KARL JASPERS FORUM

TA32 (Muller)

Response 1 (to C6 by Helmut Walther)

EXPERIENCE AND MIR
by Herbert FJ Muller
4 December 2000, posted 19 December 2000

[1]
In his commentary, HW's chief point is <1> that he wants to maintain a connection between reality and consciousness, while claiming that my point of view does not.

[2]
In saying this, he actually implies that reality is identical with traditional static mind-independent reality (MIR), though he does not explicitly state this. This view is not only his, but that of many others as well, and it leads into difficulties, in particular if, like here, traditional MIR-belief is implied as valid, without discussion why and how one should use it. Since I have evidently not succeeded in communicating my opinion in previous communications, I will re-iterate my central points, to clarify my view.

[3]
In my opinion, this static mind-independent reality is strictly a human fiction which serves to structure thinking. There is nothing wrong with using it but one should be aware that it is a fiction (and such awareness changes it to from static MIR to as-if-MIR or working-MIR). Uncritical use of MIR, on the other hand, leads into a dead-end road, particularly when one tries, as we do here, to understand questions like the relation of consciousness to matter (including in particular the relation of experience to brain function).

[3]
Reality is, I think, the result of our investment of belief (reality-belief) in structures which we create. I therefore do not deny a connection between consciousness and reality <1>, quite the opposite. As I see it, the difference between HW's and my view is that : he thinks that reality is mind-independently structured, while I say that the mind does all the structuring and believing. This is so not only for humans but for animals too and results in their "worldliness" <3>.

[4]
Non-verbalized structures including feelings are not excluded from experience in my view, contrary to what HW says (<3> "consciousness ... for you only starts … on the basis of the conceptual"). See for instance TA32[6] : "Earlier forms include gestalt-formations of visual, auditory, tactile type, and less sharply circumscribed formations (which are sometimes called "qualia", because they cannot be easily quantified) such as sensations of color, smell, taste, balance, pain." - A part of the difficulty in communication is I think due to HW's use of the term "consciousness" <1ff> rather than "subjective ongoing experience", which emphasizes the centrality of experience. This does not mean that one should not use the word "consciousness", but that one needs to clarify its meaning in each particular context. "Conscious" can for instance mean "not unconscious", or also "aware", among other things.

[5]
The discussion of "software" and "hardware" <3> can only be of objective ("naturalist") type, and can therefore not reveal anything about subjective experience (ie, about what HW calls "consciousness"). One aspect which usually gets lost in exclusively objective views is the cardinal role of the encompassing aspect of experience (see TA31 C3<17>ff).

[6]
It is not possible to "mediate between" materialism and the building of mental structures <4>, because the structures are built inside experience. It is not a question of either the one or the other, or something in between, rather one has to see that "naturalist" objective structures are (always, and only) secondary to experience, and originate and remain inside it. Materialistic views are specializations of formed experience, while the 0-D view describes the development of the forms from no structures. To mediate between the two would be like trying to mediate between a pond and a boat which is floating in it.

[7]
HW is right when he writes <3> that reduction of experience to objective data is in my opinion impossible. But to state that for me "consciousness appears only as a consequence of concept-dynamics" <3> is the opposite of what I say, because the concepts are formed inside experience, and thus they are secondary to experience (or to what Walther calls consciousness). See TA32 [9] : … 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. …

I hope that these remarks help our communication efforts.

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Herbert FJ Muller