Warning: The following may cause an expansion of the mind.
I often get accused of going too deep or thinking too much. Its a problem. Its not MY problem, but its a problem. But that whole “Keep it Simple” thing is for another chapter.
I just want to take this opportunity to
say that for the rest of this paper, if you are not interested in me
getting un-simple... just go to the next one. This next discussion
may not be for everyone. If you're following the humility thing so
far just fine and are happy with it, that's fine.
OK, here goes. The concepts of truth
and humility and acceptance I have already discussed can be pulled
together with the concepts of subjectivity and objectivity.
Subjectivity refers to the subject and
all your perspectives, experiences, feelings and desires... and pain
of course.... It is contrasted with objectivity.
To understand why its important, we
have to think about this thing called Qualia. This refers to the
nature of a thing that has to be experienced to be understood and
cannot be communicated. A simple example would be the color red, and
trying to explain it to someone who had been born blind and had no
“experience” of colors at all. You could say that red “looks
hot” or say that 'red' is “what one sees when refractive light with a
wavelength of 700nm is pointed at you” but its not quite the same
thing.
So something like smelling the sea,
feeling a rain storm approaching, hunger, pain, a broken heart, fear,
and how we think of God are all subjective Qualia.
All spiritual experience is Qualia.
They cannot be communicated in a way that is meaningful. You have to
have one.
To take it further, think a little bit
about what communication is. Communication is basically taking an
idea or concept in your mind, and creating the same (or as close as
possible) in someone else's mind. In Psychology class I was taught
that this is the definition of “intelligence”. The ability to
communicate.
Qualia is ineffable, which means it
cannot be communicated or understood in any way other than direct
experience; its intrinsic, meaning its non-relational or does not
change depending on the experience's relation to other things; its
private, or all interpersonal comparisons of qualia are impossible;
as Clarence Irving Lewis, in his book Mind and the World Order (1929) wrote: “Qualia are directly intuited, given, and not
subject to any possibility of error because they are completely
subjective.”
Think about that for a minute. He is
not saying that subjectivity has to be true because we experience it,
what he's saying is that our minds can't tell the difference. This is
the white swan thing again.
If we have only seen white swans, but
then we see other birds, like say doves, that are white but also come
in other colors, then there just might be the possibility of other
colored swans in our mind BEFORE we see the black one. Simply based
on the fact that swans are birds and doves are birds.
This is not universal, some people will
have the potential for this possibility and some wont. Its the “box”.
In a very weird way peoples subjectivity can create a rigid “box” or pretty much destroy another person's “box.”
This is the structure of subjectivity.
Every single experience and feeling and perception and learned
behavior and whatever you have ever had in your entire life, whether
you remember it or not, creates a “world” that you live in. A
subjective world.
The amazing part is that I can have a
wonderful conversation with another human being who exists in a
completely different and separate subjective world then the one I'm
living in. There are enough similarities for us to communicate.
For example, if I say “the beach”
to someone who has never been there, but lived on a mountain
somewhere their entire life, we are not really going to be able to
communicate the concept to each other completely. For me the beach is
the smell of the salt and the sound of the waves and the feel of the
sand and so much more. To them its a paragraph or two and maybe a
picture on Wikipedia. But... it might be enough in common to
communicate something....
So back in the mid 70's a couple of
guys at Santa Cruz University figured out how language
(communication) relates to the structure of subjective experience.
They used a quote from Noam Chomsky “The map is not the territory”
to explain how a “deeper” meaning to the individual speaking
could be found by the person listening and developed several
techniques to do just that. Basically, what you say and how you say
it can reveal what you're thinking.
Now unfortunately mainstream science
has worked very hard to discredit this revolutionary science. But if
you look around closely you will see that this principle has been
applied to many different areas in a very real way. It has
infiltrated and been adopted by law enforcement, salespeople, idiots
that want to pick up girls easier, and the very “scientists” that
discredit the concept. In fact, the concept that subjective
experience is very powerful to us humans is discredited by saying its
too subjective. Huh.
If everything you know or can possibly
know is a result of your subjectivity, and most of it is so
unconscious that you can't even do anything about it until after the
fact....
...and everyone else is operating under
the same principle, the same subjectivity... then this is an
excellent foundation for humility.
Its not that “I know, I've been
there.” and the other person says “I've been there and I know”
is the place to end up... its more like “I only know what my
subjective world has in it, and everything I am tells me its true...
but you are struggling in the same boat” is the place to start. We
need to stop INSISTING that what we KNOW to be true is the only
truth. That's the beginning of fellowship and actually finding some
truth. We have to share our subjectivities.
5 comments:
So
of course
I have to -
I am cold.
Others in the same room are also cold (to a greater or lesser degree of their body make up).
The blind one is also cold!
We are all feeling / experiencing the cold, but we cannot communicate cold.
Therefore cold is _____?
There is also a deaf blind one with us. We in the room can all state. “it's cold”, except for the deaf blind one. We each experience the cold within our own realm including the deaf blind one & the blind one. We each understand each others cold within our own realm, but all of us have some limitations.
There is communication without words. Everyone is shivering, but not everyone can experience that.
Is cold a truth? Do limitations make cold a truth only for some? Does it matter that my cold is not experienced in the same way that my neighbors' is? (Qualia?) We are all still cold.
We huddle together in the purpose of warmth. Cold has produced a solidarity even though each cold is different.
We can take anything (subject) to the outer limits of our abilities, but our abilities are limited.
Does that mean that we are subjectively in a box – the perimeters being our limits? Or the perimeters being our subjectivity?
What is the absence of subjectivity / objectivity?
(I know – I'm being a jerk – lol)
I am so glad that my first actual conversation on this thing is with you, my original dance partner. But it would mean a lot if you'd sign your name to these things.... ;)
Let's continue with your analogy: cold. In the earlier paper on metaphor I made the point that cold exists independent of our perception of it, so if it is not cold enough for us to freeze to death then it doesn't matter if we are "sensitive" to cold, grew up in Hawaii or Alaska, or are blind or deaf, we are not going to freeze to death. But our unconscious perception of cold of cold will be our experience and our suffering. Same thing with any feeling, emotional or otherwise. Its not feeling hungry that starves us, its being hungry.
You said we each understand each other(s cold) within our own realm.
That's the point. You're jumping ahead to the end of the story again. ;) Which you do when we talk, and I wouldn't want you any other way.
Its not that we are subjectively in a box. Our subjectivity IS the box. Thinking outside the box is taught in seminars and such as removing the limits we place on ourselves.
And you're right, our shared subjectivity of the cold creates a solidarity, or fellowship, in the experience of the cold. In fact, once everyone starts talking and sharing with the one person that is used to it and relatively unaffected by the cold they forget themselves for a moment. It's not magic, it lasts as long as it takes for their own mind to remind them that they are cold. The temperature doesn't change.
I like how you pay attention to EVERYTHING I write, and the absence comment that I was blathering about before (in that other place). If our subjectivity is the subject (us) and all of our perceptions, feeling, experiences, etc. then the absence of subjectivity would be death? lol... That's a topic for another post... :P
It is an honor sir. I do so enjoy dancing & it is rare to find such a gracious partner. (humble curtsy)
A bit of confusion now - if subjectivity is unconscious perception or The Box, but one can learn to think outside The Box & remove the subjectively imposed limits, then somewhere subjectivity becomes conscious perception and no longer subjectivity? (therefore absence?) I am struggling with identified unconscious. (did I take a left when I should have gone right?)
~ ginger rogers ;)
Not at all, Ginger. If you don't know that 2 + 2 = 4 until I teach you simple math, it doesn't change the fact that addition of two sums equals a larger sum (negative integers aside); you still understood the concept that if you had two candies, and your uncle gave you another one you would have more than you had before.
Likewise, with perception. It is a mechanism that exists. If we had to be consciously aware of the impulses our nerves register from our retinae and turn them into color or form, we'd be a lot slower than we are now. So when we see a picture of two faces in profile facing each other, that for a moment appears to be a vase, it takes a moment to process the perception into something we understand.
Now, once we have seen this optical illusion, we know it for what it is, but each time we see it the brief hesitation still exists, albeit processed quicker than before. We've learned.
Somewhere inside our brains that processing of light shining on retinae into visual images IS occurring, somewhere there IS a signal telling our heart to beat, somewhere the tiny difference in time of sound hitting one ear before the other turns into an idea of where the sound is coming from. We don't have to think about, but we can teach ourselves to do so. There are times when we focus on sounds to locate their origin. There are documented cases of yogis and mystics controlling their heartbeats. It doesn't change the perception, just our awareness of it.
Remember we're trying to understand it through metaphor, which helps us understand the truth but is not the truth. The farther we go with the metaphor the farther we get from the truth.
Everyone knows the picture we learn in school of the atom with the electrons swirling around the nucleus of neutrons and protons. But an atom doesn't really look like that. Its a metaphor. The truth is we understand the truth about atom's with mathematical equations like Alvagrado's Number. But try teaching that to a bunch of kids.
I think that's where I needed to be – thank you! As no one person is able to understand everything, but in sharing we are sometimes able to grasp a bit more – like the candies - 2+1= more than 2. The more aware & out of the box the more open one can be to a concept, or a truth? As subjectivity becomes less God, humility, truth have a chance to become greater? Losing ones self to truly find ones self? And is part of this puzzle the choices that we make? Sharing the fellowship of the cold with the one who is not affected by it, setting self aside briefly & not experiencing the cold, but experiencing experience? Or, by our choosing, can He fill the unconscious (as in your next paper Humility and God) as He is the universe?
~ connie (aka ginger)
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