Mike Todd
Forum Replies Created
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Hi Zak,
As requested:
https://iai.tv/video/on-the-nature-of-reality-rowan-williams-and-iain-mcgilchrist
iai.tv
On the nature of reality | Iain Mcgilchrist and Rowan Williams
Join Rowan Williams and Iain McGilchrist in this though-provoking conversation as they explore the nature of meaning, and why we should move beyond the assumptions of a materialist worldview.
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Hi Whit,
I believe that your question pertains to the distinctions between an egoic and a nonegoic sense of self. Much has been written about that, and I’d rather not paraphrase teachers whose erudition and eloquence far exceed my own.
However, with respect to the interpenetration of language and the sense of self, the following may afford some leverage: the relationship between one’s inner ideolect (phonemic imagery as well as non-verbal narrative) and one’s sense of self appears to be bidirectional; as such, the ways in which one frames or attends to language may influence the ways in which one perceives and relates to oneself.
I believe that by carefully attending to symbolic, mythical and metaphorical framing in language as such, one can begin to develop an analogous sense of self, in which the constraints imposed by egoic foregrounding gradually fall away. This sort of linguistic framing is exemplified in great poetry and in the founding texts of many, especially Eastern and indigenous, spiritual traditions.
Of course, all this is just a roundabout way of saying that the sense of self about which you enquire is very likely a corollary of “getting spiritual”, an aspect of which is attending to spiritual writings RH-style.
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Hi Peter,
Thankyou for reminding us of what’s at stake and of our individual and collective responsibilities. I hope this won’t seem like an attempted hijack: I found the following conversation between Dr. McGilchrist and Prof. John Vervaeke very rewarding, and I believe its theme dovetails with your own; also of relevance is Prof. Vervaeke’s newly-launched Awaken To Meaning project, or “dojo” as he calls it, which I’ll link below the video. It might not be your cup of tea – I’m not sure it’s mine; I tend to be sceptical about such things – but I believe that Prof. Vervaeke’s intentions are good, and I imagine many people will ultimately benefit from the project. Perhaps its most conspicuous shortcoming, to my mind, is its straight-faced approach. One thing which I believe we will all need going forward is a sense of humour – irony in particular. Sadly, it appears to be in short supply across many divides. It’s heartening to see in the video that Dr. McGilchrist hasn’t lost the twinkle in his eye.
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Hi Whit (and whoever else might be looking in),
It may take me some time to expand on this. Life has taken a sharp turn off-piste with respect to both my parents: my waking hours are spoken for. I also want to double-check that I have something new to say, however minor it may be. Finally, I want to feel convinced that I’m not, as Jordan Peterson ironically put it, guilty of low-resolution thinking.
All the best for now.
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Hello again.
On my view, affect is integral to narrative, and I intend to use your example of “looking at a tree” to give some flavour of the range of narratives possible, including their emotional nuances, by which they are valenced.
I admire, though take some issue with, Mark Solms thesis, described in The Hidden Spring, in which he writes:
The simplest forms of feeling – hunger, thirst, sleepiness, muscle fatigue, nausea, coldness, urinary urgency, the need to defecate and the like – might not seem like affects, but that is what they are. What distinguishes affective states from other mental states is that they are hedonically valenced: they feel ‘good’ or ‘bad’. This is how affective sensations such as hunger and thirst differ from sensory ones like vision and hearing. Sight and sound do not possess intrinsic value – but feelings do.
What I’ll be suggesting is that narrative can, though needn’t always, lend extrinsic value to sight and sound, and so forth: it’s a layer of meaning atop purely phenomenal conscious mentation – which is not to say, a la Solms, that p-consciousness itself lacks all meaning.
No doubt you’ll recognise a fair bit of phenomenology in what I say. Perhaps where I depart from that is with respect to what I see as the unavoidably symbolic nature of narrative, including even such ostensibly prosaic narratives such as formal, functional and scientific accounts. I imagine you may be familiar with Vaihinger’s Philosophy of “As If”, which is essentially what got me started on all of this.
There’s an intriguing quote near the end of the video linked below, which I believe speaks of the same multilayered reality I mentioned a couple of comments ago:
We think more than we can say. We feel more than we can think. We live more than we can feel. And there’s much else besides.
Back at the weekend.
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Hi Whit,
Just hedge-hopping – this week is chock-full of family engagements and other unavoidables.
As I understand it, Strawson’s focus is on what could be called meta-narrative, circumscribing conceptual/psychological stories used to structure and lend meaning to one’s entire sense of self. My proposal concerns a far more granular kind of narrative – the ways we implicitly make sense of and relate to perceptions especially and other conscious mentation, which in turn influence the ways we come to make sense of and relate to ourselves. (With the caveat that the arrow of influence is bidirectional.)
In any event, I’ll refresh my understanding of Strawson nearer the weekend, just to make sure he hasn’t already debunked me.
I also need to refresh my understanding of the main theories in the philosophy of perception, again to make sure that I haven’t already been debunked, and also to verify that I haven’t merely repackaged an established theory. (Cherry-picking ideas is nothing to be ashamed of; wholesale theft, on the other hand…)
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Hi Whit,
This could – and I hope it will – turn into a fruitful exploration. However, as with any exchange of ideas, there’s always a risk of talking past one another, so I’d like to forestall that, if possible, by offering a tentative framing, which I’d be more than happy for you to tweak and rearrange as seems appropriate; provided we end up with a shared set of referents, I believe we can begin to spelunk the rabbit hole. (And, of course, we acknowledge that dividing reality with arbitrary definitions and categories is a means to an end, unfolding with a view to enfolding.)
If one accepts the premises that reality is both inherently processual and inherently relational, and that all experience is inherently mental (comprising thoughts, affective and sensational feelings, and perceptions), then all subjectively realised, i.e. conscious, mentation may be considered narrative, in the sense that conscious mentation is an account of the dynamic between the knower and the known, between “that which experiences” and “that which is experienced”, even in anomalous cases, such as nondual awareness (NDA) or minimal phenomenal experience (MPE), in which, despite there being neither overt subject nor overt object, there is still some shade of experience, requiring knower and known, as evidenced by the fact that seasoned meditators and other contemplatives are able to recall vague details of such.
If the above proposition appears amenable, then conscious mentation can be categorised in terms of symbolic and asymbolic narrative; and symbols themselves can be loosely categorised with respect to a spectrum of opacity, ranging from opaque symbolism, such as the language of a typical legal document, through translucent symbolism, such as the language of poetry and spiritual texts, as well as imagery in the forms of natural phenomena and the visual arts, to more or less transparent symbolism, such as sublime music and liminal encounters in which the numinous is foregrounded.
The above spectrum of symbolic opacity invites a multilayered view of reality, comprising nested spheres of increasing symbolic translucence supervening on an ineffable core, the singular Ground, which, on this view, may be approached directly only when the knower transcends symbols entirely, as in mystical experiences (e.g. NDA, MPE, etc.).
What I’d like to suggest is, with the advent of scientific materialism as a current admitted into the stream of cultural thought, we began in earnest to flatten reality – we became flat-earthers – such that the outermost opaque symbolic sphere came to be seen as the plenum of reality, and its substrates in the inner and outer worlds, the egoic self and matter, respectively, came to be elevated, almost deified, in the cultural mindset. This appears borne out by the fact that the default metaphysic of the average Joe nowadays, at least in the West, is substance dualism: the egoic self is fundamentally real; matter is fundamentally real.
The above is, admittedly, an oversimplification: as you noted, referring to Augustine, the threads of thought which twined to form substance dualism existed long before, and continue to exist in the wake of, Descartes, the Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution etc.; and translucent symbols, as vehicles of knowledge, haven’t been wholly discarded, although they have been overwhelmingly relegated, and with them have gone various principles which accord with a multilayered reality, notably: correspondence (as above, so below); recurrence (fractality); and, less obviously, the coincidentia oppositorum and its ramifications, hormesis and enantiodromia.
Now, “McGilchrist Syndrome” – this can be seen as resulting from the near deification of opaque symbolism mentioned above, wherein symbolic manipulation (the work of the intellect) becomes an end in itself detached from any grounding in deeper layers of reality, as evinced in the hyperrational, bizarre but internally-consistent, mentation of schizophrenics. Much could also be said, along the same lines, with respect to AI (LLM) and symbolic manipulation, as foreshadowed by Searle’s Chinese Room. And when it comes to “control and the inner voice”, again this seems to me an example of symbolic manipulation as an end in itself. (Dragons, thankfully, are impressive enough as to retain their mythic, symbolic, character, and as such appear larger than life.)
Manipulation, manipulation – isn’t that the MO of the LH?
Thanks for sharing Hulburt’s research. I’m still digesting it – putting insomnia to good use. I believe I’m familiar with the phenomenon of “unsymbolized thinking”, often in relation to mundane matters. For example, I’ll open the fridge, and, accompanying the perception of it being rather bare, I’ll “think” to myself, without any inner speech or imagery, “I really need to get down to the grocers today”. The contents of the thought – as well as its emotional nuance, which is observed rather than felt – are implicitly and immediately known, without the thought itself taking any explicit form.
I wonder how this relates to, or compares with, intuition. I also wonder whether Hulburt’s research debunks my proposal that “unsymbolized thinking” is manifest only when approaching the Ground; i.e., what does it have to do with surveying one’s empty fridge? Perhaps, even in such mundane moments, we are able access reality, or “truths” thereof (which may be questions as often as answers) without any mediation.
Finally, as a parting gift – or a parting shot; take your pick – I’d like to suggest that the spectrum of symbolic opacity I mentioned, from opaque to transparent, segueing into the asymbolic, corresponds with a spectrum of left-to-right hemisphere involvement, which I believe accords with your musing about “silence”.
It’s almost coffee-time.
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Hi Allan,
I’ve been meaning to say, I haven’t forgotten about this thread. Small, salient insights occur to me most days, but I have other priorities at present.
I’m slowly drawing together the threads of several related existents, such as “longing”, as Dr. McGilchrist describes it, the universality of music, the nature of visual art, in particular its translucence, and, of course, the ubiquity of symbol and metaphor.
Perhaps somewhere in the composure of autumn I’ll have an opportunity to compose.
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I think what Miller was suffering from was an addiction – to wonderment. I think his experience had led him to realise that, if he paid attention to a flower bud for long enough, it would eventually open. Maybe he even realised that there was something about the act of paying attention itself that coaxed the buds to unfold. Dr. McGilchrist has spoken at length about this curious reach of receptivity, which elsewhere is called wu wei.
Fortunately, I have no aversion to snippets. Invariably I find that others have already said what I want to say – better than I ever could. In that spirit, I hope you won’t mind if I turn aside from this now fully-open flower with one last wave. See you around.
For Once, Then, Something
Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs
Always wrong to the light, so never seeing
Deeper down in the well than where the water
Gives me back in a shining surface picture
Me myself in the summer heaven godlike
Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.
Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,
I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,
Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,
Something more of the depths—and then I lost it.
Water came to rebuke the too clear water.
One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple
Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,
Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?
Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something. -
I hope all’s well, Andrei. I’ve been reacquainting myself with Krishnamurti – it’s been a while. Browsing his official website, I found one of his better-known quotes especially resonant, in relation to my observation about being continually defeated in the pursuit of knowledge:
You must understand the whole of life, not just one part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, why you must sing, dance and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life.
This ethos of unquenchable vitality resurfaced again, albeit in a different framing, in a Henry Miller disclosure that appeared on my feed yesterday:
I have a theory that the moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself. I have tried this experiment a thousand times and I have never been disappointed. The more I look at a thing, the more I see in it, and the more I see in it, the more I want to see. It is like peeling an onion. There is always another layer, and another, and another. And each layer is more beautiful than the last.
This is the way I look at the world. I don’t see it as a collection of objects, but as a vast and mysterious organism. I see the beauty in the smallest things, and I find wonder in the most ordinary events. I am always looking for the hidden meaning, the secret message. I am always trying to understand the mystery of life.
I know that I will never understand everything, but that doesn’t stop me from trying.
I am content to live in the mystery, to be surrounded by the unknown. I am content to be a seeker, a pilgrim, a traveler on the road to nowhere.
For Miller, being continually defeated (“[there] is always another layer, and another, and another”, “I know that I will never understand everything”) appears to be, not a source of frustration or despondency, but rather a fount of joy (“each layer is more beautiful than the last”); and juxtaposing Miller’s quote with Krishnamurti’s, one arrives at the counterintuitive realisation that suffering itself, as a vehicle of understanding – a means of revealing another layer – may become a source of joy (Boethius).
Even Miller’s final phrase (“the road to nowhere”), which prima facie may seem a little nihilistic, is, I believe, an affirmation of the ethos of unquenchable vitality. It aligns with the soteriology of Daojia and Mahayana Buddhism: it accepts that there may be no final destination wherein one attains peace and perfect understanding; nevertheless, there is always the journey itself – moments of heaven in the eternally-unfolding here and now. A good book is a gate of pearl.
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Enquiries into one’s inner and outer worlds – I’d call those introspection and extrospection, respectively, each an aspect of contemplation. Of course, if one adopts a reflexive view of perception, such as that proposed by Max Velmans, then, to use the analogy of reading a book “aloud” in one’s mind – phonemic imagery – much of what we call our “inner world” is, in fact, read “out there”, just as much of what we call our “outer world” is authored “in here”. On this view, the distinction between inner and outer worlds becomes rather transparent, and contemplation approaches a unity.
With respect to unlearning, I believe it’s useful first of all to reflect on what is actually learned in the process of learning. When reading a particularly rich piece of writing, for example, one learns not only something of the author’s thoughts and feelings but also something of one’s own, by way of agreement and disagreement with the author, and, more implicitly, one develops an image of the sort of person the author may be, as well as, far less palpably, an accumulating image of oneself. The ramifications of all this learning extend into the wider world of other selves and non-selves. And so it becomes apparent that a single book can be very much like a single grain of sand, as Blake figured it.
Can all of this learning be unlearned? I don’t believe so. More pointedly, I don’t believe we can willfully unlearn anything; such an attempt would be as futile as trying to forget something and as counterproductive as trying to fall asleep. Our learning evolves unforced over time, sometimes imperceptibly, sometimes dramatically – akin to Gould’s punctuated equilibrium – as we encounter all manner of newness. But such encounters are bidirectional: we change the books we read, just as the books we read change us. And not only books, of course, but every encounter with otherness.
Perhaps this influence of otherness can be thought of as a river flowing through the landscape of self: a spring melt might alter the riverbank beyond recognition, while a long summer of little rain might leave it looking unaltered. So – we may not be able to shape the river’s course directly, but perhaps we can seek the sun in winter or seek the clouds in summer, and hope for water to do what water does. Unlearning, then, may involve creating opportunities for change – an aspect of wu wei. As Bill Hayes put it, “Sleep must come find you”. The most you can do is to situate yourself where you’re likely to be found.
https://www.themarginalian.org/2017/01/09/bill-hayes-sleep-demons/
themarginalian.org
Sleep Demons: Bill Hayes on REM, the Poetics of Yawns, and Maurice Sendak’s Antidote to Insomnia
“Sleep acts … more like an emotion than a bodily function. As with desire, it resists pursuit. Sleep must come find you.”
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My apologies, Andrei. Perhaps I’ve misunderstood your wishes. In your opening post you mentioned having an “agenda of personal research”, and, perhaps projecting my own wishes a little, I inferred from this that, like myself, you would be interested in, among other things, resources providing research-level articles, media and webinars. For the most part, the links I shared provide just that.
Research and academia go hand in hand, so it’s to be expected that resources providing research-level material will necessarily draw on academics with postgraduate or postdoctoral qualifications. This basis in academia is more or less explicit in the names Science and Medical Network and Weekend University, for example, and in Essentia Foundation’s raison d’être:
Essentia Foundation aims at communicating, in an accurate yet accessible way, the latest analytic and scientific indications that metaphysical materialism is fundamentally flawed.
The Galileo Commission, likewise, is upfront about being an offshoot of academia, which leaves only Science and Non-Duality (SAND). Unlike the other resources I shared, SAND’s contributors are not only professional scientists and philosophers but also spiritual and indigenous leaders, mystics and artists, as its smorgasbord of articles and current events makes clear.
Of the above resources, I believe that SMN is the only one hosting discussion forums, which would facilitate the kind of peer-to-peer engagement to which “mesh networking” appears to allude. There are, as I’m sure you’re aware, a multitude of peer-to-peer resources across the web, including, dare I say it, Reddit. However, as already noted, I assumed you were looking for more scholarly resources amenable to lifelong learning, to which the kind of practices Don mentioned would be ideal complements.
Regarding the play between lifelong learning, in its conventional sense, and practice, here’s something I messaged to a friend yesterday:
“Stay unassuming”.
I’ve been thinking about the purpose and value of learning – lifelong learning, that is. Googling along those lines reveals that, apparently, lifelong learning is: crucial to self-development; something that keeps one young; something that builds capacity and character, and enables one to succeed in life; something that empowers and elevates one above the uncritical masses, etc.
There is also another common vein of thought, which says that learning keeps one humble. To my mind this seems the most intriguing aspect, the one most worth pursuing. I would qualify it, however, by saying that, rather than keeping one humble, learning keeps humbling oneself. This brings out the sense, not only of remaining grounded, but also, more significantly, of being continually defeated. (The adjective form of “humble” is prone to misuse: whenever someone says, “I’m humble”, it suggests anything but humility.)
I think that this sense of being continually defeated is central to the value (and purpose) of learning. Progress is possible only in the face of – with recognition of – setback. Learning is an ultimately enlarging experience which initially makes one feel smaller. To borrow from Wheeler’s famous analogy, as one’s island of knowledge grows, so too does one’s shore on the sea of ignorance: learning reduces one’s ignorance but exponentially increases one’s awareness of it. Learning can be painful.
I believe that this may be the primary reason why most people give up on learning sooner or later – most of the time, sooner. It suggests that, in order not to feel that learning is too difficult, the initially enervating experience of learning may be best complemented with an energising experience, such as can be found in art, spirituality or nature (though these too can be humbling at times). Since I’m short on time at present, I try to find learning materials that serve double duty: I seek out subjects that both humble me and enlarge my appreciation of reality.
On that last note, here’s something:
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I’m so sorry. We’ve leapt on you like rabid Rabbis. Remember you can return to this thread at any time. Dip into it at your leisure. Life comes first.
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Sorry to hear that life is piling on. I can relate.
If you’re interested in further exploring critiques of scientism and metaphysical materialism, as well as a great many other things, you may find Essentia Foundation a richly thought-provoking resource. Its host of contributors includes Dr. McGilchrist and a few of my personal favourites, Michael Asher, Prof. Donald Hoffman and the marvellous Bernardo Kastrup, whom Don mentioned.
https://www.essentiafoundation.org/
If you’re interested in Jung or in other perspectives on psychology which eschew materialist conclusions, you may appreciate The Weekend University. Dr. McGilchrist and Rupert Spira have both been regular contributors. The main site is subscription-only, but there is also a YT channel with a wealth of content.
https://theweekenduniversity.com/
Regarding taxonomies, I believe that such things can help us explore our “wider … native land”, provided that we remain staidly aware of their being maps rather than the territory itself. Any spiritual, philosophical, scientific or aesthetic etching that, however faintly, unconceals the universal may be considered a map. An argument could of course be made to the effect that, once we become familiar with the territory, maps can be set aside. This would be quite sensible, were the territory not unbounded. (And if the territory is limitless, then in some sense there is no limit to the number of fragmentary maps.)
The following article and poem are, I feel, insightful reflections on uncertainty and guides thereof.
https://www.themarginalian.org/2017/03/27/wislawa-szymborska-nobel-speech/
Some People Like Poetry
Some people—
that means not everyone.
Not even most of them, only a few.
Not counting school, where you have to,
and poets themselves,
you might end up with two per thousand.Like—
but then, you can like chicken noodle soup,
or compliments, or the color blue,
your old scarf,
your own way,
petting the dog.Poetry—
but what is poetry, anyway?
More than one rickety answer
has tumbled since that question first was raised.
But I just keep on not knowing, and I cling to that
like a redemptive handrail. -
Hi Andrei,
I hope you’re finding the resources shared by myself and others rewarding. I don’t wish you to feel obligated to update us, but of course I – and I’m sure the others, too – would be delighted to hear if you’ve felt especially inspired or had any clock-stopping insights.
The following short video appeared on my feed today, and I thought it might be worth including in this thread. I don’t agree with everything said in it, but the central injunction that one’s spirituality should be grounded and not become an intoxication appears quite sound. (Dr. McGilchrist has touched on the need for grounding and intoxication to counterbalance each other, in his exploration of the Apollonian and the Dionysian.)