Tag: Phenomenology

First Live, then Philosophize

On By Chris Shuttleworth1 Comment

Embodied and Psychological Engagement with the World

Originally Written: Dec 8th 2020

All experience is found in our Being’s manifestation within the present moment, in the specific actualization stemming from the general overarching potentiality. In phenomenologically analyzing the expression of the totality of our Being as it actualizes itself in the present moment, we discover differentiable modes of being with specific characteristics. We can uncover concrete categories of existence that we designate as modes of being(s) by analyzing reflexively the realm of subjective experience and our orientation to our environment. These modes of being include phenomena such as sensation, perception, conscious awareness, thought, memory, sensory-motor activity, being-with-others, beings-toward-something in the environment, and in general the different manners in which we are modified given the innumerable factors that influence us. Everything that affects us in the moment, whether its developed or present, modifies our mode of being in a manner that is reflexive of the totality of our being’s conditional nature as it is so conditioned by the phenomena in the realm of content able to be experienced.

Certain modes of being stem from our activity acting in the world, in the manner we respond to our immediate environment, whether it’s the general modification of us by immediate phenomena such as objects, time, or others, or if it’s an external manifestation of our conditioned Being in its totality. The manner we interact with the world, experience the world, orientate ourselves within our environment, and spontaneously react to the content of the moment can be classified as a meta mode of being which contains activity and minor modes of being within it. The totality of our psychic state, as represented conceptually as our Being, insofar as it is affected genetically, environmentally, developmentally, and modified by its orientation within space and time, contains the potentiality of states and actions that we can actualize, whether from the meta mode of being embodily engaged with the world, or meta mode of being psychologically engaged with the world.

From the meta mode of being embodily engaged with the world, we are living as such, we are acting in accordance with our developed mode of being in a manner that is not cognitively interacting with the world. Immediate reciprocity, instinct, action or speech prior to conscious awareness, such as in free-flowing playing, dancing, talking, working, etcetera, all are momentary actions and modes of being. These momentary actions are absent explicit subjective awareness and conscious direction, to these minor modes of being, we group them under the meta-head of embodied engagement with the world.

Our embodied engagement with the world is characterized by the absence, or negative existence, of subjectively experienced internal content – which is often in the form of dialogue and conceptualization. The less such experience is explicitly recognized by ourselves, the more we are engaged with our immediate environment and living out our developed orientation towards the world. The set of modes of being that are unconsciously directed towards the immediate environment, whether it be that mode towards which objects are encountered as present at hand or ready to hand, a mode which has developed schematically through habitual tendencies, or that mode which produces spontaneous orientations of our bodies in response to the perceived environment and the content of the present moment, we will designate as characteristic of the meta mode of being embodily engaged in the world. This is differentiated from the mindful recognition of mental experience found in active thought, self-realization, and the awareness of the content of the present moment which can be experienced as being known to us in its most common form: conceptual representation. Conceptual representation is a form of abstract symbolic schema from which phenomena is classified and able to be delineated, in its manifestation within our experience we see one form of psychological engagement with the world.

This embodied engagement with the world we find in those manifestations of our being that are marked by accomodatory action in regards to an assimilated schema that is absent of the realization of subjective experience. These actions are lived through without consciously being considered. The subjective realization of our potentialities, the conceptual representation in the form of thought, the anticipation of the future, retrospective memory of the past, and the awareness of the present, break this mode of Being embodily engaged with the world. The spontaneous, instinctual, and developed reaction to the moment, is contributed to by every factor which enters our realm of influence.  All factors considered, the mode of embodied engagement is absent of abstract thought, and absent of a conscious awareness of the present moment. This categorization of a set of modes of being has its utility, and its drawbacks, in reference to psychological wellbeing.

Our psychological engagement with the world is in the subjectively experienced explicitness of our Being manifesting itself in accordance with the temporal moment we find ourselves in. As subjective experience is part of “our world”, it is in its experiencing, and dealing with such experience, that we attach to it as an “engagement with the world”. In the same manner that we develop an orientation towards embodily enacting pragmatic schemas that develop according to novel circumstances (Genetic Epistemology) in our embodied engagement with the world, we likewise develop our psychic realm in its manifesting content, and the manner in which we experience it, through the same assimilatory and accommodating process of dialectical development. As we experience more, and find the utility in different actions, movements, and symbolic representations used to order the chaos of existence, we develop mental patterns and reactive tendencies that are in alignment with a “successful” orientation towards the problem of our own Being – its explicitness and the implications of it being a problem for us.

The benefits of mindfulness and present moment awareness include establishing a knowledge of our mental experience and its characteristics, developing concentration and providing a training of the mind towards diminishing of unwholesome mental states and promoting wholesome mental states (Benefits of Mindfulness). Reflective analysis of our memories and a pointed directional thought towards anticipating and planning for the future provide a function of promoting learning and reorientation, allowing corrections for past sub optimality in navigation, promoting past success, and instantiating the lessons and developed goal fulfillment strategies which serve us to properly move forward in the world (actualization of our values and the subjective meaningfulness attached to such pursuits). This separation from an embodied engagement in the world is itself found in the world, produced by causal connectivity in its arising within the world, in reference to our Being-in-the-world, and informs our continued existence in the world as a causal precursor to further manifestations of our Being.

The engagement with the world absent of this explicit psychological engagement, which is our Being-in-the-world without the explicit recognition of it as such, enables us to embody the developed Being which is free of subjectively intuiting it as such. Taking objects up as tools as ready to hand, social situations, creating, building, working in general, become the object of engagement rather than the awareness of the experience of them as found in psychological engagement. This type of engagement with the world enables us to be unhindered temporally by mental deliberation and consideration, to act spontaneously without the problem of our Being interrupting the flow of life’s processes. This experience gained through embodied action provides developmental data that informs psychological engagement with the world, it acts as the basis of its interpretation of ourselves and the outside world. Without embodied existence, without our being-in-the-world, and the experience gleamed there, there would be no data to instantiate a psychological engagement that can characterize an optimal navigation of reality and our place in the world. Thus the literal interpretation of the old aphorism attributed to Aristotle “First live, then philosophize.”

Philosophy itself requires cognition that arises from the material substratum coupled with experiential “life” development in a certain manner in the form of being-in-the-world. Our genetic code instantiates a sensory-perceptive system (Merleau-Ponty), which forms sensory-motor accommodations that works to form schemas to assimilate experience in a pragmatic manner (Genetic Epistemology). From these systems we develop a manner of being-in-the-world that enables us to act and be that is sufficiently capable of operating in our environment. Everything in our immediate environment from which we are perceptively oriented towards, all introjected stimuli, has significance and meaning to us insofar as it modifies our Being. Once mental development reaches the point of symbolic representation, and then linguistic capability, and eventually abstract thought, we are able to conceptualize reality in a manner that makes sense to us. This representation of reality constitutes the formation of how we articulate an explicit philosophical belief and value system, and thus the capability of philosophizing emerges. When we are able to articulate subjective experience, and the construction of symbolic representation of different aspects of reality which occurs within it, we gain the capability of sharing information with other Beings who are able to deconstruct the linguistic symbolism and deduce relational meaning behind them. This knowledge is modified by our developed perspective and articulation of it, and constitutes the potentiality of philosophizing, prior to any logical, scientific validation. Embodied cognition is acted on by extended cognition of our environment and we have the potentiality of psychologically engaging with the content of consciousness within the present moment. This momentary subjective experience that is characterized by a psychological engagement with the world enables a subsequent conceptualization of the content located within itself, and this produces philosophy and sharable knowledge, as we know it today.

Due to the nature of such development we need to experience more of life itself in order to get a clearer philosophical picture. We must embodily engage with the world, psychologically engage with the world, then step back and articulate the content located within (by psychological engagement with the abstract representation of both modes in the form of language). This enables the production of philosophy. The degree of pragmatic utility, objective truth, and logical cohesion of one’s worldview, one’s manner of living – in short – one’s philosophical position, depends on one’s acquired knowledge and the wisdom in applying it. The more experience, the more data, the more knowledge, the higher intelligence and time in both experiencing life, and psychologically engaging with this endeavor of “philosophy”, like any endeavor, tends to constitute the universal categories of value that determine the success of it. Aristotle’s famous quote points to the wisdom in experiencing a range of life’s potentialities first, before psychologically analyzing them, and philosophically attempting to represent reality from the data. Without adequate experience, the philosophical interpretation is merely naïve and not grounded in reality. It takes living life itself, in embodied engagement with the world and the environment, in the situations, encounters, and experiences found there, to take place in order for us to make any headway in conceptualizing characteristics of reality. In looking to develop a moral code, and organizing a value system that is consciously articulable, we ought to have experiential data, and acquired knowledge, the more of which we can utilize to better inform our conclusions. Only once we contain adequate experience can philosophy be utilized towards the improvement of our lives.

In the admonition to first live, then philosophize, we are simultaneously warned against the opposite, which is to philosophize first, then live. This puts the cart before the horse, and as the existentialists conclude, existence precedes essence. Unlike Sartre who claims the implications of freedom in this statement, we find that in a deterministic development, our existence is still primary, phenomenologically, to the characteristics which we develop and attribute to it. We must be in order to become. While this becoming is understandable in causal terms, the production of the Being which we find ourselves manifesting today constitutes the essence of our existence as it has been modified by every experience and introjected perceptive content of our embodied Being. In striving to become the person we want to be, and in pursuing what we have developed as valuing, we ought to not merely think about the manner in which we do so, not merely conceptualize an optimal pathway, nor contemplate the nature of existence and reality, but we must simultaneously employ these conscious schematic rewirings through living as such, in our engagements with the world. It is through trial and error, experience and subsequent knowledge, prudence, differentiation, judgment, and post-acquisition of knowledge, that we become better informed to philosophizing, in any of its domains that we seek to do so. Whether its morality, metaphysics, politics, or philosophy of life, the pragmatic instantiation of philosophical models, the “taking up” of our positions and living them is essential to collecting the data that we can discern as being better or worse, good and bad, having more or less pragmatic utility. While pragmatic utility isn’t the only metric used to judge our behavior and beliefs, the objectivity of a claim can also be the standard used, but the value that objectivity in itself has for us is always mediated by the pragmatic nature it has of fulfilling the value of “objective truth”. Any way you slice it, the pragmatic truth is what matters to us.

The correct development of psychological engagement with the world provides the ability to consciously direct our being towards better orienting and experiencing the world, while embodied engagement lives out the conclusions, allows us to be in the world in a manner that isn’t scrutinizing every moment, and provides the necessary data for further analysis. The two systems develop cyberneticaly, and each domains success and pragmatic utility towards actualizing our goals and a life marked by subjective fulfillment is informed by the discoveries of the other.

Our developed value systems directionality based on meaningful pursuits are manifest actively in both forms of engagement with the world, and the ability to virtuously pursue what matters to us is only possible due to them both being employed in our lives. While the causal precursor to such engagements may be uncovered, represented, defined, organized, and represented symbolically in our psyche, it is lived out and expressed both in our psychological engagement with the world in every moment of subjective experience, as well as in every action taken in embodied engagement with the world. The significance and meaningful fulfillment of our values takes place only through authentic “care” or behavior predicated on the significance of content actuated in engagement with the world. Psychological engagement provides us with the potential of internal orientation necessary for proceeding with life in an optimal manner, and the embodied engagement with the world absent of explicit psychological engagement lives out our intuitions, beliefs, values, and conclusions.

We can discern the optimality of our system, and measure the appropriate balance between our usage of the two systems, only through psychological engagement, that is, in its ability to phenomenologically analyze past subjective experience that is the feedback to our Being-in-the-world. While this subjective feedback itself is the production of both types of engagement, it is itself reflexively analyzed within the present moment as a psychological engagement directed towards ourselves – upon the metric of these two meta modes of being. When we find negative subjective experiences stemming from a lack of proper orientation, our conscience forewarns us through negative conscious states such as anxiety, uncomfortableness, fear, regret, shame, or dread. In order to alleviate these unpleasurable modes of being, we ought to analyze the causal nature of those situations. We hold them in their proper place as isolated instances against the mode of being which acted them out, the perspective and mindset, actions and speech that lead to their arising. In most cases a minor mode of being that is running off an inadequate assimilatory schema is to blame, but sometimes the meta mode of Being itself is the culprit. If it is found that we were over analyzing a low value occurrence that produced negative subjective experience, we can look to if we ought to have been psychologically engaged at all, and if spontaneous embodily acting would have been preferred. If we are in an intellectual situation, whether its schoolwork, a research project, a critical thinking assignment for work, or a personal ambition to optimize our conception of reality, we cannot adequately do so merely by embodily being in the world, our sensory-motor system cannot alone solve the problem. Often times we find ourselves acting spontaneously in the moment and responding in a way that negative impacts those we value, or represents a character trait we don’t desire to have. We often have to be mindful of our actions and speech to guard against trespasses, especially once we’ve gone wrong in similar situations beforehand. In a balanced psyche, the constant recalibrating and transcendence of knowledge which takes place applies the dialectical movement of improved prudence in directing differing meta modes of being from which minor modes can spring from to adequately navigate our environment. In these situations, we can learn from the subjective experience and phenomenologically uncover the root cause of their occurrence. In learning the causal natures, applying wisdom to developing an optimal pathway to recalibrate our assimilated schema (conscious accommodation) we can train ourselves to modify our behavior in the subsequent occurrence of the situation.

Overindulgence in embodied engagement with the world has negative repercussions, both on an individual level, and a societal level. We all reach a point in conscious development where we have the potential to be aversive to our own nature, our own subjective experience, and this aversion leads to overindulgence in modes of being in the world that stem from the meta mode of embodied engagement. For many, when our own Being becomes such a problem that we can’t cope with ourselves, we attempt to distract ourselves from our very existence. This aversion can manifest itself in many different forms, and its characteristics can be identified retrospectively and interpersonally. It is broadly characterized by a constant directionality towards embodied engagement with the world, and a reluctance to engage in psychological engagement. This leads to a life of constant action, busyness, and external concentration, and is marked by an absence of pointed explicit awareness of internal dialogue, contemplation, and mindful subjective awareness. For many, this threshold of “perceived” inability to cope with subjective psychological life is crossed at some point in life, but for those of us who wish to deal with life on its own terms, and overcome psychological ailments, we must confront headfirst the problem inherent within our own Being, its very existence, and its developed essence.

For those that develop this inclination to engagement with the world, and sacrifice psychological engagement for the perceived benefit of its exclusion, spontaneity is the main indicator (Spontaneity and Conscious Direction). Immediate response to any stimuli, interaction, and situational encounters in life is responded by the assimilated schema without consciously directed contemplation, awareness, or accomodatory processes. Where accommodation still exists in response to novel situations, the process is solely unconscious if one’s life is predominantly oriented by the embodied engagement meta mode of Being. Psychological traits such as extroversion, openness to experience, and agreeableness become modified toward the higher end of the spectrum, as their manifestations provide the means to the ends of avoidance of psychological engagement, and promote embodied engagement with the world. Neuroticism in the forms of stress, anxiety, and unwholesome reaction to emotions, is also reduced. While their causal precursors may be the same, their experiencing consciously leads to less recognition and thus less influence over the individual’s life. This means someone who is actively engaging with the world is more than appearing to handle emotions better, they actually are, based on their reduced ability to subjectively experience, feel, and identify emotions as such. The psychological trait of conscientiousness is always reduced, as structured and orderly living requires planning, analyses, and mindful contemplation of activities. This is where we see the biggest detriment to the individual’s life, as conscientiousness plays the second most influential role in one’s “success”. A reduction in conscientiousness leads to less pursuance of meaningful activity, less accomplishment in work, less stability in home, business, and relationships. While someone who is characterized in such a manner may have an improved social position and reduced neuroticism, their ability to succeed at progressing in a skill, career, or other meaningful pursuits have a higher risk of potentially being hindered.

So long as we are in a social setting, or engaged in a physical task, activity, or occupation we can more readily avoid the explicit realization of our own nature. Embodied game playing, spontaneous speech, undiscerning decision making, and a lack of ability to judge people and life altering choices to be in alignment with one’s values are serious potential repercussions of aversion to psychological engagement. The rational faculty itself isn’t suspended, as it is embodied, but the critical thinking required in making long lasting decisions that affect us and those in our expanding circle of influence, necessarily requires causal chain analyses which becomes hindered. Spontaneity and the “whim of the moment”” take priority over delayed gratification with the view to long term meaningful solutions to life’s problems. In fact, in an absence of psychological engagement, life’s problems become subordinated to the problems of the moment, which, in many cases is the benefit of such an unbalanced psyche. The long term anticipatory problems that are inherent in our Being and manifest in psychological engagement are themselves a primary source of driving the individual away from psychological engagement. While the unpleasurable subjective experience is what drives some away from engaging with the inherent problems with our Being and consciously finding solutions, they simultaneously are the potential instigators of meaningful change and reorientation which is necessary to improve our lives.

Over indulgence in psychological engagement with the world also has its pitfalls, that hold the potentiality that can be equally detrimental to one’s wellbeing and life trajectory. Many in the modern era have become coerced to an overabundance of this meta mode of being, as its existential viability has become freer for expression, and it has become increasingly rewarded through social acceptance and the changing work environment. Despite this information, it still produced an unbalanced psyche, and holds a potential to leading to a variety of problems.  In finding pleasure in egocentricism, competence in one’s intellectual ability, and the reward systems craving for exploration of the unknown, the frontiers of the mind may become so captivating to cause one to be aversive to our embodied Being-in-the-world. The obvious repercussions of an unhealthy engagement with psychological content is that many of life’s tasks go undone. Where the predominantly embodied engager can lack stability through spontaneity and lack of structure, the predominantly psychologically engaged person can neglect socially accepted behavior as their dependence on external validation is reduced, which can likewise cause unstable living conditions. One pitfall that may occur is that the egocentric person can come to only seeks their own competence and self-sustained validation, which can lead to the value of career, family, friends, diet, and bodily health to drop below the levels which promote a holistically integrated psyche and lifestyle. The socially accepted values can be reduced in this individual; job importance, interpersonal importance, and the significance of social relationships all can be hindered by a self-interest that doesn’t place sufficient value on these areas of significant importance to our lives. Being that we are social by nature, and our wellbeing is inextricably tied with our Being-towards-others, and the social dominance hierarchies we find ourselves in, we will suffer a psychological toll from overindulgence in this mode of being. Health and romantic relationship repercussions may also follow a similar pattern, the ability for the individual to authentically represent himself in interactions is hindered by a mindful awareness of every moment, causing an impairment to his ability to act or speak naturally, as the “optimal” content is contemplated rather than “lived” out in the world.

In the relentless drive to psychological awareness and intellectual activity, one may succeed to levels unparalleled in a given field of competency which requires dedication and sustained critical thinking to make headway. In the aversion to sociability, a dedicated and conscientious pursuit of career, skill, or field of knowledge, the predominantly psychological engager can find success through the lack of opportunity cost in pursuing distractions, whims of the moment, or spontaneous acts. The psychologically engaged individual experiences a psychological trait modification towards higher degree of conscientiousness, and with it neuroticism, as their ability to experience, feel, and recognize emotional disturbances is increased, and thus the affect negative mental states have on the individual is also increased. Contrary to the embodied engager – extroversion, openness to experience, and agreeableness all decrease.

The two meta modes of being we differentiated, that of embodied and psychological engagement, cyberneticaly inform each other in a well-integrated individual.  This cooperation creates a cohesive, pragmatically beneficial, system from which differentiable modes of being spring from to adequately navigate us in the world. From this place of optimal pragmatic utilization of either mode of engagement we find the appropriate mode manifesting itself in response to the appropriate situation. In certain social settings we are embodied and living out who we are authentically, in intellectual discussions we speak from a more nuanced, intentional, conscious psychological engagement mode. Depending on our type of work, the appropriate mode will be employed. In schematic planning, problem solving, interpersonal and business relationships, and where awareness of one’s own internal disposition would be helpful, psychological engagement would be employed. When physical action in coherence with a plan, or where momentary reaction and intuition is optimal, embodied engagement is instantiated. When our spontaneous action isn’t calibrated enough for the situation, when we still don’t have the appropriate assimilatory schema and are still working to accommodate ourselves to a novel situation, or relationship, such as when we are learning a new skill or working a new job, we ought to be more mindful than in areas where we are competent and have a working schema that has proven itself successful. When acting from a place of balance between the two we find ourselves adequately responding to situational encounters throughout the day.

When they are working cohesively, successfully, and adequately, we find both a positive subjective experience, and a positive external environment. We find aspects of a well-integrated and healthy psyche, such as a solid friend group, good family relations, successful occupation, stable living place, and meaningful and productive hobbies. Our ability to manage our environment is optimized and our ability to cope with novel situations which arise in it are satisfactory enough to move us along through life in the direction of our values. Our internal disposition is authentically represented in our embodiment, and we live out the values we consciously ascribe ourselves to. While perfection in this regard is an impossible task, the integrated psyche succeeds to the degree in which our Being is experientially, intellectually, and competently prepared for the world. When we act out what we believe, and we believe that what we act out is authentically a representation of our psychological conclusions, we find a peace that is marked by coherentness and non-contradiction, in short, where there can be cognitive dissonance in one’s beliefs, so too can there be dissonance between ones psychological and embodied engagement.

While either extreme holds both potential positive and negative repercussions for the individual, we also hold the potential to select the best of both worlds. In seeking to counteract an unbalanced psyche in either direction, and to optimize the situational response we embody or psychologically engage with, in developing a discrimination of situations and environments which call for either in their optimality, we can improve our lives substantially. By subjectively analyzing our experience, realizing where we have tipped the scales of balance, and where we have unwisely acted from a meta mode of being that isn’t conducive to our goals and values, we can correct, and dialectically improve both our knowledge of when and how to act, and simultaneously the manner in which we instantiate different modes of being to act in accordance with our values. By improving ourselves in such a manner, we improve our lives, open ourselves up for growth, and become more competent individuals for a wider range of experiences. Our orientation towards the world is always modified by the mode of being we enact to counter it, and the meta mode of being which dictates whether we are embodied or psychologically engaged plays a crucial role in determining our pragmatic success of operating as individuals. By an awareness of these two factors, their characteristics, and a dedicated reorientation towards balance and optimal living in accordance with our values, we can modify ourselves to differentiate the manner we deal with situations in life. By prudently discriminating the modes of being which coincide with different experiences, we are better equipped with improving moral action, relationships, psychological wellbeing, and careers. The optimization of our meta mode of being system and its appropriate allocation to environments, situations, people, and novel situations, we improve our potential for living successful, meaningful lives. By firstly, living, then philosophizing, we are able to experience life in an authentic Being-towards the world, and can subsequently improve the system through analysis. By philosophizing, and then living out our ideas, we can optimize our experience, and test out the efficacy of our critical thinking applied to pragmatic utility. If we can utilize our ability to engage with the world appropriately from both an embodied, and psychological meta mode of being, and can live out our developed philosophy, we create the arena for active development towards greater heights of wisdom, wellbeing, and successful pursuit and actualization of our values.

Nostalgia Over Past Modes of Being

On By Chris ShuttleworthLeave a comment
Originally Written: November 23rd

The schemas that once provided optimal for navigation past situations, may not prove successful to novel situations, and the accommodation of them to include more data, more experience, more subjective experiential responses, is constantly being modified in accordance. The modification can choose to double down the assimilated schema which continues to “work” to produce the desired subjective experience, which can be reflexive of progress in the domains which we value, or the assimilated and integrated system can fail to achieve adequate progress towards those values, and in so failing, open itself up for improvement and new manners of “coping” that would better serve us to optimally embody our values or progress in the direction we desire. (Genetic Epistemology’s Implications)

New knowledge, insights, and developmental pathways to developed higher cognitive ability provides us with a broader perspective from which to conceptualize reality. As we grow cognitively we develop explanations of higher complexity in reference to details of the world around us, and in describing subjective experience. This integrated knowledge provides pragmatic utility to a vaster range of experiences, and leads us to believe that the dialectical movement of conscious orientation to our world is progressive in nature, denying the hypothesis that past modes of being would be more optimally suited to navigate existence than our presently actualized Being.      

We naturally assume that through this process we develop to greater heights of wisdom and prudence in our assimilation, and accommodation of novel experiences and information. Seeing that each new schematic reformatting includes novel situations without excluding the already ascertained, we logically deduce that this “new” schemata is more optimal for our continuing Being-in-the-world. This isn’t always the case, while certain navigational pathways are created that allows us to be oriented towards a broader range of experiences, oftentimes we sacrifice modes of being-towards-the-world, virtues, and wellbeing in the process of doing so, which we may find, in retrospect, to be personally optimal in the manner of handling things.

For example, training to remain equanimous in reaction to emotional fluctuation. This is a developed skill around emotional regulation, such as in the emergence of anger, annoyance, or disagreeableness, and we can develop a schema for handling the situations away from un pragmatically optimal emotional outbursts. The reaction to anger with violence, unwholesome speech, or selfish disregard for those we love, can be modified in accordance with mindfulness training, consciously directed inaction in response to the arising of emotional dysregulation, and conditioned through habit in these circumstances. In this manner we accommodate our emotional reaction system to a mode of being characterized by equanimity, and assimilate experiences that elicit such emotional turbulence to the developed schema. While this is a dialectical movement that appears to be progressive in nature, we may find ourselves taken advantage of, and unable to express anger in times where its pragmatic utility is optimal for the wellbeing of ourselves or those we love. In this manner, the past mode of being, and the past schema used to react in such a manner, may be found to be more desirable. We may find ourselves in a state of nostalgia longing for that mode of Being which reacted in a manner that was aggressive, assertive, and forthright in response to any emotional deviation that elicited anger. All is not lost, and the benefit that we accrued from that past mode of being is still able to be achieved through further development. The optimal solution, of course, is not recursion to remove equanimous training, but further integration of both differentiated types of response in discriminatory reactions, where it is necessary for the one mode of being to be present in reaction to emotional outbursts, such as anger or violence, we can discriminate and act accordingly. When minor stressors occur that once would elicit an inappropriate response, we can develop prudence in discerning it as such and remain equanimous. So while a past mode of being may be wanting, we still have the potentiality of manifesting underlying schematics, and using them in accordance with the developed schema, to once again dialectically transcend them both to a more optimal manner of responding and acting in the world.

The potentiality of losing a prior mode of being that is optimal to a further developed stage, such as our current one, is an idea that has frightened many of us. How do we explain the nostalgia we have for past modes of being, how can we intuit them as being better suited for us than the manner of orienting we currently embody?

This happens in comparative analysis between remembered past subjective experience, its schemas used to navigate the situations which occurred, and their relative success, in comparison to our current subjective experience and the manner in which our mode of being and it’s currently developed schemas are adequate at handling our current situation. Where we find ourselves in a state of hopelessness to recovering what was once found and now appears lost, we can also find that piece within us, as it surely is built into our currently developed schema, albeit, lying dormant. We often find fond memories of childhood, and prior experience, and despite the transcendental nature of consciousness to advance, we still can make sense of this in terms of proportionality between schematic adaptability success and its inextricable link to subjective experience. This appears to be a paradox, as we grow and develop it should be clear that our subjective experience improves as we become better equipped to deal with internal phenomena and external situations, yet we oftentimes find ourselves longing for past epochs, and nostalgia entices us to perceive the past as something “better” than we now have it.

As we become better equipped to deal with a larger range of environments, problems, and internal states, the complexity of information grows, the amount of information needed to be integrated into the coherent framework grows, and tangentially, the amount of potential solutions and pathways to navigation grows. This increase in complexity can cause a disparity between subjective experience, it’s currently assimilated schemas, and the “perceived” complex environments we find ourselves in. In contemplated memory we find past epochs characterized by a retrospectively perceived improvement of wellbeing in relation to our current state, and this can be characterized by the reduction of complexity and our past schemas success relative to those simpler situations we found ourselves in. The relative success, given a less complex world, less encumbered by further potentiality to confront unknown problems at the time we were wholly ignorant of, can account for the difference in subjective wellbeing, and entice us to recall once embodying a mode of Being that appears to be marked by more wellbeing than our current state, and rightfully so.

In infancy and childhood, the amount of problems, information, knowledge of the world, and ability to navigate life, all is a lot less taxing on conscious life than is found in adult experience, as most of it is delegated to unconscious assimilation and accommodation. The schemas are optimized to work through assimilation in reference to a small range of experiences, and given the tendency for parental responsibility the infants success in these domains is usually sufficient enough to comfortably sustain life. As we develop cognitively our knowledge of the complexity of situations, ideas, and their potential solutions, all grows, as does the ever improving vastness of coverage by developed schemas. What we may perceive to be lost in wellbeing within subjective experience, is made up for in competency and clarity in regards to more optimally navigating a larger set of problems, and an improvement in capability to articulate a bigger set of knowledge about reality. But this perceived loss is merely that, a perceived loss, it is not lost forever, in fact, if we wisely analyze any area of our Being that appears to be lacking in such a way, there always lies the potential for bringing forth from the depths what was lost and accommodating the newer system in accordance with it, to a novel, integrated, schema that holds the best of both worlds, itself being the best possible formulation that we can articulate or embody. Any schema can develop in this manner, and many times develops unconsciously, but the consciously directed recognition, and following training, can actualize the potentiality to dialectically move in this manner.

We become better equipped to integrate new information, better able to describe the world in higher resolution, and create schemas that are relevant to the multitude of added experiences. When the complexity of our environment and situational encounters was relatively lower, and we had a schema that could easily assimilate us to those problems, we found success, but that success was easier won than the relative success of our current schema given the added data we have to wrestle with, the added situations, responsibility, knowledge, and capabilities. As our potential actualizes itself and opens us up to novel potentialities, the schematic underpinnings for decision making and acting in the world must accommodate itself to uncovering optimal solutions, as time and experience grows, the relative success is what is remembered, not the relative competency, knowledge, and potential.

The old structure is always retained within the new, and although it is transcended and modified to be more inclusive, we still have recursive ability to enact those earlier developmental modes of Being. The characteristics that are attached to outdated modes of Being, patterns of behavior, and methodologies all remain inherent in the manifest system, and often recursion to utilize those underlying characteristics can be prudently utilized towards novel situations. The reemergence of transcended knowledge and schemata to novel situations at that point becomes itself an emergent datum to which we are not currently assimilated to in our current schema, and the schema therefore undergoes a successive accommodation of the emergent phenomena with the current understanding towards a novel strategy.

The infallible mode of being certain promotes doubling down on assimilation despite inadequacy with optimally handling novel experiences and situations. This manner of top down deficiency causes stagnation against the biological desire to dialectically improve consciousness to manage the transient nature of existence by accommodation. Maintaining a fallible conscious interpretation of experience, consciously being open to having inadequate articulations of reality, in doubting the optimality of our manner of Being-in-the-world, we can exert a top down influence that promotes the accommodating effect of novel experience to better orient ourselves in accordance with it. Consciously directing our being in such a way can come at a cost to subjective wellbeing in the short term, in facing our own inferiority through admonition of being currently incapable of optimally managing situations, but it opens us up to transcending our prior mode of being and the schemas utilized by it to greater heights found in the resultant dialectical improvement that accommodation to novel experiences affords us. This top down directionality and mode of being which maintains its own fallibility simultaneously promotes the natural dialectical movement of transcendence, where the mode of being certain hinders it.

Genetic Epistemology’s Implications

On By Chris Shuttleworth3 Comments
Originally Written: November 23rd 2020

Jean Piaget’s framework and terminology of understanding infant and childhood development can be extrapolated for usage in cooperation with the discoveries within many other domains. If we integrate his method of educational and cognitive development to the adult mind, we can make general statements about the nature of existence. The movement described in Piaget’s system of infant and childhood development can be paralleled by the conscious development as defined in Hegel’s dialectical method. Philosophical implications of psychological, and psychoanalytic findings can grant us insight into the nature of consciousness and its further development as we find it in our current Being. This knowledge of the process of our past development, if utilized by consciously directing the process to occur in our present lives, given our current value systems, may be a crucial element to our personal development and wellbeing, and the actualization of potentialities we contain within. Pragmatic truth development in accordance with developed existential beliefs can be harnessed in accordance with conscious recognition of the dialectical movement of our psyche, and in so doing so, promote the actualization of our values. This knowledge, and ability, is invaluable as a source of psychological integration and development, and the success we strive for in the domains of significance to us.

Jean Piaget described the development of human’s knowledge systems in small yet distinct successive steps as we move through infancy and into childhood. Schematic underpinnings can be delineated within these periods as the number of schemas is relatively miniscule, their simplicity and lack of integrated experiences makes them articulable, and the number of factors which are large enough to develop us in a definite manner can be observed. As we move into adolescence and adulthood the number of factors and the relevant environmental and interpersonal influences upon our schemata increase exponentially, making change, progress, and the number of concrete adaptations or accommodations to novel knowledge difficult to pin down. 

Piaget observed how in the first months of infancy the child’s schemata is entirely reflexive, inherent, and biologically instantiated. As these manifestations of inherent reflexes express themselves, they can be influenced by the childhoods own recognition of them as occurring, and circular reactions take place. Manners of orienting the head, hand, voice, and eyes develop schematically as the infant imitates his own abilities, creating schemas for sensory-motor abilities. These inherent movements and tendencies can be capitalized and reinforced in different manners based on the child’s perception of phenomena outside himself, which he imitates and thus develops his schematic underpinnings to movement. His parent’s recreations of the infant’s original manifestations serve to demonstrate his imitative competency, which develops in alignment with his intellectual power. Certain imitations that later on become means to an end, that have pragmatic signification, can be trained and developed, modifying the assimilated schema of the individual based on his accommodation to novel experiences.

The child’s reflexive desire to grab anything in the palm of his hand, as our primate ancestors cling to their mothers for years, leads to the ability to open and close his hand, grasp objects, grasp his parents hand, shake a rattle, move objects, and utilize tools. The schema for utilizing objects in the hand therefore develops as new situations arise where the infant can utilize his hands and current schematic structure, and the imitation he has of his parents reinforces his ability. A schema exists for making sounds, which he first expresses reflexively in crying, or screaming, in reference to hunger, or in the presence of other babies crying, which in the first stages the infant is unable to differentiate from his own sound. The imitative capabilities to reproduce sounds, parental reinforcement and directed recreation of the child’s voice, allow the child to imitate the sounds that he is able to make, in a manner that can be pleasing and directed by the parents. In this process the capability for speech, or the production of vocal phenomena, develops until individual words become formed. Only later does the schema used for orienting ourselves audibly develop into attaching a symbolic representational quality to the sounds we can manifest. We can see how these two examples describe the child’s dialectical movement through developing schemas of knowledge based on ability, competency, imitation, and cognitive ability. As the schemas evolve, meaningful significance to actions and schemas used as means to achieve an ends which means something to the individual becomes the primary driving force of our learning process. As they work in developing the infant’s capability and his manipulation of his abilities in accordance with phenomena in the world, so do we develop from the place of our current assimilated schematic structures in adulthood, albeit the number of factors, environmental situations, interpersonal imitations, and in general, the number of contributing factors that lead to our development are exponentially increased as time passes.

As all structures grow and either become reinforced in their stringency, or liberally move in direction that are drastically different from the original schema, the foundation for schematic development is always conservative, i.e. the original stages of development in any schema is still contained within its modification, whether or not any part of it still is expressed or not, the potentiality for its reemergence is carries through time as its integration has solidified in layers below the current manifestations.

Once an acquired ability works for whatever the activity is demanding, the child can be said to be assimilating whatever content arises in reference to that schemata. Once a novel situation arises for which his currently assimilated pattern of behavior is insufficient at manipulating, or using, then he must undergo the process of accommodating his schema to integrate the new knowledge. From that point the novel information is assimilated, and whenever it appears in his experience he has a “plan” for how to deal with it. We act from assimilation of experience to our current schema for as long as it is pragmatically viable, once it no longer is so, the process of accommodation forces us to adapt that schema to accommodate more information. In this manner our knowledge informs our orientation in the world, and we embody the Being from which the process takes place in successive steps as integral pieces of knowledge are discovered.

The manner in which the dialectical movement of consciousness works is through utilizing a current set of schemata to assimilate experience in a manner that is pragmatically sufficient for us. The objective validity of the utility of these schemata is reflected in our subjective experience in relation to the pragmatic assimilability of novel situations. Where novel situations fail to be met by prior assimilated schemata, we experience negative mental states, informing the process of accommodating our schematic foundation to include the novel problem. Whenever new experience isn’t optimally assimilated or can be utilized by the past schema, we undergo a process of accommodating our schema to include the new information into our framework. In this manner, we develop our schemas in regard to perceptive direction, perceptive ability, sensorimotor movement, for manipulating objects, behaving in interactions, situations, mental phenomena management, conceptualizations and articulations of reality, and even our overarching mode of Being from which individual manifestations of conscious content are expressed, through a Hegelian dialectical movement of progressing to higher resolution imaging of the information.

This dialectical movement promotes inclusion of added complexity as we experience novel situations, arising subjective phenomena, and abstract connections through acquired knowledge. As time passes, our perceptive system naturally becomes integrated with novel stimuli, our consciousness integrates novel pragmatic means of orienting ourselves in the world, and our schema used in navigating the world, both in embodied form (how we move, act, and orient ourselves to our environment), as well as the schema used to conceptualize and experience reality subjectively (mental experience, thought, emotion, content of consciousness) becomes modified.

Conceptualizations that represent objects not in the immediate environment, or abstract connections between representations that are merely linguistic, develop to greater degrees of clarity and provide more accurate depictions of reality that we can utilize for a pragmatic edge on the environment. The objectivity of our embodied orientation and our abstract conceptualizations is predicated on the pragmatic relation they have to enhancing our lives. A threshold of adequate framing, or a level of experiential evidence, reasoning, or embodied thought on a subject, can be the necessary instigator to the adoption of beliefs that are objective by nature and progressively pragmatic by such movements. Often times beliefs, concepts, and beneficial schematic rewiring’s can be in the process of developing without manifesting themselves, until they reach that threshold of “perceived” adequate pragmatic benefit which, if occurring in this manner, exists prior to conscious realization of its development.

Scientific truths, in contradiction to supernatural explanations, develop a positive belief in this manner. It isn’t until they are pragmatically framed and beneficial to us as a biological organism that the belief system is modified to accommodate itself to them, and to have the schema to henceforth assimilate incoming datum to that conceptual schematic. For as long as we are ignorant of the benefit of objective facts to us, for as long as the value of scientific discovery remains below the threshold of pragmatic utility, we will not adopt the belief. A progressively secular society that values scientific truth, our social adaptation to that society, and the framing of such truths to be useful individually (inextricably tied to the social), provides further ability to enhance unorthodox beliefs that are able to find that pragmatic utility and become actualized in our Being. When beliefs are harmful to our wellbeing, and in extreme cases, to our lives and our family’s ability to survive, their pragmatic value to us almost never reaches the pragmatic threshold of viability. It is for this reason that the escape from a heliocentric worldview, or metaphysical supernatural claims, took so long to develop, the belief in the contrary, no matter how logically coherent and empirically validated they were, was less viable an option to us biologically.

Truth claims validated by logic in a world characterized by punishment for blasphemy produced a perceived and actual cost to our subjectively intuited wellbeing, our place in the social world, our actual survivability, and our genetic imperatives ability to progress towards its goals. As openness to ideas, ideology, and different beliefs became more accepted in society, and the pragmatic benefits of operating on different belief systems developed, our ability to modify our schemas that result from modified value and belief systems expands in terms of potentially viable modes of being. For most people, across most spans of time, as long as beliefs are unviable options to us pragmatically, their objectivity is rendered negligible, and they are not adopted. It is only those who risked and often lost their lives that were able to adopt contrarian viewpoints, articulations, and the tangential adoption of novel beliefs, that the further progression of knowledge and their acceptability progressed societally.

The ability for more people to cross over the threshold in adoption of unorthodox or novel belief systems, philosophies, or even ideas that contradict the social milieu’s agreeableness, provides the starting point for further imitation in the expanding influence of the rebel’s expression of himself. As the rebel’s views become able to be expressed, so does the ability of others to imitate his belief system, as well as his act of rebellion. As different ideas become viable to be imitated, and exist in the world, our ability to accommodate them to our worldview is enhanced as new information is presented to us. For many people, without the instigation of external conceptualization and beliefs, and our ability to intellectually adapt ourselves to them and perceptively recognize them accommodate our existing schemas to incorporate them, there would be no change in our Being, our current assimilated schema would be sufficient. As evidence grows to support the pragmatic potentiality of differing perspectives and conscious methods of articulating the world, our personal philosophies become primed to modification by the psychological accommodation system. The rational conclusion to take the leap into novel information (i.e. knowledge, worldviews, to improve our lives, to generate improved moral, metaphysical, belief, and value systems) is supported by the imitative ability of perceiving those who have done so before, and our ability to recreate this act of rebellion against the social milieu becomes the instantiator of all the worlds progressive technologies, philosophies, and domains of knowledge.

The concretization of this general principle can be seen in the examples provided by specific details of our historical development, in our current society, in empirical observation, and in subjective experience. We find ourselves in the epoch marked by the transformation of the Enlightenment period, in a society that values logic and reason, and their usage in application to objective claims. The ideas and truth-claims that we can make now go relatively unmitigated by restrictive speech, or punishment based on ideology. On a fundamental level, beneath perceptions and consciously held belief systems, the pragmatic viability supersedes the objectivity of claims and is the mitigating factor in adoption of a consciously held belief. This describes the difficulty in adopting the positive belief in non-self, hard determinism, illusory nature of free will, or a morality of rational self-interest or selfishness not at the expense of others. In actionable manifestations, many patterns of behavior are seen by the majority of people as an unpragmatically feasible pursuit and are therefore socially “selected against”. The pursuits of academic studies in a hedonistic environment are seen as not pragmatically viable, abstract thinking and personal ambition are deemed less valuable than social acceptance, indulgence, and entertainment. Long term character development is not acted out as the primacy of “the present moment”, or “living for today”, are easier psychologically to “live out”. The belief that “were not good enough” or we “ought to strive to do better”, or “progress through pressure, difficulty, and challenges”, are not universally actualized in modern society despite the reluctance we have to admit their virtue. Based upon the perceived negative wellbeing, time allocation, and energy needed to live them out, they fail to become embodied despite verbal and conscious adherence to the belief in their benefit. The absence of actualizing these ideas in our lives show their absence in our belief structure, despite our verbal admonition of their benefit.

The mode of being and the schemas used within it both transcend themselves as significant information is integrated. As we deterministically apply our developed schemata to situations their utility is tested and reflected by our biological and subjective wellbeing. Both our subconscious systems, such as our body’s perception, and our conscious systems, such as thought that uses conceptualizations to “order” the “chaos” of experience into articulated representations, become improved through new information, by every experience, moment to moment, and is modified in a relative manner.

Given our current social milieu and the potentialities open to us, a cursory framing of our own value systems and the pursuit of developing in accordance with them is more possible than ever before. As we develop belief systems, and attach meaning to pursuits, activities, people, and in general, that which promotes our subjective experience, we simultaneously have become better equipped to pragmatically actualize the development in the directions we choose. As our development through assimilation and accommodation continue to reshape the schemas we use to operate in the world, so does our ability to consciously direct our being towards the values we explicitly articulate for ourselves. Our manner of existentially Being-in-the-world, both in its instantiated form, and its conceptualized form, is itself a piece of objective causality that can lead to further dialectical movement and progress in accordance with our views. As we intuit further scenarios and environments that pose a problem to our currently assimilated schemas, that produce an undesirable subjective experience or hinder our growth and our pursuit of what we value, we can intellectually direct our Being to rationally modify ourselves to accommodate our current system to the novel experience. We can choose (deterministically arising after relevant knowledge is revealed) to voluntarily develop ourselves in where we are lacking, in taking on challenges, difficulties, and accommodating ourselves to pragmatically or objectively truly existing information. Disagreeable information, personal inadequacies, and psychological problems can be elucidated and encountered voluntarily, and with the required knowledge, experience, time, and effort, can be overcome.

While this requires abstract intelligent reasoning, time, and knowledge of the relative causal connectivity that would lead to such development, it nonetheless remains a potentiality for us. Psychological development continues through the dialectical movement with or without our mindful awareness of conscious experience, but consciously directed activity in accordance with developing ourselves, by remaining within a mode of being that is characterized by fallibility and openness to experience, given our current situation of pragmatic viability to pursue our values, affords us the appropriate area to consciously develop ourselves and our manner of Being-in-the-world in accordance with what we value. By doing so we utilize for ourselves ourselves the ability to meaningfully progress towards that which we desire, and improve our subjective experience of life. In any domain of inquiry that we wish to improve, if we can consciously utilize our developmental ability to accommodate novel experience to the assimilated schemata, we can transcend our current mode of Being to one which is more optimally suited to navigate the world in the manner we wish to do so.

Primacy of Dissatisfaction

On By Chris ShuttleworthLeave a comment
Originally Written: Sep 10th 2020

Is there anything in biological action that cannot be explained by dissatisfaction? Beneath every action, every intention, every present moment experience, there is a desire, a craving, a will for things to be otherwise, namely, that things should be better, for us. This desire has an underlying sense of dissatisfaction which manifests in the action, the speech, the moment of conscious attention, the concretizing moment of experience. Our orientation towards the world may be temporal, may be characterized by perceived care or concern, and every perception and moment has meaning to us, yet, this meaning is one that is qualified by the suffering inherent in our very nature.

This dissatisfaction expresses itself in every moment. Any present moment experience will serve to be an example of its manifestation. While genetic and biological disposition form the structure of our Being on a material basis, the manner in which our genetic material in accordance with our developed Being expresses itself in our conscious experience of our orientation towards the world, is one in which we can uncover as rooted in dissatisfaction.

Phenomenologically, every conscious experience is the accomplishment of dissatisfaction actualizing an attempt at alleviating itself. In thoughts which appear to us in the form of articulated language we are attempting to place a rational ordering upon the content in our immediate environment, whether that “closeness” is our mental condition, sensory information, or external surroundings. The articulation which actualizes the attempt to represent this content only stems from chaos, and the desire to impose order, that is, an inherent dissatisfaction and an attempt at its alleviation. The imaginative thought, the directive thought, the idealist or abstract thought, are all a multitude of expressions manifesting the core inherent nature of our Being.

Heidegger correctly states that this being is temporalized, that it is inextricably connected with time, that it is itself temporalizing the world through its very existence. The trinitarian union of time, that of the effect of the past, experience of the present, and anticipation of the future, unified within the present, modifies our behavior as our Being “moves” from one moment to the next. This produces the relevant content of thought, in relation to our modified, evolved, socialized, experientially transformed Being. This Being which we find ourselves as expressing in the present was instantiated by genetics, modified by environment, and has a nature of attempting to reduce the dissatisfaction at its core through its alleviation. The nature of the content of the present is an expression of this temporalized nature, that it is predicated on past habitual tendencies in response to the present, and modified by our anticipation of alleviation in the future. The conscious content we have the ability to be aware of in the moment presents itself as doing so through the experience of directed conscious experience, or within a mode of being characterized by intentionality or “directedness”. The content in which our consciousness is directed upon is available within every moment and is an expression of a value system instantiated by dissatisfaction, giving rise to the signification of our perception system to filter content, filtered through our developed Being in its entirety. The content which makes its way to conscious experience, being of whatever nature, we are directed towards with the “intention” of reducing the dissatisfaction which we presently have with our existence within that moment. If we did not have this dissatisfaction, there would be no signification of objective reality, no orientation within the world, no filtration system of our perceptive abilities, and the totality of our Being wouldn’t be directed towards valuable or meaningful content. The meaning of the many systems, many of which are cybernetically related, is grounded upon a biological imperative to alleviate a dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs. This is visible as microscopically as the cellular level in the need to maintain homeostasis, to regulate nutrients, to consume energy, to survive, and reproduce the genetic instructions themselves, in short, this dissatisfaction is a biological necessity to push forward to the next moment, for us in the totality of our material underpinnings, and as far down as we can see.  

The manifestation of emotions of a satisfactory conscious nature, if analyzed in the present moment, only serve as the illusory covering up of our fundamental nature, and are better thought of as lesser deviations of suffering than having a positive essence. The reward systems instantiation of positive modes of being, or subjectively “pleasant” experiences, are only a degree of dissatisfaction removed from our “normal”. Our suffering is not a degree of removal from baseline neutrality, but the baseline, and relevant positive emotions, are merely deviations of negativity. Happiness, satisfaction, contentedness, blissfulness, is as transient and conditioned as any other content of consciousness, there is no permanent escape from dissatisfaction, and the experience of satisfaction only serves as an indicator of a manner of acting that biologically leads to a better anticipatory interpretation of the future. If there wasn’t dissatisfaction at the core of satisfaction, it wouldn’t ever be rewarded for subjectively, nor would it condition us towards patterns of behavior that re-instantiate it. When analyzing a mode of being which appears to us as satisfactory, we still find present the desire for that mode of being to extend into the future, we are still temporalized and are living ahead of ourselves, we are never satisfied, not even with the present mode of being characterized by satisfaction. By the nature of times passing, we are more than aware of the impermanence of any present moment’s existence, as time passes, so does the content of consciousness, as we recognize happiness, bliss, and satisfaction, we simultaneously recognize its transience. What these concepts denote as positive emotion, or perceived positive emotion, only go to show modes of being that are a degree of deviation of suffering away from our baseline, which we never can escape.

While Heidegger correctly explained our temporal nature, he failed in his claim as characterizing it by a primacy of care, just as Merleau-Ponty failed in his emphasis of the primacy of perception. While these do serve as useful articulations of characteristics crucial to representing our Being in its manifestation, the root of them remains unarticulated.  Care, concern, perception, attention, meaning, merely are products of our essential dissatisfied nature, they are the biological expressions of an attempt to alleviate this suffering through “action” or “movement”, not necessarily in our physical being, but in relation to our unconscious striving.

To escape desire, to escape suffering, is what the world’s religious matriarchs claim to have experienced. At the core of these claims is the belief that one has transcended desire and suffering. In phenomenal experience the thought can surely arise that distinguishes transcendental experiences with a normative claim that they are truly happening. Just because a content of consciousness is truly existing, and appears to represent reality, doesn’t mean that it actually represents the nature of our Being. While one can believe that they are experiencing a separation from the experience of dissatisfaction, one is merely misaligning their vocabulary in its representation of their conscious experience. One cannot experience “pleasure” without simultaneously desiring its continuation, and, if one is wise, one cannot do so without recognizing its impermanence, as time will show, it will not last. Naivety and self-delusionment serve to improve our experience of existence, thus the emergence of the “self” concept to distinguish egotistical intentions, thus the emergence of a belief of temporal transcendence in an afterlife to escape death anxiety, thus the belief in happiness and contentment to persuade ourselves that our essential existential nature isn’t characterized by misfortune and dissatisfaction. The biological correlate to such belief structures proves evolutionarily beneficial, the conscious experience of certainty in regard to these claims works to dissuade us from suicide, complacency, reproductive stagnation, and biological degeneration, in short, they serve to to dissuade us from acting out the revelation of what our basic nature appears to imply, meaninglessness and a lifetime of dissatisfactory experience. This dissuasion reflects a biological advantage in the utility of being-towards-others in our altruistic acts, which, in the manner of kin selection, group selection, or reciprocal altruism, served to promote the wellbeing of the individual, and thus the species as a group, as a whole, towards further development.

The thoughts that appear in our conscious awareness always is directed towards something. This directing is characterized by an attempt to alleviate dissatisfaction. The pragmatic utility of the thought, speech, or action is determined by the success it has as a precursor to actualizing an alleviation of suffering. The degree to which it is deemed pragmatic, to us, is the degree to which it moves us away from or below the baseline of dissatisfaction. This success or failure, and the degree to which we do so, further informs our Being towards repetition or recession from further implementation of the strategy.

Any experience of emotion appearing in conscious awareness is our neurological systems way of informing consciousness towards the utility of external or internal content and its affect upon our being. Our genetic predispositions are the blueprint which allow us to develop a value system centered around the core of biological imperatives, that of the survival, reproduction, and replication of our genetic material, which is nested in the cells of the “survival machine” which we coin “the body”. The manner in which our body is oriented towards the world, and within the world, is based firstly upon pre-conceptual perception which shares the same origin story instruction, it is instantiated by genetic predisposition, and modified by environment which includes our society and cultures role in molding us.

Our society and culture play a role in our modification because how we interact within them will determine the success or failure of the biological imperatives, which is always taken into consideration in thought, actualized in speech, and manifest in our actions, whether that consideration is conscious or unconscious is aside from the matter. The social milieu in which we find ourselves in limits our range of acceptable actions from which to act upon that determine our success within communal life, whether its through legislative means, accepted taboos, or general conceptions about morality. We are modified by this whether we rationally agree or not. This restrictive nature of society, by so hindering our freedom, puts constraints upon our Being and the manner in which we interact with the world, whether we act in alignment with the social and cultural conditioning, or rebel against them, we are acting in a way that takes them into consideration, which doesn’t explicitly have to be conscious. The nature of this Being which interacts within the communal world, as previously described in its instantiation, does the perceiving, the conscious directing, the expression of content within our subjective experience, due to the underpinned suffering hardwired into our genetic material which drives us towards its removal, for its benefit. When biological imperatives are constrained by social factors, we necessarily take into account the effect our actions will have upon others, or how they will be perceived. This kind of reinforcement serves to condition us through the acquisition of desires from the start of life, desires that are desired by the social and cultural environment we find ourselves in, towards the progression of the biological imperatives. Any interest, hobby, job, action, or turn of phrase which is contrary to the socially accepted catalogue of desires, becomes less desirous to us without our explicit approval, prior to conscious consideration. In looking to alleviate our dissatisfied nature, we always do so with an eye to our self-interests and how it aligns with the current society and culture.

Every expression of consciousness is biological in nature, being that we are biological organisms. No matter how distorted the manifestations appear to be from the “state of nature” recorded in our observation of other life, they are nonetheless manifestations of nature. It is due to our attempt at satisfying our natural tendencies that we strive to become socially integrated, and to rise to the top of social and culturally informed hierarchies. Whether the drives are best explained by a biological or social perspective, sexual or individual causes, all these perspectives and aspects of our biological being is entwined with the Being which we find ourselves as, and any motion which flows from it are always a complete combination of these (every momentary subjective experience or action, whether conscious or not). We find ourselves oriented based upon these factors, and it is visible under the metrics of improvement and way of life that result in optimality in finding a mate, and reproducing our genetic material. While this seems to be biologically reductive in expressing the core of all our actions, it is more than an evolutionarily informed position, and can be better expressed under different domains of inquiry, yet in its totality, philosophy enables the delineation of each of the integral structures in relation to the whole, and provides a description of the whole which the natural sciences can merely point to in each of their findings. It is entirely possible to make a case that phenomenological analysis is itself scientific in nature, and the underlying subjective experience which proceeds even specific scientific methodology is always relevant to the scientific endeavor itself. To phenomenologically, experientially, philosophically, conclude upon the dissatisfactory nature of our Being as being integral to all life is itself a scientific claim that can be proved through scientific measures.

A phenomenological analysis of what the experience of the present moment reveals to us in subjective experience enlightens us towards the mechanism by which our Being pursues these courses of action, from which all other courses of action are integrally related. The suffering which permeates all experience is visible in any present moment which we can concentrate upon. The essentiality and inextricable connection to every arising content of consciousness, to every retrospectively analyzed manifestation of our Being in movement, speech, or subjective experience, can be recognized through practices such as Vipassana meditation or through using the phenomenological method in application to our own experience. While motivation, and causal generalities can be numerous, whether we view things from the lens of genetic influence as an evolutionary biologist might, environmental influence as a sociologist may be predisposed to, or familial upbringing as a psychologist does, all these lens of perception and articulation of causal conditionality can be understood as containing an underlying philosophic tendency of dissatisfaction in the manner they are manifest. If a psychologist views an action we are taking and charts a repetitive overarching pattern of goal accomplishment that links to childhood experience, that perspective holds, yet the motivation as to why that pattern emerges, and from what underlying characteristic of the mode of being which produces it can be described as, both point to the inherent dissatisfactory nature of our Being. The motivation can always be described in terms of dissatisfaction, and its correlates, (albeit these correlates are almost always wrongly attributed as the core of our being) that of craving, and clinging, of desiring and aversion, which merely are conceptualized notions of the products of dissatisfaction. The dissatisfaction isn’t merely an emotion we experience, but a characteristic of the manner of our being-in-the-world.

We can clearly understand how drug and alcohol use are prevalent in humankind from this explanation, they offer an external alleviation of the experience of our natural being, that of dissatisfaction. By so modifying our conscious experience, some can succeed in momentarily covering up our essential nature, they modify our subjective experience away in degrees away from the dissatisfactory baseline which permeates our waking lives. Some substances are desired, work to reduce suffering, and regarded as pleasurable, merely for their short term, controlled, impermanent, yet effective alleviation and deviation from our natural mode of Being. Anything which serves as a crutch towards the alleviation of suffering is prized by our reward system, and the neural pathways that lead to its alleviate are always strengthened by the actions which actualize the desired outcome. Any absence from the possibility of greasing this neural groove that produces alleviation becomes itself the source of further dissatisfaction in our separation from it, thus dependency and over indulgence can result in anything which has such a nature to alleviate this desire, this aversion, this suffering beneath it all. Food, sex, drugs, love, all serve to do this, and we can see how our desire and ability to abuse them is warranted by their very utility in satisfying our essential craving. While the usage of substances to modify neurochemistry and subsequently our subjective experience can provide short term alleviation from our existence in its nascent state, the problems always arise at the extreme end, and a withholding of rational control can form abuse or dependency, solely upon the grounds of that neural groove to alleviate satisfaction going unreinforced. It’s entirely explainable, given our nature, why we would desire to escape ourselves, and the desire to do so all the time, makes perfect sense. The problem is the perceived benefit of such escapism, or navigation of experience through continued substance use, is always temporary, as any experience is, and almost always isn’t reiterable across time as providing a net benefit. In the final analysis the consistent use of any conscious altering substance that results in dependence, daily use, or overuse, will ultimately end in the user experiencing a profound dissatisfaction that is normally described as substantially more detrimental to subjective wellbeing than the original dissatisfaction that led to the substance abuse.

Those that are so biologically gifted, or cursed, to be more attentive and aware of their present experience, are better suited to recognize the essential nature of their Being. The degree to which we have a genetic and environmental disposition in the direction of self-awareness and intellectual ability to articulate it, is the degree towards which we discover that our own Being is a problem for us, and the degree to which it actually is. At a certain point, destruction of Being itself becomes an option of consideration. For many people the revelation of certain truths of our Being, and of our place in the world, are improperly framed and can lead to a pessimistic or even self-proclaimed nihilistic interpretation of life. This holds the potential to lead to an increased attempt to escape the confines of suffering that this specific knowledge appears to point to, and addiction rates increase. The degree to which we suffer, and are aware of our suffering, and the manner in which we frame such revelations, determine the degree to which we have a dissatisfied experience of life. The way we view the world, the way we interpret our knowledge of it, and the manner in which we navigate the world given such knowledge, is of paramount importance to informing our subjective experience. Such truths such as the impermanence of all phenomena, the suffering nature of our existence, and the deterministic foundation for all action pose the threat of being interpreted in a manner that increases our dissatisfaction with life, but they need not do so.

How do we experience the world through this lens? Individual childhood dissatisfactions and the experience of dissatisfaction which permeates all of our lives can become so great so as to produce the thought of suicide as being a resolvent of the problem of the dissatisfaction itself. The introduction to alleviating substances which could remove the cloud of darkness which is the subsequent production to rumination on the negative experience of life, provides us an apparent escape, albeit, an escape in degree alone, from the nature of natural existence. The addiction, thirst for power, accomplishment of social recognition, and the experience of Being so modified by experience, only can work to confirm the utility of the lifestyle which afforded its modification. Once the utility of this lifestyle becomes revealed as un-reiterable, or of providing a net negative in the consequences of pursuing it, subsequent rejection of the lifestyle is considered. In the developed aversion to conscious altering substances, we are pushed to experience the added suffering of craving for what was lost, and we experience the return to the baseline of suffering, the return to our essential Being. In attempting to cope with Being as such, in its nascent, unmodified by substance, yet heavily altered by environment state, we then can find the pursuit of abstract ideals in philosophy, the concentration on family values, or activities such as physical exertion to be of the most prominent forms of alleviating the permanent awareness of dissatisfaction. We can attempt to form meaningful relationships, but when we do so, we may find ourselves in a similar position, of experiencing the dissatisfaction inherent in life, and conclude that it must be due to our relational partners, that the source of the dissatisfaction must be external. Thus we are enticed to drive off the ones who love us, and eventually may conclude that the dissatisfaction which currently manifests itself as directed upon an object (that of our partners) is in fact due to the partner, but not explicitly, it is only by our essential nature that we can direct it in such a manner. The more someone appears as a viable long-term partner, whether in friendship or romance, especially if the person is imagined to be a partner in which we desire to bear children with, the greater our anxiety in them being suited for such a position. The closer we become, the more dissatisfaction is biologically “required” in order to make sure the situation is optimal for the goals which are, again, instantiated biologically and modified in their expression and the manner in which we actualize them by our social milieu and past experiences. Thus we push away those we love out of false yet true attribution of our suffering towards their role in our lives. We cannot escape dissatisfaction, and our attribution of its manifestation to external factors is merely a part of the biological game, to which we were designed to be players. In the essays “Philosophic Interpretational Structures” and “Pragmatism of the Hard-Deterministic Worldview”, I offer solutions of framing from which we can actually benefit from the knowledge which has the potential of producing further dissatisfaction. In the following sections I will give a brief summary of the proper method of which to utilize these “difficult” truths, and the framing I’ve found most pragmatic.

 How do we learn to pragmatically cope with this state of affairs? Do we have to be players in the biological game of dissatisfaction alleviation? Whether we like it or not, as awareness of these truths become evident, they will never fade away, they will be ever presented as driving forces behind our experience, whether it be thought, speech or action. Do we heed their call to arms? We cannot do otherwise. We ought not act upon every thought, but we have to think every thought that is presented to us. The answer lies in the correct modification of our Being towards values which are consciously formulated, and proven to be personally experienced as beneficial in the mitigation of dissatisfaction. The presence of dissatisfaction in the natural mode of being (unhindered by chemical substances) isn’t abnormal, it’s the most “normal” thing about us. The wise maneuvering and orientation of ourselves in relation to our values, their explicit defining and the manner in which we actualize them, the way in which we act in the world, the way we spend our time, our worldview, in short, our view, intention, thought, speech, action, job, mindfulness, and concentration all must be optimized towards the alleviation of suffering. We can actually harness this natural ability towards accomplishment of our goals. If we allow our dissatisfied nature to be directed toward areas which we do not consciously value, we will only progress towards activities, aims, skills, and experiences which, while they biologically are significant, and therefore “matter”, don’t consciously matter to us. In a proper value system revelation, explicit revamping, instantiating, and actualizing, we can utilize our core expressions of dissatisfaction towards a purpose which we value, towards aims which are meaningful, albeit, to us and us alone. This can only be achieved by diligent striving to do so, yet, we must be fully cognizant of our inability to fully escape the confines of existential suffering which we are encased in. Pursue meaning, attempt to alleviate suffering, yet do not fall into despair over its impossibility. While this presents itself as paradoxical, in the pursuit of the nonexistent by our absurd striving towards it, it is the striving, the Being-directed-towards-value, the present moment directedness and movement which is all we have. The manner and direction which we do so, will determine our ability to cope with life and the subjective experience we will have in doing so.

The biggest problem in life is suffering, and suffering is inextricably tied to our being, as long as we abstain from mind altering substances. How can we most optimally navigate our experience sober? I have found this is best done by pursing values which provide adequate combat against, and in unison with, the essential core of our being. For many this is abstract contemplation, it is career goals, it is development of skills and ascension in hierarchies which we value, it is familial and interpersonal relationships, it is character development in a certain direction, it is becoming the person we simultaneously desire to be as well as have the potential of being. While any area we direct ourselves towards progressing is a manifestation of the system which we simultaneously which to negate (the suffering nature of our biological system), we succeed in mitigation only through the process of attempting to do so. Mental progression in character development, wisdom optimization, and ability to deal with the set of all problems, mentally, always provides a cognitive relief that we can capitalize on despite abstaining from substance alteration. Present moment awareness of the content of consciousness in practices such as meditation, or introspection, give us a greater degree of understanding our experience of life, and the ability to consciously experience this content provides us with the knowledge towards its causal nature, information which is invaluable towards optimization. Physical exertion in hard training, such as physical combat, exercise, sports, or endurance activities, plays a similar role in fighting our genetic predisposition towards desire rooted in dissatisfaction to master our environment, to rise in the hierarchy of physicality. Working a full time job to provide for oneself, one’s family, is adequate in soothing that biological source of dissatisfaction that stems from the will to power through independence and communal benefit. Having mutual beneficial relationships that foster love, support, and mutual growth and understanding provide an experienced social cohesion that is beneficial to our Being. The combination and unity of the four, is a good start at a holistic method of coping.

Is this optimal? Is this the best philosophy of life, the best way to live? If anything, it’s a start. If we can optimize our lives towards pursuing what we value, if we can gratify the modes of our Being which include the mental, physical, and communal modes of our Being, which all are sources of meaning, then we are best suited to deal with the navigation of experience despite its essential dissatisfactory nature. While these are normative claims, and existential conclusions, I believe the search is never over, the modification of our belief systems, the alteration of knowledge used in directing our Being in the world, the experience both in success and failure in these respects, all seeks to better inform us of a better method of navigation, but for now, this is the best I have.

The “Why” in “Why do We Seek the Truth?”

On By Chris ShuttleworthLeave a comment
Originally Written: August 19th 2020

The “why” in “why do we seek the truth” has to do with a biological desire that has been reinforced by our reward system to value the acquisition of insight into the true nature of things. In the hippocampus we find two systems of importance here, one which seeks to discover the unknown, as a biological imperative (this is why dissonance is such a problem to us) as well as a dopamine release system which is linked to that acquisition, and reinforces pathways that in our past have proven to accomplish that goal. The two are inextricably linked, and at a basic biological level, explains our will to push frontiers and knowledge of the environment. Being that the materialistic underpinnings of both the manifestations listed above are located together, their cybernetic influence upon each other is more closely linked than their relations to other areas of the brain.

This is only the start, and like all other basic biological values, how we spend our time, how we achieve the things that give us pleasure, the method we do so, and what is the end, becomes mediated by our social and cultural milieu, and tweaks from the initial imperative in novel directions by our experiences. This value system, the will or desire to achieve what grants us pleasure, and reduces suffering, as well as what is in line with underlying biological “wants”, is the source from which actions manifest, including actions and subjective psychological processes that encourage us to the pursuit of truth.

While everyone has this “to a degree” the more our experiences inform us to the beneficiality of uncovering truth, in a specific manner, whether scientific or philosophical, the more inclined we are to pursue them. The greater source of pleasure or accomplishment we find in creating a habit of searching, finding, contemplating, and theorizing, the greater possibility we will pursue it more often. Thus, we find the mutual reinforcement between accomplishing new conceptualizations and modes of being, which we consciously attach the definition of “truth” to, and the feeling of its intuition. A deeper analysis of the content of the word “truth” may here begin to break down as we dive deeper into the phenomenological realm. What the word stands for, merely is the expression of what we believe to be actual. But what we believe to be actual, in concepts, in thought, in idea, is merely the expression of our attempt to organize the chaos of factors that make up our orientation within the world, from our DNA instigating a perceptive system, to our embodied Being and its navigation in the external environment. The conceptual level merely scratches the surface of what underlies such statements or consciously held beliefs. What we seek is an optimal mode of Being in the world, for which a consciously held belief can support as an epiphenomenon and a causal agent towards the makeup of our Being. It is merely surface level expression which attempts to label an intuited idea which we may or may not embody. The real truth which we seek is to be found in how we are, in the manner in which we act, in how we are so situated in the world, the attitude we take up, the things our body does. While this can be consciously directed, that conscious direction arises from subconscious content, form the totality of our body, and psyche, in the integrated Being. The “why” in “why we seek the truth” from a philosophical standpoint, can be explained by a deeper investigation into the effect upon our Being that such “seeking” entails, and the “why” behind such a question is even posited runs tangentially to the same answer.

The biological closeness of the neuronal divisions which have been uncovered as exploration of the unknown, as well as the pathway reinforcement system, and the functions inherent, provide the necessary basis to explain the human drive towards exploration of the unknown. The biological purpose of rewarding exploration through chemical intervention, in the form of serotonin and its empirically observed “pleasurable sensation” worked through environmental expansion is for purely primitive human’s evolutionary reasons, from a materialistic perspective. While environmental expansion provided benefits to our ancestors in the utilization of different domains, in expanding territory, in more options and potential which can be uncovered in new areas, the use of exploration and its place in the realm of idealism is now the frontier which is phenomenologically “closest” to us. This means that the drive which once was directed at environmental expansion, has been reallocated according to our current environment, that of the social world, the world of language, ideas, and their cultural transmission – memes. Given that ideas rule the social milieu in which our Being is oriented, given that memes and ideas are the currency which direct our consciousness and its impulses, that is, beyond the instinctual, it is deducible that we may “seek the truth” for merely biologically fitness enhancing purposes even in the realm of ideas.

Those ideas which captivate us and inform our beliefs plays an integral role in shaping the mode of Being from which we act from in the world. While these ideas and their subsequent belief modification may be consciously formulated, the level at which they affect our psyche and our value system is stemming from subconscious alteration. Meaning, we may conscious receive the memetic material from reading, from conceptually piecing together information, from auditory sources, from reflection upon experience, but the content that arises into consciousness which states “I believe something” is integrated based on a predisposition that is wholly subconscious, and, from one perspective, even sub-psyche. Our conscious rationalization of beliefs is merely the expression of an attempt to justify what we have deterministically been led to perceive as the truth. Given that this perceived, intuited, believed, “truth” plays a role in modifying our value system and mode of Being, we can connect its role to the biological “goals” inherent in our DNA.

The connectivity to a subconscious stratum, and our mode of Being, implies a modification of our conscious attention, and our very navigation of the world we find ourselves in. Thus, the seeking of truth is always a perceived fitness enhancing activity for evolutionary reasons. On the basis of what we believe to be “true” our behavior is modified, the way we interact with others is modified, how we spend our time, and what we perceive is all modified. These changes based on our belief system can be better or worse in relation to the replication of our genome, the task which the survival machine which we intuit consciously as “us” is tasked at accomplishing. What we intuit as “true” can have several senses, towards which I expound upon in “Truth Claims and their Corollaries”, but one such method of interpreting the word “truth” is the pragmatic utility of a content upon our subjective experience, or upon what is practically beneficial and useful. This method relies on the empirical data that we can phenomenologically analysis, and it is from this methodology which we will perceive, as it is all we truly have available to us (everything else is merely an abstraction from the empirical groundwork).

We may attempt to consciously hold on to the “belief” that what is true is the objectively verifiable statements, or that which holds logical consistency, what “true” necessarily implies for a biological organism, in the preconscious processes, is what is beneficial and useful to the organism, which, for us, is the DNA’s protection and reproduction. Thus we may consciously state that we don’t believe something to be true merely because we wish it to be, but because it is, but the reason why we believe that truth claim, stems from a subconscious belief in the utility of such a belief. If we believe something to be true due to verifiable evidence, logical conclusions, in consequence of the scientific method and its deductions, the very belief in such a method’s veracity is for pragmatically utilizable reasons. Taken from a phenomenological perspective, we act out what we believe to be truly the most effective at accomplishing a goal. Whether this goal may be looked at from an Individual psychology perspective, as constituting power and dominion over our environment, or whether it be social feeling and an inferiority complex looking to be rectified, or if we look at it as removal of dissatisfaction, or the pursual of satisfaction, the underpinning perspective here is irrelevant. What is necessary for the “seeking of truth” is that it only correlates with Objective Truth in that it is objectively the drive of our subjective experience for a reason that is biological in nature. If we consciously hold the view that it is being done otherwise, the statement itself is arising for fitness enhancing purposes of the individual. Perhaps this idea is popular in the current social milieu, perhaps we attribute reason and logic to its statement, no matter from which experiential factors the statement “seek the truth” and our actual “seeking” and “finding”, finds its conscious rationale to be, its core structure is founded upon the pragmatic utility for the individual.

Thus beliefs which seem wholly contradictory in their expounding are understandable, such as “I am a nihilist”. The belief that everything is meaningless wholly negates the very existence of the Being which finds it significant to think such a thought, or state it to others. It is a statement that is destroyed by logic upon any comparison with “objective truth”. Yet, for the conscious individual who states such a belief of the meaninglessness of all experience, there is an objective truth that the content is consciously believed to be representing the “truth”. How can this be so? How can we explain such a seemingly contradictory phenomena existing? The statement and its corresponding subculture of adherents find it mutually beneficial to their psyche to state their “nihilist” belief. There must be a psychological benefit to the individual who can live with the conscious belief in a world devoid of meaning, otherwise, they would not be alive. If we follow the statement to its logical conclusion, and truly take it as the truth, the individual would find no reason to state the belief, nor reason to believe it, nor reason to breathe, eat, and continue living. The fact that self-purported nihilists exist confirms our deduction that pragmatic truth runs our belief system, whether or not we consciously believe it. There is a significance and a meaning behind any idea, any belief that we may hold, and this significance impacts our Being in such a way that we value the “seeking of truth” both for the pragmatic utility in the mode of being which is supported by the very journey of seeking, and of the pragmatic utility of the discovered “truth”, regardless if such a truth is modified by the utility it has to the individual, regardless of its logical or non-logical justification. Whether that is spurred by social context, environment, indoctrination, survival, or purported philosophical consistency and reason, the underlying factor which all phenomenologically experienced “seeking of truth” contains is the pragmatic utility of the endeavor.

We seek the truth for the same reason we do anything. Because of existence. Because of life. Because of DNA. Because of evolutionarily beneficial prerogatives. Because of our developed neuronal structure. Because of our past experiences. Because of our perceptual system mediated by a value system which informs our Being, and the subsequent orientation we have to our environment. Because of the social milieu we find ourselves in, and its cybernetic influence upon us, and us upon it. Because of the Being which we are. We seek the truth because of its pragmatic utility towards the goals which we have developed from the totality of influences and factors which make up, in the overarching synthesis, the totality of our Being. The principle of sufficient reason guides us to deduce that there is good reason for these goals, and we find explanations for driving factors from many perspectives, across the domains of philosophy, psychology, and biology, yet, experientially, we find them in the content of our subjective experience. For us, this is the most real, and from this, stem all our pursuits and goals. If we ask ourselves, why do we seek the truth? It is because it is the most natural thing for us to do, and we couldn’t do otherwise.

Temporalitys Affect Upon our Being

On By Chris ShuttleworthLeave a comment
Originally Written: August 5th 2020

In analyzing the way temporality affects us, we can look at two phenomena which show an apparent gulf in the way we regard ourselves within time. In spontaneous actions time appears to be a nonessential aspect due to the action not occurring in conscious experience. External stimuli, and the manner in which we interact with it, produces a reaction that happens in an order of time that falls below conscious awareness’s threshold for interaction. Our pre-conscious perceptual system produces a nervous reaction that responds to stimuli, and we only experience the situation consciously in conceptualizations of a retrospective nature. On the other hand, consciously deliberated action appears within the domain of experience, and thus we regard it as being of a different nature than that of spontaneous actions. Action resulting from conscious awareness or deliberation may be itself modified by the deliberation, but the very deliberation itself, without a doubt, is the result of the nervous systems modification of the environment it finds itself in, as in the case of spontaneity, yet this content reaches conscious awareness. To say conscious awareness produces the action which follows deliberation, is to speak only a partial truth.

Both phenomena are the results of our Being becoming modified by our immediate environment, and producing a reciprocating response to it, the difference is in the amount of time that lapses. In the first case, the time that passes is less than conscious experience can grasp, and happens outside the domain of our awareness, in the later, the experience can be quantified as resulting from a period of time in which awareness was present of the process. The way we view these two experiences, and the way we intuit their relationship to our totality of who we are, our “Being”, is grounded upon phenomenological experience, but they share temporal modification of a subtle nature. In what manner does temporality and the actions which stem from our Being originate? What is the subtle nature that produces both actions, and why do we experience them differently? How does our reaction to time elicit a view of self-control?

In regards to spontaneity and action that is preceded by conscious deliberation, they both are inextricably connected to time, the differentiation is merely conceptual, and an illusion. Conscious deliberation is an act of spontaneity, yet is recognized as being altogether different in nature, as spontaneous acts are often described as “instinctual” or “habitual”. While spontaneous acts aren’t experienced within subjective consciousness, the very conscious deliberation which precedes an action is itself manifest from the unconscious. We do not choose our thoughts before they appear in conscious awareness, and thus the deliberation, and action that follows, stems from the same deterministic framework. In a sense, conscious direction is as instinctual and conditional as unconscious reciprocation to our environment, it is itself a reaction to our current place in time and space, given our current mental development as conditioned by our past historicity. While these characterizations do differentiate it, from an appearance perspective, conscious deliberation arises in a manner that is only different in that it is experienced consciously. It still arises in response to an environment with causal factors which are out of our conscious control.

Time is something geared into our existence, anything that happens can be explained by its temporal and causal nature. If we explore phenomenologically our experience then we can see how the conscious deliberation and spontaneous action are both moments which mysteriously appear in the present by our Being undergoing different modifications through time, producing different modes of being. These different modes of being might be that which retrospectively labels a situation as happening habitually, or, if the action or movement occurs after conscious forethought, we say it was an act of our “self” or of “freewill”. The fundamental phenomenological difference is in the perceived lapse of time in conscious deliberation, and the lack of conscious acuity in recognizing it in “spontaneous” actions.

There is a gulf between the conscious present and its pre-perceptual causal instantiation- but – so too is there in spontaneous reaction. We only recognize the illusory gulf between the two due to our conscious examination, and in reflection they appear to be different, of a different temporal order, yet, in the experience of either, they are both manifestations of the same Being geared into its temporal wave as it flows through us, merely reacting in either direction in the way which it is conditioned to do so.

Time is fundamentally entwined with our Being, and the transience and modification it plays upon how we perceive subjective experience can be revealed phenomenologically, by returning to the experience itself and how it appears to be of a certain nature depending on the amount of perceived time lapsing in the “event” under scrutiny. There is an illusion that spontaneity and conscious deliberation are not manifestations of the same “Being”. We say we didn’t mean to, or it wasn’t our choice, when we react in a habitual or instinctual manner, that is, unconsciously. But why do we not apply the same explanation to conscious thoughts as they arise? Or the actions which follow them? They too aren’t our “choice”, they merely are appearing in conscious awareness. The temporal wave we find ourselves in, in the moment of spontaneity, and in an action with conscious pre-conceptualization, both carry the modification of time, occur in time, and take place for good “scientific reasons”.

Science is fundamental, yet a different area of analysis. We do not deny science in phenomenology, nor accept it, we merely bracket it and head “to the things themselves”, that is, as they appear in perception, consciousness, experience, and are formed due to a significance, meaning, a sense, all of which is presumed in any scientific enterprise, and not made explicit.

The temporal structure as embodied is inextricably connected to the milieu in which we find ourselves thrown into. Our anticipation of the future, our projection and always living ahead of ourselves – in time – as the future comes, develops out of a constructed style of being that has been modified by the past. The connectivity within the present of our Beings orientation informed by the past and modified by perception of the future is necessary to describe any experience or reflective moment within time, any phenomenological analysis requires times elucidation to provide context to the phenomenon. In other words, we are constantly being modified by our orientation towards time, our relation to the past, and future must be taken into account for any explanation of a present moment experience. It is for these reasons that we fail to accurately perceive the equal expression of our Being in “fast” response and “slow response”, that we fail to have an automatic insight into the origin of consciously conceived phenomena, and attribute them to stemming from “us” in a controlling manner.

While the appearance of control is only present when an action or thought is brought into conscious awareness, we must recognize the Being from which it stems, and the manner it does so, to see it clearly. The next conscious thought we think is no more under “our” control than the reaction to accidentally placing my hand on a hot stove, both reactions are triggered by stimuli, internalized by our perceptive system, modified by our experience, and resulting in an action that follows. We constantly are orientating ourselves towards the environment we find ourselves in, and the manner we do so is based on our embodied perception, genetic inheritance, experiences, and current mode of being. The current mode of being is itself a manifestation of our historicity, and is likewise explainable on deterministic grounds. Conscious thought can appear to decide between options, and it can lead to us choosing an option, but that choice, that conscious decision, or indecision, is all representative of the totality of the Being from which it stems from.

Self-Identification Modifying Being

On By Chris Shuttleworth1 Comment
Originally Written: July 22nd 2020

There is a certain mood, a manner of being, an existential modification that takes place within the self’s conceptualization of itself. If we self-identify with a group identity, with a concept that denotes the existence we believe ourselves to be, we become modified in a manner that is in direct relation to the significance of the term, in a manner that necessarily follows from the sense that we give to the concept in our defining. By defining the nature of our own being as that of being a “philosopher”, “proletariat” (worker), as being a liberal or a conservative, we gear our existence into the groove that is defined by the sense that the word as idealized provides to us in our own understanding of it. Our understanding of language and its application to defining the nature of our being, i.e. who we are, is modified by the signification that the social milieu in which we find ourselves, historically, has created in defining the term and has so given its defining over to us. The way in which we understand the term “philosopher” or “conservative”, as deterministically intuited through our experience both introspectively contemplated and informed by externalities, is the way in which the term will modify us in its taking up as believed to be referencing our Being.

We take up the reference of our being to that which we associate it to, to that which we are able to understand it by. If we believe the defining conceptualizations of our being are those that contain a group identity, or of any description, we not only apply the cognitive label through making the judgment and forming an internal thought such as “I exist as a philosopher”, but we modify our embodied perspective and its correlative characteristics in relation to which we are certain of the description, and in a manner that is extracted from our understanding of the given description. We become geared into the world in a manner that puts on a lenses that is colored by the description of our identity, and our actions reflect this position. This description can be presented externally, can be judged by another in their evaluation of us, and we can take it up either by doxically accepting the description of others, or through our own intuitional connection, regardless, the taking up, the accepting, the gearing into the description, modifies our character and perspective in direct relation to the conceptualization that we take up.

The prevalent descriptions of characteristics of political groups as presented in the media, in our social interactions, the societal defining of psychological traits, the class separations and racial connotations which are thrust upon us by our perception of auditory signals, written, or intuited designations, form groups with significations that mean something, and are differentiated according to our introjecting the content that relates to them in our formulation of the word. The meanings of such terms become modified as pushed upon us by the environment in which we find ourselves in.

Our lenses through which we take up our being in the world, and the subjective experience of consciousness which results from this filtration, is constituted by the color of the lenses which we use in our depiction of ourselves. While the initial filter is the pre-conscious perspectival taking up and revealing, in a bottom up fashion, the top down integration of conscious direction can cause a perspectival modification, thus what we consciously value is designated by our embodied perspective, yet simultaneously informed by consciously formulated ideals. One such conscious formulation is the change in values as modified by conscious self-reflection, and the manner in which we tend to do so happens to be linguistically, or conceptually, using language. This language which we use to describe our own Being, orients us towards the world in a manner that coincides with the way in which we understand ourselves, and this is where behavior can change in relation to the values underlining our understanding of self-constructed definitions in reference to our own Being.

We don’t only conceptualize ourselves as we are, but also as we wish to be, what we wish to be is due in the first instance to our biologically instantiated value system, and subsequently modified by the environmental and social milieu to which the value system is modified throughout the historicity of our existence. Our historicity, insofar as it is temporal, builds upon the first order biological filtration of our perceptive system (Value System Instantiation), in a progressive manner. As more present moments don their contributions towards effecting the totality of our being (over time), the value system is modified in accordance with that which is determined to follow the cultural environment as mediated and understood through the biological organism’s perspective. Thus, we develop our facticity, that which constitutes the fact of our Being in the present moment, and we find within us a certain orientation towards the world that is directly influenced by the value structure that has so been developed, desiring this or that, pursuing this or that, behaving in accordance with this or that, and wanting to be this or that. This desire towards embodying or actualizing a certain description, can lead to self-connotations that one believes to be an accurate depiction of oneself, which is in alignment with one’s value system. We only believe what we believe, and this changes due to cultural norms, our environment, that which we are educated and that which impresses itself on us as being most valuable.

Ignorance of far ranging perspectives by the narrow indoctrination towards a specific ideology might not be seen by the naïve consciousness which knows of no other existence, but unbeknownst to it the very core of ones Being is permeated by said ideology and one’s entire existence becomes characterized by a critical permeation of the idea. Every action, thought, or word spoken is an expression of the totality of the Being which we are, and if this being is characterized by a narrow ideology, you can be sure the person will live out this ideology across the span of his existence. The label which is supported by the ideology gears us into living in accordance with it. The prevalence of societal norms, of societally supported descriptions which one believes that embodying would better support oneself in navigating life, dominate the psyche as a driving factor to actualize in oneself, and can lead to the behavior modifications which go along with applying such descriptions to one’s own being. How I came to desire to be a philosopher, how I came to refrain from applying political labels to myself, is instantiated upon the nature of my being in a causally determined way that is no different than the ideologically possessed, I am, as well, ideologically possessed by the idea that this description of my being is not only accurate, but the best I have found so far. The objective status of our primary identification in relation to other descriptions depends upon the nature of the judgment we place upon descriptions as being “better” or “worse”, our morality, and what we see to be the “good” will inform which values come on top, in terms of what we spend time in association with, as well as in how we identify. Being that this judgment of our current self-description and its contents are all instantiated in a manner that is beyond our control, and have been the product of a historicity towards the development of actualizing our being to believe of itself to be so constituted in the present moment, is likewise out of our control, in the same manner as any other ideological possession we can point to.

The description we apply to ourselves orients us in a way that modifies our social interaction, and how we behave towards others, not only in the manner in which we present ourselves, but in the manner in which we wish the other to perceive of us, itself modifying our behavior to be in accordance with the desired instantiation of the mind of the other in their perception. This manner of being-towards-others, conversely, will affect the manner in which others treat us, and how their being becomes oriented in the space of which is perceptibly shared by ourselves and them, as we meet in the world and occupy the same practical milieu which can be affected by both of us. Thus, the manner in which we describe ourselves, does more than mediate the content of our subjective experience by modifying actions and behavior in accordance with it, but it has an effect on our being-towards-others, their being-towards-us, and the content that stems from such interactions.

Every moment in our life is a manifestation of the totality of our being, in one way or another, we are always authentically representing ourselves by any action, behavior, thought, emotion, mood, mode of being, or perception that takes place. To him who is dishonest, or attempting to put on a deceptive act that paints his character other than it would otherwise be, that too is reflective of the person’s Being, if such knowledge is ever truly revealed. In seeking to better orient ourselves to the world in which we find ourselves, we are constantly seeking the mode of being which is best suited for the environment that surrounds us, the people we come into contact with, the thoughts that manifest themselves, in short, our Being is seeking optimization of itself, towards the management of the set of all moments. Obviously, the best solution is to seek to better oneself in handling the set of all problems, rather than individual problems, but both can be mutually improved upon through the development of the other. The way in which we do so, the best life we can live, the method of gearing ourselves into the world, and the role that conscious self-conceptualization plays in modifying such areas of our most profound longing, becomes extraordinarily significant to us, insofar as the content of our subjective experience is modified by it. Since the content of our subjective experience is of integral importance to us, and poses a significance that is valuable regardless of ideological possession, we ought to consciously direct ourselves towards those descriptions which modify our being towards producing the greatest amount of wellbeing, subjectively, the most amount of time possible.

This isn’t a merely selfish endeavor at the peril of all others, although it can be. If it appears best to us to identify and behave as a tyrant and deceiver, for whatever reason, one will experience the subjective experience that alignment with such an ideal provides. One in such a position may fail to see the benefit in acting otherwise, and will never know what they are missing, and to those in such a position, they will meet with unending misfortune, and, most likely, an extremely dissatisfied experience of life. We will no longer be treated with love and respect, will probably find ourselves hated, distrusted, imprisoned or injured as a consequence. This negative experience may be the catalyst to change, or may not be. But, if given the opportunity to experience what acting in a manner that doesn’t reflect that identity can provide, it may sway the person’s judgment of such identification, and lead to meaningful change to a different identity.

We can mitigate the dangers in identification, as well as exploit the usage. By limiting ourselves to a single political position, we alienate ourselves from other perspectives, and close off ourselves to seeing the entirety of the picture. By defining ourselves by our job, or our current role in our lives, we face an identity crisis should our position change. If we identify with character traits that we value, such as having a strong mind, being disciplined in contact, as being a person who is able to be virtuous, we identify with a description that is not only valued and thus desired, but we become able to better modify our character to represent the identity that we desire. By identification with discipline, we become more urged to remain faithful to exercise, diet, and hard work. By identifying as a loving friend, rather than, say, “John’s friend” we become better suited to care for friends as they come and go out of our lives. By identifying as a strong leader, rather than “the supervisor of a certain company”, we don’t lose our identity should the company fail, and we become able to embody leadership principles across the board in our lives.

 Our being in the world must take into account the social milieu in which we find ourselves, as we are social beings which place a significant amount of importance upon our relations with others, and our behavior must reflect that internal disposition, which can be modified by the self-conceptualizations as described above. So a merely selfish mode of being that is the production of self-aggrandizement in self-depiction is clearly not the answer, if one is wise, and has a grasp upon one’s true value system, they will take into account the many factors towards which our wellbeing and environment are conditioned by. We must take into account society, family, friends, that which we value, that arena of experience which is closest to ourselves, not merely that which is conscious experience itself, but also its mediating factors that can be altered based upon our behavior, in their reflective affecting of our subjective experience.

Philosophic Interpretational Structures

On By Chris Shuttleworth3 Comments
Originally Written: July 22nd 2020

In the spirit of going against the common narrative, of remaining open-minded, and analyzing the optimal mode of being from which to operate within to effectively orient ourselves against the set of all problems, it is important to analyze and seek to optimize the philosophical structure which we adhere to. If we value a meaningful existence, we ought to strive for the optimal interpretive lenses from which we use to comprehend the problem of our Being, from which we extract the manifestations of our actions and thoughts in order to properly navigate the world. We naturally seem inclined to do so, whether consciously contemplated or otherwise. We “seek” to understand and orient ourselves to the best of our abilities and for the philosopher such a process becomes explicit, and can be acutely recognized as such.

The philosophical structures that we “create” through experience are more or less optimal to the success or failure of our specific goals. Some structures of thought and interpretation may provide us with the groundwork to a more optimal conscious subjective experience, to which I attribute, among other spiritual and philosophical frameworks, the Buddhist doctrinal contemplation and immersion. A certain modification of our Being in our subjective experience, content of thought, and wellbeing associated with our psychic life, our actions and orientation, all become influenced in direct relation to the school of thought, religious contemplation, or area of inquiry that we immerse ourselves in, and pick up. That which we are engaged in influences the mode of being from which our experience springs forth. While ideological structures like Buddhism show to me a change in subjective wellbeing stemming from its modification of Being to one of pointed wisdom, aversion to unwholesome desires, confidence in discipline, and concentration on the content of experience in the present moment, it also performs a less than optimal modification in terms of social cohesion, productivity in goal-accomplishment, and diligent striving to pursue familial and societal goals, which, while they may not accurately represent our values, they ought to be pursued for their utility and long term significance to the quality of our lives. Although the Buddhist mindset provides for me a subjective equanimity, it fails to provide the thought that is optimal for the comprehension of reality as it is in itself to an adequate manner, such as philosophical schools such as phenomenology succeed to a greater extent, or the scientific deterministic mindset can provide. Yet the undertaking of one, the embodying and actualizing of content stemming from either source, necessarily implies an opportunity cost of the benefit of the other. This isn’t strictly speaking the divide between empiricism and intellectualism, materialism and idealism, it isn’t strictly confined to a primarily Buddhist mode of interpretation of phenomena and the phenomenological interpretation, it applies to every mode of being that can be pointed to as having an intentionality founded upon a philosophical structure. The modification of our being in response to specific framework or structure that we adhere to, play a crucial role in affecting the content of our experience.

It becomes clear that in our journey through life we ought to pursue that mode of being which is best able to navigate the set of all problems in existence. For different periods of life, for different situations, for different environments, in relation to different people, and times, we ought to conclude that there are better or worse structures to embody in order to manage the situation we find ourselves thrown into. This poses a problem for the philosopher, and for the contemplative who takes an interest in his own experience, as to which mode to embody, if one is to consciously direct oneself towards one, which one, if any?

Individual ideologies in a single structure prove useful and optimal for different things in direct relation to the significance and modification of that structure. But no single ideology is encompassing enough to subsume the beneficiality in regards to every facet of life. While Christianity may benefit the community through strong family and interpersonal struggles, it fails on the intellectual level, and even more so on influencing scientific discoveries. Every ideology is lacking in regard to certain situations, and all previously established schools of thought share in their deficiency to properly inform the nuances of all of life’s challenges and situational encounters. As society changes, as our lives change, as horizons broaden, so should our interpretation and framework from which to operate from. This requires a strict separation between our self-image, our belief structure, from that of dogmatic ideological possession. In the current political climate, with the expanding polarization between conservative and liberal parties, we become blinded to the argument, benefit, and utility of the opposite party’s viewpoint. In order to properly inform a correct interpretation of any political issue we must see the other sides views, in their positive and negative points toward any singular issue, or fail to gain deeper insight into the complexity of the issue at hand. The mere dogmatic adherence to one side of the political spectrum delimits our view into a merely “part of the story” comprehension, when the whole story is much vaster, thus the fundamental disagreement. There are good reasons why half the country bends strongly one way and the other in contrary ways, one side isn’t merely intelligent and the other ignorant, the thesis and its contrary thesis both hold weight, for good reason. It is in a transcendent viewpoint that realizes the intentionality behind each, the reason for the disagreement, the benefits and drawbacks, that can come to a satisfying synthesis which encompasses both views, and from that place of transcendence can work towards the unity and cohesion between different personalities, perspectives, and lifestyles towards and optimal government with policies that are inclusive rather than divisive. The more we close off our minds, the more we maintain in a mode of being certain, or are possessed by a singular structure, the less we are to gleam the whole picture, gain a comprehensive understanding of the topic, and thus are less informed as to an optimal stance on the issue and its resolution. This extends past the political sphere, to all realms of inquiry. The mode of being certain, of working within a singular rigid structure, hinders growth, hinders understanding, and limits the potential solutions and manifestation of actions to solely those provided by that structures interpretation. The more we become marked be a fallible mode of being, of opening up our belief structure to contain doubt, to be more inclusive to the unknown, the more options and potential solutions to problems become available to us. The more potential solutions, dependent on the more knowledge, the more equipped we become at countering dogmatic adherence and actualizing the potentiality that is more optimally suited to what we authentically, individually, believe to be most viable.

The more knowledge we have into the optimality of different modes of being in relation to situational consistencies supplies us with a bigger pool of options from which to choose from in the face of novel encounters. This, on its face, must be true. The more experience we have, the more knowledge, the more options and pathways available to us. The increase of knowledge, increases the availability of given solutions. The problem is oftentimes these pathways are dead ends, and we lose time in their development, but, if charted correctly, the pursuance of certain knowledge, in certain directions, can be utilized in the present moment for their beneficiality towards novel situations. How these are selected for, how we can instantiate them, and the best way to do so, is complex, and would require a theoretically infinite discourse in expression.

I always assumed my progression towards an optimal mode of being was linear, and improved as knowledge and experience improved, but this may be a false notion. The worry here is that what was once attained may no longer be available upon the acquisition of further knowledge. What is “best”, what is “better”, and the relationship modes of being have to the current situation which we find ourselves in, are all transient, and constantly fluctuating, not to mention our experience rooted in them becomes altered as well. Ought we to give up our search then? If our knowledge has provided us with experience that points to structures that are mutually incompatible, yet individually useful, how ought we to decide upon the direction to travel?

The aim in discovering the best life to live, necessarily requires the philosophical extrapolation of possible experiences, possible modes of being in relation to that “best life”, an explanation of morality, intentionality, and a thorough analysis of our goals. The implications of such a search become vaster the more we learn in any of these given domains, as always, we wish not to regress, we wish to progress, substantially, day by day, towards better and better ways of being. Is this feasible? Is it possible? We wish for it to be true, and we tell ourselves that every day we are getting better and better, understanding ourselves and the world we are thrown into more and more, that our mode of being is being improved, that we can better navigate the world today than yesterday, as experience opens up new horizons, as more situations and possible solutions are uncovered, we assume we are better oriented to deal with them. Are these assumptions true? They mustn’t always be, and we must remain open to the possibility that we have lost something which would be more valuable to us than we currently contain. The knowledge of lost knowledge itself is unreliable, it is merely a second order abstraction upon a memory that is no longer present for us. The narrative we tell ourselves in the present about the state of affairs in the past is merely an attempt in the present of recreating a moment gone to us, based upon the present state of things. It never can accurately capture the past, it is lost to us, and each attempt at recreating it, whether it is imagined and conceptualized in thought or articulated in speech, is merely at the most a second order representation. When we attempt to reconstitute the state of affairs in the past, we are merely doing so by building upon the order of re-articulation that we last devised, we are extrapolating upon an abstract extrapolation, and becoming further removed from the content. The narration is constantly modified as time passes, whether or not articulability increases or decreases, whether or not our comprehension of reality in the present moment becomes more or less deviated from the truth of the matter, does not matter, the narration is modified by experience, experience is entwined with time, and our re-articulability is modified by our past articulation of content.

The past is simultaneously lost to us forever, and inexhaustibly entwined with the present, as the future is as well. The future is forever nonexistent, yet always what our being is oriented towards, we live in front of ourselves, our experience is projected towards the future, in the present, as it is constituted by the past. The present we experience is merely the attempt to orient ourselves towards the future that is nonexistent, founded upon a past that is lost to us, and we find ourselves thrown into it by no choice of our own.

In regards to past modes of being, insofar as we recollect them as being more optimal towards achieving a beneficial mode of being, we ought not dwell in the relinquishment of a treasure that cannot be reclaimed, but rather, we must strive on, as it is the only option available to us. Strictly speaking, the philosophical structure which we seek to be the most optimal towards our present moment embodiment is impossible to articulate, but not impossible to strive towards developing, and in doing so, make progress. Practically speaking, we find better or worse ways of navigating. If Buddhism worked in the past as an interlocutor in mediating our conscious thoughts and interpretation of the world, yet we have so altered our being towards Christianity, and Buddhism is no longer the present mode of interpretation towards which we see the world, all is not lost. If we find our new mode characterized by Christianity, and reflect upon the good ol’ days of Buddhism when subjective experience was optimal, and find ourselves wanting, we are merely telling ourselves something that cannot be truly representative of the situation we find ourselves in. We are merely judging our present using thought in a manner that is inconclusive to the beneficiality of what we ought to do.

Properly speaking, we only transcend our past mode of being for one which we deem to be better suited to ourselves. Whether this is true in actuality or not, our change in structure is due to a perceived benefit, and it cannot be otherwise. Our beliefs about the world, and the manner in which we orient ourselves towards the world, works in full accordance with our perceptible ability to uncover valuable information, which is presented to consciousness. If we value something more than the other, if we move in any direction, it necessarily becomes that which we believe the acquisition of to be better constituting our current mode of being. We cannot believe something we do not believe, and we cannot act otherwise. Every moment, every thought, every philosophical structure uncovered in the present moment, is a representation, albeit in part (always in part!) of the Totality of our being. Every expression stemming from conscious direction, is an expression that denotes a significance towards the Being which we are. We cannot act consciously in a way that doesn’t represent our consciousness.

In short, we should be wary to conclude upon strict adherence to a single philosophical structure, as its breadth is less than optimal to cover the totality of novel situations, within a fluctuating milieu of interpersonal relations and individual development progression. As our lives and minds develop, as situations and potentialities become open up to us, the more versatile we must become in consequence, or suffer the price that an outdated mode of being carries with it. As we become more competent and capable, both in our abstract belief structure, and practical knowledge, our orientation naturally changes in the way we are embodied in confronting the world we find ourselves in. For the mind to lag behind the constant reorientation, is to fail to meet up with the challenges of the present moment using the tools we have available. In utilizing our rational capacities, and the ability to remain fallible as to conclusive structures which guide us, the better equipped we become to face the present moments unique difficulties. In relinquishing adherence to certainty, we open ourselves up to an authentic being-towards-the-world, one which best represents who we are, who we want to be, and is better suited to adapt to the environment we find ourselves in. We ought to be prudent in discerning the structures we are studying, their affect upon our psychological wellbeing, and their role in modifying behavior. As we collect more data in more domains, we ought to reevaluate what labels we attach to ourselves, and the repercussions that stem from such characterizations. The way in which we self-conceptualize ourselves (Self-Conceptualization Modifying Behavior), and the mode of being which is influenced by our pointed interests and time spent concentrating on a specific school of thought, must be recognized as to its influence in regards to the subjective experience of the present moment, and we ought to progressively move forward towards optimizing the framework from which our mode of being is propagated by, and which courses through every experience of our lives, that is, if we value our experience, which, undeniably, we do. The role of philosophy is to make this inquiry, uncovering, and direction optimal in its utility and in our understanding and conceptualization of it, with ends towards a more meaningful, fulfilling, eudaimonistic life.

Existential Ramblings and Conclusions

On By Chris ShuttleworthLeave a comment
Originally Written: July 20th 2020

The problem is that we have an experience, and that experience can be better or worse. Not to mention, that experience and its contents, which are ranging, are wholly contingent upon this world in which we find ourselves thrown into.

The question no longer becomes whether anything matters or doesn’t, as it surely does, to us, it becomes – how do we best navigate this existence we find ourselves thrown into? The social milieu, the time, the space, the experience, the present moments causal tethers, and the anticipation of the future, how do we navigate with the givens?

Do we stop trying, and produce an intolerable suffering that we subjectively experience? Do we struggle to pursue what we individually uncover as valuing, despite the universes judgment upon the futility of meaning? We ought to. We ought to rebel against the universes condemnation, and bring to the forefront that meaning which we find gives sense to our experience, that which relates to our conscious awareness the beneficiality of pursuing, not because it means something to the world, but because it means something to us. Is this real? Does it exist? It exists as sure as our experience of existence exists, and to optimize this experience is to pursue what we value, which, if we’re smart, we would look to discovering what is the most optimal pursuits to value themselves.

We don’t forget our thrownness into a world unasked for, we don’t ignore the universal insignificance of our existence, rather, we value the content of our own experience, we see the sense that is made behind every moment, as our embodied perceptive ability discerns which content to manifest in conscious experience, and in so inviting, we discern modes of being, we experience life, we live and we learn, we strive for optimal states, and we ought not feel guilty, nor forget the framework from which we work in.

Our natural orientation toward the world will inform us of our values, whether they be pre-conscious in perception, or consciously directed. Our genetic encoding for how to perceive, and the way in which we orient ourselves towards our environment is done so by a certain signification that objects in our environment give as mediated by the perceptive system (itself genetically and environmentally informed). This is base level sense, meaning, and signification. It also just so happens to be the case that we are located in a social milieu, a familial and culturally influenced system, which is formulated into our perceptive orientation system since birth. These systems all seek to orient us in a way that has value, from the basis of survival, propagation, and other evolutionary factors. This basis, provided with a social milieu, entails action and Being that works in a way towards properly being in the world. This “proper” is somewhat anthropomorphized, but it is a natural process that is underlined by a certain sense.

There is sufficient reason why we pay attention to certain things, why certain content has the effect it does upon us, why we reciprocally act in a way that is “intuited” as optimal for us. It is a production of a value system, that is part in parcel of our Being, that which we are, and our place in the world we find ourselves in.

We can extrapolate, as the desires and goals become enriched by the societal norms, become more complex as the means to survival and satisfaction become more entwined and enriched with a causally determined value. We pursue things, we say things, we do things, we think things, and we reflect on our own experience, not for no reason at all, but for good reason, it is all bursting with meaning, we ought to attempt to uncover such things, which we can (Value System Uncovering). Proper Vipassana meditation, analyzed with a phenomenological method, can disclose the intentionality behind conscious experience, can disclose the modes of being which we embody, and their characteristics (Phenomenology of Vipassana Mode of Being). One of which, as Hiedegger pointed out, is our natural care or concern system, which courses through every present moment.

Everything we do is fundamentally informed by our care and concern, our want, our deficiency and its alleviation. We care about things, we value things, because they mean something to us, there is no escaping this, whether we consciously attribute our belief structure to being nihilist, or absurdist, etc., the orientation towards a belief structure, and mediated by the belief structure, itself is rooted upon a type of meaning, albeit the selection of negation over affirmation (in these cases).

Why do you think you better yourself? We should answer these questions for ourselves, look to who we want to be, what we want to do, and strive to go there, for good reasons and intentions. Making this goal, these intentions, and the path there explicit provides a benefit towards achieving that goal of becoming who we want to become, of getting “better” in a subjective sense – made objective only in its relation to our subjective experience of being better or worse.

Why do we continue living? Why do I do the things I do? I do it because it fills me with meaning, provides positive states of being, it will make me a better husband, father, citizen, which themselves are sources of meaning, they provide a framework from which to act under that improves my psychological state, it fills my life with potentialities that have a significance to me, and for me, that is enough to continue living.

The better we are, in ways which we value, hypothetically (if our goals, intentions, practice, and definition of “better” is actually conducive to a better experience of life) the better we can navigate existence, the better we can cope with hardship, the better subjective experience we have, and the better we can aide others. By bettering ourselves, we become more equipped to handle life itself, optimally, that produces wellbeing for ourselves and those we care about.

The more virtuous we are, the better we can act, the more knowledgeable we become, the better we are able to understand reality, and the better equipped we become to live in an optimal manner.

While this is itself subjective, I think we ought to pursue what we value regardless, at the least on a “whim” as Camus said, but we can go past that, because this “whim” can be properly informed and backed by empirical evidence of improving psychological wellbeing, which ought to matter to us, seeing as our experience does matter to us. We can instantiate a path towards a consciously formulated goal, mode of being, character trait, personal accomplishment, creative act, etc. that is the result of a pursuance in accordance with what we find meaningful in the present moment, or what we value.

Now why ought we to pursue what we value, what we consciously formulate as being valuable? This is generally a tautology, we pursue what is valuable because it is valuable, it provides us with wellbeing, reduces suffering, creates a life that is meaningful, to us, by definition, because it’s based on our values.

This would be, if you could grant me, a subjective pursual that is objectively verified as a real present moment decision, act, understanding. The phenomena of such conscious decisions, the awareness necessary to realize, is all subjective, but we can say, from our experience, if is an objective fact about our existence that it is occurring.

I would never make a claim that pursuits and values are universally shared to the same degree, just that they objectively exist and can be discovered subjectively. Any further extrapolation would require quite a detailed phenomenological explanation as well as a philosophically vigorous explanation of what “truth” here entails. (On Truth Claims) I hope you see where I’m coming from regardless.

One more point on the is ought problem, as far as morality is concerned, I’m coming from a meta ethical perspective of moral realism, tempered by individually acquired wisdom in actuality, so there’s that.

In regards to extrapolating these musing beyond the life of a human, to other sentient life, the natural orientation we have towards the world we’re in, this goes for Dasein, and dog, and buffalo, is naturally oriented towards the content within its environment, pre-consciously. This orientation is grounded upon the biological structure of our system, formed through DNA, developed through our historical development by environmental factors. The dog isn’t aware of the being of the object which imposes a reaction, the dog is merely orienting himself to the environment he perceives in embodied pre conscious adjustments. The perception of the hot ground in Arizona, and the subsequent movement of the lizard in response, isn’t merely an empirical sensory intake and thus movement, neither is it the intellectual comprehension and directedness of the mind imposing direction and movement, it is the embodied perceptibility of his being which is seeking to reorient that being based on the conditions of the world in which he finds himself, the milieu which surrounds him.

I would say the orientation of the being of the organism to color and heat is intuited by its perceptive abilities prior to cognize, that being said, where anthropomorphized cognition and intellect must be suspended, such as in another organism such as a lizard, we cannot claim that it recognizes the being of such phenomena as such. We only claim the being of the object being perceived in consciousnesses as being a possibility due to our own recognition of our being, I think it would be fallacious to attribute the same power, to the same degree, to other beings – but this also holds true to members of the same species.

That being said, from our perspective, using our language, we can say that the organism does intuit heat and color, that they recognize the fluctuation, variance, and thus orient themselves accordingly, but this content is never made explicit to itself in a way which humans are capable of doing so.

So the organism does have a comprehension of the color and heat of the sand which it darts across, and thus is impelled to action through movement, but that comprehension which we say is the comprehension of the being of externalities, isn’t the same comprehension which we are used to. Our comprehension is mediated and filtered through our perceptive abilities, and the mode of comprehension which is enacted upon by the lizard isn’t making the content of his environment explicit, or attributing it to the being of externalities, he is merely reorienting in much the same way we do with a hot stove, or when someone walks into the room.

Every being, in relationship to any other being which enters into our perceptual or even conceptual horizon, modifies the being which is present in response to its recognition (not conscious recognition, merely perceptive.) The manner in which we do so, the characteristics of such modes of being, how phenomena influence us, and how we come to perceive, comprehend, and are modified by such phenomena, is the role of the phenomenologist to attempt to uncover.

The manner in which organisms which are farther away from us do so, i.e. not Dasien, becomes less clear and more difficult their degree of removal of sameness they are from us, as we all know, even denoting our own fundamental characteristics in regards to any given phenomena, noema, and the underlying noesis, is difficult enough.

What stands, regardless of the being which is in question, is that if it is life, it has a set of values, instantiated at birth towards certain aims. These aims, whether conscious, unconscious, or merely perceptual and reactionary, inform the being of the organism in question as to how to orient itself in life. Whether to produce locomotion, cognition, action, or inaction. This evaluation of our environment, our modification in response to the gulf between ourselves and the environment, urges us in directions, towards objects of intentionality. This all is presupposed by a significance, a meaning, an evaluation, which, if uncovered, can provide insight into why we do the things we do. This system isn’t merely bottom-up, but can be effected significantly in a top-down manner as well, which is where the absurdist or existentialist conceptions come in play. As long as our subjective experience matters to us, we ought to pursue that which we value, re-examine our value system, and direct ourselves towards actualization of that content – that is – if we want a meaningful life, if we want to have a positive psychological experience. While none of this matters sub species aeternitus, from the universes perspective, or from any perspective outside our own, the fact remains that it matters to us, and that is more than enough to pursue what we value.

The Problem of Being

On By Chris ShuttleworthLeave a comment
Originally Written: July 6th 2020

A potential state of human inquiry is into the nature of our very being, and what it means “to be”. For many of us, if not all of us, this very being which we subjectively experience, the totality of who we are, that conscious experience of being a subject, that conscious experience of content as it arises and passes away, the totality of our psyche, our body, the unity of time, space, and consciousness, all of which falls under our synthesis of the unity of the Being which we are, becomes itself a problem, insofar as we don’t understand it, nor know how to modify it to the most optimal subjective experience. Our being becomes a problem for us, because we are able to recognize, first of all, that we are something. This something, insofar as it is unknown, unconceptualized, yet experienced, is altogether unknown to us. While our Being is that from which any action or content of the present moment is able to be brought into our awareness, we find trouble pinning down its process. Why am I experiencing one thing and not another? Why does my experience have a mood of dissatisfaction and suffering? How do I optimize this being, and why is it not the way I want it to be? Even if it was optimal, or is currently producing a mode of being which is content, or at peace, we know it won’t last, it is of the nature of our Being to be transient, alterable, subject to change.

 Given our desirous, transmutable, and altogether unreliable Being which is the very thing that we are, it is the source of our experience, and in the recognition of that experience, it becomes a problem for us, insofar as our experience is always lacking. Given the nature of our Being, that it is conditioned by prior causes, that it is always projecting itself into the future through the will for things to be otherwise, given the dissatisfaction and desire which are ceaseless, this Being becomes a problem for us. How can who we are, pose itself to be a problem? How could it be otherwise? If it couldn’t be otherwise, why do we still see it as a problem?

It is a problem by its very nature. Being biological organisms, in our corporeality, we are the literal survival machines of our genome, the very carrier that is tasked with propagation. This is the lowest core value that drives us, and as far as our Being is comprised of this body, which it is, the relative biological imperatives rise into our conscious experience, a manifestation of a mode stemming from the synthetic unity of Being, in whichever way they may be modified by our milieu, with the original desirous implications which are an expression of that core value. The complexity of our current milieu in which expression of the genomes wishes to be accomplished, and our ability to be acutely aware of the navigation of the milieu, and our place in it, gives rise to the complexity that arises in conscious awareness. Thus, based solely on the core value, we have a complex navigation issue that is further complicated by the more and more complex social environment and cultural conditions which we must orient ourselves around in order to succeed in accomplishing the survival machines task. This is the world “we”, as the subjective experiencers of this navigation, are “thrown into”. We experience the orientation provided to us by our embodied Being, that is modified by everything within our sphere of experience and influence. This constant modification, and our constant inherent desire, provides a large number of factors and potential orientations towards the world which we may find ourselves inhabiting. The problem with our Being is the dissatisfaction in not being properly equipped for the world we didn’t choose to be a part of, in inhabiting a body with a mode of Being that is sub-optimal in providing pleasure and contentment, as its instantiated final cause is that which necessarily must be driven towards. Our experience poses a navigation problem, that of seeking for the proper orientation, seeking the proper way of Being in the world we are thrown into. The problem is, it is never clear, it is never straightforward, we are always pushed and pulled, attracted to and aversive to the content which arises in our perceptually integrated directedness which presents itself in conscious awareness.

The directedness which comprises the gaze of consciousness towards perceptually filtrated content that is filled with a sense, a significance, a meaning, presents novel problems (novel in that every present moment is novel, always renewing itself) in how to orientate ourselves with the given content selected for. This continually updated system, itself continually updating, and our conscious experience “updating” in that it is mutable and constantly fluctuating, overwhelms the Being which believes it has the power, or the right, or the ability, to dictate the successive content, and our orientation towards it. While consciously directed Being is able to manifest actions in alignment with desire, those very desires, and the very perceptual system which injects content into conscious awareness, is itself outside of our will (The Causal Tethers Which Bind Us). As we are filled with choices, and “decisions” in regards to the choices, the entire enterprise is ran through by processes which go unnoticed in an unreflexive moment-to-moment experience. This dragging along into a world we are thrown into, for him who recognizes it as such, poses a problem, a problem of fatalism, that of being along for a ride which we didn’t choose to take, that we can’t stop, and we have no say over where it goes.

Prior to any realization of the characteristics which compromise our being such as its necessary meaning structure, its directedness, its inherent desire and dissatisfaction with the present, its projection towards the future and its immutable connectivity to the past, comes the preliminary underlying issue of our own Being being unknown to us, of Being something which we do not know. While these characteristics seek to impose some order in conceptual form, or experientially realized pre-conceptual form, they are merely a way of our Being coming to terms with what it is. Any unknown which we are directed upon poses a sort of issue for us, a problem, insofar as it has yet to be put in formation, yet to be transferred from mere content to “information”. This presents itself in any content that manifests itself in a novel, or wholly unintuitable way, it invites us to seek a way of categorizing it, of putting ourselves in orientation towards it in a way that makes sense of it, that has meaning. While this is done subconsciously with visual, auditory, tactile, and in general, all sensorious content, the mental content that arises poses the same exact issue, but it requires an orientation that is more than just perceptually integrated and embodied – as it itself is the production of the perceptual filtration system – it requires an abstract orientation of the mind in being able to make sense of the content. We often attempt to impose order upon mental content through the linguistically developed capabilities we contain. We tie concepts to phenomena and use language in order to reference it, placing a structure of understanding within ourselves in relation to the content that is manifesting. When it comes to the unknown that is itself this very Being which is orientating itself in the world, we find the same problem, but amplified in its scope, in that it is the Being which orients which seeks to orient itself. We, being the totality of the system which does the orientating, experience the awareness of conscious content in its directedness towards something, and can reflexively conclude that it is the manifestation of conditioned phenomenal forces acting in the presenting of the present. In seeking to uncover the attributes, the mode of being which comprises the enterprise is itself directed towards that which is directing, towards the directionality itself.

This Being poses a problem in that it is unknown, and in seeking to order it, to tie linguistic representations and structure ourselves towards it, the very mechanism from which we are doing so is that which we are attempting to reflexively orientate ourselves towards. Thus we prose a problem for ourselves, in that we seek to uncover a way of organizing the chaos which we are, through the chaos that is that which is to be understood. Thus the fundamental human condition, that of operating from a presupposition of chaotic potentiality, the unknown that is known by the conscious observer as being unknown, and which fails to impose order upon it.

Thus the role of phenomenology arises from this deficiency, as that which takes this issue of Being, attempts to impose order in the formulation and comprehension of its characteristics, through the recognition of its manifestations, through the examination of its content and the ties which predispose our Being to act and Be in certain ways. It is recognizing the characteristics of this Being which we find ourselves as, that we are reflexively turning the gaze upon itself, and delineating its features. This Being which we are, is the necessary precondition to any enterprise that arises into experience, whether it is movement, sensation, mental aggregates such as thought, ideas, pre-conceptual experience, and, the way in which we are situated in the world, and what we do in the world. All human endeavor, whether it be scientific, technological, social, or philosophical, stems from the human Being which is a mystery unto itself. Yet we make truth-claims about these domains, we impose order in the form of descriptions of objects, and we know not from whence the description came, we know not why and how such manifestations of linguistic organization is produced, we know not the meaning, the sense, the significance that has orientated us towards the world in the way which produces the experience which we take for granted. We attribute agency, and conscious control, in the place of embodied orientation towards the world, we take ownership for conceptual abstract representations, knowing not why we are orientated toward such content, nor how such linguistic representations are produced, and why they are produced in a way towards content which we find enough importance to dedicate time to. We opt either for empiricism in regarding all that is experienced as being subjugated to the sensory received datum, or intellectualism in the conscious interpretation of all phenomenon. We ought to see the transcendence of both systems, in the unity of the totality of our Being, and see both perspectives as merely modes of interpreting ourselves, which need not be diametrically opposed, but rather two modes of interpretation which are themselves manifesting out of the same Being which seeks to orientate itself towards the world, they are two answers to a question which calls for the transcendence of both.

Why do we dedicate time towards the directedness of our gaze, and for what purpose? Why does our gaze move, and what drives us to orient ourselves in the manner which we find ourselves in the present? We ought to, in the first place, pose the questions. We ought to admit the unknown through admonition of its place as the unknown, and, if we want to find the answers that solve the questions we must look in the direction of solving the question of how the question itself is arising. In order to find the characteristics and order necessary to deal with existence itself, to manage Being in an optimal way, we must seek to understand it. In the process of understanding it, we must return to the thing’s themselves, to the phenomena as they are so presented to us, and work with the only tools we have, with the Being which is closest to us, that Being which we find ourselves as being. This is the task of the philosopher, of the seeker of truth, and more specifically, of the phenomenologist.