All Resides in the Body: Corporeal Panpsychism

Given that all experience takes place in and through our nervous system and brain, and given that what we refer to as "the world" is our experience, there is only one place wherein experience takes place—the body. Most of our experience follows a foreground/background structure. Using a sonic model, when we listen to music we are focused on the notes that operate in the foreground of our attention. However, when looked at a bit more inclusively, we can take note of the attention that encompasses the past notes that have been played, the future notes that are anticipated, and the present notes that embody the past and future of the melody. In a way, the entire sonorous structure is both anticipated and projected. Husserl called this type of structure, when the present is pregnant with the past and the future, retention and protention. We have retained, i.e., our bodies have retained, what has occurred prior to the present note(s) and by doing so we are able to anticipate what is to follow. When an appropriate note follows, the melody is intact. When an inappropriate note follows, we often immediately "know" that the melody has been played incorrectly.Please, give this a moment of reflection.

  

Now, let's add an additional type of perception to the mix. Let's say that we have left out an essential ingredient or aspect of the melody. Yes, the silence! The melody is being played "against" the background of silence. I say "the" background for us to note the universal commonality of silence. It defies specificity of instantiation (sorry). Silence is an equal opportunity presence. It never discriminates. It is always yielding sound, any sound, equally. But, we may ask, where is this silence? Where would or should we localize it? Is it in the melody? Yes and no. It is a necessary component of the melody but it is not identical to the melody. We can discriminate between silence and sound, but never separate them. Saint John of the Cross called the silence the "sonorous silence." It is a sounding silence that includes melody and the silent context in which music or the bird's song is heard. Again, we must ask where this silence is located. There is only one place where it can be, everywhere and nowhere—in our experience. We are the silence that makes sound possible. We are the silent spatiality that is "un-heard" in all sound. What of the sound? Where does the sound take place? Well, if we are the sonorous silence, then we are the sound as well. That is, the experience of the bird song is taking place in the tree in our experience, in us. When a gentle, focused, whole body attention is paid to the silent/sound, one can, with some practice, begin to "feel" the evanescent movement of the sound as we become the silence. It abides in our heart. Try it! 

A visual model of this evanescent movement of sound would be a candle flame. One must admit that the flame of a candle is a movement. As the flame is coming into being, the flame is simultaneously disappearing from being. Without the death of flame, there is no flame. In its coming there is a going; there is a going out. Flame, like sound, has the three "moments" of past, present, and future occurring simultaneously. If it were not for this evanescent movement, flame could not exist. Now, we must take note of a similar structure of fire to sound. Where is the darkness that flame illuminates? There must be an illuminated for there to be an illuminator! The darkness is yielding the light. Darkness and acoustic space are the wombs of light and sound. Yes, darkness also occurs in the body. We are the experience of darkness and light. We are illuminated by light because we abide in the dark. Does not the movement of light give rise to form? What was once obscured by darkness is now revealed by light. It is in this sense that fire gives rise to form. Again, we must take note of the fact that this manifesting of forms takes place, yes, in our experience, i.e., in our bodies. Without our nervous systems coming alive to the forms we see, there can be no forms, whether we take them to be outside of us or inside. In either case, our bodies (prakriti) are taking form as forms. One can feel this movement as it takes place in our (practiced) silent and restful body. Once we can bring about a silent attention, the experience of forms is alive in our bodies; we can feel it. An object can only take form in our experience, therefore in our bodies. Our bodies are alive with the manifestation of all forms. We feel them in silence.  

If You think that I am able to behold Your cosmic form, O my Lord, O master of all mystic power, then kindly show me that universal self. (Bhagavad Gita, 11, 4) 

Now, let's take these models to another level. What about knowledge? What about significance? How is all of my circumstantial experience like the experience of sound and form? Let's move on carefully, please. Let's start by comparing time to the movement of sound. Time, as lived time, is the movement of one circumstance into the next circumstance. Now, let's remember from a prior note in our blog, that circumstances are movements of significance or meaning. We live in meaningful time. The progression of time is the progression of meaning. Meaning, as thoughts and perceptions, is ever moving ahead from within our past to our future, one moment based on prior moments of significance projected into a significant future—movement like sound and fire.  Normally,  there is no halting of experience. We cannot stifle experience, I.e, we cannot stifle meaning from flowing out of our experience to a future which is anticipated. This is what our circumstances are made of.  As with melody, so with experience. We retain the past notes of the melody in anticipation of the notes to come. This is pure process. Time is process (or even "processing"); it is significant and fully humanized in all experience. The humanization comes from the past (think karma) and is protended as the future in the present. What has happened and will happen is present in what is happening. This is why, on an ethical level, we are often exhorted to take only those actions of body, speech, and mind which give rise to happiness in the future. This implies a movement of virtue. Ethical living (now) is a prerequisite for a happy future. Want to be happier in your future? Practice happiness as virtue now. 

So we may now understand that space, time (past, present, and future), and meaning are evanescent movements of experience. We have not exhausted this notion of experience, but we have isolated several of its key aspects. Now we must add another dimension, hinted at above. We must discuss the role of history.

  

The meaningful past, I.e., the past loaded with prior human acts of body, speech, and mind, is—as we have noted—the "stuff" of the present in the meaningful anticipation of a future. (Think the movement of a melody.) This is the only future that lives. All other kinds of future are theoretical and abstract. The living future is shaped in the meaningful present towards an anticipated, meaningful future. (Note this when you get a glass of water.) You will note that there are present those meaningful past acts in the present toward obtaining a glass of water. All three moments of time are evanescent and necessary. They are a sheer and significant process. These moments have been structured and filled out with the acts of body, speech, and mind from the past. What we do now, will structure a present toward a future—all taking place now. I'm not speaking of a moment of abstraction where we believe we can "catch" a now; I use the word "moment" to focus our attention on the movement of life, not an abstract present moment—as if there really were such a thing. Moments exist in our imaginations alone. Time is living experience in the womb of a dynamic and living space giving rise to thoughts, words, and deeds. It goes without saying that each act counts. The universe hinges upon them.  

Where does it all take place?

Just watching and listening to the world,

my world! The only one any of us will ever have.

Do you know where it all takes place?

In the body, in the body, in the body--where else?

The sheer impossibility that worlds exist anywhere else

is mind-boggling. Don't you think?

With loving attention, one can arrive at this sacred intimacy;

one can feel the worlds alive inside.

They cannot possibly be anywhere else, in living truth.

The Resurrection of the Body: the Mind/Body Problem

In our last examination, we were left with the mind/body problem. Briefly, this problem stems from a conception of experience or subjectivity that seems to necessitate an answer to what is termed "the hard problem"; can the "physical" body, i.e., the brain, give rise to subjective experience--something so radically different than itself. Or, how can a physical body produce non-physical experience? How can subjective experience, i.e., first personal experience arise from something so very different? Let's take a look at this problem from another perspective.

The mind/body problem arises as a result of several presuppositions going unexamined. First, we have been historically conditioned to use the word "body" in a physical (i.e., biological or medical) sense. The body conceived to be this thing that houses a mind, including the self. We shall refer to this body as the "medical body." Allow me to illustrate. When are get sick, perhaps a flu, we think up a body that has been inhabited by a virus that causes very uncomfortable symptoms. From a medical or biological perspective, this conception is true. I don't think many would argue. However, the felt experience of the body displays something radically different. The "feeling body" is the experience of symptoms. The medical body is the body we conceive. It is a purely conceptual body. No one has ever perceived their whole body. We can see limbs but not our backs. We can see but we cannot perceive our eyes, except in the form of a reflection in a mirror or something that reflects light. But we do feel various symptoms such as hot with a fever, aching muscles, sore throat, etc. Basically, I am referring to the body as it is lived, not as it is thought. Our living body, and that is what I'll be calling it, is our experience body. The entirety of all experience takes place in our living bodies, not in our theoretical, biological, or medical bodies. The latter are purely conceptual. Now this is not to degrade the medical body in any way shape or form. But it is to say that any conceptual body will always be a product of thought. 

In the mind/body problem, we are conceiving of a medical body that somehow gives rise to first personal experience. However, if we suspend the concept of a medical or physical body we can adopt a more life-like body, the experience body. If we conceive of our bodies as the locus of all experience, even thought, the mind body problem dissolves. 

The same is true of the mind or consciousness. If we conceive of consciousness as something produced by the medical body, then we are stuck with the mind/body problem again. But, if we take note of how we actually live the body, then we might be brought to the point of realizing that we don't live with a mind or consciousness separate from the living or feeling body. We can certainly distinguish what we call "mental activity" from feelings, but we cannot separate feelings from any sort of mental activity, surprisingly even from thought. I don't think it much of an exaggeration to say that most of us are not aware of the feeling impact of thoughts as they are occurring. Frequently, it takes some sort of meditation or sensitivity practice to realize the intimate connection of thoughts and feelings. Yes, even thought takes place in feelings. 

So, what are we now left with? Well, our conception of the body is one of a lived body, not a theoretical one. Consequently, we are brought to realize that no living separation is possible; the separation is only an analytic process. We live body/mind we think body and mind. We do not live in a singular body inhabited by a mind, and consequently a self. This conception of "self" must dissolve along with the mind/body problem. More on that later.  

A personal note on our blog....

I wish to let my readership, however small at present, know that despite the seemingly diverse topics covered in the blog, there is one primary intention. This intention is the alleviation of our suffering. I suspect that the diversity, and often incomplete nature of some of my posts, may lend to a feeling of confusion or, at the very least, misunderstanding. However, I wish to convey to you my sincere assurance that, no matter what the content of the various posts, their overall intention remains singular. There is not a day that goes by that I am not deeply distressed by the human faces, considerations, and "world" events that manifest our collective suffering. I am compelled to address this.

I have not provided much information with regard to my background simply because I am basically a private person. However, I will say that I have been trained in and have practiced meditation for over forty-five years. My academic background includes both undergraduate and graduate work at two of the finest universities in the U.S., Stony Brook University and Fordham University, both in New York. These schools provided me with a rather thorough education in both Eastern and Western philosophy as well as the history of religions. I am very grateful that, despite my limited means, I had the opportunity to study at these fine institutions and give back what I learned in my work as a college professor. My meditation background, or shall we say yogic training, began with a woman from India who brought a wealth of insight and compassion from India and built an Ashram in New York that still exists to this day. I was given the opportunity to learn from and work for her for over 22 years. I am forever in her debt for the path that she helped to provide for me. Needless to say, I have been extremely fortunate.

The main point I wish to convey here is that no matter what the blog topic the intention is "write only what is useful in the quest to attenuate human suffering." Whether I am addressing philosophy all the up the abstraction ladder to politics, the intention is the same. How each reader uses the material presented is, of course, idiosyncratic. I will do my best to make each blog entry relevant to my stated intention, but each reader bears the responsibility of "connecting the dots" making it work for their own life. Questions and comments are always welcome, but only if they are in keeping with the blog's stated intention.

Having said this, I welcome your participation.

Thank you,

Gene

Free Will & Social Cohesion

On my interpretation of the doctrine of karma (action), the abandonment of the belief in free will is perfectly compatible with social cohesion. TBC

Always beginning, but never again!

Currently, there is much work being done in the philosophy of mind on the topic of consciousness. It is truly baffling. I'm wondering if I should dare speak my "mind" on the topic; although not having much of a following it may not matter to anyone but a few. However, here goes.

The majority of philosophical works on the topic--there are some exceptions, notably Galen Strawson--appear to take the phenomenal, if not ontological, existence of consciousness for granted. Some very important observations are made the aim of which, in most cases, is to theoretically clarify the nature of consciousness for a better understanding of our human experience. Indeed, much of what is said is highly useful, not simply for theoretical purposes, but for those of us who endeavor to learn the lessons of experience to alleviate our levels of dissatisfaction. This, of course, is what Buddhism, Yoga, Samkhya, Vedanta, Sufism, and other so called "spiritual" practices have aimed at in their respective studies of consciousness. However, as useful as much of this work has been, for both the theoretical and practical, it seems to have reached a sort of impasse. I will explain as we progress. Obviously, much can and probably should be discussed here regarding the many theories regarding consciousness, I have but one single preoccupation at this time. It came to me in the form of a question, somewhat of a rhetorical question, but to me a very useful tool to understand the limits of most investigations into consciousness. So, I offer this question to those of us who do love the philosophy of mind and wish to see it "progress" to the point wherein the theoretical gives way to the practical mission of minimizing human suffering.

Here is the question: "What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of consciousness"?

It appears to be a simple question, one that might be answered from biological, neurological, psychological, epistemological, ontological, phenomenological, etc. angles. However, my answer to the question may reveal aspects of the study of consciousness that few of us have considered, at least from what I've seen of current literature on the topic.

Now, there are several elementary ways to grapple with this question that yield, what I take to be, valuable results. Let's take a look at some of these approaches that may come in the form of questions or propositions or both.

So, we are now ready to take a close look at our experience and examine "consciousness." Well, our first step is to assume the intellectual posture of looking. But what exactly are we looking at. Our thought can only "catch" what has just occurred. It cannot capture what is, it can only capture what was, the past, just out of our reach. The evanescent nature of experience, i.e., the movement of time, guarantees a sort of failure. We may indeed believe that our thought captures what has just occurred, but what is our guarantee? How do we know for sure? Surprisingly, we have also overlooked something very important. We have operated on a presupposition, the presupposition that thought can, in some way, "know" what occurred in the immediate past, our just arisen experience. As the ancient Greek philosopher Parmenides said: "Thinking and that because of there is thinking are the same thing. In fact without Being, in which it is expressed,...you will not find thinking: in fact nothing else exists or will exist outside of Being...." Parmenides thought that thinking and the basis of thinking are one and the same. So, in some unimaginable way, thinking is the way (methodos) of Being, of what is. It is through thinking that we access what is, being. How is this possible? How does thinking become identified with what is? For us then, it would be possible for thought, in some way, to be identical with what is when we look at our experience. Is that the case? Can my thought "capture" an experience, a time, that has just occurred? How do I know that it does? What does it mean to capture here? Does thought "reflect" reality? Does thought mirror reality? Notice we have resorted to metaphors and we deem them apt only on the basis that we want them to be apt. We are driven by the impulse of karmically determined movements of thought. Metaphors seem to work, but to what extent? When it comes to a scrutiny of our just-lived experience is thought 100% accurate? How do we simply accept the notion that thought does indeed reflect what is? In other words, we have arrived at a radical level of skepticism.

I am certainly not proposing skepticism. However, I am proposing that we take a look at this relation of thought and what is, or in our case, what was, and ask ourselves how far we are willing to go in trusting the historically conditioned nature of language, i.e., thought. This is particularly important with regard to the inquiry demanded by a philosophy of mind. So, where do we get the historically generated, or if you prefer, karmically determined notion of consciousness?

Well, supposedly, John Locke (1632-1704) the great British philosopher, introduced the word to Western philosophy. Since then, it has taken on a life of its own. What has happened is the many philosophers have been historically determined to posit realities, performing an act of reification, adding consciousness to their list of existents, on the basis of their ability to think it. Once posited and reified into an existent, albeit in many cases a phenomenal reality, consciousness has become a most problematic "thing" that must be explored and characterized.

"Consciousness" may be, for some analyses, a useful term; but that is all it is, a term. Once thought, we are tempted into thinking of it as a thing and that's when all sorts of problems begin, such as the mind/body problem.

Craving is a battle we wage against impermanence.