KARL JASPERS FORUM

TA32 (Muller)

Commentary 9

ORIGINS OF THE STRUCTURE OF EXPERIENCE
by William A. Adams
3 December 2000, posted 12 December 2000

ABSTRACT

<1>
Herbert Muller's TA32, Concept-Dynamics And The Mind-Brain Question, deals with the mind-body problem from the perspective of his Zero-Derivation (0-D) theory, which says that "the origination of structures of thinking, self, and nature [is] from within non-structured experience" [11]. It seems to me that the 0-D approach as presented paints itself into a corner.

<2>
My response to HM's article has two parts. The first part lists particular points of agreement and disagreement with statements in the essay. I hope these will be helpful to HM. In the second part I suggest that strict adherence to the 0-D principle leads to a dead end, and I submit an alternative account of the origin of the structures of experience.

<3>
DETAILED COMMENTS

To avoid misunderstanding (to the extent that is possible) I want to say that I agree with many of HM's most important points. Here are some of them listed:

<4>
*I agree that the thesis of mind-independent reality (MIR), as assumed by traditional realism, is indefensible, though useful from the pragmatic point of view of "as-if MIR." [34]

<5>
* I agree that experience is "given" but objectivity (commonly understood) is not. [9]

<6>
* I think it is true that "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" [10]

<7>
* I do not subscribe to Kant's epistemology that the phenomena of experience are caused by unknowable but self-existent Dingen. I deduce that HM also rejects that view. (e.g., [9]).

<8>
* I agree that for historical and cultural reasons, modern western science focuses exclusively on objectivity, with the result that subjectivity becomes a vanishing point. That does not detract from scientific accomplishment but highlights why science is inappropriate as a methodology for the study of consciousness (assuming consciousness somehow involves subjectivity). [28]

<9>
* I too reject Cartesian dualism. [54]

<10>
* I understand that concepts are not the same as experience; the description is not the thing; the map is not the territory, etc. [19,23]

<11>
* I also believe that "thinking does not come from the brain, the brain comes from thinking" [50].

<12>

* I agree that neither traditional realism nor traditional idealism provide adequate accounts of the mind-body problem, nor can they, in principle. [52]

<13>
On the other hand there are several points made by HM that I do not agree with or find incomprehensible. Some of these are:

<14>
* "not yet structured experience is the essence of "thinking"[51] To define thinking as unstructured experience is a divergent definition, to say the least. Elsewhere, HM uses terms such as "rational thinking" and "logical thinking," terms which I find opaque, given his definition of thinking. I would define thinking as the process of conceptualization.

<15>
*a concept is the result of coupling a word to an earlier formation of sensation or thinking. Earlier forms include gestalt-formations and "qualia" [5]. The process of conceptualization then must be a linguistic one, according to HM. I find that to be a narrow approach to concept, conceptualization, and concept-formation, not consistent with the historical literature on the subject (e.g., ,Wertheimer, 1923 Bruner, Goodnow, & Austin, 1962). I would rather define conceptualization as discrimination (e.g., James 1890, Gibson, 1969) and gestalt-formation (e.g., Kohler, 1967). That would allow that at least some non-linguistic animals (including children) can form concepts, and think.

<16>
Later, HM claims that "concepts can grasp experience to any desired degree, but never completely." [37]. "The matrix of undivided and unstructured experience "would not be completely grasped by any possible number of concepts used successively or simultaneously, and thus experience encompasses the concepts" [36]. As long as a concept is defined as a linguistic phenomenon, it is hard to argue. Most people would agree that words are rarely, if ever, adequate to experience. I get the feeling that HM meant to express something more significant than this common sense platitude.

<17>
* I disagree that knowledge is defined only as knowing-that. HM says, "[the] subjective side [of early (pre-conceptual) and (verbal-) conceptual formations], sensation, action, and thinking phenomena, are to a large extent, even if not entirely, independent of what the agent (animal or human) knows of the objective events. Birds fly, using their sensation and motor control apparatus, but they do not teach aerodynamics" [14]. Does HM want to exclude "knowing how" from the definition of knowledge, reserving the term only for propositional, linguistically articulate, "knowing-that?" That would be a nonstandard definition of knowledge.

<18>
* I disagree with HM's implicit definition of subjectivity. From the example given in [14], cited above, it seems like sensorimotor learning is the criterion of subjectivity. Birds learn to fly, just as we learn to walk and ride a bicycle, even though neither birds nor we might be able to articulate ("teach") the details of our performances. Subjectivity defined as sensorimotor learning not linguistically articulated, is a plausible, but unusually constrained definition. I would think subjectivity would also involve one's sense of existence: how one knows an experience has happened to oneself and not to the person standing nearby.

<19>
* I disagree that the assumption of a primary (ontological) subject/object split is "erroneous" [2]. I expect that HM and I have very different definitions of the terms, "subjectivity" and "objectivity." I cannot find his explicit definitions and cannot understand his implicit ones. I would agree that a primary split between subjectivity defined as the common sense intuition of one's own consciousness, and objectivity defined as the material things of the world, is a particularly naive and erroneous formulation of the mind-body problem. However, other definitions of subjectivity and objectivity are possible. There is no a priori reason that I can see to fault the very conception of a subject/object split. Of course it does not follow that the only possible dualism is the naive Cartesian kind.

<20>
HM does not really support his assertion that subject-object dualism is erroneous. He claims that both subject and object are derived, fabricated structures of experience, having no inherent validity. [24,27]. But since some kind of mind-body dualism is apparent to the most casual reflection, it is a common sense intuition which must be accounted for, not dismissed as merely "a human weakness" [45]. To do so is tantamount to dismissing the mind-body problem summarily as a pseudo-problem, which I do not believe is the case.

<21>
I find almost impenetrable the assertion that "For all (animals and humans) the undivided and unstructured experience is the only available entrance to any sensation or knowledge (including objective knowledge)" [15]. I must ignore the distinction between "objective knowledge" and just plain "knowledge" since I do not know what that distinction is. In any case, HM's assertion goes beyond Locke's doctrine that knowledge is based on sensory experience, because here, sensation itself is in turn based on "undivided and unstructured experience."

<22>
If knowledge and all the structures of experience are cumulative, then tracing backwards to some theoretical singularity, perhaps the moment of conception, there is some point at which living experience has not yet become structured. In that trivial sense, yes, unstructured experience is "the only available entrance" to knowledge if we accept Locke's empirical epistemology.

<23>
But what does it mean in a broader context to say that sensation is derived from undivided and unstructured experience? This seems to define sensory experience as a conceptualization or a gestalt formation, not as a raw experiential given. According to HM, what is "given" is only "undivided and unstructured experience." That doesn't make phenomenological sense, and is not consistent with the phenomenological literature. But perhaps that is what HM means to imply, that phenomenology, like science, has been a mere "as-if" exercise of self-created structures. Since all such structures (religious, artistic, moral, philosophical, etc.) are similarly social constructions, we are left with no tools that are anything but contrived exercises of arbitrary self-created structures.

<24>
Likewise, no assertion of any kind by any person, including HM himself, can have any criterion (other than consensus) for validity. There is no way to, or reason to, distinguish fantasy from reality, knowledge from belief, fact from value. We are left with no non-arbitrary knowledge and not even a viable method of knowledge acquisition. Consequently we can find only moral relativism, and ultimately a complete nihilism. Nihilism is not a particularly compelling, interesting, or useful philosophy. It is, I believe, a philosophical dead-end.

<25>
SELF-CREATION AND WIDENESS

I think the 0-D approach results in a dead-end because of strict adherence to its axiom of self-created structure. I suggest that axiom is not reasonable, and I submit with some trepidation an alternative approach to the origins of the structure of experience.

<26>
The central proposition of the 0-D approach is that "The origination of structures of thinking, self, and nature [is] from within non-structured experience..." [11]. Further, those structures "(both pre-conceptual and conceptual ones, and including the difference between subject and object), all imply the activity of a subject, without pre-given patterns. Without such activity no thought-structures exist, not in humans and not in animals." [12]

<27>
But HM does not describe or explain or even suggest how such a thing could come about. What kind of activity of subjectivity could possibly produce the structure of experience? Would meaningless, random, uncaused activity be adequate? It is hard to imagine how unstructured activity in a context of unstructured experience would result in any kind of structure, or indeed what could constitute "a structure" under those conditions. Yet HM is adamant that the activity is not intentional. He says, "this is creation of structures, and not interpretation (or "re-presentation") of an already pre-structured world. This process concerns pre-conceptual as well as conceptual, animal as well as human, intentional as well as unintentional structures, and includes in particular also the difference between subject and object" [11].

<28>
We can only conclude that structures somehow "emerge" from inchoate experience by some unknown principle of organization. We know at least that it is not a self-organization of experience, for an undefined concomitant meaningless, nonintentional, random "activity" of subjectivity is also required, for reasons unknown. This formulation is a non-explanation. It is tantamount to simply stipulating structures of experience.

<29>
HM attempts to finesse this problem with an analogy drawn from computer engineering: "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)." [8]. Of course this won't do at all, for there is no entity with the capacity to "posit" anything prior to the formation of the first structure.

<30>
Elsewhere, HM tries a different tack, suggesting that genetics somehow catalyzes the origination of structure from chaos: "All structures of experience [are] made by us within experience; they are not given or found, even though beside their practical success other objective (e.g., genetic) factors largely determine which structures are developed." [10] But we must take the final term, "developed" literally, as unfolding or revealing of further structure, for HM cannot appeal to biology in his story of origination of mental structure.

<31>
I am more than willing to admit that once some kind of structure is available in the sea of inchoate experience, one may begin to build a platform of cognition. As HM says, "The elaboration of given experience happens with the help of self-produced structures"[9]. Elaboration, yes; origination, no.

<32>
It turns out then that HM's assertion that structure spontaneously arises from non-structure is logically equivalent to Kant's assertion of conceptual categories that exist prior to experience. The only difference is that Kant had twelve pre-existent structures of experience, whereas HM suggests that if he had only one, he could bootstrap the rest. One, twelve, or twenty: in any case origination is not explained, only asserted.

<33>
Personally, I find nothing wrong with asserting some kind of structure prior to experience. In fact, without some such axiomatic principle, no theory of mind can ever get off the ground, for nothing comes from nothing. I don't like Kant's elaborate schema of pre-existent categories, but I think that some very simple structural principle of consciousness could serve the purpose. Lacking any such principle, the 0-D approach is inert.

<34>
I am willing to submit a possible alternative to the question of how the structures of experience first arise from inchoate experience. This alternative can be understood in relation to HM's description of "the encompassing."

<35>
The idea of "the encompassing" is simply that experience is always much wider than conceptualization. HM says, " 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." [36]. "Encompassment and the encompassing are therefore a built-in property of experience" [37].

<36>
HM emphasizes this point by showing what happens if one tries to reverse the relationship and come up with a concept that is wider than experience: "Wide concepts do encompass narrower ones, but this attempt must nevertheless fail due to the limiting properties of all concepts, unless the experience which is meant by the concept is so wide that it includes everything. ut in this case the concept no longer "grasps", and the definition no longer "defines". In that case the meant becomes identical with all-encompassing (including for instance mystical) non-structured experience, which can however evidently be neither conceived nor communicated via structures in doctrines or other systems of thought. The widest experience is wider than all possible concepts and concept-systems" [49].

<37>
I agree with HM's assertion about the relationship between ordinary experience and concepts, bearing in mind that for him, conceptualization is a linguistic process and concepts are linguistic products. However I would like to suggest here that the scope of the encompassing might not be wide enough for a completely adequate theory of mind. Crazy though it might sound at first, what if there is another kind of experience entirely, which is "wider" even than the encompassing which is the fund of conceptualization? Then we would have to reject HM's enigmatic conclusion that, " there follows also the paradox that the widest possible "theory" is the encompassing itself, although it is itself not structured (and thus is not a theory)." [44]

<38>
What could be wider than all of experience? It is a kind of experience which should not properly be called experience at all; it is a non-experience which I have come to call, for lack of another term, "the black hole." Like its astronomical namesake, it can be known only at its transition horizon, and only by inference from the perturbations It causes on the experience around it. The black hole cannot be experienced, but it can be "entered" from experience, and some time later, one finds oneself "ejected" from it, back into the experience which constitutes the encompassing that HM describes. All of this would be irrelevant to the present discussion except that the non-experience of the black hole causes "perturbations" or effects on experience. I believe that these effects are the source of the original structures of experience that HM cannot account for in 0-D theory.

<39>
The black hole of non-experience can be approached with a meditative practice. When successful, the practice leads one to the edge of experience then over the brink into the complete absence of experience, a non-experience. After a while (though time does not exist in the black hole) one finds ones self back in experience from which can be drawn conceptualization. There is not much to conceptualize right away, since the black hole was not any sort of experience, but one can conceptualize the apparent gap or hole in the fabric of experience that was created by the non-experience. With additional experience over time, and with repeated encounters with the black hole, one can discern patterns in experience correlated with the encounters. Some of these effects include increased creativity, understanding, intuition, and personal efficacy.

<40>
An obvious drawback to the inclusion of anything like the black hole in a theory of mind is that very few people would have any idea what one was talking about. On the other hand, I know a great many people lacking in philosophical curiosity who cannot be communicated with at all on subjects such as the encompassing. Communication after all depends on some mutual recognition of the objects (as conceptualized) being referred to. The currency of the idea of the black hole depends on the possibility that HM or other readers might recognize in its description a part of mental life. On that thin bet, my submission is that the black hole provides the initial structures to otherwise inchoate experience.

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REFERENCES

Bruner, J.S., Goodnow, J.J., & Austin, G.A. (1962). A Study of Thinking. NY: Science Editions, Inc.

Gibson, E. J. (1969). Principles of Perceptual Learning and Development. N.Y.: Meredith Corporation.

James, W. (1890). Principles of Psychology. NY: Holt.

Kohler, W. (1967/1971). "Gestalt Psychology." In M. Henle (Ed.), The Selected Papers of Wolfgang Kohler. NY: Liveright Publishing Corp.

Werthheimer, M. (1923/1965). "On objects as immediately given to consciousness," D. Cantor (Trans.), from "Untersuchungen zur Lehre von der Gestalt." In Herrnstein, R.J, & Boring, E.G. (Eds.), A Source Book in the History of Psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

William A. Adams is adjunct associate professor of psychology, Chapman University (Orange, CA), Washington Academic Center (near Seattle). He is interested in restoring consciousness to the study of psychology.