Dashh: A Day In The Life

Seeing Gray - Adam Hamilton

I bought my dad a book for Father's Day titled Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White: Thoughts on Religion, Morality, and Politics by Adam Hamilton. My father is a Methodist minister and heard Adam speak at a recent Methodist conference. I read the first few chapters of this book and really like his perspective. I plan on reading all of it once my dad has finished it...hope to share more at some point.

Wearing the Inside Out - Live

Just beautiful... Wearing the Inside Out

Tangled phone lines

Great essay by David Lane over at Integral World: TANGLED PHONE LINES: Why Richard Dawkins Hung Up on Ken Wilber

Beyond Belief - Flanagan

Owen Flanagan at the recent Beyond Belief: Candles in the Dark conference last month: 

Human Flourishing/Eudaimonics

Panel Discussion: Human Flourishing/Eudaimonics

I've been meaning to read his latest book The Really Hard Problem: Meaning in a Material World for a year now and will get the chance since I believe I am getting it for Xmas...

Prospekts March/Poppyfields

I can't get this song out of my head - bought the EP from Coldplay over the weekend at iTunes...very moving song...beautiful...love these lines:

oh and i run here it comes we're just two little figures in a soup bowl trying to get the other kind of control but i wasn't one

possibly a nod to one of my fav (possibly my fav) songs of all time Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd:

We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year, Running over the same old ground. What have you found? The same old fears. Wish you were here.

Thirty-six

"I'd planned to go to Vanderbilt on a scholarship and study philosophy," he says. "But I had an epiphany one day. I wanted to do my life for a while, rather than think it."

US Marine Cpl. Ray Person
From the article The Killer Elite

Great quote. Very long time no post huh? I figured since last Friday was my 36th birthday I should take some time to reflect and actually post on my blog. Another year, many changes. The biggest of which is that I will be a father for the first time in a few months. Life changing event? Check. Probably the most excited and scared that I have been in a long time...possibly ever in my life. As everyone keeps reminding me...my life is about to change forever...

It already has a lot over the last year. My interest in all things Integral has waxed and waned and at this point is in my periphery at best. I've taken a break from reading much on philosophy, psychology, Zen and Integral and have shifted to an interest in real estate investment. My goal is financial freedom and security for myself and my family. It should be an interesting ride to freedom.

I don't feel a need to read "spiritual" books and have a hard time even defining what spiritual is or means to me anymore. I am just trying to live each day. Can I just live and be without a label? It is hard in this world to do this.

Reading a book that tells me to be present and just living each day being present are so different. We all need those pointers at some point I suppose so we will eventually see that we don't need them. I don't know where I am with that I just know that I need to live and not read some much about living right now.

My formal meditation practice has been nonexistent for a while now. I fell off the wagon, got back on and then off a few times and have just not practiced daily like I have in the past. I would like to though - just do it as they say.

I'm watching all kinds of house flipping shows...all are pretty bad actually but entertaining and you might learn just a little about actual real estate investing from them. That is in between the staged fights, product plugs and promos, etc. Generation Kill on HBO is a new fav of mine as well...check it out. Lost Season 4 was amazing - still my favorite show by far. Got the new Coldplay album Viva La Vida - I love it. I've been listening to it off and on since it came out. It will be my auditory memory of this summer for sure.

Went to see The Dark Knight at an IMAX theater last Friday - it rocked. Saw the new Indy flick as well and was not impressed.

I am still dealing with my social anxiety although I continue to break through that label as well day by day. Procrastination is still a major enemy...so hard to break such an ingrained habit. You know what you need to do but just don't do it. Silly really but a real pain in the ass.

Well that's about all for now...maybe I will be inspired to contribute more to my blog...maybe not. Hope all is well with everyone out there.

Flanagan, Wilber and Consciousness

There is some great discussion going on over at Julian Walker's blog on the Zaadz...umm I mean Gaia community site. Jim made a comment that has me thinking a lot about Owen Flanagan and Wilber's work - I've made a few posts (Natural Method, Janus, Integral Naturalism) about their similar approaches to consciousness and consciousness studies in the past. I posted this over on Julian's blog...

Jim said:

I think we say things like “if consciousness requires form to exist” and ”every level of interior consciousness is accompanied by a level of exterior physical complexity,” as Wilber says, because of a natural intuition that conscious states and physical states (brain states) are distinct.

When we say something like, “Victoria Beckham was accompanied by her husband David Beckham to the awards ceremony,” we know that we mean that Victoria and David are distinct individuals and that either could've shown up at the ceremony without the other. I wonder if Wilber chose his words carefully so that he could leave open the possibility that conscious states and brains states are distinct and can exist independently of one another?

It may be counterintuitive to think that conscious states are brain states, but it's possible that they are.

If conscious states are identical with brain states, then it makes no sense to say that conscious states “accompany” or “correlate” with brain states, nor does it make sense to say that brain states “give rise to” or “generate” conscious states.

Thanks for that Jim – this made me think much harder about Wilber’s stance on this. I have made a few posts on my blog about Owen Flanagan’s subjective realism and Natural Method and how they could relate to Wilber’s model. This area brings us a distinct difference in that Wilber doesn’t quite accept the token physicalist view that Flanagan describes. A few excerpts from each of them:

From Flanagan’s paper Subjective Realism and Phenomenal Consciousness:

A naturalistic theory of mind is not remotely adequate if it does provide an account of phenomenal consciousness. And it can. Token physicalism is the view that each and every mental event, each and every experience, is some physical event or other – presumably some central nervous system event. We can accept the truth of token physicalism, and thus reject the cartesian view that denies it, while resisting the conclusion that the essence of a mental event is revealed completely or captured completely by a description of its neural level realizer. The reason is this, and it applies uniquely to conscious mental events. Conscious mental events are essentially Janus-faced and uniquely so. They have first-person subjective feel and they are realized in objective states of affairs.

From Wilber’s Excerpt G:

By the way, there are no energy fields in the Left-Hand quadrants, of course, because those are aspects of holons that are first-person feelings, awareness, consciousness, and so on, whose exterior (or Right-Hand) correlates are mass and energy. All holons have four quadrants, which means all holons have interiors of consciousness and exteriors of form and energy (e.g., even subtle consciousness has a subtle body, and causal consciousness has a causal body, etc.), but consciousness is not itself energy, nor energy consciousness.

In fact with this next section from Wilber's Excerpt G, it seems to me Wilber rejects the token physicalist view with his view on reincarnation:

Reincarnation

We come now to the most controversial topic related to subtle energies, namely, reincarnation or transmigration. I am reluctant to even comment on it, because once you take sides in this issue, you alienate the other half of the audience.

My own belief is that reincarnation does occur; however, for the moment, I am more concerned with suggesting a proposed mechanism for such an occurrence, rather than arguing that it does or does not happen. Let us simply assume that it does, and then ask, how can that occurrence be squared with hypothesis #3, namely, that subtle energies are associated with complexifications of gross form? Upon death, clearly the gross form dissolves; what happens to the subtle energies if they are tied to those gross forms?

At this point, one simply chooses to decide whether reincarnation exists or not. If you believe that reincarnation does not exist, then the integral theory of subtle energies that I have presented thus far needs no further adjustments (not in relation to reincarnation, that is). If, on the other hand, you believe in reincarnation, then an integral theory needs to be able to incorporate that occurrence. It can do so if it adds one hypothesis, as follows:

#4. Complexity of gross form is necessary for the expression or manifestation of both higher consciousness and subtler energy.

Hypothesis #4 introduces the possibility that the higher forms of consciousness and energy (i.e., higher than the gross-family realm) are not tied to complexifications of gross form ontologically but rather as vehicles of the expression of subtler forms and energies in that gross realm itself. In other words, it is not that higher consciousness and energies are bound to the complexities of gross form out of ontological necessity, but that they need a correspondingly complex form of gross matter in order to express or manifest themselves in and through the material realm.

The question of whether or not that is true is one thing; but if it is true, something like hypothesis #4 must be entertained. To avoid that hypothesis is to avoid the entire issue. For example, Francisco Varela et al., in The Embodied Mind, attempt to derive a spiritually attuned theory of consciousness that anchors consciousness firmly in the sensorimotor body—so much so that reincarnation, by their theory, is impossible. They present their theory as consonant with an updated Buddhism, but clearly it avoids this difficult issue. There is no way around something like hypothesis #4 if one wants to entertain transmigration.

Wilber’s Hypothesis #4 is quite confusing to me now. It seems he is saying that complexity of gross form (e.g., the brain) is necessary for the expression but not the ontological existence of higher consciousness/subtle energy. Which would mean that consciousness (specifically Wilber’s higher consciousness UL) can exist without an UR correlate.

So a fundamental difference in views on consciousness…for Flanagan no brain, no consciousness…for Wilber no brain still subtle consciousness that can transmigrate. And yet Wilber argues for UL/UR correlates in his model.

I am just trying to flesh out Flanagan’s and Wilber’s views on consciousness as I thought they were quite similar in approach but there are major differences to be found as well…

Pretext, text and context

Excellent essay over at Integral World by David Lane called On Reductionism. It gives a good answer to my questions at the end of my last post...I found his paper right after making that post. Interesting...I wanted to post some of it here but please read the entire essay...the first part that sets up pretext, text and context is well worth the time.

From On Reductionism:

What is fairly obvious in understanding a book (pretext: alphabet/phonics) text: words/sentences/paragraphs/chapters; context: when was this book written? where was it published? what mood am I in when I read it?) can also be applied via analogy (literalists beware!) to consciousness: pretext: brain/neural net/connectionist/PDP; text: "I" consciousness, personality, "the lived through sense of me" context: in what city does this "I" live; what relationship do I have to my family, to my nation, to my religion, etc.

Given this simple scenario it becomes obvious that we can reduce consciousness down to its pretext (the brain) and we would be only partially correct. We would not--perhaps could not--understand the "qualia"--the phenomenology of my own lived through experiences (John Searle's "first person") if we merely stayed at the level of neurons. No doubt, we would understand a tremendous amount (and my biases lean, I should point out, with the Churchlands' for intertheoretic reductions whenever possible), but something would be lost in the reductive translation. We need text (read: the personality at its own level, at its own understanding, at its own self-reflections)

Moreover, there is something about consciousness that is not merely the brain, but also the body entity (as Descartes' Error strongly suggests). Additionally, consciousness--as such--arises within a larger field, that of family relations, societal relations, ecological niches, etc. It is this larger field which informs and shapes much of what we know about our consciousness and personality. This larger "context" is essential, especially when one considers the vast differences in cultures throughout time and place on this planet.

The above tripartite schema is clear enough and I would venture to guess that most would not disagree with it. Where we run into difficulty is when we start to think of consciousness as "transcending" physicality. Well, to be sure, there is a transcendence of sorts when the alphabet turns into words and words into sentences and so on. But it is not divorced from the prior structure. Indeed, each higher level is situated upon--sits upon--that former and under girding pretext.

Okay, the Great Gatsby transcends a mere random collection of letters (there is a point, there is meaning, there is character development), but take out those very letters at any stage and the entire superstructure of the "novel" collapses.

As Wilber would point out (or any good physicist for that matter), the alphabet is more "fundamental" than sentences, though sentences are more significant (convey more meaning, have more depth). So at each stage of explanation we are confronted with this situation: what is the pretext? (alphabet, the rudimentary symbols by which we comprise larger sets. Hint: this can be applied to anything: Atoms? Electrons/nucleus. Molecules? Atoms. Living Cells? DNA ... and so on)

What is the text? (This is actually quite arbitrary and it depends where and when we want to measure something, but once staked out it becomes the rallying point for pretext and context) what is the context? (In what larger field does the alphabet, the DNA, the atoms, the quarks, etc., arise?)

But here's the catch: none of these larger texts or contexts is divorced or separated from its predecessors. Indeed, in terms of genealogy, it is impossible to have a book, as such, without a rudimentary symbol system. It is impossible to have molecules without atoms. It is impossible to have a brain without neurons (A note of caution to my A.I. friends: this is merely an analogy; I am not denying that silicon chips could not in theory replace neuronal components .... Even then, there is still a pretext--sand!).

So when one speaks of consciousness without a brain, or beyond the body, or without physicality, it is naturally criticized by those conversant with neurology. They don't buy it, since they know that by understanding the pretext of the brain they can actually change how the brain functions. They know the code. And there is nothing to suggest that consciousness which arises in the brain can somehow fly away from the body or code without any restraint whatsoever.

But this is exactly the point about any physical or mental or spiritual thing--things arise from other things and those very things arise in fields of emergence. Yet, there is no absolute separation from the quantity of one thing into the quantity of another (or new thing).

I think remembering pretext, text and context is a good start to a methodology to study consciousness [ala Wilber's I/IT/WE or Flanagan's subjective realism, Varela's neurophenomenology, etc.].

More from Lane with some Wilber critique as well:

Yet, Wilber makes one huge "sky-hook" mistake (thanks Daniel Dennett) when he argues that Spirit is the basis of all matter. Wilber wants us to believe that Spirit is not based upon matter, but the reverse.

This is where he makes his leap and where any materialist worth his salt is going to have huge difficulties with Wilber. What Wilber should concede (he doesn't) is that he does not know what Spirit is ... (I don't either). Why? Because what Wilber really means by Spirit is the Context of every pretext/text/context.... That is the Infinity in which everything arises.

Well, I don't know what that is; Wilber does not know what that is; I would imagine nobody "knows" what that is. What we do know, partially, are limited frames of reference, and, as such, we can pontificate upon them--from quarks to atoms to molecules to cells to people to societies to nations.

But let's not go too far. There may be an astral plane, but we have no evidence--at this stage--to comprehend it. We only have limited symbols which may point to it. Yet, do we admit to this contextual impasse? Do we, in fact, say with humility, "there might be?" Yes and No.

When one reads Wilber or anybody (including almost all of my early writings) you get the impression that he/she/it has a lock on the ultimate truths. Woe, we just found out about DNA ... and that only explains the alphabet of life processes. Before the 50s we didn't know. So can we then take a huge leap from DNA to the fabulous inner regions of Sahans-dal-Kanwal?

We can, but my hunch is that we are merely "infusing" contexts that we do not as of yet know exist. And by doing such we "confuse" ourselves unnecessarily.

Dennett would say we are going for sky hooks, not cranes.... But it is cranes all the way up that produce the higher orders, the complex systems ... Not the other way around. What meditation may indicate is a higher context but that very higher context will, by necessity, be grounded in the text that precedes it. What is that? The brain. So there is no way around this--from a bottom up perspective--but to admit that everything is higher order materialism. I could say "spirit" but that would incline itself to meaningless gibberish.

When I say "matter is all there is," it tends towards reductionism and thus is more locatable in terms of its pretexts. It does not mean, of course, that I "know" what matter ultimately is. I don't. What it suggests is that we ground our speculations, as always, with the rudimentary tools that are available. Wilber and others with a Consciousness bent (read: Big Context takes Over ALL) will heartily disagree with my slant, thinking that I have sold my soul in exchange for quantum mechanics and neurology and evolution.

No, I have come to grips with the fact that whatever my soul may be is grounded in the pretexts/texts/contexts of everything that arises within my body and without it. Thus I think we will understand a lot more of what we mean by "soul" if we start with what we mean by "body,” by "brain," etc.

OBE's and the Brain

Very interesting post over at the Memeing Naturalism blog called Displacing the Inmaterial Self. It discusses a recent paper in Science that describes experiments that altered the subject's experience of being a self located in the body (similar to an OBE).

From the abstract:

…we designed an experiment that uses conflicting visual-somatosensory input in virtual reality to disrupt the spatial unity between the self and the body. We found that during multisensory conflict, participants felt as if a virtual body seen in front of them was their own body and mislocalized themselves toward the virtual body, to a position outside their bodily borders. Our results indicate that spatial unity and bodily self-consciousness can be studied experimentally and are based on multisensory and cognitive processing of bodily information.

Interesting implications here.

I remember watching some show a while back that was about OBE. There was some study that wanted to test subjects by writing a message on a piece of paper and putting it high above a subject. If the subject was actually out of the body according to these researchers then they would know the message after floating above their body. I can't remember all of the results but it seemed like there were some people that knew the message. I need to look it up to see if it was debunked in any way.

Ah the good ole mind - body debate is still alive and well. Manifest or scientific image of man? Both? Neither?

Whither Ken Wilber?

Please check out Jim Chamberlain's new essay Whither Ken Wilber?, that is posted over at Integral World. Excellent in my opinion...

From the intro:

My interest in getting a clearer sense of Ken Wilber's philosophical stance on certain open questions about the origin and evolution of life, the relationship between psychological events and physical events, and the relation of science and religion was piqued when I began to notice that more than a few Wilberians seemed to use terms such as "flatland materialism," "quadrant absolutism," and "gross reductionism" to characterize and thereby dismiss from serious consideration just about anything they didn't happen to agree with. It occurred to me that they may have been inspired to resort to this kind of rhetoric by reading and listening to Ken Wilber (given that this is his jargon). And so I tried to get a sense of what might be behind Wilber's rhetoric about certain issues. What, I wondered, does Wilber actually believe about certain things? It is easy to talk about going in a "post-metaphysical" direction, but I wanted something much more specific. In particular I wanted to get a clearer sense of where Wilber might stand on the question, "Can spirituality be naturalized?"[1]