KARL JASPERS FORUM

Target Article 32 (Muller)

Commentary 11

( CONCEPTS AND TRANSCENDENCE )
by Hugh Bone
6 December 2000, posted 21 December 2000

Quotations from TA32 are in "quotation marks", comments by Hugh Bone are in <brackets>

<1>
" [4] … These considerations concern mainly two aspects, transcendence and encompassment, which will here be discussed in a somewhat "technical" sense, but with the implication that the more usual (eg, ontological or existential) meanings of these words stem from there. "

< Definitions of "transcendence" generally treat it as a concept of religion. "Encompass" has a specific meaning: that which is enclosed by in a boundary. Transcendence crosses boundaries. Both terms, for me, indicate collectivities and abstractions. For example, a family of five has an average and mean height, which may not match the actual height of any individual.

The entities on either side of a boundary, such as "x", or "y", can be similar or different, but must be specified, or one does not know what is being transcended or encompassed.

In the above paragraph, "concepts" are being transcended and encompassed. >

<2>
" [5] In the meaning of the word CONCEPT which will be used here, a concept is the result of COUPLING A WORD TO AN EARLIER FORMATION OF SENSATION OR THINKING. Words are exclusively human products, while animals too produce and use the earlier structures of experience. ("Earlier" and "later" refer here to the ontogenesis of the individual as well as the phylogenesis, and the development of specific concepts in an individual as well as in society.) "

< Concepts seem to be structures, within, or configurations of, a "state" of consciousness. One word, or dozens of words may be used in an attempt to convey an instant of consciousness. Simple terms such as: I was "falling", or not-so-simple terms, as "gravity".

The meaning of words is acquired by succesive acts of sensing, storing in memory, recollecting, revising, storing again in memory - commonly called "learning".

Present concepts of gravity, acceleration, action-at-distance, were developed after years of learning. >

<3>
" [9] … the forms can be created ad libitum only within the functional limits which stem from the requirement that they must prove themselves within given experience. If that is not the case they will sooner or later be replaced by others. "

< It seems that to "think" is to structure, and to present the results of thinking is a "presentation".

If we should "deify" a phenomenom we see, hear, or witness via instruments we could say it was God's presentation. A repetition of the event would be a re-presentation by its author.

If we communicate our experience of the phenomenom to another person we present our own experience, a personal account of a personal event. >

<4>
" Both THE "SELF" AND THE "NATURE" (INCLUDING for instance "THE BRAIN") ARE CONSTRUCTED INSIDE EXPERIENCE, and this is why they appear in thinking. "

< There are many common, dictionary-meanings of experience.

In the context of mind/brain, there are various types:

1) perception, which is stored/recollected as 2) memory, and communicated by language, becoming 3) knowledge.

An infant gradually perceives, learns, knows its parents, its environment; becomes a self. It's interesting that adults cannot remember the process. Somehow their memory of the first two or three years of life disappears.

With amnesia or advanced Alzeimers, memory can disappear, and self disappears. >

<5>
" [14] Subjectively, we can structure ultrasound and ultraviolet only with the help of specific tools, else we know nothing of them; they are not directly understood as sound or light, only indirect-objectively by means of other properties (eg, their frequency, their effect upon animals, or in analogy to other phenomena, etc.). That thinking and sensation structures can be shown to depend on objective physico-chemical, biological, and genetic mechanisms, does not change the fact that they occur in individual experience, and that our first access can only be from there. We all, including those who have an exclusively-objectivist point of view (such as Th. Nagel in his book "The View From Nowhere"), are caught inside experience. All objective considerations start as specializations from within (subjective self-and-nature-) experience. "

< Regarding ultra-violet and ultra-sound:

From a common-sense point of view, anything that exists, must be real. If it cannot be perceived, it must be mind-independent. If mind-independent, minds cannot judge its reality. Clearly this won't work!

On the other hand, imagination is mind-dependent, and as real as a new thought, last night's dream, or today's new concept.

So we believe - an act of faith - that reason and logic enable the authorities on light and sound to establish an "as-if-reality" >

<6>
" [15] For all (animals and humans) the UNDIVIDED AND UNSTRUCTURED EXPERIENCE IS THE ONLY AVAILABLE ENTRANCE to any sensation or knowledge (including objective knowledge). This entrance can be neither circumvented, jumped over, nor even neglected, without producing an error which makes understanding difficult. We are all caught in our (self-and-nature) experience, it is not possible to start somewhere else. All STRUCTURES, the pre-conceptual ones as well as scientific and all other (word-) concepts, ARE LATER than experience itself. Concepts too are caught inside experience, and only from there are they comprehensible. "

< If humans were granted the olfactory sense of dogs, or the auditory sense of whales they would, subsequently (later) have have corresponding experiences.

In our everyday world, I see new structures following prior experience, new experiences following prior structure as left foot follows right, right follows left. >

<7>
" [16] … On the other hand it is not possible inversely to find ongoing experience within already structured entities; those would first have to be "de-constructed". "

< If the last sentence means abandoning old beliefs for new beliefs (entities, theories, whatever) it would seem reasonable. >

<8>
" [18] Initially, the social (communication) function is probably in the foreground, the stabilization (for communication to others and for certainty in communal and individual use) is at first a bonus.

< One "talks" to one's self. >

<9>
" [19] (The word "transcendence" is also - perhaps more commonly - used in a different sense : that some experiences go beyond ordinary (subjective or objective) experience, by re-introducing the encompassing aspect of experience, which is commonly omitted or even denied. The ordinary experience is in that sense incomplete, one may even call it defective. This meaning of transcendence is I think also quite valid but it is different and has to be distinguished from the transcendence of ongoing experience by word-meanings, which is intended here. In effect, one has to specify what transcends what.)

< See above comments on transcendence and encompassing. >

<10>
" [21] Here also a remark about "possibilities" : what is, or is not, possible, is decided on the basis of (transcendence and subsequent extrapolation from ongoing and remembered) experience. POSSIBILITIES, potencies, dispositions, are not ontological givens."

< Judgement might be a simpler term than transcendence. Diposition can mean attitude or it can mean a judgement made re: possibilities and potencies. >

<11>
" [22] But although this transcendence has an important communication function, the latter may become neglected in favor of the fixation- and security-role of the concepts. The transcendence is mostly at first neither intended nor expected, and often not even perceived. But perhaps just because of this, its effects are often strong. Because when this is noticed later on, it can have surprising consequences. "

< Although it's difficult to think of "transcendence" as agent, its common for human thinkers to cross boundaries and entertain new concepts. >

<12>
" [23] … The Pythagoreans were so impressed by the transcendental quality of numbers (general validity and usefulness, together with their simplicity and combinatorial power) that they worshipped them for a time. Similarly, Plato ascribed to concepts (ideas, forms) - which he saw as unreachable but nevertheless also as absolutely real and true, even as the basis of reality and truth - for a time a higher life of their own. ("Idealism" follows this view more or less, while in my proposal ideas are seen as tools.) Anselm of Canterbury wanted to conclude from the concept of God that he existed in person, and Kurt Gödel still tried to formalize this ontological proof of God (see Dawson; cf also [49]). Thus, transcendence was sometimes erroneously seen as equal to reality and permanence. "

< The equality doesn't seem erroneous from the viewpoint of religion, which is the usual definition of transcendence.

The Pythagorean regard for numbers being valid and useful was not transcendent in a religious sense. >

<13>
" [27] OR on the other hand, if one wants a uniform point of view, there is only a CHOICE BETWEEN TWO IMPOSSIBILITIES : either "the subject" is the only reality, and nature is only fantasy (but such an ontological solipsism is so absurd that it is rarely taken seriously). Or else "the objective nature" is seen as exclusively and mind-independently real, and the subject disappears or at best it is demoted to an "explanatory postulate". (And despite the equal absurdity of such a position, many pro- and anti-metaphysicists have tried without success to follow this reasoning, presumably because nothing more suitable seemed to be available.) "

< The natural and essential duality of organism/environment is recognized in biology and related sciences.

One can think of subject/object as duality, but the triad: subject/perception/object might better serve psychology and mind-science, and concerns of subsequent paragraphs.

Objectivists would try to understand Subjectivist views by exploring the content of their perceptions, and Subjectivists would return the favor. >

<14>
" [30] …. One looks for instance for objective "theories of everything", which ignore the subject (this could at most become a "theory of all physical objects")."

< In my opinion, the TOE people want to correlate present scientific theories by making new discoveries and analyses. Theories of subjectivity would be a new project. >

<15>
" [31] So long as one is committed to an MIR-belief, there exists a BARRIER AGAINST ideas and means to try SOMETHING ELSE. One does not try to search outside of MIR - specifically by including subjective experience in addition to nature. Many feel uncomfortable with such proposals, and consequently are defensive against them, in particular if they have invested much effort on formulating, or accommodating, a static-metaphysical system, be it objective-realistic or of other type. This is largely because if one identifies with some view or mental attitude, it provides the structures of one's thinking and indeed of oneself as a person; it is then difficult to see it from a distance. "

< Doesn't quantum mechanics bring in the observer and the observer's mental attitude? >

<16>
" [35] … In this way THE ERRONEOUS ALTERNATIVE BETWEEN THE TWO IMPOSSIBLE STATIC POSITIONS (only subject or only object) IS AVOIDED. We structure self and world, and the difference between them, simultaneously, and they serve thinking as "as-if ontological structures". "

< Consider paragraph [14], and the role of observer in quantum mechanics. >

<17>
" [36] … But there is always much left over of the experience, which is wider than all used concepts, and which would not be completely grasped by any possible number of concepts, used successively or simultaneously, and thus experience encompasses the concepts. "

< We should try to acquire the capabilitiy to distinguish between abstractions and collectivities vs. specific instances and entities. >

<18>
" [46] … Hume and Kant could not convince themselves of the reality of the "I", because it was not a solid encounterable object - but this under the erroneous impression that objects are "given" (ie, found) as such in pre-structured form. "

< Concepts may be specific instantiations of mind/brain states.

A nightscape is an instant configuration of stars. Each instant is viewed by normal-sighted humans, yet no two viewers share an identical perception.

Recollection and communication of any mind/brain state is similar to the above example. Such experiences, include the artistic/emotional, the cognitive/rational.

Each mind, each person, each self, each I, each you, is a unique, complex instrument of perception whose capabilities are founded on a lifetime of memories.

The process by which paint on canvas or math symbols on paper can infuse the human organism with a sense of beauty, perfection, elegance, accomplishment, is not known, may never be known. >

<19>
" [50] … A short answer is : THINKING DOES NOT COME FROM THE BRAIN, INSTEAD THE BRAIN COMES FROM THINKING. A little more elaborately : for our objective knowledge of the world, including the brain and its functions, we are exclusively dependent on our structures of thinking, and these can only arise within momentary overall (ie, self-and nature-)experience. But the same also applies to subject-structures like "self", "I", "soul". This implies that neither "objects" of any type, nor "the subject" in one or another formulation can be identical with ongoing experience. "

< Thus the triad: subject/perception/object is essential to contemplation of experience. >

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Hugh Bone