smcder
Paranormal Adept
Does Consciousness Cause the Cosmos? | Closer to Truth
Around 5 min in, Hoffman discusses "taste" and "elegance"
Around 5 min in, Hoffman discusses "taste" and "elegance"
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Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 9
- Thread starter Gene Steinberg
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smcder
Paranormal Adept
"There's no doubt that how our body interacts with the world effects our stream of consciousness. But I'm talking about the body on the level of cells, molecules, and atoms. The body beyond the level generally perceptible to the naked eye."
But its all consciousness right? So isn't it confusing to maintain talk about the body effecting stream of consciousness. Don't we need to talk in terms of CAs or one conscious process effecting another?
But its all consciousness right? So isn't it confusing to maintain talk about the body effecting stream of consciousness. Don't we need to talk in terms of CAs or one conscious process effecting another?
smcder
Paranormal Adept
"Turing and others then conjectured that a function is algorithmically computable if and only if it is computable by a Turing machine. This “Church-Turing Thesis” can't be proven, but it could in principle be falsified by a counterexample, e.g., by some example of a procedure that everyone agreed was computable but for which no Turing machine existed. No counterexample has yet been found, and the Church-Turing thesis is considered secure, even definitional.
Similarly, to construct a theory of consciousness we propose a simple but rigorous formalism called a conscious agent, consisting of six components. We then state the conscious agent thesis, which claims that every property of consciousness can be represented by some property of a conscious agent or system of interacting conscious agents. The hope is to start with a small and simple set of definitions and assumptions, and then to have a complete theory of consciousness arise as a series of theorems and proofs (or simulations, when complexity precludes proof). We want a theory of consciousness qua consciousness, i.e., of consciousness on its own terms, not as something derivative or emergent from a prior physical world."
He didnt complete the analogy but by definition:
A property of consciousness that can't be represented by some property of a conscious agent or system of interacting conscious agents would disprove the thesis.
Similarly, to construct a theory of consciousness we propose a simple but rigorous formalism called a conscious agent, consisting of six components. We then state the conscious agent thesis, which claims that every property of consciousness can be represented by some property of a conscious agent or system of interacting conscious agents. The hope is to start with a small and simple set of definitions and assumptions, and then to have a complete theory of consciousness arise as a series of theorems and proofs (or simulations, when complexity precludes proof). We want a theory of consciousness qua consciousness, i.e., of consciousness on its own terms, not as something derivative or emergent from a prior physical world."
He didnt complete the analogy but by definition:
A property of consciousness that can't be represented by some property of a conscious agent or system of interacting conscious agents would disprove the thesis.
smcder
Paranormal Adept
"There are of course many other critiques of an approach that takes consciousness to be fundamental: How can such an approach explain matter, the fundamental forces, the Big Bang, the genesis and structure of space-time, the laws of physics, evolution by natural selection, and the many neural correlates of consciousness?
These are non-trivial challenges that must be faced by the theory of conscious agents. But for the moment we will postpone them and develop the theory of conscious agents itself."
How does your version of CR explain matter, the fundamental forces, the Big Bang, the genesis and structure of space-time, the laws of physics, evolution by natural selection, and the many neural correlates of consciousness?
The hard problem is starting to look easy ...
These are non-trivial challenges that must be faced by the theory of conscious agents. But for the moment we will postpone them and develop the theory of conscious agents itself."
How does your version of CR explain matter, the fundamental forces, the Big Bang, the genesis and structure of space-time, the laws of physics, evolution by natural selection, and the many neural correlates of consciousness?
The hard problem is starting to look easy ...
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Soupie
Paranormal Adept
The "stream of consciousness" is the mind, so while it is confusing, it's not incoherent.
But yes, it is all consciousness. (Easier to think of as being.)
The confusion arises when perception enters the picture and there appears to be a duality between our stream of consciousness (mind) and our body (a perceptual icon of our mind).
Yes, but what you are not seeing is that this isn't any different than what physics is currently doing.
A "conscious process" is simply a process within being. What quantum and classical physics are attempting to do is talk about processes effecting one another.
Stop thinking of consciousness as mind—affect, concept, perception, etc. Consciousness (feeling) is not mind.
Also, stop thinking of CR only in the manner that Hoffman frames it.
Did you see the post where I said that Dennett's approach was essentially panpsychism. To which Michael Allen liked and perhaps agreed?
Being and consciousness are one and the same. Consciousness (feeling) is not something that emerges from some physical mechanism.
My approach to CR is more like Strawson panpsychism in that I think being/consciousness has properties that allow it to interact and evolve.
When physicists are researching these properties, they are researching being/consciousness.
The trick is that our perceptual minds—which are constituted of being/consciousness—are our Interface with being/consciousness.
So how do we know which properties are properties of being/consciousness and which are properties of our minds (complex structure within being).
We. Don't. Know.
smcder
Paranormal Adept
"Did you see the post where I said that Dennett's approach was essentially panpsychism. To which Michael Allen liked and perhaps agreed?"
No I didn't! I'd like to hear more from Herr Michael too.
"The "stream of consciousness" is the mind."
(no unconscious?)
"Stop thinking of consciousness as mind—affect, concept, perception, etc. Consciousness (feeling) is not mind."
Let's do that again ...
The "stream of consciousness" is the mind."
"Stop thinking of consciousness as mind—affect, concept, perception, etc. Consciousness (feeling) is not mind."
"Consciousness (feeling) is not mind." : "The "stream of consciousness" is the mind."
Well, that's clear ...
...
"Yes, but what you are not seeing is that this isn't any different than what physics is currently doing."
No ... That thought has occured to me but tell me what you think that proves?
"But yes, it is all consciousness. (Easier to think of as being.)"
So all being is being?
What does it mean to say something is a process in being? What else would it be a process in?
Lots of declarations and claims here but no answers to my questions.
Hoffman: "There are of course many other critiques of an approach that takes consciousness to be fundamental: How can such an approach explain matter, the fundamental forces, the Big Bang, the genesis and structure of space-time, the laws of physics, evolution by natural selection, and the many neural correlates of consciousness?
These are non-trivial challenges that must be faced by the theory of conscious agents. But for the moment we will postpone them and develop the theory of conscious agents itself."
How does your version of CR explain matter, the fundamental forces, the Big Bang, the genesis and structure of space-time, the laws of physics, evolution by natural selection, and the many neural correlates of consciousness?
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smcder
Paranormal Adept
Nothing on panpsychism but there is this
Conscious Entities » Dennett
"Yes, Dennett has recanted. Alright, he hasn’t finally acknowledged that Jesus is his Lord and Saviour. He hasn’t declared that qualia are the real essence of consciousness after all. But his new book From Bacteria to Bach and Back does include a surprising change of heart.
The book is big and complex: to be honest it’s a bit of a ragbag (and a bit of a curate’s egg). I’ll give it the fuller review it deserves another time, but it seems to be worth addressing this interesting point separately. The recantation arises from a point on which Dennett has changed his mind once before. This is the question of homunculi. Homunculi are ‘little people’ and the term is traditionally used to criticise certain kinds of explanation, the kind that assume some module in the brain is just able to do everything a whole person could do. Those modules are effectively ‘little people in your head’, and they require just as much explanation as your brain did in the first place. At some stage many years ago, Dennett decided that homunculi were alright after all, on certain conditions. The way he thought it could work was an hierarchy of ever stupider homunculi. Your eyes deliver a picture to the visual homunculus, who sees it for you; but we don’t stop there; he delivers it to a whole group of further colleagues; line-recognising homunculi, colour-recognising homunculi, and so on. Somewhere down the line we get to an homunculus whose only job is to say whether a spot is white or not-white. At that point the function is fully computable and our explanation can be cashed out in entirely non-personal, non-mysterious, mechanical terms. So far so good, though we might argue that Dennett’s ever stupider routines are not actually homunculi in the correct sense of being complete people; they’re more like ‘black boxes’, perhaps, a stage of a process you can’t explain yet, but plan to analyse further.
Be that as it may, he now regrets taking that line. The reason is that he no longer believes that neurons work like computers! This means that even at the bottom level the reduction to pure computation doesn’t quite work. The reason for this remarkable change of heart is that Terrence Deacon and others have convinced Dennett that the nature of neurons as entities with metabolism and a lifecycle is actually relevant to the way they work. The fact that neurons, at some level, have needs and aims of their own may ground a kind of ‘nano-intentionality’ that provides a basis for human cognition.
The implications are large; if this is right then surely, computation alone cannot give rise to consciousness! "
Conscious Entities » Dennett
"Yes, Dennett has recanted. Alright, he hasn’t finally acknowledged that Jesus is his Lord and Saviour. He hasn’t declared that qualia are the real essence of consciousness after all. But his new book From Bacteria to Bach and Back does include a surprising change of heart.
The book is big and complex: to be honest it’s a bit of a ragbag (and a bit of a curate’s egg). I’ll give it the fuller review it deserves another time, but it seems to be worth addressing this interesting point separately. The recantation arises from a point on which Dennett has changed his mind once before. This is the question of homunculi. Homunculi are ‘little people’ and the term is traditionally used to criticise certain kinds of explanation, the kind that assume some module in the brain is just able to do everything a whole person could do. Those modules are effectively ‘little people in your head’, and they require just as much explanation as your brain did in the first place. At some stage many years ago, Dennett decided that homunculi were alright after all, on certain conditions. The way he thought it could work was an hierarchy of ever stupider homunculi. Your eyes deliver a picture to the visual homunculus, who sees it for you; but we don’t stop there; he delivers it to a whole group of further colleagues; line-recognising homunculi, colour-recognising homunculi, and so on. Somewhere down the line we get to an homunculus whose only job is to say whether a spot is white or not-white. At that point the function is fully computable and our explanation can be cashed out in entirely non-personal, non-mysterious, mechanical terms. So far so good, though we might argue that Dennett’s ever stupider routines are not actually homunculi in the correct sense of being complete people; they’re more like ‘black boxes’, perhaps, a stage of a process you can’t explain yet, but plan to analyse further.
Be that as it may, he now regrets taking that line. The reason is that he no longer believes that neurons work like computers! This means that even at the bottom level the reduction to pure computation doesn’t quite work. The reason for this remarkable change of heart is that Terrence Deacon and others have convinced Dennett that the nature of neurons as entities with metabolism and a lifecycle is actually relevant to the way they work. The fact that neurons, at some level, have needs and aims of their own may ground a kind of ‘nano-intentionality’ that provides a basis for human cognition.
The implications are large; if this is right then surely, computation alone cannot give rise to consciousness! "
smcder
Paranormal Adept
Is this where you claim to show Dennett is a panpsychist?
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
Good question me it's something I've been wanting to get to.
One of the conceptual challenges with the notion of CR is discontinuity vs continuity.
How can consciousness be fundamental if it goes away when I sleep, die, or under go anesthesia?
The answer is that the mind goes away (dissipates), not consciousness.
But if consciousness/feeling is fundamental shouldn't I always feel like something, even in those circumstances above where "I" refers to my body.
The answer is that you (your body) may always feel like something but that you (your mind) may not always remember it later.
This is essentially the difference between mind and consciousness.
This relates to he unconscious as well. And other questions I've asked. Why are some processes of our body correlated with our stream of consciousness (mind) at any given moment while others are not.
My answer is that while consciousness as a substrate is continuous and fundamental, minds (streams of consciousness) are discontinuous, emergent, and temporal.
Right. Everything is a process in being. Including minds.
The distinction I'm trying to make is between mind independent processes and mind dependent processes.
It doesn't "explain" them. It approaches them in the same manner as main stream science. We make discovers via experimentation and observation. However as above we must discern between mind independent and mind dependent processes. I feel we are in the infancy of doing this.
smcder
Paranormal Adept
"My approach to CR is more like Strawson panpsychism in that I think being/consciousness has properties that allow it to interact and evolve."
Is that a particular feature of Strawson's view?
A consistent vocabulary would help.
What is one example each of mind dependent/independent processes?
Can you make any kind of falsifiable claim? Can you tell me anything new? These are interesting ideas but I'm not sure they are coherent or have the potential to answer any questions ... I'd suggest writing up a formal paper and submit it for feedback as @Pharoah has admirably done.
Is that a particular feature of Strawson's view?
A consistent vocabulary would help.
What is one example each of mind dependent/independent processes?
Can you make any kind of falsifiable claim? Can you tell me anything new? These are interesting ideas but I'm not sure they are coherent or have the potential to answer any questions ... I'd suggest writing up a formal paper and submit it for feedback as @Pharoah has admirably done.
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
Yes, I will try to write something up.
Honestly, I'm in the camp that says we can't yet distinquish between mind-dep and mind-in processes. I do believe there is a mind-in reality external to my stream of consciousness. I do believe there are others minds and a real, palpable world.
But I have bought into the notion that our perceptions of reality are an entirely human perspective. A la if horses had gods that would look like horses. I do believe we have evolved over billions of years. We and world in which we exist is infinitely (?) complex.
As I've noted it would be helpful to us as a species to have another intelligent species to "prune our bush" as Pederson put it.
When an American travels to another country we realize differences that we didn't know existed. If we interfaces with an alien species would they help reveal our billions of years evolved human way of knowing the world?
I don't think I can come up with a falsifiable claim per se, but maybe there is a thought experiment like chalmers conceivavility argument that could help people grok (not agree with per se) this approach.
Honestly, I'm in the camp that says we can't yet distinquish between mind-dep and mind-in processes. I do believe there is a mind-in reality external to my stream of consciousness. I do believe there are others minds and a real, palpable world.
But I have bought into the notion that our perceptions of reality are an entirely human perspective. A la if horses had gods that would look like horses. I do believe we have evolved over billions of years. We and world in which we exist is infinitely (?) complex.
As I've noted it would be helpful to us as a species to have another intelligent species to "prune our bush" as Pederson put it.
When an American travels to another country we realize differences that we didn't know existed. If we interfaces with an alien species would they help reveal our billions of years evolved human way of knowing the world?
I don't think I can come up with a falsifiable claim per se, but maybe there is a thought experiment like chalmers conceivavility argument that could help people grok (not agree with per se) this approach.
smcder
Paranormal Adept
smcder
Paranormal Adept
There's just no short-cut or substitute. I'll pull out my copy of Being and Time tonight.
So is there yet a text or texts in which Hoffman faces up to these "non-trivial challenges"?
Not a 'fact' then. A mere speculation; a hypothesis. Has anyone suggested to Dennett that he read Panksepp concerning the "needs and aims" evident in primordial organisms before the later evolution/development of neurons? Let's send Dennett the Panksepp paper I linked and ask him to reply to it.
Here are the concluding paragraphs of Panksepp's paper on "The Periconscious Substrates of Consciousness":
"Conclusions and Implications
The recognition of an embodied affective SELF, and its many moods, as a key actor rather than an observer, within the ‘Cartesian Theater’, may help us cultivate a more satisfactory understanding of both emotional feelings and the primal nature of the self. The SELF is fundamentally a primal sensory-motor mechanism with intrinsic resting rhythms and many emotional and integrative reafferent interlinkages that can intrinsically inundate the brain with differential psychobiological values. It has abundant somatic-perceptual and visceral-affective inputs, and working in conjunction with ERTAS architectures, it can establish certain transient as well as sustained states of being within the many neuronal workspaces of the mind. I would suggest that these states of being constitute the basic feelings (the various emotions and motivations), and we could even fantasize how the nature of the higher qualia (e.g. colours and the qualities of sound) might be closely linked to certain types of affective resonances: Harmonious or disharmonious neuro-emotional states of being might be established in the ontogenetically extended neural trajectories of the SELF. I would suggest that the emotional power of music may arise from the ability of sound to establish various resonances with the extended neural infrastructure of the SELF, yielding such magnificient bodily effects as chills (Panksepp, 1995). These possibilities can be constructed into concrete empirical predictions. The recognition that such processes may be central components of human development (Panksepp, 1999a) may also encourage us to consider undertaking positive forms of social engineering (e.g. emotional and motor education) that have so far been left to chance within our educational system (Goleman, 1995; Panksepp, 1999b).
The present view also highlights a potential dilemma for modern neuroscience, which has largely eschewed the existence of internal affective states that might control behaviour: If such processes actually exist in the brain, the neuroscientific enterprise will be critically flawed unless it takes them into consideration in its studies of various integrative brain functions.
Also, if affects are at the core of neural organization, they would obviously have to be strongly linked to genetic mechanisms. Affect, as a genetically coded property of the brain, is not widely discussed, but in evolutionary terms, one could argue that it is a special language of the genes (an idea developed by Buck & Ginsburg, 1997). Such processes could allow animals to communicate effectively in rather subtle ways, and could help explain the likelihood that genes are not simply selfish, but also capable of generating intrinsic psychological dynamics that can promote various pro-social activities enhancing genetic selection at the group, as opposed to individual, level (Sober & Wilson, 1998). Again, I would here resurrect the voice of Nietzsche (see previous quote, p. 573) that affects constitute the core of being for many of our higher faculties.
Finally I note that the neuropsychic properties that distinguish us from zombies, as the term is used in current philosophical parlance, may be these deeply felt emotional and motivational values that are closely related to our bodily survival as well as the survival of our kin (a concept that could be extended, in our rich imaginations, to many other species). For those interested in simulating mind and feelings through computational approaches, the lesson may be that at the heart of such a futuristic beast we should find a virtual body that can intrinsically reverberate, in certain presently unknown ways, with a host of deeply experienced emotional values (Picard, 1997).
Another aspect of this view is the fundamental similarly of the SELF across mammalian species, and no doubt, some other animals. This may help explain why we can resonate emotionally so well with many other creatures — we share a host of basic affective values, from rage to affection, through evolutionarily shared equalia. However, since the instantiation of equalia may require the existence of a virtual body image within the brain, constructed of living neurodynamics, the continuity of individual SELVES through space and time, after death, seems improbable. However, if there is a core similarity (i.e., a cladistic homology) of the SELF across all mammals, the shared emotional attributes offer us a variety of special resonances that can be tapped and cultivated across individuals, species and societies through affectively rich artistic, intellectual and other cultural practices. The rest of the activity of such a SELF system, broadcast gently through the resting brain, may constitute the still point of consciousness — the inner light of the soul — that is so widely recognized in many meditative and religious traditions as the central aspect of our lives."
"Conclusions and Implications
The recognition of an embodied affective SELF, and its many moods, as a key actor rather than an observer, within the ‘Cartesian Theater’, may help us cultivate a more satisfactory understanding of both emotional feelings and the primal nature of the self. The SELF is fundamentally a primal sensory-motor mechanism with intrinsic resting rhythms and many emotional and integrative reafferent interlinkages that can intrinsically inundate the brain with differential psychobiological values. It has abundant somatic-perceptual and visceral-affective inputs, and working in conjunction with ERTAS architectures, it can establish certain transient as well as sustained states of being within the many neuronal workspaces of the mind. I would suggest that these states of being constitute the basic feelings (the various emotions and motivations), and we could even fantasize how the nature of the higher qualia (e.g. colours and the qualities of sound) might be closely linked to certain types of affective resonances: Harmonious or disharmonious neuro-emotional states of being might be established in the ontogenetically extended neural trajectories of the SELF. I would suggest that the emotional power of music may arise from the ability of sound to establish various resonances with the extended neural infrastructure of the SELF, yielding such magnificient bodily effects as chills (Panksepp, 1995). These possibilities can be constructed into concrete empirical predictions. The recognition that such processes may be central components of human development (Panksepp, 1999a) may also encourage us to consider undertaking positive forms of social engineering (e.g. emotional and motor education) that have so far been left to chance within our educational system (Goleman, 1995; Panksepp, 1999b).
The present view also highlights a potential dilemma for modern neuroscience, which has largely eschewed the existence of internal affective states that might control behaviour: If such processes actually exist in the brain, the neuroscientific enterprise will be critically flawed unless it takes them into consideration in its studies of various integrative brain functions.
Also, if affects are at the core of neural organization, they would obviously have to be strongly linked to genetic mechanisms. Affect, as a genetically coded property of the brain, is not widely discussed, but in evolutionary terms, one could argue that it is a special language of the genes (an idea developed by Buck & Ginsburg, 1997). Such processes could allow animals to communicate effectively in rather subtle ways, and could help explain the likelihood that genes are not simply selfish, but also capable of generating intrinsic psychological dynamics that can promote various pro-social activities enhancing genetic selection at the group, as opposed to individual, level (Sober & Wilson, 1998). Again, I would here resurrect the voice of Nietzsche (see previous quote, p. 573) that affects constitute the core of being for many of our higher faculties.
Finally I note that the neuropsychic properties that distinguish us from zombies, as the term is used in current philosophical parlance, may be these deeply felt emotional and motivational values that are closely related to our bodily survival as well as the survival of our kin (a concept that could be extended, in our rich imaginations, to many other species). For those interested in simulating mind and feelings through computational approaches, the lesson may be that at the heart of such a futuristic beast we should find a virtual body that can intrinsically reverberate, in certain presently unknown ways, with a host of deeply experienced emotional values (Picard, 1997).
Another aspect of this view is the fundamental similarly of the SELF across mammalian species, and no doubt, some other animals. This may help explain why we can resonate emotionally so well with many other creatures — we share a host of basic affective values, from rage to affection, through evolutionarily shared equalia. However, since the instantiation of equalia may require the existence of a virtual body image within the brain, constructed of living neurodynamics, the continuity of individual SELVES through space and time, after death, seems improbable. However, if there is a core similarity (i.e., a cladistic homology) of the SELF across all mammals, the shared emotional attributes offer us a variety of special resonances that can be tapped and cultivated across individuals, species and societies through affectively rich artistic, intellectual and other cultural practices. The rest of the activity of such a SELF system, broadcast gently through the resting brain, may constitute the still point of consciousness — the inner light of the soul — that is so widely recognized in many meditative and religious traditions as the central aspect of our lives."
I think the widely recommended Polt guide to Being and Time would probably he very useful to have at your side. I might get a copy of that myself since he writes so well and so clearly. If you like, I could mail you my copy of E.F. Kaelin's Being and Time: A Reading for Readers, currently out of print. I'll be glad to do so; just let me know.
A more recent paper by Panksepp on affectivity as the germinal core of the evolution of consciousness. . .
Affective consciousness: Core emotional feelings in animals and humans
Jaak Panksepp, Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403, USA
Falk Center for Molecular Therapeutics, Department of Biomedical Engineering, McCormick School of Engineerings, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA
Abstract: The position advanced in this paper is that the bedrock of emotional feelings is contained within the evolved emotional action apparatus of mammalian brains. This dual-aspect monism approach to brain–mind functions, which asserts that emotional feelings may reflect the neurodynamics of brain systems that generate instinctual emotional behaviors, saves us from various conceptual conundrums. In coarse form, primary process affective consciousness seems to be fundamentally an unconditional ‘‘gift of nature’’ rather than an acquired skill, even though those systems facilitate skill acquisition via various felt reinforcements. Affective consciousness, being a comparatively intrinsic function of the brain, shared homologously by all mammalian species, should be the easiest variant of consciousness to study in animals. This is not to deny that some secondary processes (e.g., awareness of feelings in the generation of behavioral choices) cannot be evaluated in animals with sufficiently clever behavioral learning procedures, as with place-preference procedures and the analysis of changes in learned behaviors after one has induced re-valuation of incentives. Rather, the claim is that a direct neuroscientific study of primary process emotional/affective states is best achieved through the study of the intrinsic (‘‘instinctual’’), albeit experientially refined, emotional action tendencies of other animals. In this view, core emotional feelings may reflect the neurodynamic attractor landscapes of a variety of extended trans-diencephalic, limbic emotional action systems—including SEEKING, FEAR, RAGE, LUST, CARE, PANIC, and PLAY. Through a study of these brain systems, the neural infrastructure of human and animal affective consciousness may be revealed. Emotional feelings are instantiated in large-scale neurodynamics that can be most effectively monitored via the ethological analysis of emotional action tendencies and the accompanying brain neurochemical/electrical changes. The intrinsic coherence of such emotional responses is demonstrated by the fact that they can be provoked by electrical and chemical stimulation of specific brain zones—effects that are affectively laden. For substantive progress in this emerging research arena, animal brain researchers need to discuss affective brain functions more openly. Secondary awareness processes, because of their more conditional, contextually situated nature, are more difficult to understand in any neuroscientific detail. In other words, the information-processing brain functions, critical for cognitive consciousness, are harder to study in other animals than the more homologous emotional/motivational affective state functions of the brain.
Keywords: Emotions; Affect; Consciousness; Animals; Brain; Seeking; Fear; Anger; Panic; Sadness; Play; Care
1. Toward a science of animal consciousness
Do other animals have internal experiences? Probably, but there are no mindscopes to evaluate the existence of consciousness in either animals or humans. If we are going to entertain the existence of experiential states (i.e., consciousness) in other animals, we must be willing to work at a theoretical level where arguments are adjudicated by the weight of evidence rather than definitive proof. Such approaches are easier to apply for certain aspects of animal consciousness than for others. My focus here will be on primary-process affective consciousness, many aspects of which may be homologous in humans and other animals. I will proceed from the premise that progress in achieving a deeply scientific human psychology lies in our ability to specify which neuropsychological tendencies evolution constructed within the genetically dictated brain organization and psychobehavioral potentials of the intrinsic neurodynamics of ancestral species (Panksepp & Panksepp, 2000). A detailed neuroscientific understanding of basic human emotions may depend critically on understanding comparable animal emotions.1 As I have noted many times ‘‘As long as psychology and neuroscience remain more preoccupied with the human brain's impressive cortico-cognitive systems than subcortical affective ones, our understanding of the sources of human consciousness will remain woefully incomplete’’ (Panksepp, 2004a, p. 58).
I will advance the case that one widely neglected form of animal/human consciousness—one that creates internally experienced emotional feeling states—is now sufficiently well understood to permit an affirmative answer to my opening question. Other mammals do have affective experiences. Such states may be a common denominator for a detailed cross-species analysis of relevant brain functions because scientific variants of anthropomorphism can guide the study of integrative mind–brain functions in other animals. I will explore the possibility that basic emotional feelings—a primary process type of phenomenology—may be grounded on instinctual action systems that promote unconditional emotional behaviors. Although such ‘‘ancestral voices of the genes’’ (Buck, 1999, p. 324) undergo a great deal of elaboration epigenetically, the fundamental similarity of core affective processes across mammalian species may permit neuroethological work on animal-models to reveal the bedrock of human consciousness. My own work proceeds from a Spinozan-type dual-aspect monism premise—namely that primary-process affective consciousness emerges from large-scale neurodynamics of a variety of emotional systems that coordinate instinctual emotional actions (Panksepp, 2001a, 2001b, 2004b).
Before proceeding, let me provide a few terminological clarifications. I use the term emotion as the ‘‘umbrella’’ concept that includes affective, cognitive, behavioral, expressive, and a host of physiological changes. Affect is the subjective experiential-feeling component that is very hard to describe verbally, but there are a variety of distinct affects, some linked more critically to bodily events (homeostatic drives like hunger and thirst), others to external stimuli (taste, touch, etc). Emotional affects are closely linked to internal brain action states, triggered typically by environmental events. All are complex intrinsic functions of the brain, which are triggered by perceptions and become experientially refined. Psychologists have traditionally conceptualized such ‘‘spooky’’ mental issues in terms of valence (various feelings of goodness and badness—positive and negative affects), arousal (how intense are the feelings), and surgency or power (how much does a certain feeling fill one's mental life). There are a large number of such affective states of consciousness, presumably reflecting different types of global neurodynamics within the brain and body. Even though there is currently no agreed upon taxonomy of affective states (Ostow, 2004; Panksepp & Pincus, 2004), in this essay I will largely focus on the emotional, action-oriented affects, as opposed to sensory pleasures and displeasures, and the various background bodily feelings of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. I will continue to advance the view that specific emotional affects largely reflect the operations of distinct emotional operating systems that are concentrated in sub-neocortical, limbic regions of the brain (MacLean, 1990; Panksepp, 1998a).
For present purposes, the term consciousness refers to brain states that have an experiential feel to them, and it is envisioned as a multi-tiered process that needs to be viewed in evolutionary terms, with multiple layers of emergence. Primary-process consciousness may reflect raw sensory/perceptual feelings and the types of internal emotional/motivational experiences just discussed. Secondary-consciousness may reflect the capacity to have thoughts about experiences, especially about how external events relate to internal events. Although animals surely do not think about their lives linguistically, they may think in terms of perceptual images. Finally, there are tertiary forms of consciousness—thoughts about thoughts, awareness of awareness—much of which is unique to humans and requires expansive neocortical tissues that permit linguistic–symbolic transformation of simple thoughts and remembered experiences.
Those who are not willing to give animals any consciousness are probably thinking about the tertiary human-typical linguistic variants. They may also be generalizing too readily from human perceptual consciousness, which is clearly dependent on neocortical functions, to an affective consciousness whose locus of control is largely sub-neocortical (Liotti & Panksepp, 2004). There are reasons to believe that affective experience may reflect a most primitive form of consciousness (Panksepp, 2000b, 2004b), which may have provided an evolutionary platform for the emergence of more complex layers of consciousness. . . . ."
https://www.researchgate.net/profil...and_Humans/links/02bfe51007e33614fe000000.pdf
Affective consciousness: Core emotional feelings in animals and humans
Jaak Panksepp, Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403, USA
Falk Center for Molecular Therapeutics, Department of Biomedical Engineering, McCormick School of Engineerings, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA
Abstract: The position advanced in this paper is that the bedrock of emotional feelings is contained within the evolved emotional action apparatus of mammalian brains. This dual-aspect monism approach to brain–mind functions, which asserts that emotional feelings may reflect the neurodynamics of brain systems that generate instinctual emotional behaviors, saves us from various conceptual conundrums. In coarse form, primary process affective consciousness seems to be fundamentally an unconditional ‘‘gift of nature’’ rather than an acquired skill, even though those systems facilitate skill acquisition via various felt reinforcements. Affective consciousness, being a comparatively intrinsic function of the brain, shared homologously by all mammalian species, should be the easiest variant of consciousness to study in animals. This is not to deny that some secondary processes (e.g., awareness of feelings in the generation of behavioral choices) cannot be evaluated in animals with sufficiently clever behavioral learning procedures, as with place-preference procedures and the analysis of changes in learned behaviors after one has induced re-valuation of incentives. Rather, the claim is that a direct neuroscientific study of primary process emotional/affective states is best achieved through the study of the intrinsic (‘‘instinctual’’), albeit experientially refined, emotional action tendencies of other animals. In this view, core emotional feelings may reflect the neurodynamic attractor landscapes of a variety of extended trans-diencephalic, limbic emotional action systems—including SEEKING, FEAR, RAGE, LUST, CARE, PANIC, and PLAY. Through a study of these brain systems, the neural infrastructure of human and animal affective consciousness may be revealed. Emotional feelings are instantiated in large-scale neurodynamics that can be most effectively monitored via the ethological analysis of emotional action tendencies and the accompanying brain neurochemical/electrical changes. The intrinsic coherence of such emotional responses is demonstrated by the fact that they can be provoked by electrical and chemical stimulation of specific brain zones—effects that are affectively laden. For substantive progress in this emerging research arena, animal brain researchers need to discuss affective brain functions more openly. Secondary awareness processes, because of their more conditional, contextually situated nature, are more difficult to understand in any neuroscientific detail. In other words, the information-processing brain functions, critical for cognitive consciousness, are harder to study in other animals than the more homologous emotional/motivational affective state functions of the brain.
Keywords: Emotions; Affect; Consciousness; Animals; Brain; Seeking; Fear; Anger; Panic; Sadness; Play; Care
1. Toward a science of animal consciousness
Do other animals have internal experiences? Probably, but there are no mindscopes to evaluate the existence of consciousness in either animals or humans. If we are going to entertain the existence of experiential states (i.e., consciousness) in other animals, we must be willing to work at a theoretical level where arguments are adjudicated by the weight of evidence rather than definitive proof. Such approaches are easier to apply for certain aspects of animal consciousness than for others. My focus here will be on primary-process affective consciousness, many aspects of which may be homologous in humans and other animals. I will proceed from the premise that progress in achieving a deeply scientific human psychology lies in our ability to specify which neuropsychological tendencies evolution constructed within the genetically dictated brain organization and psychobehavioral potentials of the intrinsic neurodynamics of ancestral species (Panksepp & Panksepp, 2000). A detailed neuroscientific understanding of basic human emotions may depend critically on understanding comparable animal emotions.1 As I have noted many times ‘‘As long as psychology and neuroscience remain more preoccupied with the human brain's impressive cortico-cognitive systems than subcortical affective ones, our understanding of the sources of human consciousness will remain woefully incomplete’’ (Panksepp, 2004a, p. 58).
I will advance the case that one widely neglected form of animal/human consciousness—one that creates internally experienced emotional feeling states—is now sufficiently well understood to permit an affirmative answer to my opening question. Other mammals do have affective experiences. Such states may be a common denominator for a detailed cross-species analysis of relevant brain functions because scientific variants of anthropomorphism can guide the study of integrative mind–brain functions in other animals. I will explore the possibility that basic emotional feelings—a primary process type of phenomenology—may be grounded on instinctual action systems that promote unconditional emotional behaviors. Although such ‘‘ancestral voices of the genes’’ (Buck, 1999, p. 324) undergo a great deal of elaboration epigenetically, the fundamental similarity of core affective processes across mammalian species may permit neuroethological work on animal-models to reveal the bedrock of human consciousness. My own work proceeds from a Spinozan-type dual-aspect monism premise—namely that primary-process affective consciousness emerges from large-scale neurodynamics of a variety of emotional systems that coordinate instinctual emotional actions (Panksepp, 2001a, 2001b, 2004b).
Before proceeding, let me provide a few terminological clarifications. I use the term emotion as the ‘‘umbrella’’ concept that includes affective, cognitive, behavioral, expressive, and a host of physiological changes. Affect is the subjective experiential-feeling component that is very hard to describe verbally, but there are a variety of distinct affects, some linked more critically to bodily events (homeostatic drives like hunger and thirst), others to external stimuli (taste, touch, etc). Emotional affects are closely linked to internal brain action states, triggered typically by environmental events. All are complex intrinsic functions of the brain, which are triggered by perceptions and become experientially refined. Psychologists have traditionally conceptualized such ‘‘spooky’’ mental issues in terms of valence (various feelings of goodness and badness—positive and negative affects), arousal (how intense are the feelings), and surgency or power (how much does a certain feeling fill one's mental life). There are a large number of such affective states of consciousness, presumably reflecting different types of global neurodynamics within the brain and body. Even though there is currently no agreed upon taxonomy of affective states (Ostow, 2004; Panksepp & Pincus, 2004), in this essay I will largely focus on the emotional, action-oriented affects, as opposed to sensory pleasures and displeasures, and the various background bodily feelings of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. I will continue to advance the view that specific emotional affects largely reflect the operations of distinct emotional operating systems that are concentrated in sub-neocortical, limbic regions of the brain (MacLean, 1990; Panksepp, 1998a).
For present purposes, the term consciousness refers to brain states that have an experiential feel to them, and it is envisioned as a multi-tiered process that needs to be viewed in evolutionary terms, with multiple layers of emergence. Primary-process consciousness may reflect raw sensory/perceptual feelings and the types of internal emotional/motivational experiences just discussed. Secondary-consciousness may reflect the capacity to have thoughts about experiences, especially about how external events relate to internal events. Although animals surely do not think about their lives linguistically, they may think in terms of perceptual images. Finally, there are tertiary forms of consciousness—thoughts about thoughts, awareness of awareness—much of which is unique to humans and requires expansive neocortical tissues that permit linguistic–symbolic transformation of simple thoughts and remembered experiences.
Those who are not willing to give animals any consciousness are probably thinking about the tertiary human-typical linguistic variants. They may also be generalizing too readily from human perceptual consciousness, which is clearly dependent on neocortical functions, to an affective consciousness whose locus of control is largely sub-neocortical (Liotti & Panksepp, 2004). There are reasons to believe that affective experience may reflect a most primitive form of consciousness (Panksepp, 2000b, 2004b), which may have provided an evolutionary platform for the emergence of more complex layers of consciousness. . . . ."
https://www.researchgate.net/profil...and_Humans/links/02bfe51007e33614fe000000.pdf
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This paper also sounds relevant and interesting:
Affective states and indian asthetics
Niels Hammer
Mind and Matter 6 (2):147-177 (2008)
The self evolved out of a sense of somatic motor orientation and body boundary awareness; and affective states as motivators furthered in conjunction with a sense of self evolutionary speciation. Affective states form to a greater extent than cognition the sense of experiential reality that is taken for granted. Neurophysiological and experiential culture-invariant evidence indicate the existence of eight (and possibly ten) basic affective states in mammals. These affective states have in humans found expression in mythic terms as well as in the basic themes of world literature. According to classical Indian introspective analysis of aesthetics the basic emotions determine human activity and are the well- spring of literature and art, especially if the emotions become dissociated from a sense of egocentricity, i.e. if they become detached from a sense of self so that they no longer are influenced by existential fear. The comparatively close similarity between Indian aesthetics and the neurophysiology of the different affective states suggests the possibility that such aesthetic value judgments may be based on widespread evolutionary determinants.
Affective states and indian asthetics
Niels Hammer
Mind and Matter 6 (2):147-177 (2008)
The self evolved out of a sense of somatic motor orientation and body boundary awareness; and affective states as motivators furthered in conjunction with a sense of self evolutionary speciation. Affective states form to a greater extent than cognition the sense of experiential reality that is taken for granted. Neurophysiological and experiential culture-invariant evidence indicate the existence of eight (and possibly ten) basic affective states in mammals. These affective states have in humans found expression in mythic terms as well as in the basic themes of world literature. According to classical Indian introspective analysis of aesthetics the basic emotions determine human activity and are the well- spring of literature and art, especially if the emotions become dissociated from a sense of egocentricity, i.e. if they become detached from a sense of self so that they no longer are influenced by existential fear. The comparatively close similarity between Indian aesthetics and the neurophysiology of the different affective states suggests the possibility that such aesthetic value judgments may be based on widespread evolutionary determinants.
This is also relevant to the discussion of affective consciousness and provides insight into self-environment interactions. The full paper is available at the second link, the first going to the philpapers abstract:
Scaffoldings of the affective mind
Giovanna Colombetti & Joel Krueger
Philosophical Psychology 28 (8):1157-1176 (2015)
Abstract: In this paper we adopt Sterelny's framework of the scaffolded mind, and his related dimensional approach, to highlight the many ways in which human affectivity is environmentally supported. After discussing the relationship between the scaffolded-mind view and related frameworks, such as the extended-mind view, we illustrate the many ways in which our affective states are environmentally supported by items of material culture, other people, and their interplay. To do so, we draw on empirical evidence from various disciplines, and develop phenomenological considerations to distinguish different ways in which we experience the world affectively.
Giovanna Colombetti & Joel Krueger, Scaffoldings of the affective mind - PhilPapers
Scaffoldings of the affective mind
Giovanna Colombetti & Joel Krueger
Philosophical Psychology 28 (8):1157-1176 (2015)
Abstract: In this paper we adopt Sterelny's framework of the scaffolded mind, and his related dimensional approach, to highlight the many ways in which human affectivity is environmentally supported. After discussing the relationship between the scaffolded-mind view and related frameworks, such as the extended-mind view, we illustrate the many ways in which our affective states are environmentally supported by items of material culture, other people, and their interplay. To do so, we draw on empirical evidence from various disciplines, and develop phenomenological considerations to distinguish different ways in which we experience the world affectively.
Giovanna Colombetti & Joel Krueger, Scaffoldings of the affective mind - PhilPapers
Hitting a jackpot of incisive papers today. This next one will be especially interesting to Steve, but it will help everyone reading this discussion to comprehend essential themes in the philosophies of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty as well as MP's critique of Sartre's concept of 'nothingness.'
Adam Loughnane, Merleau-Ponty and Nishida: "Interexpression" as Motor-Perceptual Faith (forthcoming: Philosophy East and West)
"Both Nishida Kitari and Maurice Merleau-Ponty wrote extensively about artistic expression in their early works, yet in the last period of their careers that consideration is put mostly aside as they engage more directly with abstract ontological concerns. As this happens, a curiously overlooked concept becomes prominent in their writings, namely “faith.” While Merleau-Ponty’s is a“perceptual faith” and Nishida’s is, broadly speaking, a religious faith, neither is strictly secular nor spiritual, yet both entail a remarkably similar ontology of the motor-perceptual body. Unfortunately, their lives ended before they could fully develop these philosophically problematic concepts. This is especially unfortunate because, as I argue, faith is one under-explored interpretive key that can help us understand not just the late period but also the entirety of their philosophic projects.
The present study therefore seeks to expand their notions of faith, not by imagining how it might have evolved had they further developed the concept, but by going back to their early writings, showing how their understanding of artistic expression actually prefigures their later concepts of faith. I argue that in their philosophies, the practice of artistic expression is a practice of faith—not faith in a transcendent being, scripture, or event, but faith as a motor-perceptual body woven into a motor-perceptual world. To explore this possibility within and between their writings, I frame their understandings of expression as “motor-perceptual faith,” which serves as a provisional device for placing the two in dialogue, for finding new conceptual continuities between their early and late writings, and for challenging strict boundaries between art, religion, and philosophy East and West. This discussion explores Nishida’s and Merleau-Ponty’s works in tandem and focuses on one of the most distinctive aspects of their understandings of expression and faith, which is how they go beyond a “positivist” account of the moving perceiving body. Since both philosophers construe motion and perception not as two separate actions but as one corporeal phenomenon, that event can be referred to as “motor-perception.”
What is unique about their models of motor perception—and what will constitute the heart of this analysis—is their inclusion of negation in their accounts of motion and perception. For both philosophers, to express oneself is to negate while being negated by the motor-perceptual world. In the first section I discuss negation on the perceptual level, followed by considering negation on the motor-perceptual level in the second section. This will provide the framework for seeing how negation factors into both philosophers’ accounts of artistic expression, and ultimately for construing expression as a practice of motor-perceptual faith.
Perceptual Negation: Multi-Perspectivalism
Many of our taken-for-granted ideas, as well as some of the most sophisticated philosophical and scientific frameworks for understanding perception, are positivist in orientation. They are positivist in that they do not consider negativity, absence, or invisibility as constitutive aspects of perception, and therefore ignore the ways the negative is bound up with and complexifies positivity, presence, and visibility. Confined by this assumption, the visible is thought to be constituted solely by what is present to perception, by sensory data that hits the visual apparatus. What is invisible, absent, or unseen is thought to be secondary, non-essential or non-visual, or is simply ignored. In such a framework, vision is understood to be strictly uni-perspectival, while memories, projections, or imaginings that impinge upon vision are related to but not considered part of the visible itself. Positivist assumptions tend to enforce a whole set of binaries, the most prominent being the distinction between the perceiving subject and perceived object. With this assumption as the starting point for theorizing about perception, one must then concoct an explanation for how these metaphysically discontinuous entities can encounter one another. Following from this basic dualism is a further set of binaries between mind and matter, proximity and distance, activity and passivity, vision and touch. Binaries such
as these impede a full understanding of perception because philosophies built thereupon remain confined by various conceptual instantiations of the identity-difference binary. Yet, neither identity nor difference can explain perception: if vision were absolutely different and discontinuous from what is seen, it would replace the object when it occurs. Conversely, if vision were completely continuous and identical with that which it sees, there would cease to be a relation between two things, and therefore no perception. As Nishida writes, “If seeing and the seen are merely one, there is no intuition.”
For perception to obtain, the perceiving subject must be partly identical to the perceived object, yet at the same time must have an aspect that remains distinct. Human perception is an event between identity and difference. The perceiving subject must be partly continuous with the seen object, while remaining partly discontinuous. Nishida’s term “continuity of discontinuity” (hirenzoku no renzoku 非連続の連続 ) points to this ambiguity, while in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy a similar ontological inclination is expressed as “chiasm”(chiasme) and “intertwining”(entrelacs).
Because the body is related to the world in a chiasmatic continuous discontinuity, it is possible to look at body-world relations and notice difference, while from another perspective seeing identity. Neither Nishida nor Merleau-Ponty seeks to reduce this ambiguity to monist or dualist metaphysics. Their philosophies and their accounts of artistic expression are premised on sustaining this ambiguity. Moving to the next section I will discuss how ambiguity is explained in their philosophies as a mutual form of negation, and how this points beyond positivism, beyond the representational model of perception, and beyond its uni-perspectival assumptions.
Mutual Self-Negation: Sartre’s Nullité Absolue and Nishida’s Zettai Hitei
To explain negation and how it relates to perception, we can begin with a very simple example of any everyday object that contains things. With a jug, for example, just as it has negative space to hold water or wine, likewise human perception requires negativity to allow perceptions to enter consciousness. If this were not the case, and visual data were transformed completely into the self when it reaches the eyes, there would be no perception. Something of the object must remain while that object is being perceived. What does remain is not of the self: it is non-self. Yet, insofar as an aspect of perceptual non-self is in the body of the self, it is a negation of the body. Perception is an event between self and non-self, between positivity and negativity.
To perceive, the self must be negated. To perceive is to be a perceptual non-self — yet not a complete non-self. Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of negation in The Visible and the Invisible (Le visible et l’invisible)(1964) centers primarily on a critique of Sartre’s notion of “absolute nothingness”(nullité absolue). Although Sartre seeks to counter the positivist framework for perception, he goes too far to the opposite extreme, understanding perception as requiring not a partial but a complete negation of the perceiving subject. For Merleau-Ponty, the unacceptable implication of absolute negation is that if the perceiving subject were pure nothingness, then the perceptual object would have to be absolute being and positivity. In his own words, “from the moment that I conceive of myself as negativity and the world as positivity, there is no longer any interaction.”
For Merleau-Ponty, Sartre’s absolute negation is another form of positivist philosophy disguised as a negativist philosophy. Contrarily, he asserts that if I perceive “then I am no longer the pure negative.” He continues:
“[T]o see is no longer simply to nihilate, the relation between what I see and I who see is not one of immediate or frontal contradiction; the things attract my look, my gaze caresses the things, it espouses their contours and their reliefs, between it and them we catch sight of a complicity. As for being, I can no longer define it as a hard core of positivity under the negative properties that would come to it from my vision.”
Just as a positive subject cannot encounter a positive object, on the other extreme, a fully negated subject cannot encounter a purely positive object. “The absolute positing of a single object,” Merleau-Ponty writes, would be “the death of consciousness.” Nishida speaks of the same “death”in his Fundamental Problems (Tetsugaku no konpon mondai)(1933) when he writes:
“Negation as self-negation, i.e. absolute negation, would be a self-death. The self would ultimately be nothing. There is no meaning to such an inclusion of absolute negation within the self. For in order for there to be the mutual determination of individuals, the external must be internal and the internal must be external.”
To avoid the inversion of positivism, the perceiving subject and the perceptual object must both be constituted by positivity and negativity. Translators Krummel and Nagatomo refer to Nishida’s idea of negation as “mutual negation.” The body is able to encounter the world not simply because the self negates while the world remains posited, but because of a two-way mutual negation. There is neither simple negation nor affirmation, but, as Krummel and Nagatomo argue, “each negates the other for the sake of self-affirmation.” It is only on this basis that bodies can encounter one another. What makes these various inter-determinations possible,” write Krummel and Nagatomo,“is mutual self-negation.”
This self-negation is mutual insofar as it obtains on both sides of the perceptual encounter. The decisive point for Nishida is that affirmation and negation are not mutually exclusive ontological principles. One of the most definitive aspects of Nishida’s late ontology is his principle of “affirmation of absolute negation” (zettai hitei no ktei 絶対否定の), which, like MerleauPonty’s refutation of Sartre’s absolute negation, clearly precludes a one-sided negation. One cannot affirm oneself counter to or in the absence of another or the world without at the same time being negated by the other and the world.
As Nishida’s translators allude, this structure of affirmation and negation is similar in Nishida’s and Merleau-Ponty’s terminology:
“We find that this dialectic [of self-negation] involves a chiasma of vertical and horizontal interrelations manifest in various types of relations such as individual-environment, person-person, subject-object, etc.”
Through mutual negation the absolute distinction between perceiving subject and perceived object is replaced by a partial non-subject and non-object. Thus, encounter is possible when, as Nishida writes,
“in expression, the objective is the subjective, or rather subjectivity can be seen in the very depth of the objective. t has the meaning of determining and negating the person.” And foreshadowing our later discussion, he claims that “this is especially so in aesthetic creation.”
Negation: From Non-Subject to Non-Object . . . . .”
Merleau-Ponty and Nishida: "Interexpression" as Motor-Perceptual Faith (Forthcoming: Philosophy East and West)
Adam Loughnane, Merleau-Ponty and Nishida: "Interexpression" as Motor-Perceptual Faith (forthcoming: Philosophy East and West)
"Both Nishida Kitari and Maurice Merleau-Ponty wrote extensively about artistic expression in their early works, yet in the last period of their careers that consideration is put mostly aside as they engage more directly with abstract ontological concerns. As this happens, a curiously overlooked concept becomes prominent in their writings, namely “faith.” While Merleau-Ponty’s is a“perceptual faith” and Nishida’s is, broadly speaking, a religious faith, neither is strictly secular nor spiritual, yet both entail a remarkably similar ontology of the motor-perceptual body. Unfortunately, their lives ended before they could fully develop these philosophically problematic concepts. This is especially unfortunate because, as I argue, faith is one under-explored interpretive key that can help us understand not just the late period but also the entirety of their philosophic projects.
The present study therefore seeks to expand their notions of faith, not by imagining how it might have evolved had they further developed the concept, but by going back to their early writings, showing how their understanding of artistic expression actually prefigures their later concepts of faith. I argue that in their philosophies, the practice of artistic expression is a practice of faith—not faith in a transcendent being, scripture, or event, but faith as a motor-perceptual body woven into a motor-perceptual world. To explore this possibility within and between their writings, I frame their understandings of expression as “motor-perceptual faith,” which serves as a provisional device for placing the two in dialogue, for finding new conceptual continuities between their early and late writings, and for challenging strict boundaries between art, religion, and philosophy East and West. This discussion explores Nishida’s and Merleau-Ponty’s works in tandem and focuses on one of the most distinctive aspects of their understandings of expression and faith, which is how they go beyond a “positivist” account of the moving perceiving body. Since both philosophers construe motion and perception not as two separate actions but as one corporeal phenomenon, that event can be referred to as “motor-perception.”
What is unique about their models of motor perception—and what will constitute the heart of this analysis—is their inclusion of negation in their accounts of motion and perception. For both philosophers, to express oneself is to negate while being negated by the motor-perceptual world. In the first section I discuss negation on the perceptual level, followed by considering negation on the motor-perceptual level in the second section. This will provide the framework for seeing how negation factors into both philosophers’ accounts of artistic expression, and ultimately for construing expression as a practice of motor-perceptual faith.
Perceptual Negation: Multi-Perspectivalism
Many of our taken-for-granted ideas, as well as some of the most sophisticated philosophical and scientific frameworks for understanding perception, are positivist in orientation. They are positivist in that they do not consider negativity, absence, or invisibility as constitutive aspects of perception, and therefore ignore the ways the negative is bound up with and complexifies positivity, presence, and visibility. Confined by this assumption, the visible is thought to be constituted solely by what is present to perception, by sensory data that hits the visual apparatus. What is invisible, absent, or unseen is thought to be secondary, non-essential or non-visual, or is simply ignored. In such a framework, vision is understood to be strictly uni-perspectival, while memories, projections, or imaginings that impinge upon vision are related to but not considered part of the visible itself. Positivist assumptions tend to enforce a whole set of binaries, the most prominent being the distinction between the perceiving subject and perceived object. With this assumption as the starting point for theorizing about perception, one must then concoct an explanation for how these metaphysically discontinuous entities can encounter one another. Following from this basic dualism is a further set of binaries between mind and matter, proximity and distance, activity and passivity, vision and touch. Binaries such
as these impede a full understanding of perception because philosophies built thereupon remain confined by various conceptual instantiations of the identity-difference binary. Yet, neither identity nor difference can explain perception: if vision were absolutely different and discontinuous from what is seen, it would replace the object when it occurs. Conversely, if vision were completely continuous and identical with that which it sees, there would cease to be a relation between two things, and therefore no perception. As Nishida writes, “If seeing and the seen are merely one, there is no intuition.”
For perception to obtain, the perceiving subject must be partly identical to the perceived object, yet at the same time must have an aspect that remains distinct. Human perception is an event between identity and difference. The perceiving subject must be partly continuous with the seen object, while remaining partly discontinuous. Nishida’s term “continuity of discontinuity” (hirenzoku no renzoku 非連続の連続 ) points to this ambiguity, while in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy a similar ontological inclination is expressed as “chiasm”(chiasme) and “intertwining”(entrelacs).
Because the body is related to the world in a chiasmatic continuous discontinuity, it is possible to look at body-world relations and notice difference, while from another perspective seeing identity. Neither Nishida nor Merleau-Ponty seeks to reduce this ambiguity to monist or dualist metaphysics. Their philosophies and their accounts of artistic expression are premised on sustaining this ambiguity. Moving to the next section I will discuss how ambiguity is explained in their philosophies as a mutual form of negation, and how this points beyond positivism, beyond the representational model of perception, and beyond its uni-perspectival assumptions.
Mutual Self-Negation: Sartre’s Nullité Absolue and Nishida’s Zettai Hitei
To explain negation and how it relates to perception, we can begin with a very simple example of any everyday object that contains things. With a jug, for example, just as it has negative space to hold water or wine, likewise human perception requires negativity to allow perceptions to enter consciousness. If this were not the case, and visual data were transformed completely into the self when it reaches the eyes, there would be no perception. Something of the object must remain while that object is being perceived. What does remain is not of the self: it is non-self. Yet, insofar as an aspect of perceptual non-self is in the body of the self, it is a negation of the body. Perception is an event between self and non-self, between positivity and negativity.
To perceive, the self must be negated. To perceive is to be a perceptual non-self — yet not a complete non-self. Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of negation in The Visible and the Invisible (Le visible et l’invisible)(1964) centers primarily on a critique of Sartre’s notion of “absolute nothingness”(nullité absolue). Although Sartre seeks to counter the positivist framework for perception, he goes too far to the opposite extreme, understanding perception as requiring not a partial but a complete negation of the perceiving subject. For Merleau-Ponty, the unacceptable implication of absolute negation is that if the perceiving subject were pure nothingness, then the perceptual object would have to be absolute being and positivity. In his own words, “from the moment that I conceive of myself as negativity and the world as positivity, there is no longer any interaction.”
For Merleau-Ponty, Sartre’s absolute negation is another form of positivist philosophy disguised as a negativist philosophy. Contrarily, he asserts that if I perceive “then I am no longer the pure negative.” He continues:
“[T]o see is no longer simply to nihilate, the relation between what I see and I who see is not one of immediate or frontal contradiction; the things attract my look, my gaze caresses the things, it espouses their contours and their reliefs, between it and them we catch sight of a complicity. As for being, I can no longer define it as a hard core of positivity under the negative properties that would come to it from my vision.”
Just as a positive subject cannot encounter a positive object, on the other extreme, a fully negated subject cannot encounter a purely positive object. “The absolute positing of a single object,” Merleau-Ponty writes, would be “the death of consciousness.” Nishida speaks of the same “death”in his Fundamental Problems (Tetsugaku no konpon mondai)(1933) when he writes:
“Negation as self-negation, i.e. absolute negation, would be a self-death. The self would ultimately be nothing. There is no meaning to such an inclusion of absolute negation within the self. For in order for there to be the mutual determination of individuals, the external must be internal and the internal must be external.”
To avoid the inversion of positivism, the perceiving subject and the perceptual object must both be constituted by positivity and negativity. Translators Krummel and Nagatomo refer to Nishida’s idea of negation as “mutual negation.” The body is able to encounter the world not simply because the self negates while the world remains posited, but because of a two-way mutual negation. There is neither simple negation nor affirmation, but, as Krummel and Nagatomo argue, “each negates the other for the sake of self-affirmation.” It is only on this basis that bodies can encounter one another. What makes these various inter-determinations possible,” write Krummel and Nagatomo,“is mutual self-negation.”
This self-negation is mutual insofar as it obtains on both sides of the perceptual encounter. The decisive point for Nishida is that affirmation and negation are not mutually exclusive ontological principles. One of the most definitive aspects of Nishida’s late ontology is his principle of “affirmation of absolute negation” (zettai hitei no ktei 絶対否定の), which, like MerleauPonty’s refutation of Sartre’s absolute negation, clearly precludes a one-sided negation. One cannot affirm oneself counter to or in the absence of another or the world without at the same time being negated by the other and the world.
As Nishida’s translators allude, this structure of affirmation and negation is similar in Nishida’s and Merleau-Ponty’s terminology:
“We find that this dialectic [of self-negation] involves a chiasma of vertical and horizontal interrelations manifest in various types of relations such as individual-environment, person-person, subject-object, etc.”
Through mutual negation the absolute distinction between perceiving subject and perceived object is replaced by a partial non-subject and non-object. Thus, encounter is possible when, as Nishida writes,
“in expression, the objective is the subjective, or rather subjectivity can be seen in the very depth of the objective. t has the meaning of determining and negating the person.” And foreshadowing our later discussion, he claims that “this is especially so in aesthetic creation.”
Negation: From Non-Subject to Non-Object . . . . .”
Merleau-Ponty and Nishida: "Interexpression" as Motor-Perceptual Faith (Forthcoming: Philosophy East and West)
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