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Are we just Thinking Things in a World?
What do we really know about the relationship between the world and our experience of it? That is an important question and there are at least three things that we can be sure of.
- We all know that we have a subjective experience of the world. We all see, hear, taste, smell and feel the world.
- We also know that our interactions with the world often seem to confirm to us that our subjective experience is directly related to a world out there.
- Lastly we know that at least sometimes our actions in the world match up with those of other people in ways that suggest that we are experiencing the same world.
The first of these assertions seems quite obvious to me. I don’t know anyone who denies that they have a subjective experience of the world. That agreement quickly breaks apart once we consider how that experience is created and more significantly what it actually means. That we have an experience of the world is obvious, what that experience actually represents seems to be anyone’s guess. Some believe that our experience of the world is a mental representation of an actual world that we exist within? Others believe that our experience of the world is a purely fictitious creation of our minds that is not a reflection of any ‘real’ world at all. Between these two poles there are all kinds of part way alternatives.
The second assertion is also pretty obvious. When I see a cup on a table I seem to be able to reliably reach my hand out and pick it up. Thousands of simple actions like this everyday confirms our sense that our subjective experience is a representational experience of a real world that we exist within and can effectively manipulate.
The third assertion is less obvious, but I believe equally true. Many people deny the existence of an ‘outer world’ that is the object of our subjective experience. They generally do not deny however that there are times the subjective experience of reality held by two or more people allows them to interact in ways that make it look like they are experiencing the same world. For instance if I see a cup on a table and ask you to “pick up the cup” and you do. The fulfillment of that simple directive seems to imply that the cup I ‘see’ in my subjective experience and ask for, is the same cup that you ‘see’ in your subjective experience and pick up for me.
This may all seem trivial – however each of these assertions can be and has been and is being challenged by some pretty stupendously original thinkers. The reason that all of these assertions seem obvious to us is because we have all been conditioned – indoctrinated if you will – into a particular experience of reality. Human beings have been training themselves to experience reality in specific ways for centuries. The development of human culture is the development of the experience of being human.
We all experience ourselves as a thinking thing – an entity that has a body and mind. We tend to locate ourselves most strongly in the thoughts and feelings of the mind and secondarily in the movements of the body. We experience the entity that we are as existing in a world. The world is like a stage and we are actors on the stage. The three assertions about the relationship between the world and our experience of it are embedded in the experience of ourselves as being entities in a world.
If we challenge the fundamental picture of human beings as thinking things in a world then we automatically challenge all three of those assertions. Many Philosophers and scientists today are challenging the ‘thinking entities in a world’ assumption in different ways and I believe that challenging this fundamental picture of reality is the most important philosophical project of our time.
One such challenge to this view came from William James the great American philosopher of the last century. He challenged the entities-in-a-world view with his world-of-pure-experience view. What he realized is that all that exists is experience. The cup we see before we pick it up is obviously an experience. But also the picking up of the cup is only an experience of picking up the cup. And if a friend picks up the cup for us, their picking up of the cup only exists for us as an experience of them picking up the cup.
James’ philosophy of Radical Empiricism rests on his understanding that reality is always only an unfolding stream of experience and nothing more.
Thinking aloud:
Dreams are so actual, a virtual kind of reality. They may be far out or closely resemble our everyday reality but we wake and realize we were dreaming. This brings to mind the story of the man who dreamed he was a butterfly and on waking wondered if he was a butterfly dreaming he was a man. Keeping this in mind, it prompts me to consider reality as a mind game that seems to be impossible to discern what is truth and reality.
All Jeff has submitted will be agreed by most but accepting that experiences and perceptions shared by others may confirm their their realness but even that may be part and parcel of dreaming. If enough individuals accept the perception and “truth” of something, anything, that would be considered “reality” and truth. This brings to mind Plato’s allegory of the cave, where the people in the cave all accepted the shadows on the wall as reality until someone turned around and realized that what was reality was only shadows, and was not truth or reality.
Enlightenment would then apparently be to turn around in our cave and recognize that what is percieved by most is illusion and that reality is an awareness of what’s really true, far different from what is commonly embraced as real. This experience is often termed an Awakening.
In light of this blog it is interesting to look again to the way neurologists describe experience as is done by Newberg & D’ Aquili in ‘Why God won’t go Away’. They actually started as ‘normal’ materialists, saying that only matter is real and that the brain evolved to experience the material world and continue with it. Experiences are always a bunch of neurochemical reactions. They found that the brain has a neurological mechanism to transcend itself. They knew that everything the brain experiences leaves traces. Like after listening to an opera, few colored spots are there: but they are there because they heard this beautiful opera. In their memory they can ‘ replay’ the opera.
What is essential here, is that the opera is real. In their discussion about objective and subjective, they say that if we see mysticism as only neurological activity we should also doubt our perception of the material world. It was at this point that I suddenly thought, ah ha, this is where Jeff is going to! I did not understand why you wrote this post. So maybe, – I hope I do not steal your point, in that case delete my post – both of the books go to the same conclusion: there are two choices for science: either spiritual experiences are only a neurological construction (but than we also have to doubt our ‘normal experiences’) OR the Absolute unity that the mystics describe are real and the brain found a way to experience it.
An interesting thing they describe is that seen from an evolutionary point of view the function that the brain uses for these experiences evolved because of sexuality progressing: to be able to get deeper experiences. But they found that these functions ARE really active during mystical experiences (described in the book). the transcendental state which they call Absolute Unity is described in all civilizations (TAO, Nirvana, Brahman-Atman etc.). They describe it a quotation of Huang Po who calls it ‘One Mind’ : all conscious beings are nothing else than One Mind, next to which nothing exists. This Mind without beginning, not-born and indestructible has no form or appearance, it does not exist or non-exist and is not thinkable. Awaken to this One Mind..
All mystics describe Absolute Unity as a state where there is no time, space or physical experience: the subjective awareness totally disappears as soon as this state of Oneness is reached. So consciousness can exist without the subjective attention of a self. They describe how ‘self’ is created (experiences) and that self is not the same as consciousness. Consciousness can be freed from the subjective experience of self. There is no subject or object, reality is formless without limits. They have a beautiful quote from Li Po:
The birds have disappeared in the sky en now the last cloud goes away,
We are sitting together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains..
The experience cannot be proved real. They point to philosophers saying ‘what feels real, is real’. During dreaming it feels real, but waking up we know it isn’t. Mystics talk about a higher reality. This is verified by thinkers as Oppenheimer, Bohr, Jung, Lilly. They point especially to Einstein and Schrodinger who agree in this.
The conclusion is that the existence of a Absolute higher reality -rationally seen- is as possible as the existence of a material world. They say that the wisdom of the mystics predicted for ages what the neurology finds now: in absolute unity the self turns in others, mind and matter are the same
Hi liesbeth: Re metaphysical experiences and sexuality
When we consider union with Diety, tantric yoga, Hindu sculptures and sexual orgasm, it’s clear the two experiences are connected. the pleasure derived is undeniable and attempts are made to repeat it. As the sexual chakra is low on the totem in advancing toward the third eye chakra, spoken of by Eastern mystics, it implies that sex may be a low attainment and can often be a hindrance toward advancing toward higher consciousness.
Perhaps there are those who are enabled to attain enlightenment through sex, but Eastern wisdom seems to believe there’s further attainment to be had. Many who have experienced metaphysical bliss attest that that experience is “better than sex”.
Hi Frank,
in this book it is really not about that at all. What I love so much about the book and why it has such an impact on me that it is really a neurological investigation and within that investigation they just wondered from the point of evolution why the brain developped these capacities, that is all. No higher or lower, just the unity experience. When I look at the people in EN who are in sexual relationship I actually think they are doing VERY well…probably this has also to do with context.
I think many of you might find of interest some of the articles published in this online journal: International Journal of Transpersonal Studies http://www.transpersonalstudies.org/
Jeff, why don’t you publish some of your thoughts in IJTS? An article inspired from some of your posts is not that hard to write…