the first transition; even though myths all happen in time, the initiate of the god can embody the knowledge of the god at different places and times. Here we observe the god begining to move outside of time. The god can be embodied by many different people and at different times. So the god moves outside of time; the god is greater than any of its initiates. The next transition is when the god is gotten rid of and only the story is kept to pass on the knowledge. When this happens the image-triggers become divenized. Soon the trigger becomes divine, they are seen as being outside of time and space. Every ancient civilization believed their language to be give by a god. One only has to recall in the Bible, God speaks to create. Another example of language being divine is observed in grimoires; these indtruction books on summoning angels and demons. The term grimoire is derived from grammer. With this transition, we are comming close to reason and logic. The only thing left to do is to get rid of the story. Instead of connecting ideas with plots, ideas are connected with logic.
   Now we have Plato's Forms; the aspect that acts as the trigger to imagine activity has been divinized and is no longer connected with a plot line. All emplotment has been stripped away. Ideas are classified and connected through the use of logic and reason. Instead of connecting ideas through a story , a catagory could be used; such as "red" things,or wood things. Logic becomes a way to measure ideas. In myths one could be dead yet alive, or in two places at once but logic precludes and forbids such a way of connecting ideas. Reason and logic bring precission to ideas. There is a modern prejudice that thinks that logic and reason preclude any form of emplotment except satire. Modern analytic philosophy would be an example of this preijudice. There can be no doubt analytic philosophy has been spectacularly successfull at using satire to emplot their literature. Anyone who reads analytic litertureis awe-struck at the level of meaninglessness they have achieved. The ancients had no such prijudice; instead they thought they had discovered a new region. A mental or spiritual region as opposed to a physical region.
    Classification and logic have no narrative form, so instead of seeming to be in time; they seem to be in space. Although,measurement and classification have no narrative form, it does not demand the use of satire as a plot. Exact measurement can help one build a better ship, but does not determine whether a warship, cargoship, or pleasure barge is built. The mistake the ancients made was they thought they were discovers instead of creators. They took their new new discovery and emploted it as aromance. The neoplatonics developed a system where a person could rise through the new regions to finslly become united with the One (God).
   This top-down paradigm is still alive and strong in Descartes and Leibniz. It is now time to move to the fall of the top-down paradigm. Logic and reason help us to classify and measure new observations: for and aganist old observations, but they do not bring in new knowledge they only classify and measure observations already made. When the top-down paradigm crashed it brought in a new crisis; two examples of the crisis would be Nietzsche and Marx.
   Nietzsche also worried that onlt satire was left to emplot knowledge; he saw this as the comming threat of nihilism which he annoced as the "Death of God." He countered this with a call for the tragic form of emplotment. Where everyone  was to make her life into a tragic play; struggling against the inexorable forces of the cosmos to gain whatever form partial illumination they could. Marx wrote philosophy in the romantic mode to counter the satiric mode. Marx wrote philosophy like a grail romance; complete with struggle, transformation and a transcendent triumph of good over evil.The workers paradice is the end of history, so is outside of time.
    Hegel wrote philosophy as a cosmic comedy. there are only partial resolutions that should be celebrated. Even Hegel's resolution in Absolute Spirit is partial since the cycle starts up again.
      The real lesson of the crash of the top-down paradigm is not that everything is meaningless, but only the end is not yet written. We are the platwrights, we decide the plot.

Meditation Four: Causality and Freedom

The problem of the freedom of the will has a long history in philosophical and theological literature. Unfortunatly, this long history has only resulted in added confusion, instead of clarity. The reason for this is because the problem of the freedom of the will involves many elements or dimensions. To understand the problem, let us observe how the classical school of the Stoa dealt with the problem of the freedom of the will.  
     For the classical Stoics the problem of the freedom of the will was an either or question.That an agent could either identify herself with the divine reason of the universe or not. If the agent identified with the divine reason of the universe; she would be brought to a place of blessedness by accepting the reason of the universe. If the agent chose not to identify; she would live a life of resentment and be doomed. An agent had only one choice to made, everything else was determined.
 This answer was taken up by the primitive Christian church in classical times. An agent is saved by accepting christian teaching or is damned by not. It must be admitted that this way of framing the problem has a great deal of utility, but it is hardly a solution. When the utility of the answer is spoken of, it is to be understood that in intolerable conditions this may be all that is leddt of an agents freedom and dignity. We of course are refering to cases like that of Admiral Stockdale. How he used the philosophy of Epictetus to survive in aa nightmerish prisoner of war camp in North Viet Nam.      The answer the Stoics give to the problem of the freedom of the will brings out the the problems in framing the issue of freedom. To begin with there are metaphysical suppositions made. There must be either a cosmic reason or God for the agent to identify with. Then there is a looseness in the terminology, and the assumption that freedom is an either or proposition. To make progress on the problem of freedom; we need definations of the terms: self, freedom,and  causation. Most people do not regard the problem of freedom as an either or question that is only made once.The problem of freedom must be brought into the sphere of everyday life , and not remain a metaphysical abstraction. As in previous parts of these meditations; if we are to proceed correctly, we must regard freedom as an element in the continum of consciousness. That freedom has evolved with agents self-awarness of the world they live in and interact with.
   The poet Wordsworth, and the philosophers Schelling and Whitehead all saw a conflict between the realm of the organic and the realm of the inorganic. That life is involved in a fight  for its existence aganst the nonliving worsd. To posit thes in a negative formulation: life is always fighting its own dissolution. In other words life is a struggle aganist entropy. How and ohy some bit of matter started to resit its own entropy is one of the great mysteries of the cosmos. It is the question: How did life begin? To get back to understanding the conflict between lide and the nonliving; we must not be content with a negative formulation. The desire or appetite of all life is to expand; to expand its existence in space and time. All the drives or appetites that are observed in living agents are but different manifestations of the appetite to expand in space and time. The desire for food; is the appetite to expand in time. In that the purpose of nutrition is to slow or repair the entropy in an agent. The sex drive is both an appetition to expand in space and time; by reproducing more agents the species is allowed to expand in both space and tiime. Anyone who has studied biology cannot help but be impressed how life has expanded into every niche that is able to support life. The above discussion should give us the definition to one of the key terms in" the freedom of the will."  The name given to the appetite to expand that underlies all our other drives is "will."  The will is the appetite to expand that is operational in all life. L ife seeks to expand; thes leads to conflict with the inorganic world. this conflict is what leads to living agents having inner states; because life is concerned with maintaining its existence along with expanding its existence. This is why living agents have both inner and outer states, the inner state is the key to the conflict aganst an uncaring outer or inorganic world. Arock has no outer states because it has no inner states; a rock neither knows nor cares that it is a rock, or what is  to be its fate. In the first meditation it was observed how plants used instinct to accomplish their will th expand. That an image world trigger anactivity in the plant. The example used: When the temerature drops to a certin level, trees drop their leaves. If the tree lives in a tropical climate where the temperature does not drop sufficently to provide the trigger for a tree to drop its leaves; the tree shall still drop its leaves at some point, because of the internal will of the plant to expand in space and time. It is not the trigger that provides the motive for a tree dropping its leaves; the will is the deeper reason why the tree sheds its leaves. As was noted in previous parts of these meditations, that when we move up the continum to agents that have intellect along weth instinct they have more flexability in how they use images as triggers. Let us observe one of the most famous experiments in psychology: that of Pavlov's dogs In the experiment Pavlov would ring a bell when he fed his dogs. He made sure to do this at every feeding. He then noted that at the ring of the bell the dogs would salivate, without the smell or sight of the food. What Pavlov discovered is that dogs can be trained to respond to image triggers that are not part of their natural habetat. In other words dogs have a lot more flexability in the use of image-triggers than insects or plants. Many people have misunderstood Pavlov's experment; as to thinking it means that everything is determined by something else. Before examining all the meanings of the word "causation" , let us try to make the meaning of Pavlov's experiment more clear by the use of the classic example of a billard ball. If you ring a bell everytime you strike a billard ball with a cue , the billard ball shall never ready itself to be struck. It shall never move on its own after the bell is rung or steady itself, or do anything except act like an inert billard ball.  What Pavlov discovered is that dogs have some freedom in that tey can adapt there activity to different triggers or can be trained by their environment. In other words the intellect allows dogs a greater flexability to adapt to changes in the environment. Dogs can be trained by others or the environmint; it is only humans that can train themselves. To understand freedom we must undestand causateon.
   To get a better understanding of freedom we must first get a better understanding of causation. The philosopher, R.G.
 Collingwood distinguished three senses of  meaning of the term "causation." The first sense is: when we say something has motivated a person to undertake some action. An example: a person feels hungry, so she goes to get something to eat. The second sense: when an agent does something that causes a change in nature. The practical sciences would be an example. The third sense is when things happen independently of human involvement; the mechanistic view of nature.
     The first sense of causation must be what those who tell us that as long as we have any desire or motivation, we are not free are using. This seems to be an unimaginably high standard for freedom.  This would be the freedom of a rock; a rock has no desires or motives, because it has no concern for its fate. This is a freedom that no one wants. We feel free when we caan fend methods to achieve our goals not when we have no goals. The third of Collingwood's senses of causation is also used th argue aganst freedom. That we are determined like the bellard ball that gets struck by the cue stick. That is that outward events totally determine our actions. It has already been shown that our inward states exist just because life is a revolt against outward forces determing us. That life fights aganist entropy and tries to avoid harmful situations. As was said before the billard ball never tries to avoid being struck nor does it care if itis struck or not. The third view as Collingwood pointed out is a holdover from eighteenth century science. If one looked for causes in this sense, she would very quickly end up with the whole Absolute. For example to make the billard ball move: the frictional force of the table must be just so much, the laws of gravity must be in effect, someone had to make the pool table, there must have beem trees to get the wood for the table, etc. This would be the freedom G. W. F. Hegel spoke of when he said freedom is not being contingent or dependent on anything else. Again this conception of freedom is unimaginably high. We feel free when we can use circumstances to achieve our goals, not when there are no circumstances. And as was said freedom is a continum; there may be no complete or perfect freedom. only varying degrees.
   This leaves us with Collingwood's second sense of causation. When through our actions we cause something to happen. This is when a given state of affairs exists and an agent seeks to alter the state of affairs for her purposes.  The name cause is give to the action that alters the given state of affairs. This definition of causation is not exclusive of freedom, it is the very mechanism of freedom. That an agent can alter a state of affairs to bring about another state of affairs that the agent desires. Freedom is when an agent knows or con find a way to achieve her goals.
     There is no denying that our thinking is caused in this sense of the term. The causal character of thought has long been recongized. Schelling joked that even the first woman Eve did not have to have causation explained ot her. The serpent in the garden of Eden never had to show how eating the apple and gaining the knowledge of grood and evil connected. In a previous meditation, we examined individual, private and standard minds. Each mind whether standard, private, or individual is a causal nexus. Minds are built up from abstract ideas. abstract ideas are image-triggers that have been sublated so that the agent just imagines the activity instead of acting out the the activity. The standard mind is the easist to use as an example to show how minds work as causal nexus. If a person is going ot become an attorney or a biologist, she has to learn a standard termionlogy and pracitice that are used by everyone in th egield. This is so everyone in th efield understands and is able to evaluate what everyone else is doing. If terms and practices were not standard there would be no communication or ability to evaluate the wrok of someone else in the same field. when a person is doing biology or law, the practices and terms are like a series of levers that are pulled to get a result. With a standard mind anyone who takes the time and trouble to learn the discipline can duplicate the results of everyone else in the field. the difference with individual minds is that all the image-triggers have not been sublated, so different people may have different reactions ot the same image-triggers. To summarize  causation is the mechanism we nuse to alter existing states of affairs to bring about a changed state of affairs that beenfits us. to do this human-agents have developed minds, which are causal nexus. They are a way to pull the levers of nature of communication ot achieve the goals of an agent of group of agents. It is through minds that humans can train themselves and this is where freedom and a higher level of copnsciousness go together. That humans are not locked into one mind or causal nexus. That humans can train themselves to master different enviorments and circumstances.
   Before trying to bring all of the above into everyday thinking, we must again deal with emotion and reason(abstration) and why we believe what we believe, and why we act on those belifs. As was said in a previous meditation, emotion is contentwithout clarity and reason is clarity without content; they are again a continum. Mathematics is all clarity with almost no content. This is the reason mathematics is so useful; it can be applied to almost everything. On the other end of the continum, there are religous and idealogical belifs, that are full of content to the agent that holds them but lack clarity. Examples of this type of belif would be: being reunited with dead relatives, socialist utopias, or gaving forty virgins in heaven. What is it that motivates agents to adopt belifs or to seek scientific discoveries? It is the will, whether it is expanding intellectually in scientific discovery or existing forever in heaven. The ancients has a term to describe why we adopt belifs and take actions, the word was "faith". Not faith as is now understood, where it means to stretch credulity. Instead the meaning was when we tell someone to have faith in their project or themselves. We are fortunate that the ancient definition of faith has survived in the "Letters" of St. Paul.
   In Hebrews 11:1, St. Paul tells us:"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things unseen."  The second part of the definition is close to the modern word: confidence. That if we have done an action many times and always had the same result: we regard that as the proof of things unseen. This would also include authority that we respect and do not doubt. This is of course why we have confidence in scientific knowledge.This should make it clear why we have confidence that a course of action shall be successful. The first part of the definition is what motivates an agent to undertake an action. Actions are undertaken to satisfy the will or the appitite to expand. It is best to begin weth a trivial example: a hunter sets a trap because she is hoping to get food. The hunter shall have greater confidence in a trap that has already worked many times in the past. As aganist a new trap, she has never used before. Unless the trap has been recommended by another hunter she knows has been successful with the trap.To break this example down the confidence or the reason for the confidence is ''the evidence of things unseen." The contentis the outcome that is wanted; " the substance of things hoped for."  We can divide what motivates people to take action in thought, but not in action. The trouble with forty virgins in paradise and socialist utopias is that the content has overpowered the clarity of the activity. Of course socialist utopias and heaven both run into problems when clarity intrudes upon the hope. Just ask someone who holds to heaven or utopia, why we should expect them to result. Both agents that hold to such belifs hold them because they fullfill the will of the agents. This shall become more clear when we try to bring this theory into everyday thinking. When agents achieve a higher level of abstraction they try to break activities down into compenet elements. Then they can evaluate how the elements fit together in the proposed activity or venture. This also leads to greater freedom because the agent may find the proposed activity may funcyion better without some of the elements or bringing in elements from a different activety may lead to a greater chance of success. When we say elements, what is meant is abstract ideas. This breaking down activities into elements leads to logic.
   The above discussion should help to make the foundations of logic clear. The syllogism is an attempt to classify how we use image-triggers. Let us examine the three types of syllogism that Kant listed: the catagorical, the disjunctive, and the hypothetical. In a catagorical syllogism the activity expressed by the abstract idea is shown to be a sub-form of a wider form of activity. An example: jackals are wild dogs. With thes information an agent that encountirs a jackal knows to treat the jackal as a wild dog. The disjunctive syllogism is that either there is an activity or there is not the activity. This provides an agent with the knowledge to prepare for the activity. An example: it is raining or it is not raining. If it is raining then the agent knows to take her raingear with her. The disjrnctive syllogism is a recognition that a state of affairs exists that is different from the state of affairs not existing. The hypothetical syllogism is of course Collingwood's second sense of meaning of causation. It is of course an expression of what lever to pull to change the state of affairs to bring about another state of affairs. Logic is an attempt to sublate the trigger part of inages and abstract ideas; to pull the trigger out of the content of thought.
   If we are to evaluate the validity of the above theory; it must be shown how it works in the everyday thought of people. Thinking is the feeling of an activity, that is cut off from the performance of the activity. In other words when we think,we feel the activity in an attenuated form; instead of doing the activity that the trigger is associated with, we imangine the activity. The imagination is not something that can be turned on and off; so this attenuated feeling of activity seems to be always going on in our heads. To simplfy we think in scenarios. The reason why most adults in literate cultures seem to have a constant dialogue going on in their heads is because most people in literate cultures primary activity is communication. The imagination is constantly trying out scenarios, on what they are going to say on what they are going to say or what their response is to what other people say. Most modern people can only escape this feeling of constant dialogue through atheletics or dance. Lets us now observe how abstraction works in everyday thinking. An ordinary example shall serve us best; such as giving directions. We have all watched documentaries, where a group of explorers from a technologically advanced country go to a region where there are only tribal societies. At some point in the documentary, one of the explorers asks directions from a local tribesman. The tribesman then gives a long animated explanation; which the explorer's translator-interpeter puts into a very few words. Here we observe thinking in scenarios. The tribesman is giving an account of how he makes the journey. Then the translator abstracts out only the parts the explorers need to reach the destination. This is not only true of non-literate tribesman; many people in modern day America give directions in the same way. They tell yoy how they make the journey, instead of street names they give landmarks and many times theyalso express their opinons about the landmarks, they use to navigate. This is far different from a map that is downloaded from the internet. In an internet map the distances are broken down into tenths of a mile and instead of right and left, the map uses compass points. The former way of giving directions is frll of content; it is an account of how the person makes the journey. The latter use of a map is highly abstract; full of clarity. It tells a person how to get somewhere, but not why they should go, or any opinons about the journey. The map's way of communicating directions is objective because the ratios are the same for everyone. The direction to turn east after two miles is far different than turn at the pretty tree.
   There are people that claim to be great visualizers; this probably means that can take new information and put it into a scenario to imagine how new information fits into what they already know. It is hard to imagine anyone being able to hold a static image intheir conciousness.
    In an earlier meditation, it was that the "I" was an abstraction from the continuous feeling of being alive. When we strip off all the minds, what else can the continuous feeling of being alive be but the will; the appetite for expansion. An agent that has reached a high level of abstraction has greater choices how she briaks down scenarios and how she builds them up again. Is not having more choices, greater freedom? Another advantage to a level of abstraction is that it provides for effective communication. Greater communication leads to greater freedom causation is not the enemy of freedom, but the mechanism of freedom.
      To close out this meditation of the essay, wh shall observe these ideas in still another way. We have observed the ideas that make up mthis theory in abstract analysis; in examples drawn from everyday experience; so now we shall have recourse to myth.
     The myth o fthe alchemist. We all know the figure of the Alchemist from history: a figure surrounded by alembics and furnaces. The historical alchemist seems one part proto-chemist and one part long shot gambler. It is not the historical Alchemist that concerns us, but the myth. In the myth the Alchemist is a seeker of divine wisdom, not an adventurer seeking to turn lead into gold. He is an individual that wishes to transmute the impure and dross of his soul into divine wisdom. Is this not everyone who seeks to understand their feelings and emotions, and turn them into clarity. This is the search for wisdom. The neo-Platonic, Iamblichus tells us that wisdom is productive principles. In other words the search for levers to manipulate nature and the destructive urges we all feel. The ancient gnostics along with many early Christian seats regarded wisdom as feminine; they called it the Sophia.
        They regarded the sophia as divine because the Sophia speaks to all humankind. The reason the Sophia is regarded as being feminine is that alone it is empty and sterile. The alchemist that seeks wisdom must master it before it can be used. Is this not a search for a supermind, where all the causal levers of nature were known. The quest of the Alchemist is to become a god, by having the mind of god.

Meditation-three : Truth and Self-Reflection

Meditations On the Nature Of Mind     

Meditation-three : Truth and Self-Reflection    

By E. Hoffmann

     In medition 2 we oberserved how imagination creates minds, and through minds the subjective and objective and objective points of view come to be. The imagination is able to achieve this because of its ability to create and project I's. This is called self-reflection by most people. In the individual mind it is the motives of the individual that are important. In the private mind, it is the motives of groups; groups that share the same motives. The private mind is the realm of both great and terrible actions. For when groups are involved enstead of individuals, motives pick up more content and less clarity. When groups act the actions have picked up added content because individual emotions have  become group emotions. The group emotion is stronger than any individual emotion ; the individual has a tendency to be swallowed by the group. When the private mind is open-ended it is usually not dangerous because there is no fixed outcome that the group expects. It is when a private is close ended that it becomes dangerous. In the twentith centuary, Marxist movements provide a good example of close ended private minds. Marxist movements are famous for individkilling everyone and anyone that stands in the way them achieving their utopia. This is also why, when Marxists  take charge of a goverment they shut down the free press. A close ended private mind has no need for new ideas; since the end is slready known.

    Now we must move to standard minds. Standard minds are the objective view. The objective view is created, when the imagination of an individual agent produces and projects a theorettical infinite number of I's and reflects upon what is the same for all of them; thus we come to the objective view, where all ratios are the same for everyone. In a latter meditation, we shall examine the tools we use to discover the objective view.

      A theory of mind that is worthwhile must address how truth and illusion come to be, and are distinguished. There are two main theories of truth in modern philosophy: the correspondence and the coherence theory of truth. We shall first take up the correspondence theory of truth. The correspondence theory of truth has a long history and seems to be in accord with common-sense. The correspondence theory holds that there is a one to one correspondence between mental and physical entities. An example would be when we compare a painting with the subject that was painted. This example of painting and subject painted already shows the problem with the correspondence theory of truth. How does the mind over-reach itself to act as a third term that judges between the physical and mental representations of the object? This is only the begining of the problems with the correspondence theory. Most proponets of the correspondence  hold that experience enters  the mental as atomic propositions or simple ideas. To give an example: to  build the compound idea or catagory of an apple. The apple is red, is one simple idea, the apple is spherical is another simple idea. that the apple is sweet is another simple idea, etc. Now, we have the problem of how these ideas come together to form the idea of an apple. If we are to accept J. Locke's "happy accident" , we have an occasionalist theory without the creator to put the simple ideas together. All correspondence theories are atomic, because they are based on a one to one correspondence. Of course, it must be asked how can a mental entity correspond to a physical entity, and what is the relation that brings the two into union, without having an affect on either one. To discuss external relations is beyond the scope of this medatation; it is enough to point out that there has mever been an adequete theory of external resations. The seeming simplicity of the correspondence theory is an illusion. One only has remember J. Locke who posited the mind as a blank tablet that experience writes upon. To explain this seeming simple proposition, Locke wrote a book that ran to around twelve hundred pages, and ended up posing more problems than it solved. The problem with the correspondence theory can be stated in one word: dualism. Untill mental entities and physical entities can be juxtaposed, the theory shall remeain inadequate. It would seem that correspondence is more a effect of truth than a cause.           We started the discussion on the correspondence theory with an example, so we shall start our discussion of the coherence theory of truth with an example. All of us at one time or another have held pencil or a straight stick half-way in and out of a body of water. The stick appears to be bent. To reassure ourselves that the stick is straight we ran our finger along the stick, and took the out of the water and plunged the stick in at different angles, to oberserve the illusion. What we were trying to do is confirm the stick is straight by checking different points of view, and seeking confirmation from a sense besides sight. Another example: a person walks into a dark room, and believes they see another person. The first persoon reaches out to touch the other person, and feels cold hard glass. We have mistaken our own reflection for another person. And again we try to gain a coherent perspective by using other senses to confirm or deny the orginal impression.The coherence theory of truth holds, as its name suggests, that we test each new proposition or observaation by how well it coheres with what else we know. In medition #2 we illustrated how the practice of law depends on a coherent paradigm. The thing about a paradim is that any observation or proposition can be doubtedl just not all at once. It is not that truth resides in any single observation or proposition, but belongs to the paradigm as a whole. And this is what gives doubt to many thinkers; the truth of the paradigm is never complete, but always a work in progress. It may take many individuals with their different emphasis many centuries of the paradigm. The best example is mathematics; just think how many individuals over the centuries it has taken to build the present paradigm of mathematics. What the paradigms are is stable activity or to use the terminology of idealism, the paradigm is the concrete-universal. Paradigms are stable activity,f the is learned and are particularized by individual agents. There can be little doubt that the coherence theory is truth is how humankind processes information; the correspondence theory is clearly untenable. Despite being the way information is processed, we know there is still error, and now we must examine the nature of error.

            We have hitherto touched upon the source of error in the two examples; the straight stick in water and the mirror in a dark room. Illusion we shall first deal with the illusion of leaving out inconvenient facts. the Historian, Robert  Temple calls consensus blindness. In the opening of meditation I of this essay we observed how consensus blindness had caused the fallacy of the proponents of strong A.I. This habit of leaving out facts or observationsis quite common. It seems intuitive for humans to want completeness and closure in their belifs; even if it means not seeing or ignoring what is before their eyes. One of the best examples of consensus blindness in the modern era is astrology. Astrology still holds to the Ptolemic planetary system. Astrology does not work when using the Copernican system. Astrology needs the epicycles of the Ptolemic system. There is no reason for astrologers to change their paradigm of planetary  motion. Astrology is not about discovering new informatiion, and does not care how complix the math is that supports the system. Astrology is a perfect example of a closed system; its adherents are happy to close their eyes to the facts of planetary motion. They have no incentive to change and a strong emotional attachmint to their beliefs. The weaknessof the coherence theory of truth: shutting our eyes to new observations and facts, and desiring a closed system is not only the weakness of the coherence theory of truth, but of humankind in general.

   Now that we have observed the strenghs and weaknesses of the correspondence and coherence theories of truth, there is still a lack of satisfaction. There is more to error and illusion than leaving out observations and facts. The coherence theory works well if we are observing standard minds or private minds on the objective side of the continum. Two examples taken from casual conversations should help illustrate the errors of subjective minds.We often hear people say "I did not know what I was doing, or I did not know I believed that." This should give the reader the pitch of this type of error. This type of error is opposed to the error of consensus blindness; in that insteas of leaving out something, it puts things in the agent does not seem to be aware of. To understand this type of error we must engage in a deeper observation of the nature of thinking.

   It is strange that in philosophie's enthuasim to reconcile dualisms,that no one outside of F. H. Bradley, has tried to reconcile the dualism of reason and emotion. In reading over many thinkers one would think thought is like a radio brosdcast; the words being reason, the  the volume being the emotions. This reading seems to miss the essential nature of both reason and emotion. If the above were true, emotional feeling should give greater clarity to thought; after all is it not eaiser to understand aloud broadcast than a faint one? It is easy to observe that there is no clear demarcation between reason and emotion in thought.

      Reason and emotion are the two poles of the continum of thought. We shall use the term "thought" as the human mode of consciousness. And consciousness as the feeling caused by the reconition of experience. The difference between reason and emotion is clarity and content. Reason sacrifices content for clarity. The best example is mathematics, where for razor sharp clarity, almost all content has been given up. Of course, the strengh of mathematics is due to its lack of content; that is why mathematics can be applied to almost everything. Emotion on the opposite pole is full of content, but has very little clarity. this is why when someone is overcome with emotion, the best way to calm the person down is to try give the emotion clarity and get rid of excess content. This is probablythe orgin of the phrase " to talk someone down."  The solution to the two examples we started this discussion with should be clear; how actions can have more content than the agent recognizes in abstract ideas. We still need a deeper discussion of the nature of judgement and self-reflection.        When the nature of judgement is understood, it shall become clear why thinking is always concerned with the future. Judgement can be divided into two aspects: prognosis and diagnosis. Prognosis is concerned with the success or failure os future actions. An example drawn from everyday life is when a person looks across the street to see if a store she wishes to go in is open before crossing the street. Diagnosis is concerned with protecting the agent from harm. An example is when one smells the milk before drinking. An agent is always trying to look into the future, and in humans that have imagination this is done through self-reflection.           Self -reflection is the peculiar power of the human imagination. To understand how self-reflection arose we need to recall what was hitherto said about instenct and intellect. Instinct is when an agent responds to an image-trigger with an activety, such as a tree dropping its liaves when the temapuature drops to a certin level; that being the feeling of cold triggers the tree to drop its leaves. When we get to agents that possess intellect as well as instinct, it has been noted that they can change both the triggers and the activety to satisfy the agent. It is only when we get to humankind that imagination arises; that is the activity associated with the image-trigger can be imagined instead of acted out. When an image-trigger has been sublated into an abstract idea, not only can the image-trigger stand for the activity, but it can also be communicated. What is happening is that a human can feel the activety without preforming the activity, and she can also communicate or tinker or refine the activity associated with the trigger. The best example is how atheletes train by doing the activity in slow motion untill they have achieved the form they desire. WE have all seen tennis players and baseball players practicing their swings in slow motion. It would seem humans are always trying to improve their response to triggers. This is what causes the brzz or chatter that is always going on in the heads of normal people. The imagination does not seem to shut off, bry is always trying out scenarios to improve the activites of the agent.   A note on literature and history. The imagination not only projects an I onto existing people and things, but also onto fictional characters and historical personages. This is why many novelists claim to write under the influence of inspiration. Once a coherent scenario has been set up and an I that has certin motives is put into the scenario, the story seems to flow for the novelist.      R.G. Collingwood said to write history, we have to recover or recreate the motives and feelings of the historical persons we wish to understand. Again once the historical scenario is understood well enough the imagination is able to project an I on to the historical person to understand the motives of people in times past. This is why history is more than a catalogue of dates,places, and events.                                                      End of meditation three                                                                                                                                                

Meditation Two: The Creation of Minds

Five Meditations on The Nature of Mind

Meditation Two: The Creation of Minds

By E. Hoffmann

Before moving to the topic of this part of the essay, it is useful to review what was discussed in the first part.

Agents are driven by appetites to recognize images in nature that they use as triggers for activity that shall satisfy the needs or appetite of the agent. The term image is chosen for it’s one dimensionality, not because of it’s connection with visual data. The example of an image would be the shift to a colder temperature that causes a tree to shed its leaves. In the case of plants, this is called instinct, and out of instinct grows intellect. The difference between instinct and intellect is the adaptability and acceleration that is achieved in animals. What may take plants generations to adapt as a trigger for activity can be done in days or minutes in an animal; depending on how developed the intellect of the animal is. The reason for this difference is that animals are mobile and cannot take nutrients directly from a non organic environment as plants do from sunlight and air; thus animals must have greater flexibility and adaptability to survive. In humans, another step is taken in the continuum of consciousness to imagination. The power of the imagination is the ability to sublate the image into an abstract idea. When the image becomes an abstract idea, the trigger has been separated from the action; the action is only imagined instead of acted out and the image trigger stands for the activity. The advantage of abstract ideas is they can be communicated or posited with other abstract ideas to form a constellation, and with constellations we come to the origin of minds. One more thing must be said about abstract ideas: the activity they represent is processed as future activity. On the most basic level , an agent is always trying to look into the future. This ... is the power of imagination.

The ability to posit constellations of abstract ideas leads to the creation of minds. In other words, the ability to put abstract ideas together in groups to serve a purpose creates minds. In what follows, we shall observe three types of mind: the individual mind, the private mind and the standard mind. It must be remembered that all three types of minds form a continuum thus bleeding into each other.

The individual mind is the mind of a single individual. The purpose of this mind is so the individual can realize her existence. Much like a turtle needs a shell and a panther needs is strength and speed. The mind of an individual is centered around a mysterious abstraction known as the “I”. We shall begin with a mystery, it being the location of the “I”. Most modern people would locate their “I” somewhere in the center center of their head; though this has not always been the case. No less a thinker than Aristotle located the “I” in the heart region of the chest, and there are many primitive people who would agree. It is not only some classical Greeks and primitive people who have other locations for the “I”; the psychologist Julian Jaynes tells of a patient suffering from severe head trauma who located his “I” outside his body during the time of his recovery. Why different peoples at different times have located the “I” where they did is a mystery for the future to solve.

What can be said about the “I” is that it is an abstraction of the continuous delusion (fooling) of being alive. The “I” is also a necessary component the imagination needs to work. The imagination needs an “I” to be subject of the imagined activity; this is usually termed as self-reflection. And this brings us to the classical problem associated with self-reflection. The problem is a term of the infinite regress argument: to observe an “I” involved in a contemplated activity there must be an “I” that does the observing and so on to infinity. The thinker J.G. Fichte tried to solve this problem by making self-reflection part of the structure of the “I”, but this leads to an “I” with infinite tiers. The solution is suggested  by G.W.F. Hegel in the context of a different problem. The imagination has the quality of infinity; this needs to be explained: when we think of infinity, we generally think of it in a mathematical context, as an infinite series of digits. An example would be Pi, which can be carried out infinitely. Hagel would call this infinite series a spurious idea of infinity. Instead it is an equation or ratio that is capable of generating the infinite series that has the quality of infinity. Thus we have our solution! The imagination has the capability of producing a theoretical infinite number of I’s. In the above problem of infinite regress we only observed theoretical infinity in a vertical manner; latter in the essay we shall observe the more practically important horizontal manner. Now we can come to grips with the individual mind.

   The individual mind is concerned with how potential activity impacts the imagining agent. This means the consequences an activity shall produce in the agent's life. Back in childhood all of us were told, to think before you act. Thus, we are in the the subjective realm; where everything is judged in relation to the I. This is also the realm where value and character have their orgins. We shall observe value first, because much of a person's character is determined by value. Value is originally created by relating potential activity to the I; if the activity leads to satisfing the aims of the agent, the activity is judged as having a high value. It would be tedious to go through the history os the economic life of humankind, so we shall move to character.

  It has been said many times that character is systematized habit. We observed in the first part of this essay how images can trigger activity. Character is the image-triggers  that are learned in early childhood. These image-triggers are held deeply primaly that they cannot be called ideas,because they are not sublated. These core image-triggers is what we call character. Much of modern psychology is concerned with sublating these images into abstract ideas, the imagination can examine the activity the image triggers. The alert reader should not have any trouble working out how our theory applies to sports training and other specialized training an indivedual wants to acquire. Of course, with the individual mind we are always in the subjective realm, because everything is evaluated in relation of how it affects the I. The alert reader is may be reminded of how Kant made causality a catagory of perception. Questions concerning causation and freedom shall be dealt with in another medation. Now it is time to move to the private mind.

   The private mind is the transitional mode from the subjective view to the objective view,as it contains elements of both the the subjective and objective view. As we shall observe the subjective is always prior to the objective. The objective view is always created out of the subjective view. The objective elements are those that are shared by more than one agent. The subjective elements are expressed by being concerned with the aims or purposes of a group of agents. These purposes may conflict with the aims of other groups. The private mind finds its most common expression in family life or religous life. The private mind is where intersubjectivty has its orgin. As was said before the imagination is capable of producing a theoretical infinity of I's. We observed the vertical form of this process which leads to higher and higher orders of observation. The vertical mode of thes process is mostly the interest of people interested in theory. Now, we shall encounter the horozontal mode of the process of projecting I's; which is of interest to everyone. An example should help to illustrate what is being said: in primitive religion there are sun-gods,sea-gods,tree-spirits,etc. What is happening is that the imagination of agent or group of agentsis projecting an I into natural objects and processes. An I that the agent assumes has the same emotions and responses as the agent. This very soon leads to a pantheon of gods as in classical Greece and Rome. When this process of projecting I's on other humans happens the results are more satisfactory, since humans are similar in structure mental as well as physical. Through this reciprocity groups of humans learn to cooperate. Thus we have the orgins religion and society. In religion and small social groups, people have the same motives and values. When a group holds the same objects and or ideas in veneration and despises the objects and or ideas; we have a private mind.This is the mind of family and riligion. The private mind is where humankind has shown itself capable of both great and terrible actions, for it is the realm of loyalty and strong emotions. As we know humans are not a solitary species; but a social species. The abilty of humans to communicate abstract ideas led to the creation of the private mind.

   In the private mind the same words are triggers for the group, for imagining or doing an activity. And of course, in the dynamics of agroup some activities have more emotional contint than others. When the group agrees on the value of an activity; we have a group motive. As was said before this leads to strong emotions, by being reinforced by the whole group. This can lead to both great and terrible deeds. Lit us turn our gaze back again to the classical paginism of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Classical paganism was for the most part a very tolerent religion. The reason for this is that it was opened ended. There was no rapture or utopia awaiting its followers. Gods and spirits came and went, their popularity fluctuating with the times. Most families are the same way, roles change, family members come and go; there is no end point. A private mind becomes dangerous when it is close ended. When the agents of a private mind their goal threatened they become intolerent and dangerous. Of course, great twentith century example is Marxism and communism. Almost all the genocide in the twentith century was commited by agents trying to realize their communist utopia; even if it meant killing everyone who stood in their way.

   To summerize the private mind: it is the mind shared by a group of agents who have the same or similar motives. This leads the group to have a strong emotional bond; which is beneficial when opened ended, but can become dangerous when close ended. Now we move to the objective realm with standard minds.

    To create the objective view the imagination must use its power to create a theoretical infinity of I's. This infinity of I's must be a horizontal infinity. For in the objective view the ratios and relations must be the same for everyone. Therefore the imagination must take into account every possible view.

      Standard minds are the true universe of philosophy. As we have already observed minds built up from images that are sublated into abstract ideas. Abstract ideas are imagined activity. The imagined activity is always processed on the primal level as future activity, it takes considerable sophistication to start writing history. History in literature shall be dealt with  in a later mediation. What standard minds are: is constellation of abstract ideas that posit a paradigm of the stable activity, which form the basis for objective judgement. The best explanation of standard minds occurs in "Space, Time, and Diety" by Samuel Alexander. Samuel Alexander spoke of tertiarty qualties. Tertiary qualities are judgements that involve three elements: the empirical object or action to be judged, the intentions of the agents , and the paradigm that is used as a standard.

       The best example is the practice of law. The object or action is the alleged action or property under dispiute. The agent is the defendent, and the standard paradigm is the body of the law.

   Like law, standard minds must be able to  be understoond by anyone who takes the time to study them. Everyone should be able to follow the ratios and relations involved in the inferences and judgments if taken the time to study the paradigm, this is what makes them objective. All sciences and academic disciplines work on the standard mind as the alert reader has already realized the minds are all concerned with judgments; the individual agent, the private mind with intersubjective judgments, and the standard mind with objective judgments. The next meditation shall take up the questions of coherence and mind.                                       

      End of meditation II.