KARL JASPERS FORUM

TA 60 (Grandpierre)

Commentary 5 (to C4 by vdMeijden)

MIR - ANNULLMENT
by Herbert FJ Müller
10 July 2003, posted 22 July 2003

{1}
<3> Descartes could not find a connection between mind and matter because he had an inspiration that they are primarily (ontologically) separate. Thus he formalized an old error in a sort of scientific manner. That unfortunately was accepted not only by him but at face value also by many others, and it produced, as you say, the pseudo-problem on how mind can influence matter. But I would not say that he re-introduced the mind into the world, in practice the effect was rather the opposite : a basic separation of subject and object, which cannot be bridged, and which led some materialists to pronounce the mind to be non-existent.

{2}
Therefore I suggest that we should undo this mistake (which is traditionally called ontology, or peri-echont-ology by Jaspers : the notion of a pre-fabricated world given to us in ready-made form - about which we cannot know anything).

The subject is always a part of experience, and all separations and other structures are secondary, aspects of our own structuring activity, as needed for practical reasons (working ontology, or as-if ontology). This takes care of the paradox that mind and matter are always together. It is so because we create all the structuring of experience, inside experience, the separation into subject and objects, all those conceptual patterns which you talk about, including in particle physics and religion : and including qualia, gestalt, verbal and word-conceptual structures.

{3}
<8> The question of unreality of structures is not a problem, since we create them. Some work well, others less so, some are entirely useless, all have side-effects. Transcendental structures work to some extent as guidelines and safety devices, but can cause intellectual and practical difficulties. Your note on mystical experience is quite to the point, but one should add that it needs testing and formalization if it is to be used in a social context. <17> On pan-psychism I think you are right. At present various people propose a kind of mind-independent pan-psychism after more or less realizing that the mind-independent reality era (of Descartes, Newton, et al.) is finished. They would not need to do that if the mind was re-inserted, or better : if the ontological mistake was annulled.

{4}
<11> "If people became aware that they are free we would have a revolution". May be, or may be not. A problem for human thinking has always been that there is too much freedom, i.e., many possibilities for thinking and action with too few biologically determined patterns. Because of this under-determination, one needs patterns for what to do; that is the reason for religions, laws, and customs, which provide authorized patterns, but they all can produce problems of one kind or another, like cars can get flat tires. <17> Concerning 0-D : a difficulty in using this is that the structures are no longer guaranteed from outside (by authority including science), and that makes people feel uneasy. But in my opinion we must learn to deal with that, including for instance the notion that time and space (and speed of light) involve (and imply) our doing.

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Herbert FJ Müller