<1>
ABSTRACT
Schouborg proposes an experience based methodology for the science of consciousness which is nevertheless ontologically founded, and suggests that here the scientist and the philosopher merge. His emphasis on the distinction between epistemology and ontology, in this context, presents some conceptual difficulties, which are discussed, in particular the possibility or otherwise of ontology. I also respond to his commentary on my article 'Is the Mind Real ?'(TA1).

KEY WORDS: Ontology, epistemology, consciousness, experience.


<2>
(A) RESUME OF SCHOUBORG'S ARTICLE

In his article, Schouborg proposes [1] that the science of consciousness (SOC) starts from the subject's own conscious experiencing but that 'the best hypothesis to explain the facts of subjective experience' is 'the assumption of an independently existing world'. This hypothesis prevents it from becoming solipsism. In SOC the scientist and philosopher merge by being reflectively aware of consciousness as such, with openness to both non-naturalistic as well as naturalistic claims, altered states of consciousness as well as ordinary ones. ' It is an empirical issue, not to be decided a priori by some empiricist commitment, whether such non-naturalistic claims and altered states actually exist and what their relevance is to understanding consciousness. '

<3>
[3] 'We must first distinguish between experience ... and our claims about it (knowledge), and [4] generalizations from there. ' The traditional formulation ... lends itself to the objectivist illusion that somehow we know things in a way that is unaffected by our experiencing it, things as they are 'already out there''. [5] 'Experience is therefore immediate ... [but] not some fundamental given about which we cannot be mistaken ... [it] is not an absolute term, but is correlative to 'experiencing'. It is also correlative to 'claim' insofar as it is that about which a claim is made.' [9] Claims 'go beyond my experience to assert some state of affairs distinct from the experience itself'. ... the 'hard' problem of consciousness is first ... epistemological (what justification there is for making 3rd person claims about 1st person experiencing), and secondly ontological (how conscious things - processes, events, agents, activities, functions, etc. - emerge from unconscious things).

<4>
[10ff] Naturalistic claims are about experience broadly, they go beyond experience but are constrained by it (not by an independently existing reality); the justification for this procedure is pragmatic only, it works; the claims are constrained ... 'ontologically by the causes of my experience'. - Non-naturalistic claims are found in moral and religious discourse; they are not claims about experience, and therefore cannot be directly criticized by any science that is about experience epistemologically, but it can study their ontology, for instance whether they are delusions, wishful thinking, etc., on the basis of facts, and of indices given by behavior. - Equivocal claims have unclear meaning, may be purely poetical; they are epistemologically more complex than the preceding ones (he gives as an example the idea of having dissolved into oneness with the universe) and their status depends on what the speaker meant.

<5>
[16] He then discusses the structure of consciousness (or phenomenology), as distinct from the content of consciousness, and proposes three 'invariants' within consciousness: [17-18] Attention, including reflective attention which focuses on itself in phenomenology - Conceptualization [19-20] as necessary for assertions; both of these can be unreflective or reflective - and [21] Reflection where 'I must be conscious of consciousness itself' or of my own thinking.

<6>
[22ff] A 'conceptual map' lists various branches of philosophy and science which deal with consciousness, and compose the Science of Consciousness. Phenomenology becomes more important when the discussion becomes more sophisticated. He emphasizes [23] that we are at point now where phenomenology and science become 'intimately entwined', for instance in quantum mechanics, social science, and biotechnology. The situation is more complex with non-naturalisic claims such as religious or mystic reports, which he claims [13,25] assert some sort of insight into reality but are not based on experience, while equivocal claims may refer to feelings.

<7>
[28ff] Altered states of consciousness such as dreaming may open ways to knowledge which is otherwise inaccessible (Tart wanted to include them in empirical sciences, but 'never entertained the possibility of ... knowledge not based on evidence of any kind'). This does not open the door to irrationalism; it is needed to examine reports of altered states of consciousness. 'My own bias is that there is nothing to be learned from [non-naturalistic] claims, that all knowledge is about experience of some sort. However, [Science of Consciousness]... cannot forclose this possibility at the outset. ... [a]nchored as it is in phenomenology ...'

<8>
[33ff] What sort of objectivity is required in Science of Consciousness ? Attention and conceptualization must be operative, reflection opens a house of mirrors, but 'personally ... I can only go to two levels; that is, I can only reflect on my reflection; after that, it is only words'. But there is no epistemological stopping point; also reflection 'only reduces the possibility of error, never eliminates it'. [36] It is an error to assume that objectivity requires non-belief and non-participation, because knowledge does not occur independently of knowing subjects. Descartes wanted a foundation free of all doubt, which is a mistake. We require only correctness 'sufficient to keep the system going'.

<9>
[37ff] The skills required to deal with consciousness prominently involve phenomenology, such as the difference between experience and knowledge, for instance a straight stick appearing bent in water. ' The problem here has been that there is no logical necessity that subjective impressions have to be caused by an objective reality. This competition has led to the impasse that [objectivity] is unable to explain adequately how we correct 'error ', while [subjectivity] is unable to explain adequately our ineradicable belief in an independently existing reality that acts as a constraint on our beliefs. [40] The resolution ... is a dialectical model ... [according to which] objectivity is not found in a reality outside the subjective, but in a self-correcting process within consciousness'. - '... an independently existing world is an ontological hypothesis to account for my subjective experiencing. Again, the final judge here is pragmatism, not formal logic. Rational inquiry cannot lift itself by its own bootstraps and ensure its success. [41] In sum, in [the objective model] 'subjective' is pejorative in that its role is simply to be lectured by objective reality; in [the subjective model], 'subjective' is fundamental, but at the expense of independently existing reality, in [the dialectical model] ... the final judge of truth is unavoidably subjective judgement ... [with] pragmatically rational inquiry. There are four ways of doing this ... [and] here the scientist and the philosopher become one.'

<10>
[43ff] Technology of consciousness: concentration as in meditation, mindfulness to the extent of concentrating on less and less, and even on nothing at all as in some mystic experiences ... 'However, this does not mean that mindfulness is a substitute for theory. [It] makes us aware ... of the womb from which all our consciousness arises ... [and provides a] ground for a particular religion, ethics, or ontology. ... [which must] compete with a naturalistic pragmatism ... mindfulness allows for whatever the task at hand may be; it does not perform the task itself.'

<11>
[49f] Wisdom is: 'acting appropriately to circumstances and one's own resources'


<12>
(B) MY COMMENTARY TO TA2

CONCERNING TERMS: Schouborg discusses several types of experience (n1 to n10) which to me are aspects or variations or differentiations of one 'experience'. His term 'claims' refers to what I have called 'beliefs', in particular 'knowledge' as a strong form of belief (conviction) that the mind-nature structures which one uses are reliable. One may perhaps say that claims are beliefs which are offered for public use (as 'knowledge'), and his exposition would benefit by a more explicit discussion of the relation between belief and knowledge, for instance in notes 2 and 3. His referring to the change from 'first person experience' to 'third person experience' concerns what happens in objective knowledge (what Nagel has called the View from Nowhere, and which I assume Schouborg will find as impossible as I do; some confirmation for this appears in [33]; but then, he needs to say how his term 'third-person science' differs from what Nagel describes.)His distinction between naturalistic and non-naturalistic claims, and equivocal ones, corresponds roughly to what is usually called objective versus subjective statements or beliefs.

<13>
That 'naturalistic' claims go beyond experience [11] is the old problem of transcendence. Such 'objective' beliefs concern fictitious complete metaphysical entities (see section D, Merleau-Ponty's opinion), which are formed starting from (and thus constrained by) and within (this is an important point because it gets away from independently existing reality as Schouborg points out [12]) mind-nature experience. From there he wants to argue ontologically - but this has to be done in an as-if fashion, otherwise we get stuck in the notion of real mind-independent onta.

<14>
This interpretation is in agreement with Schouborg's description as a problem [4] of the 'objectivist illusion that somehow we know things in a way that is unaffected by our way of experiencing it', and that [9] 'claims go beyond experience to assert some state of affairs distinct from the experience itself'; in other words, there is a pervasive and far reaching extrapolation from experience in daily life and including objective science. The objectivist claim to truth is based only on the practical success of these procedures: he states [40] that the foundation of objective procedures is pragmatism - as it had been for Engels' materialism - and [36] that we require only correctness 'sufficient to keep the system going'.

<15>
If pragmatism is in this way the foundation of the objectivist claim to truth, there needs to be a qualification of Schouborg's position as presented in his statement [1] that the assumption of a mind-independent world is the best hypothesis to explain the facts of subjective experience. The necessity of experiencing must be somehow reconciled with his wish for ontology. Not to do that in a paper on philosophic (or scientific) methodology leaves too much uncertainty about the author's position, which if judged from these statements alone could be mistaken for a fundamental (exclusively) objectivist one. A possibility would be to have 'hypothesis' become 'working hypothesis', and the 'facts' might be as-if or ad-hoc or working 'constructions'.

<16>
Schouborg is one of the participants in the recent debate of the philosophical psychology e-mail group in 'Dialogues' about 'totalizing' tendencies in various branches of knowledge (which seems to mean that some of them sometimes claim to cover all possible experiences, either by being able to cover all areas with their methods, or even - which is something quite different - by claiming to be the exclusive legitimate way of access). He warns against tendencies of 'reification' when going from one branch of enquiry to another, for instance from physiology to psychology, where terms such as 'ego' are sometimes endowed with a 'thingness' or substantive quality rather than being maintaintained as a conceptual 'principle' (it seems that is what he means by reification). On the other hand, he also asks for definition of the 'ontological status' of some concepts (in the discussion on 'totalizing').

<17>
The examples in the preceding two paragraphs attest, in my opinion, to a certain ambiguity in his opinion with respect to what 'reality' is. As I see it, 'ontology' is in itself an ambiguous undertaking: on the one hand it claims 'knowledge', that is, it deals with a mental activity, more exactly a strong belief in the reliability of some mental structures (which I think are formed ad-hoc and retained and believed in on the basis of their practical usefulness and in particular their reliability, as he also appears to accept [40]). On the other hand, ontology also usually purports to say something about a mind-independent reality, and this in an absolute fashion. In my opinion, the latter is not possible, and from Schouborg's article [4] it would appear that neither does he think so (he calls this type of assumption the 'objectivist illusion').

<18>
The dialectical model which Schouborg advocates [40] is described as a self-correcting process within consciousness. It thus differs from the dialectical materialism of Marx and Engels, which was assumed (even after a reform in the 1960s), to take place, mind-independently, in nature. In my opinion his proposal is, up to that point, compatible with a non-Cartesian view in which the mind-nature dichotomy is not fundamental but secondary. The dialectical process in this case amounts to: the assessment for functional adequacy of various reality formations within an originally undivided mind-nature experience. And the assumption of a mind-independent world, which works for much of experience, becomes a technical (ad-hoc and as-if) device or method. This also is compatible with Schouborg's general aim.

<19>
But what then does he mean by 'ontological status' ? The only reference to this question is in [9], where he writes ' The ontological hard problem of how conscious things (processes, events, agents, activities, functions, etc.,) emerge from unconscious things is a separate issue which this article will not address.' If this is his definition of ' ontological ' it differs from the usual meaning of the term, which refers to the 'nature of being' which is understood as mind-independent, and is not related to the question of degree of consciousness. This theoretical preoccupation, that real equals conscious, may be the reason why he makes the otherwise incomprehensible statement (<6> in C3 to TA1) that hallucinations are unconscious. Similarly difficult to understand is his point (TA2[13,25]) that 'non-naturalistic' claims (he gives delusions as an example) or 'altered states of consciousness' such as dreams [28] are not experience; this also appears to be an outcome of pre-judgement based on theory, specifically the notion that natural (objective) science is the norm. (In my opinion, objective science is one of the possible differentiations of thinking, not its foundation; TA1[14].)

<20>
There is no primary reason why the two meanings could not be joined, since conferring an ontological status of real to a mental structure also tends to mean that it becomes more conscious. But there is then a terminological question, since what the latter procedure means is probably better addressed by 'awareness', or by his term 'reification', or some other word, rather than 'ontological status'. At any rate, Schouborg would have to make clear how he can be an ontologist while he does not accept the 'objectivist illusion'. (More on ontology in part D below).


<21>
(C) SCHOUBORG'S COMMENTARY TO MY ARTICLE AND MY RESPONSE

I want to thank Schouborg for his commentary (C3) to my article ('Is the Mind Real ?', TA1). He agrees with my proposal of a root experience of an indefinable encompassing matrix, and also that objectivism cannot obtain objective knowledge by denying subjectivity. But he writes that I fail to notice that since consciousness exists, it can be studied objectively, and that I need 'to explain how we can achieve objective knowledge of subjective consciousness'.

<22>
The meaning of this request is not clear to me. Does he ask me to explain how we can convert a subject into an object ? Does he suggest that subjective experience 'exists' experience-independently ? He appears to imply that every experience (of something that is acknowledged to 'exist') can be objectified (although he claims, as discussed above, that delusions or dreams or religious experiences are not experience). But the complete subjective experience cannot be objectified because it has the unstructured nucleus as an essential component, and furthermore, the urge to objectify it is the reason of the persisting ('hard') epistemological problem concerning the mind-reality and mind-brain relations. That subjective experience is experienced does not imply that it exists mind-independently (as Schouborg would probably agree), because it arises within the unstructured center. Its center is not structured, which would be a precondition for objective (or any other) description or examination. 'Objectively' we can talk about the unstructured center itself in a negative sense only, describing the absence of structure, even though for some purposes, such as meditation, this ('it') may be a goal to achieve.

<23>
Phenomenological descriptions work on the basis of experience plus speech plus empathy, not of exclusive (that is, mind-independent, and closed) objectivism. What can be objectified (and quantified) are secondary features which form within the non-structured origin: behavior including facial expressions and words, or indicators (measures) of brain activity, etc., which also require someone's formed mental activity. The root experience itself, which is the most essential aspect - and at the center - of subjective experience, cannot be objectified because it is the active source (which always remains unstructured). The request for explanation of objective knowledge of subjective consciousness is therefore, it seems to me, self-contradictory. It also appears to contradict his own protest [4] against the 'objectivist illusion' that things already exist 'out there' (and thus are only thereafter 'represented' or 'explained'). However, in case I have misunderstood his position, I would appreciate clarification.

<24>
He writes <2> that I intend to contrast subjective experience and non-subjective reality. I do not. I state that the Cartesian division is erroneous, (TA1[54]) and that (as he also says) only our concepts are stable, and they are indeed the only closed, items, which serve as our skeleton of thinking (TA1[28,32,36]). Everything else ('reality') changes constantly; 'we survive by constructing temporary models of reality'. This I think agrees with my proposal that we have to form structures in mind-nature experience, with the difference that I do not say 'of reality', because that would be likely seen as a reference to a 'referent', namely to a mind-independent entity. The formations are what we believe in (to the extent that we do) as 'real', that is, as trustworthy.

<25>
In consequence of his opinion, he then wants <3> to 'distinguish between experience and the interpretation or explanation of it', which in my opinion is an error: it does not consider that we form reality inside our mind-nature experience, the 'interpretation' is identical with this formation, not something additional to experience. There may be several, and perhaps conflicting, formations (structurations, interpretations), and in this case one has to sort out which one works best, everything considered. An 'explanation' usually means the reduction of one type of reality-structure to another, rather than a process which is additional or secondary to experience. The firm ground which he asks for <3> can in my opinion only be a negative center (TA1[28-44]). Descartes' wish for a foundation free of all doubt (TA2[36]) can be satisfied in this negative way, but not with the help of a positive anchor.

<26>
He also wants <5-8> to see the so-called hard problem of experience as an ontological question, and not as an epistemological one. This is (for me) a somewhat mysterious distinction, which I discuss further in section (D) below. He writes that I have equivocated on 'mind', by which he means that mind can be understood as mind equal to consciousness (that is, in my terms, subjective experience) or else mind as mental activity which can be objectified in various ways. What I say is that the complete mind has to include this source which is unstructured and therefore not available for objectification. One can talk about mental formations, and about mental formations such as perceptions, memories, speech and other behavior, and about brain activity, in an objective sense (which is to say 'pragmatically', 'as-if they were mind-independent'), but this leaves out the unstructured origin and it is therefore inherently incomplete. This to me is not an equivocation, but a more complete statement of 'mind' than Schouborg offers.

<27>
Schouborg's argumentation here is self-contradictory. He says <6> that 'reality is given as consciousness independent', which is directly negated by his opinion in TA2[4] that mind-independence without an experiencing subject constitutes the objectivist illusion. He writes that if he calls his computer screen the seashore he is wrong: yes, because in that case he uses an inappropriate memorized formation which is incompatible with his present experience.

<28>
This impossibility to capture subjective experience objectively is the hard problem , which is entirely intractable in an objectivist ('mind-independent' in my terms) fashion, as Chalmers appears to concede recently. And thus I would maintain that a scientific study of consciousness (for instance of mental formations, of 'verbal' and other types of behavior, or of brain functions which indicate levels of consciousness and other aspects, or of the activity of 'chattering cells' in the visual cortex, etc.) cannot say anything about subjective experience as long as it is exclusively (or if you prefer, 'totalizingly') objectivist. I therefore disagree with Schouborg's point <8>. (This, by the way, highlights one aspect of 'totalization' of objectivity: that (a) one can do many things with the objective method does not imply that (b) it has exclusive rights to all procedures or beliefs).

<29>
In <10> Schouborg says that the matrix is of practical rather than theoretical help. I take this as a compliment, since we both agree that theories are justified by their practical success. The tabula rasa <11> 'is' only a static thinking aid, like all concepts, and as Schouborg states, the activity is the important thing.


<30>
(D) EPISTEMOLOGY VERSUS ONTOLOGY

In view of Schouborg's emphasis on the difference between epistemology and ontology, I will briefly discuss these terms. I must say that I am always somewhat baffled when someone (and particularly in a philosophical discussion group) talks about terms like 'ontology' (or metaphysics, or for that matter, God) as though these were the most well defined and easily accepted concepts. My opinion is the following: outside of fundamentalist views, 'is' is shorthand for 'I believe in the reliability of what I have constructed, or have accepted from others, as functioning structures (TA1[32]). This is a pragmatic definition, and does not need a mind-independent reality.

<31>
In the history of philosophy, ontology was understood as ' prima philosophia', that is metaphysics (Wolff), and later as as division of metaphysics (Kant). The attempt of Heidegger to build a 'fundamental ontology' is for me unconvincing; and in case he intended to arrive at a mind-independent 'being' it would appear to be incompatible with his phenomenologist starting point. So far as I know this attempt was not successful (please someone correct me if this is not so). Heidegger left 'the being' and 'the nothing' in a somewhat floating position, not specifying whether it was in the mind or outside (which is perhaps the best possible tactical decision in this situation).

<32>
Sartre went further and decided that 'objects' were etres-en-soi, independent of consciousness which he wrote was etre-pour-soi. And this he stated led to an 'unsurmountable dualism' of 'cogito' type. But then this can be surmounted (bridged) after all: by a 'synthetic liaison' which is nothing else than the pour-soi itself, in other words the subjective experience, where the pour-soi 'annihilates' the en-soi. Because of its 'self-detaching behavior', the subject acts like a hole in the middle of being (un trou au sein de l'etre; this almost sounds like a black hole), which in turn causes an upheaval (bouleversement) for the en-soi: and this upheaval is the world. One may ask whether such a complicated - and I think somewhat obscure - explanation is helpful (but this I think is an example of what happens when one tries to justify 'ontology').

<33>
Merleau-Ponty also understood objects as mind-independent, but he pointed out that there is a 'contradiction': one can infinitely increase one's knowledge of an object, such as a stone, but this getting more and more acquainted can never possibly become complete - and on the other hand the belief in an object and in the world in general can only mean the assumption that the knowledge is complete. This means an important qualification as compared to Sartre.

<34>
Jaspers was more straightforward: he discussed the ontology of philosophers like Kant and Hegel, and then concluded: ontology has become impossible for us. We can no longer be naive enough for such attempts, we have to destroy the traditional ontological edifices, in order to be free to form our own 'ciphers' which are ambiguous by nature (This would probably correspond to Schouborg's 'equivocal claims'). So far as I can determine, neither Sartre nor Merleau-Ponty referred to Jaspers' (who wrote earlier) opinion on ontology, and Heidegger may not often have listened to other philosophers. (And besides, Jaspers was not an elegant writer.) My vote on ontology, at any rate, goes to Jaspers.

<35>
Judging from my own position, as described above (which I think is simpler than for instance that of Sartre) I would say that the concepts of 'the being' (to on) or its absence ('the nothing') are of doubtful help in the task of discussing things like reality, and that they should better not be used if one wants to avoid difficulties - and I say this being aware of the great prestige which has at times been invested in these concepts (both Heidegger and Sartre were convinced of their central importance). The same goes for 'ontology' in general: we make up mental structures as we go along, and as we need them; they are not necessarily always 'illusions' or even 'ciphers', but they are clearly always formed and used as tools. Instead of ontology which claims to say something about an ungraspable (usually outside) reality we need to discuss working metaphysics (TA1[28]).

<36>
Secondly, 'epistemology' can be used to describe our use of working tools; that is: provided it is understood that what we 'stand on top of ' are our mind-reality formations, not things outside.

<37>
I would like to invite Gary Schouborg to elaborate on his concepts of ontology and epistemology in the light of this discussion. As far as the 'hard problem' is concerned, I maintain that it is a side-effect of attempts to objectify (or 'ontologize') subjective experience.

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REFERENCES

Heidegger, M (1926-53), Sein und Zeit. Tubingen: Max Niemeyer. S.2-15.

Jaspers, K (1932-72), Philosophie. Berlin: Springer. Band III. S.157-164

Merleau-Ponty, M (1945), Phenomenologie de la perception. Paris: Gallimard. p.381.

Sartre, J-P (1943), L'etre et le neant. Paris: Gallimard. p.681.

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[Herbert FJ Muller is psychiatrist and
electroencephalographer.
e-mail <mdmu@musica.mcgill.ca> ]