KARL JASPERS FORUM

TA 32 (Muller)

Commentary 39

( POINTS OF VIEW, HUMAN AND HIGHER )
by Peter Mutnick (and discussion by Smith and Muller)
19-23 June 2001, posted 3 July 2001

[ NOTE : The following is a commentary on TA32, in several instalments, plus some discussions with others. Quotes from TA32 are in "quotation marks". - The following goes in parallel with TA34 C19, which deals chiefly with the opinions of Bohr and Heisenberg. The two discussions are separated here for ease of reading and discussion. - HFJM ]

<1>
[Peter Mutnick]

Note: I queried Herbert Muller on whether his views were physicalist or not and he sent me [TA32]. I have replied to it in part, because it is interesting, but it does not seem to address my question. The question in this context is whether subjective experience, which is the source of all for Muller, is seated in the physical world. If not, how is it related to the physical world, or is there no physical world, according to Muller? In purely empirical terms, is it possible for subjective experience to suddenly wake up in a world entirely different from what we ordinarily take to be the physical world and correctly realize that it is in another world with a definite relationship to the physical world? Is it conceivable to Muller that there are metaphysical hypostases in this sense, if in no other?

<2>
" [1] SUMMARY Some difficulties of the relation between thinking and brain function can become more easily comprehensible through an examination of the relevant concept-dynamics. This concerns mainly the transcendence of experience by concepts, and following from here the subject/object split (of ontological or functional type), development and functions of static metaphysics ("realism"), and further the concept-surpassing (encompassing) property of experience. Momentary ongoing experience is the nucleus of thinking ("consciousness") and must not be neglected in the study of this question. It is "given" (ie, not invented by us) but it is structured by us in its entirety. "

<3>
This sounds OK to me, in that you seem to be proposing a kind of dialectical empiricism that starts from phenomenal experience, which is allowed to transcend itself but is then synthesized by a higher type of *encompassing* experience. What bothers me is that I am not sure you take the structures which arise at the antithesis stage of this dialectical empiricism as seriously as you take the thesis. Nor am I sure that you regard the encompassing experience as an emergent synthesis that supersedes the thesis, which is of course the "given" phenomenal experience.

<4>
In Niels Bohr's concept of the "phenomenon", the phenomenal experience, with which you start would correspond to his early 1926-7 definition of the phenomenon as what reveals itself to us through the measuring device, while the encompassing experience would correspond to the later post-1935 definition of the phenomenon as the wholeness of the entire experimental situation, encompassing the noumenon which is being observed as well as the observer. This is what I call the oroboric connection between the observed and the observer, between the quantum physical and the meta-physical classical, between the first world and the seventh world. The subjective experience, which is your starting point, as well as Bohr's early definition of the phenomenon are in the fifth or phenomenal world.

<5>
[Muller] " [2] Whatever can be said about the brain and its functions uses concept-structures which are made by us within given experience.... A belief in mind-independently structured reality blocks the access to the question about this process. On the other hand, metaphysics can become functional in the form of working metaphysics, and in this way the encompassing aspect of experience remains evident. "

<6>
[Mutnick]

Again, I am concerned that you are not allowing the antithetical "concept-structures" to transcend the seat of their genesis and hence you are not allowing the encompassing experience to emerge as something new and self-transcending in character. I am, however, very amenable to the notion that consciousness is the cosmic verity and it spins all else out of itself.

<7>
[Muller]

" [5] CONCEPTS AND EARLIER STRUCTURES 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.) "

<8>
[Mutnick]

In my experience, these "earlier formations" are not necessarily a lower faculty at all, but seem to involve spiritual intuition. I question whether this is the same as the instinct found in animals. I am amenable, however, to your definition of concept, which seems to fit the facts of my own experience of concept formation.

<9>
[Muller]

" [8] Conceptual thinking pre-supposes concepts. This may cause difficulties in understanding insofar as we ourselves produce the concepts: either we have done this previously or we do it on the spot (or else we accept those made by others). This is a BOOTSTRAP OPERATION, in which a fixed initial scheme is used ("posited") as when starting a computer, and if this works, further forms can be developed from there during the function (or some already formed ones are added from storage in memory). A religious version of this is "in principio erat verbum". This concerns individual conceptual thinking as well as communication by language. "

<10>
[Mutnick]

Here you are beginning to touch on something that I think you cannot fully explain. If, as I claim, these structures which arise from experience transcend experience and constitute a genuine antithesis to it, then there is the real possibility that some other focal point of being within the structure may arise and claim to be the source of the whole structure, including experience. This is related to Martin Buber's I-THOU, but more precisely it is related to the idea in the East of Guru and of God. The idea is that the sentient being in its untutored experience is basically in a state of ignorance, from which it can emerge only through the grace of the Guru. The Guru is in a very real sense the coexperiencer within the overall structure of the person's experience. The concepts that are formed as structures of experience are mutually configured by the Disciple and the Guru. In a sense they represent the relationship of Disciple to Guru and Guru to Disciple. In a very real sense they are psycho-kinetically and telepathically transmitted from Guru to Disciple. When Guru and Disciple see eye to eye, clairvoyance, or clear seeing, has been achieved.

<11>
This final state of affairs is described by Niels Bohr in the following quote from "Physics and Beyond", p. 209: "You all know Schiller's poem, 'The Sentences of Confucius,' which contains these memorable lines: 'The full mind is alone the clear, and truth dwells in the deeps.' The full mind, in our case, is not only an abundance of experience but an abundance of concepts by means of which we can speak about our problems and about phenomena in general. Only by using a whole variety of concepts when discussing the strange relationship between the formal laws of quantum theory and the observed phenomena, by lighting this relationship up from all sides and bringing out its apparent contradictions, can we hope to effect that change in our thought processes which is a *sine qua non* of any true understanding of quantum theory."

<12>
[Muller]

" [9] Here may also be a further difficulty of understanding. Experience itself is pre-supposed, "given" - we do not invent it. In contrast, the structures of reality are not given. All structures which are, and must be, used in experience, and which determine (define or structure) it, are made or invented by us (individually and collectively) within experience. The ELABORATION OF GIVEN EXPERIENCE happens WITH THE HELP OF SELF-PRODUCED STRUCTURES: this is CREATION OF STRUCTURES, AND NOT INTERPRETATION (OR "RE-PRESENTATION") OF AN ALREADY PRE-STRUCTURED WORLD. "

<13>
[Mutnick]

I agree that the structures of reality are all spun out of consciousness, but not necessarily human or animal consciousness. There is a hierarchy of conscious entities, ranked according to their creative capacities. This is called the Great Chain of Being. The lesser evolutions soon learn that behooves them to surrender to and learn from the higher evolutions, to imbibe their light and their knowledge and power. Ultimately, this process of social climbing reaches its conclusion when as a human being the reality of Guru or God dawns in one's experience.

<14>
Is the human being then the creator of the world or is God? It soon becomes evident that God knows the human being better than he knows himself, and so the human being finds a new identity in God. This corresponds in the Copenhagen Interpretation to the proposition that there is a standard for consensus reality, namely the archetype of the classical paradigm, which is transcendental to unstructured subjective experience. The classical paradigm is not God, but the revealed identity of the Observer. God or Guru is the true Mind of the Observer. That Mind is the quantum implicate order, and as such, it is that from which all else unfolds, so it is truly a viable alternative to subjective experience as the source of all.

<15>
[Muller]

" [10] The concepts thus have the following origin, position, and function : (a) experience is "given" or "found", not made by us (ie, not invented). (b) All structures of experience (pre-conceptual as well as conceptual ones) are in contrast made by us within experience; they are not given or found, even though beside their practical success other objective (eg., genetic) factors largely determine which structures are developed. (c) Concepts are combinations of words with pre-conceptual structures, and help with communication and stabilization. (d) Experiential structures (for self-and-world) are accepted (provisionally-heuristically, through belief, or via knowledge as strong belief which is often well supported by practical success). (e) Extrapolation, starting from accepted concept-structures, enables enlargement of the experience (with the help of fantasy, tales, theory, techniques, etc.) "

<16>
[Mutnick]

Subjective experience is not quite the sacrosanct "Holy Cow" that you make it out to be, nor is it the entirely solid foundation for a good sense of reality. According to Paramahansa Yogananda, a very great yogi who came from India to America around 1920, subjective experience has the character of a motion picture. It is indeed manufactured by a universal motion picture mechanism of light, which Yogananda experienced in one of his numerous peak or yogic experiences. When one grants transcendence to concepts then and only then do they reveal their true potential for transformation.

<17>
If subjective experience is the source of all, as you say, why is it so imprisoned in the material structures of its own creation. Only through transformation and self-transcendence can the human being attain a status of true freedom from material structures. The alternative is to stick your head in the sand and pretend that the world which confines you has lost its confining power simply because you *believe* that you are the source of it. Or else you would have to rationalize this by saying that experience itself just happens to have this character of always seeming to be restricted by material structures beyond its control.

<18>
[Muller]

" [11] ORIGIN OF STRUCTURES The origination of structures of thinking, self, and nature from within non-structured experience may be called zero-derivation (0-D). This does not mean that in practice thinking takes place without structures, nor that one would have to, or even could possibly, start with an unstructured experience - a la "tabula rasa" - nor also that all structures have to be always created anew. They are stored in individual and collective memory (eg, in books). "

<19>
[Mutnick]

As I have stated, I believe that consciousness is the cosmic verity and all else is created by it. However, I do not accept your limitation on the possibility of experiencing the truly unconditioned and primordial consciousness. I have in fact experienced it, the absolute "tabula rasa" of absolute or pure consciousness aware only of itself. This state of pure consciousness was achieved through a very high-energy and effulgent out-of-body experience. I believe it was a form of Kensho, or enlightenment. It also constitutes the real performance of the phenomenological reduction of Descartes and Husserl. As Husserl said, it is incumbent on each human being to perform the phenomenological reduction (experience Kensho) at least once in their lifetime.

----------------------------------------

<20>
[Mutnick]

Note: Muller has referred me to the end of his already referenced paper for an answer to the question on physicalism. I am still unsatisfied, but here is my response to what he has proffered.

[Herbert Muller]

" [50] THINKING AND BRAIN FUNCTION How can thinking come from the brain ? (Or more generally: how can consciousness emerge from matter ?) The problem is often formulated in this manner. But this cannot be answered, because it is the wrong question. It is the reason for the so-called "hard problem of consciousness" (Chalmers), an artifact which results from an erroneous exclusively-objective point of view. One faces here the effect of non-consideration of the situation discussed above in [24]-[30]. 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. "

<21>
[Mutnick]

That is fine, but it seems then that you are putting it somewhere in between the objective structures of the physical world and the subjective structures of the meta-physical world. That is, you seem to be putting it in the phenomenal world of the ontological system of worlds. In my reconstruction, the seven worlds are: physical, emotional, mental, etheric, phenomenal, causal, and meta-physical. The physical is quantum, the meta-physical is classical and the Freudian Ansatz of id, ego, and super-ego would be in the meta-physical.

<22>
If this is what you are doing, even implicitly, you should say so, otherwise you are just obscuring your own viewpoint. Perhaps you are saying that there are no worlds, there is only subjective experience, but then "where is this subjective experience?", "what is the mode of its existence, especially the context or environment for its existence?" If you are simply ignorant on this point, you should say that, but in any case, from my point of view you are just not being straightforward. The reason you are doing that, IMHO, is that by being vague and obscure you thereby avoid criticism and scrutiny - it seems to be a form of dishonesty.

<23>
[Muller]

" [52] Concepts must in principle intend the whole of experience, both interior (self) and external (environment, world), though each of both to varying degree. Neither naïve or explicit ontological objectivity nor ontological solipsism are for this reason able to ask the proper question concerning the mind-brain relation. Both imply erroneously a primary subject-object split. This also means, among other things, that the commonly used distinction between "third-person" and "first-person" description cannot help much, unless the question of encompassing experience is included in the discussion as a central point. "

<24>
[Mutnick]

I think the subject/object split probably is primary, but even granting your premise that it is not, you admit that it is the internal structure of all "self-nature" experience. At the stage of concepts, if you allow those concepts to be transcendental, this experience will then refer to something beyond its solipsistic origin. Presumably we have experiences in order to relate to that which is transcendental to ourselves. If you don't allow that self-transcendence to occur then it seems to me you defeat the whole purpose of the experience and indeed the existence of the individual organism, or soul if you will.

<25>
Even if you want to go back before individuation to the original and universal consciousness, that still transcends itself in the direction of its creation. You admit that you have not and cannot even conceive of going back to the pure unstructured "tabula rasa" of absolute or pure consciousness. Well I have done it, and I can tell you that it is not the end-all and be-all that you think it is. It is just emptiness, pure self-existence, it is in a word b-o-r-i-n-g, not in a bad way, since there is no one to get bored and it is after all an experience of infinite light and infinite consciousness, but in a factual way that makes one think there must be something more. A nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there - take my word for it.

<26>
[Muller]

" [53] Many scientists are, despite the conceptual difficulties, still committed to an EXCLUSIVE OBJECTIVITY metaphysics (in the form of naïve or explicit realism, materialism, empiricism, naturalism, positivism), ie, to the existence of mind-independent reality and truth. But if one insists that objectively-describable processes are the only reality, THE SUBJECT DISAPPEARS AUTOMATICALLY when it becomes thematic (cf. Crick, Nagel, and others). From here stems the inability of these views to deal adequately with the question of the relation between thinking and brain activity. In that case there is a blindness for a subject-inclusive explanation, and sometimes for the possibility that the mind-brain-relation has a conceptual aspect at all. But even attempts to free oneself of MIR usually end in relapse into traditional MIR, probably because no evident alternative is seen as being available, except for an even more absurd static solipsism. This is clear from the history of western thinking (Müller, 2000). "

<27>
[Mutnick]

I am granting your premise (for now) that subjective experience (SE) is the starting point and that it creates or generates its own structures. But the question is, "How does SE conceptualize itself?" In other words, "How does it fit into its own conceptual scheme?" Surely you grant that the subject/object polarity along with all that we commonly regard as reality does arise from experience and it would seem that experience must then locate itself somewhere within that scheme. You still have an unresolved "hard problem" in trying to provide for experience an adequate (functional) means of conceptualizing itself.

<28>
[Muller]

" [54] A part of this problem is that the structural difference between subject and object is understood as primarily given [25ff], and this is, perhaps even more than the MIR-belief itself (which results from it), a cause for conceptual difficulties with the mind-brain question. If this is pre-supposed, one can only think in terms of two impossibilities : either MIR, or in case MIR is denied, ontological solipsism. This subject-object distinction is however on the contrary secondary, the result of one of the earliest active structurations within the originally unitary experience. (This differentiation is needed for practical purposes; the difficulties arise in case it is ontologized because of the transcendence of experience by concepts [24].) The mind-brain problem thus is thus largely a consequence of belief in a (for instance Cartesian) primary subject-object split. But instead of trying to eliminate either the subject or the object, in order to deal with the conceptual problems, one can return to the early undivided experience, and follow the structuring process from there. "

<29>
[Mutnick]

It is really a moot point you are making. Whether ontology and reality are primary or "as-if" as you say, they are a fact of our existence. The problem remains exactly the same from a scientific point of view, in either case. How do we understand the functional relationship between subjective experience and all the structures we observer in nature and in ourselves? The presumption of the "hard problem" is that we can and must formulate this functional relationship in a scientific way, which leaves no room for the obscurity you seem to champion, but perhaps that is what you are objecting to - perhaps, like Whitehead, you simply do not think this subject matter can be or should be described scientifically, i.e., in terms of universal concepts.

-----------------------------------------

<30>
[ Muller ]

In case you postulate a primary subject-object split, you end up more or less automatically with traditional static metaphysics. The term "brain" is mostly used in the traditional object sense, and if one does this, one has automatically lost the access to SE. From here originate the many unsuccessful attempts to find an objective subjectivity. If the s-o split is seen as secondary, i.e., arising on a pragmatic basis in undivided SE, the problem dissolves. That is, brain function can be studied, like also the subject-structures, in a working-metaphysical mode, without loss of metaphysics, which then becomes more functional. This eliminates the need to provide a materialistic basis for "consciousness" and related items.

------------------------------------

<31>
[ Mutnick ]

I still think you are not addressing my point. I don't know how I can make it any clearer. You want SE to be the starting point, but there is still a question of, "Where does this SE exist? How does it exist? In what immediate context does it exist? It just seems to me that a word like "experience" is NOT sufficient to describe what happens or what is. I more or less identify the word "experience" with the word "phenomenon", both of which are of course very important in phenomenology, which I claim to be espousing. I am even amenable to the idea of "experience" as the *alphapoint* and the *omegapoint*, but I *still* see the need to contextualize it and not make the seemingly absurd claim that it is all that really exists. This is completely against the philosophy of complementarity, as I understand it, since nothing, including experience, can exist in such a vacuum unrelated to other complementary notions, in this case concepts or ideas that have a life of their own and are hence "Platonic" ideas. As is well known, which I can easily document, Heisenberg was a Platonist and affirmed the existence and importance of Platonic ideas for both physics and philosophy. Interesting dialogue, but please try to see my point and address it directly, so we can resolve this issue as best we can.

------------------------------

<32>
[ Muller ]

The response to that is in paragraphs [15] and [56] of my paper. I understand that you want a security outside your experience, and that you find it difficult to do without something like that. You are not the only one, and this point is not easy to take. But in view of the insoluble conceptual problems which arise from the notion of MIR, there is little doubt that this has to be the conclusion.

------------------------------

<33>
[Mutnick]

NO, NO, it is not a matter of "security" or any kind of personal thing at all. I am a scientist and interested in understanding this scientifically. Your position simply seems inadequate to me from a *scientific* point of view. It is simply absurd as you phrase it, because you will not address the questions I have just posed to you. If you will not at least make your best attempt at addressing these questions, then I am afraid our dialogue cannot go forward, because you are just not making sense to me. I.e., your position seems absurd and irrational without further clarification of the points I have specified.

----------------------------

<34>
[ Dan Smith ]

Peter, Once again you tilt at a windmill. The only problem between you and Muller concerns the relative extravagance of your metaphysics. All of us metaphysicians should be thankful to him for allowing us to perform our craft.

This metaphysical license being granted by Muller is similar to the one being granted by Mohrhoff, and instead of gratitude, you exhibit petulance because they are unwilling to engage in the obvious extravagance of you quantum numerological/theosophical scheme.

You are playing the role of absolutist and dogmatist. There is another path, Peter. If you can, but for a moment remove the blinders of your dogmatism, it will be obvious.

Instead of hitting them over the head with your quantum theosophy, how about engaging them and the rest of us in a real dialog.

What you don't understand is how a dialog works. It does not work with a baseball bat. It does not work with a metaphysical bazooka, even a theosophical one.

First you have to go to where they are. Acknowledge their metaphysical generosity, and then take them up on it in a step by step fashion.

It is the first step then that is the most important one. I believe that I know what that first step should be, no only in this particular instance, but in almost every such instance.

I am volunteering to be your dialogic guinea pig. Can you handle this, or are you going to resort to the baseball bat once again?

------------------------------------

<35>
[ Mutnick to Smith ]

I will take up your gauntlet. I am will (today, hopefully) write out a system of metaphysical axioms, which will probably start from Muller's origin in subjective experience (SE). The reason I seem to you to keep pounding the table is that I am unraveling all the metaphysical *facts* of my system as they are revealed to me in essentially a visionary trance. BTW, are you hallucinating vis-a-vis Muller's acceptance of a metaphysical hypothesis? Where did he say that?

---------------------------------------

<36>
[ Smith to Mutnick ]

What is the *one* aspect of you system that is the most fundamental? Whatis the most important premise?

Take this as your 'working metaphysical hypothesis'. Muller has said that he will allow such a hypothesis.

Is that not sufficient to start a dialog? Are you unable to determine what is the highest metaphysical priority?

Am I going to have to make this determination for you? Are you unable to put down the baseball bat?

If your system is robust, it will be able to withstand rational scrutiny and debate. You will be able to reconstruct it by taking one rational step at a time, from first principles. It appears that you have insufficient confidence in its coherence.

Repeated pounding of your metaphysical bible is not going to persuade anyone.

-------------------------------------

<37>
[Mutnick]

As I have explained in a separate post to Muller [<33>], this is not a matter of personal feelings on my part, but of the desire for unambiguous scientific clarity. I find Muller's position to be lacking in the contextualization necessary for scientific clarity. It as if he is just saying, "THIS", and that explains everything. It does not. It explains nothing, it has no scientific meaning. It is a shame, because I think Muller is on the verge of making a contribution that would have meaning, but as it is, without the clarification of the questions I have posed, I think his position is just nonsense in the scientific meaning of that word. In any case, I will respond to the passages he has pointed to.

<38>

[Muller]
" [15] For all (animals and humans) "

[Mutnick]

Well, perhaps that excludes me, and that is the problem.

[Muller, cont.]

" the undivided and unstructured experience is the only available entrance to any sensation or knowledge (including objective knowledge)."

<39>
[Mutnick]

I will grant that this may be so *from the human POV*. But that does NOT mean that it is not contextualized from another higher POV. This is basically just the argument over decoherence. Decoherence is based on the limits of human observers, which limits would not necessarily apply to other types of observers. Hence at best it defines *human* reality, but not what would be the reality for a higher type of observer than a human, or for a human under the influence of such a higher observer. Presumably the higher evolution defines the objective reality. We certainly would not want to limit reality to what an amoeba experiences. Why should we limit it to what we, in our creaturehood, experience? We can certainly conceive of higher types of observers - people have done it since the beginning of time. Why should our theories not be built on reasonable assumptions about the existence of higher types of observers, especially when they have revealed themselves to us?

<40>
Now I submit, and I think I have already shown it in the quotes from the founders of quantum theory, that quantum theory is in fact founded on such a super-human viewpoint, if we define the human viewpoint as Muller's. This is then very, very, interesting, because it shows that decoherence is in fact a regression to pre-quantum notions, due to a miscomprehension on the part of its advocates of what the real quantum Ansatz is.

I submit that there is also a parallel here to the difference between the false vacuum or void and the true vacuum or void. The *false* vacuum has the symmetry that defines Muller's position, but in the true vacuum that symmetry is broken and the subject/object split has emerged.

<41>
[Muller, cont.]

" 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. "

<42>
[Mutnick]

I will even grant your first statement and your last statement and yet say that you are absolutely wrong. The reason is that you are conflating subjective experience (SE) with encompassing experience (EE). SE is the thesis, EE is the synthesis, as you admit (that its function is to synthesize what has emerged as elements potentially transcendental to SE). And yet, inexplicably you conflate these two and so insist that nothing (in the form of concepts or ideas - namely Platonic ideas, with a life of their own) has emerged.

<43>
Your conflation of SE and EE, leaving no room for the independent existence of Platonic ideas, PI, is not without an etiology. It is a fact that in the transcendental experience of Locke's tabla rasa, which constitutes the transcendence by the ontological subject (the natural or abstract "ego") of himself in the phenomenological reduction, the difference between SE and EE vanishes and they are seen as two facets of the same self-transcending experience. But that experience does NOT start from SE - it rather ends in SE. It starts in the brain-located abstract "ego" (the part of the brain necessarily classical due to decoherence), which transcends itself by going into its own Unconscious, which is again a brain-located entity (having to do with coherent neurotransmitter circuits). The Unconscious is the gateway from the classical domain of the observer to the simultaneous experience within the quantum implicate order of SE and EE. SE, as the real origin of 0-D (zero-derivation), is in fact realized through the experience of Cosmic Consciousness. Once Cosmic Consciousness is stepped down into the ontological Stream of Consciousness, it is already and automatically structured by experience and subsequent thought. That is why Muller admits that he cannot conceive of actually experiencing the tabla rasa. But I tell you that I have experienced it and that many others have experienced it and called it by different names, such as Kensho or the phenomenological reduction.

<44>
So, although in the phenomenological system of worlds SE and EE are the same, in the ontological world they most certainly are NOT. Within the ontological realm, we might well start from SE and define a dialectical empiricism, with PI as the antithesis and EE as the synthesis. By conflating phenomenological and ontological reality, Muller has created an indigestible mess that cannot be utilized scientifically and makes no sense in any other way, either. It is a shame and the waste of an otherwise insightful point of view.

<45>
I would just like to add, with regard to the last sentence of Muller above, that Bohr says on the contrary that "we are suspended over a bottomless pit, caught in our own words". The concepts are not caught in our ordinary experience, SE, but rather we in our extraordinary experience, EE, are caught in our words or concepts, and being caught in them is the only thing that gives us support. Falling back into the void of nonexistence, as Muller advocates, is NOT the answer, either scientifically or psychologically, although the womb of subjective experience is in a sense just the dream or deep sleep state, from which we emerge everyday into the waking state which clearly differentiates subject and object. So, we do indeed have a need to return to the womb of subjective experience every night in our sleep, but if we do not emerge from it we are said quite correctly to be insane. How droll it is to hear a psychiatrist advocating and promoting insanity. Such is the confused state of the world.

<46>
[Muller]

" [56] CAUGHT WITHIN EXPERIENCE For the relation between thinking, subject, and the brain this means that all thinking structures, both for the outside world (eg, objects like brain and brain-functions) and for the internal experience (such as I, subject, self, soul) as well as the split (the difference) between them, are built within ongoing experience – and remain there. To talk about mind-independent reality can help in thinking, but one ought to acknowledge that it is fiction. "

<46>

[Mutnick]

Plato did have the idea of the *receptacle*, but I am afraid this should be identified with the *subjective* part of SE, not the *experience* part of it. The receptacle is the akashic record or cosmic memory, where all experiences, even higher experiences, are indeed ultimately stored for re-ingression into experience, or *anamnesis*, at any time. But these memories do NOT remain in experience. Muller's "experience" reminds one of Stapp's ongoing world of accumulated facts. Stapp at least realizes the problem of explaining the mode of existence of this all-inclusive reality. He associates it with the preferred frame of reference in which the cosmic background radiation is isotropic.

<48>
William James, who coined the term "world of pure experience", included the word "pure", which is of the utmost significance here. It is true, as I have stipulated that in the pure phenomenologically reduced experience, SE and EE, and hence all types of experience, are inherently unified. But that is NOT true in the ontological system of worlds, which defines our real existence in the world and as witnesses of the world. There James defined his view as "radical empiricism", by which he meant that it included secondary experience of concepts and ideas. Muller's notion that there is no difference between these two types of experience is his essential mistake, as I see it. In the ontological system of worlds, there is a necessary logical discrimination between the thesis, subjective experience, and the synthesis, encompassing experience. In other systems of worlds there are also various types of relationship between the two, but only in the phenomenological system of worlds are they different aspects of the same experience. Even in that case, however, they are not without contextualization.

<49>
It is ultimately just a prejudice of a very high order to presuppose that everything is contained within subjective experience. It is a false resolution of the real relations between subject and object, which exist in spite of this false attempt at limiting them to one particular and ultimately unsatisfactory arrangement.

In the East, the view of Muller is recognized as the Buddhist version of Mayavadi impersonalism.

<50>
[Muller]

" [48] Functional scientific statements are of the type "if one does this, that result is to be expected with such a probability"; existential statements can also be formulated in this way, eg, : "if one assumes the Big Bang, it follows that … ", or "I am (positing myself as) so-and-so, and therefore … " Ontological statements can in this way be functionalized with a gain in possibilities of thought, while inversely functional ones can be made ontological only with a loss. One might for instance compare an ontological statement like : "the earth is flat" with the functional one : "In order to draw a plan of the land on which my house is built, I can act as if the earth were flat, since for this I do not have to consider the limitations of flat geometry".

<51>
[Mutnick]

Ve-ry in-ter-est-ing. Yes, I think this really is the motivation of your whole point of view: "Ontological statements can in this way be functionalized with a gain in possibilities of thought, while inversely functional ones can be made ontological only with a loss." I agree that the essence of the metaphysical view is that it puts limits on the unlimited proliferation of possibilities. Of course it is true in the Hegelian sense that MIR is just the other or limit of SE. You reject this limit. I say, that is like a whore who feels that her many low quality relationships are more valuable than one high quality relationship. Or it is like a spoiled child, perhaps also an abused child, who can accept no limits. I think you are wrong. I think you are dead wrong. There is really nothing more to say, since IMHO you are undialogic and unwilling to come out of your shell of absurdity. Again, I say it is a shame, because there is great potential in the approach upon which you have embarked, but not gotten very far.

<52>
Muller claims that he is opening up the possibilities for real dialectic and dialog by imposing his ridiculous premise, but really he is shutting them down and making a mockery of any dialog that occurs. For instance, one might rather than ongoing "experience" prefer the word "knowledge", in the sense of a growing body of knowledge, as did the founders of quantum theory at times in reference to the state vector, or one might prefer the word "thought" as does Stapp. Now Muller or even Stapp might like to conflate all these words, which are indeed distinct concepts, but that is after all illegitimate and a complete negation of the real dialectic. In the end Muller cannot avoid the fact that his "experience" is after all a concept despite the fact that he thinks he is intending something so much more than a concept. He is really just a dog howling at the moon. I am tired of taking him seriously. I will go my own way, and follow my thoughts along the path that I know is right, out of the valley of the shadow of death, which is Muller's "experience".

-------------------------------------

<53>
[Smith]

BTW, are you hallucinating vis-a-vis Muller's acceptance of a metaphysical hypothesis? Where did he say that?

Frequently Muller speaks favorably of an operational or dynamical metaphysics. How could anyone speak otherwise?

A half century of positivism has amply demonstrated the inexpendability of a metaphysics of some sort.

The most casual glance at current philosophical syllabi establishes the mainstreaming of metaphysics of all kinds. Muller at alia are hardly going to buck this tide.

Metaphysicians no longer need excuses or apologies in this postmodern world.

<54>
[Mutnick]

The reason I seem to you to keep pounding the table is that I am unraveling all the metaphysical *facts* of my system as they are revealed to me in essentially a visionary trance.

[Smith]

This is where the Mullerian postmodern mainstreamers can and should draw the line. As much as possible we all want to convince others of our ultimate concerns and ultimate ideas. The accepted method is to invoke replicable structures of reason. Demonstrate that one's ideas and revelations are firmly founded on a bedrock of reason. The power of reason is the ultimate evangel. No?

Why not be on the side of motherhood and apple pie? Why short change reason when we all know that reason is the servant of the ultimate truth?

<55>
[Smith]

KISS: Keep it simple, stupid!

Please start at a logical beginning. And what is that? What can it be other than REASON??

Every discourse must begin in the shared presupposition of a shared rationality, e.g. 1 + 1 = 2 !!

We are then in a position to ask Muller if the statement '1 + 1 = 2' is merely a construct, merely an operational postulate! Where is the dynamic in the truth of 1 + 1 = 2?? Already we have Muller on the defensive. Already postmodernism is looking like a naked emperor. It is that simple, stupid!!

Is rationality a construct?? Is rationality an accident?? From whence cometh Reason? Whither does reason lead us?

We proceed from here to the imminent saving of the world, without hardly breaking into an intellectual sweat, unless you are in favor of obfuscation!

-------------------------------

<56>
[Muller to Smith, in answer to some of the points above]

What do you mean by postmodern mainstreamers ?

Counting is a technique, starts out by counting on your fingers, and naming what you do. What does this have to do with "postmodern" ?

Rational thinking is a technique as well, using concepts and their functional properties. We make the concepts and thus you can call them constructs if you want.

-----------------------------------------