KARL JASPERS FORUM

TA32 (Muller)

Commentary 3
A CLEAR CONCEPTION OF 'POSSIBLE TO ACTUAL'
by Peter Mutnick
November 2000, posted 21 December 2000

[Herbert Muller, TA32 C1<19>]

The structures are enforced by our belief, and become our assertions and bootstraps (and "reality"). If we de-construct this conceptualized world, we end up with our initial assertions, in a circular way, or if we are more thorough, with nothing.

[Peter Mutnick, 28 November 2000]

Agreed. But the structures are not less real or mysterious or wonderous than the nothingness. They are just complementary (of course). In Zen we call the nothingness MU and the matrix of existence, which is also the substance of Budhha Nature, KU. The synthesis of MU and KU is in the Nameless One. As Hui Neng said, the lesser monks talk incessantly about the Void, but they have not realized the Great Void, which contains all that is or ever could be. So the Nothing is an ordering principle for the Something, including the Something about which nought may be said.

THE APPARENT PROBLEM WITH HERBERT MULLER'S POSITION

[Herbert Muller, TA32 C1<19>]

The structures are enforced by our belief, and become our assertions and bootstraps (and "reality"). If we de-construct this conceptualized world, we end up with our initial assertions, in a circular way, or if we are more thorough, with nothing.

[Peter Mutnick, 29 Nov 2000]

The problem in your view is that you seem to think something can come from nothing, creatio ex nihilo. This principle has, IMO, a very limited application, which always implies some implicit structure outside the nothing that is spontaneously undergoing creation. This is in fact the way the principle is usually used, in a theological creationist context. You seem to have abstracted the principle from its essential context and therefore falsified it. It is simply illogical on your part to posit an undivided unstructured reality from which stucture emerges. The prohibiting law is simply, no structure in = no structure out.

Structure of course can emerge from a system if for instance it obeys a law - the law is then the implicit structure that gets explicated by the development of structure within the system. Or, structure, including law, can emerge from a system that has some infinitesimal structure or degrees of freedom that somehow get amplified into discernible structure. But a system that has absolutely no structure cannot develop structure by any means that is logical, conceivable, or communicable.

Now you can certainly assert that logic, conception, and communication are structures that have no jurisdiction over your fundamental dialectic, but the problem is that your dialectic cannot even be formulated in any way that makes sense. You have violated the parting principle of Wittgenstein, stated at the end of the 'Tractatus': "About that which nought may be said, we must remain silent". Instead you are blabbing incessantly about it, and creating only confusion, as far as I can tell.

A CLEAR CONCEPTION OF 'POSSIBLE' TO 'ACTUAL' (NEW VERSION)

[Peter Mutnick, subsequent communication]

The possible is the infinite potential of consciousness without an object. The real is consciousness with an object. The actual is the matrix of self and other, which is the residue of consciousness with an object, for the phenomenal object of consciousness must necessarily refer to a real intermediate object which can be conceived as both actual and other in relation to self. The passage from possible to actual is then a shaft of light from the unconditioned consciousness into the threefold flame of conditioned existence whereby the self as love empowers other and holds wise dominion over it. It is a fact that we experience reality as other and as power, but we forget that it is we who have empowered it. The process of self-actualization is the remembrance of this fact and the reclaiming of the power that we have allowed to become alienated from us in the form of an other that is not one with self in the actual.

That the actual and the other are infused by the unconditioned consciousness and the self, respectively, means that the limits of the actual and the other are burst asunder. It is this fact that enables the phenomenological consciousness or cogito to grasp the entire world as a totality. That is precisely the meaning of cosmic consciousness, and it is the real meaning of the Encompassing (das Umgreifende), discussed by Karl Jaspers. It is only this kind of cogito that confers certain knowledge that I AM, or ego sum.

It is probably correct, however, to introduce a past and present distinction into Descartes' famous dictum. Hence: cogitavi ergo sum. This takes into account the complementarity between thought and being. One must distance oneself from thought in order to be, and the only way one can distance oneself from thought in a pre-space environment is by putting thought in the past. This is the origin of time.

[Tito Vecchi]

Cogitavi is just the past of cogito. You are assuming that being depends on a past action.

[Mutnick]

No. I am assuming that being depends on achieving 'distance' from action and thought, that being is complementary to thought, word, and deed. I am also suggesting that this is the fundamental form of complementarity.

[Vecchi]

One may rather say: I remember therefore I am. In Latin you would say: memini ergo sum. Interestingly memini is a past form, without a corresponding present.

[Mutnick]

I would rather see memini in relation to percipi, as part of the psychic apparatus of the actual observer of last resort, who is the abstract "ego" of von Neumann. If percipi is persona, then memini is shadow, the shadow of the past. This would indicate that memory is stored in the quantum systems leading to the actual observer of last resort. It was in the news the other day that researchers had established that the same neurons were involved in perception and the retrieval of the perception as an image in memory.

Self and other mediated by the actual are atma and manas mediated by buddhi. Atma, buddhi, manas, and prana constitute LIFE or the LIFE FIELD. So, the actual is a field that is a residue of consciousness with an object. The creation of the residue is the responsibility of another field, namely the UNIFIED FIELD of Heisenberg. The transition from the possible to the actual, which is the act of achieving consciousness of an object, is the function of yet another field, namely the GHOST FIELD of Pauli. The FIELD is a door, and the same door that is the entrance into consciousness with an object for the GHOST FIELD is the exit from consciousness with an object for the UNIFIED FIELD. So, the UNIFIED FIELD is a field of generation by consciousness, namely consciousness with an object. Even consciousness with an object, however, is in this case phenomenologically reduced consciousness, or cosmic consciousness. Only as consciousness becomes defined does the actual become defined in relation to it. This is the meaning of the actual being a residue of consciousness with an object.

Now we may reexamine Heisenberg's notions of:

1. the physical act of observation,

2. the psychical act of observation, and

3. the registration of the result in the mind of the observer.

Heisenberg, 'Physics and Philosophy', pages 54-55: "Therefore, the transition from the 'possible' to the 'actual' takes place during the act of observation. If we want to describe what happens in an atomic event, we have to realize that the word 'happens' can apply only to the observation, not to the state of affairs between two observations. It applies to the physical, not the psychical act of observation, and we may say that the transition from the 'possible' to the 'actual' takes place as soon as the interaction of the object with the measuring device, and thereby the rest of the world, has come into play; it is not connected with the act of registration of the result by the mind of the observer. The discontinuous change in the probability function, however, takes place with the act of registration, because it is the discontinuous change of our knowledge in the instant of registration that has its image in the discontinuous change of the probability function."

Ontologically, "the physical act of observation" has to do with the action of the physical on the etheric, the essence of von Neumann's I on von Neumann's II, while "the psychical act of observation" has to do with the action of the etheric on the physical. The physical act is characterized by [potential - actual event], while the psychical act is characterized by [state vector - substance]. Together, the physical act and the psychical act constitute "the *interaction* of the object with the measuring device".

"The registration of the result in the mind of the observer" is ontologically the establishment of a mental faculty in nature capable of greater determination than the [state vector - substance] determination. That mental faculty has to do with the capacity for conceiving of the *body-world* as a *schema*. This constitutes the true principle of *action*. The intentional act of consciousness is then ontologically the *affection* resulting from that action, but it is more than that because it belongs to consciousness. It is the intentional act or *noesis* stemming from the fact of a *noema* held in the mental faculty, but only insofar as it can be identified as an intentional act *of consciousness*. It must reflect back on the mind that emanated the *body-world schema* in the first place. This constitutes the enfoldment of the quantum explicate order.

The way that it does this is through the concepts of *time* and *place*: action is to affection as time is to place, but time supersedes action as an active principle and causes both action and affection to be localized in a place. This *place* then becomes the nexus of all the Aristotelian categories, including potential, actual, state, substance, body-world schema|noema, action, affection, time, and place. It is this nexus that carries over into the phenomenological perspective. It is what is retained in the phenomenological reduction. It is noumenal content reduced to phenomenal content and then to the phenomenological content of Heisenberg's selection process.

For clarification, there is a hierarchy of concepts associated with the body-world schema, which constitutes the unfoldment of the quantum explicate order, as the phenomenal base and phenomenal reality of the observer reaches down into the quantum noumenal reality of the observed:

1. body

2. body-world

3. body-world schema

4. body-world schema|noema

5. body-world schema|noema|dianoia-noesis

6. body-world schema|noema|dianoia-noesis|noumenon

PHENOMENAL|---MENTAL---|---EMOTIONAL--|PHYSICAL

The intentional act of consciousness should be regarded as the fourth element of Heisenberg's selection process:

1. the physical act of observation,

2. the psychical act of observation,

3. the registration of the result in the mind of the observer, and

4. the intentional act of consciousness.

"The transition from the 'possible' to the 'actual' takes place [only with the intentional act of consciousness], and we may say that the transition from the 'possible' to the 'actual' takes place as soon as the interaction of the object with the measuring device, and thereby the rest of the world, has come into play". "The interaction of the object with the measuring device" is signified by #1 and #2, while "the rest of the world" is signified by #3, which signifies ontologically the *body-world schema*. The intentional act or *noesis* reaches down into the noumenal world as well, which is altered by the noeses ontologically and entirely constituted by them phenomenologically.

The 'possible' itself refers to the infinite potential of consciousness without an object, while the 'actual' is the residue of consciousness with an object. The intentional act of consciousness with an object is the transition from the 'possible' to the 'actual'. The 'possible' itself is not transformed by this transition, so in that sense there is no reduction, and yet the transition is real in a constitutive sense. It is a transition from the infinite to the finite by way of the real. It is also a transition from the infinitely structured to the finitely structured by way of Derrida's *differance*. It is the infinitely structured, or the unstructured, that is deconstructed, bringing forth the real world of finite structure. True deconstruction is a negation of the negation, not a simple negation.

The connection between the categories and the phenomenological elements of the selection process is this: the actual has the structure of self and other, but the categories are a proxy for self, so that the actual is itself a quantum process, whereby self is actualized as other. Self is, like the infinite potential of consciousness without an object, not transformable, but yet the actual allows for its actualization in the other. Differance is not enough; one must also discern the *trace* of the internal reflection of the infinite potential, which is *cogitavi ergo sum*. This trace occurs not in the actual per se, but in the other, as though the double reflection of 'possible' into 'actual' and 'self' into 'other' sets free the possible from the limitations of the actual. It is this freedom that is the essence of the selection process.

The categories also form a congruency with the stages of the selection process in the following way:

1. the physical act of observation,

2. the psychical act of observation,

3. the registration of the result in the mind of the observer, and

4. the intentional act of consciousness correspond to:

1. potential - actual event,

2. state vector - substance,

3. body-world schema|noema, and

4. action - affection - time - place.

So, the intentional act of consciousness corresponds to the enfoldment of the quantum explicate order in this way. The enfoldment is therefore the material correlate of consciousness.

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Peter Mutnick