For several reasons, time and not wishing to get into different waters, I have "stepped around" this Jaspers' forum pond, at most dipping my mind-toes into surface waters of the texts and dialog. So I am speaking here pretty much from ignorance of what you are about. However, I notice here the questions of "illusion"; whether or not all perception is illusory relative to some notion of "perceived reality". Chris, if I understand him here, is arguing that what is perceived "out there" is a projection of the "in here" which I read as the bio-given.

Maybe I'm just fishing here in murky waters, but it seems to me phenomenology offers a middle path between "reality" and "illusion": i.e., "phenomenological" or "lived reality". It is really philosophically a path between "idealism" and "realism or materialism" and around the Cartesian split.

And that notion puts into question the starting points and presuppositions inherent to the attitude which goes with those starting points of the inquirers. For, there is already in the attitude (thus in the question of the inquirer) some idea of "reality" or "illusion". Typically, for scientists of the physical science bent, Husserl labeled this the "natural attitude" with such implications built into it as the following: if it is not itself real (reality is not itself perceived) then it must be "illusory" which by definition relates inversely to reality.

Let me propose another way of looking at this notion of the inquirer and the inquirer's attitude relative to "meanings" of terms used. Start with a simple analogy. Kids are sitting in the school auditorium awaiting assembly. They start to get "playful", even a bit ruckus awaiting the teacher. They are tossing paper planes about and two boys get hit in the kisser. The inclination of both is to get even. But only one of the boys gets hot enough to toss, say a pencil, back at the head of his "offender" and that kid then says (asks) "Do you want to make something of this?" and the other responds "Yeah". And so a big fight starts between these two and the hall guards show up and it ends up in the principal's office, etc.

Meanwhile, the other boys shrugged it off and didn't "make anything of it". We have two different "reality" situations based on whether or not somebody "made something of it". By analogy, if, say, an A-I type wants to discover how the human mind works and wants to do this through computer simulation, he has "made something" of this "problem". He has made it a problem and has framed it necessarily to suit the frame of reference which incorporates the computer. And the duality is implicit. Here is a machine, here is a mind. How are they alike or what can one reveal about the other? etc. Easily forgotten, like the two boys who decided to "make something of it", relative to the two who did not "make anything of it", is the fact that the "inquirer" is not inquiring into some ready set reality. Because the reason that that reality is there in the first place is that somebody (the scientist/inquirer) decided to "make something of it". And that "something" is different also from the "nothing made of it" by the other boys or those simply living and not inquiring into such questions and, also, different from that "something" made by an inquirer who, say, would like to match a human mind with that of a chimpanzee, or that of God (rather than a computer).

In a word, I see no questioning -- at a very question-founding level of the "biases" or inherent meaning frames to the issues raised. There seems to be a presumption in your dialog that everything can be taken for granted. But more, once this presumption (natural attitude) is revealed as but one attitude formed by the "way we made something of..."; we can recognize all the different attitudes as "real" and NOT illusory, if we mean 1) in the phenomenological sense and 2)that "biases" can be seen not as "biases" or deviations from some constant (reality) but as meaningful ways of perceiving where meaning joins perceiver and perceived in an intrinsically experienced way and the "perceived" as intrinsically a dimension of that same meaning bond. That is all that joined in "what we made of it". 3) And the "what we made of it" implies that neither the perceiver nor the perceived is passive. Indeed, to carry the analogy of the boys in assembly one step further, those "good" boys who decided "not to make something of it" simply established another lived reality. As Sartre pointed out, not to choose is to choose, or to choose not to act is an active choice leaving a living situation.

Excuse me if I am way off base from what you've been engaged in here. It was a spur of the moment decision, this morning, to sink my foot deeper into your pond. I'll go dry off.

Mike Arons
e-mail <marons@westga.edu>

SUBJECT: WHOLES AND ASPECTS
sent 2 February, distributed 10 February 1998

Hi Mike... You wrote:

(MA:) For several reasons, time and not wishing to get into different waters, I have "stepped around" this Jaspers' forum pond, at most dipping my mind-toes into surface waters of the texts and dialog. So I am speaking here pretty much from ignorance of what you are about. However, I notice here the questions of "illusion"; whether or not all perception is illusory relative to some notion of "perceived reality". Chris, if I understand him here, is arguing that what is perceived "out there" is a projection of the "in here" which I read as the bio-given. '

(CL:)...many dont and that is a problem in that the use of analogy is 'missed' and so we can be led into illusions. In the making of 'maps' of 'out there' the first analogy is between something out there and something that is 'Us'. In our history this is evident in mythologies (anthropomorphism) but even in Science we have simply 'hidden' this method with 'independent' symbols. Thus:

I observe X

I describe X by analogy with 'Us'

I observe Y

I describe Y by analogy with X and so assume a degree of 'independence'- objectivity in categorisation, but this is illusion since X is contextually linked to 'Us' and so 'in here' is perpetuated 'out there' but implicitly -- the varied words/symbols all point to the same thing-the original context founded on 'Us' (which I argue is founded on the middleware of the whole/aspects template).

Thus, for example, we find that the behavioural descriptions of the 'basic' elements of the universe-fermions and bosons-take-on the same properties as the behavioural descriptions of the basic elements of our brains-left hemisphere (fermions - independent, self-contained, particular, fundamental, object representations) and right hemisphere (bosons - dependent, superpositions, general, transformative, wave representations)

Fermions use bosons to communicate with each other which is saying fermions ('text') require context to communicate...

We find that the behavioural descriptions of the four 'basic' forces of the universe-strong, weak, EMF, gravity-take-on the same properties as the behavioural descriptions of the brain hemispheres:

(left is precise, specific, local whereas the right is approximate and general)

strong is local to gravity that is general

weak is local to EMF that is general

When we change scales we find, for example in EMF, that E is more left and M is more right (lots of electrons etc by still no 'magnetrons' ;-) just a 'general' magnetic field)

At the biology level we have the specifics of RNA versus the generals of DNA and we insist that these are all 'independent' and outside of 'us'.

At the psychology level the 'SELF' bias of the left (particular) is complemented by the 'OTHERS' bias of the right (general).

Overall the 'whole' is seen as an independent and so self-contained system on the left and as a dependent, context sensitive system on the right. In the middle is choice-intent decrees on 'how' you see things and at the genetic level this 'continuum' favours persona development-and this is the 'place' of analogy where too left is too fundamentalist (ALL A) and too right is too relativist (ALL/SOME/A/~A).

(MA:) Maybe I'm just fishing here in murky waters, but it seems to me phenomenology offers a middle path between "reality" and "illusion": i.e., "phenomenological" or "lived reality". It is really-philosophically- a path between "idealism" and "realism or materialism" and around the Cartesian split.

(CL:) The middle is the area of highest diversity and so the 'best' chance of getting consensus mappings 'correct'. It is NOT the position of 1:1 but of 1:many.

(MA:) And that notion puts into question the starting points-and presuppositions inherent to-the attitude which goes with those starting > points of the inquirers. For, there is already in the attitude (thus in the question of the inquirer) some idea of "reality" or "illusion". Typically, for scientists of the physical science bent, Husserl labeled this the "natural attitude" with such implications built into it as the following: if it is not itself real (reality is not itself perceived) then it must be "illusory" which by definition relates inversely to reality. Let me propose another way of looking at this notion of the inquirer and the inquirer's attitude relative to "meanings" of terms used. Start with a simple analogy. Kids are sitting in the school auditorium awaiting assembly. They start to get "playful", even a bit ruckus awaiting the teacher. They are tossing paper planes about and two boys get hit in the kisser. The inclination of both is to get even. But only one of the boys gets hot enough to toss, say a pencil, back at the head of his "offender" and that kid then says (asks) "Do you want to make something of this?" and the other responds "Yeah". And so a big fight starts between these two and the hall guards show up and it ends up in the principal's office, etc. Meanwhile, the other boys shrugged it off and didn't "make anything of it". We have two different "reality" situations based on whether or not somebody "made something of it".

(CL:) one favoured entanglement (right-brain values driven BOTH/AND states) and the other favour non-entanglement (left -brained maintain independence...)

(MA:) By analogy, if, say, an A-I type wants to discover how the human mind works and wants to do this through computer simulation, he has "made something" of this "problem".

(CL:) ('fact' bias combined with 'what could be?" bias)

(MA:) He has made it a problem and has framed it necessarily to suit the frame of reference which incorporates the computer. And the duality is implicit. Here is a machine, here is a mind. How are they alike or what can one reveal about the other? etc. Easily forgotten, like the two boys who decided to "make something of it", relative to the two who did not "make anything of it", is the fact that the "inquirer" is not inquiring into some ready set reality. Because the reason that that reality is there in the first place is that somebody (the scientist/inquirer) decided to "make something of it". And that "something" is different also from the "nothing made of it" by the other boys or those simply living and not inquiring into such questions and, also, different from that "something" made by an inquirer who, say, would like to match a human mind with that of a chimpanzee, or that of God (rather than a computer). In a word, I see no questioning-at a very question-founding level -- of the "biases" or inherent meaning frames to the issues raised. There seems to be a presumption in your dialog that everything can be taken for granted.

(CL:) Sort of...there is the problem that we DO take it for granted and so do not dis-entangle our sensory biases from the creation of our experiments and so experience paradox that is 'illusion'; we have forgotten our uniqueness and how it can affect our map-making where properties of analytical method are confused with properties of things 'out there'. On the other hand there is the presumption that since wholes/aspects manipulation seems to be fundamental to all humans (at least) then any local cultural symbolisations will follow whole/aspects distinctions to varying degrees and so translations become 'easier'; you sort of fill in the dots. As far as ETs are concerned, if they evolved on a planet with a rich atmosphere then they too would have whole/aspects mapping systems 'underneath' their languages/symbolisms...

(MA:) But more, once this presumption (natural attitude) is revealed as but one attitude formed by the "way we made something of..."; we can recognize all the different attitudes as "real" and NOT illusory,

(CL:) Umm..not really since the distinction is a dichotomy and so A/~A and so reduction/illusion ;-).. through consensus we can perhaps come close-but then 40% of Germany thought Hitler was cool (or at least better than those they voted against). ('Pure' A requires fundamentalist, totalist, faith...Without illusion we are nothing).

'Illusion' is also transformative - without it we would not be here. The association of illusion with right-brained thinking is the linking of illusion with contextual variations; creating interference patterns that confuse the reductionists. I can choose aspect of a situation and 'make something of it' and this becomes a 'fact'; but only on active reduction can this 'fact' be shown to be 'false' (or 'true'). At the 'animal' level the ability to take-on disguise ensures/enhances survival and in 'humans' this has been abstracted into thought; thus words are 'illusions' and so 'the way that can be spoken is not the true way'. What this leads to is that right-brained illusion is context-resident and so serves to guide/control; here we find the laws of the universe (the generals of EMF and gravity...)...but then we 'look' at the spiritual elements (right-brained non-locationist) and find that miracles are more LEFT bias in that they are FREE of these laws (or just *highly localised* ;-))

By recognising the patterns that come with whole/aspects symbolisation so we can make some presumptions and at the same time solve some paradoxes (as well as improve our education methods but teaching the 'base' level from which we create symbols/metaphors;-))

best,

Chris Lofting
[clo@fmsc.com.au]