Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 4

[Constance]

ps, for clarity re 'facticity', see Sartre (his introduction to Being and Nothingness), available online, or see Hazel Barnes's own introduction to that work as its first English translator. Indeed, see this by Barnes:

 

[Pharoah]

Here is still another text we probably all should apply ourselves to if we are to understand Heidegger:

The Basic Problems of Phenomenology (Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy): Martin Heidegger, Albert Hofstadter: 9780253204783: Amazon.com: Books


Here is a helpful post in a discussion of this book at amazon, also linked below:

"Instead of Being and Time, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology should be the starting point into Heidegger for anyone more comfortable with clear, analytical prose and arguments. As great as it is, Being and Time seems to contain a bit more showing off, as might be expected from a work whose purpose was to establish the philosophical gravitas of the author, and its climax in the account of authenticity makes it perhaps a more existentialist work.

In Basic Problems Heidegger makes a clearer case for phenomenology as a scientific method for the problems of 'first philosophy' (the a priori, ontology, or metaphysics), and the strongest case from any of the continental philosophers, I believe. I read Being and Time and many later works first, so was surprised on reading Basic Problems at the more rigorously analytical style and clarity. This may be due either to Heidegger's own experimentation with different styles of discourse and seeking in this course to improve in clarity on what he started in Being and Time, or perhaps it may be due to Albert Hofstadter's magnificently rendered translation for English speakers. In either case, there is no better place to start with Heidegger especially for those either trained or just more comfortable with analytical thought. For such readers, this book can help unlock Heidegger's more difficult writings.

The key argument is that basic problems of ontology, or at least how problems of ontology have been differently rendered in various phases of western philosophy, can be shown through Heidegger's phenomenological method to reveal a systematic unity that was not explicitly grasped by those who formulated the problems before. To this end Heidegger addresses four key historical theses about being: (1) Kant's critical thesis that being is not a real predicate; (2) the medieval thesis, following Aristotle, that any entity is characterized by, on the one hand (a) essence, what it is, being of a kind, and on the other hand (b) existence, that it is at all, a "this" being, actually or substantially; (3) the modern thesis, following Descartes, that the basic ways or modes of being are either (a) being of nature, as an extended, material sort of thing, or (b) being of mind, as a mental, psychic, or spiritual sort of thing; (4) the thesis of logic "in the broadest sense" (apparently shared by each of the prior theses) that "every being, regardless of its particular way of being, can be addressed and talked about by means of the 'is'. The being of the copula.

Now, how does Heidegger show their unity in an implicit fundamental ontology that was not explicit to the prior thinkers? Well, that is what the course sets out to do, but in a nutshell: (1) from a Kantian experience, the being of entities is not a predicate because of the ontological difference between being and entities, which is intelligible only to Dasein, or that being for whom entities are revealed within a horizon of time, temporal Dasein is the condition of possibility for the "being" of entities to appear as an issue at all, but temporality is not an entity among the entities which are revealed; (2) from the medieval and Aristotelian experience, that whch is revealed (a) as a what-being or in essence does so in terms of Zuhandensein, or functional meaning required in any practical activity, while that which is revealed (b) as a sheer 'this' or 'substance' does so in terms of Vorhandensein, or sheer presence (broken tool), in the aspect of a nonfunctional strangeness that beings are at all, which sparks Dasein to theorizing and science; (3) thus in the modern, Cartesian sort of experience, the division of being into (a) natural, extended stuff and (b) mental, nonextended stuff can each be seen as deriving from the experience of Vorhandensein, but confusedly overlooking the hermeneutic condition of practical involvement and context (Zuhanden) for the distancing power of the theoretical stance (Vorhanden), which tends to overlook how things have always already shown up (a priori) in terms of some tacit or implicit practical context, then also confusedly reifying the temporal horizon of all revealing in Dasein in into a category or box of 'mental stuff', mistaking the temporal horizon for something categorial; (4) lastly, we can see that the principle of logic that any being can be spoken of in terms of the copula or 'is' derives more basically from the fact of discourse, talk, or logos, which is ontological condition of possibility for philosophical Dasein to make explicit the fact or nature of revealing or disclosing anything whatsoever, in whatever manner it is disclosed."

Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: The Basic Problems of Phenomenology (Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy)

Hmm... gobbldigook begets gobbldigook.
B&T demands interpretation because there is no explicit meaning in the text. That is why there are such contrasting interpretations. The freedom to interpret is its genius. This is quite deliberate: that is the sheltered cove it creates. Wriggle room is Being-in-rapture.

I am not trashing it. Far from it. I am taking-in from my reading of B&T. It does entertain me 15% of the time and makes my ears prick up excitedly. Personally, I think it is like the Nag Hamadi... it intriguingly evades explicit comprehension and furthermore, like the Bible, could be compressed by 80% without losing anything.
And @Constance, I am prepping myself for an analysis (but not sure if it will be possible as yet) so you need not lose hope in me just yet.

I have other B&T 'interpretative' material but I am eager to move onto Husserl and Sartre. They probably had intimate knowledge of Heideggar with insights as good as anyone else.

 

[Pharoah]

have you read this
http://www.imprint.co.uk/pdf/17_11-12Conference Report_FINAL.pdf

 

[smcder]

The Basic Problems of Phenomenology

- introduction 1975 translation

 

[Constance]

The Basic Problems of Phenomenology

- introduction 1975 translation

This introduction is most clarifying. This paragraph, from about three-quarters into it, is probably the most clarifying:

"Every being is something, it has its what and as such has a specific possible mode of being. In the first part of our course, while discussing the second thesis, we shall show that ancient as well as medieval ontology dogmatically enunciated this proposition - that to each being there belongs a what and way of being, essentia and existentia - as if it were self-evident. For us the question arises, Can the reason every being must and can have a what, a ti [?], and a possible way of being be grounded in the meaning of being itself, that is to say, Temporally? Do these characteristics, whatness and way of being, taken with sufficient breadth, belong to being itself? "Is" being articulated by means of these characteristics in accordance with its essential nature? With this we are now confronted by the problem of the basic articulation of being, the question of the necessary belonging-together of whatness and way-of-being and of the belonging of the two of them in their unity to the idea of being in general."

I think it's not just that H has sought at this point to express himself more clearly; it's also that he has a more able translator in Albert Hofstadter, who is also the translator of the important collection of later writings of H entitled Poetry, Language, Thought. Once again I recommend that book as well as this one as necessary supplements to Being and Time, which unfortunately, as @Pharoah points out, too often seems to support contrasting readings.

Here's a link to amazon where used copies of The Basic Problems of Phenomenology are available beginning at around $12, and new copies are not much more:

 

[smcder]

War of the Worlds: Cosmos and Polis in the Pluriverse | Footnotes 2 Plato

Latour again: “Nobody can constitute the unity of the world for anybody else, as used to be the case (in the times of modernism and later post-modernism), that is, by generously offering to let the others in, on condition that they leave at the door all that is dear to them: their gods, their souls, their objects, their times and their spaces, in short, their ontology. Metaphysics no longer comes after physics but now precedes it as well, and attempts must be made to develop a protophysics—an indescribable horror for the modernizing peoples, but the only hope for those fighting against both globalization and fragmentation at the same time. Compared to the light shiver that cultural relativism might have provoked, this mess, this pandemonium can only evoke at first repulsion and dismay. It was precisely to steer clear of all of this horror that modernism was invented somewhere in the seventeenth century. It was in order to avoid having to put up with so many worlds, so many contradictory ontologies and so many conflicting metaphysics, that they were wisely set up as (in)different entities on the background of an indisputable (and, alas, meaningless) nature full of matters of fact. But nothing proves that this ‘bifurcation of nature,’ as A. N. Whitehead calls this catastrophic solution, is the final state of history” (30-31)

 

[smcder]

This introduction is most clarifying. This paragraph, from about three-quarters into it, is probably the most clarifying:

"Every being is something, it has its what and as such has a specific possible mode of being. In the first part of our course, while discussing the second thesis, we shall show that ancient as well as medieval ontology dogmatically enunciated this proposition - that to each being there belongs a what and way of being, essentia and existentia - as if it were self-evident. For us the question arises, Can the reason every being must and can have a what, a ti [?], and a possible way of being be grounded in the meaning of being itself, that is to say, Temporally? Do these characteristics, whatness and way of being, taken with sufficient breadth, belong to being itself? "Is" being articulated by means of these characteristics in accordance with its essential nature? With this we are now confronted by the problem of the basic articulation of being, the question of the necessary belonging-together of whatness and way-of-being and of the belonging of the two of them in their unity to the idea of being in general."

I think it's not just that H has sought at this point to express himself more clearly; it's also that he has a more able translator in Albert Hofstadter, who is also the translator of the important collection of later writings of H entitled Poetry, Language, Thought. Once again I recommend that book as well as this one as necessary supplements to Being and Time, which unfortunately, as @Pharoah points out, too often seems to support contrasting readings.

Here's a link to amazon where used copies of The Basic Problems of Phenomenology are available beginning at around $12, and new copies are not much more:

Just printed off to read on paper ... ;-)

 

[Constance]

Hmm... gobbldigook begets gobbldigook.
B&T demands interpretation because there is no explicit meaning in the text. That is why there are such contrasting interpretations. The freedom to interpret is its genius. This is quite deliberate: that is the sheltered cove it creates. Wriggle room is Being-in-rapture.

Hmm, I really wonder why you continue then with your effort to understand these philosophers? And especially beginning, unaided, with the most difficult text in all of phenomenology?

I am not trashing it. Far from it. I am taking-in from my reading of B&T. It does entertain me 15% of the time and makes my ears prick up excitedly. Personally, I think it is like the Nag Hamadi... it intriguingly evades explicit comprehension and furthermore, like the Bible, could be compressed by 80% without losing anything.

Your trashing it or not machts nichts. You're not groking it, and that could become a problem depending on the use you attempt to make of Heidegger in your own writing.

I have other B&T 'interpretative' material but I am eager to move onto Husserl and Sartre. They probably had intimate knowledge of Heideggar with insights as good as anyone else.

Both Sartre and Heidegger were students of Husserl. Both moved beyond Husserl in different ways. None attained the development of phenomenology achieved by Merleau-Ponty, the reason why the latter continues to be so influential in consciousness studies and other fields in our time. I say this just to indicate the scope of the whole picture you need to absorb from all four of these philosophers if your goal is to understand phenomenological philosophy rather than to write off much or most of Heidegger. Above you wrote: "B&T demands interpretation because there is no explicit meaning in the text. That is why there are such contrasting interpretations." Whose interpretations are you specifically referring to?

 

[Constance]

Just printed off to read on paper ... ;-)

How? From an online source or a copy of the bound book?

 

[Constance]

War of the Worlds: Cosmos and Polis in the Pluriverse | Footnotes 2 Plato

Interesting essay. I love the illustration included in it:

https://matthewsegall.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/flock-of-starlings-over-scotland.jpg?w=1164

 

[smcder]

How? From an online source or a copy of the bound book?

That link is just for the intro - I think 12 pages ... I hope to have time to catch up tomorrow and write more.

 

[smcder]

I hadn't paid much attention to the illustration - I was skimming this at work. But I had a dream about a tornado that turned into a swarm of bees and then fell from the sky - a few nights ago - I was amazed that I didn't get stung but I was pelted mercilessly!!! Pretty terrifying ... The swarm appeared much like the birds in the photo at one point.

 

[Constance]

Too bad about the dream. Most unpleasant. Glad you'll have more time for the board tomorrow.

 

[smcder]

Too bad about the dream. Most unpleasant. Glad you'll have more time for the board tomorrow.

Incredibly vivid ... I felt the pelting. We had hail storms, a couple of them lately and while I wasn't out in them, my car got pelted when I was driving and then pelted on the roof at the house ... so that may have played a role. I continue to be amazed at how vivid dreams and imagination can be - under the right circumstances I can draw up vivid visual and kinesthetic imagery - sound, music is rarer and as far as I know, I can't summon up olfactory experience ... so that's a question for @Soupie what is the source of these experiences? Do we have any cases of persons congenitally without a particular sense nonetheless experiencing it in dreams of imagination?

 

[smcder]

Hmm... gobbldigook begets gobbldigook.
B&T demands interpretation because there is no explicit meaning in the text. That is why there are such contrasting interpretations. The freedom to interpret is its genius. This is quite deliberate: that is the sheltered cove it creates. Wriggle room is Being-in-rapture.

I am not trashing it. Far from it. I am taking-in from my reading of B&T. It does entertain me 15% of the time and makes my ears prick up excitedly. Personally, I think it is like the Nag Hamadi... it intriguingly evades explicit comprehension and furthermore, like the Bible, could be compressed by 80% without losing anything.
And @Constance, I am prepping myself for an analysis (but not sure if it will be possible as yet) so you need not lose hope in me just yet.

I have other B&T 'interpretative' material but I am eager to move onto Husserl and Sartre. They probably had intimate knowledge of Heideggar with insights as good as anyone else.

Actually and according to Webster ... it's

gobbeldy-gook

that begets gobbldigook (y'all are at least missing a vowel there) or gobbeldy-geek if it gets technical.

 

[smcder]

Fear that drives the analytic? No.
I think fear prevents someone from seeing contrasting concepts... if one is content with one's conceptual view of the world why risk upsetting that view with new ideas that might undermine it? To do so is scary.
Analytic approach is driven by the notion that underlying principles of explanation are possible; that unity underlies complexity.
furthermore, if you don't appreciate this principle of unity in art and literature, then you can't understand its greatness. Complxity without unity is chaos

Here is a short test that claims to measure

"Openess" (to experience)

How Open Are You? Free Personality Test of Openness to Experience

Part of the Big Five personality traits that covers many of the characteristics you mention above

 

[Pharoah]

Hmm, I really wonder why you continue then with your effort to understand these philosophers? And especially beginning, unaided, with the most difficult text in all of phenomenology?



Your trashing it or not machts nichts. You're not groking it, and that could become a problem depending on the use you attempt to make of Heidegger in your own writing.



Both Sartre and Heidegger were students of Husserl. Both moved beyond Husserl in different ways. None attained the development of phenomenology achieved by Merleau-Ponty, the reason why the latter continues to be so influential in consciousness studies and other fields in our time. I say this just to indicate the scope of the whole picture you need to absorb from all four of these philosophers if your goal is to understand phenomenological philosophy rather than to write off much or most of Heidegger. Above you wrote: "B&T demands interpretation because there is no explicit meaning in the text. That is why there are such contrasting interpretations." Whose interpretations are you specifically referring to?

On learning a new piece of music, one might be tempted to listen to recordings. From these recordings one would hear this or that interpretation and adopt bits from each. Personally, I would recommend an untainted learning: to open a conduit to the composer's inner thoughts and develop an individual relationship with him/her. Following this interpretation, further understanding and exploration then entails incorporating the ideas of others. From my experience, there is no better exponent of truth than the originator of the germ of an idea. All interpretations are 'translations' and all translations are approximations to the intentions of the original author.

Groking - we don't have that term on this side of the pond. Or is it German?

I am leaving MP - the best - till last!

Isn't phenomenology an exploration and study of perspectives from a perspective, broadly interpreted? I anticipate no as the answer. Why no in your words.
Is it possible to truly understand or explore Being perspectively? What I mean to say is that for there to be Being-in-the-world implies a mode of Being not-in-the-world. The first is necessarily perspectival and potentially meaningful in that limit, the other however, is necessarily beyond peerspectival comprehension. To try to speak of the second in terms of the first is a fake enterprise.

Meaning does not exist in the absence of analysis. To derive meaning from B&T demands analysis. For me, this is the paradox of B&T.

 

[smcder]

On learning a new piece of music, one might be tempted to listen to recordings. From these recordings one would hear this or that interpretation and adopt bits from each. Personally, I would recommend an untainted learning: to open a conduit to the composer's inner thoughts and develop an individual relationship with him/her. Following this interpretation, further understanding and exploration then entails incorporating the ideas of others. From my experience, there is no better exponent of truth than the originator of the germ of an idea. All interpretations are 'translations' and all translations are approximations to the intentions of the original author.

Groking - we don't have that term on this side of the pond. Or is it German?

I am leaving MP - the best - till last!

Isn't phenomenology an exploration and study of perspectives from a perspective, broadly interpreted? I anticipate no as the answer. Why no in your words.
Is it possible to truly understand or explore Being perspectively? What I mean to say is that for there to be Being-in-the-world implies a mode of Being not-in-the-world. The first is necessarily perspectival and potentially meaningful in that limit, the other however, is necessarily beyond peerspectival comprehension. To try to speak of the second in terms of the first is a fake enterprise.

Meaning does not exist in the absence of analysis. To derive meaning from B&T demands analysis. For me, this is the paradox of B&T.

Grok was coined by Heinlein in his novel Stranger in a Strange Land.

 

[smcder]

This is interesting, Steve. I'm somewhat confused, though, by what you mean in the second-last paragraph by the 'reinforcement' of a whole line, a series, of 'suggestions' in hypnosis. You are talking here, I think, about your own experiments in self-hypnosis, so the continuing line of 'suggestions' are apparently made by your still-conscious mind to your own subconscious. Is that correct? If so, do you reach a point at which your conscious mind relinquishes control of the train of thought, and if so what do you experience at that point?

I think at this point that there is a subconscious mind much vaster than the mind we engage in waking consciousness and that it likewise traffics in 'meaning', significations, carried from the collective 'unconscious' partially integrated with our own stores of personal subconscious memory of 'lived reality'. I think the subconscious mind knows far more than our waking consciousnesses know about our own and our evolutionary forebears' experiences in the local reality of this planet and, as well, of nonlocal connections with protoconscious and conscious states (prereflective and reflective) that we have experienced in part beneath the waterline of waking consciousness. I think of the image of the iceberg used by depth psychologists to represent the relative size and signifying influence of consciousness and subconsciousness, used also by Morton on the cover of his book Hyperobjects.


What do you experience as you move deeper in the structure of your own conscious-subconscious complex (for it seems to me it is a complex structure, a system, concerning which we are only beginning to understand the being of 'consciousness' as a whole).

I'm somewhat confused, though, by what you mean in the second-last paragraph by the 'reinforcement' of a whole line, a series, of 'suggestions' in hypnosis. You are talking here, I think, about your own experiments in self-hypnosis, so the continuing line of 'suggestions' are apparently made by your still-conscious mind to your own subconscious. Is that correct?

The law of compounding, according to the speaker, means that once you get past the critical factor (the censor) - then suggestions are accepted retroactively. So when the second suggestion comes in, the mind accepts it and updates the first suggestion, when the third comes in, the second and first are updated again, so the first has now been accepted and updated twice ... etc.

In this case it's another person making the suggestions - hadn't thought about it in terms of self-hypnosis.

At one point, the speaker is asked a question about the conscious mind and he says:

"the conscious mind never matters"

This material really does make you question and try to be aware of where your conscious thinking comes from and how autonomous your thinking might be ... it's another area where a -hyper rational approach tends to leave one vulnerable.

Two episodes on the Freakonomics podcast address this - the first is on thinking like a child ... magician's will tell you that adults are much easier to fool and misdirect than children and less likely to figure out how a trick works - the second episode talks about why practically no one in the business world says "I don't know".

 

[Constance]

What I mean to say is that for there to be Being-in-the-world implies a mode of Being not-in-the-world. The first is necessarily perspectival and potentially meaningful in that limit, the other however, is necessarily beyond peerspectival comprehension. To try to speak of the second in terms of the first is a fake enterprise.

How does any consciousness/mind that originates in and is always already situated in the world achieve a perspective from outside the world? If there is a perspective on the world maintained by a mind outside the world, whose perspective is it and how do we find out what it knows? See Kierkegaard's leap of faith.