KARL JASPERS FORUM

TA63 (Leslie / Rees)

Commentary 16 (to R3)

(PROFESSIONALS ONLY)
by Adrian van der Meijden
30 November 2003, posted 7 December 2003

<1>
Leslie's comment nicely points up my continued misgivings about HM's and KJ's comments on 0-D. I disagree that it has to be a professional philosopher to declare the way it is. I find HM repeats a single definition that suggests an AS IF relation for all the world outside us. In a first sense at its time of writing, it could have been made with a delicate sense of awareness about the unpopularity of metaphysicals in academia, now somewhat lessened. In a second place it presents a naive label that hides a great deal of complexity and ambiguity. 0-D suggests only conceptual thinking, which is not where it is at with consciousness resultant from Q findings. It makes an absolute statement, supposedly valid for all conditions. While I readily agree that what our senses ?know? is a construction of the brain, hardwired in to deal with us being mobile; plants don't rely on senses, the issue is not tackled by neurology and which one may call an appearance of something unknown. Currently several accounts for this are found, none of them consensus factoids, but it shows a difficulty. I am beginning to believe that matters at KJF are at a static standstill.

<2>
My own coping solution - in admitted ignorance about reality as a whole - is a reformed trinitarianism where I find myself using three different relational sets for my actions, reactions and transactions with a reality in which I live, move and have my being. This I model as a triangle - to represent a dynamics of relations - by numbering 0, 1, 2 in the corners; for 0= the unitive state outside of sole awareness of the body or mind only, 1= the subjective state mediated by way of brain=body to generate the appearance of one's world, 2- a dualistic condition where it is clear I am not in full control of reality, only a small subset of some of it, and where, so to speak, I can have my peanuts crunchy just so, lampposts will ruin my car when I hit one, unlike a dream, very much against my wishes in the matter. As I wrote to a friend, "we're both mere pixels in the cosmic show comparing notes about the richness of it all". I may add here: and about the suchness of its quiddilty. I don't aim to prescribe to anybody to adopt this schema, refusing to play the authority. The real difficulty hides in how and whether ?we? can attain communal agreement on the matter. This, sort of extrudes into a fourfold of several varieties of choice, when adopting an "identity" and role and contracts back into a dynamic of potential process, when done.

<3>
Having struggled with avoiding all *beliefs* in the matter, and sorely puzzled about how to cope in a society that insists on the *facts* and where that word "belief" is heavily over-used in an attempt of our society to organise and shape my "beliefs" into a homogenised, robotic 3rd person abstract only suitable to the workbench, without much avail, for a suitable nomenclature to share my unspeakable feelings, sensations, but not memes in discourse, I found some help. The article is by Anthony Judge, director of uia.org, the encyclopedia of world problems on grokking and homo conjugens. After the manner of Huizinga's homo ludens to replace Aristotle's broad flat nails HC does not rely on a fixed forever after identification with any kind of social consensus reality POV or the standard enumerative kind, but more chameleon like adopts whatever field or contextual wrapping of the moment one happens to be involved with or encompassed by as a temporary event frame or social situation. A strong example is a Court case where I'd better accept the putup hooplah designed for me to take it seriously and speak the truth, as defined in law, as mine would make it contempt of court. Should I confess I'm merely lying ? One may almost say I am in that situation with any professional, bureaucrat and other naives one might consult as a matter of social recourse. These I call fictions, where the other version is better done over as an illusion or distortion. Thus I use these fictions like a set of clothes and social roles to adopt, whenever suitable, convenient and forced.

<4>
I'd like to present a trick for testing how to get into a non-verbal state and some reports back if agreeable. Speech occurs as unconscious sub-vocalised muscle twitches and up to more subtle only neural twitches. For the ears it results as a poly-resonance midway between the ears from both direct sound reception and Doppler effects resultant from the shape of the ear lobe. Contrariwise a mimic or actor may so associate words and their concepts with body postures and actions. I mention this to indicate that the sound trick won't work for everybody because the fabric of associations between an eidolon, its associated noise and sensations and all that, is rather more rich and complex as well as poly-valent than allowed in standard conception. I happen to be somewhat synaesthetic, when I choose to. So back to the throat muscles. One can either directly relax those muscles or take a drink and hold it by closing the glottis which sufficiently tenses the muscles to stop the subtler twitches. THAT results in a foregrounding and stronger dominance of a more *pure* sensory sensing of the kind nature mystics like Wordsworth poetised about and popularised as "Feel the force, Luke". Altogether playing around with a Blakean blocking and opening of the sensory domain makes for a better flexibility instead of a habitual taking this for granted without examination.

<5>
It also enables a chameleon type of understanding rather than absolutised judgmentalism whereby one can empath - though grok's the word - oneself to imagine how it is for the other fellow and so testing various assumptional poses in wide use. I hasten to add I don't necessarily have to agree or copy one's model hero, merely to understand is enough. Here I note that in our society specialisation, individuation and role casting - as in rank, status and serial number - together with naive binary logic as in Aristotle, renders us as isolates such that "if I am right, you must be wrong" and worse. A. Judge mentions the H. conjugens as more typical of the new paradigm in emergence. Typical is that as a H. sap I'd write "renders us into isolates", which a Lacan would extend into paranoia, whereas a H.C. uses "as" to liaise the ideas. The chameleon renders his appearance unto Ceasar but reserves integrity unto itself. The old paradigm suited my Grandfather quite well. He spent 40 virtuous years as a barrel maker in Victorian times. I, contrariwise, find myself bombarded with an overload of possibilities and information, whence a man plays many roles, as noted by Shakespeare in a shift away from a more rural existence into being forced to philosophise. What I further notice is a healthy crop of other alternatives emerging. The current paradigm shift appears to be more encompassing than most. When reading to get a sniff or whiff of an idea is enough and one does not need to read from beginning to end of a book. Give me a couple of assumptions and beliefs and I'll cobble up the rest when needed. It is nice to swap notes rather than makes battles of opinions. I have more than enough to cope with my society to get too deeply embroiled with reality. My integrity remains unscathed by and large. You might like this po hum I wrote in '98.

TWEET

Mankind, said a bird,
Cannot stand much reality.
Not so, said another bird,
It's all about its Unreality;
So, which Bird is right?

In the Tree of Life
The two birds sit,
one eats, one need not
though not idly looking on.
Jivatma and Atma, wisdom and action.

For the love of me I do not see
How come such thoughts are deep,
Except their symbolism leans
Upon an old tradition.

Though man can become
His Father's father,
To say that for birds means rather less;
No Adam and Eve for birds, I gather?

Since the rhythm thumps by three,
So should it be for this idea,
For there is yet another fantasy:
Man invented his society
Which also calls itself the real.

Thus birds will not resolve this trick.
While trees have roots, a trunk and canopy,
Reality unfolds by three
As should be known by any hick:
There's custom, law and management,
No Landlord in its tenement
which once was held a sacred place.

By all this poems can be simple
although their meanings deeply dimple
The furrowed brows of metaphor
which is a game I do abhor
As it requires four grades of hearer.

Can one bird understand the other?
Or do they talk but parallel?
I fancy, therefore, that it's deep,
Because the learning curve is steep
Rehearsing ancient riddles deep,
We now call undecidables.

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Adrian van der Meijden